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Grouping |
| by Smed |
| In my experience, groups work when everbody knows who's playing a few specific
roles. Often, all it takes is a few words to get the group moving smoothly. Not
everybody needs to be all that good at these roles either. Often, all it takes
is just one of these roles played particularly well to make a group kick
ass. 1) You have somebody pulling. Make sure everybody knows who is doing so, and if anybody else tries to pull, tell them to stop. Saying "one puller only please" doesn't cut it. Say something like, "ok, <insert name> is pulling." If you are pulling, you need to pay attention to your healers' and casters' power bubble on the mini-bar, conserve your endurance, and pay attention to any "afk" or "brb" in group chat. Make sure you take enough time pulling that the tanks get to regen some endurance. It should not be necessary for group members to tell you to wait. 2) Main tank. This is the guy who should be taking the hits from the primary target. This is the guy that's a reference point to what everybody should be trying to kill first. Something like "<insert name> is main tank, everybody else assist him". If you are the main tank, taunt! And do NOT go after adds, your job is to keep your target in place, and kill it. Take note, this really helps the healer(s) figure out heal priorities. 3) Dealing with adds. Make sure it gets said in group chat exactly how this is going to be done, even if you're going after non-BAF stuff. Is somebody going to mez? Is there somebody to protect the mezzer (taunt the add only until you take aggro, then switch back to the main. this lets the mezzer try again without having you break the mez if it sticks, and this kills the main faster). Or just pick ONE secondary tank to keep the add occupied, while everybody else pays attemtion to the first. If you are the one tanking adds, situational awareness is vital. When swinging at any target, move around it so that you're facing the healers and casters, so that you can SEE if anything goes after them, instead of waiting for people to say it in chat. If pulls are BAF, position yourself to intercept the add as it is coming in. And lastly, do your best to NOT take aggro on the main target, unless it's going after the healers/casters. If you are mezzing/rooting, do it at a distance. Make sure you can see the area that's being pulled, and always double cast just in case the first attempt doesn't hold. If the first does hold, you can always just move to cancel your second cast. Mezzing things once the fight's on also requires good situational awareness. Rooting once the fight's on is a little trickier, in that root only stops their movement, they can still swing at people in range. Just need them to switch their aggro to somebod not in range.... The healer(s) will often do this for you, or if nobody else has taken swings at it, you'll often take aggro on the basis of the root alone. Things everybody needs to know: Who's pulling? Who's main assist? Who's taking adds? (And if mez, who's going to "peel" off the mezzer?) If the healer(s) are taking aggro too often: Who's got protect on who? A few other thoughts: Guard ability, from shield spec. This lets you block for somebody else. If you have it, the main tank should be your first target for this ability. Next is either the puller or whoever's taking adds or peeling from the mezzer. Healers. Enough said. You know your job better than I do, so theres nothing I need to say. However, if there's more than one healer in the group, going to suggest you define one healer for the main tank, the second for everybody else, help out as need be. If there's more healers, they should help fight, and just step back to help out as need be. Nukers. Pace your nuking. If you're taking aggro away from the tanks, stop it. You're being a drain on the heals. That is, if you're not already dead. Also, as a nuker/healer, you have access to a lot more than just direct damage and heals, a lot of things that can help the group out without generating much aggro at all. DoTs can do a good chunk of damage without aggro. Debuffs and stuns can make the target(s) a hell of a lot less dangerous. Stun in particular doesn't get broken by hits, which means thats a half dozen seconds in which the target doesn't get to swing back. If you're a runemaster casting runic fend/shield/guard, pay attention to your power bar. Fend costs next to nothing and so is a great spell to spam, shield is only useful if the aggro is being bounced around, or if there's adds. With guard, do NOT let your power bar go to zero, as that'll automatically turn it off. -Smed, Scribe
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| I would like to stress that protect ability is a must. It cannot be stressed how
important it is and what a group lifesaver it can be. This ability will keep the MoB from
aggroing on the helaer in most cases. If theres more than one Healer
I'd like to thank Smed for taking the time to give us these thoughts and suggestions on grouping.
-Vidi |
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