Lirix

Parties form for many reasons. The goal of the party is generally to cover for any given class's weaknesses so that they can fight more difficult creeps without dying. Because everyone hates dying.

At it's core, a party needs two things. The ability to do damage and the ability to take damage. This is simply because any fight with any creep comes down to killing it before it can kill you. Notably, all of the classes can do damage and take damage. Some are significantly better at one than the other however. This is why someone is generally designated to keep the creep's attention. This person, often called a tank, has quite possibly the most difficult job in the party. It's also an addictive adrenaline rush for some of us.

After picking a tank, we grab a damage dealer. Most damage dealers don't take hits very well, and appreciate being able to unleash their arsenal without fear of reprisal. This is probably the easiest job in a party, but it is far from thoughtless. The tank can only keep a creep's attention with your help. Make your tank's job easier; it's high stress.

Parties are generally filled out with healers. A healer is generally not doing the taking or giving of hits, but instead makes it easier for everyone else to do their job. The most common misconception in the game is that the healer keeps the party alive. The healer can only provide you with more health, but a cloth class that continues to take hits will still die. And if the healer spams heals on some hapless damage dealer that took the creep's attention from the tank, the healer will get the creep's attention very quickly. Now you are in a situation in which the healer cannot do their job, which has the nasty tendency to cause a party wipe.

This leads us to fundamental #1. The party can do great things as long as the fight is under control. Lose control of a fight, and life gets real interesting for a very short period of time.

Control is more difficult in WoW. Prior MMORPGs had parties fighting tougher individual creeps. The MMORPG realm is now moving toward making the creeps fight in parties. That gives us some important things to consider when fighting them. Most important of these new issues is that we have to worry about how multiple creeps will target the party. Tanks now have to acquire and keep more than one creep's attention. Sadly, it's harder to do this than it is to take that attention away. Spells with an area of effect are hard to use in a party for this reason. The main method of having multiple creeps attack someone else, however, is healing. Remember, you are competing for every creep's attention when you cast a heal.

Recap time!
- The tank is there to take hits. He wants the creep's attention.
- The damage dealer is there to kill creeps. He does not want the creep's attention.
- The healer is there to keep everyone healthy. Nobody wants him to have the creep's attention.
- Keeping everyone alive is a job for everyone. If you do not work together on this, people die.
- As long as the creeps fight the tank, the fight is under control. If you lose control, people die.
- Nobody likes to die.(And you are a very strange man, Nobody.)

There are more advanced tools for helping a party maintain control. Pulling, crowd control, off-tanking and possibly others that I've never heard of. These tools are not always available to every party and so I'll probably cover them in individual posts at some future time. Also, the classes can generally fill more than one role. Avoid assuming that the priest will heal and the warrior tank. Communicate with your party to insure that everyone understands their role.

Wow, I sure like to talk don't I?

Apophis

Excellent post, Lirix!

Stickied!

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick.

luna

What a great post, Lirix!

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Resurgent's New Motivational Motto:
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Jesus had a soulstone.