Defensive Stance

[Olon97]

[this is it I promise] :D

Once the Rogue has pulled aggro off the casters, it is up to HIM whether or not he can handle that solo mob by himself (and Healers come into play here; a Rogue is not nearly as sturdy as a Warrior, Paladin, or Bear-form Druid, so we may require at least some healing to survive). If he can, then by all means he should do so. The battle has already gotten way more complicated than it should have; no need to make things any more complicated and risk making matters worse. If, however, the Rogue cannot, for any reason, handle the mob solo, he should then quickly decide how best to handle the situation. If the target was Sapped (see above), then the target will be taken care of for at least 25 seconds, provided no one else does something stupid - like damage the mob. Otherwise, the Rogue's best option at this point is generally the same as the process for pulling. That is, the Rogue should draw the monster back into the Tank(s)'s melee range and then STOP inducing any aggro. Feint is specifically designed to do nothing BUT reduce aggro, while the Tank(s) has skills geared towards GAINING aggro which he should use.

Are you certain that feint is 100% effective? My understanding was that it could fail just as taunt can fail, in which case you may want to let someone take the mob off you when they decide they're ready and not insist on offtanking without the healer's consent. If the group is capable of controlling combat as they will, it should be up to the healer, IMO as to who should keep aggro on them and for how long. After all, they're the ones who have to do butt saving. I suspect the healers will very often prefer to have most aggro remain on a tank if the tank can hold it. No debate that a mob on a rogue is better than a mob on a cloth wearer. ;)

I can't help you with that, as I have virtually no experience playing a Warrior, but hopefully my above comments will help you enough so that you don't have to dedicate yourself to any one style of play. A Warrior has three stances, each designed for specific instances and each designed to be used THROUGHOUT the career of a Warrior, not just in sparse patches.

No offense intended, but if you're offended by others telling you what you should and shouldn't do, perhaps you should extend the same courtesy to people who do have experience playing warriors. A lot of your all caps moments in the post referring to warriors I found annoying if not offensive. The best group is the one that adapts to the players' individual styles and finds effective combat tactics that still allow them to enjoy playing the game. I would be happy to let you pull if I were grouped with you, but I take offense at your generalities and have no intention of pushing random rogues into that role because of your take on optimal tactics.

As a mild aside, I spoke earlier about a bad patch in an instance where I learned the hard way that it's up to the Rogue to pull mobs off a caster. We were going up against Van Cleef, and everything was going fine. I had thrown a Distraction in the room, attracting the attention of Cleef and his henchmen. I pulled the big VC with a Throwing knife to the face (he was none too pleased with this, and came out to tell me as much), the Tank (a Paladin, IIRC) immediately pounced on him and took aggro off me in a matter of seconds, and I was busy chewing him and his minions to pieces with my attacks. Where everything broke down was when he summoned up more minions, and they almost immediately went after the casters. I, foolishly, thought I should stay on VC, as I had always heard that the Rogue was a DPS machine and as such felt my place was at the Tank's side. This cost us one of our Priests (we had two), and the second was close to joining him, along with our mage. It's worth noting that the second Rogue in the party was almost useless throughout the instance run, and indeed caused more problems than solutions, but more on that a bit later. I think it was about then that we all decided to ditch and run, breaking for the edge of the boat so we could dive off into the water. I think it was this time that I actually made it to the water, but somehow miracously died upon hitting it (I didn't hit the ground, so no, it wasn't that - it was just some random bug, I think). Our Paladin survived, to my recollection, and one of our priests may have survived, but everyone else died (the other Rogue somehow lasting a full 30 seconds longer before biting the bullet; I have no idea where he was or what he was doing at the time, further testament to how bad he was), myself included.

A couple minutes later and we were all resurrected and getting ready for another swing at old VC, with one notable exception: it was my job to watch for his minions and keep them off the casters. Being that they were little more than Stealthing, beefed-up versions of mobs we had already fought on our way there, they didn't last long at all under my onslaughts, so our Priests and Mage survived quite nicely, leaving me to finish off VC with the Paladin and other Rogue. But it was a great learning experience for me, teaching me just one more place a Rogue has in the battle.

Sorry for your VC experience, but my opinion is you're taking the wrong lessons from it. Many "tanks" at that level have not yet develeoped good tanking skills and are not doing the healer protection role as well as they can later on. Your views on this subject seem like they might be more accurate with paladin tanks (I play horde so I haven't seen their multiple mob control abilities first hand) and warriors who consider themselves "DPS powerhouses".

Contrary to popular belief, a Rogue's job is NOT to stand there and be a human buzz-saw, but instead to watch the battle as a whole and keep track of the flow of it so that I can interject myself to bring it under my control. In battle, the Rogue controls the flow of battle, letting everyone else play the more specific roles. Think of a Rogue as yourself while playing an RTS - the Mages are your heavy artillery, the Healers are self-explanatory, and the Tanks are the bulk of your offensive arm - while also adding in your own bit to the offensive front.

Nobody likes to be a one trick pony and nobody should have to be (including healers). Rather than locking in your strategies based off of a few initial instances and groups, I reccomend people stay a little flexible and adaptive to each party they join. It often helps to have one person directing the flow of the battle, and that can be the rogue, but the class isn't inherently blessed with leadership capacity. Personally, I defer to the healer's wishes as to who should direct combat (if anyone, many basin groups don't need a lot of direction).

Oh, and one more thing: two Rogues do not make a Right, generally speaking.

Generally speaking perhaps, but I've done plenty of instances with double rogues and not found it to be a problem at all.

Ultimately, the best advice for grouping is communicate with your group and try to solve problems rather than play the blame game.