surprisingly, in all of the two years i played... never had a bad pug experience. always finished the boss. *shrugs* different folks, different strokes.

Yesterday did all the pledges as tank, first VWGT with some guildies - pretty smooth, a few deaths but no wipes. Took ~25 minutes which is average for me - fastest run I had was ~16 minutes I think. Then I joined another group for the non-DLC pledges and those were smooth as well, with the exception of the last bosses in VCOH1 where I had a pretty long DC and after I logged in my block somehow malfunctioned - I was holding block but got hit as if I wasn't. Finally pulled that trough, cleared the inventory, logged on my alts for more inventory management and riding training, then re-logged on my main for a few more VWGT runs since I really want a SPC healing staff and a few more divine armor pieces.

First 2 farm runs were pretty smooth, about 20 minutes each with hard mode because the others were running for the pledge, and I decided to run the 3rd. They were searching for DD so I swapped my gear and hopped in. I had run most pledges on hard mode as DD, including IC dungeons and even managed speed runs most of the time, so I thought this would be smooth as well. Wrong.

From the first mini-boss right in front of the door of the throne room the problems were obvious, the tank failed to hold aggro, and the fat guy went pounding on us. The other DD got shotted at once, and the healer ... he was doing heavy attacks from fire staff and casting BoL in between. I finally managed to execute that with the tank just sitting there, instead of grabbing aggro again. The adjudicator fight went much on the same lines - the tank taunted once, then held block until that expired and then failed to retaunt. The adjudicator went rampaging trough the room, throwing fire circles left and right. By that time I was desperately trying to keep myself alive with rally since the healer was just as effective as before. We finally managed to down the boss, but was a pretty close call - the other DD was dead and the tank had just managed to grab aggro again - probably pushed the key by mistake - so I executed on my last 10% health and stamina.

The 3 DK fight was horrible. Healer was so bad that I had to spam ingenous, cast vigor and rally every few seconds and stay only ranged. Tried to go melee once, but the healing was so bad I died instantly to some random hit from one of the bosses, since the tank did not hod aggro at all. We wiped a few times there, then we all voted to kick the healer because he really sucked badly. As a Templar he never attempted to throw a shard, repent or use any other class skills besides BoL. I think he didn't even had a healing staff since he was heavy attacking with a fire staff. We got a replacement one that was mildly more competent, though it was running Transmutation and the heals were kinda weak, at least it threw some shards and kept us alive trough most of the trash packs to the Inhibitor.

But there is where the brown pungent stuff hit the ventilation device. At least 2 of the group had no clue about either the portals or the pinion. At one point I was holding both the pinion and killing portals with my bow, because the others had either died or were just running around like headless chicken. In each attempt I was the last man standing, just spamming ingenous-vigor-rally combo because nobody took that bloody pin again and I was burning like hell from all the possible DoTs. It was close to 2 a.m. so I decided to call it quits. There was nothing worth salvaging by that point anyway. I cleaned my inventory again, and just kept on laughing all by myself thinking how bad that group really was.

I also avoid queues with randoms at all costs.
Still much better to go with guildies for a run, than with a bunch of freshmen with overestimated confidence, inability to speech and learn the basics, not speaking about childish attitude which annoys me the most.
And the issue with kicking from group - why would I even bother with pugs, not worth the nerves - still waiting for ZOS to deal with the kick from group issues and dungeon tutorials for newbies.

Most of my problems come from Vet Darkshade Caverns (2) not my worst dungeon experience but close this player was trolling us it was the healer every time we were at full health and not poison faze on last boss she would use Remembrance so when we actually needed big heals we would die we just couldn't survive poison faze we had a tank that obviously couldn't DPS and me and the other DPS were stam builds and vigor isn't really the best self heal especially for Engine Guardian poison faze the heals just weren't there after about 2 or 3 wipes the healer gets on the mic and just flips out on us blaming the dps ( but we wouldn't have made it to the final boss if the dps was bad in VetDarkshade trust me) 2nd healing though Engine Guadian poison faze isn't that hard either way it was bad.

I've been using the group finder almost exclusively since I can't seem to drum up any interest in my guild. For the most part, things have been pretty good. I think that overall this community is much friendlier than some other MMOs out there. Since I've been running on normal mostly, we've managed to complete them. Some of the DLC dungeons are a different experience and I've had most of my group failures in WGT.

