When do you give up on a PUG dungeon run?

kringled_1 · February 2018

Recapitulating my pledges yesterday, to see where other people would have bailed on the second group.
I'm runing my magicka sorcerer healer, and yes I am healing.

Tempest Island (normal), no problems, group damage is a bit low but the tank is solid and it's a smooth run, no deaths, and I got to see an alternate path up towards the peak.

Darkshade II, and from the first trash pack, I can see it's going to be a long slog of a run. Group dps is really low, the 'tank' is a dual wield/bow dps with no taunt and no crowd control, so mobs are just everywhere, the 'dps' are super squishy, and my ~8k dps (blockade, liquid lightning, and light attacks) is consistently 40-45% of group numbers. At most pulls, the dps and the tank are all trying to bravely take up positions behind me for lord only knows what reason. We actually wipe at The Fallen Foreman (I just let myself die when both dps died quickly and I wasn't able to get one up without the tank dying, and then the rezzed dps died again). Reset and we get through that, I'm consistently the only one rezzing both of the dps, Transmuted Alit takes forever because I don't think they understood the mechanics and kept focussing the low health member of the trio - had to pop a destro ult after about the 5th time one or two got back up. The Grobull fight is always a bit chaotic, but all of the other fights up till Engine Guardian I know from past experience can go a lot smoother; this time almost all of my healing was from twilight because most of the time I had a mob in my face and the dps were not in position where I could reliably hit more than one with springs/prayer .
At Engine Guardian, the dps are all over the place, we wipe, someone pulls again before i can explain any mechanism, and we wipe again. At this point finally we get to discuss the mechanics, I yell at them for consistent crappy dps, they yell at me for not healing ( I don't think anyone can heal the whole team through poison air if they are scattered all over the place) I tell them the cue for poison air (green color and the hiss) and one dps says "I can't see that color. I don't hear the hiss" and the other dps says he's playing with the audio off. I just tell them to stack on me, initiate a ready check, and they all ready...and then the one guy goes immobile for 3 minutes, eventually he says he's fixing his skill bars. We finally get through the third time, overall it took over an hour which is truly ridiculous. I probably should have bailed long before - I know that this can go much more smoothly.

I do mostly PUG dungeons as tank or healer, and yes, some of them are a struggle, but it usually goes well enough, and every so often you realize that there are actually a fair number of the same mechanics on normal that are on vet, they just aren't apparent until you have tragically low dps. I've only once actually bailed when it wasn't a team decision, but maybe I should more often. What's your threshhold for leaving?

Sixty5 · February 2018

When the suffering becomes too great.

Which is right about when I figure out that the Nightblade healer doesn't have a resto staff.

kringled_1 · February 2018

I think my first run ever of Tempest (as tank) was with a bow-only stamina NB 'healer'.

phileunderx2 · February 2018

Usually around the 3rd or 4 th wipe and of course depending on what's happening I'm out.

kylewwefan · February 2018

Welcome to the pug life. It’s ruff. No idea why I keep doing it.

leandro.800ub17_ESO · February 2018

When you are the tank , doing 30% of group dps and having to solo bosses from 50%hp down

altemriel · February 2018

when we are at the first boss and keep wiping and wiping and wiping, because healer is not healing, tank is not tanking, dps is not dpsing

Asardes · February 2018

I still don't understand why people still run normal pledges with PuGs for 2-3 keys when they can join a guild and get 6 every time in about an hour. Maybe because they are bad themselves and know they won't pass the tests such a guild will require them to do? So stop complaining about random people, get better at the game and join one of the many guilds extant on every platform.

Eyesinthedrk · February 2018

No matter what, they've got me for 15 minutes. After that they’ve got me till I have something better to do.

kringled_1 · February 2018

Asardes wrote: »

I still don't understand why people still run normal pledges with PuGs for 2-3 keys when they can join a guild and get 6 every time in about an hour. Maybe because they are bad themselves and know they won't pass the tests such a guild will require them to do? So stop complaining about random people, get better at the game and join one of the many guilds extant on every platform.

