YAWoWT: Why are priests like pets?

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Quixfire

Priests also level at a slower rate than most other classes due to the amount of downtime when soloing and due to the need to be grouped for better or worse.

I don't know what class you're playing but my priest is 33 now and I have ZERO downtime when fighting single mobs, and can easily handle a 4 pull of greens solo and at least a 3 pull of yellows. I can easily solo an equal level elite. They take time, but I can repeatably handle these situations.

Priests can handle some pretty damn rough situations solo, you should learn to play before you spread rumors of underpowering that perpetuates the feel of sympathy on priests. There's nothing I hate more than someone expressing sympathy on me when I am soloing.

Priests don't have an escape method, but between renew, flash heal, and buttloads of mana, the idea is that you don't need one.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
Quix - the next time we play together, I will cast Searing Pain on anyone near you. Just heal me when I get the resulting massive aggro...

In 'group solo' type situations, I far prefer to have aggro on me than bouncing around between other casters, as it speeds up overall kill rate because:
1) priests get the best castable armor in the game by far. A priest can easily have more armor than a rogue, for example.
2) If all the damage is on one person then I only need to cast renew on one person and can focus the rest of my attention on damaging the mob.

If we share damage, then I spend more mana on healing which either increases downtime or decreases kill rate.

 

[Litchfield285]

i had a mage that i started at launch that i dropped because of downtime... my priest has about half of the downtime of the mage... so its not too bad... as a caster you sort of have to expect the downtime if you want to be able to take on multiple mobs, etc... now with my hunter i have zero downtime and can take up to 4 mobs at once without a problem... only difference there is that no one needs a hunter in endgame groups, and priests are always in high demand... that is the main reason why i focus most of my playtime now on my priest... heh... endgame raids are fun...

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: torpid

Originally posted by: abaez
Then get a fast dagger in conjunction with my wand (the dagger swings as the wand recharges) dagger is crappy damage maybe 20-30 per hit, but with the wand specialization (I have the 5points in wand specialization +25% damage), it often hits 100+ each time.

The tactic you described for killing enemies is severely lacking. Maybe it becomes magically viable at higher levels, but at level 20 it will not kill the enemy before PW:S runs out. As it is, right now I must cast psychic blast and smite in order to be "ahead of the curve". This is with a relatively high DPS wand.

The method abaez describes is exactly the melee method I use for soloing. No it doesn't work in one casting of PW:S, but it does allow me regenerate mana and health FASTER THAN I USE THEM so that I can kill mobs indefinitely. If there was a mob my level that had 5 million hit points, I could kill him with my priest and pretty much no other of my characters.

My basic tactic as a holy/disc priest is to SW😛 to pull, wand, wand, renew, then wand/dagger and refresh SW😛 and renew as needed. With this method I typically end battles with 100% health and somewhere between 90 and 100% mana depending on where in the cycle of casting and regenerating I am. On a two pull, they will slowly eat my health, and I need to flash heal once or twice, which cuts into the mana I have. On a three pull flash heal a bit more often so that my mana will generally drop below half.

The key is that once I get down to just one mob I'm no longer in danger. He can hit on me indefinitely because renew heals faster than he damages me.

The more I learn about how to solo with a holy/disc priest, the more I like it. I have soloed situations easily with my priest that were close calls with my rogue and warlock.

The key is that you shift from having downtime to lowering your DPS a bit and taking longer to kill mobs, but being safer. Overall my kill rate + downtime is about the same between my priest and warlock, but the rogue generally needs less downtime. The rogue seems to handle 1 on 1s best of the three, but would never dream of taking on the 3-4 pulls solo that I do with my priest.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Concillian, if I'm reading your posts right you don't go all out on a mob and try to conserve mana by using your weapons more. That's why you seem to be able to walk out of a fight with more mana.

Personally, I like to go all out and kill mobs as quickly as possible to gain spirit tap and regenerate. I find that a quicker way to kill more mobs in a quicker amount of time. But that's just my two cents.

I'm also skeptical that you can easily solo an elite... your battles must really drag on.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
I'm also skeptical that you can easily solo an elite... your battles must really drag on.

