Ok, so most of you may wonder who am I to explain such a topic as Pick up Groups aka PuGs.

 

Well I've been playing WoW since august 2006, so the most I could have seen pre BC was AQ20/ZG/MC. Also with the scene back then the only way you could do anything in those instances was:

 

A) To have a raiding guild that does them
B) Organize runs and lead a mix of your guild and randoms

 

Since back then I had like 15-20 ppl in my guild that wanted to raid, I was often forced to get ppl from all sides to make the runs I wanted, and getting ppl that will actually perform as needed was the hardest part.

 

Getting ppl is easy, a lot of them want to join for 10 and 25 man PuGs, but HOW to make sure your run will be a successfull one and that you won`t end up with a bunch of buffoons? (Unlike 40man raids, in most dungeons now  you cannot move with 5-6 ppl afk on boss fights).

Well, that is precisely the thing I`ll try to explain here.

 

I have been running SSC/TK PuGs for a while now (I think I started arround 12-13th December 2007) and in all those weeks, no runs have failed in clearing those instances. Of course I`ve wiped, sometimes you wipe on some simple stuff even in guild raids, but we still manage to recover. The most hillarious wipes were Searing Totem and Curse of Doom on Hydross during form change of the ones I remember.

 

 

 

Not a single PuG leader creates a FULL pug with all unknown ppl, all of us bring some guildies or friends there that know the instance, and CAN actually do what they are supposed to. Since you will have some of the spots filled at the start, you`ll need to complete the raid.

 

 

1st step - usually is to fix TANKS since that is the most problematic part of any pug.

 

2nd step - fill all healer spots with propper classes, 8 priests simply won`t work :>

 

3rd step - see how many spots you have left and decide on the ammount of dps classes that will fill them up

 

And the last and most important step - you have ppl in the raid you can count on and know them, so ASK them if you are missing a specific class/spec and see if they have someone they know that fits the description. A friend of a friend is still >>> a stranger in most cases.

 

The main issue you can have is that ppl refuse to listen to what they are told to do. If you are the raid leader and some ppl refuse the job you assigned them to, just kick them, replace and find someone who WILL do the assignment properly.

 

What you need to do at the start is CLEARLY state the loot rules, so if someone has a problem with that he does not have to participate in the run. Then the fun part starts.

Let`s start with personal experience from given instances. You need to know to assign specific tasks (tanking, healing, dps order), aka who does what. After tanking, sheeping, marking and kill order have been set, ANNOUNCE it and make sure everyone understands what to do (aka mages agreed who sheeps what, tanks agreed who tanks what), and then all that remains  is to check if everyone is doing as they should. If all is going well at that point you should not have a lot of work untill the boss fights.

 

 

What I found works best is in most cases:
2 Protection Warriors
7 Healers (3 Paladins, 1 Holy Priest, 1 Resto Druid, 2 Shamans)

 

Which leaves us with 16 DPS spots. You can add an enhancement shaman for the melee grp, elemental shaman for casters or a boomkin, your personal choice, I`ll just mention some "needed" classes/numbers for DPS spots that are most commonly used.

 

Caster DPS:
3 Mages
3 Warlocks
2 Shadow Priests

Melee DPS:
1 Enhancement shaman
2 Rogues
1 Dps warrior
2 Feral Druids (that actually CAN offtank and don`t consider themselves as "feral dps")
2 Hunters

 

This is the "ideal" setup in most cases for 25 mans, and it should work for all the raid instances that are being pugged atm (Gruul, Magtheridon, SSC, TK, MH).

Taking out the bosses

 

Every boss adds a specific flavor into the tactic, but most of them in burning crusade have so far been rinse-repeat type.

Make macros with /rw (Do THIS NOW, DO THAT, MOVE, STOP DPS, etc.) and use them when needed. Remember, you chose to lead the raid, so fix the instructions at least.

 

While most raiders I have met in my runs can think for themselves, there is always someone who needs to be babysitted, and that alone is enough reason for those macros. If you have a ventrilo server available and open to public then you can also get the majority of the raid on it to ease the communication and hasten up the run.

 

Once in a while, despite the macros and all the warnings, I still get dead ppl on Spouts (Lurker) or on Leotheras (not stopping DPS at agrro reset point) so generally there is always someone who will race the meters and pay less attention to what is actually happening. You will need to keep track of who tends to fail in listening to instructions and to warn him or in the end to replace him.
It really won`t help you nor your group to have meter-racers in the raid.

 

 

1. La Vendeta Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs - Good addons to monitor the fights and boss ability cooldowns. I personally favour DBM due to being used to them, feel free to pick any of those 2 that suit YOU the best, you are leading the run in the end and you need to actually be able to spot what will happen and when.

 

2. Omen 2 is a MUST for DPS and Tanks, we don`t want ppl pulling agrro because DEAD Dps equals ZERO dps.

 

3. Ora2 and Grid (Maintank targets, general raid tracking and overview)

 

4. Recount (monitoring dps, healing and spotting slackers is a lot easier with this)

 

5. XRaidstatus (checking for missing buffs on the raid)

 

6. BigBrother (checks for CC breakers - USED, potion/flask/food usage - NOT USED in pugs)

 

Most of the addons listed here are the courtesy of www.files.wowace.com , Ace2 based and with low memory usage.

 

I believe I have covered most of the "Must do/have" in this guide, the only thing I cannot do is pick, lead and play the pugs for you. If you have any suggestions, questions or comments feel free to leave them at a proper place. Good Luck.

 

Written by Sunandsteel

Protection Tank of Nihilum

Magtheridon Europe