A Study Of N00bs

[fractaled]

yes, CC can break... crits happen, bad runs from the RNG, yada yada...

bad planning is when there's a guaranteed chance of problems (LEEROY!)...

[fractaled]

i think the AoE route has a good chance of getting the mage killed (and no-one else)... but if you're the warrior that needs the rez, then that's your call...

[Tal]

i think the AoE route has a good chance of getting the mage killed (and no-one else)... but if you're the warrior that needs the rez, then that's your call...
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Usually I'm either the paladin or warrior in need of the rez. :P

[Drasca]

i think the AoE route has a good chance of getting the mage killed (and no-one else)... but if you're the warrior that needs the rez, then that's your call...
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I prefer warrior retaliate, possibly with arcanite reaper :D

[Cybit]

I prefer warrior retaliate, possibly with arcanite reaper  :D
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Yeah, if I can get 35 rage before the fight, I'll charge in, hit demo shout (all dogs are aggroed on me), mage runs in and starts AoEing, I hit Retaliation + Challenging Shout, whip out the two hander, hit Sweeping Strikes, (so every retaliated hit hits two people), and start cleaving. I've taken out 6-7 even level mobs solo with this before.

Note: Sweeping Strikes works very nicely with Retaliation. Mostly because as of the last patch, if someone hit you, sweeping strikes would trigger and hit two people, but it WOULD NOT count as a sweeping strike, meaning you still get 5 normal swings in.

[KiloVictor]

Fractaled, shut up.  It's an AoE pull.  There's no way to manage aggro on an AoE pull - I'll get them all eventually.  And they're linked.  I've been on upwards of thirty tribute runs and they've never been split.  Ignorance is bad enough, but being arrogantly ignorant is something else entirely.
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I'm not sure what an "AoE pull" is, but my experience is that AoE gets mages killed there more often than not. Usually because they go out too hard, too fast and get beyond the ability of any healer to keep them up.

I've run it with a very green, timid mage and we simply asked her to do single-target DPS assisting our rogue (group was warrior, rogue, hunter, mage, priest). I had absolutley no problem keeping everybody alive.

From what I've seen, aggro for linked mobs is only shared twice: at the start of a pull, and when/if the mobs leash back to their spawn point. In combat, the individual mobs are completely oblivious to anything that's not either attacking them directly or healing their target. So the DPS team can simply pick their way from target to target and knock them down without ever pulling aggro from the other mobs, and I just have to hit fade when/if my heal aggro outpaces the MT's hate generation. It's all in understanding the aggro system.

So yeah, if the mage is consistently on the carpet, I'd say blame the mage. Time to switch them over to assisting in DPS rather than AoE attacks.

Kv

[KiloVictor]

One specific example that sticks out in my mind is the Weldon Barov fight in Scholo.  Especially considering that you play horde and do not have turn undead how would you approach this fight without any CC?  Between Barov's aura and three mobs (with only 5 PCs and any pets they may have) they can deal out significant damage and don't die particularly quickly.  Not knowing too much about Shamans I will assume that your warrior can take Barov and Shaman can off-tank one of his guards.  That leaves a pet (or two in rare cases) and 2 dps classes to try to kill the other guard before moving along.  They then have to proceed to down the other guard and Barov while the healer attempts to keep them all alive without going OOM (might not have to heal the shammy as much).  I'm not saying that this isn't doable; but I am saying that I certainly wouldn't want to have to try it.  You could always try to have a pet and the shammy draw the two guards away and have everyone else try to burn down Barov before they die; but that is arguably not beating the encounter.  Being able to shackle one of the guards serves to lessen damage taken, help with focus fire, and ultimately shorten the battle (and you can keep that guard shackled as long as you have to if you need to regen to kill him).  As I said; if you really want to try this with a druid healer go ahead; but I'd much prefer a priest myself.
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I might be misunderstanding, but are you talking about Lord Alexei Barov? Undead dude with an unholy aura that pulses for shadow damage? Has two Risen Warrior-ish bodyguards that come with him? Has The Deed to Caer Darrow sitting on a crypt beside him?