It lasts some time, but even without fear I can solo elites. An example is the hypercapacitor quest in Thousand Needles requires you to kill a level 30 elite panther that hits pretty hard, harder than a normal elite. A shadow priest didn't believe that I had just soloed that at 31, so I did it again to show him. I wish I could have seen his RL expression when I still had about 30 % mana and half life when the panther died. In that case the fact that he hits so hard meant that I had to use fear, but he has room to run there without danger. I tried it without fear and ended up out of mana and health with him at under 5%. I assume the renew boost you get at 32 would be enough for me to have killed him without fear, but I didn't go back at 32 to try it. But normal elites like ones at Dun Garok and such are significantly less difficult as they don't hit for extraordinary amounts of damage.

Yes, the focus is very much on mana conservation, and battles do drag on, but as I said, no downtime. I can literally go from one mob to the next, and I can let runners go, as they'll often bring my next mob to me instead of having to go to it. I actually prefer runners because of this, and because they are not damaging me while they are running. I've compared my normal kill rates with my other characters, and as I said, the priest and warlock are pretty comparable when just killing normal mobs, but the rogue is definitely faster than both.

Killing mobs quicker works, but without Mind flay, a holy priest's options on dealing direct damage are really limited. Plus you end up in a world of hurt with just one add if you don't know how to conserve mana, and a corpse run hurts any 'mobs per unit time' type of metrics. Not only is my kill rate NOT terribly slow when you factor in both kill time and downtime, I am also well prepared to handle adds if I get them.

I should also mention that this kind of soloing is VERY GOOD training for healing in an instance. Mana efficiency in an instance is very key, and you get very comfortable with using your wand in battle. It also gets you used to not using damage spells so much and gives you a better feel for what heal spells to use when.

 

[WobbleWobble]

What were the reasons why you went holy/disc instead of shadow/disc?

In my experience, going shadow makes soloing so much easier. Heals are still good enough for lower level instances and when you get to those high level instances, you can simply respec to holy.

That's my plan at least.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
What were the reasons why you went holy/disc instead of shadow/disc?

In my experience, going shadow makes soloing so much easier. Heals are still good enough for lower level instances and when you get to those high level instances, you can simply respec to holy.

That's my plan at least.

My main reason is because when I join a group I want to contribute as much as I can to the group. Priests are for healing, why gimp your group by not bringing as much healing as you can to it?

Plus I noticed a LOT of people saying how poor holy priests solo, and I began to notice something about those people... none of them were high level holy priests. I never heard a high level holy priest complain about his soloability. I found out why... there is no problem with solo-ability of holy priests, only with the abilities of the players playing them.

I asked some people in my guild (which has very group oriented players, and most priests are holy/disc) about solo-ability of holy priests, and they pretty much told me that the rumors of poor soloability were mostly myth.

I constantly see shadow priests telling me that the difference between holy talents and no holy talents don't make a big difference in healing ability and the only thing I can think is that they never tried putting points in holy talents and they are trying to justify not putting points in healing talents.

The difference is quite large, especially with renew. Renew is, frankly, pretty bad with no talent points helping it. But with three talents that make it better (MA in disc, and imp. renew and spi. healing in holy) it becomes downright awesome for use in both solo and instances. It's amazing how much difference there is between a fully specced renew and a no-talent renew. It allows you to regen mana in cases where a shadow priest never would. This essentially adds to total mana pool. I'd guess that a properly played holy priest brings at least 20-25% more healing to a group than an equivalently skilled shadow priest.

Sure there are situations where extra healing won't help and you'll wipe no matter what, but usually those are not situations that the priest has any influence over (really bad pull or a group that doesn't understand threat generation are the two I see most often) I have never been in a situation where I ran out of mana and the group wiped (except once when we got several adds, I was able to save everyone, but was very low on mana, and had announced OOM both over chat and through the voice emote right after battle. I sat down to drink then the warrior charged a 3 pull... DUDE! HELLO! I HAVE NO MANA.) I could have saved people because I was out of combat and drinking still, no I would have mana soon enough, but I decided not to because this guy had proved himself to be a totally incapable group player well before this specific event. I let the group wipe because I wanted a reason to leave.

