Aflin
10-19-2007, 03:53 PM
This thread is not directed at anyone specifically so please do not take this personally. Please do read it as it may have something that you can share with someone else later.
You have played your toon for 60-70 levels now. You are damn good at playing your toon. You can farm anything you want and make gold hand over fist. You rock!!!
Now...while this is all true, when you are doing an instance run or a raid, most classes HAVE to change the tactics that they use. The tactics that you use when questing or soloing will often cause a party or raid wipe.
Here is a common example of this and how it can cause a wipe:
Mr.DPS joins a group for Shattered Halls. Mr.DPS kicks ass and has the highest DPS rating of all those he is grouped with. The group gets ready for a difficult pull. Mr.DPS opens up and crits like crazy, pulling one of the mobs off of the tank.
The tank still has 3 other mobs on him. The tank is in dire need of a couple of heals at this point. The Healer takes care of the tank first and then tries to save Mr.DPS (as Mr.DPS has peeled a mob off of the tank and is taking massive damage from the mob.)
The healer barely manages to squeeze off a heal before Mr.DPS dies and has to follow up with yet another heal just to bring Mr.DPS to above half health. Now the tank is hurting again and the healer turns his attention back to the tank and manages to save him at the last minute.
In the process of all of these big emergency heals, the Healer suddenly draws most of the agro and dies. The party tries everything within their power to finish off the mobs before they die and when the smoke settles, there is only one person standing. The rest of the party releases and runs back to continue the instance.
Now, some folks may not realize this but tanks do not secure threat with DPS. They use taunts and debuffs to hold the agro. Their DPS helps a little but is not enough on its own to secure multiple targets at the same time. A tank's job is to hold the agro on them by generating threat, while the others kill it without stealing agro (also called peeling).
Healers generate threat from healing. The more individuals they have to heal in a battle the more threat they generate. Think of it like this: Every point of damage that a healer cures on a player is two points of damage to each mob in the battle. If a healer lands a crit with a heal, they can accidentally peel agro from the tank.
Had Mr.DPS toned down his attacks a little, he would not have peeled the agro from the tank. The healer would not have gotten any agro. The pull would have been a success.
Mr.DPS realizes what happened and changes his tactics a little. He decides to save his special attacks until the tank has generated enough threat to keep Mr.DPS from peeling.
Mr.DPS also has an ace up his sleve. If he accidentially generates too much threat, he can (depending on the class) Cower, Feign Death, Invisibility, Vanish, Fade or Soulshatter. These are best used when Mr.DPS first realizes he has peeled the agro from the tank. After using the ace, Mr.DPS can resume attacking but pulls his punches until that mob is dead.
There is another problem that Mr.DPS recently realized he had. When in a group and fighting a mob that does periodic AOE damage, Mr.Agro realizes he is not a plate wearer and cannot take all of the damage that ends up getting dished out over time. Mr.DPS then starts making a mental note to disengage from combat and get the hell out of the way so that he does not require a heal to resume the battle after the AOE has stopped.
There is an Addon called Omen that can help you guage how much threat that each party memeber has generated. Unfortunately it will only show the threat of the players that are also using Omen. But if we all get this addon, it can help Mr.DPS better see when he has gone too far and hit too hard and from there he can change his tactics accordingly.
So please, if you happen to know Mr.DPS, direct him to this thread.
DISCLAIMER:
This is definately not the case with every pull in the game. It is an example of a trash mob pull in a 5 man instance. The healing to damage threat generation is mythical and false, but if you think about it that way, you will be playing it safe. This was written after I realized I had become Mr.DPS and I wanted to share what I learned with the gaming community.
You have played your toon for 60-70 levels now. You are damn good at playing your toon. You can farm anything you want and make gold hand over fist. You rock!!!
Now...while this is all true, when you are doing an instance run or a raid, most classes HAVE to change the tactics that they use. The tactics that you use when questing or soloing will often cause a party or raid wipe.
Here is a common example of this and how it can cause a wipe:
Mr.DPS joins a group for Shattered Halls. Mr.DPS kicks ass and has the highest DPS rating of all those he is grouped with. The group gets ready for a difficult pull. Mr.DPS opens up and crits like crazy, pulling one of the mobs off of the tank.
The tank still has 3 other mobs on him. The tank is in dire need of a couple of heals at this point. The Healer takes care of the tank first and then tries to save Mr.DPS (as Mr.DPS has peeled a mob off of the tank and is taking massive damage from the mob.)
The healer barely manages to squeeze off a heal before Mr.DPS dies and has to follow up with yet another heal just to bring Mr.DPS to above half health. Now the tank is hurting again and the healer turns his attention back to the tank and manages to save him at the last minute.
In the process of all of these big emergency heals, the Healer suddenly draws most of the agro and dies. The party tries everything within their power to finish off the mobs before they die and when the smoke settles, there is only one person standing. The rest of the party releases and runs back to continue the instance.
Now, some folks may not realize this but tanks do not secure threat with DPS. They use taunts and debuffs to hold the agro. Their DPS helps a little but is not enough on its own to secure multiple targets at the same time. A tank's job is to hold the agro on them by generating threat, while the others kill it without stealing agro (also called peeling).
Healers generate threat from healing. The more individuals they have to heal in a battle the more threat they generate. Think of it like this: Every point of damage that a healer cures on a player is two points of damage to each mob in the battle. If a healer lands a crit with a heal, they can accidentally peel agro from the tank.
Had Mr.DPS toned down his attacks a little, he would not have peeled the agro from the tank. The healer would not have gotten any agro. The pull would have been a success.
Mr.DPS realizes what happened and changes his tactics a little. He decides to save his special attacks until the tank has generated enough threat to keep Mr.DPS from peeling.
Mr.DPS also has an ace up his sleve. If he accidentially generates too much threat, he can (depending on the class) Cower, Feign Death, Invisibility, Vanish, Fade or Soulshatter. These are best used when Mr.DPS first realizes he has peeled the agro from the tank. After using the ace, Mr.DPS can resume attacking but pulls his punches until that mob is dead.
There is another problem that Mr.DPS recently realized he had. When in a group and fighting a mob that does periodic AOE damage, Mr.Agro realizes he is not a plate wearer and cannot take all of the damage that ends up getting dished out over time. Mr.DPS then starts making a mental note to disengage from combat and get the hell out of the way so that he does not require a heal to resume the battle after the AOE has stopped.
There is an Addon called Omen that can help you guage how much threat that each party memeber has generated. Unfortunately it will only show the threat of the players that are also using Omen. But if we all get this addon, it can help Mr.DPS better see when he has gone too far and hit too hard and from there he can change his tactics accordingly.
So please, if you happen to know Mr.DPS, direct him to this thread.
DISCLAIMER:
This is definately not the case with every pull in the game. It is an example of a trash mob pull in a 5 man instance. The healing to damage threat generation is mythical and false, but if you think about it that way, you will be playing it safe. This was written after I realized I had become Mr.DPS and I wanted to share what I learned with the gaming community.