Guild Wars 2

I have run a few dungeons with the small group of friends I know who also play GW2. However, as time has gone on they have played less and less so we never have enough people to run dungeons. I have kicked around the idea of playing with a pick up group for a little while now and was hoping for some advice on how to be successful with one. I am a level 80 elementalist with full exotic armor and mostly use a staff. What advice do any of you have for running with a PUG? Are most people you play with helpful and willing to work with others, or do people tend to be rude? Also, if other elementalists would like to share what builds/weapons they find to be most useful in dungeons it would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer

There´s no way to know if you will be sucessful or not. I got PUGs that are faster then my guild group to advance in a dungeon (without skipping major/problematic/boss mobs) or using every exploit to do this. And I get in PUGs that even people skipping and exploiting there are a lot of semi-wipes, wait for players to skip mobs and every problem that make a easy dungeon looks like a SE in nightmare mode.

The best you can do is DON´T USE the MF set. Try to be as prepared as you can and pray to others do the same.

Communicate. Talk to your PUG and learn what they know, learn what they want to do or think they can do. I play my Elementalist(15-0-10-15-30) a lot in dungeons, primarily with staff. Know your crowd control skills and utilities. For instance, earth and Glyph of Storms creates a blind effect as well as damage. Try to keep your distance and learn when to back off, and try to predict other people’s movement if you want to heal them.

Example of AC when you fight the first pack of gravelings:
I start in air and create the lightning field to daze the mobs, and then switch to water 4 to chill and slow them. Cast 2 on water and switch to earth and blind with Glyph of Storms followed by 2 (Eruption). Switch to fire, and use 2 and 5. Then after Meteor Shower is done casting, I summon Ice Bow and Ice Storm (4) the enemies if they still live.

I actually use almost pure glass cannon gear, but the most important thing is to know what you’re getting into, and adjust accordingly. Know what you can take, and get ready to run like hell if you get yourself into a bad situation.

I got my dungeon master title from PUG runs, even some most difficult paths. It all depends on luck. Some people are nice and some are rude. I made friends and sometimes been booted and frustrated too.This is the fun part of PUG, knowing different people, and be the nice guy. Good communication also helps.
I’m a staff ele and glass cannon build.

Be the flexable willow tree and not the mighty oak.

I wanted to do AC, but my guild either didn’t want to or the people who wanted to were hardly online. I ended up PUGging. Nowadays I PUG nearly everything.

I find people pretty friendly, though some are quite strange, particularly around the time that school finishes – you get people who want to swap to their alts for the final boss so they get a free level, impatient leavers and other such weirdness.

One thing I would do when looking for a group is to check people’s armour – if they’re decked out in armour from that instance, they’ll obviously be very familiar with it. These people tend to be less impatient and aren’t usually the first to quit a team when it fails once or twice.

For AC, and it pains me to say this, but don’t take too many lowbies. As a general rule I would recommend no more than two sub 70s. Obviously, it depends very much on the group composition and the skill/experience of the players, but as I say, it’s a general rule that I try to adhere to because lower level people tend not to do as much damage as exotic geared 80s.

I usually learn a lot more about how to do a dungeon with PUGs than when I am with my guild. Even if you only have one experienced PUGger, you get to learn the tricks/exploits and can later teach your guild and save them some pain.

Always take a new PUG through the easiest path, and use your performance to gauge your chances on the tougher runs (if you plan to do those).

When I use GW2LFG.COM to find a group, I find that the people there tend to be more experienced than your regular Joe. The website also allows you to look for dungeon runs on servers where they are not contested (or bugged perma-contested like Arah usually is).

i’d say the main thing is just to communicate. figure out who’s done it before and who hasn’t or if they’re unfamiliar. it might take time to ask a question and have people respond, but in the end, it CAn save a LOT more time compared to if you left everything unspoken.

it also helps to decide to run or fight mobs, certain bosses, methods, strategies, etc.

this way, at least you know what to expect from your group. and you can adjust accordingly if you need to.

though there will be times where it does take a bit of luck as well. but usually you can tell how well a PUG will perform at the first “real” encounter, etc. and just allow yourself more time to help those who need it. and learn from those who know more than you.

i’ve done PUGs that do certain paths better and more smooth than anything else.

I play only with pug, i don’t see the problem really. Some group are bad but it’s pretty rare in fact. You just have to spot if people are bad because they just never played those instance and don’t know the mechanism (then you can explain them), or because they are just bad, we all have bad days. There is not much you can do. People are pretty nice generally, people usually don’t like dictators and people throwing orders to other. If you explain, just do that, but really you usually don’t need to, bad groups are pretty rare.

In general pugs are pretty good, but once in a while, you get to join a horrible one. The one i got last night was a real funny one. It was a guild group + me. They knew every single exploit and skipped as many mobs as possible. And yet keep wiping at bosses.