 

[Quixfire]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: Quixfire

Priests also level at a slower rate than most other classes due to the amount of downtime when soloing and due to the need to be grouped for better or worse.

I don't know what class you're playing but my priest is 33 now and I have ZERO downtime when fighting single mobs, and can easily handle a 4 pull of greens solo and at least a 3 pull of yellows. I can easily solo an equal level elite. They take time, but I can repeatably handle these situations.

Priests can handle some pretty damn rough situations solo, you should learn to play before you spread rumors of underpowering that perpetuates the feel of sympathy on priests. There's nothing I hate more than someone expressing sympathy on me when I am soloing.

Priests don't have an escape method, but between renew, flash heal, and buttloads of mana, the idea is that you don't need one.

I'ved played priests during the closed beta test, open beta test, and retail. My last priest was level 37 when I decieded I no longer want to play the class. So I would say I have enough experince with playing the class to make the statements above. And I never said I needed to rest after every battle but the truth be told I have to rest more often than any other class when soloing, at least that is my experince.

 

[Boze]

Past level 50, if you are dying as a priest, then you are doing something wrong...

From level 51 on up I was consistently doing Stratholme / UBRS / LBRS / BRD / Scholomance, and I've probably died less than five times on the dozens of runs I've done through these places. I rarely die in groups these days either.

Priests require brains my friends. And I'm not just talking about "cast shield on self and run around while the tank pulls the mob off me" brains. No sir. I am talking serious, creative strategies to maintain survivability in intense situations.

For the people I enjoy playing with, a typical pull (in most any dungeon or instance nowadays) consists of 5 to 10 very large scary mobs that could potentially crush me in a single round of combat, or two at the most. I am constantly casting shields, heals, and even DOTs during these pulls. A priest (especially holy / disc...) has all the tools at his or her disposal to become a serious force to reckon with. Fade, Desperate Prayer for humans, Holy Nova (I use this one ALL the time), Power Word: Shield, Psychic Scream (less useful in dungeons & instances I admit). Potions and bandaids also help maintain your survivability.

Creative playing is a necessity for the high level priest that never wants to die.

And frankly Quix, I hope a level 37 priest is not the highest one you've ever had, because priests don't start to emerge as powerhouses until level 50+ and until you've maxed at least one of the talent trees.

Right now I have a level 60 shadow / disc priest and a level 54 holy / disc priest. I can take both of them to any zone I want and dominate with my group (although the holy / disc seems to be more indestructable than the shadow priest, mainly because of Holy Nova).

And PVP... oh man... I really can't even begin to describe how badly no other class wants to run up on a level 60 shadow priest in a PVP situation. That is just... not good for anyone. Its pretty fair to see that a level 60 shadow priest is practically unbeatable against any other race / class / talent combination provided both players are of similar skill, have similar equipment, and are using items at their disposal (potions, right-clickie trinkets, etc.).

I love my priest to death (although I play EverQuest II now until battlegrounds and hero classes get implemented) and most people who truly learn to master them do.

 

[ubercaffeinated]

I'm a level 60 alliance warrior on a pvp server. I have valor set, doomsaw, and epic 1h/shield. As a warrior you are the group b.... I mean, tank. In all the end game instances, you are expected to tank 1h+shield, and spam taunt/sunder in defensive stance. That's it. You can bust out your 2h if you want, but that only makes the healers job harder. You keep aggro on the big guy/boss, while dps classes slam small fries and then work on whatever you're holding. Priest keeps everything alive, tank especially. If priest is first to die, that means, the tank wasn't doing a good enough job keeping aggro. If tank dies first, that means the priest wasn't careful enough. Group dynamics work pretty much that way in end level instances. You need the Priest, the Warrior, and the Mage. Everything else is filler. Warlocks for insurance, Rogues for sap, Pallies and Druids for flexibility. I don't know what hunters are good for end game.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I tried being an alliance priest once, did not last long, people just did not seem to understand. Horde all the way, we might have a good deal of shamans, but at least since a good bit of everyone wishes to be undead, they have to be warriors. I also like the naming rules on an RP server.

