Preferences when building a squad or joining one

I say "PM class" if I have slots that require a tank and healer. If those spots are already filled, I just take the first few PMs that don't link weapons or tell me they are R9. Often I take casters over a pile of sins because my casters have difficulty getting random squads moreso than my sin/BM. And honestly, squads like that are much more fun that APS squads anyway.

Jadsia - Lost City wrote: »

I ask again, what the hell directions does someone who knows how to play their class need in a fracking BH?

And yes from past experience I will continue to rant on frost babies. We had a GV2 BH party that decided to kill at the spawn point. Our BM had r9 but when we asked him to use HF (dragons) on the groups of mobs he asked us what that skill was and that he never learned it.

well your example is a bit related although he didn't actually have the skill (wow).
however, there are some cases when you want to ensure that your squadmates will follow a direction:

1) WS inca: we failed once and came really close 2 times just because of someone who kept aoeing the ladies despite us shouting. it was a bit of my fault too I should have expelled and the spirit phalanx that idiot.

2) oceania

3) healing bosses

4) AEU

generally the ideal player will have gear + skill + instance knowledge. it's very hard to judge the last two and in the end they can be substituted by your guidance given that the player is willing to learn (and not saying "HFing isn't the way I play")

My preference...friends.

that's it. People that don't take the game so seriously that it becomes work instead of fun.

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver wrote: »

well your example is a bit related although he didn't actually have the skill (wow).
however, there are some cases when you want to ensure that your squadmates will follow a direction:

1) WS inca: we failed once and came really close 2 times just because of someone who kept aoeing the ladies despite us shouting. it was a bit of my fault too I should have expelled and the spirit phalanx that idiot.

2) oceania

3) healing bosses

4) AEU

generally the ideal player will have gear + skill + instance knowledge. it's very hard to judge the last two and in the end they can be substituted by your guidance given that the player is willing to learn (and not saying "HFing isn't the way I play")

There's a learning curve to every instance. Some people are new to the runs and are concentrating on fighting the bosses and mobs as they are trying to keep themselves alive instead of reading squad chat. I'm guilty of doing that when I do things for the 1st time. It's always better to ask others we aren't familiar with in the party if they know what to do before we attempt to do it. And if someone is being stupid or lazy (I loathe those that go afk after the instance is started) there is a kick button for that.

I'm very patient with people who do things in-game for the 1st time. If they're anything like me they feel an enormous amount of pressure to not let the squad down due to their own ignorance yet there is also a great deal of confusion and uncertainty for them. And as a new person there it's really hard to keep up with the more experienced people in the run who blow through them for the 100th time while enduring the aforementioned issues new people face. I don't like to take my frustration on a single person in squad chat. I do that with PMs to see if we can rectify any issues or if I can offer helpful advice to them so they can do better. Most of the time these 1st timers get so frustrated they start to freak out and panic and I end up consoling them in PMs to make them feel better. We all did these for the 1st time and we all know it takes many runs to practice and develop and hone our techniques. It took me 2 weeks to get a good strategy that worked for me in the fire pavilion. I watched Desdi's Youtube videos a few times and even referred some of my friends to them to see how she did it.

Last night's run with the mediocre geared crowd was long and we died a lot. One of the members kept sending me apologies in a PM for the failed run and I had to tell him that our run did not fail. Nobody gave up and we completed it. Besides we can't really succeed to the best of our abilities if we do not learn how to learn from our failures. No, just because we died a lot does not mean we failed. Everyone learned to do their part incrementally throughout the run and it will help them to do better next time.

I've seen way too many good people I've known in-game for many years get excluded from squads because they lack the top of the line gears. I will always have more respect for players who invest in their char's skills and abilities long before I respect them for their gear. One is acquired through a lot of desire, dedication, time, hard work, patience, and commitment while the other is acquired with a credit card. When it comes to team survivability I know which type of player I would want.

Vinat - Sanctuary wrote: »

I understand and agree with the sentiment that there shouldn't be a gear req/check just to do a BH, but in the cases of the new weekly 100s I do feel it is necessary. You don't need the best of the best, but if you're wearing tt90 or un/poorly-refined tt99 or anything lower (and yes, I have seen lower than that on a great many 100+) you don't belong in the dungeon. I've seen too many squads wipe because the 1-2 clerics who should be sufficient die because they had to stop healing to res some moron who isn't charmed, has **** gear, and cannot stay alive through a single AoE. Most of the time it's the mages or sins.

