I’ve decided that I don’t really enjoy tanking in random dungeons. Between the gogogo raid geared nutters who will die of an aneurysm if the run takes even a minute longer than necessary and the sub-900 dps death knights (sorry, death knights, I know you aren’t all like that), it’s just a little too …. random. Yes, the vast majority of groups are perfectly fine but it hits me harder when I’m tanking if they aren’t.
But if I take at least one guildie along, the chances of my group being fine increase astronomically (or at least I’ll have moral support if I do decide I want to boot someone). So my standard procedure now on Spinks is to log in and immediately ask on guild chat if anyone is interested in coming along to a heroic as moral support.
It improves my enjoyment of the new tool hugely, it’s great for them because they get a fast instance also, and probably good for the rest of the group too. Guilds aren’t going to die.
(I have also decided that I don’t really mind if the group gets bouncy and people pull extra adds as long as they’re putting out enough damage to deal with it. Once I adjusted, it’s actually quite fun. I just won’t encourage it deliberately.)
Welcome to Spinksville! 
Yup.
Basicaly I’ve noticed if you take a guild tank and either a healer or decent (knows how to not pull aggro and a basic rotation, they dont have to be a rockstar DPS meter topping raider) then a)You get groups insta fast and b)the entire affair is much more fun.
Oh and c) If it does come to kicking someone then chatting about it on vent/ts first with guildies can ease the social guilt if you happen to feel any
I actually had that in mind today. We had the 800 dps death knight in group and it did make it much easier for me to kick him out after chatting it over with a friend in the same group. (It was the right decision for that group, I don’t think we’d really had enough dps to carry him through even if we’d wanted to.)
It’s an awesome tool for exactly what you are describing. The dungeon finder also perfect for keeping a guild cohesive and allowing people to keep running Heroics and Dungeons they need without blaming the guild for not having an overabundance of tanks and healers.
In the end, the guild will have higher average gear which means overcoming more content which means more satisfaction with the guild, which means the guild is strengthened. It’s a win-win all around.
And what is more important to remember, that you can run randoms with a whole party: for example in our guild there are some players who have stated that they will never PUG, so they can gather up a guild party and go for the random dungeons with same benefits as with totally random one.
So it may even strengthen the guild relationships if used this way.
C out
Pretty much matches my experience. I find much more enjoyment in random groups when I heal or DPS. As tank however I get too much stress from the go-go-go raiders who want to be in and out in 10 minutes tops. On Kadomi I will only do 50% guild groups to have my fun.
My guild tends to (when we’re not raiding) do one or two of the new ICC instances, then just go Random for two or three instances.
I wonder how the chips will fall once the shine wears off.
I can see the days of tank shortage for pugs returning in force.
It is already happening in my Battlegroup, the only tanks I seem to get paired with now seem to be freshly dinged 80s. Good news is most of them seemed to be just fine so far.
My level 67 warlock is having much more trouble, for some reason the random only ever selects Crypts and DK tanks named Deathburger.
Good idea Spinks, I’m going to try it because I’ve had a lot of very bad pugs lately.
yeah, “trust” isn’t something you can automate or shortcut. Great post Spinks.
Its also a great way to boost newbie guildies.
Get a decent tank, healer bolt bolt in the newbie (or if its a tank or healer take a uber healer/tank) and then go pound heroics for an afternoon. A few hundred badges later and its alllllllll good.
As a resto druid, I feel the same way, so I always try take at least one guildmate with me.
I raid/run instances only about once a week, formerly only with guildies, who run far more often. The best thing about the new system is that I can just grab one or two guildies and not have to go through the “what instance do you want to run?” conversation that invariably ends with the same damn one or two. I was always hesitant to suggest one i hadn’t done because likely nobody would be familiar with it, or someone hated it.
No more “oh i hate that one, i ran it 30 times in a row last year trying to get gear”, or “let’s just run VH again cuz it’s close & quick”.
I really like the random teleport to “somewhere”. i got to run a new one last night. win win.
Can’t argue with you here – I thought on the first day that I’d be really excited to queue as a tank and have no downtime. Too many people are wanting to rush through everything – and I certainly have no problem moving quickly…but when a DPS warrior wants to pull everything because he was 1 step ahead of me to the next pack of mobs I start getting annoyed.
We’ve done groups with 2-4 guildies and things are much easier to deal with. At least when a guild member pulls something ahead of the tank it doesn’t bother me, since they’re smart enough to know if they need to LoS a group, or they’re just being helpful by dragging a pat back into the group we’re currently AOEing down to save a few seconds.
I think if anything having access to the dungeon system should make it easier on guilds, as people don’t feel that they need to find four guild members to go do something with them all the time. This should help ease frustrating some players may have with their guild not being “helpful” because they won’t drop everything to run them through a heroic.
I do like the new LFG feature in WoW but I’m starting to get concerned that it may be having a negative effect on guilds. Trying to get a guild group for a heroic has become harder now that there are less guildies in the available pool for a guild group.
In another month it will be interesting to see how the ramifications of the LFG feature pan out.
I’m very curious to see how it plays out myself. At the moment, playing WoW feels like being on a permanent sugar rush – wonder if people will start burning out.
Most of my randoms are done with guild members, or with the odd pug. Far more enjoyable, you know what you’re getting, no ‘go go gos’, no people waiting for everyone else to select ‘disenchant’ on the epic item first and then selecting ‘need’ and then leaving the party immediately…
Think our guild is stronger than ever since the patch, new 80s soon in T9 gear for starters!