Why you should not PuG ever!
PuGs + loot = fail
Well no, I have no split personality. This is an answer by myself to last weeks post, where I encouraged everyone out there to PuG once in a while. And I still strongly believe in this idea. Gearing up my prot warrior I grouped up with some great players and had a fun time. Last Sunday I even PuGed and maintanked my first Sartharion 10 man run with my warrior and had a blast. So please don’t take the title of this post too serious.
But I feel like I forgot to mention something in my last post about random groups. We all know it. We all like it. It’s’ one of the big reasons why we continue to log in an play this game. But it’s also the cause of many arguments and fights and it shows to true face of many players:
THE LOOT!
When I encouraged people to PuG I forgot something. Most of my gear on my shaman comes from raiding. Much of the gear on my warrior alt is crafted, bought in the AH or Emblem of Heroism gear. So the main reason I do heroics is rep grind or farming Emblems. Not the loot.
How could I forget that many players go to those instances because they need a specific item. And that’s where the problems start with PuGs. Yesterday occurred an event that annoyed the sh*t out of me. I’ll talk about that later and I already mentioned it briefly in yesterdays post, but it got me to remember the items that I farmed in heroics and how successful I was on doing so.
Item N°1: Healer mace in Nexus Heroic. I ran this instance over and over and over again. The mace just never dropped. Wraith Strike dropped twice during those time but I never had enough dkp to get it. And I just needed a good healing mace upgrade. When it finally dropped a shadowpriest rolled need and got it of course. He told me he was sorry and he hadn’t seen it had that much mp5 on it and that he would write a ticket. Of course I never heard from him again.
Item N°2: Tanking sword from UP Heroic. I was lucky, this dropped for me on my second or third run. As I was smiling and already asking some enchanter if he could meet me for a mongoose enchant, the rouge in the group asked if anyone needed that sword. I tried explaining that defense is bad for rogues and didn’t understand why he asked at all, as I had pressed “need!” the second I saw it drop. He wasn’t convinced but then “let me have it”, it was just pure luck he didn’t roll for it.
Item N°3: Tanking belt from Azjol-Nerub Heroic. This was the incident from yesterday. And this is why I wrote this post. The tanking belt from Azjol is great. But it would never drop for me. This is especially annoying as it is best in slot pre-raiding, and I’d love to spend my Emblems on something else than the belt. In addition to that: Azjol is not that easy to PuG. Especially with no one to dispel poisons. So yesterday I tried again, the belt dropped and got ninjaed by a ret paladin. He told me he was sorry, then informed the group that he had an urgent phone call and logged off.
I already told you that yesterday, but that’s not the end of it. As I later found out the healer in the group was the guild master of the ret’ pallys guild. So I asked him to please convince this guy to write a ticket, which he supposedly never did. So when Mr. Ninja logged back in I asked him to please write a ticket. He then said that the item is not in his inventory and there’s nothing he can do. That’s just a lie, because I saw in the chat how he looted the item and I was the last person to loot my emblems and there was no unlooted belt. I convinced him to write a ticket anyway (which he of course never did). Nonetheless he informed me that the GM couldn’t do anything as he hadn’t looted the item. I told him that this wasn’t possible, and he just had to write the GM again with the ID of our heroic run and then I’d sure get my belt he would not need anyway. Well the guy just logged off.
That’s the dark side of PuGs. Those events reminded me of how bad PuGs can go. I don’t mind the wiping. I don’t mind not being able to kill a boss that holds loot I’d love to have. But how careless and evil and annoying people can get when it comes to loot is just sad. And especially when you’re gearing up for a raid and your raid spot is a little bit dependent on your gear or if you want to apply to a raiding guild and want to do so with decent gear and heroic PuGs are the only way to go, then I really feel for you.
And writing this another example comes into my mind. I ran heroic Nexus with my tank. The healer has the healing mace from Keristrasza. And the healer is also disenchanting unneeded loot. When the healing mace drops he goes all crazy, tells us how happy he is this item finally drops, rolls need and takes the mace. The rogue in our group asks why he’d take the mace as he already has it and why he wouldn’t disenchant it. The healer then equips the crafted caster mace and swears he was running with this one the whole insance, which just wasn’t the case. I didn’t say anything but I was puzzled who stupid this guy thought we all were. But well, one more abyss crystal for this guy, yay.
