Grouping...

DeVore

I swear some of the most retarded people in the world play this game. I think I'll write up a treatise on "How To Group And Not Wipe Out Your Party".

I was in the stockades recently and TWICE we get to a Boss room only to have some spastic rogue/warrior want to "show off" his charge or sprint and dash into the room bringing it down on our heads.
I just run and usually degroup too in these situations.

However there are some *BASICS* that people seem blissfully unaware of.
eg:
The "F" key is the "Assist this player" button. You select your primary tank (your group agreed who is going to be primary tank/puller right... *right?*)
from the right hand side portraits and press F, that will target HIS target. Then you can be sure you are both whomping on the same mob. This is the VERY BASICS of grouping. Leave additional pulls to the mage to manage, do NOT attempt to hit them if you have a mage , he should (if he's any good) be targetting them for sheepification. And *dont* use area of effects when there are sheep about.

The tab key chooses mobs near you. Use it if you want to target something OTHER then the tanks target in a big fight.

Any bunch of muppets can wander around redridge bashing things and think they are a great group but the real test of any group is what they do when there is an over-pull, ie more then one mob comes to the party.
It appears the correct WOW response to this common event is to lose all reason and run around like loons.

A good group functions well when all parties rely on each other to do their funky thang.... nukers rely on the tanks to get the mobs off them if they aggro, tanks expect the mages to crowd control and healers to heal, rogues shouldnt tank (they dont have the hits) but should be working the fight to maximise their already considerable DPS, and keeping an eye on the mages/paladins health, if it starts dropping its THEIR job to taunt the mobs off them.
If you are a mage and you get aggroed on, STOP FIRING. Unless you can drop the mob its better if you let a rogue or warrior beat on it for a while and get it off you. Then you can come back after a short while and start to nuke it again.

Mages, DO NOT OPEN UP A FIGHT WITH AN AoE spell. You will get dead in seconds, you're party will be a major damage source short and will have to wait for you if they dont all get dead too. Dont nuke until about 1/4 - 1/3 of the mobs health is gone, if there is more then one mob, round robin your nukes if the tanks are tanking both, otherwise, sheep one and concentrate on Assisting your primary tank.

You could write a thesis on this topic but I couldnt believe it when NONE of my all-tank group knew about assisting...

DeV.

Jim

I was in Silverpines grouped with one guy yesterday. We had to kill this one human who was surrounded by other humans, all too high lvl's for us to take more than two of.

The guy we had to get was walking back and forth between human groups, and I reckoned there was about a 3 second interval where I could pull him on his own. I said to my group mate to stay back, I'll pull him, wait till he comes to me then both lay into him.

Instead, the guy shot at our target while he was inside a tent surronded by about 5 other enemies, which of course pulled them all. Then he ran toward them pulling about another 2 guys on his way. Of course I didn't go near them, then he gave out to me "Wtf didn't you help me you twat?!" etc...

/me shakes head

regi

I was in the stockades recently

Sounds like a pansy alliance zone. Strong manly horde players might not know where that is. Where is that actually?

BKtje

inside stormwind

joe.

I play as a priest. what annoys me is people constantly shouting heal heal heal. I can see their health meter. I know what I'm doing. It seems if they get below half health they think I'm not doing my job properly.

Squall

One more thing ive learned through experience.

Hunters and warlocks, watch your pets. Good idea to throw them on passive soon as you group. Pick its target and dont let it run off. Theyre great for pulling agro off mages, and generally acting as a backup tank if used effectively. Used badly, well I remember an incident in Dun'Garok where I somehow set my pet to aggressive. We didnt last long, pulled most of the place

Ive since learned my lesson

Whack

* remembering *

Regi running around, screaming like a girl, shouting "get it offa me! get it offa me!"

Seriously the thing that annoyes me as a secondary healer (shammy), is when the priest gets aggro inevitably and decides to run around trying to 'get away' from the mob whacking him/her. Made worse only by the fact that they heal themselves and draw even more aggro.

Instead, stay in one spot, channell through the heals on your tank, while the secondary healer heals the priest. The aggro from a good heal on a preist will pull the mob off, and the leather or chain wearing (not pansy old cloth wearers) shammy can tank the fecker until a sheep happens or the tank is done with his mob.

