Guild Wars 2

So when I do play GW2 I generally try to do my T4 fractal daily because I enjoy them. Majority of my guild are on and off players so I find myself joining a pug for the majority of them. My experiences tend to be rather positive 90% of the time and end around half an hour. I’m generally okay with non-meta builds as long as they’re playing decently well and are providing something to the party. However, the other 10% tends to be rather frustrating, full of wipes and lasting well over an hour.

Today I was going to play on my berserker, but I noticed the group was 2 berserkers, 1 reaper, and a tempest. I decided to swap to my reaper to bounce conditions to make better use of our comp. One of berserkers said there’s no such thing as too many warriors, which I assumed was just a joke and even if it wasn’t, today’s daily was pretty easy.

First fractal was aquatic and things went smoothly till we got to the boss. The warriors were running spear guns so we got no might or cleave from them. Majority of the party was spread out so the a few small minions got past my epidemic because the boss spawns them faster than 17 secs. As soon as I got eaten it was a clown fiesta and party wiped as I watched from the inside of the jellyfish. I sighed irl, but todays dailys were easy and I didn’t want to wait for another group so I told them all to stay close so my epidemic would reach all the jelly fish. We barely finish it alive, but I stayed optimistic since they were willing to listen to my request.

2nd fractal was molten furnace which I consider the hardest fractal to mess up. I notice a few party members getting downed by the elemental burst attack, but figured that they just didn’t see the visuals. The mobs at the end of the tunnel also downed a half of them, but epidemic rekt’d them so we got through first try so I didn’t say anything. Once we got to the testing facility it was generally alright. A few players got low, but they all made an effort to dodge things. Only real criticism really is that the Ele never swapped to water and used her warhorn 4 or 5 on the people hurting.

3rd fractal was molten bosses which I assumed was going to be easy since we had 2 warriors to handle break bars and another Reaper to bounce conditions. The effigy wipes them around 30% hp left. I try to get a few of them back up, but they just went right back down. I manage to solo 20% off before going down myself as my wrist was starting to hurt from playing for so long. Fortunately it didn’t reset because the npcs were still alive and fighting so I was happy that there was only 10% left. I see it lifting it’s hands in the air so I look for the red circle and dodge out of it. I look at the party menu and notice all 4 of them were downed. I just solo’d the last 10% because it was clear to me this party was allergic to the dodge button. Finally made it to the boss, asked other necro which boss he wanted to epidemic. He told me w/e, which worried me because it’s very clear at this point that the group is just simply inexperienced. I decided to bounce the 2nd boss to just make things simple. We wipe at 10%, the breakbar was rarely broken and the Ele nearly instantly died every attempt. I figured 2nd attempt will be fine, the warriors just needed to break the bar a bit faster, Ele might just have lagged, the group could avoid just a bit better, and maybe pick up the Mistlock Singularity. Someone warps us in before we could even grab the Mistlock Singularity and we wipe harder. frustrated I just swap my elite to flesh golem and handle the break bar myself and the berserker barely dies from lingering conditions. It honestly would have ended less messy from my end, but my wrist had pretty done by the time we finished.

This frustrating experience made me question a few things that I’d like to ask the community.

1) Is it acceptable to just leave a PUG midway? I’m always hesitant to do this because I feel like I’m selfish in doing so. However, after 20 minutes on a single fractal I sort of feel like I just have to.

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.

3) Should I carry pugs through high end fractals when it’s clear majority of the party is getting carried?

4) Do I expect too much from randoms in T4 fractals? Correct equipment, Knowledge of encounters, knowledge of class?

t4 fractal… we cheese our way 4 MM & 1 druid(me) .. shut eyes.. pew pew .. hardcore! :P
nothing to winge or QQ after…

Talindra.4958:

t4 fractal… we cheese our way 4 MM & 1 druid(me) .. shut eyes.. pew pew .. hardcore! :P
nothing to winge or QQ after…

I get into those groups sometimes and majority of the time it really is smooth sailing. However, realistically I’m not getting into a pug like that everyday unless I make my own lfg or get lucky. Nor does this really answer any of my questions.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Finally made it to the boss, asked other necro which boss he wanted to epidemic. He told me w/e, which worried me because it’s very clear at this point that the group is just simply inexperienced.

That’s why I don’t use epidemic there with pugs. There is no need to communicate with another spell and this fight is more a survival race if people are not that experienced. The killing time isn’t very much faster with epidemic so another helpful utility skill instead of epidemic can be golden. Also, I’m using golem almost all of the time instead of Lich outside of raids. Golem is much more helpful with cc because there are less people knowing about cc effects if you are not in a raid squad.
I’m also fine to solo/duo the first boss if he’s at 1-30% hp because we all know that all team members are being revived after his death and killing the 2nd with 5 is a cakewalk afterwards. No one ever called out to reset or wipe in my runs so there hasn’t been anybody till today that was not pleased about soloing the last bits of hp.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

1) Is it acceptable to just leave a PUG midway? I’m always hesitant to do this because I feel like I’m selfish in doing so. However, after 20 minutes on a single fractal I sort of feel like I just have to.

