Back when I first started tanking 5-mans, there was a particular hunter who pulled off me with irritating regularity. This was partly because the early Druid tanking set at 70 is itemized more for mitigation than threat generation, but partly because he was a young guy, he was good dps, and he knew it. MM-specced Hunters actually do have a lot of control over mobs that get pulled off the tank, and I suspect on some level he made a game out of seeing just how long he could lock something down while the exasperated tank turned her attention elsewhere, usually after bellowing at him in party chat to "DISENGAGE! FEIGN DEATH! DISENGAGE!"Not having played a Hunter at that point, I had a fuzzy notion that Disengage somehow reduced threat and was highly affronted at any hunter with aggro spikes who wasn't using Feign Death over and over again. After starting to level a hunter alt, it quickly became apparent that: a). Disengage was a melee-only skill that still had to "hit" the mob, and b). Feign Death wasn't exactly a spammable ability and could be resisted no matter what you did. I am by no means an expert hunter player, but I have at least learned to bellow, "FEIGN DEATH ON COOLDOWN!" if they're not trapping (and just minding my own business if they are).
I am still occasionally reminded of my days as a backseat hunter, and never more so than while listening to my GM trying to figure out what's gone wrong in a raid.
Despite being an extremely organized raid leader with chart-topping dps, he's never played a healer. Virtually every night we dragged ourselves through SSC he could be heard asking, genuinely baffled, "Why do our priests have so little health?"* or "Why did (dps running around at a distance requiring binoculars to see) die on that last attempt?"** The issue keeps popping back up, especially on any healing-intensive fight that requires us to spread out as much as possible (Gruul), split the number of healers covering multiple tanks (Maulgar, Karathress, Illidari Council), or when the raid-wide damage is so bad (Vashj, Naj'entus) that it's virtually impossible to ensure that lower-health dps can be kept comfortably topped at all times.
Unless you've played a healer, it's not necessarily obvious how much the job is dependent on the ability of individual players to avoid unnecessary damage. Someone who moves during Flame Wreath on Aran, or too many people clumping together for Gruul's Shatter, or a tank who misses a few blocks, are probably going to make you blow through a ton of mana trying to keep them up. But when you're learning a fight these things are just going to happen, and you know perfectly well that sometimes you're going to have a choice over which question is going to be asked at the end of the attempt: "How did the dps die?" vs. "How did the tank die?"
I hear about this a lot from both tanks and healers trying to keep their 5-mans alive, dps with CC or kiting responsibilities, and from raiding friends elsewhere whose hybrid class leaders haven't necessarily played more than one spec much. While it's somewhat related to how popular any given class is - fewer assumptions are made about, say, Warrior abilities than their Shaman counterparts - it's still the rare person who's leveled every class to 70 or even played all the specs on their toon as a regular habit.
The requests made to Poly a bleeding mob, drop back-to-back Fire Elementals for trash fights, or Sap the un-Sappable keep coming. With WoW going on its second expansion, are you still running across players who expect the impossible?
*Unfortunately the Primal Mooncloth set has no stamina unless you gem for it
**"Because they ran out of range when they got aggro!"
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-20-2008 @ 5:42PM
Erika said...
Yeah my leaders don't understand that the blue triangle mean they can see stealth. I haven't played a healer yet but I am leveling a tank.
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2-20-2008 @ 5:43PM
RichM said...
Reminds me of tanking Al'ar in phase 2 back last summer.
The raid leader was always whining at us for not being able to catch him on rebirths (aggro wipe).
Guess he didn't realise that Al'ar is immune to stuns and the main reason why Charge and Intercept have a built-in stun is to ensure that your target is still there by the time you reach it.
Unfortunately Al'ar never was because of the immunity and because he moves so fast (easily epic mount speed).
Anyway we got around most of this with positioning but that's another story. :)
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2-20-2008 @ 9:12PM
Allison Robert said...
