T4 and pugging: why are things worse?

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Etheri.5406" said:

> > @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > > @"Etheri.5406" said:

> > > A lot of mechanics should be ignored and outhealed by chrono / druid. It's simply part of the meta strat. It's the exact same as in raids and many mediocre pugs still don't grasp this.

> >

> > > If you join groups with high KP as support, ofcourse they'll expect you to give aegis / outheal certain mechanics. The DPS meta is literally all about skipping as much mechanics as possible to trivialize the encounter towards a DPS golem. Because in truth, doing this properly is both fast and quite easy.

> >

> > > Yet 100 li raid pugs will still say "omg u no dodge !!!!!!! i r better than u" and the moment you notice your chrono is incapable; you should dodge. But frankly, goodluck doing burst openers if you're not going to get quickness at the start and you gotta dodge the first mechanics too. Only massively drops your burst :)

> >

> > And yes, even in raids, if you don't dodge and die it's your mistake unless your group hasn't made clear what attacks will be dealt with (for example gorse slam). You're literally trash if you join a pug, doesn't notice that you have no aegis and just hang around for your tunnel vision dps.

>

> I agree that not dodging when your group obviously won't supply aegis is still your fault. That said; there's limits to which I consider "just do the mechanic" and at which point i go alt F4. If i join random 150 li, I don't expect blocks. If I join 300+ li full clear; I expect the chronos and druids to actually do their jobs. Which includes providing aegis for various mechanics.

>

> All i'm saying is "QQ the meta players didnt' dodge QQ" is BS when it's META to ignore plenty of mechanics. No; not all of them. But many.

 

Yes and No.

 

If your group is competent enough, yes, you can ignore mechanics. If things go south or if your group is not good enough, then not adapting to the situation at hand is a sign of lacking experience.

 

Being good enough to know what is called for when is the sign of a truely experienced player. Being a decent rotation scrub who doesn't adapt to something going wrong is barely above players who fail at mechanics.

 

Expecting your supports to carry you but not being able to adapt to a situation and then blaming the support is usually a sign to me that said person needs to get carried in order to succeed.

[Aenaos.8160]

It's mainly because of Healer/Support builds.

A lot of players especially the ones that were not in the game before the reign of support ,simply cannot run fractals without it.

Check out the LFG listings.99% of the parties are asking for either a Druid or a Chrono ,and every time there's a wipe the first think that comes in

mind is not how to improve positioning and dodging attacks but that "we need a healer".

Simply put,players get carried by support classes so they don't really have to learn the mechanics of the fights.

[Voltekka.2375]

> @"Aenaos.8160" said:

> It's mainly because of Healer/Support builds.

> A lot of players especially the ones that were not in the game before the reign of support ,simply cannot run fractals without it.

> Check out the LFG listings.99% of the parties are asking for either a Druid or a Chrono ,and every time there's a wipe the first think that comes in

> mind is not how to improve positioning and dodging attacks but that "we need a healer".

> Simply put,players get carried by support classes so they don't really have to learn the mechanics of the fights.

 

This is so true. Bad players will get carried by support, good players will dps the kitten out of everything making support job waaaay easier.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> > @"Aenaos.8160" said:

> > It's mainly because of Healer/Support builds.

> > A lot of players especially the ones that were not in the game before the reign of support ,simply cannot run fractals without it.

> > Check out the LFG listings.99% of the parties are asking for either a Druid or a Chrono ,and every time there's a wipe the first think that comes in

> > mind is not how to improve positioning and dodging attacks but that "we need a healer".

> > Simply put,players get carried by support classes so they don't really have to learn the mechanics of the fights.

>

> This is so true. Bad players will get carried by support, good players will dps the kitten out of everything making support job waaaay easier.

 

This.

 

There is a reason why the top groups for CMs actually run 3 dps, 1 bs, 1 chrono (and no druid). Because those groups are good enough to not rely on a healer to carry them and speed up the encounter so much that the basic support from chrono is enough. No healer needed.

