Standard practice for me: do something new with pugs first and then with guild. I have no problem looking like an idiot in front of strangers, most of them not even from my server but I do have an issue about letting friends down.
I refuse to watch youtube videos about fights, much more fun learning it as I go along. PVE is such a dancefest anyways, I enjoy learning on the fly.
Dancefest: "step here, step there, use this ability here". I always have a quiet chuckle when people use terms like "boss tactics" or "boss strat" when it clearly is nothing of the sort. They should say "boss dance/sequence/script" rather. Boss fights become a test of muscle memory.
There is nothing tactical or strategic in boss fights by any real definition of the terms unless.....
Someone screws up a step and then the real fun begins as people try to come up with on the fly ways to rectify the situation, now that I like. Recovering by making on the fly decisions and succeeding after that... now that is an INCREDIBLE gaming high.
Which is why I run pug groups so much and why I love playing a healer. I don't have a "rotation", I use abilities as the situation presents itself, making choices on the fly. THIS is called tactical game play, making choices based on the current state of events. Other healers tell me: "you should place Sacred Soil during this stage on the ground between these 2 rocks". I laugh at them, I make my own choices. No one has ever had any reason to complain about my healing in any MMO that I have played so I must be doing something right.
Playing a DPS must be so incredibly boring after a while on the same encounter, using a rotation over and over with no deviation, no real choice. Ouch. Not using the "right" abilities in the "right" sequence makes you a "bad DPS", that is just insane. MMOs seem to define a "good player" as someone who uses youtube, remembers when to step here and there at this time, does research and play the game EXACTLY the same way as everyone else that is a "good player". Crazy I tell you. No creativity, no tactics, no strategic use of anything.
Ok rant off now, sorry for the wall of text assault, hope you know where to click at stage 2 of this demon wall of text fight or you will fail.
"No plan survives contact with the enemy" is true in the real world, I wish it was so in MMOs.



