How do I always manage to get terrible people when making a pug?

[Drunkenfinn]

SilkforCalde gave you the best advice in this thread.

I rarely make PuGs myself, but luckily most "Alts of experienced raiders" who do so all know me and my alts, so I usually get spots pretty easily in whatever raids there are going on.

Anyways, the few times I've made PuGs here's what I've done:

1. Ask around "brained" raiding-guilds. Just go /who Guild-X and ask them if there are any raider-alts interested in your run. Our realm is luckily quite small so I have 1-2 persons from each good raiding-guild in my flist/real-ID so that makes this quite easy.

2. Inspect everyone, preferably even the "alts of experienced raiders". If it's someone I know that is exceptional I'd invite them for BWD/BoT/Tot4W even with ilvl346 equipped. Even a few pieces of PvP-gear is acceptable as for most classes 2/4-set of Ruthless/Vicious gear outclasses 359 gear quite easily. Gear is honestly not such a big issue as long as they're not in all-blues/greens.

3. As stated before, if you end up inviting some real randoms, make sure you inspect them and double-check their achievements from the Armory. Or just ask them some crucial questions about boss-mechanics and such.

Dont be a clueless raidleader who goes "ACHI AND ILVL NO INVITE!" or "Y HAS 2 PVP ITEMS NO INVITE LOL NUB".

[Deleted]

its not your fault blizzard is spoiling those kind of ppl so we have more and more every day

[PetersenIII]

Example;'' LFM BwD 10 MAN, - Required: Brain, Knowledge, Experience, Pve Gear, Achievement, - /Whisper: FULL Achievement, Role, Item lvl - Need:1/2 tanks 0/3 healers(druid,shamy,paladin) 0/3 ranged (mage,lock,hunter) 0/2 melee ( DK, Rogue)''

Here's your problem right here: you're an idiot who thinks classes still matter. I'd dare to speculate you also expect people in full 359 iLevel (FYI, the instance was tuned for 346 *before* it got nerfed in the pants). Furthermore, how are people supposed to get the achievement? In raids that *aren't* yours? What a nice fellow you are. Frankly, I have exactly 0 sympathy for you and hope the trend of recruiting retards continues for you, good day.

[Arrockk]

Lets be real. If you're angry at the guy for wanting solid players to run in his raid then you have probably been rejected while trying to join a similar raid. If you were rejected it is most likely due to the fact that you do not have the achievements or experience or gear. If you do not have the achievements or experience or the gear then it most likely means you do not have enough experience or skill to do well in his raid. Be a casual raider if you want, but don't bitch and moan when you are in 353 and others are rocking 391 after putting in the time and effort it takes to achieve those achieves and gear. Baddies make me sad.

[dasabaja]

This is why I'm looking forward to the new LFR tool. Nobody cares if I've red tons of strategy guides and know the tactics precisely from Youtube videos and have a mix of 359 to 378 gear. I don't have that damn achievement. I hope that the LFR can provide us with achievements and a first hand experience at tactics, setups etc. so we'll have no trouble applying for a normal or maybe even a heroic pug.

[Gilian]

Your biggest problem is that they are pugs.

People can say you are a bad leader but they are not leading themselves and they are the ones making mistakes. Leaders only assign people (which you did) and decide on the tactic (there are tactics that are sometimes slightly different). If players in your pug don't know the mechanics or how the tactics work then that is not your fault. You asked for people who knew what to do to start with. (You asked for knowledge, experience AND achievements).
They just can't admit that they suck and blame someone else for their mistakes just like they always do. It's pathetic.

Only these assholes who screw up for everyone else like to pug because it doesn't affect them. This is the reason LFR will fail horribly. Like you say you try to stay away from pugs, so did I and so will everyone, who is a half decent player, stay away from LFR. It does not work and never will work. It's not fun to play with people who don't have the same goals and mindset and it will never be fun.

I really don't have any tips for you than just find people you like to play with instead of having 9 or 24 randoms everytime in your groups.

---------- Post added 2011-10-12 at 09:43 AM ----------

This is why I'm looking forward to the new LFR tool. Nobody cares if I've red tons of strategy guides and know the tactics precisely from Youtube videos and have a mix of 359 to 378 gear. I don't have that damn achievement. I hope that the LFR can provide us with achievements and a first hand experience at tactics, setups etc. so we'll have no trouble applying for a normal or maybe even a heroic pug.

Have fun playing with people who think exactly the same and don't read up on tactics. If LFR is so easy that you can go in with 25 random people without reading any tactics and with shit gear and clear it and get achievements for it then I really don't want those people in my normal runs and definitely not in my heroic runs.

