Two Things – WLK and Tanking

First, let me echo the sentiment of a guildie…perhaps the most exciting part about WLK, Northrend, and leveling to 80 is fast approaching! NO MORE KARAZHAN! Now, here’s to hoping we don’t get stuck farming Naxx-10 for a year and a half.

Second, wowpaladin.org has a sort of compilation of Prot Paladin discussion from Ghostcrawler up here. Apparently, there is some concern that Blessing of Sanctuary is empowering Warriors to be better than Paladins at tanking. An informational side-note, Blessing of Sanctuary was changed to restore Mana, Rage, or Runic Power to the recipient upon dodging, parrying, or blocking an attack, in addition to reducing incoming damage by 3%. I don’t know which aspect of it is making warriors “better” tanks, or if it’s both, even, but Ghostcrawler (the dev who’s seemingly endlessly writing on the class forums about changes in the beta and 3.0) is assuaging concerns, saying that most the theorycrafting is relying on assumptions about approximate uptime of things like warrior Shield Block and the RNG factor in Critical Block, and can’t quite be exact.

An interesting note in the discussion is about a guild’s tendency to trust one person as a main tank, regardless of that person’s class. I’m sure this is true for most guilds, but ours hasn’t had an actual “main tank” in…months? It’s been a long time. Anyway, it is a rotating affair for us, as I mentioned here…though maybe not so officially rotational. Basically, lots of available tanks, but for the most part it turns out to be who gets stuck with it as opposed to who actually wants to do it. I’m hoping we can get that worked out for WLK where we can take turns or something. It is too easy for us to get burnt out on.

I would postulate that part of the issue, at least for me (well, especially for me) is that our tank alts, being in high demand, will see more playtime. As such, over a number of months, they will gear up way faster than anyone else. This takes those characters to a point where they maybe don’t need any gear from the content they are still running, and we don’t even have any sort of “main tank gets gear first” rule in place…everyone gets the same opportunities at loot in MiM.

But, as I said, gear, while maybe not the best stimulus, is still a driving force for character advancement. Beyond that, you have I believe two things to consider when raiding: the opportunity to participate (including seeing the content) and the opportunity to do things with your friends. Not to downplay the importance of friendship and socializing in an MMO, but it is still easy to get bored doing the same stuff over and over again, especially if you play the same class and don’t advance at all as that class.

Maybe this would get better were we a guild that advanced. However, far too many people do not work hard enough or dedicate themselves to the task at hand, leading to frustration among those that do. I’m sure this is a sentiment that has been echoed throughout the WoW community, and I won’t go so far as to say I’m not guilty of the same attitude from time to time, but apathy is a dangerous force, and I would say it can be contagious. I know it’s why I don’t raid now.

Perhaps in WLK I can look forward to raiding alongside others with respectable levels of competence more often than not.

On the other hand, I am excited regardless. Excited for 10 more levels, new sights, new 5-mans, new abilities, talents. It’s going to be fun! Fun I know I will have. I just hope it lasts!

Leveling Specs for WLK, Part I – Warrior

It’s July, and pretty much the end of it.  I think we have 4 months to the day until the projected release date of Wrath.  I myself, having little else to do, have started thinking of how I’m going to level my toons to 80, and what specs they’ll use.

First, Niemandra.  She’ll be getting to 80 first.

I think what I’ll do here is go for a hybrid fury/prot build.  The protection points should help for all those times I know I’m going to have to tank.  I seem to remember some things about Defiance changing, perhaps the threat bonus being rolled into Defensive Stance by default, but I’m not sure.  At any rate, assuming Defiance remains as it is, I’d be going as deep as that, and probably no farther.  Tactical Mastery will be a must for the bonus threat to Bloodthirst, a talent I’ll get from Fury.

The protection contribution will be something like this:

2/2 Improved Bloodrage
3/3 Tactical Mastery
5/5 Toughness
3/3 Defiance

13 points total.  I will probably respec into this the day WLK hits the shelves, so to speak (it’s irrelevant to me what it hits, I’ll have it shipped to my house).