I'm sure that members of my group haven't played optimally. Heck, as a healer I've learned a ton how to support the group much better. My worst experiences in groups have been when folks become toxic and nasty. In fact, had it happen in a guild group a few months ago. I know that frustrations can run high, especially when things start going badly. To lash out at other players is not the way to go about things. My only really bad PUG experience lately was when one individual suddenly started spouting off some really nasty racist things. Asked them to stop and they got a bit mouthy about it. I just assumed it was a kid that had learned some new words and was trying to be edgy.

From my experience:

Guild groups >= Zone Chat groups > Group Finder made groups

So if your guildies don't want to run the pledges, just "[role] LFG [dungeon]" in chat in the alliance capital zone where most people who want to run pledges are, since that's were the undaunted enclave is.

Since One Tamriel went live I've never run a normal dungeon since:
- monster head doesn't drop anymore, while in veteran it's guaranteed
- sets are always blue quality - armor can be improved by jewelry can't
- they award just one key instead of two since they have no hard mode
- they take ~80% of the time needed to run the veteran version
So they simply don't cut it for me.

Axorn wrote: »

I hate people like they think they know the tactics but they have no clue and talkin like a little female dogs and blaming other players with thier *** tanking or 20k dps

What does this gibberish mean?
Troll must be troll.

**** tanking? Cos I lost agro? No? Cos I died? No? Cos my team healed me, give shards? No.

15-20k DPS not great but as a tank in heavy it's solid, was more to illustrate how low DPS the others had.

My gear changes for harder fights but in most vet pledges I try help with DPS because I expect the worse.

Edit: misread my apologies

Also just to note I'm not a toxic player, I never blame the people in game or msg them in any way anything offensive. As i said just venting it.

I sometimes offer to help people but I don't have time these days (literally).

Wrecking_Blow_Spam wrote: »

Also just to note I'm not a toxic player, I never blame the people in game or msg them in any way anything offensive. As i said just venting it.

I sometimes offer to help people but I don't have time these days (literally).

From my experience you can help people:
- if they actually have an idea what they are doing in general (gear, skills, rotation)
- if they actually listen to what you are writing in group chat
- if they are trying to play according to something at least vaguely resembling a strategy when faced to challenging mechanics
And I've helped quite a few people over my PuG adventures. But some are really beyond help. They are so dumb and spiteful that the best thing you can do is to leave the group and even block them if they keep on cursing you.

Axorn wrote: »

Wrecking_Blow_Spam wrote: »

Axorn wrote: »

I hate people like they think they know the tactics but they have no clue and talkin like a little female dogs and blaming other players with thier *** tanking or 20k dps

What does this gibberish mean?
Troll must be troll.

**** tanking? Cos I lost agro? No? Cos I died? No? Cos my team healed me, give shards? No.

15-20k DPS not great but as a tank in heavy it's solid, was more to illustrate how low DPS the others had.

My gear changes for harder fights but in most vet pledges I try help with DPS because I expect the worse.

lol why you took my post on you wtf ? that was my experience from other day pledge

there was a tank and dps they werent know tactics and and tank always positioning himself like he trying to kill us and other dps was so sucky and they kept bitching when i warn them it was my vWGT experience why did you take on you /facepalm

Haha cool no prob. I thought it was an insult my bad

Asardes wrote: »

Wrecking_Blow_Spam wrote: »

Also just to note I'm not a toxic player, I never blame the people in game or msg them in any way anything offensive. As i said just venting it.

I sometimes offer to help people but I don't have time these days (literally).

From my experience you can help people:
- if they actually have an idea what they are doing in general (gear, skills, rotation)
- if they actually listen to what you are writing in group chat
- if they are trying to play according to something at least vaguely resembling a strategy when faced to challenging mechanics
And I've helped quite a few people over my PuG adventures. But some are really beyond help. They are so dumb and spiteful that the best thing you can do is to leave the group and even block them if they keep on cursing you.

Yes I have on occasion but on Xbox one, people just don't care.
They are top dog, don't want your advise, don't communicate etc.
Only communication normally is a negative response or insult of some sort.

I decided to use group finder for a random dungeon to try out a new rotation. While waiting for the group to form I decided to fish some. Caught all the trophy fish in two zones and never did get into a group.

Nocturnalan wrote: »

A DPS that Ques as a Tank. Run into that almost daily and as a healer it's very annoying.

People who queue for a role that can't handle should be kicked from a group ASAP and without any other explanation. I'm totally OK with somebody that can fill more than one role, who changes his gear and skills to fit his chosen role, but a DD that has no shield and taunt on the bar and queues as tank, or has not even a healing staff or other healing spells and queues as a healer should not even be allowed to run in that dungeon.