Another virtue of pick-up groups is that many are better than my guild groups. My kinship, while a fun bunch, is not a great late-game guild. We have horrific wipes on bosses that I beat with PUGs the day before, and it can be tiring when half the group needs an explanation for every significant fight. We have a great many level 60s these days, but I doubt we could field a team to raid The Watcher.
One advantage of joining many PUGs is that I learn different ways of approaching fights. I can learn from people who have done it before, and I get experiments with many group types. I am the bee, flitting from PUG to PUG, cross-pollinating before heading back for honey time.
I recall my first guild trip through the Sixteenth Hall. Two people had never been there. Two enjoyed it and ran it frequently. The last member and I ran it frequently with PUGs. The moment that stood out was just before the second boss. For those who have not done it, there are two identical rooms, each with a wheel to turn, each with a large group of elite enemies, each with a bunch of ground objects that spawn more enemies. The guild plan seems to have been sending someone on a suicide run to get each wheel, rezzing afterwards. I did not even ask before starting my standard PUG plan: AE root, the ones immune to root come, we fight them around the corner (away from rooted archers), finish off the rest, and avoid the ground objects when getting the wheel.
This is not to say that I have learned nothing from the guild. They are very good at Skumfil’s hard mode, granted again with a two-suicide plan to make the rest of it easier. But I wonder at times if I might be happier with a group that actually puts things on farm mode.
: Zubon
I remember when one of the toughest fights was the platform of hornblowers in carn dum. Almost everyone suicided that room to clear it, our guild (Pillagers of Pipeweed) was one of the only ones that did it the hard way : actually staying and killing every last mob without jumping in the water. Often we’d finish the fight with only 2 people up, but we were always proud afterwards that we did it the way it was designed. That was a lot of fun.
I never had a group do that, guild or not. Most groups did very well, catching almost all the hornblowers before they blew. I recall a few groups that got every one.
Now, with level 60s, getting them all is trivial, and if you miss some, oh well, we solo things worse than the summons.