That leaves, at 70, 48 points for me to spend in Fury.

My main objective here is Titan’s Grip – allows me to dual-wield 2-handed weapons, compensated for by an attack speed penalty.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure of everything I’d be taking in this tree (I don’t really have any of the new talents memorized yet), but:

5/5 Cruelty
5/5 Unbridled Wrath
1/1 Piercing Howl
3/3 Blood Craze
1/5 Commanding Presence
5/5 Dual-Wield Specialization
5/5 Enrage
1/1 Sweeping Strikes
5/5 Flurry
3/3 Precision
1/1 Bloodthirst
5/5 Improved Berserker Stance
1/1 Rampage
1/5 (the +% stam / -% zerker stance threat talent)
4/5 Titan Grip

Alternatively, I could take one point out of Titan Grip and put that in Last Stand, over in prot, for the extra “aw crap” button.

Ideally, I’d tank dual-wielding, using Sunder Armor and Revenge (and Bloodthirst in lieu of Shield Slam) frequently to hold threat. I’ve reasoned that if I’ll kick out more threat per second at the expense of taking more damage (not using a shield), that’s better than not holding threat and letting mobs one-shot the mage. By my guess, having to use a shield in this build would probably decrease the incoming damage I take by about 5% while simultaneously decreasing my rage and threat generation by about 30% (and decrease my damage output by a similar percentage). I’m pretty sure that’s not worth it.

I’ve tanked all of SV in Berserker Stance, and tanked the end boss of that with Recklessness up. I should be able to take on introductory WLK instances in defensive stance, perhaps in PvP gear. Time will tell, though.

From this point in the spec, I think I would finish up Fury (filling Titan Grip), getting to…Shockwave? I think? That will be level 72. I’m not sure what this talent is for, really (pvp? doesn’t seem to be worth it, damage-wise) but I think it will help me hold aggro on multiple mobs alongside Thunderclap.

From there, I will end up making a decision between Improved Revenge and filling the talent I couldn’t remember the name of above. Level 76…4 points left. There is a talent, if I remember right, on the opposite side of Rampage from the above unnamed talent, that allows you to decrease the cast time of your next Slam by X amount of time when you crit with Bloodthirst. Would 4 points allow me to fill that (as well as Improved Slam)? Would that make it instant-cast? That sounds delectable.

If that’s not possible…I’d fill the +% stam / -% threat talent.

And then, at 70 80, back to Arms. Mortal Strike for PvP or Blood Frenzy for PvE.

Return of Heroic Old Hillsbrad

It’s not quite so bad as I once thought.

The most difficult part of this instance is probably the differences between it and it in non-heroic mode.  Namely, the patrols around the prison camp area.  These consist of one Rifleman and one stealth-detecting hound that, upon being engaged, will spawn an additional two melee mobs.  The hound can be CC’d normally, but neither the Rifleman nor the spawned guardsmen can.

To exacerbate the potential difficulty those provide, they respawn in about 10-15 minutes.

In contrast, these patrols in normal mode do not spawn additional mobs, nor do they respawn at all (excepting the possible 2-hour “you’re taking too long!” respawn timer imposed on many instances).  They are also in different places.

So, to beat this instance!

Fly in as normal.  Clear the first guard outside, and the mobs under the two towers to either side of the entrance.  Clear the mobs guarding both sides of the bridge, and make your way to the stairs that take you to the prison camp area.

There is one patrol up here.  Take it out.  CC the dog (hibernate or polymorph) if you can.  No dps until your tank picks up all three of the other mobs (or all 4 if you don’t have cc for the dog).  Once all these mobs are down, you are on a timer.

Your next objective:  clear the 3 houses.  Pull them up the stairs to where you cleared the first patrol.  We killed the warder in each house first, CCing whatever else we could, with a priority on keeping the riflement CC’d as much as possible.  Note that the warders can dispel CC.  I wouldn’t recommend using sap…sheeps and traps preferable.  (Alternatively, the mobs don’t hit very hard, a prot paladin could likely hold all of them easily.  We had a druid.)