Omgwtfbbq: "damn you priests suck ass, you die in like one hit"
Me: "That is because Pallys (the only thing people seem to play on this faction) cannot hold the aggro off of us like warriors can. Fade is on a cool down and only lasts so long, even our small heals draw some aggro."
Omgwtfbbq: "Hahahaha, or maybe YOU just suck"

 

[rstove02]

Level 45 shadow/disc priest here with some info:

No matter if your going shadow/disc or holy disc, start with shadow/disc until level 50.

From levels 1-19 you will be treated as a pariah. You may get into temporary small groups for quests but mainly on these levels you are going to be soloing. Starting at level 20 you will start getting invited for the lowest level instance runs. So far levels 20-45+ is a combination of doing instance/quest runs with some soloing to cover level gaps between dungeons.

On level 20-35 instance runs you will have some hardships with some groups due to one or more people in the group being stupid. Some of the following things will happen:
1) Rogues/tanks will roll on cloth/caster items.
2) Someone wandering around gets adds.
3) A non-tanking class that wants to tank.
4) People ignoring mobs smacking on you (and getting multiple interrupts) yet still have the time to spam "HEAL ME" in the party channel.
5) Multiple people pulling at same time.
6) People that get aggro will run around madly instead of staying put.
7) Will try to micromanage you if you let their HP bars *gasp* drop below 80%.

If the person or group pulls WAY too much and you have not entered combat mode....stand back and let them die. Trying the heal will only result in you (the rezzer) dying as well, leading to a full party wipe. If they complain tell them you just saved them from a full party wipe due to their stupidiy. They they still complain....toss em 20s for repairs and tell em to "Suck it up and lets move on".

Here is my point spending ordering IIRC:
5 - spirit tap
2 - improved shadow word pain
3 - shadow focus

4 - improved mind blast
2 - shadow focus
1 - mind flay
3 - shadow weaving

1 - vampiric embrace
2 - shadow weaving
2 - shadow reach
5 - darkness

1 - shadow form
1 - shadow reach
2 - improved fade

Then will go into the disc line
5 - unbreakable will
3 - improved power word shield
2 - improved fortitude
5 - wand spec

A correctly specc'd shadow priest can both solo and group well. From what I hear at level 58+ is where you need to respec to holy/disc to go into full heal bot mode.

My take on talents:
1) Spirit tap - Some people would state this is overrated. Its payoff diminishes as you get higher due to your mana bar size to spirit ratio increases as you level. When in groups this tends to rarely trigger because you have to get the killing blow. Same problem as warlocks and the soul stone gathering. Hopefully this is be addressed in the future.
2) Improved SW Pain - More damage for same mana when soloing. Groupwise not as big as payoff because only bosses tend to survive till end of its effect.
3) Improved mind blast - Once you get these four points, put smite to backburner. Only use smite on shadow immune mobs now.
4) Mind flay - Anti-runner spell. Very usefull in solo and groups when you do not want adds.
5) Vampiric Embrace - Seldom see other priests use this spell...but it is one of the biggest ways that a shadow priest can keep up with disc/holy sub-50 in healing power. In groups or solo I start off with SW Pain then toss this on. No upgrades to this spell so it always will cost you a meager 40 mana to have ALL casted shadow damage (wands do not count) by you heal you and the group for 20% of the damage for a minute. If in a group and there it is a multiple pull of mobs, tag the engaged mob with pain/embrace combo...but have fade at the ready just in case the healing makes them start running to you (this happens rarely...seems that VE causes minor aggro). This spell is like a very mana efficient group regen spell.
5) Shadow form - Always use when soloing. With this and vampiric embrace and spirit tap I infrequently need to drink and seldom cast PW Shield due to the regen. In groups only go into shadow form if you are not the primary healer.
6) Improved fade - Fade is our anti-aggro spell. I use fade much more often than PW Shield on myself. Fade alone lasts for 10 seconds with 30 second recast timer. I find that 10 seconds is sometimes not long enough for others in the group to build up enough hate so that mobs will not come back after me after fade leaves. With these 2 points fade goes from 10sec to 20sec duration allowing 10 more seconds for group to build up aggro. Plus with a reduction in effect-to-recast from 20sec to 10 that is usually enough to a PW Shield to last. However I seldom have to chain cast fades back to back.

