Breakfast Topic: Your worst PuG
by Jennie Lees 
Feb 7th 2006 at 7:00AM
We've probably all had bad pickup group experiences
-- from the healer who thought he was a tank to the hunter who decided she could do just fine without her pet, some of
them haunt us to this day. The Leeroy video is funny because it's true, after all...Let's get it all off our chests today -- what's the worst PuG experience you've had? Even worse, was it your fault?
Probably the worst re-occurring PuG nightmare I run into is the kamikaze mage. She thinks she's invincible, she decides she wants all the mobs' attention on her, and as a druid I have to judge whether to keep her alive or try to get aggro myself. Neither usually works. I know I've been guilty of playing my class badly, especially when new to a class or rusty after playing others for a while, so I expect I've afforded as much amusement to others as these have to me.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
him Feb 7th 2006 7:58AM
The worst I had was as a lvl 40 shadow priest. I joined a group with a lvl 40 human priest and asked, out of politeness "shall I heal, or fight" - figuring we only needed one healer. "fight", she said, "I'll heal".
So off I went to shadow form and it's all going well till we get mobbed and the party wipes. Because she pounded out shadow spell after shadow spell and ran out of mana. She didn't tell anyone, didn't heal anyone. I couldn't heal and, as I paniced out of shadow form, I was killed.
Afterwards I asked her why she hadn't used her mana potions, that i know she had, to which she said "oh I save them for emergencies"...
Obviously wiping out a party isn't an emergency to some people.
Mig! Feb 7th 2006 8:34AM
My worst experience was running a group of lower lvl guildies into deadmines. They were just enough leveled to go in there, I was at least a lvl 33. I had no problems in there. I would pull, then they would all attack. They got enough XP and were happy.
Except for the one clod who kept on running in front, making all the monsters mad, and then proceeding to get the entire group MULTIPLE times. I was getting mad, and even yelled that I wasn't in here for anything other than helping them, so stop being stupid. He made it sound like everyone ELSE was at fault.
So, we waited until he died AGAIN (he fell off the boat like 5 times), finished the missions while he was in the water, and left.
He was kicked out of the guild 4 days later for being stupid to the GM.
slybri Feb 7th 2006 9:07AM
You know, I don't think I've ever been in a PUG that's actually made it even halfway through an instance, much less finish the thing. You either get some guy that thinks he's rambo and charges into the mobs without warning anyone, or they start fighting over some useless green drop. Whatever the reason, at least one person will bow out of the group before completion, thus dissolving the entire party. It's inevitable with PUGs.
No wonder no one ever ever uses the Meeting stones. It's impossible to do instances in the game without a commited guild. They just take way too long for casual gamers, guys with angry wives, and kids with ADD.
Tom Feb 7th 2006 10:27AM
I was in a group with me (Warrior), a friend (Priest) and 3 pickups: 2 Hunters and another Warrior. My friend and I were the only ones who had any idea how to work the basic strategy of tank + healer. Each of the Hunters would send their pets to a different mob, the other Warrior would pick his own mob, and I'd be fighting pets for aggro.
Neither Hunter would turn his pet's Growl off. When mobs broke and ran after the Priest, they refused to try and save him, claiming that they were too crunchy to have mobs attacking them. When I pointed out that the Priest was doing a corpse run and I didn't see either of them rezzing him, they just laughed. The other Warrior said he wanted to tank with me, but refused to use anything but a 2H sword, and didn't like using Sunder Armor -- because "Rend and Heroic Strike are where it's at!"
Dylan Feb 7th 2006 10:31AM
I've had mostly good luck with PUGs until a Deadmines run the other day. I was running it with two people I knew. I was there just to help and hopefully get the cape drop from VC. We were 25-35 so the three of us could have made it fine. But I decided to be a nice guy and put out a general LFM message. We picked up two Warlocks. Right away I had a bad feeling about these guys and I should have booted them but I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
One of the locks was crazy attacking everything in sight and always pulling aggro onto the main group. I asked him to stop and he didn't. Then he rolled need on a item he didn't need so I booted him. The other lock was really inexperienced but seemed like a decent guy. He was much lower level then us and kept drawing all the aggro because he wouldn't stay back like we told him to. Then he'd ninja the loot. He was apologetic and seemed to be making honest noob mistakes. He almost got us wiped by tab targeting an upper deck mob on the way to VC and drawing half the place down into us.
