Guild Wars 2

Alright, some PUGs are terrible. Some are great. It’s a random draw. What are some of the best PUG groups you’ve had?

For me, my first time doing Honor of the Waves story mode, P1, and P3 turned out to be completely done with a grand total of 2 wipes.

I’ve also had countless successful CoF runs, going with PUG only. Many times better than having guildmates run.

A troll run in arah p3 where some Thief or Mesmer was babbling how zerker would only work in CoF and how there is no chance of us killing GL. It was quite fun to stay in that kittenty soldier gear for 1 or 2 wipes and then have one of us switching to zerk and soloing the boss. The guy claming such bs had left already, before even getting to GL.

A lot of “coordinated pugs”(oxymoron :P ) where 3-4 players actually trusted our advice and listend to instrcutions. It is quite pleasing to have first timers in dungeons that still listen to some advices like “take wall of reflection here” or “try to stay behind him all the time”.

25 minute Arah p4 run is the most memorable, have yet to come close ever since.

Once upon a time there were very legit pugs to be found in CoE because the laser jumping scared the bads away. Now CoE is sort of a 50/50 between very good players with serious builds and utter disasters.

My first time doing Arah P4 was something special. I don’t think we wiped and I definitely finished it in under an hours time I am sure it was around 30 minutes. Right after that got my Dungeon Master and been back in Arah only a handful of times since.

@Stinson

Yeah that is because of the LFG tool I still find rather good players in there and I only PUG.

viciouspike.8624:

My first time doing Arah P4 was something special. I don’t think we wiped and I definitely finished it in under an hours time I am sure it was around 30 minutes. Right after that got my Dungeon Master and been back in Arah only a handful of times since.

@Stinson

Yeah that is because of the LFG tool I still find rather good players in there and I only PUG.

Wow nice My first clocked in around 2 1/2 hours.

I have yet to see a good pug run. I’ve seen a few decent players, like eles not dying on arah skips, stacking might and fury and even using LH, Mesmers setting up feedback and timing it with wardens. But a really good pug run? No.

Eh, in my experience, I have better runs with PUGs then guildies. So suck that logic.

But never had a really good PUG run.

Arah P4 months ago when I got the DM title. The only time I ran this path, it was with a pug. It took us an hour or so. Surprising to me post forum topics, Simin was a breeze. Somehow despite being a first timer, I found myself luring half the sparks with another guy taking the other half and I could swear it was the easiest boss. I told my guild I got the DM and everyone was like how did you do p4?
Some COE pugs are great, everyone can dodge and alpha bursts down in seconds.

I solely pug so if the comparison is to the speed clearing records, I never came close to any.

Well, comparing pug runs to speedclearing voip-coordinated teams isn’t really fair.

Get the standards right when judjing a pug run.

We usually do our speedruns without voip
1 min of explaining tactics and you’re ready to go, if everyone has basic dungeon understanding and is able to remember what to do.

A run of 38 fractals (I believe swamp-colossus-volcano) where noone ever spoke and did everything right.

Those guys were awesome. I’d love to not talk to them some time again.

There’s not really a “best,” but I’ve been having a much nicer time since I started putting, “Bad dps pls go,” or for Arah, “Bad runners pls go.”

TKiller.6829:

Those guys were awesome. I’d love to not talk to them some time again.

This pretty much describes any good pugging experience i’ve ever had, everyone is quiet and knows what to do, it’s just the best gaming experience with strangers you can have.

I start a fractal 38 party with a friend, no other guildie joins, so let’s pug. When we enter, first thing we all notice: every single player has a legendary. I think “Oh man, I have a legendary, but at least I’m a good player; all previous experiences I had with guys with legendaries were awful”. We had the fractals in that order: Snowblind, Volcanic, Underground Facility and Solid Ocean.

It was the first time ever that I played a party where no one ever died in a fractal on that level, guild parties included.

I’ve had my best PUG luck in CoE. Somebody earlier said it’s 50/50, and I’d say that’s about right.

My worst luck is AC (for obvious reasons). Out of the numerous times I’ve done that, I’ve had probably 1 really good PUG run.

A few weeks ago I was running TA up and forward with a guildie. We pugged the rest of the group, noone said a word, everyone meleed tree in zerks and we finished both paths in <25 min.

Another good example was last night I pugged a group for AC3. We had 2 <lvl 60 necros and no ele so I had somewhat low expectations. ~20 min later I had my 60 tokens for the run and a better appreciation for not judging a book by its cover.

Best PUG runs would be 80% of the times i ran CoF, HotW P1, and AC P1/3. Smooth. No wipes. No talking. Everyone knew exactly what to do, high dps, etc. However there was this one time where i PUG-ed Arah P3 with less dps than i wanted to but managed to get by perfectly fine, especially at Lupi.

I have had much more good luck than bad luck with PuGs. I don’t PuG much anymore though, and when I do it is usually the shorter, easier dungeons.

I have pretty good experiences with pugs. Yesterday stood out in CoE p1. We were a team of a warrior, a thief, 2 rangers, and my ele. I think it’s the fastest I’ve ever cleared that dungeon: the warrior was able to defend so we could go 1:4 on the golem bombs, and the thief brought fruit to keep the giant down. I always post “any welcome” in my lfg, so I usually get newbies, but that run was just nice and easy for a change.

rhapsody.3615:

I always post “any welcome” in my lfg, so I usually get newbies, but that run was just nice and easy for a change.