Don’t bother with the bombs just yet.  Once all three houses are down, wait for one patrol to walk by and pull it up the stairs, using the same method as above to kill em all.  Then, descend into the pit and get the other patrol.  You are now out of the way of the first timer and on a new one, that of the patrols down in the pit.  Take care of the bombs now, and then go under the bridge and get the final two houses.  Once all of the bombs are set, the houses will be ablaze, and the patrols are now irrelevant. 

Go take care of the first boss.  When he descends into the pit with you.  Other than hitting really hard, he’s something of a pushover.  Have ranged people not stand near each other, as when he leaves the tank during fear he will likely go attack someone else and whirlwind near them, potentially destroying multiple people at once.  So yeah, spread out.  Try to have a good way to deal with fears ready.

After that the instance is much the same as normal, except that Thrall seems stupider about breaking CC.

The final boss event is tough, however.  Being dragonkin, unless you have a druid, cc on them will be rough at best, given Thrall’s anti-hunter-trap nature.  Try to have your tank stand closest to where the mobs will be spawning as their initial aggro seems based on proximity.  Kill the caster mobs first, followed then by the melee mobs one-by-one.  This is tough, because the mobs will apply a debuff which increases damage taken and healing received by 50%…an effect you’d think would even itself out but doesn’t at all given the amount of damage that can be spread around here.

Something that we’d found helps is to let Thrall tank a mob.  He’s got enough health to survive a fairly decent beating, and can hold his own against one mob just fine.

The final boss himself isn’t a big deal.  Purge/dispel/steal his buff that eats your group’s buffs and beat him down normally.

Lastly, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Icy Veins + Bloodlust is freakin’ amazing.  Thank goodness for Salvation.

Yay for Epic Flight Form

Helped a pair of irl friends with level 70 druids get their epic flight form quests finished last night in Heroic Sethekk. We had planned on starting at 9, but ended up having to wait until 10:30 or so for our 5th to get home from work. From there, it went fairly rough. More crowd control would have been most handy, all we really had was a succubus which kept getting destroyed by things.

Warrior tanking on multiple mobs is so very precarious. For one thing, Thunderclap is not usable while the warrior is silenced, which makes very little sense to me. Also can’t taunt, which does make sense, but I’ve known about that. Also, if I end up getting stunned by one of the Talon Lords or whatever they’re called (they use “Talon of Justice“, lawl) before I’ve had the chance to use TC, well…things get even harder.

Our poor healing tree druid had very few hit points as well, so often a stray random charge from the birds would do her in instantly (as I was never quick enough on the intervene to take that attack).

However, the Anzu event was one-shotted. Awesome job by both druids keeping everyone decursed and all of the statues alive pretty much the whole time (from what I could tell). That was probably the easiest part of the instance for us.

Oh, for the record…

Prot Warrior Tank (me)
Feral Druid
Dest Warlock (also Marks Hunter; used the hunter for the Anzu fight and the pull right before the final boss for some more reliable CC)
Elem Shaman
Resto Druid

Lastly, the dual Ravenguard pulls were too much for me. We had the feral druid tank the primary dps target while I offtanked the other on those. Worked much much better for the Resto Druid’s HoTs to manage through.

Image from boards.clan-blackstar.org.

The Brick Wall (Post-60 Leveling), and Warlock News

Friday or Saturday night, Valefique landed at full (150%) rest bonus. At about 10% through level 63. Time to head out and do some quests or instances! It shouldn’t take too long, right?

5 hours of Life Drain spam later, she’s 80% through 63, and my 4 key is starting to wear out on me. To top it off, she’s still at 80% rest bonus. “Good lord,” I think to myself.

They really did increase leveling speed from 30-60. It’s insane.