[Lalainnia.3598]

This is mostly players just knowing their class especially when no druid/chrono is present and using Pots. Like how thief eng power reaper have the ability to blind mobs for a healthy amount of time or a great deal of classes can swap out 1 to 2 utility for condi cleanse or mobility, taking a cc elite instead of a pure damage one and actually using it properly (Thieves). The list can go on and on but I really believe it comes down to knowing what a class can provide at the cost of its damage and staying alive even if its not a meta build every dps build is near a point where it's not a burden to take to fights especially fractals.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> > > @"Aenaos.8160" said:

> > > It's mainly because of Healer/Support builds.

> > > A lot of players especially the ones that were not in the game before the reign of support ,simply cannot run fractals without it.

> > > Check out the LFG listings.99% of the parties are asking for either a Druid or a Chrono ,and every time there's a wipe the first think that comes in

> > > mind is not how to improve positioning and dodging attacks but that "we need a healer".

> > > Simply put,players get carried by support classes so they don't really have to learn the mechanics of the fights.

> >

> > This is so true. Bad players will get carried by support, good players will dps the kitten out of everything making support job waaaay easier.

>

> This.

>

> There is a reason why the top groups for CMs actually run 3 dps, 1 bs, 1 chrono (and no druid). Because those groups are good enough to not rely on a healer to carry them and speed up the encounter so much that the basic support from chrono is enough. No healer needed.

 

Mmm. The overall notion is right, but I think 3-dps groups are better suited for static teams. In pugs they just don't work as well, because there's a high chance at least someone relies on heals, or heck, is used to having them. That doesn't necessarily make them bad players, although failing to adapt would be a strong indication. But the point is, it ends up being an unnecessary risk for a marginal advantage. I've yet to see a pug group do this properly and actually make the clear faster/easier.

[maxwelgm.4315]

Last night's Underground Facility pugs really made this thread shine in relevance to me. I was playing a Power Herald with a Chrono and Druid. We had like 9-10 people join and leave on the very first room without saying a word as soon as they died on the button even though Druid still tried running around to help them. Some of them didn't even step on buttons and still died off my screen somewhere. It was hilarious and luckily the druid+chrono were very chill about it and just kept re-recruiting party members until someone decided to stick around and work the Dredge mobs. I'm pretty sure people just flat out ignore "exp" nowadays in LFG (the ones that don't are probably doing their CMs, too bad I only have 1 ess so far though).

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> > > > @"Aenaos.8160" said:

> > > > It's mainly because of Healer/Support builds.

> > > > A lot of players especially the ones that were not in the game before the reign of support ,simply cannot run fractals without it.

> > > > Check out the LFG listings.99% of the parties are asking for either a Druid or a Chrono ,and every time there's a wipe the first think that comes in

> > > > mind is not how to improve positioning and dodging attacks but that "we need a healer".

> > > > Simply put,players get carried by support classes so they don't really have to learn the mechanics of the fights.

> > >

> > > This is so true. Bad players will get carried by support, good players will dps the kitten out of everything making support job waaaay easier.

> >

> > This.

> >

> > There is a reason why the top groups for CMs actually run 3 dps, 1 bs, 1 chrono (and no druid). Because those groups are good enough to not rely on a healer to carry them and speed up the encounter so much that the basic support from chrono is enough. No healer needed.

>

> Mmm. The overall notion is right, but I think 3-dps groups are better suited for static teams. In pugs they just don't work as well, because there's a high chance at least someone relies on heals, or heck, is used to having them. That doesn't necessarily make them bad players, although failing to adapt would be a strong indication. But the point is, it ends up being an unnecessary risk for a marginal advantage. I've yet to see a pug group do this properly and actually make the clear faster/easier.

 

Oh absolutely static groups. I just mentioned it since there was a discussion about player skill and how supports are meant to carry dps players is a sign of skill.