 

[Smilin]

All Party's are most effective when you know the strengths and weaknesses of your other members.

I play a rogue and priest and I'm constantly amazed at how little people know about the classes.

If you want to make your priest effective simply keep mobs off of them. When playing my rogue I'll go pull a mob off my party's priest even if I have two other mobs hitting me in the back while I'm doing it. Once freed up from defending themselves, the priest can keep my alive until I can get the mess sorted out.

After the fight don't just go tromping on to the next because you're at full health. Probably the reason you're at full health is because your priest is low on mana.

Rogues I think are one of the least understood classes. You should *always* let your rogue pull. Yeah, yeah, I know you all *think* that your tank should pull but it doesn't work that way. A rogue has a very tiny agro radius and can selectively pull a mob from a group, or agro a group in a controlled manner. We can also pass agro off to the main tank once this is done. Due to a high DPS rogues are also great at pulling agro off of your cloth-members and then moving it back onto the tank.

Typical rules of engagement when I'm teamed up with guildmates:
1. Hunter sets trap, puts a mark on the primary target (once the mobs get jumbled together the mark makes it super easy to pick your primary)
2. Tank positions just behind trap. Hunter, mage and priest position at range behind the tank.
3. Rogue goes in, pickpockets (free gold for him, doesn't hurt you). Rogue then saps 1st mob, blinds 2nd mob, gouges 3rd mob (the marked primary) then reatreats with a 4th mob in pursuit.
4. Mage sheeps 4th mob
5. 3rd Mob (marked primary) hits trap (might agro the hunter) and the tank engages. With one hit each from two other characters the tank should be able to quickly cause enough damage to agro. You have 10 seconds to beat on the primary enough to hold agro. Everyone opens up on the primary.
6. 2nd mob arrives, pissed at the rogue although he did no real damage. A single hit from the tank (or hunter's pet) should pull agro since the rogue is doing all his damage to the 3rd mob (primary) at this point.

At this point you have two mobs on the tank, or the tank+hunter pet. Everything is well under control. If any mob strays to the mage or priest, rogue chases em down, gets agro. Everyone else stays on primary so you can kill it quickly. If rogue can't pass agro off to tank, the primary will be dead soon and the tank can pull agro back.

Eventually these two (mob 2,3) are dead. You then pick either the sapped mob, or the sheep and take him out. Then the other.


For a single large mob:
1. Hunter sets trap, let mage (or anyone really) pull with a hard opening shot.
2. Mob will run towards puller, hit trap.
3. Rogue comes out of stealth with a cheapshot and stuns.
4. Tank engages doing as much damage as possible while mob is stunned.
5. Mob comes out of stun, pissed at tank and should likely stay that way.
6. Heavy healing or heavy mage spells may pull agro. If so the tank+rogue should be able to get it back quickly. Between tank shout and rogue feint, transfer of agro from rogue to tank is easy.

Priests, mages: do NOT backpedal if you agro. Run *towards* your tank retards!

If sh1t hits the fan:
1. Tank is likely dead.
2. Hunters and Rogues go tap every mob to gain agro.
3. Mages - get any agro you can - might have to take one for the team.
4. Priest/healer - RUN! You get to be the hero later, not now.
5. Hunters and rogues pull mobs opposite way of the healer, once out of agro range of healer, Vanish/Feign death. It's likely one of you will fail and die but if you saved the healer it doesn't matter.

Rogues: save your stun attacks for pulling mobs off the cloth-wearers. Stunning the tanks primary just makes it difficult for him to rage.

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: Boze
Past level 50, if you are dying as a priest, then you are doing something wrong...

From level 51 on up I was consistently doing Stratholme / UBRS / LBRS / BRD / Scholomance, and I've probably died less than five times on the dozens of runs I've done through these places. I rarely die in groups these days either.