People like you ride on the backs of people who actually do care and you ruin their fun so good luck finding people to play with who are decent. And then you wonder why people who are good drop players like flies when they screw up and why these people ask for achievements and ilvl. Then you call them "elitists" so they will never ever want to play with you again. Then you are stuck with all bad to mediocre players and you can go whine on the forums that this game is so hard and Blizzard will put in LFR super easy mode for you.

If you would have just tried to play well en represent yourself properly then you wouldn't have any problems getting into good groups. But I guess watching a 5 minute youtube video is too much to ask to avoid having to spend an hour of corpse running for 25 people which half of them did actually watch a youtube video. Which was in the end pointless because some idiots think they are better and don't need to have consideration for or respect others.

If you don't want to care about other people then don't play with other people. Go play some singleplayer games or something.

---------- Post added 2011-10-12 at 09:54 AM ----------

SilkforCalde gave you the best advice in this thread.

I rarely make PuGs myself, but luckily most "Alts of experienced raiders" who do so all know me and my alts, so I usually get spots pretty easily in whatever raids there are going on.

Anyways, the few times I've made PuGs here's what I've done:

1. Ask around "brained" raiding-guilds. Just go /who Guild-X and ask them if there are any raider-alts interested in your run. Our realm is luckily quite small so I have 1-2 persons from each good raiding-guild in my flist/real-ID so that makes this quite easy.

2. Inspect everyone, preferably even the "alts of experienced raiders". If it's someone I know that is exceptional I'd invite them for BWD/BoT/Tot4W even with ilvl346 equipped. Even a few pieces of PvP-gear is acceptable as for most classes 2/4-set of Ruthless/Vicious gear outclasses 359 gear quite easily. Gear is honestly not such a big issue as long as they're not in all-blues/greens.

3. As stated before, if you end up inviting some real randoms, make sure you inspect them and double-check their achievements from the Armory. Or just ask them some crucial questions about boss-mechanics and such.

Dont be a clueless raidleader who goes "ACHI AND ILVL NO INVITE!" or "Y HAS 2 PVP ITEMS NO INVITE LOL NUB".

Go whisper some people from decent guilds when you are a totally unknown random person. You probably are in a good guild so yes it's not much of a problem because you are known and have a good name or good guild name.

[dasabaja]

What the...? I think you've severely misread my post. I'm talking about a situation where I've got the gear, got the equipment, know exactly what to do and how to perform but...I don't have that achievement. I've said that I know the tactics precisely. I'd ride nobody's back or anything (quote from you). LFR, I think, will be way to obtain that achievement and to complement the skill and gear you already have.

[Nobleshield]

The answer to your question is because for a supposedly smart player, you're putting the onus on "link achieve" and wanting a higher iLevel than the content was tuned fore before it was nerfed into the ground. That is almost a sure indicator you're either going to get people that lie about achieves, lie about gear, or were carried because that's exactly what you want to find.

If you're pugging T11 the only requirement should be: Gear approximately 346 or slightly higher (heroic blues, ZA/ZG gear and some molten front stuff), have Vent/TS/Mumble/communication, and be willing to listen to explanations of fights. Except for the three end bosses there isn't any complicated fight in T11 that requires a lot of explanation, maybe V&T, Omnotron and Ascendant Council due to the number of mechanics that people tend to tunnel vision on (not necessarily complex mechanics, but a good number of them for people to keep track of).

If you place high demands on a pug for content where those demands are more than the content requires, you should expect to get the dregs that are either cheesing their gear, lying about who their main is or achievements, and who generally expect others to cover their slack.

LFR, I think, will be way to obtain that achievement and to complement the skill and gear you already have.

I'm predicting right now what will happen: The LFR raid is supposed to give a different achievement than Normal mode, to my knowledge. So the people like the OP will just use that as a "blacklist" mechanism. It'll either be "LFM Dragon Soul 425 iLevel min pst achieve (not LFR)" or they'll ask you for the achievement and if they see it's the LFR one they'll deny you a spot based on that alone. The LFR won't help the problem, it will further separate the gap between people like the OP and average people that might be good enough to do the raids, but haven't done them before due to people like the OP.

[Gilian]

What the...? I think you've severely misread my post. I'm talking about a situation where I've got the gear, got the equipment, know exactly what to do and how to perform but...I don't have that achievement. I've said that I know the tactics precisely. I'd ride nobody's back or anything (quote from you). LFR, I think, will be way to obtain that achievement and to complement the skill and gear you already have.

Oh, sorry I did. My apologies.

