Grouping: Basic things to remember...Follow

A rooted mob will always attack the closest character when it's rooted. Once root breaks, it'll go after whomever has the most agro on it (which would be the shaman in this case).

A knight can certainly take agro off a mob that's been slowed, crippled, dotted, and rooted a few times. It's a bit harder then normal, but it's quite possible (first taunt will put us up top, then it's just a matter of keeping ahead of the dot, which isn't really that hard).

I'm going to add a rule. Yes, I'm aware that this will appear to totally counter Kazim's statement, bit it really doesn't:

Do not ever attack any target other then the one the MA says Let me clarify. The chanter may suggest targets to hit. The cleric may ask for a particular kill order. The druid/shaman may decide to root some mob off in a corner and dot it. If you are a melee or nuking class (or just filling that role at the moment), you do not make any decisions about what to attack. You attack the mob the MA calls for with his assist message. You do not ever attack something else.


I had a group the other day. We had two pulled. One was mezzable, the other was not. I was MA, and targeted the unmezzable one and peeled it off the puller. Since there were two targets, I hit my "Assist me with %t" hotkey, just in case someone might have been confused. For some reason, the cleric did get confused about which target was which, and called out for folks to attack the other target. For some even stupider reason, one of the melees attacked the now mezzed add, broke mez, and the chanter died shortly thereafter leading to a wipe (this was PoP, not LDoN, so a chanter dies in about 3 seconds when he gets agro).

I don't care who says what. You do not ever attack anything unless the MA says to attack it. I don't care if the chanter says: "NO! You need to attack this one first!!!". Or someone says to attack the healer mob first. It does not matter. Your job is to assist the MT/MA. Nothing else. If there is a need to switch targets, the MA will do it and will call the new target. It is not your job to make that decision, it's his.

When you have any form of CC, you defeat it by attacking more then one mob at a time. If the MA is attacking mobA, then mobA cannot be mezzed or CCed. When the MA gives his assist call, he's telling you which mob he's attacking. Attacking any other mob will at a bare minimum assure that you've got two mobs beating on people in the group. The whole point of CC is to avoid that.

Even if the MA is attacking the wrong mob, you assist him and keep attacking the same mob he's attacking until *he* says otherwise. He's going to give another assist call when he switches targets, so that's your sign to re-assist and retarget. The point is that the MA can gain agro on the new target before calling for the assist change, thus ensuring that no one on the CC team gets whacked during the switch. If you do it any other way, you will likely cause disaster.


It's just not that hard. You make a hotkey that says "/assist <MA>". Everytime the MA calls for assist, you hit the button and move over to the mob he's attacking. If you follow that one rule, you will never break a mez.


Now. If you arrange for an oftank ahead of time, that's a different story. But then you have *one* person who's job is to offtank. If you aren't him, you don't do it. Certainly, you can use Kazim's idea of root rotting targets instead of mezzing. But that's something you establish with the CCer before hand (or declare to the group if you are the CCer).

An experienced player who knows his class well can also break/bend the rules a bit. However, you *damn well* better know what you're doing, and expect to get huge flak if you try something and ***** up. If you don't know 100% what you're doing, don't try anything fancy. Tactic's like Kazim's work if the people doing them know when to use them best. But for every person who can pull that off consistently, there's 50 players who will just cause a disaster by trying. I regularly use my stuns to assist the CC team during muti-pulls (when I'm not MA or MT obviously). The non-damaging stuns (which pally's get a number of), do not break mez, so they are ideal for keeping the mob still and not beating on the CCer while they are rooting or mezzing. However, I've done it a zillion times on raids, and I'm very good at realizing the CCer is in trouble, turning off autoattack, targeting the offending mob, stunning it until the CCer gets control again, then then retargeting off the MT, and turning on autoattack. I would not recommend that as a tactic for a novice player to use in a group though. Odds are they'd ***** it up badly.

In a group, you must learn what each persons role is and react to it. The chanters role is to mez mobs (ok, one of his roles is). But he does not call out the target to attack. The MA does. I don't care what you think you know. You only need to know one thing as a melee/nuke class: Assist the MA when he says assist, and don't attack anything else. Odds are high that doing anything else will be counterproductive as best and fatal at worst.

The MA and CC have worked out in what order they're killing mobs so they're not contradicting each other, correct, Gbaji? Sorry, had to rib you there a bit for being so militant.

Regarding designating a "pull spot"Once again, trust people to know what they're doing. It is not necessary to pull a pet back to the caster's side after a fight. Pet classes often park their pet in such a way that the pulls get dragged over them. There are a number of reasons for this. Ask your local magician to list them for you sometime. Unless there's something discussed ahead of time the puller should ignore where pets are parked and bring the mob to the pull spot.

I'm getting frustrated by the posts that seem to be insinuating the casters are making life overly difficult for the tanks. The things that were brought up are not class issues, but rather issues with individual players. We're all learning to be better players.

Here's some finger pointing I could do:

In most of the groups I'm in, the puller or MA does NOT tell us where the pull spot is. The group just has to see where the MA is engaging the mobs.