What this also means is that I’m looking at Valefique getting rested xp all the way to 70. If I can only get through almost half of the bonus in 5 hours…

In other news, I did UB with her yesterday. Guild prot paladin and spriest, me, pug bm hunter and (healing) spriest. I hit up 450 dps in there with CoS, Ferocious Inspiration, and Shadow Weaving. Propelling my Shadowbolt damage from an average 700 to an average 1250.

Spell rotation went as such (this is with 0 points in Destruction):

1) Curse of Shadows (instant)
2) Unstable Affliction (1.5 sec cast)
3) Corruption (instant)
4) Siphon Life (instant)
5) Shadowbolt x3 (3 seconds each)*
6) Unstable Affliction
7) Corruption
8) Shadowbolt x2
9) If mob was going to live a bit longer, Siphon Life. If not, more Shadowbolts.

*Also note I occasionally would work in a Dark Pact or Life Tap to keep mana up. That would usually get worked in somewhere in here, meaning I might only do 2 shadowbolts to ensure that UA/Corruption are always up.

Again, 0 points in destruction as my soloing build doesn’t ever use Shadowbolt except for when Nightfall procs. And yet total damage dealt at the end had SB as my #1 source of damage, pretty high above Corruption in #2. (And I was even spreading Corruption around a bit in hopes of more NF procs…Constant Consecration tanking ftw.)

Can’t wait to try dpsing in a raid with this.

Also, Vale’s next special project is to level tailoring. Time to craft another FSW set (the first of which I have not yet finished, I might add…Ahz still needs 375 and his robes).

Image from emerahu.freeblog.hu.

New Caverns of Time Instance Ideas

The Caverns of Time is a branched instance location (much like Auchinduon, Tempest Keep, Hellfire Citadel, and the old Scarlet Monestary and Dire Maul). The best part is there’s an endless set of possibilities for instance ideas.

The basic theme is you enter the area and discover that a hostile group of dragonkin known as the Infinite Dragonflight are out to mess with the course of events that occurred in the past.

In Escape from Durnholde Keep, your group enters to help Thrall…well, help him escape from Durnholde Keep. Along the way you fight humans (possibly disguised Infinite Dragons) and eventually Epoch Hunter, the dragon responsible for the whole operation. This is a 66-68ish instance, reasonably difficult and a lot of fun as it’s not your standard pull-CC-dps instance, especially once Thrall gets going.

After that is The Dark Portal, taking you back in time to when Medivh was opening the portal that let loose the orcs into Azeroth. This is a 68-70 instance, also reasonably difficult, and entirely unlike most other instances in the game. All of the group’s opponents here are Infinite Dragonkin (with the exception of the crocs, spiders, and cats you must clear firsthand), coming in waves. 18 waves, every 6th wave being a boss wave. The final boss is Aeonus, a dragon about the size of Onyxia. All of these dragonkin are set on killing Medivh, who has a protective shield up but will not fight for himself as he is intent on opening that portal.

Those are both 5-man instances, and both have Heroic settings. There is currently one other CoT instance, that being Mount Hyjal. I’ve not been there yet myself, but it’s a 25-man raid instance that requires your raid members to have gone through all of both Serpentshrine Cavern and The Eye, defeating Lady Vashj and Kael’Thas, respectively. (/EDIT: Figures Blizzard would nix that right after I post this. Both Hyjal and Black Temple are having their attunements removed in 2.4.) From what I understand, the Infinite Dragonflight is nowhere to be seen here, in any way. But, you go through the instance in some fashion and fight the Scourge and the Burning Legion, ending with Archimonde, one of the biggest baddies in WoW history.

That’s all we have right now. Supposedly, I believe with the release of the next expansion (Wrath of the Lich King), we will get a new one. This is to be set in Stratholme, and will have the adventurers aiding Arthas in purging the town of infected villagers. All controversy aside, and I’m not sure where the iDragons fit in to this, but if it’s like the last couple instances it should be a unique and fun way to spend an hour or two.

