Pugalicious

In the world of guild runs and a fear of strangers that might wear a little piece of blue gear, or God forbid a greenie, pugs are looked upon as dirt by many players I know. The other day my guild did a quick Ulduar 10 run, letting the members that hadn’t gotten themselves saved a shot at the new place. As no guild main tanks were online at that moment, we just grabbed a pug tank. Didn’t stress that much really. It didn’t take us long to find out that Mr. Tankie-tank was lacking a bit of skills tho, so I laughed a bit and whispered an other friend of me, to make a little fun. Apparently, he didn’t see the humour. “Your guild needs to use pugs now?” was the instant answer. And there the joke died, and I realized again how people look down at raiding with people you can’t giggle in guild chat with.

I, personally, was a pretty shit player in TBC. Or, maybe not a shitty one, I just wasn’t the most dedicated. So when I realized I could pug Karazhan, I was in heaven. When a lot of people just about spat on the “LFM Kara” posts in trade chat, I giggled and said “gimme some of that, sugar”. Allright, all the groups were not the best in setup and such. And okay, I’m not saying we downed the whole place everytime we went. But damn, I’ve had so much fun with pug raiding. When you’re not raiding in a guild, trying to get your dkp and keeping your spot, you let your shoulders sink down a tiny bit. And it feels great. However, I love raiding with my guild. They are the best of people, no matter how odd they might be at times.

A few days ago I even joined a Naxxramas 10 pug, just for cake and giggles. Seeing as I’m starting to gather up some Ulduar shinies, there were really no reward in it for me. For some crazy reason my raid chose to do Construct Quarter first. After pewpewing down Patchwerk, images of our dead and torn bodies hit my imagination. Oh shit, something told me. This is the wing of Gluth and Thaddius. The pug killers. The annoying dog and the retarded electro man. Oh. Shit. We were doomed. I let out a little worried joke about our foreseen murders in raid chat, and realized I wasn’t the only one thinking about it. However, after my just-about-medium skills in explaining tacts, we actually managed to get ourselves to Thad. I bit my nails, laughed at the nervous newbies and jumped into the fight. And you know what. We bloody lived. It was surreal, it was unexpected, and it was just fantastic.

I think that’s one of the things I love about pugging. I’m not gonna do the old Forrest Gump quoting, but you never really know what you’re gonna get. Want to feel powerful and all-knowling a little while? Join a pug. Want to see your dps/healing/tanking skills look superior to the rest? Join a pug! Get your stuck up little ass out of your guild for a while and meet the kids gearing up, or the newbies of Azeroth. They’re so damned much fun. Promiz.