Nyx

Found these on another forum. Made a lot of sense to me.

Deq's guide to Pugs

Now my guess is 90% of the players don't read the forums, so this is not for them. This guide is for you, my friends. People who enjoy the game, AND read the forums.
Let's begin shall we.



LFG

Hit the letter "i" and click on the old looking for group button.
First thing, click off the auto join, we want to monitor the channel, not be ars rammed by it. Second, say nothing in the channel. If you see a group you are interested in send a whisper to the person directly. No point in advertising to some of the sorry ars'd beggars out there that you are willing to help.
Third don't contact them unless they only require 1 more, and it's your class. The less you do for a pug group, the better. I know it sounds cruel but we'll come back to this point again and again. For now, suffice it to say that you are providing an already geared, epic'd out, raid experienced character. If they can't figure out how to put together a group on their own, your "helping" is just going to cripple their long range development.


WIPES
You are the number one cause of wipes in a pug.
Now I've probably lost the only two people who are still in this thread, so let me explain. ok, then, or not. Alright, so I'm speaking to the one person left in this thread. You are the number one cause of wipes in a pug. If you come out with both guns blazing ... well ... let's come back to this.


3 YEARS OF TESTING

DPS
Start with your wand. That's right, your wand. No dot's, no nukes. Hunters keep you pet on passive and useless. Shoot slowly, a sip of drink between each shot slowly. Rogues, unequip one of your daggers, or better level up your unarmed. If you come in there all epic'd out with a bunch of new players in greens and start... well... let's come back to this.

HEALER
no one gets topped off ever. Unless it's the tank and it's a boss fight. Make them suffer. See who bandages, see if someone suddenly remembers healthstones. Don't let anyone die, but don't keep em up past half health either. Let them bleed.

TANK
Let a mob loose on each of the first three pulls. See who says something. See if anyone tries to rescue the priest. See if the dps slows down a little. This will tell you a ton about your group. Valuable information should things get dicy later on.

CROWD CONTROL
.Never crowd control unless directly asked or told too. Don't ask for markers, if given one, just use it, don't ask for you favorite one instead. Make the party leader utilize you. If he doesn't, don't volunteer anything.



WHY
Like promised... we've come back to it.
Now this is 3 years of testing talking here,
so I want you to slow down your breathing a tad
and really drink in the vision i'm trying to share with you.

When we join a group and kick major butt, everyone else in the group thinks "i'm kickin butt."
But,
if we join a group and hold back, everyone else in the group thinks "man these mobs are hard."
And
they will step it up a notch.

See everyone else in a pug can be counted on for one thing, every time. They will see themselves as the center of the universe and the star of the show. You can one shot a mob, and the pug will think it was their dps that did it. A hunter will tank a 71 elite and think to himself "man i'm kickin ars today!" and never even realize you healed him. Not even once.



EXAMPLE
I pug all the time.
I use my wand, and curse of shadows.
My wand shoots fire.
In three years I've had a total of three people ask "Deq are you leveling your wand.", "Deq why are you using your wand.", and "Deq dot not wand plz." And for those party leaders I said this "Usually no one notices."
Now usually no one notices.
After the mage has been rezzed, and the hunter and the rogue are actually assisting the tank, and the priest has healed up, and the tank can actually hold more than one mob at a time... only then do I put on a corruption on the main target.

So now we are half way to the first boss in Mana Tombs and I'm
Curse of shadows, corruption, wand.

If the group stays coordinated, I'll add curse of agony instead of shadows.

Now the pulls are going a little faster.

If the group looks like they are clicking into second or third gear, I'll
agony, corruption, immolate, then dot second target

Sweet Square Dancing Thrall we've downed a boss and I'm just starting to actually play like a lock.

If I feel the group is "going to work" I'll type something like "I've think I've got the feel for this group. I'm going to unleash the nuke." And commence with the full on DPS that I love to do.



HOW

Don't do it so they know.

Hold back at first, make them carry the water.

Watch, and fit yourself to what the pug is doing.

But don't be obvious about it, and for the love of the dark lady, don't be an ars about it.




CONCLUSION
So if things do get sticky you can count on them to help, and you have some idea of what they will do. But if you show up in epics and go full on like these pugs in greens are your regular guildies, well....
When the party wipes, cause they were trying to keep up with you.
It's actually your fault.

Like a well placed fart at autumn harvest be silent but deadly.

Interesting. There is a lot here I hadn't thought of before, but it makes sense.

I wasn't sure if this thread was a joke when I first read it, because you seem to be advocating not doing your job intentionally. This may not work. I've known a few group leaders who, when faced with someone who seems to be screwing around, will just boot the offender without a second thought, and we'll have to four-man to the boss while we look for another person. Granted said leaders are probably mean, but it takes all kinds and I know when I play, I consistently try to perform to the best of my ability, 100% of the time.

There are a few unconventional things that I do agree with, like just not marking things and seeing what people do, as adrenaline does seem to have a positive effect on one's playing style, and it's just plain fun to have that sort of chaos.

Considering the amount of PUGs we've been undergeared for lately, and the amount of insane instances we've tried, I think this is a good opportunity to consider these points, and perhaps-

#1: Put more thought into the group build rather than wanting to include people. DPS isn't just any DPS. A Warrior and 2 Rogues as DPS in Magister's Terrace was a mistake- Although we thought through it and made it work.

#2: Watch people's playing styles, and perhaps rather than complain, or tell them what to do, work with and around it, so it flows better, rather than having them do something that's not normal to them.

#3: Expect to die. Expect to repair. Remember it's a game, and it's supposed to be a challenge. Don't leave the group after the first wipe. The group doesn't know itself yet. I remember my old days of Final Fantasy facing a boss undergeared and under-levelled, with no chance of improvement before facing them. Sometimes it took 10 or more tries to down them- lessons hard learned but it was always a victory.