And I, personally, am hoping for even more beyond that. The CoT instances are my favorites, and I read the results of a poll recently that seemed to indicate it was such for many other WoW players as well (Old Hillsbrad in particular). (/edit: source of poll: I don’t remember…may have been on WoW Insider)

One idea I heard mention of sounded great to me. During the time span detailed in the Frozen Throne expansion of Warcraft III, Sylvanas breaks loose from the sway of the Lich King and oversees the rise of the Forsaken, an organization of undead against the Scourge. They beseiged the Scourge-held Lordaeron, eventually taking the castle for themselves.

The CoT idea was for the players to take on the personas of Forsaken agents sent into the fortress to…do agently things. Take out strategic targets in preparation for the attack. Fight some mobs, a couple bosses, fun ensues. It’d be like the CoT version of Shattered Halls.

Part of the popularity of OHB seems to stem then from having the instance turn everyone into a human. I dunno about anyone else, but that’s one of my favorite parts about the instance as well. There’s just something neat about seeing the same armor on a completely different character, and controlling that instead. Or maybe it’s just that I like the human female casting animations way more than the blood elf ones. >_>

An instance that does the same, only changing the players to Forsaken instead of Humans, might bring about the same popularity.

However, while I’m all in favor of that idea as an instance, perhaps something more in line with the agendas of the Alliance might be in order. So far we have, let’s see: 1) setting Thrall free, and 2) ensuring that the orcs are allowed to rampage about for the First and Second Wars. Hyjal doesn’t count, as you don’t seem to be ensuring anything as nothing’s being tampered with.

For this Arthas instance they’re proposing, well, that was one of the events that really broke down a good part of the Alliance with the murder of King Menethil, and one that pretty much directly led to the alienation (and near-destruction) of the High Elves which basically led them to leave the Alliance and join the Horde.

So instead, something for the Alliance, something that maybe gives them a more favorable light (even if they, as a faction, don’t necessarily deserve it). (/edit: and by that, I mean the NPCs and personalities given to them, not necessarily the players :P )

Possible ideas from me, then:

• The attack on the Dark Portal at the end of the Second War. The Infinites simply tampering with important past events again, but could be much like the current Dark Portal, only instead of defending it, you’d be attacking it. Your opponents would be orcs, and at the end there would be the usual iDragon boss.
• Freeing Alexstrasza from the clutches of the Dragonmaw Clan at Grim Batol. Perhaps the Black Dragonflight, in charge of the operation there, and the Infinites are allies? The party would assist Ro-whatsisface from the novels in navigating the old dwarven city to where Alex is held captive. Your opponents would again be orcs, those assisted in some way by the iDragons.
• One of the dwarven battles that pitted the Wildhammers and …whatever the Ironforge dwarves are against the …dark ones. Why can’t I remember these names? Anyway, they were three kingdoms of dwarves. The dark ones summoned Rag into the world. Something in there, let’s have a party of dwarves!
• Another raid perhaps? How about we go waaay back, to the attack on the Well of Eternity at Azshara? The Night Elven armies under the command of Lord Ravencrest, and assisted by Malfurion, Illidan, and even Tyrande, marching to the city to “free” their Queen. This time make sure the Infinite Dragonflight is there, in some way obviously messing with past events.

I’d personally be all for bearing witness to an event I’ve only been able to read about, rather than rehashing levels out of Warcraft III (as with Hyjal and the upcoming Purging of Stratholme).

The Difficulty of Heroics

To preface, yes, Heroics are by and large more difficult than their non-heroic equivalents. It wouldn’t make much sense for them to be easier.

However, there seems to be a feeling that you need raiding gear to be successful in these heroic instances. I will admit you should probably have gear that is mostly blue, and epics from Karazhan certainly won’t hurt your sucess, but the heroics are not that hard. As long as your tank has at least 13k hp and 490 defense (or 17k hp and 415 defense for a druid), your healer has about 900 +healing, and your dps/cc components are fairly sound, you shouldn’t have any (/edit: serious) trouble clearing a heroic. At these lower numbers, you might run into some hairy situations (such as having to spam big heals on your tank or deal with some of your squishier dps getting one-shot).

