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:

Josh had his leadership role in WoW pop into his mind during a job interview, and he channeled that into an interesting little article about how to convert WoW roles into the roles people play around the office. I think he's really got something here-- stay tuned for how you can buy a ticket to his "Management, Azeroth-style" seminar, which will teach you and your staff how to tackle even the hardest raid bosses projects.

We've heard quite a few times before that WoW can help you on the job, but I don't know that I've ever seen the roles detailed so clearly. Josh says the Main Tank is the outside communications person for the project, and fends off managers and other departments to make sure members can get their jobs done. The Main Healer keeps motivation up rather than hit points, and make sure everyone stays on task and working. And the DPS are the meat of the project, doing the day-to-day damage to accomplish objectives. The idea works pretty darn well, actually-- at least until your project manager starts taunting the CEO and your senior producer stays up late one night and catches aggro. But definitely an interesting read if you've ever been given the task of running a team of people, in or out of game.

This week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.

The Digital Continuum: Comparing core concepts of WAR and WoW
Can Warhammer Online avoid the same design pitfalls that World of Warcraft has fallen into? Find out in Kyle Horner's Digital Continuum column.


The stormy courtship of Blizzard/Activision
The Wall Street Journal unearthed the proxy statements behind the Activision/Blizzard deal to reveal who came out ahead in the merger. And it may not be who you think.


Rumor: New Blizzard MMO to be Starcraft Online?
More rumors surface about Blizzard's next MMO. This time, word comes from a Chinese newspaper that states the name of Blizzard's Asian partner for Starcraft Online.

Today was an interesting day for me in the game.

First off, I respecced to protection and tanked a Mechanar run just to help out a dude advertising in general. I didn't know him, don't know him now (don't even remember his character's name) and when I saw the group makeup - rogue, paladin, enhancement shaman, feral druid and myself - I cringed for a moment about the lack of CC and then I figured, what the heck and flew to Tempest Keep.

Quite frankly, the run went nearly flawlessly. We had one wipe on Pathaleon and that was it. I tanked, the paladin healer marked the pulls, the rogue sapped the mobs that he could, and otherwise we just dealt with it. I held aggro, we didn't die, I got a new toy to tide me over until Despair or Gorehowl finally drop or Season 3 comes out, whichever comes first. Buoyed from this experience (it was really fun to tank for complete strangers without the usual CC and just hold aggro the old fashioned way) I then went about my day.

Later, my guildmates asked me if I wanted to come along to SV. We ended up in a group with two warriors (myself, respecced back to arms/fury, and a tank), a rogue, a feral druid and a priest. One CC again, and no ranged DPS at all, just melee. This run went even better, so much so that we went back and did it again just to get some folks to revered before the patch hits. You'd think having a tank and three melee DPS on Thespia might be problematic, but it wasn't. People just ran out of the AoE without even being told.

This got me to thinking about unconventional groups. Often, people resist doing a run unless they have exactly the 'right' makeup, but I've done all of Shadow Labs witth a group consisting of a warrior tank (me) a warrior DPSing, a rogue DPSing and CCing, a priest DPSing and a feral druid healing and we did fine. Or the infamous Shattered Halls run with a warrior tanking, paladin offtanking, warrior DPSing, another paladin DPSing and a paladin healing. We called it the plate run, and no, no plate dropped.

Now, I've also done runs like these and wiped. The 'all-shaman Ramps' run did not work at all. And let us never speak again of the shaman, hunter, rogue, rogue, rogue attempt at the Botanica.

Have you ever thrown caution to the winds, ignored the common wisdom on class balance, and run a dungeon with a group of unusual composition?

The PUG has been a subject of several discussions lately, on WoW Insider and elsewhere. Today WoWGrrl wrote about how PUGs might be used to help out your guild. I can hear you, gentle reader, exclaim from the other side of the blog, but I am in a guild so that I don't have to run PUGs, so that I will always have people to group with. Yes, I know, but hear me out.