Priests require brains my friends. And I'm not just talking about "cast shield on self and run around while the tank pulls the mob off me" brains. No sir. I am talking serious, creative strategies to maintain survivability in intense situations.

For the people I enjoy playing with, a typical pull (in most any dungeon or instance nowadays) consists of 5 to 10 very large scary mobs that could potentially crush me in a single round of combat, or two at the most. I am constantly casting shields, heals, and even DOTs during these pulls. A priest (especially holy / disc...) has all the tools at his or her disposal to become a serious force to reckon with. Fade, Desperate Prayer for humans, Holy Nova (I use this one ALL the time), Power Word: Shield, Psychic Scream (less useful in dungeons & instances I admit). Potions and bandaids also help maintain your survivability.

Creative playing is a necessity for the high level priest that never wants to die.

And frankly Quix, I hope a level 37 priest is not the highest one you've ever had, because priests don't start to emerge as powerhouses until level 50+ and until you've maxed at least one of the talent trees.

Right now I have a level 60 shadow / disc priest and a level 54 holy / disc priest. I can take both of them to any zone I want and dominate with my group (although the holy / disc seems to be more indestructable than the shadow priest, mainly because of Holy Nova).

And PVP... oh man... I really can't even begin to describe how badly no other class wants to run up on a level 60 shadow priest in a PVP situation. That is just... not good for anyone. Its pretty fair to see that a level 60 shadow priest is practically unbeatable against any other race / class / talent combination provided both players are of similar skill, have similar equipment, and are using items at their disposal (potions, right-clickie trinkets, etc.).

I love my priest to death (although I play EverQuest II now until battlegrounds and hero classes get implemented) and most people who truly learn to master them do.

Hm... I wouldn't even invite you to a BRD group at 51. Either this is shens or the people you play with don't mind the INSANE AGGRO you draw at 51 even in BRD, nevermind the others who will aggro you for just THINKING of entering the instance.

Between that and "if you are dying at 50", I say you are the king of hyperbole or just plain full of it. I've seen level 60 priests die in BRD in a raid of 15. There's nothing a priest can do to stop a wipe in some cases.

 

[Litchfield285]

Originally posted by: makoto00 I don't know what hunters are good for end game.

absolutely nothing, that is exactly why ive shelved my hunter and started a priest...

 

[chowmein]

hunters are suprisingly efficient at farming. no good at end-game tho. Hunters are the worst class IMO. (i have a L40 hunter myself) i would happily trade it for a shadow priest or a Warrior

 

[Litchfield285]

we will be good in battlegrounds, and are needed in MC and onyxia supposedly... that is it though...

until battlegrounds i will be using my hunter to farm cash for my priest... easy way to make money for him... heh

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: Litchfield285
we will be good in battlegrounds, and are needed in MC and onyxia supposedly... that is it though...

until battlegrounds i will be using my hunter to farm cash for my priest... easy way to make money for him... heh

Hoo... great minds think alike. Though actually I farm cloth and hard to get reagents like heart of the wild more than money itself.

 

[rstove02]

Originally posted by: Concillian
Plus I noticed a LOT of people saying how poor holy priests solo, and I began to notice something about those people... none of them were high level holy priests. I never heard a high level holy priest complain about his soloability. I found out why... there is no problem with solo-ability of holy priests, only with the abilities of the players playing them.

Heh I think the main reason that you never see high level priest complain about solo-ability is that all high level priests (both shadow and holy) never have to solo since the group demand for them is so high.

 

[Litchfield285]

Originally posted by: torpid

Originally posted by: Litchfield285
we will be good in battlegrounds, and are needed in MC and onyxia supposedly... that is it though...

until battlegrounds i will be using my hunter to farm cash for my priest... easy way to make money for him... heh

Hoo... great minds think alike. Though actually I farm cloth and hard to get reagents like heart of the wild more than money itself.

yeah cloth farming is good, even though it seems as though the prices from cloth are dropping a good bit, at least on my server... i need to find a good place to farm at lvl 52... im still looking around... anyone have any suggestions?

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Smilin
All Party's are most effective when you know the strengths and weaknesses of your other members.