Now, what if I told you that it’s possible to get those superb runs every single time?

Just to add a bit because I thought about it a little more, my serious answer for best pugs has to be back when people were building fractal levels up last winter. Some awesome teams in there, including probably the best thieves I’ve seen in the game.

But even being a bit jaded, I get really nice surprises now and again. Yesterday I joined a “CoE P3 experienced only please.” Well, everyone knows how far “experienced only” gets you – two people had never done any paths of CoE before, one with sub-1000 ap. Total faceplant on Alpha the first time, and I was probably audibly groaning at that point. Then I just said, “Make sure you count out loud, 1, 2, and then dodge, and you’ll be good.”

Then bam. Perfect alpha’s the rest of the time. Picked up destroyer no problem, got everything else. Okay, well lasers were pretty funny but there were two of us who knew the jumps so that was cool. So kudos to you guys last night – nice job.

Darthaemos.6370:

rhapsody.3615:

I always post “any welcome” in my lfg, so I usually get newbies, but that run was just nice and easy for a change.

Now, what if I told you that it’s possible to get those superb runs every single time?

Oh yea, I’m sure if I said something like “speed clear, know what you are doing,” the runs would be fast most of the time. But I don’t consider myself a pro, and I like helping people learn. I do dungeons simply for fun so I don’t mind newbies…. And some of the most fun comes from pugs. It’s like playing the lottery

One of the best pug runs was in arah path 1. All went smoothly, no wipes on skip, no wipes on lupi (dead with 0 grubs eaten). I think we were a guard, 2 warriors a necro and engi (me). One of the best runs i had

really any run where my guildmate gale comes along all the rest can be pugs and I will have an enjoyable run from him bringing his lvl 21 guard into AC exp when we were 4 manning it to running headlong into a group of 4+ patrols it always keeps the dungeon fun and interesting.
PS. I believe he only died one time in our AC run and he stayed in melee range the whole time.

Can’t think of any amazing pug runs that stand out in memory but I have had a number of pugs who just laugh off any wipes or deaths and move on. Those count?

Landed in a PUG of 4 other elementalists in HotW, did p1 and p3 with no wipes and extremely quickly, before moving onto AC p1 and p3, SE p1 and p3 and CoE p1, all without wipes and at a fast speed. I’m not sure it counted as a pug, though, since by the time we got onto SE, we were on TS and getting to know each other

Just a few days ago, found a party for HotW p1, and then we did p3 as well and CoF p2
Everything went so smooth, no wipes, and hardly someone got downed

I walked into a Arah run where everyone was ragequitting at corrupted canals. Make it through easy with ‘DODGING’ and mistform. So a necro joins with 1k AP and I figuire he is noob he can’t make it. I laugh to myself and say no way this necro will make it. He makes it SOLO easily and I have no clue how where a 10k AP warrior with dungeon master title couldn’t.

So the run goes on come to find out he is using power/crit dmg wells necro and

Long story short, AP mean little and I shouldn’t have judged him.

I always do PUG on AC, HoTW and CoF – HoTW and CoF are usually good, AC is mostly a disaster. -_-

knives.6345:

I always do PUG on AC, HoTW and CoF – HoTW and CoF are usually good, AC is mostly a disaster. -_-

Lol and I thought I was the only person that had a hard time with noobs and AC. I’ve gotten so kitteny that I kick people that trigger oozes in path 1 when Hodgins finds the 2nd scepter. ( I draw on the map and tell people not to trigger them)

my best PUGs have been in COE all paths. I’ve gotten 2 that were able to kill destroyer in 1 go, and yesterday I got a 50 min all paths run.

AC PUGs have been terrible in my experience as well. I tend to get morons who camp on the rubble and range down the gravelings after spider queen.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

knives.6345:

I always do PUG on AC, HoTW and CoF – HoTW and CoF are usually good, AC is mostly a disaster. -_-

Lol and I thought I was the only person that had a hard time with noobs and AC. I’ve gotten so kitteny that I kick people that trigger oozes in path 1 when Hodgins finds the 2nd scepter. ( I draw on the map and tell people not to trigger them)

Most pug doesn’t even look in maps.

QQ

I mean, I am more than willing to teach most of the time, but….

Best PUG I was ever in was for AC Story mode (I know, I know, but hear me out!). I needed a story dungeon for the daily. Joined into a PUG with one super-shiny Guardian with Twilight, a level 32 Warrior, a level 50-something Ele, a level 80 Mesmer and myself (level 80 Drakebow Ranger).

We melted through the dungeon in just over 10 minutes. We even killed Nente so fast that he bugged and didn’t drop loot (oops…) Nobody even got downed once. Everybody there said it was the smoothest run they’d ever had. Shame I never saw any of them again.

Had a fantastic TA up + fw/fw with a buddy and 3 randoms. 2 guardians, 2 warriors and 1 ele. Even though we weren’t very synchronised or anything, we did so much damage that the mobs (and bosses!) just melted away. It was supposed to be just a quick p1 run, but party was so happy with one another that we did fw/fw for the heck of it.
Doing one more path is always a sign of a good PUG.

Best PUG was in arah p1,2. After i lv up my mesmer to 80 full zerk i decided to do some arah for a zerk sword,joined a decent party 1 wa 1 thief 1 guard 1 engi AP between 4k-6k, I have 10k. We got to lupi and it was my first time melee with mes and me and the wa duo phase 2,3 on both pathes. Added the wa to friends list, now duo lupi in 7 min