Through all of this we were very nice to the guy and tried to teach him how to play. So how did he thank us? Before we went after VC we made it very clear that we were all going to pass on the loot and then sort out who would get what. He agreed to this. So what happens? We kill VC (no thanks to his aggro drawing ass) and he rolls a need on the blue drop after the rest of us pass. "but i relly NEED it" was his exact reply when we yelled at him. He knew what he was doing. What a dick.
If you play on Durotan his name is Cocanswaran. Avoid him.
Mike Feb 7th 2006 10:40AM
Two words: attacking sheep.
Apc Feb 7th 2006 11:05AM
In my experience all the problems I notice in PUGs come after you get a great PUG. When you have an instance run that is smooth and well done you tend to notice the people being retarded in your next run.
As far as the worst PUG ever I would definately have to go with any PUG going to Gnomer. At this point you have those few people who know what they are doing being completely screwed over by the people who level a character to 30 or so and then get tired and start a new one. At this point there is still no concept of classes roles and abilities. Like #4 up there, I mean no disrespect, but who was supposed to rez the priest? Hunters can't rez and neither can warriors. Unless this was an upper level group, though that seems unlikely from the general lack of understanding the adds in your group seemd to have.
I will confess though that I made my mistakes in Gnomer also. With my first character I rolled greed on a BoP that a rogue wanted. Granted this was after he rolled greed as well, at least I didn't need it off of him. So for the next 30 minutes the rogue called me a ninja and then kept wispering me. At that point I discovered /ignore.
For retarded PUGs that I was not the cause of, that would definately fall in UBRS. A warrior was yelling at the priest in his group about being a terrible healer. Well the retarded warrior then aggroed half the room before the beast and died. I then had to rez and heal him the rest of the run (I am a shaman) because the priest refused to heal a person who sassed him. Worst part was I was topping the damage meter until I had to don my healing gear to heal that rude warrior.
The final creme de la creme is any class with a pet jumping into the Rend encounter with their pet summoned. It never fails that the whole of UBRS crashes down on you and then everyone claims their pet was dead or dismissed.
Apc ~ Bleeding Hollow 60 Shaman
crsh1976 Feb 7th 2006 11:32AM
I've had a few, but the one I remember as my first truely awful PUG was back at lv 41-ish, we went after Otto & Falconcrest in Stromgarde; 5 early 40s players.
One of the hunters was clueless and wouldn't set his pet on passive (thus it kept running around and aggro'ing more mobs than we could handle), the other hunter would just charge in without warning anyone and before any of us were ready (or rezzed, afterwards, as we kept on wiping), the mage would stay in melee range and die (duh) all the time, the priest was fine but couldn't save all these idiots from themselves.
I recall we wiped 5 times in a row within 15 minutes, enough for my rogue to just drop out of the group, vanish and walk out of the keep; though I absolutely despise players who dump groups in the middle of a fight, this was my first time doing it and didn't feel good about it, but this group was going nowhere good, no point in staying.
UvulaBob Feb 7th 2006 11:45AM
I would say my worst pickup group was running BRD with a mage who insisted on pulling and nuking/AoE'ing the crap out of everything. He would then proceed to get mad at the healer (my wife) when he died, who would in turn tell them that tanking might be better suited to the guy wearing the plate armor with the mace and shield (the Warrior - me).
This all sounds like the typical class-confusion STFU learn to play blah blah blah. But this all culminated when he lead us into the coffer room, activated all the statues and the main guy in there and then hearthed out and left the group. His reason was that he was tired of us telling him how to play his class.
He sure showed us. Wait, no he didn't. I tanked everyone in the room and the group didn't have a single death. We actually performed BETTER with him gone and us down to four people.
SteveK Feb 7th 2006 12:09PM
On an UBRS run, had a hunter who did little more than sit above beast bodies so he could skin them for leather and dragon scales. As a DS leatherworker myself, I was interested in sharing, and asked nicely if he would split. My answer was "you snooze, you lose". Since 12 of the 15 were from my guild, I made this an issue to the raid leader, who told me it wasn't a big deal. I should have left then.
When we got to The Beast, there was some argument on who should grab some BoP blue drops, and this skinner-ninja just grabbed both, and after everyone said "WTF", he replied "oops, accidents happen". Finally they booted him from the raid party, so he proceded to pull all the mobs in the next room and train them to the party, causing a full wipe.
About the only good thing about this is that someone knew the guild-master of the guild this loser was in, and got him booted from the guild. And the last time I saw him in IF, he was still unguilded, and is pretty much blacklisted from runs with the larger guilds.
