The Wondrous World of PUGs

Since the changes that made every boss drop Conquest emblems, and the daily heroic quest rewarding Triumph emblems, I have been running heroics with PUGs every day. Running with PUGs these days are not as bad as it used to be, mostly because the majority of people outgear the content, and not because people are in any way better players than before.

I respecced my shaman to restoration a couple of weeks back, which means I'm pugging as tank (paladin and death knight), dps (rogue), and healer (shaman). You can say that I get to see pugging from every perspective.

The smoothest runs are almost always when I run as tank. It's very obvious that the skill and gear of the tank is the biggest factor of success in a pug. It doesn't really matter if the healer or the dps are any good as long as I'm tanking with any of my over-geared tanks. As a tank, you set the pace and decide the risks. After the first couple of pulls, you know what to expect from the rest of the group, and adjust accordingly for the rest of the instance. I've only wiped once when running as tank, and that was when a dps pulled all nine adds on Palentress in Trial of the Champion.

When running as dps, you pretty much are in the hands of the tank and the healer. Sure, you can help out as much as you can by protecting the healer and only hitting the tank's target, but if they both suck, you are in for an unecessary repair bill.

As a healer you can make a difference, but only up to a certain point. If the tank can't hold aggro or does stupid pulls, or if the dps is trigger-happy to the extreme and ignore Omen, you will have deaths no matter how well you heal. I have to admit that the only times I have ever left a group is when I'm healing and it's obvious that the tank has no clue of what he's doing.

It really makes me sad to see that so many tanks are so terrible, even after Blizzard has made tanking so much easier than before. Tanks that fail at heroics at level 80 wouldn't have made it through the gates to the heroics in TBC.

But of course you get pleasant surprises as well when you find yourself in an amazing group, burning through the instance, making jokes, or maybe doing huge pulls just to test your limits.

PUGs can turn out either way. It can be a fun ride or a real pain. You never know, and I guess that is the beauty of it these days.