Any suggestions for a PUG carrying fractal toon?

There are a lot of good fractal builds, but working with pugs is a bit different then normal party play. Usually they are undergeared, lacking dps, fragile, and clueless. So carrying people like this consistently is a real challenge. I currently have a chrono-leadership specifically made for this but it just doesn't work. My guild also doesn't do fractals, so there's no chance of doing it properly. Even if I do find a fractal focused guild, its been my experience that they quickly fall apart. The overall interest in fractals is too small to build a guild around it where members are always on.

So with those ideas out of the way and focusing solely on pugs... What has worked for others? I'm thinking classes that are best at pure dps and face tanking. PUGs will have a lot of mistakes, so there needs to be a survivability factor to fix things and stay alive, while also making up for a lack of dps. This won't work for the later fractals, and I'm not looking for it to. Just want to do 1-25 without fail on any pug.

Cause failing and wasting an hour of my time or more sucks.

I've heard people say nice things about support scourge, but I haven't run it myself. It probably depends on what the pug is lacking -- dps, or survivability.

I'd say a Blood Well O Mancer (Scourge or Reaper) because nothing carries pugs like endless instant pickups from downed state, but Necros have a bad rap and you might get shade. Second choice would be a Quickbrand because permanent quickness makes everything easy.

You have to play dps if you want to carry bad players. Playing a support doesn't work when your pug doesn't do damage.Power chrono and power reaper are really good at carrying fractals. Builds like quickbrand work really good with decent players but don't have that much carry potential if everything goes wrong because it lacks sustain.

Don't play support if you are a skilled player. You are like 70-80% of the party dps in low level fractals. Playing a support won't change anything except making everything slower.Especially scale 1-25. Soloing that is super easy so just play dps. You can't fail if you can solo the stuff. Soloing on support takes forever.

@Nephalem.8921 said:You have to play dps if you want to carry bad players. Playing a support doesn't work when your pug doesn't do damage.Power chrono and power reaper are really good at carrying fractals. Builds like quickbrand work really good with decent players but don't have that much carry potential if everything goes wrong because it lacks sustain.

Don't play support if you are a skilled player. You are like 70-80% of the party dps in low level fractals. Playing a support won't change anything except making everything slower.Especially scale 1-25. Soloing that is super easy so just play dps. You can't fail if you can solo the stuff. Soloing on support takes forever.

I will agree with the DPS idea for T1 fractals, but T2's+ i'll HEAVILY recommend a support firebrand (quickbrand).I don't play much fractals, but when i need them for collections, dailies, or to help some guildies improves and learn mechanics i just hop on my FB and make the fractals a walk in the park for them. Stability, resistance, cleanses and heals, that's all they need to feel powerful and get confidence, lol (that way they can focus on the mechanics itself), not to mention the perma 17 might + quickness, wich will turn even the most terrible DPS into something decent.Believe me, you'll carry the most newbie of newbies groups on a support firebrand.

Another vote for support firebrand.

Well, it depends on how bad the situation is. Sometimes you get players who are simply anti-success. But, there are a few builds I've found that are pretty good at carrying pugs. In no specific order:

Power Herald: The boons this build gives affect a wide area, and they are simple in how powerful they are. Fury and Protection do a whole lot for a group, even a really bad one. Staff can solo break most bars, the build is pretty easy to play, and it is durable enough to face a lot of bosses head-on.

Power Scrapper/Holosmith: There's a trick to this one. Blind fields are really strong, and the engineer has two of them. You can repurpose the engineer into being primarily support by taking Healing Turret, Bomb Kit, Mortar, then Holographic Arena or Bulwark Gyro. With this setup, you can disable anything without a break bar for extended periods of time, while also giving good defensive boons for the team. Arena gives fury/protection, while Bulwark Gyro gives pseudo-protection and an excellent projectile destruction ability.

Healing Tempest: I run Zealots, but other people prefer Harriers or Minstrel. Out of all of the healers, I've found that tempest is the best for carrying, for one particular reason: range. Other healing builds have a small or narrow AoE, but the Tempest hits everybody in a wide circle. There is a lot of passive, ticking heals that eat up the mistakes your teammates make.

Those are the 3 I default to when things just can't go right. There are a few other niche builds, such as a scourge for CM100 and black powder spamming thieves, but in general these 3 are the ones I use to lift with the knees.

I think your energy would be better spent just explaining to people you pug with what to do in the fractal. 90% of the time the problem is just lack of knowledge and no direction from those who know what to do.

@Biff.5312 said:I think your energy would be better spent just explaining to people you pug with what to do in the fractal. 90% of the time the problem is just lack of knowledge and no direction from those who know what to do.

Doesn't solve that most people in low level fractals have terrible builds without any synergy or damage. Like i said, you are up to 80% of the group dps in t1-3 groups. Just killing stuff yourself is faster than spending 1h explaining everything.Explaining fractal mechanics doesn't solve the terrible build problem.

Something that prevents getting downed. You may instantly revive anyone and everyone, but if they get downed over and over in rapid succession (5 times in 1 minute), they will eventually be automatically defeated.