<disclaimer> Regi didn't really do that...much</disclaimer>

regi

As an EQ enchanter, running around screaming in panic was my stock-in-trade. Plus always dying first.

Jim

As a Rogue I think people get annoyed when I decide we can't win a fight and shout "Run away!" and use my sprint boost to run offt. Everyone usually dies except me.

Thordon

I was in a gnomeregan group a couple of nights ago, I think I was the only one who knew what I was doing, we had me (druid), 2 warriors and 2 warlocks, it took 2 wipes for me to figure out that neither warrior was even using taunt ("Oh, that needs defensive, Im not set up for defensive"), and allowing me to get attacked and killed by elites 2 levels higher than me, then blaming me for not healing them. The warlocks had no concept of aggro either, both regularly got aggro from just spamming nukes/dots.

Worst thing is these people are my guildies , I miss my old EQ guild, we were mid-sized (40+ raids), but were family oriented, I havent seen a guild like that in wow, any guild that is big enough to raid in the future is full of intollerant assholes. Anyone know any good guilds on Emerald Dream?

regi

Just move your old EQ guild to WoW

LoBo

I think it's great that such an easy to pick up game has such depth - ie, that knowing how the game works and how your class works & how best to play actually make such a _huge_ difference in PvE and PvP. (as compared to say, just having good items being enough)

Just dump the losers & keep grouping; add the ones who are good to your friends list. You'll see when they're in your zone & will usually be happy to group with you again (..unless of course YOU are the lame duck of the group )

Great game - looking forward to the honor system

DapperGent

Thordon wrote:

I was in a gnomeregan group a couple of nights ago, I think I was the only one who knew what I was doing, we had me (druid), 2 warriors and 2 warlocks, it took 2 wipes for me to figure out that neither warrior was even using taunt ("Oh, that needs defensive, Im not set up for defensive"), and allowing me to get attacked and killed by elites 2 levels higher than me, then blaming me for not healing them. The warlocks had no concept of aggro either, both regularly got aggro from just spamming nukes/dots.

While waiting to pick up a european copy I rerolled a paladin on a US sever and was doing the Elite ogre quests in Loch Modan. Party was two rogues two pallies and a hunter. It ended up with one rogue pulling badly despite the fact that we agreed the hunter would pull then getting pissed when he kept dieing and wiping us. Normally you can keep a rogue alive but not when he aggros four mobs. He kept saying "Paladins job is off tank and heal", I was still wondering how two of us were supposed to off tank 4 four mobs from fifty yards away as I kicked him from the party. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. He called me names.

Then last night I did the Deadmines as main tank with a Priest, a Hunter and Two rogues. We had no business doing the instance at our level but everyone knew exactly what to do (except me but I learned quickly ) and it all went really well. Before I played WoW I had struggled to see how a MMO could compete on a visceral pure fun level with something like Half-Life 2, but there really is nothing like doing a bloody tough instance with a really good group.

I suppose it helps that the Deadmines is really well done. Not like the poxy stockades.

DeVore

The difference between a good group and a bad group is staggering.
I've played with what I consider some terrific groups in EQ simply because once you get to the higher levels only people who can group well will have survived the XP hits from wiping out their groups

Seriously though, give me a tight, well oiled group of 3 over a bunch of 5 muppets and their pets anyday! The arts of pulling, agro control, crowd-control, hate/mana management, over nuking etc are lost on most of them, esp those who didnt come through the school of hard knocks that EQ was! (Imagine if every time you died you lost about an hours worth of hard XP grinding!)

Hopefully at higher levels people will have progressed from the "all charge in and stand around it, whacking it with stuff" level of grouping, because the best thing in a MMORPG is playing with a team thats clicking...

DeV.

BKtje

stockades is not really an instance. its like a pre game warmup. Wait till u do zul farak or stratholme, scholomance. Hell even Uldaman (lesser extent gnomeregen).... tbh any higher level instance that you dont play through witha 10+ man raid grp (ie u play with with the number ur supposed to go with) and you'll love it when your group is good.

