The pug to end all pugs !

GreasyDave

Let me just say, I've posted here supporting a tolerant attitude in group while pugging. Be excellent to each other etc. But I got trolled by the vet pug to end all vet pugs on Sunday and now i really am not so sure what to think about the issue. The story is actually funny so I thought I'd share.

In Stormhaven there's a dude shouting for 2DD's 561 cp for FG2. I whisper I'm not 561 but I know the dungeon and can DD for him if he can't find a 561. The dude doesn't answer. NP, I can understand a max CP player looking for other max cp players. I get into the dungeon finder queue. Five minutes later I'm invited into a group by the group tool. It's the guy who'd been shouting for 561 cp DD's. Except I double blinked when I saw he's only 300 CP. I didn't ask him why he needed 561 cp dd's but maybe I should have.

We enter the dungeon, the guy shouting in stormhaven was tanking and his mate was healing and tbh, the tank was decent. He wasn't running igneous...and I had to lose a dps slot to power up the bunnies - despite asking him to - but no problem. He tanked well. Healer healed adequately. The problem was the other dps - definitely NOT a 561 cp monster. I actually thought the guys were trolling me to be honest. DD had a 2h and was just crit rushing everything. That was it. Nothing else. And noone said anything!

Now, my dps isn't great, it's not the best, but it's good enough for vet pledges. 20k when I get the rotation running properly. Less when the Boss is jumping around and I'm red circle dodging. I'm 300 cp DK with the best gear and skills for the job at this level in time. I could be ALOT better. But I could be alot worse. So I'm not the type to start lecturing other people about low dps. I've been a very low dps. I know how it feels. The problem was I was pulling 50-60 percent of the group's damage And this guy was JUST crit rushing?

It went pear-shaped at the second boss, the one who chains, cos I got chained and they didn't have enough dps to break me free in time. The good news was that the DD somehow found this all too frustrating and bailed. Which was a relief because I was about to tell him how he needed to change what he was doing (Oh the carebear inside me cringed at the thought ). Second DD dropped in and he was excellent. We blasted through the chain Boss without a problem. Except he then crashed and didn't come back

So group finder sent us a third blessing! And if I thought crit rush guy had been trolling us, I didn't know about third DD. He was, the cliche-to-end-all-cliche's a sorc with 400 plus CP, light attack spamming and then overloading. Seriously! I honestly didn't think this type of player existed. I just thought it was forum myth. Guys exaggerating about bad pugs to make a point. But there he was in all his innocent glory -spamming those glowing fists! And now I was dealing 70 percent of the groups damage !

WE marched on. The dungeon isn't too hard - just long. The mage flashed his flashy hands and contributed nothing and we beat our way through the BOsses. When we got to the Spider in cave Boss (Can't remember the names of these things) Flashy Hands volunteered to go inside which made me laugh. He vanished and didn't reappear once until AFTER the Boss was dead - looking sheepish, shuffling his feet, cleaning wax from his ears and putting the ciggy out we'd caught him smoking. Anyone who's been in the spider cave knows how easy it is. You should be in and out of the cave a few times during the fight. To NOT get out at all I find incredibly impressive. Either a major feat of incompetence or one of brilliant cunning. I'm not sure which. Either he was inside in "sneak mode" having a quiet cigarette while we busted our keyboards outside or he really was in there labouring away with light attacks ?:D I don't know which is a sadder picture.

OK. This wouldn't be a funny story if that was it. Unfortunately there's more.

Penultimate Boss, I checked my watch and we'd been in for just over an hour. I was happy. I'd be out soon - final Boss is just a question of running backwards and forwards and slowly ranging her down. Not hard. Tank and I beat down penultimate Boss. Mage came with us! Telling us how he hates this Boss cos it eats his mana? What? - he KNEW the BOss mechanics BEFORE he jumped down and he still joined us? Whatever, the boss is dead. I grab the crystal. I noticed the leader had his head in a book - figured he was checking the map. "This way" I yell and run out towards the river, pulling all the adds. "Don't fight them" I yell. Tank leader is following me. Glow hands has stopped to fight. Suddenly, I get an auto pop up telling me I've been invited to join a group in CoH. I'm puzzled. Group finder must have gone crazy. I dismiss it and keep running. I get to the river. The leader arrives. Flashy hands is fighting the mobs all on his lonesome. "Final BOss, is this way," I say. "Final Boss?" says the tank.

Pop!

And I'm looking at the loading screen to CoH.

That's the point when I really had to laugh. Up till then I'd been irritated. But this was bloody funny.

The leader had never completed FG2. He thought that the mana stealer was the final guy and had set the port / group finder to transport us ALL out automatically. All of us. I have no idea what he pressed or how he accomplished this. But he admitted to doing it.

