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.

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.

Apparently you can't PuG Karazhan -- which is to say you can't successfully raid "KZ" with a Pick-Up-Group of random players -- but that doesn't stop Nyhm, who, in the spirit of Weird Al, brings us another of his own lip-synced machinima music videos about World of Warcraft-related acronyms (his first one was OP). He's picked up quite a bit of notoriety since his first music video, and he even has a commercial in this one.

He also uncovers the mystery of the secret origin of the draenei.

Previously on WoW Moviewatch...

I know -- you don't like PUGs. I don't like them either. But sometimes your guildmates and friends just aren't online and this is the only time you have to do an instance run. So sometimes, PUGs are a necessary evil. And while this thread hasn't quite made it to 500 suggestions (or even close) and it has the same trolls as every other thread, there's some good advice to be found there. The most insightful hint may come from Tseric, however, who recommends:

Clearly define targeting and kill order/progression. It can turn any rag tag band into a functional unit!

All I've got to say is functional units ftw.

Sometimes, bored players suggest crazy things. Yesterday's madness was a random pick-up-group expedition to Zul'Gurub; twenty bored players venturing into (mostly) uncharted territory for kicks and giggles. I joined simply to see what on earth this group would be capable of, in one of those "well, why not?" moments.

The problem with such a group is its very nature -- advertised on the LFG channel, it contained many players who had never been in Zul'Gurub (or even a 20-man raid) before, and who were generally unprepared. No soul shards, reagents, potions or bandages; these brave adventurers had but the (low-durability) clothes on their backs.

I'm sure we've all played in PUGs - that's "pick up groups," for the uninitiated - before.  When attacking dungeons or battlegrounds, you'll always end up grouped with people you don't know.  For me, the type of group I end up in makes all the difference between enjoying and not enjoying the game.  Unfortunately, though, bad pick up groups seem much more common than good - but even then, they're a necessary evil that you may just have to tolerate until you manage to complete whatever mutual objective brought you together in the first place.  So what do you do when you encounter an obstacle that you can't get past on your own?  Hit the local looking for group channel for a PUG?  Wait until you can get a group of friends together?  Or just wait until you're high enough level to do it on your own?