Sweet! You managed to not only not particularly address the question/discussion, but also imply that everyone who PUGs is terrible at the game. Maybe I have you confused with someone else, but I would have expected better from someone who I've seen post a lot of informative stuff in the past.

Nevertheless I'll answer the question of why I would PUG normals anyways:
I am currently in 5 guilds, of which 2 run dungeons sometimes. But both only typically have 40-80 people on when I am, and between my limited schedule, sometimes I don't get a response when I ask in guild about running something. I'm not blaming anyone else here, sometimes I answer the call when someone else is looking for a dungeon teammate, sometimes I don't have the time or I'm already in the middle of something. Two of my other guilds are primarily for trade and PvP, and don't have that many people who regularly do dungeon runs. If I found a dungeon/trial guild that was a better match for me and my level of skill, activity, and interest, great, but it would both mean giving up on associations with the people in some of my current guilds who I know and like, and a lot of time spent screening to make sure there was a good match (how I got to my primary PvP guild).
Maximizing the number of keys earned per time spent in the dungeon is not my primary goal (nor is keys period, I have almost every shoulder I want currently and 120 or so keys in inventory). I may get a bit aggravated during the runs, but I can come out with stories like this (which amuse me in hindsight), or sometimes that great feeling of accomplishment when you all learned together how to do a mechanic rather than just burn through it.
Furthermore, I've learned more about mechanics in mostly PUG dungeons with fairly low (but sincerely trying) dps, than I have in some of the smooth runs with really high DPS. And I don't know how one learns to tank (and to a lesser extent heal) group content without actually playing it.

Cage_Lizardman · February 2018

Also vet Darkshade II, the others are low cp. I'm doing 80% dps, unusual even for a pug. The other dd is using a frost staff until the tank points out that this is bad. We get the first boss down fairly smoothly, but on the second the other dd dies fast, I was hoping the healer would rez but no. The boss starts his stomping phase, and I have no idea what the healer was doing but he somehow managed to die to it, neither me nor the tank did. I rez the healer, he still doesn't rez the dd and dies on the next stomping phase. I finish off the boss and leave group.

Darkshade II is not fun to carry people through. I've been there before.

DoctorESO · February 2018

When the tank doesn't tank and the DPS can't compensate, or when the DPS is too low to progress at an adequate speed.

Asardes · February 2018

kringled_1 wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

I still don't understand why people still run normal pledges with PuGs for 2-3 keys when they can join a guild and get 6 every time in about an hour. Maybe because they are bad themselves and know they won't pass the tests such a guild will require them to do? So stop complaining about random people, get better at the game and join one of the many guilds extant on every platform.

Sweet! You managed to not only not particularly address the question/discussion, but also imply that everyone who PUGs is terrible at the game. Maybe I have you confused with someone else, but I would have expected better from someone who I've seen post a lot of informative stuff in the past.

Nevertheless I'll answer the question of why I would PUG normals anyways:
I am currently in 5 guilds, of which 2 run dungeons sometimes. But both only typically have 40-80 people on when I am, and between my limited schedule, sometimes I don't get a response when I ask in guild about running something. I'm not blaming anyone else here, sometimes I answer the call when someone else is looking for a dungeon teammate, sometimes I don't have the time or I'm already in the middle of something. Two of my other guilds are primarily for trade and PvP, and don't have that many people who regularly do dungeon runs. If I found a dungeon/trial guild that was a better match for me and my level of skill, activity, and interest, great, but it would both mean giving up on associations with the people in some of my current guilds who I know and like, and a lot of time spent screening to make sure there was a good match (how I got to my primary PvP guild).
Maximizing the number of keys earned per time spent in the dungeon is not my primary goal (nor is keys period, I have almost every shoulder I want currently and 120 or so keys in inventory). I may get a bit aggravated during the runs, but I can come out with stories like this (which amuse me in hindsight), or sometimes that great feeling of accomplishment when you all learned together how to do a mechanic rather than just burn through it.
Furthermore, I've learned more about mechanics in mostly PUG dungeons with fairly low (but sincerely trying) dps, than I have in some of the smooth runs with really high DPS. And I don't know how one learns to tank (and to a lesser extent heal) group content without actually playing it.