I play a rogue and priest and I'm constantly amazed at how little people know about the classes.

If you want to make your priest effective simply keep mobs off of them. When playing my rogue I'll go pull a mob off my party's priest even if I have two other mobs hitting me in the back while I'm doing it. Once freed up from defending themselves, the priest can keep my alive until I can get the mess sorted out.

After the fight don't just go tromping on to the next because you're at full health. Probably the reason you're at full health is because your priest is low on mana.

Rogues I think are one of the least understood classes. You should *always* let your rogue pull. Yeah, yeah, I know you all *think* that your tank should pull but it doesn't work that way. A rogue has a very tiny agro radius and can selectively pull a mob from a group, or agro a group in a controlled manner. We can also pass agro off to the main tank once this is done. Due to a high DPS rogues are also great at pulling agro off of your cloth-members and then moving it back onto the tank.

Typical rules of engagement when I'm teamed up with guildmates:
1. Hunter sets trap, puts a mark on the primary target (once the mobs get jumbled together the mark makes it super easy to pick your primary)
2. Tank positions just behind trap. Hunter, mage and priest position at range behind the tank.
3. Rogue goes in, pickpockets (free gold for him, doesn't hurt you). Rogue then saps 1st mob, blinds 2nd mob, gouges 3rd mob (the marked primary) then reatreats with a 4th mob in pursuit.
4. Mage sheeps 4th mob
5. 3rd Mob (marked primary) hits trap (might agro the hunter) and the tank engages. With one hit each from two other characters the tank should be able to quickly cause enough damage to agro. You have 10 seconds to beat on the primary enough to hold agro. Everyone opens up on the primary.
6. 2nd mob arrives, pissed at the rogue although he did no real damage. A single hit from the tank (or hunter's pet) should pull agro since the rogue is doing all his damage to the 3rd mob (primary) at this point.

At this point you have two mobs on the tank, or the tank+hunter pet. Everything is well under control. If any mob strays to the mage or priest, rogue chases em down, gets agro. Everyone else stays on primary so you can kill it quickly. If rogue can't pass agro off to tank, the primary will be dead soon and the tank can pull agro back.

Eventually these two (mob 2,3) are dead. You then pick either the sapped mob, or the sheep and take him out. Then the other.


For a single large mob:
1. Hunter sets trap, let mage (or anyone really) pull with a hard opening shot.
2. Mob will run towards puller, hit trap.
3. Rogue comes out of stealth with a cheapshot and stuns.
4. Tank engages doing as much damage as possible while mob is stunned.
5. Mob comes out of stun, pissed at tank and should likely stay that way.
6. Heavy healing or heavy mage spells may pull agro. If so the tank+rogue should be able to get it back quickly. Between tank shout and rogue feint, transfer of agro from rogue to tank is easy.

Priests, mages: do NOT backpedal if you agro. Run *towards* your tank retards!

If sh1t hits the fan:
1. Tank is likely dead.
2. Hunters and Rogues go tap every mob to gain agro.
3. Mages - get any agro you can - might have to take one for the team.
4. Priest/healer - RUN! You get to be the hero later, not now.
5. Hunters and rogues pull mobs opposite way of the healer, once out of agro range of healer, Vanish/Feign death. It's likely one of you will fail and die but if you saved the healer it doesn't matter.

Rogues: save your stun attacks for pulling mobs off the cloth-wearers. Stunning the tanks primary just makes it difficult for him to rage.

Nice strategies there. I wish the typical people I group with understood at least half of that. At the very least, I wish they understood thier *own* role. I guess most are so used to solo-ing, they just don't always grasp good group dynamics. Dying while soloing == bad. Dying in a group == not necessarily bad, sometimes the best idea! 😛

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Dying while soloing == bad. Dying in a group == not necessarily bad, sometimes the best idea! 😛

Part of being a priest is deciding who lives and who dies. I like that power =)