I was lost for words...truly. I ported back and ended back at the beginning with the goblin munchkins reset. Leader refused to try porting back to see if his presence would put us in the right instance. He just asked if I wanted to go and do CoH with them? That was it. If he was even slightly vexed about losing all that hard work, he didn't say it. Which was also really funny. Funnier still was how noone else in the group had a problem with it. I'm not sure flashy hands even knew he hadn't finished the FG pledge. The last I saw of him was a pair of glowing hands disappearing off alone into the dark halls of CoH without anyone else at his back, getting on with the good fight, while we discussed the FG issue.

I wished the leader alot of fun, left group and felt mildly sorry for whoever would be the next DD to be grouped with them.

So, now if someone asks me, what I think about pugging vet pledges - I think hard on that fantastic 90 minutes of my life I wont get back and I dont know what to say!

Beerbong_Ginn

I'm sorry, but that is just epic.

Mr_Apollo

^ This, is the reason I'm sceptical with guildies too, I rarely do dungeons unless its with friends. My advise? Get a group you know, befriend them, and only do pug pledges rarely, sometimes they may surprise you

SolarCat02

This is... I have no words.

I have never been in a group where the leader queued me for another dungeon before we finished the first. I didn't even realize that was possible.

For the record, since everyone left Fungal Grotto, the entire dungeon reset and there is no way to get your progress back without redoing it aside from hoping dungeon finder gave you a partial group. This is true regardless of why everyone left - group finder, teleporting to repair gear, game crash, entering Cyrodiil... At least one person, still in the group, must remain in the dungeon to bookmark your progress.

psxfloh

I do think there's only two, yeah only two, ways to be happy with group finder:
1. Never use it on your own, bring at least one decent teammate
2. Be the big badass DD yourself so you can rush through everything no matter how bad the other DD is / DDs are. Tanking in dungeons requires almost no skill, and only so much for taunting and not being one-shotted. Healing, at least in the meaning of pure healing, in dungeons requires even less skill, as the tank is (hopefully) taking care of one-shot mechanics. And if the tank dies, just avoid being one shotted - you're the badass and you know all the mechanics, so dps him down and put up your block now and then.

So when you're alone and start the activity finder, you only need an 'ok' tank and healer - and most of the players get these two jobs done in a way so you can dps your way through everything the game throws at you.

Of course that works not for all vet dungeons! But everything except the DLC dungeons should be manageable...

SHADOW2KK

*shakes my head while trying not to die of laughter*

hehe.

Svenja

Thanks for the great laugh! And I thought the experience I had last friday (I was doing ~75% of the group's damage according to my addon - and I was the HEALER!!!) was the worst anyone could possibly have.

Nestor

Almost all of my Pugs have been fine, a couple were memorable, not as memorable as the OP's. I resolve this by not Pugging for Vets in the Group Finder. No need to really since the Keys are all the same. Sure, I get less keys, but I also get a lot less uncertainty. If I want to do a Vet Pledge, I do with my Guildmates. Otherwise Normals and Randoms are all I will use the GF for.

Qbiken

A TL:DR version would be nice XD

gard

Last night final boss Crypt of Hearts II (Nerien'eth)

Guildie DPS had to leave due to RL. So we pugged a DPS. I explain to him that we're burning the shades until the boss is at 40%, then focusing on boss till he picks up the sword, then burn everything.

So we get the boss to 40%, I'm tanking 4 shades, all is good - except pug dps is still dpsing the shades. Nerian'eth picks up the sword.... and there's only 3 shades. We wipe it. Pug dps says, "That's ....unfortunate". We explain again what we're doing and start the fight again. Halfway through he drops group.

Luckily we were able to find a guildmate to help us finish.

BlanketFort

Hahahahahahaha! Oh god, this cracked me up!
Oh man, you see, I'm usually against pug-hate-posts, but yours... I just had to laugh geebus, had I been in your shoes, I would've just laughed my ass off. Good job OP! Real good story telling

Asardes

I've pugged my way to CP501 between TG and DB as tank with the random dungeon XP bonus, and saw a lot of that crap that OP is describing. It's a good thing that at least the veteran dungeons got buffed, because in time scrubs like those will get rekt harder and thus some of them will actually L2P or at least QQ and stop ruining it for the others who queue.

Rune_Relic

You cant leave us hanging in suspense.
Is flashy hands still there even now ?

Grabmoore

What happened to you OP is the reason why I laugh at people looking for 561 only... So many wannabes, who don't know basic stuff . I had a full 561 group wiping, all but me, because they never saw the mechanics of the last Boss in VoM

Cryptical

Wow.

Just. Wow.

And then, at the end, I would have had a look of "Wait. What. What?"