I have indeed PuG-ed a lot at the start of the game, because I was new and I didn't know myself how to play very well. But after I gained more experience I realized it was simply a waste of time spending 1h in a dungeon wiping at the same boss, because group DPS was under 20K, seeing all my group chat indications ignored or even rudely answered. And yes, I stand by my observation: most people who queue are terrible, not only at playing the game, but their attitude towards it, two problems which are closely linked. Only a small minority actually thanked me for helping, with the majority simply ignoring what I said or answering with curses. I ran the pledges day in and day out for almost 1.5 years, half of those with PuGs so I know how it is. I only run them occasionally nowadays, namely when I have a new character that needs undaunted & skill points and/or there's an upcoming patch that introduces new dungeons and monster sets.

It is precisely because of limited time that I decided to squeeze the most out of it. In fact my whole effort revolves around playing more efficiently. For example I reduced my guild trades from 4 to 2 and deconned/vendored all items with a MM price < 1K gold because it wasn't worth posting and re-posting those on some of those guilds for ~10K in sales every week. On the retained trading guilds I have combined sales between 400K-1.1M/week depending on what I can post. It's clear that those 10K/week giuilds were utterly useless in this context. I keep two slots open for flexibility, I may join PvP or PvE guilds temporarily as I see fit. So you may want to examine your guild slots and simple drop guilds that don't deliver the utility for you. Sales are low? People don't want to run pledges or trials? Simply leave and join better ones. I do consider this a helpful advice.

sudaki_eso · February 2018

Is OP talking about normal dungeons? Leaving on normal? No way, i never had such a bad group that i was tempted to leave on normal. Even with a bad tank, healer and/or dps guy they can all be done with one experinced player and it doesnt take 1 hour.
On vet its a different story, thats why i only pug on normal if i cant find people in my guilds for vet dungeons.

Asardes · February 2018

In normal dungeons a good player can "pull" the group unless they totally break the mechanics that can't be burned trough. I ran normal dungeons daily on all of my 5 mature characters when they gave random rewards, I think there was such an event just before Christmas. I only had to ditch one of those groups in nFH but they were simply too bad to pass the skeleton boss, because they didn't get the add souls on the bright spots. I did explain the mechanic in chat and even jumped towards the said spots, but to no avail. Classic example of people ignoring indications and being "special snowflakes" so I left them alone. By that point I was carrying the group by a large margin, with between 60-80% of damage done, and probably 50% of healing, just from vigor. I could have carried them further had they cooperated. However I had no trouble carrying other groups as "fake tank" (DD setup but Inner Rage slotted) in several other normal DLC dungeons such as nRoM and nBF, but there people actually had the common sense of listening and/or knew the mechanics somewhat. I would never join a veteran dungeons with a random group though, since there no amount of good will can upset dismal DPS, and you can't really "fake tank" many of them since you don't have the resources to do it.

Stinkyremy · February 2018

I give up if it takes more than 2 minutes to kill the first trash mob, or if the "tank" dies to the first trash mob. If not, i'm not really a quitter, I soldier on.
I did quit today on a pug group but that was right at the start of a dungeon and I was getting bored, needed a break. Not really an issue

Septimus_Magna · February 2018

Stinkyremy wrote: »

I give up if it takes more than 2 minutes to kill the first trash mob, or if the "tank" dies to the first trash mob. If not, i'm not really a quitter, I soldier on.
I did quit today on a pug group but that was right at the start of a dungeon and I was getting bored, needed a break. Not really an issue

As a DD its not such a problem because you can just carry the group, as a tank its a nightmare because your dps is really low. Healers can pull decent dps depending on their gear/skills but it might be hard to keep ppl alive if they dont understand the mechanics.

Nestor · February 2018

I usually wait until the first Mini Boss and see how that goes. Although, I have been a couple of PUGs where the first trash pack took 5 minutes to take down. I don't spend much more time when that happens.

DoctorESO · February 2018

Corpier · February 2018

I don't give up. I just make some build adjustments and carry the group. Easiest done on a dps, but possible on a healer if the fight isn't a dps check. Might have to skip doing HM on some dungeons, but many vets are possible to solo. The rest can be done with minimal group effort if you have someone to res, since mechanics exists that CC and kill a random player if a group member fails to stop it.

