Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we brace ourselves and enter LookingForGroup.

Fancy a bagful of badges and maybe a bit of loot too? Are the words "Anyone for Kara?" met with deathly silence in your guild? Do you despair you'll ever get that vial from Vashj?

Never fear, because PuGs are here to save the day. Instead of raiding with a group of guildies who are mostly competent, know the instance inside out and have a unified set of strategies, you too can spend an evening with random people from the LookingForGroup channel who think green is the new purple. Who's with me?

I'm sure at some point in time we've all seen epic looting nightmares. More than once I've been hoping for a drop in an instance only to have another party member beat me on a need roll. Usually, though it's something they actually do need, at least as much as I do. Sometimes ninja looting is even an accident, but other times it is not.

Avirisa of Mannoroth is a might miffed that she was outrolled for a Commendation of Kael'Thas ... to a Hunter... for PvP. As a tank, she said he was running the instance to acquire that drop. Most responded that this behavior is part of what gives Hunters a bad name in the game (Huntard). Some blamed the original poster for inviting not only a Hunter, but a Night Elf Hunter to the group.

The first social step anyone has in WoW is your Guild. We've talked about how it can form the core of your player experience, for good and bad. But, not everyone's lucky enough to have a Guild ready-to-go at everything you might want to do, and what's more, ready at a moment's notice. Many Guilds (rightly so) will expect each members to show some individual initiative, and maybe brave at least a few PUGs. Well, a pair of tools have popped up recently to help you get set up with people outside the limited scope of your Guild.

As a caveat: Both sites I'm presenting here are relatively new and untried. You're getting in on a ground floor, but we can't promise fame and fortune from them (yet).

Sometimes as tank, you're asked to be party leader in order to mark targets for CC, establish a kill order, and so on. One of the problems of this position is, at times, you're forced to use it to remove problem members of a party, especially when it's a pick up group. I don't do all that many PuG's for this and other reasons, but Monday I made an exception on my tauren warrior for an old friend who has just started playing again. She wanted to finally finish Black Morass for her (now unnecessary) Karazhan key, and I decided that completing content instead of skipping it warranted some help. Plus, like I said, she's a friend, and a good player. We formed up a group... myself as tank, her as hunter DPS, another old friend as priest healing, a warlock to help with both main and add DPS thanks to those wonderful DoTs, and a fury warrior to be main add killer.

Unfortunately, the fury warrior came with enough baggage to crush ten porters.

[1.Local] serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Improving the gaming process seemed to be top of mind for many readers this week. A number of threads saw a flurry of suggestions about ways players handle current game mechanics and wish lists for improvements they'd like to see in the future. We touched on Armorying PuGgers, retooling old content versus adding more mid-level content, the state of bleeding-edge guild membership and the sometimes weighty demands of being a tank. We chewed the fat over just how serious matters of WoW are to us ... and never one to shirk matters of fashion, we considered footwear options for WoW players and Hello Kitty fans alike.

Be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread (not this one!) and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.

We all know that PuGging instances can be a pain, especially finding a tank. Gelin, a tank onThe Forgotten Coast, says that she checks the armory before she invites. If you don't match her standards for armor, weapons, and spell stats, she will not invite you to a group. As a tank She feels empowered since tanks are rare, and dps is much easier to find.

If the original post had been more eloquent, people may have viewed it as insightful, it makes sense to be properly geared before asking for a group. As it stands, the responses have been primarily negative, along the lines that this is a bad attitude to have in the game. This thread is legendary because of Eyonix's response:

You have left over talent points.
You should not be so judgmental.

I wonder what it's like to be knocked off your high horse by the most aloof of the CM's. It must hurt, a wee bit. I've learned to generally check someone's gear out at the beginning of an instance, due to a poor experience with a hunter with empty armor slots. What do you look for in your PuG?

Edit: Original post text after the break.

I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear.

During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.

I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.

I like starmixx's idea from WoW LJ: whenever she's driven nuts by something in game, she just steps away and does some baking. To tell the truth, I've gotten pretty good at avoiding my ingame annoyances -- I don't really PuG all that much anymore, and I mostly avoid group quests (or just stay patient enough until someone I know can help me finish them). But sooner or later, we're all going to hit our heads up against something that happens in game, and then it's a good time to walk away and... do what?

