Successful Pugs and 5man Group Leadership

Before you start, this will probably contain a lot of basic information you already know, but I tried to word it so that anyone who is relatively new all the way up to 70 could take it and use part of it to get some successful pugs going – because they do exist and usually aren’t that hard to pull off.

Pugs suck. Period. A lot of people choose not to pug. They get in a guild and rely on guild members for parties and never pug. I think this is ideal, but I have many alts at various levels and tend to play a lot during off hours when not a lot of people are online. So I pug. My main is a priest and I did the unorthodox thing and leveled her as a holy priest 90% of the way to 60 and half the way to 70. I healed instances for a large amount of my experience and learned that proper leadership can turn a horrible pug into a successful run. Rule number one- Abuse isn’t tolerated. If someone is a jerk- drop them. Trust me- you don’t need them that badly.

I highly suggest starting and leading your own group. I know this isn’t always possible, but it allows you to be selective on what classes and levels are in the group. This can save you a lot of problems most pugs run into. Most pugs that go horribly wrong are 5 people with no leadership, just pulling groups and trying to survive while killing the mobs with almost no communication or direction. Just take the helm and start giving some instruction and you can turn things around pretty quick. It is a little easier to lead a group if you are a healer or some ranged dps simply because you are farther back and can see where everyone is and can make decisions on the fly without having to spin your camera around to assess the situation. Pre combat it makes little difference, but in combat (such as dealing with adds) it is a lot easier.

When starting your own group you should know a few basic things including the minimum and maximum levels suggested for an instance. If you go to wow-loot.com it will give you a lot of tools you can use as a group leader including the minimum and maximum suggested levels, what gear drops from what boss, and maps of the instances.

Did I say maximum level? Yes –but this is more just for informational purposes. If you have 4 people and 2 or 3 of them are a few levels higher than the max- you don’t need to fill that last slot- just go for it. Minimum level is a gray area- if you are all close to the minimum- then you have very little room to screw up and you all better have decent gear and know what you are doing. The trade off is you will get a lot more experience than if you have some higher level players in your group. I ran Deadmines at level 17 and got 90% of my exp for that level in one run because the highest level in our group was a level 18. If you have some higher people you can afford for someone a little lower to tag along if you wish, but the higher they are, the bigger drain on exp they are. It really depends on if your goal of the run is just gear or maximum experience gained. Most of the time it is gear and higher levels are more then welcome.

Ok ok – we know what levels we are looking for, but what classes should I look for?
Lets start by breaking in down in to 3 basic jobs you need someone to fill and what classes can possibly fill each job. The three basic jobs are a tank, a healer and damage or dps. The most cookie cutter group consists of 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 dps. A tank’s job is to hold aggro and can be filled by a warrior, a druid, a paladin and possibly a Shaman – but as I play alliance I have not had a lot of experience with shaman and I am not sure of their tanking abilities. Since they wear leather/mail then I do not think they would be tanking at higher levels, but perhaps they can tank or off tank in lower to mid levels. I honestly am basing this off of the fact that they can use a shield. I did hear something about them being able to tank casters b/c they have some spell dmg mitigation. The healer is responsible, obviously, for healing the group and that slot can be filled with a priest, a druid, a paladin, or a shaman ( I know they can do that). The damage roll is , again obvious – to do damage to the mobs until they die and this roll can be filled with a rogue, hunter, mage, warlock, priest, shaman, druid, warrior or paladin. Yes – I did just list all the classes. Each class can fill the damage slot to an extent if properly speced, but obviously some will do better than others. Other things to consider are what utilities each class can bring to the group. Some of the more commonly sought after abilities are crowd control, off tanking, off healing, buffs, and death management.
Here is a quick breakdown of each and some examples of who can do it-

Crowd control – This is taking a mob out of combat for a certain amount of time.

A Mage can sheep a target until you want to fight it.
A Rogue can sap a target before the fight starts and keep it out of combat for a set time period. They can also blind a target for a few seconds.
A warlock can fear certain mobs- but this can be very dangerous and is generally avoided in groups.
A warrior has a aoe fear, but should be used with as much if not more caution.
A druid can root and cyclone a target for short periods.
A hunter can trap a target up to 3 times, but once is usually all you will get unless the hunter knows how to chain trap. (They can actually go much more than 3 in some cases.)
A priest can mind control a target and actually use their abilities, but they can not use any of their own spells and so if they are healing this is not used most of the time. It also causes a huge amount of aggro and can result in the priest’s death. Priests can also aoe fear- see warning above.

Each of these have limits on what type of mobs, location, time lengths. The more you learn about each class the better leader you will be, but for now – just ask them what they feel comfortable doing- they will tell you if they can’t CC in your current setting.