Also, though, the gear drops could use upgrades. Granted, there are some pieces that drop in heroics that are great for certain classes and specs, but (especially for clothies), armor drops will be somewhat lacking in power compared to the difficulty. While you are guaranteed an epic drop at the end as well as some high-quality blues, all of the bosses are dropping loot on par with the non-heroic 5-mans. The blues in heroics should be scaled up to above item level 115, perhaps 120, but with the same “Requires Level 70″ tag.

In fact, I’d like to see upgrades to the “heroic sets,” that is, the Doomplate, Devastation, Wastewalker, and Mana-Etched sets. Tune them just a little higher, and make maybe 2/5 pieces of each set epic. Maybe the chestpiece and gloves.

Moral of the story, if you will, is that the heroics are not as hard as people are making them out to be. If you gear yourself enough in the non-heroic 5-mans (which you should be as you’re running them for your heroic keys anyway), I won’t say they’ll be a breeze but you can do it. I am however in agreement that the gear drops are a bit lackluster.

Reputation/Faction Grinding

I’ve noticed a certain amount of dissension in guild chat towards the concept of heroics and faction grinding in instances. Seems guaranteed now that when someone says “Anyone want to do a heroic?” someone replies “boo, heroics.” Which is kind of funny in and of itself because it’s like they’re saying they don’t enjoy or even disdain deeds of heroism. But I digress.

It seems they just don’t want to do the instances. I can see that as being boring, but these are the same people that are at least somewhat intrigued by raiding. Which is often the same as instancing, only harder. This leads me to believe we have reward-driven guild members. And that maybe they don’t see the rewards available in faction grinding.

Being a paladin, I can benefit from all sorts of gear, be it melee dps, spell damage, tanking, or healing stuff. Thus it suited me well to do all these instances repeatedly. I was in all blues shortly after getting to 70. It doesn’t hurt that I do enjoy running instances however, even in a PuG.

But, for a more narrow or specialized class, such as a rogue or a mage, you have to know what you’re going for. After doing the quests for the various factions not in the associated instance(s), it often will not take more than a few extra runs of said instance(s) to get to revered. It’s exalted that takes a lot of time. Cenarion Expedition and The Keepers of Time, for example, should only require 2-3 runs of Steamvault and Black Morass (respectively) to achieve revered status after doing the quests for those factions. (And there are only a couple quests for the Keepers of Time…the last of which for finishing Black Morass awards you with a whopping 8000 reputation points.)

So anyway, what other rewards, besides now being able to run the heroics, are available?

Well for one thing, there are the various head enchants. Cenarion Expedition’s head enchant adds an additional 34 attack power and 16 hit rating to your head item. Thrallmar/Honor Hold will offer you one that adds 35 healing and 7 mana per 5 sec. The one for Keepers of Time will net you 17 defense and 16 dodge rating (or vice versa, I can’t remember heh). These are awesome, and you’re holding yourself back by not getting them!

Also, there are various other items you can get without having to worry about drops! [Xi'ri's Gift] is a reward from getting to revered with the Sha’tar, and Thallmar/Honor Hold will offer you the [Ancestral Band]. Granted I can only really remember healing-related items, but there are plenty of others! I seem to remember Lower City offering mail hunter/shaman leggings, and Thrallmar/Honor Hold has a hunter-ish polearm of some kind. And you can get these by going for other items in those instances!

And lastly, let’s not forget…heroics may be tough, but you can get epic-quality items from them! I recommend downloading the AtlasLoot add-on (you can get it from curse-gaming.com) and seeing what’s out there for you before passing swift judgement upon faction grinding.

Lastly, the game is of course not necessarily about the gear rewards, it’s about having fun. Don’t let the taste of blues and purples soil your demeanor. Nor should you go for these things if you’re not having fun getting them. But success in the end-game can be somewhat dependent on your character’s gear, so if you have some opportunity to improve it you should consider taking it!