Uthelm Feb 7th 2006 12:39PM
I agree with APC in that my worst PUG's seem to come after a really great one. I am a Priest and undoubtedly the blame always seems to focus on the healer when things go wrong. I was in SM with a warrior, hunter, mage and lock going through the cathedral. The mage and lock kept trying to see who could lead in DPS and kept jumping into melee, getting the butt handed to them and screaming to be healed. Rather than let the warrior due his job and build aggro they would nuke everything and when they died would blame me. When I pointed out that my job was to keep the MT alive and in the fight, they said that I had mana and should have used it. They made what could have been an easy run into something that turned me off somewhat to PUG's. Then of course I have had excellent groups where everyone knows their roles and makes grouping alot of fun.
Violencia Feb 7th 2006 1:00PM
I've generally been pretty lucky with PuGs. I spend most of time in PuGs because I don't have enough time to really participate properly in a guild.
Early on when I was a n00b I was booted from a group for needing some freakin malachite (yes that's right, malachite). I had no idea what was going on. The leader wouldn't even explain, I was just out. It was in chatting with others later that someone explained why it had probably happened, but most agreed that drama over malachite is pretty stupid. It would have been better to simply quickly explain to me the whole 'need/greed' thing, and of course I would have happily yielded the malachite if necessary. We were all n00bs once - have some patience people!
My best toon is a priest, and without question, priests take the most grief. Everyone blames the priest. Bastards. :)
PodMonkeys Feb 7th 2006 1:19PM
I was in the Stockades with two others; a higher level night-elf, and a lower level gnome/engineer. Every time we're about to go into combat, the gnome immediately pulls everything towards us, then stops so he can make a stick of dynamite that did a whopping 1mm of damage to the enemy.
So we finally get to the main guy, and the elf says, "We need to get the guys in the side rooms, otherwise the guy calls out to them and calls them over." So what does the gnome do? He pulls guys from every room, and starts making dynamite!
On a non-group related experience, I'm in the wetlands as a lvl 23 warlock, and this lvl 12 gnome shows up. He pulls a lvl 20 murlock towards me, as I'm fighting a lvl 21 murlock. I decide to be nice and attack it to save him, and he pulls another. I end up dieing, and he keeps following me around thanking me for saving his life, and pulling more murlocs. He died a few more times after that incident.
Dearcy Feb 7th 2006 4:49PM
Oh man, where do I start? There was the Stockades run where one member of the group pointed out to the other members who kept asking which way was out that "Out is where we go when everyone in the group is finished with their quests." Bless her. I ended up joining her guild.
Then there was the Deadmines run where we too succumbed to generosity and let a lower level mage join us. She would continually pull critters when the priest very clearly asked us to hold up a minute while they restored their mana.
She kept aggroing everything and...get this...tanking. About as well as a mage can tank, that is. As we had both a paladin and a warrior, we asked her to please stop, told her to please stop and then finally got nasty about it. We made it all the way to the ship in an awkward silence. She proceeded to aggro everything on the second deck, wiped the group, then bailed. As with a previous poster, we ended up finishing the instance in excellent form without her "help".
I avoid PUGs whenever possible. Luckily, I belong to a guild that has a great diversity of professions and helpful people who are willing to quest with their guildies. They also speak in complete sentences and use grammar and punctuation.
It's like I've died and gone to heaven.
Fabian Feb 7th 2006 5:09PM
Oh man, bad PUGs...
Where do I start? Well I had some pretty terrible groups in WC. Let's start with the one that took us about 4,5 hours. Actually the group was okay and the guys were nice and it was overall enjoyable, but we were pretty unlucky. For one thing our main healer got disconnected for 1,5 hours through the middle of it, for another thing our main tank dropped out after 3 hours because he needed to go. Overall we wiped 5 times. Mostly it was just bad luck - one aggro'ed too many and I was the only healer as a feral druid and no mana potions or water to refresh myself that was pretty nasty. Anyway the group was okay, but the run was hell.
2 other nice experiences in WC, two groups, totally different characters - same phenomenon. I had 2 runs were the priest (YES, PRIEST!) were thinking their tanks and always running impatiently in front of all others. They were of course no good and aggro'ed alot and made life pretty hard for everyone. Well I understand that playing a priest can be very unthankful and unrewarding, but to be so impatient at a level below 25? I don't understand that...
