I have spent the last couple of days reading blogs with horror stories of the new LFG is working. Everything from DPS'ers queuing as tanks, to healers droping group in the middle of boss fights.Now I like to PuG. I have been PuG'ing pretty regularly since I started WoW. I have always felt Pug'ing is an excellent way to learn your class. When you run with experienced guildies and friends there are very few "Oh Shit" moments. They happen all the time in PuG's.
After years of PuG'ing on my server, and having more bad PuG's than good I had braced myself for all kinds of horror in the new cross-server lfg.
It has not happened. I have not once had a horrible awful noobtastic PuG. (OK that one Oculus PuG doesn't count) I have thoroughly enjoyed the groups I have been randomly matched with. Gear wise it seems I am paired with groups that are all pretty much on par with me gear wise. It is usually 4 very well geared people and one person in blues and greens. I like this. It gives newer 80's the chance to learn their class role in 5 mans as well as get the lions share of loot, to help gear them quicker.
The only times I felt the gear matching portion of the LFG fail was when I queued as a tank. Now my tank is getting there, but at this time I could almost reack 30k health buffed, I was sitting at 544 defense and 26k health. I was put in a group to tank Halls of Reflection. When I zoned in I saw the HoR loading screen and thought "Really? They think I am geared to tank this?" When the rest of the party zoned in I immediately stated I don't know why I am here as tank, and I don't think my gear is up to tanking it. The party concurred, but decided to give it a shot or two anyway as we all had the 15 minute debuff from the LFG.
We made two attempts, managed to down the first boss in the ghost waves. But I couldn't keep alive and threat on all the targets. Partly due to my lack of skill as a tank, and the healer trying so hard to keep me alive. After the 15 minute debuff was gone, I suggested we bail. the group agreed and we parted ways in a very good way.
That is my LFG horror story. We tried, failed through no egregious errors on any party members fault, and parted ways happy, and willing to run anything else with the same group.
Now I have to ask. Was my server just so full of bad players that I had numerous horror stories in the old LFG? Or has the new LFG made players step up and play better? Or is it simply the gear matching system, presumably if you have put enough effort into aquiring gear of a certain level you have become a decent player?
You have basically lucked out. EVERY day I hear horror stories from guildies, and have myself experienced some (though not every day) using the LFG system.
ReplyDeleteFor example.. I hop to my kitty to dps, get in a group, the healer is a pally. Part way through Halls of Stone, he says, "wait mana, can you wait 2 min for my Divine Plea, I don't have any water." WHAT??! Seriously. Then he asks if anyone can trade him water. Well, you can't trade stuff cross-servers. So we all say, teleport out, buy water, we'll wait. And he doesn't. Ever. We waited about 3 min then said screw it and kept going.
My friend has actually made a macro on his tank, that he spams at the start of each random:
1. Let the tank pull. Let the tank get aggro. Failure to do either may result in death.
2. Get your eyes off the dps meters and on your threat meters.
-Del