 

If you are at the peak level of skill, you don't need a healer, period. Thus expecting support and healers to cover your skill-less dps butt is not a sign of skill but rather lack thereof.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

One of the big reasons for T4s to feel difficult when PUGging is due to the majority of the GW2 player base skill level not being all that skilled/good, and the difficulty of T4s being designed more for the more skilled/competitive oriented players.

 

This isn’t a dig at the less skilled players, it is just an observation of the game and it’s playerbase.

[yLoon.5289]

Most PUG group overlook Mistlock Instability, that is why makes it so difficult.

There was once I was forced to be a Druid to full fill the so-called meta @ T4 Molten boss (which i think is totally unnecessary at all), for some reason, most of my teammate just instant down while killing adds. I got blamed, got cursed etc etc.

Then I found out, these idiots died to Last Laugh. One of them says "Your job to heal". I quitted that party instantly, formed a new one with 2 Chronos which I am very cool with, finished off t4 dailies in 20 mins.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Etheri.5406" said:

> A lot of mechanics should be ignored and outhealed by chrono / druid. It's simply part of the meta strat. It's the exact same as in raids and many mediocre pugs still don't grasp this.

 

This is so wrong on so many levels. How about just getting good so you don't need a healer and can replace the druid with another dps. You can even take a power Soulbeast for frost spirit now.

The proper way to deal with fractal bosses is to cc and kill/phase them during 1 breakbar. You shouldn't expect aegis for every attack. Usually the chrono just blocks big hits.

There are just 1-2 fractals where a healer is actually speeding things up. Mai trin because she is just a walking cancer abomination now and arguably volcanic. That can be done with lots of resistance aswell though but their pressure is pretty high.

The difference between heal druid and power soulbeast is up to 90k dps more during burst phases. Thats not just a slight difference. I've never seen a pug group being able to kill siax below 1min while its quite normal to do in a real meta group.

 

Even good raid groups try to avoid as much unnecessary damage as possible so they don't need more than one healer. Facetanking every mechanic doesn't really help.

 

But back to the problem. Relying on healers is the real problem. Most players and even meta players never bothered to learn mechanics because they outheal everything anyways. As soon as support is missing or just not good or the boss actually counters the stack and facetank strat it becomes messy really fast.

 

For example the chaos endboss. There is actually quite a good strategy when you don't have aegis/stability spam. If the player with boss aggro moves out of range before the 3rd chained attack he stops his chain. If the player moves back into range in time he starts a new chain without moving at all. Every other member can attack freely without dodging or getting dazed.

This was one the meta strats for that boss before chaos chrono and healer became a thing in fracs.

And a strategy like that, that doesn't rely on any heal/stabi spam, exists for most bosses. Exception is Mai Trin with just way too much stuff on the ground + ranged adds that makes it super annoying without a healer.

 

I'm pretty sure fractals including TO and Deepstone were still designed without a healer in mind. And they are pretty doable without one. Damage is telegraphed, fights are short. Healer is usually not needed for most of the fractals. Especially for recommendeds. What exactly is the role of the healer if a boss dies within 3secs?

[SnowHawk.3615]

once upon a time i remember pugs knows how to burst from a combo field. "What's a combo field?" a mastery lvl 121 asked me. I figured by then they would at least know what their skills do. sigh. I dropped out of fractals bc of it. and raids just intimidate me with pugs.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Etheri.5406" said:

> > A lot of mechanics should be ignored and outhealed by chrono / druid. It's simply part of the meta strat. It's the exact same as in raids and many mediocre pugs still don't grasp this.

>

> This is so wrong on so many levels. How about just getting good so you don't need a healer and can replace the druid with another dps. You can even take a power Soulbeast for frost spirit now.

> The proper way to deal with fractal bosses is to cc and kill/phase them during 1 breakbar. You shouldn't expect aegis for every attack. Usually the chrono just blocks big hits.