My guild had problems with Al'ar for weeks, in no small part because of this very annoying mechanic. Truth be told, I initially thought the problem was exactly as you describe - Al'ar's immune to immobilization and stun effects, and Feral Charge has an immobilization component that was obviously just as useless as the warrior equivalents. Al'ar moves constantly, his hit box is very weird to begin with, and it wasn't uncommon for Big Bird to run off and one-shot a dps while tanks frantically tried to pick him up. At one point I even attributed the problem to the famous feral range bug. I still don't know exactly what the issue is, but he wasn't a fun boss to learn when I could literally stand right in front of him and still not, for whatever reason, be considered in melee range.
At this point I use Feral Charge just to cover the distance to him and continue moving into his hit box until Growl lights up.
2-20-2008 @ 5:46PM
Laukidh said...
If Feign gets resisted, then that's maybe a time to pay attention to threat meters... If you pull off the tank as DPS, someone screwed up.
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2-21-2008 @ 8:58AM
ThorinII said...
As a hunter I can say that if I pull aggro from the tank, it's my fault. When I was spec'd MM it was easy for me to hit too hard too many times in a row. Threat meters are key to making sure you don't pull aggro.
2-20-2008 @ 5:49PM
Shumina said...
Generally speaking, the inter-class training is going well and I, as a healer, am not running into questions that tanks and DPS don't already know the answers to. In fact, they're often becoming the one to apologize first when a wipe lands with "sorry, I got out of range" or "that was totally my fault; I hit the sheep."
Unfortunately, with folks becoming more educated on not only their class but their companions, they're now experimenting with breaking class roles for excitement (mage tanking, for example). This is a problem for a healer, being a reactionary class for the most part. Or if they stick to their role, they're pushing boundaries again and again with ruinous results.
I'm quickly losing patience with the lock or the hunter that's quite aware of passing the tank on the agro meter but tries to reason it with "I'm trying to increase my output, please bear with me." That's admirable, but do that training on someone else's time and dime. While they're tweaking their nipples for just a smidge more perkiness, I'm running back to my corpse so I can rez the party and counting the increasing repair costs.
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2-20-2008 @ 8:32PM
theRaptor said...
What's wrong with passing the tank on the threat meter? The 30% buffer for ranged is quite large, and it is easy to stay at 120% of the tanks threat with no risk. The only time you don't do it is fights in which the tank needs the highest threat or you all die (Prince Malchezzar, the highest threat target is immune to enfeeble), or you need to transition tanks.
Otherwise you are just wasting DPS for no reason.
2-20-2008 @ 9:36PM
Allison Robert said...
TheRaptor, I would tend to agree with you for the purpose of boss fights that are more or less tank-and-spanks, but I would never advise doing it for trash or any fight wherein your tank will be incapacitated in any way. Mobs don't particularly like being tanked or controlled, and I can't name a dungeon, heroic, or raid where I haven't spent at least a portion of every pull feared, gouged, blinded, scatter-shotted, or (most typically) stunned. If you're riding the aggro threshold, the odds are extremely good that you will pull aggro before you even realize I'm out of the fight, and I think that's the point Shumina's making.
2-20-2008 @ 5:49PM
Silverrealm said...
It's ironic that this article just popped up. I was just discussing having an understanding of roles.
In my experience with PUGs few of them know exactaly waht DPS or TANK or HEALER is exactly supposed to do, or they are still figuring out their toon.
Anyone can have a learning curve, but I would expect a frealess leader to know at lease the roles and the mobs they are taking on.
All else fails, 'ASK!'
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2-20-2008 @ 7:03PM
Darque said...
This is why I love, love, love our MT for Kara. My bf and I are both hunters (he's SV/BM, I'm BM/SV), and our tank grouped us according to his Expose Weakness and my Ferocious Inspiration. He regularly asks moves our shamans according to which spec they are so the team benefits the most from the buffs available.
Definitely a rare breed. The first group we almost ran Kara with was adamant that we both MUST be BM/MM spec'd, without having a clue what advantages the other specs could bring to the table (he had never played a hunter, nor did he have any idea about what we could do other than DPS).
2-20-2008 @ 5:58PM
Sneakstar said...