Unless its a vet DLC dungeon, then if everyone else in the group is *** I'll bail on the first boss. Carrying them takes a lot of time, I have limited patience, and some of them are impossible to do if no one else is willing to do mechanics. You have to be realistic about these things.

disintegr8 · February 2018

You didn't mention whether Darkshade 2 was on normal or vet - if it was normal, I would leave at wipe number 1 regardless of who we were fighting. The only exception would be if the wipe was a result of only one poor player, in which case a vote to kick would ensue.

I accept wipes in DLC normal dungeons as they are harder and group members may not have run them very often. I had someone in RoM the other week who was asking about the mechanics and said they had run it several times but nobody had explained anything - the group just charged through.

And I too run PUG normal dungeons rather than vet dungeons because I only run them to level up my characters undaunted skill lines - I got over running dungeons for keys or helms a long, long, long time ago.

Maura_Neysa · February 2018

That group? Never would have bailed. Only 2 or 3 pulls? They were actually learning. I'd only bail if they weren't listing to mechanics. Like if they repeated didn't stay near you during poison phase.
I did all 3 4-Man Skin runs with a Sorc healer, and I play a DK Healer. Now that tank would have worried Me, except DS2 bosses all run around on there own regardless. And with no tuant and low DPS, you probably had agro most of the time. Which for me means a good tank since I main and could just keep my buffs up and Springs bomb myself and let Caturize (Twilght for you) cover their heals.

Then again I don't mind teaching, as long as learning is napping too.

Sevn · February 2018

Normal dungeons? Never. Vet? Depends on my mood, how far we've gotten, if we are failing because they just don't know the mechanics (which is fixable if they are willing to learn) and what else I have planned in-game, though my patience does start to run thin if we are approaching the hour mark.

zaria · February 2018

Asardes wrote: »

In normal dungeons a good player can "pull" the group unless they totally break the mechanics that can't be burned trough. I ran normal dungeons daily on all of my 5 mature characters when they gave random rewards, I think there was such an event just before Christmas. I only had to ditch one of those groups in nFH but they were simply too bad to pass the skeleton boss, because they didn't get the add souls on the bright spots. I did explain the mechanic in chat and even jumped towards the said spots, but to no avail. Classic example of people ignoring indications and being "special snowflakes" so I left them alone. By that point I was carrying the group by a large margin, with between 60-80% of damage done, and probably 50% of healing, just from vigor. I could have carried them further had they cooperated. However I had no trouble carrying other groups as "fake tank" (DD setup but Inner Rage slotted) in several other normal DLC dungeons such as nRoM and nBF, but there people actually had the common sense of listening and/or knew the mechanics somewhat. I would never join a veteran dungeons with a random group though, since there no amount of good will can upset dismal DPS, and you can't really "fake tank" many of them since you don't have the resources to do it.

Yes, had some of them, did not understand the cabbage fight in nICP, or the boss who pulls you inn and you have to roll away from each other in crypt of hearths 2 and no communication. Also had an group with very low dps and no AoE who was unable to burn adds on second last boss in nBC2, was on warden healer who did not do enough dps to solo it.

veteran is another story but depend on dungeon, no issue puging the easier but I don't pug the harder ones.

Has only done normal on the two new ones yet, pugging Scalecaller Peak tend to put you at the second last boss Mortieu.

FrancisCrawford · February 2018

As a healer I enjoy the challenge of a bad group. And I generally PUG easy challenges (non-DLC, normal mode), so if I'm doing 50%+ of the DPS along with healing, it's no big deal.

kringled_1 · February 2018

@Asardes While the advice to try to find a guild that matches your interests best isn't bad advice, it's often very easy to give and hard to carry out in practice; activity/interest level, expected skill level, and general personality mesh can all matter; to analogize to trade guilds, given that I don't bring in much stuff to sell, it makes more sense for me to be in a trade guild with a more remote trader, even though it means I sell stuff at a discount relative to say Mournhold.