Seriouly though, if some mage repeatably demonstrates that he doesn't know he's not supposed to nuke up a storm before the warrior has the aggro situation under control, continuously pulling mobs on him, I'll save his butt a couple times. If he continues, it's obvious that he thinks it's the right way to play his character, and I'll start letting him die repeatably in an attempt (usually in vain, but I gotta try) to change his behaviors by the time we get to the tough situations.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Nice strategies there. I wish the typical people I group with understood at least half of that. At the very least, I wish they understood thier *own* role. I guess most are so used to solo-ing, they just don't always grasp good group dynamics. Dying while soloing == bad. Dying in a group == not necessarily bad, sometimes the best idea! 😛

Let me guess, your battles go something like this:

1. You (as a rogue) sneak up towards the first mob, sap him, agro a 2nd mob but the 3rd and 4th remain unaware.
2. The mobs that still haven't detected you still suddenly wake up and go running past you towards the rest of the team that approached too close.
3. The hunter in your party shoots the mob you just sapped, thereby waking him up.
4. Although things are falling apart rapidly you ignore the blows to your back and begin attacking the primary target.
5. The mage sheeps your target after you have already started swinging.
6. You hit the sheep, it turns back into the mob who joins the others in attacking you.
7. The battle degenerates into everyone in 1v1 battles rather than attacking the primary target.
8. Someone fails to stop a fleeing mob and 4 more mobs come running to attack you.
9. Priest heals you, draws agro from 3 mobs that are attacking you.
10. You run over to try and pull agro back, but can't since the priest is running from the mob (and you!).
11. Priest dies, mobs agro you. with no healing and the tank off pulling his !@# you are nearly dead in a matter of seconds.
12. You tell everyone to run.
13. No one runs.
14. With health dwindling you do vanish which fails. All agro leaves you and the mobs quickly kill the mage and tank.
15. Mobs agro the hunter who feigns death, mobs agro you.
16. You die.
17. Hunter is only party member left but can't res anyone.
18. Everyone respawns individually rather than as a group and the cycle of death starts again.


Yeah, that's the crap that USUALLY happens. The ideal former scenario only happens when:
1. I'm with my guild.
2. I'm with people who know the capabilities of other classes.
3. I'm with otherwise retarded people who take the time to plan out a strategy before hand.


😀

 

[Litchfield285]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Nice strategies there. I wish the typical people I group with understood at least half of that. At the very least, I wish they understood thier *own* role. I guess most are so used to solo-ing, they just don't always grasp good group dynamics. Dying while soloing == bad. Dying in a group == not necessarily bad, sometimes the best idea! 😛

Let me guess, your battles go something like this:

1. You (as a rogue) sneak up towards the first mob, sap him, agro a 2nd mob but the 3rd and 4th remain unaware.
2. The mobs that still haven't detected you still suddenly wake up and go running past you towards the rest of the team that approached too close.
3. The hunter in your party shoots the mob you just sapped, thereby waking him up.
4. Although things are falling apart rapidly you ignore the blows to your back and begin attacking the primary target.
5. The mage sheeps your target after you have already started swinging.
6. You hit the sheep, it turns back into the mob who joins the others in attacking you.
7. The battle degenerates into everyone in 1v1 battles rather than attacking the primary target.
8. Someone fails to stop a fleeing mob and 4 more mobs come running to attack you.
9. Priest heals you, draws agro from 3 mobs that are attacking you.
10. You run over to try and pull agro back, but can't since the priest is running from the mob (and you!).
11. Priest dies, mobs agro you. with no healing and the tank off pulling his !@# you are nearly dead in a matter of seconds.
12. You tell everyone to run.
13. No one runs.
14. With health dwindling you do vanish which fails. All agro leaves you and the mobs quickly kill the mage and tank.
15. Mobs agro the hunter who feigns death, mobs agro you.
16. You die.
17. Hunter is only party member left but can't res anyone.
18. Everyone respawns individually rather than as a group and the cycle of death starts again.


Yeah, that's the crap that USUALLY happens. The ideal former scenario only happens when:
1. I'm with my guild.
2. I'm with people who know the capabilities of other classes.
3. I'm with otherwise retarded people who take the time to plan out a strategy before hand.


😀

great post... thats how 90% of pickup groups go... thats why, at higher levels, i tend to only group with guildies or people from known guilds...