How to Get a Rated BG Group from Trade Chat

Last night, I did something that I thought was a little bold on my part.  I tried building a PUG rated BG group.  I mostly did it just for fun to see how it would go.  Here is the thought process behind building a rated BG comp from PUGs that I developed during the night.

1) Lay Down the Requirements - I had a lot of people message me when I posted I was looking for more for rated BGs saying they had 1k to 2k resielience.  The fact of the matter is most people I have run into in rated BGs have at least the Bloodthirsty Gladiator set and quite a few have the full Vicious Gladiator set for their class/spec.  If you are coming in with less than 3k resilience, you are gonna get smacked around a bit.  I made it crystal clear that everybody had to have at least 3k resilience.  The other requirement I had was that everybody needed to download Mumble for communication sakes.  Believe or not, some people have problems downloading Mumble.  I had people refuse to come to a pretty good rated BG group because they didn't want to download Mumble.

2) Setting Up an Ideal Composition - Knowing that 2 of the current 3 rated BGs involved capture the flag, I built the PUG rated BG group around this.  Here is the composition I decided to go with:

One flag runner (Prot Warrior, Feral Druid with Tank Gemming/Enchanting, Blood DK, Prot Pally)

Three main heals (Any healing class would be fine, but prefer three different healing classes.)

One DPS/Heals - Somebody willing to DPS in Gilneas but heal in the other two. (Moonkin/Resto druid is excellent for this.)

Five DPS split into three categories:  Three heavy CC ranged classes (Mage, Warlock, etc.), one heavy CC melee class (Subtelty Rogue usually),  and one high DPS (any class)

3) Questions to Ask - Of course, if you meet the class and resilience requirement, it doesn't mean you would get in necessarily.   I asked each person about their rated BG experience.  First question I usually asked is what is your current rated BG rating.  Having a low rating did not necessarily exclude you from coming, but I was going to keep more of an eye on you and if you started failing, you would be replaced.  In addition, some people with really high resilience has just had problems finding rated BG groups, so I was willing to give people a chance.  I also asked about their arena rating to get an idea of how much they PvP, etc.   This is all important.

4) Breaking Hearts - Sometimes, you have to let people down easy.  For example, I got about 5 mages asking to come.  However, we were already full on mages.  So I would whisper them back and tell them that we are full on mages, but hang around and if something happens, I could bring them in.

5) Set Up Expectations - Once everybody gets in your communication device of choice, you should set up expectations.  I told them up front that I would explain strats as we got to the BGs.  I also told them to make sure they are communicating and calling their CC.  It is important to tell them what you are expecting from them as a rated BG team up front.  Find the problems early and correct as soon as possible. 

As one of the leaders of my guild's rated BG group, I also have additional important roles.  I need to watch these PUGs to see who I would and would not want to bring back if we needed people again.  There may even be people we want to encourage to come join our guild and our rated BG group. 

Final thing I can say is give yourself some time.  It took about an hour and a half to build a group I was comfortable with, we went into one Gilneas BG, won, and then had two people drop.  We replaced one but could never find a healer to replace the other, so after about 30 minutes of going through trade chat, we had to call it.  The lesson I learned last night is to get on early to start finding people if you think you may need to PUG some people for your normal rated BG group.