What are thoughts on stunlocking targets? Ie:- Stun locking a main tanks main target? I was of the opinion it was a bad idea considering a tank not getting hit isn't gaining rage therefore can't gen threat? (i have a rogue FW spec) However discussing this with a mace spec guildy the other day and he is claiming that everyone praises him for stunning and is generally very happy to have a stunlock rogue on the team. Wondering what your thoughts were on this :D
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2-20-2008 @ 6:28PM
Balasan said...
Talking from a tanking perspective here, though I cannot speak for everyone:
2 situations:
a) tank is tanking only one mob; other mobs are CCed.
- wait until the tank has good aggro (remember the 3 sunders rule? :), then start your cheapshots and kidney shots. By that time the tank would have enough aggro not to worry about not getting rage from being hit. By the time the mob dies tank should have rage to move on the next mob as well, hopefully.
b) tank is tanking more than one mob - just go ahead and stun. Tank is getting rage elsewhere.
2-21-2008 @ 3:08AM
Heilig said...
Add one thing to this though: Don't start stuns until the mobs get to the tank. We are standing where we're standing for good reason. We want them to come to us. If you stop them, then I have to move out of my tanking position and reposition everything in the process.
Also not a great idea to stun when grouping with a prot pally, as most of their threat comes from being hit.
2-21-2008 @ 8:39AM
Bloodthorn said...
having tanked quite a bit, my personal opinion is that I welcome stuns if the rogue can keep it up and gives me a headstart on aggro. if the mob is being held reasonably under control, it means less damage on the tank which means a happy healer (which usually makes everyone happy)
on the other hand, if the mob is on the rogue, and he just keeps spamming various stunlocks, it can be a bit annoying, but it's useful in a big pulls, where it can ease the multitanking :)
2-20-2008 @ 5:58PM
Scoottie said...
Ever heard of Class Leaders? You know those people that are officers that are responsible for everything to do with the class the play
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2-20-2008 @ 6:24PM
Balasan said...
not every guild is a serious raiding guild, and thus not every guild has a class leader.
2-20-2008 @ 6:04PM
Hokuto said...
Being a tree druid, I get regular whispers suggesting me to get out tree form to run away from things like Solarian's Wrath, Gruul's Grasp, Void Reaver's bolts, etc... Obviously people that never played one.
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2-20-2008 @ 6:23PM
anonymoose said...
I've raided all of MH and most of BT--tree druids do heal out of tree form on specific fights where maximum mobility is required. Void Reaver is a good low level example--but you might as well get used to identifying which encounters you need to heal out of form and adapting your healing accordingly.
2-20-2008 @ 6:34PM
kenney said...
Actually, I think your raid leader is asking valid questions. For instance- on the health issue for healers- you might respond "I am wearing gear designed for a maximum +healing". He might respond "everyone in this encounter is going to take 5k damage at one point. make a few sacrifices on +healing to prioritize stamina FOR THIS ENCOUNTER". So- while you know something about your class that he doesn't know, he may know something about the encounter that you don't. When you put your heads together, you can hopefully be better prepared to find a solution.
A raid leader isn't going to be able to know all classes (hopefully he can fake it though). He shouldn't need to. He may see that his strategy for overcoming one part of the fight mechanic isn't working out, and he will need to be able to ask for more information so that he can better understand the failure of the plan, and what corrective action to take. The problem is, we players get defensive- and interpret it as blame rather than requests for information. Having a thick skin about this is a very good trait in a raider.
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2-20-2008 @ 6:36PM
MartinC said...
This is one of the biggest challenges I faced when starting out as a raid leader. Not only do you have to be extremely proficient at your own class, you need to know every single skill, ability, and trick of every other class.
It's a huge undertaking and brings great responsibility, but if you want to be a truly great raid leader, you really do need to know everything.
It also helps a great deal if the non-raid leaders understand other classes as well. For the most part, DPS is DPS, but healing and tanking classes are quite different. If I had my way, I would require every player to tank and heal for at least a month, to better understand those roles, and to therefore help them become more in tune with the group, and understand the challenges each faces.
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