You can insist all you want that people should learn/know/whatever by whenever, but fact of the matter is MOST players DON'T.

Keep in mind that I say this from a position of not the best but not the worst gear. I do also find it somewhat offensive when I'm asked to link my weps, but I've also made squads, and I've witnessed some epic fail in this game and some disasters in squads. And every single time it has been really easy to identify who was the problem and why.

I give everyone the benefit of doubt. So far I haven't been in any fail SoT or Abaddon squads. Most of the time our main issue with the instance is getting lost and a lot of confusion as to what to do in come cases but for the combat we do fine.

As I mentioned earlier I am less concerned with the type of weapon someone may use and more concerned if they can to do instance so that is what I would ask about instead. Lately I've seen more r9 geared folks get slaughtered than the lower ranked geared players. Any guesses as to why that is? My thoughts on that are included in my reply to one of Tweak's posts above.

By the way, I quit using charms. to me they are a waste of money. I use the auto pot and with HP and MP pots. Much cheaper due to the fact I can choose when and how to use it.

DemansPsy - Lost City wrote: »

When building a squad for an instance i normally ask people to link class and wep for 2 reasons. 1. to filter out people who can't follow basic directions. 2. To filter out people with HH99 wep or +2 or 3 weapons. I also tend to feel uneasy when people join with very low hp (i consider low hp for AA/LA/HA when its below 6k/7k/8k base)I know that might be a little high standard but it just doesn't feel right having people in squad that are weaker than my alts b:surrender I mean if i can get a main to 105 and 3 alts to lv 101/102 and gear them well, people should be able to gear up 1 main at least decently right X.X (I don't care what anyone says a lv 100+ AAclass should NOT have 4k hp, a LA class should NOT have 5k hp and a HA class should NOT have 6k hp).
/elitist

I can understand low HP if they legit just got to 100 and don't have much beyond tt90/tt99, but a lot of the ones I see with lower than 6k/7k/8k HP anymore are people that have been around for awhile and still actively play that char as their main. I don't get it. x.X

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

^ this. I don't expect people to get good/proper gear right away but damn...there are some people who have been around for ages and somehow their gear never changed. Even just by doing BH every day you can at least afford some upgrades b:shocked

Fashion or gambling addition b:chuckle

I have seen so many of these people around. >< Latest rare fashion in white/black/red but gears below TT99.

The worst example was a cleric I met. She had like TT90 and stuff, but a cloud stir and a 40m mount.. b:shocked

tweakz wrote: »

Was wondering if many other people will not invite people for the way they apply to get in squad.

I'll give just some examples of people I often filter out:

Someone I don't know that has been spamming "LFS" in world chat
Someone who pm's me "5.0" or links their Claw for Rebirth, Aba, or Sot
Veno w/herc for RB

On the other hand, there are times when what they pm is is to their favor:

When I'm an assassin making the squad and another one links me their weapon for RB
Cleric linking weapon

Finally some people won't join your squad for various reasons. Sometimes I won't because:

You SHOUT in wc for your squad (resemble a kindergartner w/ those big letters)
You don't state clear details of run (like all those "free lunar")
You ask for Barb when I know the only reason a Barb would be needed over me is if squad was mega fail.
You ask for Cleric when a good squad would be fine with Mystic.
You're being a greedy pig head asking for too much like both EoD's on 2x (often + gold drops too).

I know some people despise weapon check squads, but I actually feel better joining most. If everyone joined a BH 100 squad with a L80 weapon; we'd all suffer!

Personally, I'll take anyone and join anyone... I do not care what their gear is whatsoever... I'm just that damn good b:cool

Untamed_pain - Archosaur wrote: »

I know a lvl 100 cleric wearing mold 70 gear pants....

I have seen another cleric in tt70 gear at 100...

and the one cleric can't play one very well either...

That's pretty terrible. I'm not really much of a gear snob, but that's really pushing it past the acceptable limit imo. Even FC green gear, which could be bought from winning the cards in BH a single time,, would be better than that. If you are level 100, and FC green gear is probably better than what you are wearing, you are not in gear appropriate for your level.