I guess if I reread my post from last week that I just shouldn’t get upset over events like that. And that’s no problem for me if I just want to farm some reputation or emblems. But if you have to farm for a specific item and PuG to get there, very annoying things can happen.
So if you PuG, don’t hang your heart to much on the loot you’re hoping for. You might not get it, even if it drops. And in most cases there’s zero chance to get from the ninja looter. Even if he tells you his sorry, if he can’t roll like a normal person he most likely can’t write a ticket for an item change.
And you, do you PuG at all? Do you have similar stories? Is there anything that can be done against that, except just not going random? Maybe forcing loot master?
A Coin of Ancestry
Looking For Multitudes
Toravon the Ice Watcher (25 player)
1500 Dungeon & Raid Emblems
I don’t need to do heroics (god bless).It is a big challenge to run whit a pug but if i’m boring i just write to trade chat “lfg hc(healer) tons of whispers and inv.
i get whatever i want and my ‘bro too.
:D
I was lucky in the past. My brother was a prot warrior, I’m healer and find 3 dps was too easy
But with the mace was a big story… my warrior, me, 2 ret(ard) paladin and a rouge come whit us… we killed all the boss without any problem but the last boss was a comedy:)
i said to my brother to change the loot to master he didn’t do that.. Ofc the mace dropped and i macro 2 line: I need the mace!!!! do not need to that!!!… the rouge did it… seriously… he won. As he get the item i asked him write a ticket.. he didn’t do that and logged out… i waited 1 day, 2 day… but he had never come online anymore…
I have to tell people something about loot: Never get your heart set on a specific item, because if you do that enough times, you are almost guaranteed a situation where it doesn’t seem to exist on the loot table when you’re in the group. Diversify and don’t take things personally.
That said, there are issues, and I think random is the only way to do PUGs because all other systems rely on history and you may be tempted to master loot because you don’t trust other people, but you should also ask what reason they have to trust you. Don’t give in, just roll with it.
I’ll also share story:
I once had trouble back just before 3.0 when I went through Heroic Mechanar and The Sun Eater dropped, which is a good tanking sword. At the time paladins benefited more from having a spell power sword, but in the 3.0 patch things changed such that a tanking sword was best. I rolled on it and anticipated my shiny new sword.
Then the mage asked if he could roll. What? A mage rolling on The Sun Eater? “It’s not any good for paladin tanks anyway.” He apparently wanted it for looks and spent about 2-3 minutes trying to convince me I didn’t want it. I kept telling him I knew how the mechanics worked and this would be a significant TPS and avoidance upgrade in a week when the new patch hit. Eventually he passed (thankfully) and proceeded to call me ignorant and then put me on ignore.
I’m sure I’ve had some weird times when people rolled on gear they shouldn’t, but I don’t tend to get too worked up over and and don’t remember it. I like to think of running instances as a “chance at loot”, even after it’s dropped.
I couln’t agree more…on both posts. You certainly earn your stripes tanking for pugs and you certainly see some crazy loot aqcuisitions. We had a hunter in our group the other night “needing” spell power mail items – much to the dismay of the shammy who had to compete.
The funniest part is when you get flamed for trying to be helpful. He may not have wanted to hear what I had to say, but a hunter doing 300dps is sooooo very sad.
I also pugged a rogue the other night….you know the one. He’s on crack and can’t hold still. How the hell do they type and jump simultaneously? That one boggles me because they never stop typing and never stop jumping. Anyhow, he wouldn’t stop requesting that loot be put on ffa. He ended up getting dropped and ignored.
As a resto shaman who does a majority of his runs with at least one pug, I can feel your pain on the issue, but to be honest, I have to say that I think you’ve just gotten unlucky. Pugs come in all shapes and sizes, and yeah, there are some really sad ones (like my tank for an H nexus run who wasn’t def capped
), but I’ve found some to add to my friends list, and even gotten a few guildies out of pugging. All that to say that not all pugs are jerks when it comes to loot, and don’t let the bad apples spoil it all for ya.
