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?

luna

So, I'm going to throw out an analogy, because I just LOVE analogies.

Think of the guy you're trying to kill as a pesky bug, like a mosquito. Your tank needs to be the brightest light, like a bug zapper, attracting the pest towards him. If you release damage that is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb, thus lighting yourself up like a small sun, the bug sure as hell isn't paying attention to your bug-zapping tank anymore. Additionally, when healers are doing their jobs, each heal they cast is like another light competing with the tank. If the tank has adequately held the aggro of the bad guy, the bad guy will ignore the smaller flashes in favor of the tank ("I can't help it- it's so BEAUTIFUL!). If the nuclear blasts start coming too soon, the bad guy is more likely to stop focusing on the bug zapping tank and start heading for the squishier party members, including the healers. Even smaller amounts of damage from other party members who engage the creep too early will potentially distract the creep and not allow the tank to grab his undivided attention.

In summary, all party members must get into the habit of holding their fire until told to unleash the artillery on the creep. Ideally, the tank will let you know when that time is near, and give you the go-ahead to fire.

__________________
Resurgent's New Motivational Motto:
"Now train harder! Live inside your character! If it dies, YOU DIE! Focus!"

Jesus had a soulstone.

Quarath

I Think A Macro kicked off by the Tank or Party leader essentially declaring that Max aggro is achieved so Open Fire. That way party can wait for a visual on screen cue.

luna

Damn fine idea there, Q.

__________________
Resurgent's New Motivational Motto:
"Now train harder! Live inside your character! If it dies, YOU DIE! Focus!"

Jesus had a soulstone.

Bleue

Ill see what I can find. The only thing is, there is really no way for me to definitively tell when full agro is achieved. I will try to come up with something manually until then though.

__________________
Bleue

http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?39427

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Quarath

The MACRO announcement is more to allow the party to wait for a cue. knowing when aggro is achieved will still hae to be a best guess.

I have set my Macro annoucments to /e in emotes so they work for party or raid.

Bleue

For now, I'm going to create a macro that yells "open fire" to set things off.

One thing I have thought of is setting the macro to yell this when there are 3 sunder armors applied to the target. For a warrior, sunder armor creats the highest amount of hate next to a shield bash. If I can get this, then we should be set. I could use some assistance in setting this up if someone is familliar with macros.

Thanks

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Bleue

http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?39427

___________________________________________

Quarath

I dont think you cam make one that will count how many and then yell automatically. You will have to hit a button or key to kcik it off. I set one up when we were in ZG last week that went like this:

/charge
/e OPEN FIRE!!!

I think there might actually be an emote specifically for open fire

/openfire

but I am at work and cannot verify right now.might just be

/fire

Zena

I dont want to step on toes here....but as a 60 Protection Warrior...I can attest to the fact that Revenge (ability in Defesive Stance) generates the Highest ammount of aggro than any other ability. (besides taunt of course) Dont get me wrong, the sunder armors do generate the aggro, just not as much as Revenge, or even Heroic Strike. Infact, if you read the description of all 3 abilities (Sunder Armor, Heroic Strike and Revenge) Sunder Armor is the only one that does not mention anything about creating threat. Heroic Strike and Revenge do. So...you wanna keep the mob on you, Revenge whenever it is available...and I promise, that mob will not leave you.