That there pop at the end that hauled you off to CoH... Sorry to tell you this but I think you share a little blame for accepting the transport.

I mean, if I recall correctly from the few times I've interacted with group finder in that way, it tells you the group leader has started an instance of X and asks you if you are ready to travel there. So if you need to hit the bank or the armor repair or some such, you have the opportunity to say "No" and it will leave you where you are.

That, I believe, is what you did when you dismissed that prompt... You probably hit 'yes' to make it go away. You agreed to be transported out.

I never allow myself to be auto transported, unless it's to a cyro campaign I don't have. For dungeons, either I create the instance by being the first player there, or I travel to one of the group that is already there.

C'est la vie.
C'est la guerre.
Live and learn.

UrQuan

OMG, this is hilarious... I mean PUGs are hit and miss, sometimes they go amazingly well, sometimes they're terrible, and they're usually somewhere in between. But this one... It's in a category all by itself. Awesome story @GreasyDave that was one of the most amusing things I've read in a while!

Qbiken wrote: »

A TL:DR version would be nice XD

No. It's an epic story. You need to read the whole thing: a TL;DR version would lose everything that makes the post worth reading.

GreasyDave

Rune_Relic wrote: »

You cant leave us hanging in suspense.
Is flashy hands still there even now ?

I do believe when me and my guild group went into CoH later that evening I caught a glimpse of a lone figure, hands a glowing, giving it to the Daedra, one light punch on the nose at a time, down a distant hallway....but by the time we got there , there was just a long empty hallway and the whisper of a sound that might have been overload recharging in another vault

Cryptical wrote: »

That there pop at the end that hauled you off to CoH... Sorry to tell you this but I think you share a little blame for accepting the transport.

I mean, if I recall correctly from the few times I've interacted with group finder in that way, it tells you the group leader has started an instance of X and asks you if you are ready to travel there. So if you need to hit the bank or the armor repair or some such, you have the opportunity to say "No" and it will leave you where you are.

That, I believe, is what you did when you dismissed that prompt... You probably hit 'yes' to make it go away. You agreed to be transported out.

You might be right. I'm certain I didn't press yes.... but I was running from a group of adds, and my mind wasn't exactly focused on the thought that my leader might have done something so stupid I pressed something to clear the screen so I could see where I was running and avoid the mob death, it wasn't, "yes" - on the other hand I don't remember a "no" option.....

It was all a blur of heat, light and overload glow!

thawks

Cryptical wrote: »

So if you need to hit the bank or the armor repair or some such, you have the opportunity to say "No" and it will leave you where you are.

There is no "No." Either you choose to be teleported instantly, or you can choose to hide the prompt and be automatically teleported when the timer runs out (90 seconds, I believe).

The only way to cancel it is by leaving the group, which also teleports you out of the instance.

kylewwefan

That's funny af! I've had pugs do some odd things as well the general suck. Que for another dungeon before the last boss is just grand though!

Mic1007

There is no way to decline a transport from the Group Finder. Unless you leave the group, which kicks you from the instance anyway.

That being said, this was simply hilarious.

VinyParsley2016

What a long story! Let me grab my lunch first

RAGUNAnoOne

I would love to have someone as patient as you in my group.

Mush55

Great aint they, do enough and you'll beat that story soon, it certainly opens your eyes to the wondrous world of the strange skill set up..

heng14rwb17_ESO

Lol.
Flashy hand is OP.

SickDuck

As epic this story is, it highlights that unfortunately veteran pug groups are a poison to the community in their current form. Too many clueless people are allowed but most of the dungeons do not support cluelessness anymore. The result is long epic runs with changing members, failed tries and angry/confused people.

Cryptical

Mic1007 wrote: »

There is no way to decline a transport from the Group Finder. Unless you leave the group, which kicks you from the instance anyway.

That being said, this was simply hilarious.

Hmm. Then I must be thinking of something else.

IrishGirlGamer

Awesome. I mean, I'm sorry that happened to you but, wow, what a read. As others have said, I'd love to have you in my group.

Mic1007

Cryptical wrote: »

show previous quotes

Mic1007 wrote: »

There is no way to decline a transport from the Group Finder. Unless you leave the group, which kicks you from the instance anyway.

That being said, this was simply hilarious.

Hmm. Then I must be thinking of something else.

You can decline a teleport to where the Group Leader is when invited to group directly. Meaning, the Group Finder has not been used yet.

JD2013

Loved it.

10/10 would read and chuckle again.

Zeuq

Tl;dr

NateAssassin

Last time I PUG'd I got into a group with two tanks a sorc healer and me, a DPS.

One tank was an actual tank, the other tank was using Molag Kena and lord knows what else, and the healer was about as useful as a newborn baby.