> There are just 1-2 fractals where a healer is actually speeding things up. Mai trin because she is just a walking cancer abomination now and arguably volcanic. That can be done with lots of resistance aswell though but their pressure is pretty high.

> The difference between heal druid and power soulbeast is up to 90k dps more during burst phases. Thats not just a slight difference. I've never seen a pug group being able to kill siax below 1min while its quite normal to do in a real meta group.

>

> Even good raid groups try to avoid as much unnecessary damage as possible so they don't need more than one healer. Facetanking every mechanic doesn't really help.

>

> But back to the problem. Relying on healers is the real problem. Most players and even meta players never bothered to learn mechanics because they outheal everything anyways. As soon as support is missing or just not good or the boss actually counters the stack and facetank strat it becomes messy really fast.

>

> For example the chaos endboss. There is actually quite a good strategy when you don't have aegis/stability spam. If the player with boss aggro moves out of range before the 3rd chained attack he stops his chain. If the player moves back into range in time he starts a new chain without moving at all. Every other member can attack freely without dodging or getting dazed.

> This was one the meta strats for that boss before chaos chrono and healer became a thing in fracs.

> And a strategy like that, that doesn't rely on any heal/stabi spam, exists for most bosses. Exception is Mai Trin with just way too much stuff on the ground + ranged adds that makes it super annoying without a healer.

>

> I'm pretty sure fractals including TO and Deepstone were still designed without a healer in mind. And they are pretty doable without one. Damage is telegraphed, fights are short. Healer is usually not needed for most of the fractals. Especially for recommendeds. What exactly is the role of the healer if a boss dies within 3secs?

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I fully expect aegis or stab on specific boss attacks so I don't have cancel or delay critical dps skills (MS, Glyph of Storms, etc). Of course, I don't expect to get shielded from everything. But I don't expect to have to take care of every mehcanic and every packet of incoming damage myself either. I won't go to E/A or A/A for CC unless I know I won't be able to dps post the breakbar anyway or I know I can accommodate that in my rotation without losing damage. I'll do my best to make the life of the supports easier, but I *will* prioritize my damage output.

[GWMO.4785]

Long story short: **be adoptive.**

 

Knowing the encounter and the instability is usually already enough to get your party through the instance. Regardless of the party composition. However there are players that dont know / ignore certain mechanics. This creates a problem one way or the other and can snowball really fast. Which is neither wrong or right as it depends on what the party does (not). Just because you run a meta build and probably know how to handle it, doesnt mean you're doing the right thing. Likewise doesnt give players a reason to run a fuckall build.

 

Given fractal encounters can vary a lot duo to all kind of reasons, its your job as a player to have an understanding about the entirety. And make possible changes accordingly to the situation. Which again depends on the encounter, the instabilities, you, your build, your skills as well as your party and their deal. Just because "Guild X" has pre-chewed a build for you because its best at/for doing "Y" doesnt mean you should and only stick to that and do what they tell you to. Those builds are designed and measured for doing something specific in situation "Z" of which you DO NOT meet. Unless you're an hardcore player in a pre-made party and everyone knows what is best at each moment. But given we are talking about pugs / pugging.. that is not the case.

 

So again. be adoptive. Better to play it secure then go risky. That 2 minute faster kill does not matter to you, given you play it with pugs. and thus do now know what you're dealing with. And if it does... then well... pugs is not the right place to look to achieve that.

[Voltekka.2375]

> @"GWMO.4785" said:

> Long story short: **be adoptive.**

>

> Knowing the encounter and the instability is usually already enough to get your party through the instance. Regardless of the party composition. However there are players that dont know / ignore certain mechanics. This creates a problem one way or the other and can snowball really fast. Which is neither wrong or right as it depends on what the party does (not). Just because you run a meta build and probably know how to handle it, doesnt mean you're doing the right thing. Likewise doesnt give players a reason to run a fuckall build.