---------- Post added 2011-10-12 at 01:18 PM ----------

I'm predicting right now what will happen: The LFR raid is supposed to give a different achievement than Normal mode, to my knowledge. So the people like the OP will just use that as a "blacklist" mechanism. It'll either be "LFM Dragon Soul 425 iLevel min pst achieve (not LFR)" or they'll ask you for the achievement and if they see it's the LFR one they'll deny you a spot based on that alone. The LFR won't help the problem, it will further separate the gap between people like the OP and average people that might be good enough to do the raids, but haven't done them before due to people like the OP.

Do you really blame them for asking for the right achievements. If I join a pug I don't expect others to have the achievement for clearing that raid when I don't have it. But when I have cleared the raid you can't expect me to take any random person without checking if they are on the same level as me or close to it.
I would, if you can have a normal conversation in WoW, invite you if you can convince me that you know the tactics. Someone text chatting properly in WoW also indicates they can play properly ;p.

About the gear requirements. I guess a lot of people ask for very high gear requirements because 90% of the people in a pug are not able to perform good enough to actually make use of their gear. I do agree that some people ask for ridiculous thinks.



It's just the same as having done normal mode and wanting to join a hardmode pug.

[chipsky]

The expectations are skewed to both sides. The gear requirements on my server are almost always ridiculous. If you can meet the requested gear, you probably don't need anything from the instance. Make sure your raid leader meets their own gear requirements as well. You'd be surprised how many times the leader lacks gear *and* experience. The process works both ways... make sure if you're not leading that the leader is capable.

[Bullarkie]

What the...? I think you've severely misread my post. I'm talking about a situation where I've got the gear, got the equipment, know exactly what to do and how to perform but...I don't have that achievement. I've said that I know the tactics precisely. I'd ride nobody's back or anything (quote from you). LFR, I think, will be way to obtain that achievement and to complement the skill and gear you already have.

This. I find it difficult to get the achieves on my alts in pugs. I usually have to sit on my main so I can link my achieves then switch over.

Not only that but it will be nice to be able to run a raid whenever I want.

[Lorkin]

Most of the points have already been covered:

1) Check their Armory yourself for gear, achieves / experience, enchants, non pvp gear, etc.
2) Try to PuG only dps, or at least have a tank and healer that you know well in the raid already
3) Definately have a Vent or TS server available for the run, no vent = no loot.

I'll add some of my own:

4) Have them meet you somewhere for an inspect. I generally ask them to come to the SW tower or someplace and I visually inspect them myself. I can also check Armory for their experience. This cuts down in /whisper spam and ensures they can at least find you in a city.
5) Check their guild, see if you recognize them. I almost ALWAYS invite people from the experienced raiding guilds first as they generally perform better. Just is, they either put in more time with their toons or can ask their guild for assistance.
6) LIMIT the time you spam trade. I HATE waiting for hours in a group trying to form. It gives you a bad name and if I join another pug while someone is spamming LFM and come out and they are STILL spamming LFM I generally try to avoid their raids. Chances are they suck and don't know what they are doing, or got a group and went in and failed miserably.

7) Do your best to actually finish the raids you do start. If you lead more and more failed raids, your name will get around the server that you suck. I make it a rule to not join specific people I see spamming trade or certain guilds that are known for failed pugs.
8) Don't check for achievements and then proceed to explain every fight. The point of checking achieves is to bypass the annoying explainations. I hate getting in groups where everyone but one person knows the fight, which results in 15 mins of explanations for that ONE person when everyone else has done the heroic modes.
9) Don't be afraid to kick someone. Kicking someone who got pass your check and is just horrible is better than feeling bad and letting them stay. One person can ruin the entire run and the rest of your team will thank you for kicking them.

10) Be fair with loot. Nothing worst than carrying a noob through the place who won everything because no one needed it, only to win the token roll. I make it a rule not to be greedy, if someone geared up their entire toon (4-5 drops they won) and the one 378 toon is only there for a token drop, I give it to the token guy. The other person got plenty of gear and probably wouldn't even know what to do with the 4 piece set.
11) Limit your breaks and pauses and try to do a fast run. Plenty of people have commented to me how some of my runs were really fast. Nothing like waiting around forever for no reason and making everyone else wait. If you lead a fast run, people are more inclined to come back.
12) Build up your friends list. Have a steady list of people you have grouped with before that performed remarkably. If they are sitting in SW, they might be willing to join you if you lost a member. I always admired the raid leaders who ALWAYS have a backup incase someone had to leave or gets dropped. I am sure to add them to my friends list.
13) If people leave or you kick people (cause they suck), quickly get a replacement. See #12, should alleviate this.

14) Don't be afraid to "reschedule" a raid. People hate waiting around (I know I do), I'd rather the raid leader let me go and disband the raid than wait around for an hour looking for replacements.
15) Time Time Time. People often fail to see that time is a major factor in PuGing. I PuG because of time constraints IRL. Fast runs or Fast Recruitment goes much longer in my book than anything else. If you are speedy, you'll get more people willing to go.
16) It maybe your guild. As I said above, sometimes I avoid certain guilds. If your guild has made a bad name for themselves, it might be time to make some hard decisions.