It is because it is your choice with whom you want to play. I do this very rarely because even T4 fractals are faceroll, there is no need to give up and it’s ages ago since I’ve seen my groups failing and wiping over and over again. Most runs are smooth, fast, with some downs and very very few killed players.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.

I only do this if there are blatant mistakes or some players really not knowing what to do. A ps not throwing banners would be such a thing but almost all of the runs it’s not needed and the most important thing is: It annoys people as hell if they are experienced.
I’m at 170 mastery points with raid titles bla bla bla and it is absolutely a pain in the axx when players writing obvious crap in the chat. Yesterday a warr that didn’t use warhorn 4 for the group in all runs but tells us reapers to flesh worm at uncategorized. Same thing to tell mesmers to jump and port at cliffside. Holy moly, go do this on speed runs or at least stop being mad if your mes doesn’t set a portal. You’ll lose seconds to this and it’s still a pug run. Unfortunately for him he was from the same country as me and got some nice words back. /littlerant ^^

KickzNGigglez.4958:

3) Should I carry pugs through high end fractals when it’s clear majority of the party is getting carried?

Your own choice. Maybe depending on the effort/downs of the players before/behaviour of the group. I’d rather carry unexperienced friendly pugs and did so than ignorant, smart-alecky wannabes.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

4) Do I expect too much from randoms in T4 fractals? Correct equipment, Knowledge of encounters, knowledge of class?

In case of epidemic one of the bosses at molten duo? Yes. Because that’s absolutely more than you can expect from a pug. As I said I’m also not doing it because I’m lazy here and think that is not needed.
In case of correct equipment a.k.a. gear? Depends. I would be ok with a full healer or nomad players that rez others all the time or function as a meat shield for me.
In case of not having enough AR? Definitely not! I hate it to play with 4 or less players the whole time because someone was not able to learn the AR system after running dozens of fractals. We speak about T4 so everybody should know from T1-3 that usually AR is needed.
The rest, I don’t care. I play reaper now for a reason: It’s easy to pug and to carry bad players through critical situations. I like to have 1-2 more of them with me in my runs because then there is no need to worry about being successful. In the end I have to admit that I don’t run T4 fractals for the challenge (only sometimes), I run them daily because the rewards/time are in a good spot.

@Vinceman

Thanks for your responses. I suppose you’re right about the epidemic thing and handling breakbars myself. I might consider dipping if the rewards/time reaches a terrible point.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

1) Is it acceptable to just leave a PUG midway? I’m always hesitant to do this because I feel like I’m selfish in doing so. However, after 20 minutes on a single fractal I sort of feel like I just have to.

I used to feel bad about leaving, but if the group is helpless and you feel like there is no progress and you are wasting your time (and the group doesn’t try to adjust / respond to suggestions) then there’s no shame in leaving.

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.

If you think your criticism can contribute to the cause / players, then it’s up to you. There is a high possibility that you know some tricks that the rest of the group doesn’t or that you will help at least one player to improve, etc.
If you just failed a boss because of failing mechanics, and you know what was missing then I think its even necessary to give that criticism because it may lead to success (example: you failed Uncategorized Asura boss because there were no reflects, ask the two Necros in your team to take CPC).
You will encounter arguments because there are always players that are unable to accept criticism, but its a high risk high reward system ^^

3) Should I carry pugs through high end fractals when it’s clear majority of the party is getting carried?
If its an easy fractal (like Molten Furnace, there are not many barriers here) and you feel like you can then sure, but if its something like Chaos and you know for sure that the group has no chance at the last boss (and as in #1, you feel like the group cant be helped and doesn’t communicate enough) then I wouldn’t bother, because it’s long anyway.

4) Do I expect too much from randoms in T4 fractals? Correct equipment, Knowledge of encounters, knowledge of class?
Yes, yes you do, always prepare for the worst.

Answer in bold text above..

In general, it’s no accurate science, you kind of have to adjust yourself to every group. You can usually see hints about a player’s performance judging by his weapons choices, (visible) skill and trait choices, food and performance on the first encounters of the fractals..
I would still try to coordinate simple stuff like epidemics with every group, but some “harder” tricks like portals are indeed harder to pull of with pugs (and yeah as said above, always plan ahead as if you are the only one using CC).
Also, don’t immediately assume that if someone didn’t use one of the known “tricks”, he is bad. Some players just skip using those because they know it’s hard to pull off with some pugs (for example portal/stealth skips).

Good Luck!

KickzNGigglez.4958:

[…]

This frustrating experience made me question a few things that I’d like to ask the community.

1) Is it acceptable to just leave a PUG midway? I’m always hesitant to do this because I feel like I’m selfish in doing so. However, after 20 minutes on a single fractal I sort of feel like I just have to.

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.

3) Should I carry pugs through high end fractals when it’s clear majority of the party is getting carried?

4) Do I expect too much from randoms in T4 fractals? Correct equipment, Knowledge of encounters, knowledge of class?

