PUG's

The PUG is a necessary thing, but not always the ideal situation.

---Firstly if you don't know it, a PUG is a pickup group. Like people who don't know each other just deciding to team up to take on an instance/quest, etc...

My Friend Val, basically wrote a "hey what do you think" post and I'm filling in the blanks.

To ME a PUG is how you get to know people. Almost 95% of my action in game is from PUG's. Oddly the same percentage of things I don't like came from PUG's. This is, to me essentially the reasoning behind PUG's. Learn what you like/hate about groups by doing so with mostly less accustomed individuals.

Like I found, I hate pally healers. I know I know, some of the biggest baddest guilds run all over the dang place with pally healers. Sure. As to date, I've not had but 1 experience with a pally healing that didn't turn to crap in 10 seconds. This is ALL post 60, so its not like I was in deadmines and he couldn't keep me alive.. As a lock I found I LOVE druid healers. They can HoT me and I can lifetap to get some free mana. LOVE that. love love love love love.

For a guild leader, it is essential to have your officers doing PUG's. I mean that is how I would draft people in. Word of mouth, but I would only take my officers word for it. And the more the officers work with folks the more they can coordinate their leadership skills with how groups should work. I haven't raided, but I would think having any amount of "what do I do when he does..." would screw you over pretty quick.

Now for the casual player, I think its good for the same reason I like/hate them. Basically seeing how other people do what they do, you get an idea of how you like things done. People you like to do things with, etc.. I have a big friends list, and probably 4 are in my guild. The rest are people I played with in the past who handled themselves good. This is basically my go-to list for groups. Like if my group (guilded or non) need a rogue. I know of 3-4 rogues that can do what we want and how we want it done. Frost mages? I know 3.. Fire mages? I know 2.. Hunters.. well who ever needs a hunter in WoW and can't find one has serious issues. I have a hunter and I can't throw a AOE up in a town without having 4 hunters run in that circle. But yeah, I know of some BM hunters, 1 survival hunter, and 2 MM hunters.

So basically I think pugs are good. You will create more headaches than you'll solve, but it will help you by having people put their expectations on YOU, and you in turn learn how to deal with them.