If that's the encounter, it's pretty straightforward with a druid or shammy healer. The guards can be prox pulled, so you get one pull of two Risen Warriors (might be Protectors or Guardians, not sure which) and then a pull of Alexei + one guard. It's a pretty straightforward task to offtank one in each pull. With a priest in the party, the encounter is absolutely trivial: substitute shackle for offtank and voila!

I've been lucky, I've played a lot with a hunter that really understands the aggro mechanism and how to use it to reduce the number of mobs in any given encounter. One of the things that we've concluded is that Blizzard has indeed made it very possible for you to tackle most instances without the "holy trinity" of classes that was apparently required in games like EQ. This encounter is a good example of that - at first blush, it seems impossible without a priest. But a warrior or hunter that knows how to pull can reduce it to something that's very beatable without a priest. Kudos to Blizzard for making a really good design decision there.

Sadly, the vast majority of players on my server haven't figured this out yet, and insist on having a priest for 5-man trips to Scholo/Strat/BRS. I feel sorry for the high-level druids that I know because most of them are built out as healers and do a damn fine job of it, but still have trouble getting anything other than secondary healer roles in instances.

Kv

PS - Looking at thottbot to double-check names, I noticed that Blizz seems to have a bit of a continuity problem with this quest line. Questgivers Alexi Barov (Horde) and Weldon Barov (Alliance) send you off to kill a bunch of other Barovs, including Lord Alexei Barov. Perhaps one of Alexei/Alexi should have been named Vladimir? It would be a lot easier to keep straight. :)

[Skandranon]

I'm not sure what an "AoE pull" is, but my experience is that AoE gets mages killed there more often than not. Usually because they go out too hard, too fast and get beyond the ability of any healer to keep them up.
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Please read the follow up posts and comment again once you've done that.

[KiloVictor]

Please read the follow up posts and comment again once you've done that.
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Edited. Damn, can't believe I took the bait. :(

[Guest]

I hate people who redefine words then give opinionated and long winded discourses on them.
The same goes for people who use slang definitions for a word and then rable on about it.

[mjdoom]

I might be misunderstanding, but are you talking about Lord Alexei Barov? Undead dude with an unholy aura that pulses for shadow damage? Has two Risen Warrior-ish bodyguards that come with him? Has The Deed to Caer Darrow sitting on a crypt beside him?

If that's the encounter, it's pretty straightforward with a druid or shammy healer. The guards can be prox pulled, so you get one pull of two Risen Warriors (might be Protectors or Guardians, not sure which) and then a pull of Alexei + one guard. It's a pretty straightforward task to offtank one in each pull. With a priest in the party, the encounter is absolutely trivial: substitute shackle for offtank and voila!
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Yeah; everyone on Stormrage knows how bad my memory is for names. That said I don't understand how you are ever pulling Alexei with only one guard. You can easily single pull your way through that room all the way up to the actual Barov encounter but as far as I know Barov and the two stationary guards to either side of him are linked. I have seen both body pulls and shoot pulls to a single guard bring all 3 mobs. This leaves you two mobs to off tank which is no longer a simple proposition in a 5-man group. We just beat this again this past weekend after failing twice when we decided to just kill Alexei first and even then the guards finished us and we popped up with a soulstone to finish them off. The 5 characters we had there might not be MC equipped but they are all solidly equipped from end game instances and the players are quite competent IMO. Our group was Warrior, Priest, Mage, Rogue, Warlock. We shackled one of the guards each try and still had issues finishing him off.

The only thing that I can think of is that you are somehow pulling the patroller at a specific point in his patrol that is splitting one of Alexei's guards from his pull. If you have found a way to do this then you've found a way around the encounter and kudos; but you are not beating the encounter as the intended tough encounter that I am talking about.

- mjdoom

[KiloVictor]

You can easily single pull your way through that room all the way up to the actual Barov encounter but as far as I know Barov and the two stationary guards to either side of him are linked.

They aren't actually linked, but their spawn points are within range of each other for social aggro transfer. So if you directly aggro one, the others will pick up on it and aggro as well, but they don't explicitly share an aggro list as linked mobs do.

However, if you indirectly aggro one, that aggro is not transferred socially. As far as we've been able to determine, social aggro transfer only cascades to nearby mobs if they are explicitly linked.

