Impatience = the most formidable EQ foe

[pickled_heretic]

If my DPSers aren't chain nuking from 100% I complain. I have aggro pulled off me once in a blue moon, but usually only from bards that are chain stunning and proccing from two weapons.

Should have rolled a SK man.

[Branaddar]

A lot of MMOers these days don't believe in filling a role in a group. Just pew pew look how much DPS I do!!1eleven

Honestly, I think it's in everyone's best interests to try and edjamakate people on aggro mechanics and why it's wasteful to have a DPS-type tanking.

- Mana regen is slow as crap here
- Their pew pewing should be done in fits and starts, slowly building
- Healers burn the most mana out of anyone, so first priority is minimizing how much healing needs to be done
- Tanks (should) soak damage better than anyone else in the group, so they should be doing it.

I've found that even if I'm pissed as hell about someone in the group screwing up, a few gentle words can get them back in line. "Hey dude, our cleric's having a tough time healing you and we're having to wait longer for him/her to med up after each fight. Maybe try gently and slowly nuking near the start of the fight so the tank has time to build hate?" or something along those lines. Usually works better than "omgz wtf dood stop overnuking blargh!"

Course if they come back with asshattery and "don't tell me how to play" then the verbal gloves are off.

[pickled_heretic]

I was in a group last night for several hours and the wizard said to me after we were done, "I have never been in a group where I never pulled aggro from the tank before."

TBH it's probably the tank's problem for being shitty at holding aggro most of the time (or he's a warrior and can't do anything to hold aggro anyway).

[Stickyfingers]

Just start finding people who mesh and flow with the way you play and become friends with them. I have about 30 people on my friends list now (some who don't know it!), but they are all people I would consider to be good players who I can rely on and trust. Of course, it is much harder and at the same time easier to do this at lower levels due to the larger amount of players and "newbies", but eventually bad players
A. Learn or are B. Weeded out of the game. I made a really good core group of friends in game, including a Monk, Enchanter, Wizard, Warrior, and me a Druid. All of these people play approximately the same amount of time as me and are all experience players. Pretty much I can log on now and instantly grab an amazing Monk, Enchanter, Wizard, and Warrior whenever I like and duo, group, pretty much anything. I would suggest talking to your group, I have started to ask everyone I group with if they have Skype and if so to hop on. Since the people I regularly group with all have Skype, typically there are at least 3 people in Skype from my group. It is also a fantastic way to meet people, being able to talk to someone person to person makes it much easier to exchange info and figure out playtimes and persons style much faster. If the person is horrible, just wait for him to leave or "reform" the group lol.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Efficient XP grinding is just a two-resource optimization problem. The group has two resources: HP and Mana. Mana can create HP (healing, buffs) or limit HP loss (increasing damage output, decreasing incoming damage), and regens at a constant rate over time. Here, I think of damage output (DPS) as a means to limit HP loss (i.e. the more quickly you kill shit, the less damage it can do to you.)

The optimization problem is, ideally, using those two resources, maximize XP gain to the group without letting any single group member's HP reach zero.

The description is simple. Following this optimization problem can be complex, because you have variables affecting your HP loss such as:

a) Pull rate
b) # mobs per pull
c) crowd control
d) off-tanking
e) ping-pong aggro
f) level of mobs
g) resists against spellcasting mobs
h) group DPS

etc

So, here's a few things I take away from thinking about it in these terms:

- The characters who can convert mana into HP are key, because they effectively increase your group's collective HP pool. We already know this from a common sense approach, but that's how you think of it in terms of this model.

- In order to conserve both of your resources, you need to limit the incoming damage. That means your puller needs to bring mobs in controllable quantities such that you have one mob on one tank by the time everything is crowd controlled. Otherwise, you are putting a drain on your mana resource, and you are not limiting your HP loss.

- This means you are less efficient if anyone draws aggro off the tank (this also means your best tanks are probably SKs and Paladins, by the way).

- This also means that your puller needs to shoot for one mob per pull... the group's crowd control capabilities take up your mana resource. In most cases (exceptions can be AOE groups or non-standard groups designed for multiple pulls), crowd control should be for accidental adds, because between mezzes or root parks or snare kiting or off tanking, the crowd controller is going to use up mana doing his thing, and your healers are going to use up mana keeping the crowd controller's HP above zero.

- In general cases, if you do have multiple mobs you are engaging, everyone needs to be on the biggest threat (usually, this is the one that can potentially deal out the most damage, but one obvious exception to this is if a mob can heal itself or others in the area, you take care of it first.) The main assist needs to be able to determine which mob is the largest threat to the group. Because you want it to die the quickest so that you minimize the amount of time it can drain your group's resources.

So, in summary:

1) Minimize the loss to the group's collective pool of HP
2) The group's mana pool regens at a fixed rate and can be converted to HP or used to help limit the loss of the group's HP pool
3) Control the rate of incoming damage (limit adds, don't draw aggro off the main tank, control pull rate, kill tough shit ASAP, resist gear, appropriate mob levels, etc)

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by YendorLootmonkey [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Efficient XP grinding is just a two-resource optimization problem. The group has two resources: HP and Mana. Mana can create HP (healing, buffs) or limit HP loss (increasing damage output, decreasing incoming damage), and regens at a constant rate over time. Here, I think of damage output (DPS) as a means to limit HP loss (i.e. the more quickly you kill shit, the less damage it can do to you.)

