Blog: To Buff or not to buff in heroics or pugs
There seems to be two schools of thought of whether you should buff in pug raids. Some say yes, some say no.
First, I think it should be clear that I'm talking Flasks and food. I'm not talking about Great Blessings. You should always carry a bunch of reagents around with you and buff each and every time you walk into a heroic or raid, regardless of whether it's a guild run or a pug.
While I believe the answer to buffing in pug raids is yes, but it is yes conditionally.
Lets say you get talked into healing a Naxx25 run. Now assuming you're in Toc25 and some ICc25 gear, you're going to totally out gear the content. Your flash of light's are going to hit for as much as Holy Light used to hit when you were first in naxx. In this case, it's unreasonable to be expected to buff up.
Lets say you're walking into an Icc25 pug, without a doubt, you should be buffing up and so should everyone else. There are way too many things that can go wrong to make it ok to not buff. Also, if you're expected to buff up, it's also reasonable that you insist the others buff up too. I've kicked people from a pug when they refused to buff up on the second week of ICC25 was available. (yes it was an ICC25 run)
There's also going to become a time where you're probably not going to need to buff up for Icecrown Citadel, but that's going to be a little while down the track.
As a general rule of thumb for raids. If you out gear the content, then buffing really should not be needed. If you're gear is the previous tier, then buffing should be essential. Anything in between should depend on how the raid leader runs their pug.
So what's the benefits of buffing up?
Well the first and most obvious benefit is everyone performs better.
A couple of great side effects of these include a lower chance of wiping and often faster runs.
But what about heroics?
Heroics fall into another category, even the hard ones. Heroics are done so fast and you also get the buff's for running the random heroic groups that buffing in these are just not expected or required.
What if the heroic is a hard one?
It's general practice not to buff up in any heroic. If the group is unable to conquer the heroic, most groups just disband and look for another heroic to run.
If everyone agrees to buff up, you should also buff up so long as you don't out gear the heroic.
Send us Your Feedback:
