PuGs – so cute, so painful

The changes with patch 3.3 to the LFG system have had, in my opinion, one of the strongest impacts on World of Warcraft as most players know it. Not only is it a lot easier to group, but you can chain run instances/heroics all day. It's easy to farm badges, get gear, and either complete instances quickly, or wipe your way through them.

The nice thing about this is that it works for all levels of characters. Not only do you get experience for grouping, but you get an item in your Satchel of Helpful Goods. The downside is you either have really experienced / knowledgeable players or you have people who just do not know how to group, or behave decently in that type of scenario. All of these things factor in with the wonderful ancient places most people haven't seen in at least a year or better, unless you've been experimenting with recruit a friend.

For the experienced (and geared) mains, this can be intimidating. Addons, such as gearscore, are commonplace to see how well geared people are. This method of evaluation has never been a true test of skill. It's right there with the "link your achievement" mentality. I've gotten groups where the tank charges off, leaves the healer and promptly gets killed- all this for asking for mana, after chain pulling the first 5 areas and groups of mobs (not to mention, letting some mob beat on me a bit). You find great people to group with too. They are quiet, competent, and efficient. They really don't "need" anything other than a badge/money/mat run. Occasionally you get the azzhat in the group- all I can say is thank god for ignore. I give it a few attempts at being social – and if people are just rude/belligerent, I bail. That's complete honesty there. I just leave- it's not worth an argument with some pixels of a person I don't know and seriously doubt I will run with ever again. I've learned as I have become quite the "PUG" person, that with pugs come a bit less responsibility. I feel bad if I let you die, but hey, at least it's not coming out of my guildmate's pocket for the repair bill.

The pet- completely worth it for me, and I'll probably work on this achievement on my priest (as I start running heroics to gear her). I will work my way through learning to heal on a priest again, and probably go ahead and get a DPS dual spec for versatility.