Yahda yahda yahda.. Mages hit too hard, Warlocks hit harder, Rogues hit the mostest, but none of you should because... Instead you should all eat oatmeal and wear sandles like Priests and Druids (who are nicest) and stand back and watch the Pallies and Warriors showing off in their armour.
I won't say anything about hunters, no matter how I am provoked.
Ok, I will, I find hunters relationships with their pets creepy, although not as creepy as 'lock pets. And this playing dead business and then getting up to brandish tattered bits of eletrical equipment that never work is quite tedious too.
You will have guessed, I have no intention of towing the party line in this email. I have decided, in the style of monomaniacs throughout history, that someone must speak out for dps'rs and that someone is me.
The summary is; you guys are dreaming if you think that the easy life for meatshield and medical accountant manifestos that have done the rounds in the last few days are going to wash in the end game content. Life, my slow witted plate wearing and quick witted but timid palid skinned god bothering friends, is far harder than that.
First though, a reminder.
In this game one size does not fit all.
Scenario 1
3-4 non humanoid elites at party level. Priority is agro control initially, and then rapid kills once this becomes possible (ie if there are two of you on one and it's at 30% of health, it's time to hit it hard, because it'll be dead very soon). As we concluded, the key here is that if you get agro try to stay alive until a tank or off tank comes and pulls it off you, and don't expect a heal. I find blink and frost nova to be especially useful here, but no one should expect me to stand still and wait to die… If I do see a rescue party coming I will stop and wait, but I don't want to have to res unless it is necessary.
Of course, if you have crowd control skills available (sap, shackle or sheep) then things are very different - nominate a target, pin the others, and burn your man to death.
Scenario 2
Boss. This is where it gets tricky, because a lot of the bosses have interesting agro breaking behaviour and special abilities. For example Darkmaster Ganding. We had a pick up tank, who was pretty good, darkkin, andro, strobie and aberas. So we wait for the tank to get agro (two sunders) and then open up with arcane missiles, which hit for 300 a pop four times over eight seconds. Both Andro and I have the arcane agro reduction talent, so normally this will erode the mobs health gradually while not attracting attention. What happens? DMG teleports the warrior into a locked room and comes over to me.. I am dead. Then he visits Andro... Andro is dead... I think Darkkin reappears at this point and stops him attacking aberas, but by the time our tank gets back darks is on the floor, aberas is beyond saving and we wipe (it was close though). Try 2 and I switch to the damage gear and go for a nuke fest. DMG is on the floor and dead before he uses his ability.
We had similar at the Emperor, where we couldn't control him and died with him on 400 health...
Scenario 3
Many non elites or a mix (ie Stratholm ud before Slaughter Square if your parties gear is not so great). Tictacs vary. Sometimes the tank can stand the heat and it's a matter of pulling them off him for a kill in turn, sometimes he can't and I find it useful to "ablate" large numbers of them with AOE so that they can be rapidly killed. This is a tricky business as if even one of them has no tank agro then they'll come to kill you, I find that it works fantastically well if there are paladins in the group using their aoe as well and I use blizzard rather than a criting aoe like flamestrike (crits will probably pull them). In this situation if you take too long in putting them down the healer runs out of mana, the tank goes down because he is taking damage too rapidly then all the agro control in the world is for naught, you are dead, your friends are dead, the priest will run around amusingly for a few seconds more, but he'll be dead soon as well.
I think it shows that there is no magic formula - you have to be ready for the unexpected and everyone has to react to it or you will wipe. There are some groups of mobs (most of them to be honest) that can be killed with the holy trinity route style, but there are quite a few in WOW that can't.
Interestingly, while we are on the subject of no magic formula, some of the funnist PUG groups I've been on have had very odd structures. I did strath to the barron with two holy paladins a balance druid and a hunter
the other day (we couldn't kill the baron, but we did everything else). The Pallies healed, the druid tanked and me and the hunter... We did what mages and hunters do... I WAS GOBSMACKED at how well it worked, holy spec'd pallies are very good healers.
I think that given the no magic formula observation what is it that is going to make a good group vs. a farce? The answers are co-ordination and team work, acting decisively and applying your skills appropriately.
Co-ordination is the least contraversial of these, but is a real skill because for an instance group to be effective we have to move fast. Instances reset, mobs respawn and folks have to go to bed. Still, all of these are better than the dreaded "why did you do that?" conversation. If AOE has gone off don't kite the mobs out of it, don't kite mobs all over the place if they are AOEable and so on. When somone pops a sheep and you break it by mistake on the next swing, they will often resheep -- don't break it again. There is a fine line between chain pulling and hanging round for 10 minutes between kills, both are bad in different ways, chain pulling seems risky, but safty first is too. As a guild we definitely err too much on the side of safty first, and this will have to change if we are going to complete our Dungeon sets and move on to the other content... Baron in 45 mins anyone?
Acting decisively; a mob runs - some DPSer better get it, or you really are in trouble. You see mobs on the healer; you better open up on them, although it will mean you are going to die, because if you don't everyone will die, and then there'll be no one to res you. You see the tanks health bar falling fast, find which mob on him can be quick killed and do it, or pop your sheep and pull one off him (even if it means that you get a new friend in 5,4,3,...) Painting by numbers in combat is easy and blameless, but it also means that the group will seriously
underperform.
Applying skills appropriately; be context sensitive. Act differently before and after the sunders have gone in, act different when the healthbars are low. When a warrior taunts a mob never, ever zap it again (as he can't taunt it again). Be prepared to sit and drink while the warriors and rogues kill a few none elites. If a dps'r starts clearing non-elites then help out, etc.
So - what I am saying is this. In instances where you are overgunned then things can be predictable and controllable and it is possible to stand and watch the warriors getting healed by the priests and nothing ickly like "OMG he just won't agro.. OOM, I'm OOM... Need a heal.. Dead.. Me too.. Oh no, not again... Wipe... Wipe.. Wipe.. Bio break... " happens. If you are not blessed with god-like epix and are trying a tough part of the 60's content this is not the case and all the classes have to do their thing, or you just can't do it at all. This means everyone is alert, no one is on auto, things will happen, you will deal with them.
Sometimes, I'm sure you'll agree, a quick kill with some red bar action is far preferable to no kill at all, although it might require some hard work and quick thinking from the meatshields and medical accountants.
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