I personally find that going for a walk helps me clear my head -- nothing reminds me that "this is just a game" more than actually going out in the real world for a while. But I like that starmixx's plan is so productive -- you get de-stressed and get to have cupcakes? That's pretty win.

What do you do when the game drives you nuts? Some of the folks in the LJ thread don't even leave the game -- they log an alt or just go fishing for a while. What's your plan when something in Azeroth makes you crazy?

Last week, WoW Insider saw a post by some guy about why tanks don't PuG.

This week, I'm writing a post exhorting you warriors out there to PuG. Run pick up groups as tanks, DPS, hey, if people really want you to run around trying to keep them up with bandages then go nuts. Why am I telling you this? Well, it fits into my current crazy plan to stave off WoW burnout. Playing a warrior can be a lot of fun, but it takes a certain mindset to do it and frankly, if all you're doing is tanking raids and grinding on quests, you're in danger of falling into a rut. You don't even have to be tanking raids for this to happen... soloing your warrior in Dustwallow Marsh can be just as much an example of staying in your comfort zone. Do you make up excuses why you can't run Zul'Farrak just to grind away on quests in the deserts of Tanaris instead? Does the very idea of running Uldaman make you break out in a cold sweat? Then you should run Uldaman.

Like most classes in WoW, warriors at say level 12 running Ragefire Chasm or level 15 braving Deadmines are hardly the same as a level 70 warrior running Sunwell Plateau, but the path to the latter leads right through the former. You can read the forums, talk to other warriors, listen to long winded self appointed expert bloggers, or cruise the theorycrafting sites every waking moment, but as helpful as all these things can be you can learn more from doing than from all of them combined, if you pay attention and are willing to accept that you will screw up, groups will wipe, blame will be cast your way and sometimes it actually was your fault. If you can endure this and learn from it, you'll become a better tank or DPS. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that's why these various instances are there. BFD isn't just there to get you Strike of the Hydra, it's there so you can learn how things like aggro management, crowd control, and tanking actually work.

There's been a lot of talk about tank shortages, especially in pick up groups or PuG's. And at times it can be hard to understand why tanks are so reluctant to run in such groups. Luckily, Primula, a mage on Rexxar decides to help explain this all to us by starting an epic thread on the forums. Sadly, Primula's original post was deleted (by Primula), but forum poster Montar helps us understand by quoting it in his reply.

Apparently Prim was upset at the guild Steady Hand (a horde guild on Rexxar) because after a heroic Magister's Terrace run they called her a ninja for rolling on and winning an epic trinket that dropped off of Priestess Delrissa (who I always call Princess for some reason). Now, you may be thinking "Hey, Timbal's is pretty good for fire mages" but let me stop you. The trinket in question wasn't Timbal's. It was, rather, Commendation of Kael'thas.

To paraphrase one of my favorite films, that sound you hear is the sound of ultimate suffering. I made that sound when the rogue outrolled me on The Sun Eater on my tenth heroic Mech. There is a tank on Rexxar who makes that sound now. Anyway, Primula decided to post on the forums about how the tank was awful, in all blues, and therefore didn't deserve the trinket and she was going to use it for PvP. And thanks to quick witted responses, and a fast tipster, I got to read the thread and lose my mind this morning. Supposedly Primula took the trinket for PvP. Well, I hope you're done PuGging, because I can't imagine a druid, paladin or warrior who'll tank for you on that realm for fear of losing some other bit of tanky goodness to your PvP set.

Lauren of the Mystic Worlds Blog has a new post up called "Why we Solo in MMOs," offering her perspective on why, over many years and many MMOs, she has always tended to ignore the grouping game and instead go it alone. While I'm not against grouping at all -- I was very active in the 40 man raid game, and tend to run Heroics around once a week and Karazhans around 1.5 times a week across my 3 70s -- I've always felt that the solo game has a valid spot in MMORPGs, and I've often indulged in it myself. In fact, I'd bet that most WoW players do so on a regular basis these days, whether leveling up or doing their dailies.