Oh yeah and we had a total noob in Blackfathom one time. It was a shaman, and the lowest char in the group. Anyways he was new to BFD (as 3 others were too, but at least we were more mature as players - maybe being older than 21 helped us there). Anyway he was always running ahead and pulling aggro. When we tried to tell him "stay back!" he said "okay" - but would do it again right away. When 4 peopled /yell'ed at him "STAY THE F*** BACK!" he replied "lol! It's okay too just take a look! lol". And four people /yell'ed in unison "Not in your case damn it! Your pulling the mobs because of your low level!" (Apparently he didn't notice that himself even after 4/5th of the instance were done...) Well he did stay a little farther back then, but it seemed to get him all giddy. He started jumping around and hitting on the female character (who was actually a female player, 3 of us were und teamspeak and could went our frustration about the guy there). Interestingly our supposed age for that guy seemed to decrease constantly. While we started off guessing he was maybe 18-19 we ended up assuming he was about 13-14 at most, judging from his behaviour and from what he said... Damn, talk about annoying ;)
Mogara Feb 8th 2006 2:12AM
Worst PuG I was in was my second or third time through WC. One of my Guildies and I had picked up a 'lock or Mage, and he asked us to invite his friend, a rogue.
Long story short, the rogue rolled need on a mail item, then left shortly afterwards.
Rhonda Feb 8th 2006 3:48PM
Ugh... I was such a complete mongoloid when I first started playing- I was def the worst part of any PuG I was in. It was really atrocious.
One of the first groups I was in had two druids, myself included. For some reason- it's so embarrassing to have ever been this stupid- some part of my brain decided I should only worry about healing the other players in the group. Well, the other druid was doing a better job of that and kept drawing the aggro... and I just kept letting him/her die. WHY, GOD, WHY?! This happened too many times to admit bef they finally kicked me out.
The sad thing about being such a No0b when you're a noob is that there is NOTHING you can do to redeem yourself to those that witnessed (and suffered from) your retardation.
Honestly though, there has been a vast improvement from lvl 18 to lvl 57. *sigh*
Tryst Feb 14th 2006 1:03PM
I generally find pretty good groups which seems to be an anomaly for everyone else! I did drop out of a group once in BFD. The leader knew the way very well and was also aware that this was my first time in. He was skirting whole areas to get to specific spots. The third time I died after another member aggro'd everything and blamed it on me - hmmm, I'm huddled against the wall drinking water and your in cat form leaping around the cavern, yeah, I probably aggro'd the whole room - they kept moving while I ran back, leaving mobs they were avoiding between them and me. They refused to acknowledge my requests to come back and help me so I dropped them and hearthstoned.
I did have a quite succesful but odd SM run the other night. We were a 4 person group that met through the meeting stone. One of the players refused to speak anything but Elvish. It was weird at first but his friend translated and we were very successful. Not one of us died, we completed all the quests and got heaps of items to sell. Weird doesn't necessarily mean bad, I guess!
TheRedCross Feb 22nd 2006 4:52PM
The worst PUG I have had thus far was one with a confused hunter. He loved leading the charge (himself, not his pet) into multiple mobs and then tanking toe to toe. At this point I (a holy priest) am shielding and healing him to just try and keep him alive but to my surprise he feigns death because he has now decided he wants to use his ranged attack. Now I have the mob focused on me and the group wipes. This happened a few times with a group with more than enough artillery to make it through the instance successfully. To top things off, he had no concern for his pet. If the pet died, he could wait a few fights before rezing it. Then he left and things actually got easier with a group of 4.
Hunters, if you are in a group only feign death as a last resort. Let the healers do their job, and in most cases, you are not a tank.
jason Mar 16th 2006 4:00PM
Running a stockade run with my warrior. I'm tanking like i'm supposed to, sunder/taunt and the old sword and board. We didn't have a priest, so we had to run with a Pally (this was before my switch to the horde). I noticed that he wasn't healing, and I pointed this out to him while I sat down and ate. He walks over to me and pops a trade... with bandages in it. I mean seriously...
Another time I was in the stockades with my Druid, doing the main healing. Our warrior was simply running around like a psycho, grabbing entire rooms and then running across into a different room. The first time, I healed, eventually drew agro, and then died. So I do the wisp run, and warn him about running around like a moron. So what does he do? He runs into a room, grabs 4 guys, and runs down the hall, grabbing 3 more. So, being the good druid that I am, I walk back a little, go cat form and stealth. Needless to say, after he got back to his corpse, he saw things my way.
On a third occasion with my warlock (my 1st character about 1 year ago), we had gotten murder on a VC run twice, and we were about to make it to the top part right before the man himself. So instead of hanging back and letting the people with ranged attacks pull, the pally runs up like God himself and proceeds to get us wiped once again. This apparently was the last straw, and everyone made excuses and the party disbanded. I then ran into VC's room, was introduced to his two stealthed friends, jumped off the side, and landed right in front of Cookie and about 4 other pirates. Needless to say, I was pounded flat instantly.