Those horrible stoires are why I enjoy “pugging” during the off time on my server. You seem to run into ALOT less of those horrible pugs. I will say this though…
If you are running an instance soloely to get an item, then I would suggest creating your own group. Everytime you invite someone, inform them you will be Master Looting a certain boss, or even the whole instance to protect yourself agaisnt ninjas. If they have a problem with that then they can leave.
What I can’t stand is when people ninja in pug raids. I joined a 25 man OS and a 25 Arch run last week and BOTH times the leader ninja’d!
I made some posts on our realm forums and had a conversation in Trade Chat – put nothing was ever done about. Ninjas make me /sadpanda
I feel your pain!! I’ve had pretty good luck in PuGs as far as loot goes lately.. except for the other day we were in H VH, a BOE Leather attack power item dropped and the Druid Tree Healer rolled NEED on it. He claimed up and down it was an accident – I said no problem, it’s BOE, we can all re-roll on it. He quickly changed his story and said he wasn’t going to give it back as he needed it for his off spec. The nerve! I can’t help but LOL, though.
Oh, I love the blog. I just started an elemental shaman blog if you guys would give a visit. http://www.shamanscore.blogspot.com/
i do pugs alot, mainly because i end up getting ripped by guild or group runs who “forget” to tell you their requirments for needing on an item before it drops. I honestly hate master looter as someone can determine that a fellow guildy of theirs or a friend is more needing of an item then i am. for real, we all put in the same amount of work on a normal run and i should have just as good of a chance at getting an item as everyone else. It’s simple, if you dont want it pass, if you want it for greedy reasons greed, if you need an item then need and let the /roll gods handle the rest. im not saying it’s perfect, but hey at least it’s fair, and pugs generally do it better imo.
i have been pretty lucky in that the loot i have lost to other rollers in the past was usually to someone who also really needed it and just rolled higher.
I do remember – about two years ago when i first ran Deadmines with my Nelf Hunter, i must have needed on every piece of leather gear that dropped. Bad me! The rogue was really mad when i got the defias armor off the last boss. When i got back to town and went to “change clothes” i realised that i didn’t really need all those items – i must have looted 8 pairs of pants!
Luckily for anyone who runs with my hunter or my shammy (or any of my others…) that was really all it took for me to figure out how to be polite in the game and not be a loot whore. I now politely greed all greens, and roll accordingly on blues and purples. It would be nice if everyone out there acted the same… but then you may not have as many entertaining stories!
I pugged virtually every instance from RFC to UK (so far), and from DM to ZF. I’ve come across just about every stereotypical pugger but I very rarely came across loot ninjas. The one that sticks in my mind was running Gnomer.
We had two pallies (one was me), a rogue, a hunter and a resto-druid. One of the bosses, forget which one, dropped a nice ring with +INT on it. The druid really wanted it but clicked greed by mistake. Those of us who also needed it agreed to greed also. Once the two pallies and the hunter made their choices, the rogue selected need. WTF!?
I mean, why? the thing was completely useless to him and it wasn’t even worth a gold at the vendor. The rogue made it quite clear in party chat that he had done it deliberately and then quit the group.
Morane’s last blog post..New Guild
Crazy. I’ve pugged about probably 50 times in WotLK and never saw an improper ‘need’ roll on any purples. I can’t remember any blue’s getting ninja’d either. Guess I’m lucky. My realm is pretty piss-poor for alliance players too. I think it’s ranked 3rd from last for alliance population out of 200+ realms, and rated dead last for horde-to-alliance activity (5:1 ratio). The Mal’ganis realm with those silly somethingawful.com goon squad guys has a lesser horde-to-alliance ratio (barely) last time I checked. Stupid Horde anyway. Why must they attempt to gank everyone they see? Oh ya, because Demon Soul attracts the jerkiest hordies out there. I can imagine the thought process now: “What’s this? The highest horde-to-alliance ratio realm? I only play horde because it’s easier than alliance so I think I’ll join the easiest realm for horde whores. Then I will have every advantage possible because I need it because I suck at the game, muahahaha”.