She rattles off the usual list of reasons for going solo -- having a weird schedule, needing to take frequent "real life" breaks, not having enough time to go LFG for a dungeon, unwillingness to deal with the infamous horrible PuG group -- then takes it a step further. She believes that many people use these types of statements as excuses or defense against people who can't understand why they wish to solo in a multiplayer game, or actively flame them for it, and that the real reasons are a lot less complicated.

The biggest frustration in a MMORPG is probably getting ganked at most inopportune moments. The next biggest aggravation has got to be playing with pick-up-groups. Sometimes we get lucky in choosing random players to instance with, but we've all got horror stories of out worst experiences with PUGs.

Ihaveaplan of Altarac Mountains started a thread for players to list 200 things you don't want to hear from your DPS. The original poster's initial complaint was the Warlock who left the group because the tank was fighting multiple mobs. Some other gems from this thread include:

• Bizzerk of Laughing Skull, "Does anyone have damage meters?"
• Zazzi of Kirin Tor, "Do any of you have another weapon? My sword broke."
• Groxikor of Daggerspine, "I'm pretty good with bandages, can I heal?"
• Misada of Dark Iron, "Hey guys, can someone resummon me, had to hearth to repair my gear."
• Ovelita of Ner'zhul, "We don't need a healer. We have a shadow priest."

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is the column for warriors. And apparently this week at least one warrior, ol Matthew Rossi, has a burr up his saddle and is going to rant about it. We try and let him have these little episodes from time to time so that when we point him at Tidewalker's crotch he obligingly whacks it with a sword.

It's interesting playing a warrior in these times. When people aren't demanding we tank their PuG for them, they're demanding we be nerfed in PvP because we dominate it. Except we don't. According to Blizzard's internal numbers, Warriors are under-represented in every single bracket except 2x2, and then only in ratings about 2200. In other words, there are less warriors in every single bracket of Arena play than one would expect by the number of warrior players save for the higest ranked level of the 2x2 arena game. In every single other possible arena combination at either 2200 or 1850 rating, warriors are far from dominant.

Once Patch 2.4 goes live, we will most likely be able to queue up for all of the major battlegrounds as premades. There will always be PUGs, since even the three battlegrounds that allow premade groups to play have them. Sideways of Korgath posted a thread on the official forums on the most annoying PUG player archetypes. The original list included:

• The Aloof - This guy appears to be guarding a flag or, but the chickens at the farm in AB are actually doing a better job. It's hard to say whether he's AFK, chatting in vent, or just didn't get enough sleep last night, but a guy caps the flag behind him and he doesn't even notice. If he's in gulch and the enemy flag carrier runs by, he just keeps on doing whatever it is he's doing as if nothing happened.
• The ADD - This type of player just can't live with less than continuous action. The concept of defending a flag is foreign and distasteful to him. Therefore if he is defending something and no enemies show up within 30 seconds, he moves on despite the fact that he is leaving the flag unguarded for a friendly neighborhood rogue to ninja.
• The Instance Mob - This type of player makes you swear aggro generation applied to players. He simply cannot understand why he hasn't been able to kill anything despite the fact that he put forth his best damage attacks against the protection specced shield wearing warrior that had 2 priests, a paladin, and a druid healing him. Much like I expect Rend Blackhand or Nefarian would, he attributes his ineffectiveness to inferior gear.

Dear PUG Members,

Recently you've asked me to group with you. This is cool, and I appreciate being wanted. It gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The same warm and fuzzy feeling you get after you've killed a million boars and are holding the Sword of a Thousand Truths. However, if you don't mind, could we go over a few dos and don'ts?

Here's what you should do:

• Do ask nicely if I have time to join your group.
• Do look to see if I'm using the LFG tool. If I'm not, I probably don't want to group.
• Do offer me at least 100 gold to run you through the Stockades. The two gold you're putting forth does not make up for the time it's going to take me to run you through.
• Do talk in English or some other real language. I'll even accept Klingon. Leet speak is not a language.
• Do ask if everyone is ready before MDing the boss to me.
• Do use Omen or KTM.
• Do use something more than auto-attack.

Here's what you should NOT do: