Originally Posted by
Loveliest
OK so just yesterday a friend of mine (fire mage) pasted to me into discord a screenshot showing how may applicants there were for the key he had just joined (they were still looking for one more dps).105. I have the screenshot if you want. Out of these, there is a high chance a lot of these are over your rio (because ppl also farm VP these days) and are more "meta". So when you can pick whatever you want, you won't get it. Too much competition for dps spots and this won't change any time soon.
Also, gear used to factor in a bit, but now anyone who is serious about pugging has already achieved or bought duelist rank for full bis gear. So in this regard, gear kinda doesn't matter anymore.
I don't have any advice. We see this over and over and this won't change unless Blizz changes meta every two days until ppl get tired of knowing what is best.
I play with friends and do 17s-18s and we have the most non meta grp: paladin tank, druid healer, frost mage, affli lock and retri paladin or another affli lock. So as probably everyone suggests - you can try to do your key (though with pugs you never know, they might fuck up your key and leave and that's too bad) or try to make friends and play together. I actually noticed that a lot of puggers don't have this concept - they keep going solo solo without trying to form connections. In which case, you accept the situation, because a lot of people are in the same situation (have no desire to form connections but want to be literally the 1 pick from 100 strangers).