As for me, when I did do BH100 (I don't anymore cuz I changed servers) I wasn't particular. If we had someone who could tank, and someone who could heal the tank. I would take whoever. Since I was on sporadically as well, I didn't have the luxury of a permasquad because nobody knew if/when I would be online. So it was pretty exclusively pickup groups. They usually went well. And there was no need for a weapon link. I did say pm me class and level quite often. It weeded out people who couldn't follow directions without getting the herpderps that only go with weapon link squads because they can't figure out how to do the instance with less than +10.

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

I used to form BH squads in world chat everyday, about 2 years ago.
I'd usually have a friend or two with me and we'd usually fill the necessary parts (tank/healer) so I'd ask something like "BH Seat LF 3, pm favourite food" just to see who actually whispers me what I asked.
Obviously I only took the people who actually whispered me their favourite food (in this example) while everyone else was rushing to pm me their class or things like "5.0 sin".

I've been doing this occasionally when I know I have a good tank and healer in squad already- granted I've been doing it less lately after having to go through 3-5 tele's before someone answers the actual question instead of pm'ing me class xD

For forming squads, I'm not picky at all. I take faction/friends first, then move onto world chat. As long as I have a tanky thing and a healy thing I'm good to go^^ though I normally try to avoid repeating classes, but there's no particular reason for that~

Joining squads...I pretty much refuse to join 'weapon link' squads- sometimes I'll pm them my class and still get an invite, if they ask for weapon link I'll just say "sorry" and find another squad xD Only do that to the ones that have been world chatting for awhile though...
I also tend to avoid the super picky squads that think you need very specific classes to do a bh- like the (annoyingly common) "lfm bm, sin, veno, barb for bh snake" which is an instance I know from experience needs none of those classes to be done easily xD

tweakz wrote: »

I wouldn't want to burden a cleric to keep reviving a scab that can't get through the first part of Abaddon even when fully buffed and IH stacked. I've also seen wipe after wipe at Puppet boss because of a certain few. Sometimes it's just intelligence they're lacking, but having fail equips compounds problems. While what you say may work in the sense that people will give up and quit squad so others can come in; to me it's just a waste of time, and a waste of the resources, and morale of the squad.

Maybe your server is different. Here you'll find oddities like people with full G12 PvE non refined/ non imbued gear and a tome, neck or belt worth 90m+. It seems obvious to me the game they're playing; at least on this server. (Heaven's Tear)

As I said I'm willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Some people are lower levels with TT 9x gears just trying to get their culti. Yeah, one can say they lack intelligence or may just be mooching off the squad's efforts but most of the time I find it's neither. It's just a lack of experience. Hopefully being a fail in instances like SoT and Abaddon may be an incentive for them to work on upgrading gears.

Last night I went on my 2nd full SoT run and that squad failed 5 times at Hellfire. The 6th time we killed it with my suggestion of how we killed it in my 1st run. I didn't offer my suggestion until the 6th attempt because many members of the party were throwing out ideas and trying different methods. That's what I wanted them to do. Learning from failures is just as important than learning from success. It's what builds experience and I think that's a good thing. We killed it even though some lived and some died. That's the way it goes but I believe with practice it won't be long until these people I was with get good enough to blow through SoT like it's nothing even with the g13 to g16 gears we had.

Everyone has their preferences in which type of squad they like. With experience and well geared players who blow through instances or those who don't care or are patient enough to deal with people who aren't experienced and have mediocre gears. Nobody is wrong with their choice on this because it is their own style of gameplay they are comfortable with that really matters. As I mentioned early on my problem with people in squads is that I loathe snobbery and elitism and I loathe players who try to get something for nothing (effort included) as fast as they can get it - frost babies. Those people who aren't willing to take the time to learn their class and earn their skills appropriate for their level are a serious burden of a group. Unfortunately we aren't able to detect these types until after we start an instance because they may be well geared (I've come across some who transfer gears from mains to alts with account stash). I do not want to squad with any level 100 BM that doesn't have HF or a level 100 EP that doesn't have BB.