>

> Given fractal encounters can vary a lot duo to all kind of reasons, its your job as a player to have an understanding about the entirety. And make possible changes accordingly to the situation. Which again depends on the encounter, the instabilities, you, your build, your skills as well as your party and their deal. Just because "Guild X" has pre-chewed a build for you because its best at/for doing "Y" doesnt mean you should and only stick to that and do what they tell you to. Those builds are designed and measured for doing something specific in situation "Z" of which you DO NOT meet. Unless you're an hardcore player in a pre-made party and everyone knows what is best at each moment. But given we are talking about pugs / pugging.. that is not the case.

>

> So again. be adoptive. Better to play it secure then go risky. That 2 minute faster kill does not matter to you, given you play it with pugs. and thus do now know what you're dealing with. And if it does... then well... pugs is not the right place to look to achieve that.

 

Lemme think about what you say for a moment, by doing today's Mai Trin. Our DD died 5 times, refused to use potions. Necro was running around like a headless chicken, reve plus 5th player were the only ones stacking to get heals and boons. How was i, the healer, supposed to play? Sure, I took protection spirit, double CC pets, pots+max food... But that is not the answer. Not by a longshot. Took us 25 mins to clear a T4, because of certain peoples' inability to adapt, to the very basic mechanics of the fractal. Why should everyone else adapt to the bad playstyle of others? Nah, I dont expect people to be always at 100% performance. But pull their own weight? They should.

[GWMO.4785]

> @"Voltekka.2375" said:

I never said you can outheal stupidity ;-) Also when i said "be adoptive" it counts for everyone. I'm sure that thief or/and that necro could have made adjustments themselves to sustain more (or git-gud). But hey each to their own i guess. Regardless sometimes its just better to leave and find yourself a different party. I mean there is a limit to how much or hard you can carry a party ^_^

[Slayer.3194]

Besides the skill factor, I think a lot of it has to do with the meta builds emerging in the game. Before raids, noone cared enough to come up with best possible traits/gear and practice it. These builds have raised the bar because older content is too easy with proper boons/healing...so newer fractals are a bit more challenging. Personally, I enjoy the hard content, but it does leave casual players who take breaks from the game and/or only play a couple of hrs behind.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

> @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> I have been doing T4 daily with pugs, throughout the years. Things were mostly fine, we did fractals without needing necessarily meta compositions or meta builds. The occasional wipe didnt bother anyone, really. Lately, however, I see a big difference in pugs. People who dont bother dodging, who dont use potions, who dont strafe to not get hit by the AoE, who just sit in the little agony AoEs and expect the druid or chrono to power them through everything, cause they "have to do dps, man, its your job to keep me alive". I have witnessed more wipes in the last 2 weeks than in the last 6 months. Do you have similar experiences, or is it just me?

 

It began happening around the same time that "raid meta subgroups" became a thing in fractals. Newer fractal players are beginning to get lazy and opt for time spent LFGing a good Druid/Chrono instead of time spent learning mechanics. Another problem with these glass cannon DPS raid builds is that if the Druid goes down, they all go down. In raids, the bosses have mechanics that 1 shot a party regardless of how glassy or tanky the builds are, which is why it is optimal to run glass cannon DPS in raids, but this is not true in fractals. People have forgotten about those builds that have 10%-15% less DPS than a meta build, but triple the self sustain. <- This right here is exactly what happened.

 

And I'm not referencing a comparison of play for the top 10% of elite fractal players now vs. a year ago, I'm talking about random PUG groups who are not capable of correctly using a meta team comp. These types of players are better off taking that 15% DPS cut for double or triple the sustain. That extra DPS potential counts for nothing if they are unable to survive.

 

[Vinceman.4572]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> People have forgotten about those builds that have 10%-15% less DPS than a meta build, but triple the self sustain. <- This right here is exactly what happened.