[Notdev]

Utilize the armory. You can predict how skilled of a player they are by going through their gems, enchants, spec, reforging, gear choices, guild, progression, with 90% success.

[clickhack]

Oh shut the fuck up; people like you are annoying. Think about this for a second, you're being an uptight prick. When I make pugs I just type, need more for BWD10 need blah blah blah item level above this..."tank here 34324234" Do you know the fights? "yes" *INVITE* and anything that is not like that I do not accept. I tank in pvp but with stamina trinkets and have a group of random people who I never talked to before. We own EVERY TIME! Seriously, fucking stop being such an uptight dick and just trust people. Because you you act like an elitist ass in /2 you are just getting idiots thinking "OH SHIT THIS SEEMS PRO I"LL LIE AND JOIN SO I CAN GET CARRIED"

[Lorkin]

For T11 raids, I just ask them if they know the fights. Quick check to see if they are in all green gear and gtg. I hate explaining fights for BWD, BoT, Tot4W's, and especially BH. 9/10 times we get through the content, some groups are better than others. If people are leaving mid raid, you really should ask yourself WTH you are doing wrong. Are you dily-dalleying going from boss to boss? A good chance is that YOU are doing something wrong.

[Shadobanex]

i'm on a med pop server so something i've done is get to know the guilds on that server. That usually says a lot about a player. If they're from a guild you've never heard of i do some homework to make sure they know what they're doing. Check their armory and ask questions and what not. If they're from a high profile raiding guild on the server.. i'll glance over their gear but usually they'll get an invite right away.

If you're doing FL another thing to do is just to check dps on the big guys that have a lot of health. If they're doing like 10k ask them to step it up and monitor it. It's easier to replace someone when he's still a fresh run than when the easiest bosses are down.

But typically i dont do t12 pugs unless it's at least 5/10 guild alt run. I dont have fun when it's not guildies and i dont enjoy wiping to dumb things. And if it's mostly guildies.. Even if we wipe a few times it's still fun bcs we're joking around and blaming each other *when it probably wasn't our fault and nothing we could have done*

[pilch]

Because 95% of wow players have no idea what the hell they're doing.

[Deleted]

Whenever I start a pug raid I usually see if I can get some guildies with me to cover the most important jobs, but I always just type something like "Starting T11 raid/LF x Tank/Healer/DPS for X-instance - Whisper class/spec & come clocktower(or horde equivelant) and then take a look at their gearing choice (not just ilvl) when I see a mage with 3*t11 (including 1 token) & 2 * t12 for example I'll follow up and add why they dropped their t11 4p, but for the most part I just ask for experience, doesn't have to be on the same character & then I (as already mentioned) look at their gearing choices.

my pugs always clear and at a reasonable time frame.

[Yunru]

1. Get ppl you can trust (for baddies i suggest you blacklist them)
2. Force ppl to come to you and poke--check their gear/gems/enchants/achivments---ask them if they are alt/main , then ask them 1 boss tactic
2.a IF they are to lazy to come to you just blacklist them--those are baddies
2.b IF they lie abauth gear/skill blacklist also
2.c IF they have no idea what ventrilo is--heck no way you will inv them (most of them in good gear can be ebay)
3. Once full tell every1 to go on vent--if 1 of them refuses replace them
3.a reason why you want ppl on vent is that they dont just leave party and fuck up the group in middle of the raid (OH lolz my item droped bye bye noobs)
4. If you see some player failing to understand basic tactic on boss have a replacement ready

Your trade chat should look like this:
LFM firelands poke at Ah roof--using vent

If you get ppl who wisp you inv 350 ilvl just dont respond--if they ask what class you need tell them to poke you on that class you need (if they have it).

[SilkforCalde]

People oughta stop using iLevel and Achievements as a gauge for wether or not a player should join a pug. If I'm leading a raid, I check each and every person carefully MYSELF, and I ask them a few crucial questions.

Getting the right people is really easy. You just have to be willing to put in the work. Gearscore/iLevel and Achievements made raid leaders lazy.

Oh and writing "Have brain" makes you look like an asshole who is lacking on yourself. Don't do that.

I largely use the "achieve / ilvl" part of my spam to determine if people have a working brain or not. I don't say "have brain" in my spam because I'm able to determine if someone has a brain when they respond to my spam. For instance, if they just whisper me "invite" then I know they aren't going to be a good fit for my group. I particularly enjoy the people that start harassing me to join my group. I know for a fact that they aren't coming.