And yes, the DS2 run I posted about was normal; this is a character who I recently got to vet ranks and have been leveling Undaunted with. Now that she's at 9, I will be slowing up on that. I don't claim to be super great at this; I'm running normals and easier veterans because I know that with this character I can pull my own weight in that content. I may be able to carry a little bit as healer with some extra dps, although since most of what I have is ground based AOEs (Liquid Lightning, Storm Blockade), if mobs are in my face and the tank is not even remotely trying to control/taunt etc them, those become a lot less efficient. I still haven't figured out how to deal as healer with the combined challenge of very low damage, damage dealers who are super squishy and die if not being constantly bathed in heals, especially when they like to hide behind the healer, coupled with a tank who was not even a dps with a taunt, just another dps with, well, also really low dps.

It's one thing if we wipe a few times to Guardian because of the specific mechanic, but I was close to my limit of patience after all the other issues, and the hitting ready only to be obviously not ready and non-communicative just rubbed me the wrong way. We got through it, slowly and painfully, but I don't think I made any friends.

jarydf · February 2018

There is a classic situation where I will just leave.

I don't want to but I have learn't it is just better to politely leave...

Random Vet dungeon or Vet Pledge.

I am a dps. I queue as a dps only. I wait...

You turn up and only 1 or 2 in the group are there before you. Ok...

There is a portal straight to a "hardish" last boss. Ok...

In the group is either fake tank, a fake healer or both. Ok...

We try a run. It is wipe. Ok...

Leader vote kicks someone.

I will usually say no to the first vote kick, mainly to see what is going on and see if this group is salvageable somehow.

Leader vote kicks again straight away...

Ok, now I know how I got here in the first place.

I will say yes to the vote kick and also leave.

I am bunny number 37 in a conga line of cluster f**k.

I am not going to inherit what should have just been disbanded 2 or 3 wipes ago...

Say you do kill the last boss - congratulations, you just won yourself the right to have to queue up again to get other parts of the pledge anyway...

These fake healer / fake tank / low dps / PUGs are sad threads are all related.

The things I look for now are:

- is it a VET / DLC dungeon?
- do people know the mechanics?
- is there a fake tank / fake healer?
- is the leader vote kick happy?
- do other group members seem more interested in inventing new ways to skip trash / glitch around mechanics than actually just doing the dungeon quickly and efficiently?

If these warning signs are stacking up, I will be polite and give it a good try but I won't be dying in a ditch for that PUG group when it fails. Sorry.

DoctorESO · February 2018

If you need to bail on a normal dungeon run, then you may not be as good as you think you are. Meaning the elitism is unwarranted.

kringled_1 · February 2018

DoctorESO wrote: »

If you need to bail on a normal dungeon run, then you may not be as good as you think you are. Meaning the elitism is unwarranted.

This is frankly nonsense. If I need to bail on a normal, then yes, I know I'm not good enough to carry that team. And I know that other people are. So? Me not being at the top end of the game doesn't mean that I can't figure out who isn't respecting or aware of mechanics at all, or even trying to do their role.

DoctorESO · February 2018

kringled_1 wrote: »

DoctorESO wrote: »

If you need to bail on a normal dungeon run, then you may not be as good as you think you are. Meaning the elitism is unwarranted.

This is frankly nonsense. If I need to bail on a normal, then yes, I know I'm not good enough to carry that team. And I know that other people are. So? Me not being at the top end of the game doesn't mean that I can't figure out who isn't respecting or aware of mechanics at all, or even trying to do their role.

Calling something nonsense does not make it nonsense. Emphasis on "the elitism is unwarranted."

jarydf · February 2018

It is not about elitism, it is more that "carrying" normal dungeons is harder than soloing the dungeon for a couple of reasons.

First is mobs behave differently with 4 targets than 1 so if your build likes to group and burn mobs then when they are all over the map it is a bit more difficult to get your dps down.

Next you need to take the other people into account. People don't really want to watch you solo, they want to be rezed. You can get as much flack from just soloing with them dead on the floor, so carrying is actually soloing, rezing.and maybe off heals to try and keep them alive so you dont have to rez them a much. Like an escort mission, and we know how everybody enjoys an escort mission. LOL