I don't want idiots
That is all

tweakz wrote: »

Were you around in the first couple of years when venomancers had to be told repeatedly to amp (they'd do it one single time also)? They weren't frost babies: they were just lazy. It takes a single day to learn to play a class (not game environment) better than 60% of the players I encounter! Before frost babies venos didn't even have half their AoEs. Today you have to tell archers to barrage in RB, or stop pulling mobs backwards in Aba, or SoT, and those aren't new archers; they're 3+ years at 100+! The clerics chroma-spamming through instances aren't the Frost Babies! -They're ones I knew ~4 years ago. The problem really isn't frost: it's that there's simply more of the kinds of players that we both loathe than I think you're willing to admit.

Even though most sins are frost babies; we really shouldn't have to tell them how stupid it is for them to chase ranged mobs around in RB. I'm sure by the trend though they'll still be doing it 4 years from now simply because they're too lazy to put any thought into why.

People should start speaking up also. How many times do I see a Mystic drop befuddling creeper on a single boss when there's a veno, bm, and or barb in the squad? -That's a sign that they don't know other classes. -Other classes which are learned by Frost Babies! If everyone had frost baby alts we could be more critical of the real problem (lazy players).

A friend wanted me to roll an archer (which is what he is). I started pointing out to him all the shortcomings in the actions or in-actions of the other classes in the squad with us, then asked if he really wanted me to learn his class too. -Answer was no.

We have more the aps craze to blame. It seems like 99% of the great players in pve have left the game, and we're left with a bunch of closed minded derpapse heads. Some people think this game is still dominated by apsers in the sense that they do any better as such.

I've been around on this veno (my only char I use for actual gameplay) since this game was 2 weeks out of BETA. Yeah, they weren't frost babies back then because frost as we know it now or anything like it didn't exist. I solo'd everything up until I was level 54 when I joined my 1st squad. That style of gameplay was actually a 2 sided sword. On one hand I really learned to get as many of the skills I had available to me and my pet and use them with the best way I could. On the other hand I lacked any skills related to working as a team. I was completely ignorant on what skills other classes had as well. But like you said someone who is dedicated to making their char work can learn to what is necessary real quick. I don't think we can necessarily learn to play our class in a single day unless we can get all out skills in the same day. I think that we can learn to play our classes with new skills within an hour of getting them and greatly enhance the gameplay.

You're right calling it lazy. I think leveling from 1 to 10x in a week or less is lazy. Look at everything they are denying themselves within the game by doing that. I call those types the 'entitlement' class because they think others will gladly carry their water for them as they play so to speak and they want instant gratification for being level 100. Unless they're playing with very well geared people willing to drag them through every FB and instances for cultis and dumping tons of money into their game they won't have all the skills available to them and level appropriate gear at 10x in a week. Everything is accumulative as we progress through the game. I worked Morai dailies every day for 3 months to get those skills. With the new evolved nix skills, Ironwood, amp, extreme poison, and natural synergy my nix can 1 peck 55K off flying mobs .

Those who are too lazy to invest in their char's skills are short changing themselves. Until recently my gears weren't the best because I chose to invest heavily in getting my skills and I left the game for 8+ months 3 times with the 5 years I've been playing. I have every veno skill available maxed out except for sage parasitic nova. I have never seen another veno on my server use Arcane antimony or fossilized curse. My team in NW owns even the best geared players when I use just those 2 skills along with theirs.

I'm glad that PWI enhanced SoT and abaddon for the soul reason that I think it will weed out the lazy people or encourage them to gear and skill up if they want to participate in the runs. There's absolutely no excuse for anyone 100+ not to have more than 6K HP. I have 7.2K HP and I only have 10 points from level stats on vit. The rest of the HP and vit stats comes from my gear which has 1 +5 and the rest +3 (waiting for the next orb sale because I hate gambling with tishas).

I love how people come running to the forums QQ'ing about how hard SoT/Aba is now and how it's impossible to run on their old squads of 6 low geared unskilled toons. These are the lazy people you are describing. If I can run with a squad with most people using g13 to g15 gears and complete the instance then anyone could if they properly invested in their char's gear and skills.

I will insta-boot anyone from my squad running a 8x, 9x, or 10x instance who does not have at least lvl 79 or lower skills as easy as those are to get. A level 100+ EP that never learned the BB skill or the BM that doesn't know what the HF (dragon) skill is? Come on. GTFO.