>

> And I'm not referencing a comparison of play for the top 10% of elite fractal players now vs. a year ago, I'm talking about random PUG groups who are not capable of correctly using a meta team comp. These types of players are better off taking that 15% DPS cut for double or triple the sustain. That extra DPS potential counts for nothing if they are unable to survive.

 

Even those people you are referring to have never run those builds you are describing here. These exceptions were very rare before as well and most often these players played wvw as their main game mode and came over to fractals from time to time. And at least they were predominantly competent. But, the huge majority of players was still running glass cannon dps builds before HoT.

It's definitely not the "meta thing", that existed since aeons. The split came from CMs as a daily routine which took a lot of competent players away from the T4 only pool. Since I'm leaving out CMs for a couple of weeks now and ask for T4s, mostly no specific role, the average dps threshold + skill level has sunk there. And it's not about 10-15%. It's way more + the overall inability to execute mechanics properly. T4s are a carry festival atm. - 2-3 players making the pace and you can be lucky if there's only 1 bad apple in your group.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > People have forgotten about those builds that have 10%-15% less DPS than a meta build, but triple the self sustain. <- This right here is exactly what happened.

> >

> > And I'm not referencing a comparison of play for the top 10% of elite fractal players now vs. a year ago, I'm talking about random PUG groups who are not capable of correctly using a meta team comp. These types of players are better off taking that 15% DPS cut for double or triple the sustain. That extra DPS potential counts for nothing if they are unable to survive.

>

> Even those people you are referring to have never run those builds you are describing here. These exceptions were very rare before as well and most often these players played wvw as their main game mode and came over to fractals from time to time. And at least they were predominantly competent. But, the huge majority of players was still running glass cannon dps builds before HoT.

>

> It's definitely not the "meta thing", that existed since aeons. **The split came from CMs as a daily routine which took a lot of competent players away from the T4 only pool.** Since I'm leaving out CMs for a couple of weeks now and ask for T4s, mostly no specific role, the average dps threshold + skill level has sunk there. And it's not about 10-15%. It's way more + the overall inability to execute mechanics properly. T4s are a carry festival atm. - 2-3 players making the pace and you can be lucky if there's only 1 bad apple in your group.

 

This.

 

Having good players move a tier up (and CMs are basically T5) automatically leaves the remaining players with a bigger fraction of bad or inexperienced players. T4 has basically become the new T3. Just not quite as extreme (since every monkey can get into T3 eventually, the agony resistance required is laughable) since ascended armor does require some dedication and unfortunately while dedication can affect ones willingness to learn, it does leave a big enough pool of incompetent people to make it noticeable.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > People have forgotten about those builds that have 10%-15% less DPS than a meta build, but triple the self sustain. <- This right here is exactly what happened.

> >

> > And I'm not referencing a comparison of play for the top 10% of elite fractal players now vs. a year ago, I'm talking about random PUG groups who are not capable of correctly using a meta team comp. These types of players are better off taking that 15% DPS cut for double or triple the sustain. That extra DPS potential counts for nothing if they are unable to survive.

>

> Even those people you are referring to have never run those builds you are describing here. These exceptions were very rare before as well and most often these players played wvw as their main game mode and came over to fractals from time to time. And at least they were predominantly competent. But, the huge majority of players was still running glass cannon dps builds before HoT.

> It's definitely not the "meta thing", that existed since aeons. The split came from CMs as a daily routine which took a lot of competent players away from the T4 only pool. Since I'm leaving out CMs for a couple of weeks now and ask for T4s, mostly no specific role, the average dps threshold + skill level has sunk there. And it's not about 10-15%. It's way more + the overall inability to execute mechanics properly. T4s are a carry festival atm. - 2-3 players making the pace and you can be lucky if there's only 1 bad apple in your group.

 

 

Yeah I hear that, but CMs are also becoming more difficult to PUG competent groups. I find that if I log in right at reset, I can CM easily. But if I log in at odd hours, it's too frustrating to form CM groups unless a few guys are online that I know.