Yay Gear Runs

Couldn’t get 25 people together for Gruul’s Lair yesterday so we split up the raid into 5-man groups for gear. I paladin-tanked an SV run, got our Resto shaman some new gloves in the form of [Fathomheart Gauntlets]. As well, two of the five people there got themselves to revered with CE, and a third is within one run of it.

The [Ace of Furies] dropped for the BM group, as well as the [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle], which went to one of our priests.

I didn’t get much of a rundown on what dropped in the SL group, but the hunter did inform me she got herself a [Sonic Spear].

All in all a good night for upgrades. We’ll have to do this more often methinks.

PuGs, part II

Preface: I use the pronoun “he” not because I’m sexist, but because “he or she” over and over again is both cumbersome to read and write.

Anyway, you join a PuG as a healer. If you’re spec’d to heal, you should have a fairly easy time of it, even if your groupmates are somewhat dense.

How is that so? Well, your job becomes easy, and with your talent points invested as they are, you can carry your group through the instance. At least, this is the way it used to be.

Nowadays, mobs hurt. They hurt a lot. The increase in stamina allowed Blizzard to increase mob damage. If your rogue pulls aggro, he’s taking way more damage than he should. If the mage does, he’s probably dead if the tank isn’t quick.

Again, communication is key. What mob are we attacking first? What gets crowd controlled, and who does the controlling?

If your pull is going to end up needing the tank to handle more than one mob, make sure he knows as much. You don’t want those extra mobs running willy-nilly, inevitably onto you. Me, I don’t mind holding a couple mobs for a while. I’m a paladin! Flip on Concentration Aura and heal tank them for a while I’ve got 14k armor, 9k hit points…I’ll be fine. But this is not a safe option for other classes. You need your tank to be on those mobs, and for those mobs to be on your tank. Not only is this smooth operation, but this is safe.

If your tank can’t hold more than one or two mobs, and you end up dying more than once to that, it can’t hurt to try and offer some concerned suggestions. If it’s a warrior, make sure he’s using Thunderclap, and getting sunders off on all the mobs in his stead. Often, the tank is safe to get a little initial aggro on the initial dps target and switch to holding aggro on the others. The dps will make short work of the initial target and the tank can build lots of aggro on the others.

But you don’t always see things happen smoothly. No, you end up heal tanking mobs, or the dps does. Most PuG difficulties stem from tanking issues…not necessarily the fault of the tank of course, but if the mobs aren’t being tanked the way they ideally should, or if the dps is doing too much and stealing aggro, everyone has problems. Dps’ers die, the healer dies…stuff goes downhill real quick.

It can be hard to mitigate this as a healer. Your heals are best focused on one person. Sure some classes have heals which heal more than one person simoultaneously, but they aren’t meant to be used constantly. Even the best, most mana-efficient multi-target heal in the game (priests’ Prayer of Healing) can’t be spammed, the healer will go oom and/or the tank will not get enough big heals to sustain the damage he takes.

Of course, people that aren’t the tank will take damage from time to time, but those should be situations where it is unavoidable. Not due to coordination issues, unless an encounter is being learned, etc etc. The tank should have aggro, the tank should be being healed, the dps should be killing the mobs in order.

It all falls back on everyone knowing what they need to do, and then communication. Sometimes all it takes is good leadership. Someone to step up and do the markings and coordinate with everyone a kill order and crowd control setup.

Everyone knows at least somewhat how to play their class. Its bringing all those skills together and meshing them into one skill set carried by five different players that makes a group work well.

Though, there’s always problem children. Those people that refuse to heal, tank, or don’t know what they’re doing or are too proud to ask. They don’t need help, they can do it all. Beyond hope? Some of them maybe. It really just takes a willingness to learn, and some people don’t have that.

And that’s enough rambling on that. I had intended to do a post about how you should be healing in a PuG but I kept getting sidetracked into semi-rants about how groups should be run.