My advice is to simply just keep doing them. After a few times you'll start to bump into some of the same people. If they happen to do their job well, and you do your job well, suggest that you add each other. A good example of this is me leveling a Feral Druid with a few friends (Enh Shaman, Resto Shaman, Retr Pally, and Combat Rogue). The group itself was a good mix, with melee buffing other melee and the Resto Shaman being able to chainheal and heal everyone, but we didn't always have all of us there. More often than not we would PUG a dps or two, and we would often seek out seemingly uncommon allies like a dps Warrior or a Survival Hunter because they worked well with the group.

In essence what I'm recommending to do is PUG long enough that you basically don't have to PUG. Notice who is doing well, whether it's a healer that keeps everyone alive or a tank that actually holds aggro. Before you finish the instance, inspect them. If it seems like they'd still have a good amount of upgrades via heroic loot or badge loot, chances are they'd like to run heroics whenever they could. Add them to your friends list. Instead of going to LFM, start by seeing if they'd like to get a group going. If you can't find a full group, entering LFM but only needing one or two more gets you a much more reliable group, and it's typically faster than finding a complete PUG (people are more likely to join an almost-full group then join up with someone just starting to look).

So basically, PUG. Meet people via PUGs. Make friends. Start groups before entering LFM. PUG what you need. Meet more people and make more friends. PUG less and less as you go on.

Reply