The only thing that I can think of is that you are somehow pulling the patroller at a specific point in his patrol that is splitting one of Alexei's guards from his pull.  If you have found a way to do this then you've found a way around the encounter and kudos; but you are not beating the encounter as the intended tough encounter that I am talking about.
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Sorry, thought that part was more clear in my post. That's exactly it, if you get the timing right when you aggro the patrol, you get direct aggro on the patrol and social aggro on one guard. That leaves you the named mob + the other guard for the last pull. We slang those as "prox pulls", meaning any pull using indirect aggro to bring fewer mobs than you'd get if you aggroed the mobs directly.

Personally, I don't consider that to be working around the encounter. I think it's designed that way deliberately and splitting the pull is totally legitimate strategy -- it's a simple timing pull, similar to tons of other pulls in the game where timing a mob that wanders a few feet from it's spawn point can make for an easy split. It doesn't even require any fancy hunter skills to make the split.

All of the other minibosses in Strat are fairly trivial encounters, and yet Lord Alexei is arguably more difficult than Gandling if you tackle him with both his adds. That doesn't seem logical, so I think Blizzard left those guards splittable deliberately. It makes the encounter feasible for some oddball groups, and that fits in with their stated plan of having all sorts of groups as viable options.

If the designers want you to get an entire set of mobs as a single pull, they can explicitly link the mobs so that they behave as a single unit - they've gone back and done that in the past where encounters were not working as designed, e.g. with Lucifron after Conquest demonstrated he could be split from his adds. Given that they've reworked Scholomance a few times now and it remains the same, I've concluded it's working as intended.

Of course, that's coming from somebody who thinks the whole raison d'etre of the hunter class is to split-pull anything and everything that can possibly be split. :shuriken:

In the end it's your $15/month, so if you don't think it's a legit tactic, play it the way you see fit. :)

Kv

[mjdoom]

We slang those as "prox pulls", meaning any pull using indirect aggro to bring fewer mobs than you'd get if you aggroed the mobs directly.
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I misunderstood this to be similar to a "body pull", now I understand what you meant is what I thought was a potential option :)

All of the other minibosses in Strat are fairly trivial encounters, and yet Lord Alexei is arguably more difficult than Gandling if you tackle him with both his adds. That doesn't seem logical, so I think Blizzard left those guards splittable deliberately. It makes the encounter feasible for some oddball groups, and that fits in with their stated plan of having all sorts of groups as viable options.

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I think you meant Scholo :-P

Anyway, the only other boss in Scholo who has any real difficulty IMO is Rattlegore if you don't split him from one buddy. That fight is easily winnable; but can go downhill fast if something goes wrong. Gandling is an absolute joke when compared to Alexei+2. I've seen the MT get ported and the rogue easily tank Gandling. I've been the healer and been ported 5 seconds into the battle (before getting a single spell of) and still win easily.

Too bad the loser has a bad selection of hats. Our last run resulted in the warrior walking away with a Dreadmist mask because all three casters already had one :shuriken: Meanwhile at least 3/5 members in the group still do not have their own hat.

Also, as currently constituted I see nothing wrong with splitting this pull as you have. I do consider it a workaround though; even if it is 100% legit. It's just an intelligent workaround (hence the "kudos" in my last post) :). I had honestly never considered pulling as you did until I went to respond to your last post (you said enough for me to have that realization without realizing that that was exactly what you were doing). That said I'm a glutton for punishment; we'll see how I handle it next time. :D

- mjdoom

[NotSoDarklord]

"A big part of the problem is that in a smoothly functioning group, they contribute relativly little"


Welcome to I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

Sorry but your post was humorous until you (the person with a capped shaman) decided paladins and shamans were useless in groups.

[oldmandennis]

Welcome to I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

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Read the whole post and reply to the substance rather then making personal attacks with no reasoning behind it next time plskthxbye.

[Drasca]

Anyway, the only other boss in Scholo who has any real difficulty IMO is Rattlegore if you don't split him from one buddy. 
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Hmm. Never had that much getting Rattlegore pulled single, and since he's stun-able, its GG with rogues around.

One time I had my voidwalker tank Rattlegore. Also, I'm told there's a video of voidwalker tanking MC bosses / mobs because there are groups crazy enough to do it! I am *not* sure how its done in MC, but I've had the VW tank rattlegore in one desperate situation. Did better than the shammy at the time. 180+ health funneled per second helps.