No one class is any more guilty than another at engaging mobs too early. I've seen every class ignore the MAs directive to wait for the assist call. I've also been in many groups where the MA never does an assist call. Maybe they're too busy with the mob, or they trust us to know when to engage. Personally I prefer a clear assist call.

But finger pointing isn't productive, is it?

Most of the advice here is very good. I just have a couple tidbits to add.

1. Show up prepared. Have more food, drink and ammo than you're going to need. If it's not possible to stock up ahead of time, ask your magician to get you set up before the fighting begins.

2. If you pull aggro by accident, stop attacking or casting until the MA clearly has regained it. If a mob starts coming at me, I run to the MA's side so he doesn't have to chase it down.

3. Talk to your group from time to time. If you haven't yet, become a competent typist. You should be able to communicate at a normal pace. Do those "hands free typing" devices work in EQ? I have trouble trusting strangers in groups who don't talk. I just don't know if they're paying attention, speak english or if they're 7 years old.

4. If you're a pet class, make sure your /pet attack command is not tied to your /assist hotkey. If it is, you're probably one of the pet owners who's sending their pet into fights prematurely.

5. Priest classes, please check with your casters before casting temp on them (or their pets). Some need the extra HP, others don't.

6. Don't show off. Some people brag about how often they can pull aggro off the MA. If you're not the puller, don't bring us extra mobs because you've decided we can handle it. These actions don't make you uber, they make you a bad group mate.

7. Respect the "low on mana" call. When your nukers are low on mana, your healer's mana pool will be taxed harder. A group isn't just about the tank and the healer.

Last, but certainly not least,

8. Be enjoyable to group with, even when things are going badly.

Someone mentioned that the MA always picks the mob to attack. This is correct, but I do want to clarify it a little bit.

There MUST be communication between the MA and the CC. I'm almost always MT in any group I'm in, and I really, truly, LOVE enchanters who tell me which mob to hit next when there are multiple mezzed mobs in camp. It saves me having to worry about which mezz is about to wear off, or which mobs tend to resist mezz. It saves the enchanter mana, by making sure they don't remezz a mob right before I start smacking on it, and then remezz the mob next to it whose mezz was about to wear off anyway.

The MT may not know which mobs are mezzable and which aren't...so if at all possible, the cc should tell the MT ahead of time which mobs aren't mezzable. For example...if a necro is being used for crowd control in a Mistmoore Catacombs LDoN...the necro may want to remind the MT that shadewatchers (for example) are not undead and therefore cannot be mezzed.

And yes, by all means...if you have an oblivious MT who hasn't noticed that mobA (who is root-parked because there's no other cc) is healing mobB (which the MT is mindlessly beating on)...point that out and ask him to switch...but as someone else pointed out, don't start hitting or nuking that mob yourself until the MT does.

You guys seem to be mixing up the term MA and MT. They are two different things, it's just normally one person does both.
MA= Main Assist; He decides which `MOBs to attack and assists the Main Tank (Unless the MA is the MT.)
MT= Main Tank; He takes the `aggro from the `MOB and holds it as long as he is able to.
an MT can be both an MT and an MA; however, an MA cannot be both an MA and an MT.
Like I said, most people just combine the task so you see people referring to them as if they were the same thing (but they are not.)
Also, not all MTs are the group's `puller, in some cases, paladins, clerics, or bards are more effective at pulling than the `tank is.
Not only will the ML's auto-split make the distribution of wealth uneven, but it will also weigh down the poor, weak `caster classes who have feeble strength.
The best way to learn what to do in group situations is to go out and practice it yourself. Be social, don't be afraid to make mistakes in the group. If you happen to get yelled at for messing up, you can be sure you'll do your best to avoid that mistake again and you'll get progressively better at dealing with group confrontations.

(PS. Making `macros that are considerably lengthy don't actually make it harder to follow; however, spamming the HB multiple times can. If you are annoyed by something this minute:
1. Don't group with them
2. Realize they are doing it to help, not to harm
3. Seek out an anger management therapist
4. Take a Zen class

you forget Necros cant ONLY mez undead, if it can be mezed Necros can mez it for 18sec. just because it is not undead does not mean a necro CAN NOT mez it. if a nec is not aware of this, kick them out of the group as they do not know their class well enough to be your CC in MM camps.

heck ive been CC in every camp for LDoN there is. not saying im near as good as a bard or chanter, but my nec can keep up with them rather well. that is unless someone does not taunt the mob i mez before they break it and then i got problems if not undead and im slowing.

I think whoever posted that was confused with slowing. As far as I am aware necros can only SLOW undead.


And as for the lecture about the "real" meaning of MA and MT (not that i've heard "MT" used outside Paludal). You have an entire thread of people for whom the correct term is MA and you are right and they are wrong?

Since the prime concern is to ensure that everyone is on the same mob to maximise damage dealt and enable mezzing it is only the main tank that people should be assisting - so they are designated MA. I have never ever been in a situation where everyone including the main tank assisted some other person for target. As Iluien said, on raids the RL may well call targets but you still /assist the main tank. That is why they are called MA.
Please post a scenario where it makes sense to have another person calling melee attack targets and being assisted onto them. We can call it Emmenthal.