 

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > > People have forgotten about those builds that have 10%-15% less DPS than a meta build, but triple the self sustain. <- This right here is exactly what happened.

> > >

> > > And I'm not referencing a comparison of play for the top 10% of elite fractal players now vs. a year ago, I'm talking about random PUG groups who are not capable of correctly using a meta team comp. These types of players are better off taking that 15% DPS cut for double or triple the sustain. That extra DPS potential counts for nothing if they are unable to survive.

> >

> > Even those people you are referring to have never run those builds you are describing here. These exceptions were very rare before as well and most often these players played wvw as their main game mode and came over to fractals from time to time. And at least they were predominantly competent. But, the huge majority of players was still running glass cannon dps builds before HoT.

> > It's definitely not the "meta thing", that existed since aeons. The split came from CMs as a daily routine which took a lot of competent players away from the T4 only pool. Since I'm leaving out CMs for a couple of weeks now and ask for T4s, mostly no specific role, the average dps threshold + skill level has sunk there. And it's not about 10-15%. It's way more + the overall inability to execute mechanics properly. T4s are a carry festival atm. - 2-3 players making the pace and you can be lucky if there's only 1 bad apple in your group.

>

>

> Yeah I hear that, but CMs are also becoming more difficult to PUG competent groups. I find that if I log in right at reset, I can CM easily. But if I log in at odd hours, it's too frustrating to form CM groups unless a few guys are online that I know.

>

 

Not my experience at all. I pug cm+t4 basically every day, with varying times (6-10 pm server time on week days, anywhere from ~10 am to ~ 10 pm on weekends). It is **very** rare to find a group actually struggling with something.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

> @"Slayer.3194" said:

> Besides the skill factor, I think a lot of it has to do with the meta builds emerging in the game. Before raids, noone cared enough to come up with best possible traits/gear and practice it. These builds have raised the bar because older content is too easy with proper boons/healing...so newer fractals are a bit more challenging. Personally, I enjoy the hard content, but it does leave casual players who take breaks from the game and/or only play a couple of hrs behind.

 

Actually players have always optimized builds that were considered meta since the start of the game as well as “optimizing” group composition, for PvE content ie Dungeons and then a very short time later Fractals.

 

Pepperidge Farms remembers Full Zerker War, Ele and Thief or Kick Dungeons at the games launch and then Meta Fractal builds/comps.

[Deeyra.1476]

I havent pugged in a while but when i did, the skill level was completely different than what it should be. People didnt know what to do or they thought they know more than me.

 

My solution is making a static, and be strict with the requirements. But let them be on the same skill level as you. If the gap is too big, someone will feel like he is doing all the work while others are slacking (Mostly the case in pugs). Once you find the right people and build some synergy, you will clear things in no time while having a good time.

 

 

[Aetatis.5418]

if the majority of you would stay polite, a tiny bit patient and **explain** rather than throwing out excuses and bullying people from the beginning (remember, you started somewhere aswell), the experience would differ a lot throughout the whole process.

there would be more people knowing what to do, more willing to try something, more experience, more fun

 

dont expect everybody to be as dedicated to the game as you may are. its a multiplayer, expecting everybody to study 4 weeks is boring, there is no natural learning curve, its frustrating and urgh for newer-ish players.

dont force people to run a super very specific build... suggest things in the direction of meta and explain why by saying more than "its best". also do it step by step.

also

 

having a bow-bear, a minion master, a turret engi can start by explaining shortly that e.g. stacking, using better pets/more suited weapons/less minions/less turrets and avoiding major mechanics is necessary to make the _insert pve instance_ work like a breeze.

 

and yes this is a little work, but a lot less work than you needed to get to that level of mastering cms in 3min.

and it should start at the very beginning. you are not doing cms once in a while and instead t4 with a friend? take an extra minute typing in what is vital for the next turn if you feel like it is necessary. less wipes, everybody wins.

 

the more of us doing just the above, the less work for everybody... the overall level/experience of players rises. winwin