[KiloVictor]

I think you meant Scholo :-P

Lol. :D Hoist on my own petard!

Anyway, the only other boss in Scholo who has any real difficulty IMO is Rattlegore if you don't split him from one buddy.
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Yep. We use the exact same pull technique to bring his buddy up with one of the regular Risen Constructs, so it's a pull of 2 Risen Constructs (shackle one, kill one) and then Rattlegore as a solo.

Which begs the question: if you're pulling his buddy, but you're not pulling him this way, what are you doing? Our pullers find a "prox pull" on that little buddy to be a bit trickier, so about half the time we wind up with Rattlegore + 1 on the last pull. If you've got a better trick, I'd love to hear it. :)

Kv

[NotSoDarklord]

Read the whole post and reply to the substance rather then making personal attacks with no reasoning behind it next time plskthxbye.
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Believe I replied to the fact that you have no idea the utility of a shaman or a paladin in a group. kthxu. Perhaps you should play a little before you just make assumptions as to how useless they are(n't).

I did not make a personal attack, don't take it that way, but that statement implies a total lack of knowledge.

-edit from here on out is the edit:

Shamans and paladins (we'll leave out pvp because then they really are kings)
-They can heal! Backup healers anyone? Shaman can outheal priests some say, but at the very least their heals are nothing to overlook.
-Decursers... when you start getting into encounters where nastynastynasty things get thrown on your party mates having a paladin around is nice.
-Wipe recovery. Divine Intervention/reincarnate 'nuff said. Sh!t happens, no group steamrolls all the content currently in the game without a mistake here or there
-Totems! Shaman can stop runners... can replenish group mana... can do some nice aoe damage. Root mobs! I love this. (Insert more stuff because I'm not familiar with them at all but I'd still take them)
-Blessings! Salvation lets damage dealers kill faster... light lets healers more effective. Might lets the meleeers do more damage. sacrifice can save an aoe-er. Protection can make xenocidic drop his flag,....er....save a mage. Wisdom gives people back mana, hell... use it in a slow part of a fight like stage 2 ony to get mana back for stage 3. And kings can just..... be ridiculous
-Judgements. Wow! with wisdom casters just hitting a mob with a wand can get some massive mana back.
-Shocks. Nice high damage and with earth shock can interrupt.... and the timer's only about 6 seconds!!!!
-Offtanks! Warrior dies? Well, you can either wipe... or let a paladin/shaman pick it up. Mitigation is mitigation, even if it's not a class meant to tank, it's still better than just sighing as you watch a mob tear apart cloth wearers.

But then again I never claimed to be a shaman or paladin expert, as you can see most of my list is paladin benefits. (I'm sure shaman have a few *cough*). Surely you jest when you say that there's no reason to have a shaman or paladin in a group?

[kandrathe]

I hate people who redefine words then give opinionated and long winded discourses on them.
The same goes for people who use slang definitions for a word and then rable on about it.
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I don't know what you are talking about...



So, here is a bunny with a pancake on his head.

[oldmandennis]

Believe I replied to the fact that you have no idea the utility of a shaman or a paladin in a group.  kthxu. 

Well I'm not the uberest, and never said I was. I HAVE spent a lot of time playing this game, which makes this

Perhaps you should play a little before you just make assumptions as to how useless they are(n't).  I did not make a personal attack, don't take it that way,  but that statement implies a total lack of knowledge.

a personal attack. Especially when you don't bother to give any reasons, like you did the first time.

Surely you jest when you say that there's no reason to have a shaman or paladin in a group?
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Where did I say that? Here's what I said, and I'll try to use short words and small sentences this time.

There are a lot of bad shaman's and paladins out there. There seem to be more then in other classes. Possibly it is because 95% of pulls go smoothly. On a smooth pull, the shaman/paladin has little to do. When things get hairy, usually somone else has made a mistake or had bad luck. So the sham/pal might not learn from his errors because there is something else to blame.


I hope that's the end of that.

I love my shaman. He rocks solo. He has a deep bag of tricks, and when it hits the fan I've got to make a quick set of decisions to try and save the party. Do I earthshock to pull the mob off the priest, or emergency heal the tank, or frost shock the runner, or throw grounding because someone poped the sheep on the darkweaver or ....