And of course the main tank may assist the puller to acquire their target but once they have it then they are the person to assist. They may also choose to change to a different target which is why the rest of the group assists them and not the puller.

yes Necs can ONLY Slow UNdead, but only a sham can slow better then a nec vs undead.

as for CC this is the secrit most necs just dont learn about and thus i say they really dont know diddly about their class and should get da boot:

Screaming Terror

awsome spell and will work on any level mob as long as it can be mezed and is within the casters spell range.

in other words my 60th nec can use this on any mezzable mob up to level 68 if there are any that are still mezzable at that high.

its only 18sec, but has a % to drop the nec 100% from hate list too, so that is extra nice bonus.

level 24 spell so unless the nec is at least 29th or so they really can only CC via solo for a short bit, but that is not always an option for CC.

as for the MA/MT thing.

this goes way back. MT was first used way back in classic EQ before Raids become combined offorts.

since LoY (IIRC) or was it PoP what ever expansion got the alt+r or raid window allowing for ALL members of the raid within xp range to get some kind of xp and to share in the loot and have a common base channle to communicate in MA has basicaly replaced MT as the standard term.

MT is still used by older players or players from other games that come new into EQ. it is also used often by players with almost zero raid experiance.

IMHO that is were some of the confusion comes from with the interchangeable use of MA/MT now.

in raids you really only have an MA/SA/TA/etc.. you do not have MT any longer.

in groups you can have both. there are often times in groups my nec will be MA, but we will have a MT. same goes for my bard, but never is my nec MT *laugh* and extreemly rare is my bard MT, and doubt could be a real MT now as my gear needs major upgrades for 56th bard.

hope that helps a little bit with some of the confusion and discusion i see reguarding the MA/MT issue.

IF YOU EXPECT YOUR CLERIC TO BUFF YOU WITH SYMBOL OR TEMPERANCE, GIVE HIM/HER A PERIDOT FIRST!!

Yes I know I am yelling, I am beginning to become very annoyed with this issue.

sometime the MT will make a hot key for me, but normaly its a guildy whom i have grouped with often times and he and i just click.

if its LDoN situation or pickup groups then how ever the MT gets it done is up to them.

about the only time ill take over the MA situation is when i know the area best or the MA is LD.

example:

new players hitting veksar entrance camp(champion or as deep as ferel lord) are often not aware of the spawn rate, placement, skills used to take out those undead. EVERY one of them summons so root parking is worthless and will cause more problems then it can fix. nec. undead slow is unbeatable by any class other then sham, not to mention necs get loads of powerful undead spells.

in Veksar oftent times ill take over completly the job of MA from pulling, to slowing, to calling the shots, to CC work until the group learns the ropes. then i tend to turn it back over to the MT if they are competent.



so yes you can and often times should have both MA/MT in groups for new hunting grounds if you have someone who can pull, direct traffic so to speak, and knows the area you are hunting better then the rest of the group.

i have taken over in LDoN camps with my bard as the MA/MT (hate the MT role i eat up way to much mana from the healers) when the MA goes LD, or if there is no pally in group and then my bard will stay MA then entire adventure with a real MT doing the hard work.

in that situation the MA is just the puller who can more then not bring singles back to the group in LDoN, and can keep the group up on what they can and can not mez. bards mez in the mid 50s SUCKS to say the least. currently any mob that is 1 level below or higher then me i can not mez, thus causing for some other means of CC work to be done. more then not root parking in LDoN. at that point the bard will still tell the MT what mob to kill first, second, etc.

nothing major, just good communication is what its all about.

MA = main assist and in RAIDS should be also the MT.

MT = main tank and in groups is not always the MA, but more then not is.

As a healer I'd add slow messages to that. If the slower is having to make multiple attempts, I need to know that. When the mob is slowed I'd like to know that as well to adjust my heals on the tank.

Though I never demand payment for buffing group, I do request all dot drops. Although my other toons buy high end buffs so cleric needn't bother buffing them, I do tell groups from the start that a portion of all splits need to be witheld to pay our cleric for regents...to be honest I've only had one person ***** about the unfairness of having to share regent cost when he came with purchased buffs...I offered for him to find another group as I also came with prepurchased buffs but had no problem sharing to cover costs...in the end anyone that would argue with losing aprox 40p split 6 ways looks like a complete *******...

before you flame about 40p being alot in lower levels please note that we are talking about dots...obviously jasper or bloodstones would be less but still unless the cleric insists he/she doesnt need it...consider it common courtesy...

yes it is their job to buff group...yes it gets expensive...yes they could have made a warriar...and yes you could be sitting in BB ooc that your group needs a healer for 2 hours because the only available person with a cleric your level is too busy farming on her Beastlord atm to cover her dot costs...which is often my case...I get begged to log off BL and log in cleric... sorry I need to farm for a few

<edited because me spell gud>


Edited, Mon Mar 1 13:32:34 2004 by plick