WoWGrrl explains that PUGs are an excellent way to add new guild members to your roster, since for the most part they consist of people who have never grouped before running an instance together. I know from personal experience that much of my guild recruitment in the early days was based in PUGs: a few of us would run an instance, find a player with a great sense of humor who knew their class well, and we would invite them to join us. If we were charming enough as a group, proved we could work together, then every great once in a while that person deigned to join our guild.

Once you're in the guild, however, the tendency is to try to get guild-only runs. After all, you joined the guild for support, right? Only a guild is made up of people of varying levels and interests, and while sometimes guild runs will fall magically into place, more times than not you're left feeling like guild chat is your own worst version of the LFG. This is where the PUG comes in. Where the guild might only be on at certain times, looking to work on specific tasks, a PUG is more consistently available. I say this because mathematically, there are more people who are out of your guild than people in your guild.

Reading WoWGrrl's discussion has reminded me that PUGs can be useful tools even when you are in a guild. Heck, they even strengthen the guild itself when done consistently. I think I'll log in and start a recruiting PUG of my own.

A little while back, we got an email from one of our readers named Sam asking about why WoW players are so guild-oriented when it comes to raiding and grouping, whereas his friend who plays FFXI switches groups depending on days, or sometimes even times of the day. Now, having come from EQ, and spending time in many other MMOs, I can honestly say that WoW isn't terribly unique in that many people tend to stay loyal to their core group. In City of Heroes, I was very much involved with my SuperGroup, and still stay in touch with some of the folks I got to know there. (The ones who didn't come to WoW anyway...) In EVE, double-crossing your Corp can get you in deep trouble.

That said, I don't know that I totally agree with Sam. Having spent time in EQ, you did not generally go outside of your guild at any time for raiding, unless you were looking to join another -- or get punted from your current one if they caught wind of it. In WoW, I've seen guild alliances and even open-to-all alt runs posted on the forums featuring members from many established guilds. But I know that there have been days when I dreaded another PUG due to horrendous tactics and playing. Bad PUGs are the fastest way to get me turn to only running with my guild for a little while.

On the other hand, I know many small guilds don't necessarily like folks running with other guilds because they are concerned that their members are going to be poached by larger guilds. But for every single one of these types of insular guilds, there is another that is part of a raiding alliance, with their members mingling freely with other guilds.

What do you think? Do you, like Sam, wonder why people are so utterly devoted to playing and raiding with only their guild? Or do you also see the alt runs and PUGs and think that there's a nice balance in WoW of being able to play with your guild as well as with other people? Does your guild have a policy of "don't run with any other guild" or are you in one of the many different guilds that actually has a raiding and grouping alliance?

So, you have your consumables, you've donned your good gear, and you've got two hours until you need to log. Why aren't you in Shadow Labs?

Sure, there was that hunter who said he'd go but then his mom called. Your friend said maybe, if they decide not to do their guild's Kara run tonight. A Mage joined your group, and left wordlessly after two minutes. The joys of the PuG begin even before you've effectively made a "pick-up group".

There has been speculation about the difficulties of even acquiring a PuG, let alone working in one to the successful completion of a dungeon or 5-man quest. There are several guides to leading your PuG to victory, but sometimes, I think we'd all settle for engaging in one that doesn't turn into an all-out brawl.

To this effect, Kestrel recently posted Ten Commandments for Casual Groups, in which the ten most important rules for working as a team with unknown players, and leaving the experience feeling - dare we hope - pleasant, are explored.

The ten rules are not only basic etiquette, but also the ones that are quite commonly broken, and end up causing the most chaos. For the experienced player, these rules are nothing new, although a good brush-up is therapeutic (that's right, "Ninjabobfive", even Kestrel thinks you need to L2P!) It also makes a great gift for the n00b nearest you!

I would also like to draw attention to Ratshag's comment; most players are willing to forgive even the biggest blunder causing the longest corpse-run in history, as long as the player who transgressed fesses up immediately.