Off tanking and off healing- This is the utility of tanking or healing as a secondary responsibility to assist the main tank or healer. An example would be a priest filling a damage roll, but healing when needed or a warrior filling a damage roll, but tanking a 2nd mob when needed. Mages cannot do either. All healing capable classes can off heal. Tanks, paladins and druids (possibly shaman) can off tank. Hunter’s pets can off tank as well, but this depends on their spec and how well they know their class. You don’t want a pet with 0 armor bonus to be tanking. Rogues can do what is called evasion tanking or stun locking a target for short periods of time –this is usually only used when you need a mob to be tanked for a couple of seconds – if your main tank gets feared for instance.

Buffs- Most classes have a move, spell or ability that helps the rest of the group in some way shape or form. This is just an added bonus and shouldn’t be a huge concern when doing a pug.

Death management – This is when you know a fight has gone bad and it’s a wipe- some classes can help make a wipe less painful. (really, they just keep you from having to run back and possibly clear mobs that have respawned in the instance.) Paladins can bubble a target letting them exit combat until the fight is over. If they do this to a player that can rez other players (like themselves) they can effectively bring the whole group back to life. A shaman can resurrect themselves and then others. A warlock can cast a soulstone on a player beforehand which allows them to resurrect. Again – when placed on a player that can rez other players, that player can then bring the whole party back. Each of these moves are on long cooldowns and can generally be used once or twice during a run. Some trinkets exist which help with this as well.

Basic over view up to this point – get 5 people of appropriate levels and make sure you have at least one tank, one priest and some damage. Now you are ready to start the run.

First, set some expectations so everyone knows how the run will be handled. You will mark each pull, the same player will pull each time and they will only pull when everyone is good on mana and health.


Mark your pulls and keep the marks the same- Tank and kill Skull first- Offtank X and sheep Star. Something like that, just keep it the same for the whole run so there is no confusion and you don’t have to talk before each pull. Once you pull a few times you will get a good feel for if this group is going to work or not. Try to pull back pretty far to help minimize the possibility of adds from running mobs or feared players.

Personally, I think a hunter should pull if he is in the group. Period. Rank one Arcane shot and hit escape twice to stop firing. Tank should be able to pick up mob with little effort.

As for the rest of the dps- They should not start doing damage to the mob until the tank has had a moment to set aggro. On adds this won’t take as long, but on bosses you should give him 10 seconds or so. If your tank is a warrior, wait for 3 or 4 sunders before starting damage.

As I said before, you should pull back, but ranged mobs will just sit there and cast spells until their mana is gone. This is when you should do a “line of site” pull or a Los pull. This is where someone hits the mob and runs to a spot where the mob can’t see them and thus can’t cast spells at them. Again, I suggest a hunter or anyone OTHER than the tank and here is why:

If you have hunter/rogue/any other player do light damage to the caster and run away, the mob will chase them as soon as they leave the mobs range or the mob looses line of site. Put the tank in between and the mob will run right up to the tank so all they have to do is taunt it, sunder it, hit it with their sword and they should be able to set aggro from that point and the mob is now in a safe spot.


You can handle loot how you wish, but I suggest a greed on all, need on anything you will use system. If anyone needs on something they cannot use they are a ninja and will be removed and replaced. If you have someone who can disenchant they get all un needed boss drops to disenchant and the group rolls for the shard. You are allowed one or two minor mistakes when it comes to loot, but if you continually make mistakes on loot you will be removed. Accidentally needing on a green is considered minor- needing on a blue is not. You may not need if you want to use it for your alt. We all have alts – if you don’t win the item you can offer to trade or buy the item from the winner via a whisper. Tailor this to how you see fit.

On bosses, take a little time before you start a run to review each boss and what moves he has along with some strategy to kill him. Then before the boss ask “has everyone done this before?” and then explain the fight anyway. Don’t release if you die in a boss fight and loot the body as soon as he dies. There are some bosses that have adds after the the fight and the last thing you want is to kill the boss and die from the adds without looting the body.

You are usually allowed quite a few wipes before a group gives up, but if you get 3 or 4 on the same pull or boss it is usually time to either call it or replace some members of the party.

That’s it. Nothing very complicated – you just have to do it. The biggest reason pugs fail is all 5 members are afraid to lead for fear they will fail as a leader and get yelled at – or they just don’t feel they know enough to lead. I think I have included all you need to know to at least get started – so go for it and if you fail – so what, we all make mistakes. You learn and move forward. Don’t make the same mistakes next time and before long you will be leading like a pro.

Thanks to Heartwood on Vek’nilash for proofing and suggesting a bit on ranged dps and pulls.