Recently did BRD with a 5ma grp. Group was slightly low (made especially difficult by the lack of mage) but we got through it.
For those of you that dont want to know about Black Rock Depths dont look at spoiler. (warning long read tho you may find it interesting how we overcome levels and "incorrect" classes)

Was myself (58 druid), 60 pally, 60 hunter, 56 warlock and a 58 rogue. We managed easily enough up to the fire room (ie where the mass mobs spawn every 15secs and where u need to get 2 torches). The usual method is to go in , have mage spam aoe to kill the torch guys + mobs then go to brazier and light before running out other end of the hall. We tried this method with the warlock doing the aoe spam. It worked at first and we got first torch when everything behind us respawned and the warlock ran outta mana. Realising we were doomed as it was i yelled for everyone to run abck to the safety of the hallway. Everyone turns and legs it off while i innervate the warlock and dump heals on them as they go for as long as i can before dying. They arrive back in the hall with about 12 or so lvl 56(??) guys hammering on the 4 remaining members. We realise our only hope is to save the pally so we jump on the mobs hitting him. Warlock is again spamming his best aoe (the one that is channeled and causes warlock to loose hp while doing it). A lot of the mobs fall but the agro he receives means they mostly face him and a cloth wearer without a healer quickly falls followed by the rogue. At this stage theres about 6 mobs left hammering away at the pally (who is running outta mana). The Hunter does eveything he can to pull the mobs offa him and suceeds tho he also end up dying. With just the pally(no mana >50%hp) left and 2 mobs remaining things look grim. However the pally manages to defeat the 2 remaining guys with the help of a heal pot and starts to res the members he canr each (ie all bar me ).

Theyr est up and buff and fight their way back to my corpse where they manage to res me and back at the door we easily overcome the mobs that spawned. We all alive again but still no closer to lighting the braziers. We decide to send the rogue out to try and kill the torch wielder. He finds him and managed to kill and loot him before being overwhelmed (vanish didnt work). We got the torch now but no way to get at his corpse or to the brazier which is guarded by the lvl 54 elite fire elemental (those things _hurt_). We get rogue to re-enter instance and we summon him using the warlock. So now we all back in the hallway with the torch (5min timer total..now at 2mins) and wondering how to light first brazier. In the end the rogue and myself stealth to it, manage to unstealth in an area where we only agro the elemental and then its easy to kill him and light the first torch... easy.
We just repeat for 2nd braxzier and the doors swing open. Part 1 complete..however the rest of the party is still at the other end of the great halll with only about 30 odd mobs between them and the door to safety. We stick our thinkin caps on and wonder what best way to get them to the doorway. In the end we decide to use the hunter and his pets to run and agro as many things as he can on his way through the hall so the warlock and pally have a bit of an easier run (meanwhile the rogue and i hide at the other end). The hunter starts off with his pet agroing everything on the route.... he gets about 25% of the way before dying ... the warlock and his cloth get about 75% of the way and the pally makes it the whole way but has so many mobs on him that the rogue and myself decide to just watch him die from the safety of our stealth. This all works out pefectly (just about) as once the mobs the pally dies the mobs loose agro and myself and the rogue are left. The pally uses the soustone the warlock gave him and res's. So no we have 3 of us at the other end with 2 corpses in the middle among the mobs. I see if theres anything i can do so i stealth back in and pop up back at the brazier to see if i can res the warlock. Hes outa range.. i move forward a little and am able to res the warlock. I heal and buff him then he sprints the last of the way to the doorway where he dies. The pally comes out of his hiding spot, res's him and the warlock summons the hunter so we are all there.
This took us the best part of an hour (i left out the many many deaths myself and the rogue had ) Usually this room takes 10mins if we'd had a mage.

So we reach the final boss and give him a go. He kills us and the pally res's again with soulstone. He res's me and i notice my armor is absically red... while i do have spare armor its for feral form and not for healing so myself and the pally decide to swap.. i tank while he heals. This works perfectly (apart from the fact that i died when the pally ran outta mana ) and the emperor falls.

Now this may not seem much and hell it probably isnt but its the most fun ive ever had doing an instance . We had to think our way passed the areas that were otherwise undoable. Ive done that run a few times and while its much easier with a correct grp (ie with a mage and a warrior) it was more fun with the "incorrect" group

Sorry about length but i tend to waffle about stuff i enjoyed .. congrats if you made it to the end
(probably an easier way to do it with the grp we had but i dunno it.

Ivan

Great post!

Static M.e.

That Spolier bit is class ! never saw it before

I will have to come back and read once I get higher