The optimization problem is, ideally, using those two resources, maximize XP gain to the group without letting any single group member's HP reach zero.

The description is simple. Following this optimization problem can be complex, because you have variables affecting your HP loss such as:

a) Pull rate
b) # mobs per pull
c) crowd control
d) off-tanking
e) ping-pong aggro
f) level of mobs
g) resists against spellcasting mobs
h) group DPS

etc

So, here's a few things I take away from thinking about it in these terms:

- The characters who can convert mana into HP are key, because they effectively increase your group's collective HP pool. We already know this from a common sense approach, but that's how you think of it in terms of this model.

- In order to conserve both of your resources, you need to limit the incoming damage. That means your puller needs to bring mobs in controllable quantities such that you have one mob on one tank by the time everything is crowd controlled. Otherwise, you are putting a drain on your mana resource, and you are not limiting your HP loss.

- This means you are less efficient if anyone draws aggro off the tank (this also means your best tanks are probably SKs and Paladins, by the way).

- This also means that your puller needs to shoot for one mob per pull... the group's crowd control capabilities take up your mana resource. In most cases (exceptions can be AOE groups or non-standard groups designed for multiple pulls), crowd control should be for accidental adds, because between mezzes or root parks or snare kiting or off tanking, the crowd controller is going to use up mana doing his thing, and your healers are going to use up mana keeping the crowd controller's HP above zero.

- In general cases, if you do have multiple mobs you are engaging, everyone needs to be on the biggest threat (usually, this is the one that can potentially deal out the most damage, but one obvious exception to this is if a mob can heal itself or others in the area, you take care of it first.) The main assist needs to be able to determine which mob is the largest threat to the group. Because you want it to die the quickest so that you minimize the amount of time it can drain your group's resources.

So, in summary:

1) Minimize the loss to the group's collective pool of HP
2) The group's mana pool regens at a fixed rate and can be converted to HP or used to help limit the loss of the group's HP pool
3) Control the rate of incoming damage (limit adds, don't draw aggro off the main tank, control pull rate, kill tough shit ASAP, resist gear, appropriate mob levels, etc)

Pretty accurate. The only thing I'd add is that sometimes with enough dps it might be more efficient for the puller to pull 2-3 mobs and have the adds mezzed - groups i've been in with some combination of 3 monks or rogues (3 mdps classes, and especially when they're paired with a shaman or enchanter) tend to burn mobs down in a few seconds and the puller who tries to be a 'good puller' and splits his mobs is really just wasting time that everyone could spend attacking.

[Akame]

Originally Posted by YendorLootmonkey [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

a) Pull rate
b) # mobs per pull
c) crowd control
d) off-tanking
e) ping-pong aggro
f) level of mobs
g) resists against spellcasting mobs
h) group DPS

You forgot I) Whether or not Shinedown has run by and ninja clairty'd your healers or not.

[Stickyfingers]

Agree with the above. I think also, even though Yendor touched on it, is the emphasis (or lack there of) on good pulling. If you have a good monk, you can pretty much single pull and split any camps in the game, making it about 10x easier for the group. I main a 35 Druid right now and me, my monk friend, and enchanter friend can Trio Elder, Raster, EE and a bunch of other Lguk camps, not to mention zones that pretty much impossible to single pull like Paw.

You can pretty much effectively make a camp seemingly 10 levels lower than it is with a good puller. The enchanter isn't even necessary since everything is single pulls anyways, so you can replace that with DPS or a Tank even.

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Stickyfingers [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The enchanter isn't even necessary since everything is single pulls anyways, so you can replace that with DPS or a Tank even.

lol no. even if they are just clarity/haste bots they're worth the exp split.

[Bruman]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pretty accurate. The only thing I'd add is that sometimes with enough dps it might be more efficient for the puller to pull 2-3 mobs and have the adds mezzed - groups i've been in with some combination of 3 monks or rogues (3 mdps classes, and especially when they're paired with a shaman or enchanter) tend to burn mobs down in a few seconds and the puller who tries to be a 'good puller' and splits his mobs is really just wasting time that everyone could spend attacking.

Heh, I was about to say the same thing. I've been puller in several groups where I could pull in packs of 3 constantly, help burn the first 2 down, then when we're on the third go find another 1-3 mobs, so that we have a constant stream of incoming mobs, outgoing damage, and mana wasn't an issue.

It takes the right combination of classes and skill for this to happen, as some groups can't handle chain pulling, but my quotient for how fast I pull is definitely always "what's the healers mana". I always get annoyed when I ask the group how mana is or if they're ready, and get a response from a Rogue or something saying "ya go pull nao". I usually just kindly inform them that I'm asking the healer (with a smiley face, gotta have that!), but then you run into those damn AFK-healers...of course, if mobs are dying and players aren't, no huge harm done, but still annoying.

Splitting mobs with FD can take a very long time - plus it's more difficult with multiple casters, and is prone to failure. I think my class, monk, is great for pulling, but there are other classes better suited for splitting (pallies are great, since if something goes wrong, they can take much more of a beating than a monk). With high dps groups, you're better off just bringing them in batches.

But to get back to the main point - yep, the definite measurable to determine pull rate is the healer's mana pool, so anything done to make it stretch out more (mez, charm, good/real tank, slow on mobs, haste on pc, clarity, etc) is just that much more exp you can rake in. Enchies rock lguk/solb groups [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]