1) There’s no instance to judge you on that besides your own conscience.
2) Hard to give advice on that. The obvious answer would be “yes of course, constructive criticism is always good”. But then again, we’re talking about an online game… chances that you meet people that think of themselves that they’re the greatest, best and all-knowing players in the game are likely and any advice / constructive criticism will be taken as a personal insult. You’ll have to judge for yourself if the people you’re playing with are likely to listen or if it will be better to just sigh and facepalm irl and keep the chat shut.
3) see answer to 1)
4) Probably. The only thing you can savely expect from 99% of the players is that they have enough AR. Anything else is totally random.
I know of some people from a guild I’ve been in some time ago, that made it to fotm lvl 100, though I can’t possibly imagine how besides they got carried hard.
For others, fotm t4 dailies consisted of doing old Swamp over and over again, with some molten duo mixed in, so they never really learned the other levels and now have a hard time to adapt (since they made it to T4 already and thus it seems to be totally forbidden to take a step back to T3 or even lower to practice what’s apparently new to them…).

tl;dr: Pugging always was, is and always will be totally random. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose. How you react to not so good PuGs is totally up to you.

1 yes ofcourse it is if your not having fun
2 no you shouldent becouse only 1 in 100 would listen and atleast 30% of the others would be mean back becouse they like all of us are gods at gaming’
3 if you want to carry sure do so.
4 dont think so some players are just not up to snuff or are having a bad day.

Talindra.4958:

t4 fractal… we cheese our way 4 MM & 1 druid(me) .. shut eyes.. pew pew .. hardcore! :P
nothing to winge or QQ after…

Condi meta OP! I’ve joined one posted by the same person a couple times (me on druid, they run reapers) and it’s always gone wonderfully. Come to think of it, I really should have added ’em..

As for the OP’s questions:

1) Is it acceptable to just leave a PUG midway? I’m always hesitant to do this because I feel like I’m selfish in doing so. However, after 20 minutes on a single fractal I sort of feel like I just have to.
Honestly if you’re not enjoying the run and it seems futile, or is taking longer than you’re comfortable with – leave. Lots of people do it. If it’s a silent group, there’s no shame in dropping out without a word. If they’ve been friendly or had a bit of banter going on I’ll at least try to leave on a positive note, something like ‘This is a bit too much for me, good luck guys’. Honestly even good players can have off days, and you never know if you’ll run into them again.

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.
If you feel like the group would benefit from your tips, don’t hesitate to share them. Try to do it as diplomatically as possible, and use a little humour if you can. That tends to put people more at ease than direct instructions. Their response (or lack thereof) often lets you know whether it’s worth sticking around or not.

3) Should I carry pugs through high end fractals when it’s clear majority of the party is getting carried?
For me, this is a matter of time vs reward. If I’d save time by dropping and looking for a more skilled and experienced group, that’s what I’ll do. If they’re all getting downed when the encounter is about 80% completed but I can solo in a reasonable time span I’ll just finish up for them. It does feel pretty good to ‘save the day’, at times.

4) Do I expect too much from randoms in T4 fractals? Correct equipment, Knowledge of encounters, knowledge of class?
Anything beyond adequate AR and a rudimentary knowledge of the encounter is expecting too much. There’s lots of people who are basically just winging it with any old build or testing out an alt they’ve recently geared up.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.

I’m a player with a much lower skill cap than the rest of the community. Maybe I can offer another perspective as the person usually receiving the constructive criticism.

The best friendships I’ve made in this game have started with other players trying to point something out I might not be seeing.

Please don’t hesitate if your intentions are to help your fellow player. However, it’s been my experience that those conversations are handled better in whispers. Among other reasons, I’ve been in groups where other party members have assumed I was defenseless and dismantled an entire run because that person needed to say their piece on elitist players telling others how to play the game.

For what it’s worth, I haven’t touched t4 fractals. I’m not a representative of that group of players. I exist well below that.

1) Is it acceptable to just leave a PUG midway? I’m always hesitant to do this because I feel like I’m selfish in doing so. However, after 20 minutes on a single fractal I sort of feel like I just have to.

You have no obligation to a pug group whatsoever. That’s the beauty of pugs; if you want to leave, leave and never hear from them again.

2) Should I give constructive criticism? I’m not a very social person. I’m afraid of confronting people and feel like if I pick at flaws I’d start an argument.

If someone is doing something that is blatantly wrong then I’d say you should let them know. Better to have someone politely point out your mistakes than rage at you.

3) Should I carry pugs through high end fractals when it’s clear majority of the party is getting carried?

Maybe I’m in the minority but I find it difficult to believe that one person could/would carry four other people through a t4 fractal outside of a guild group. It doesn’t seem worth the effort or frustration.

4) Do I expect too much from randoms in T4 fractals? Correct equipment, Knowledge of encounters, knowledge of class?[/quote]

I stick with t3 fractals so I don’t know if the standards miraculously increase but you never know with pugs. Keep your expectations low and you’ll never be disappointed.