A Guide to Mages comment thread

[savaughn]

The short version is that I believe that these macros are an attempt at a crutch to cover sub-par play and that any fully competent group shouldn't have much need for them.  Given that caveat the macros may actually be useful when you are partying with people who are not as reliable (pubbies tend to get this rep) and that is what my post on shackling made mention of.[right][snapback]71780[/snapback][/right]

I would substantially agree here. In fact, in general, in competent party play this really isn't even an issue. How many times do you have a pull where a walker can be sheeped but nothing in the pull can be? Not that often. If the party's functioning correctly, the sheep is part of the pull and the mage never really has to worry about sheeping adds - just keeping the initial sheep pollied.

If I'm playing with someone I don't know, there are several times I like to see that macro. When the sheep un-sheeps, I like seeing the macro because it means the mage saw it, too. That tells me I don't have to call out anything to remind him. If we're using polly for the pull, I like seeing the macro. If I'm playing my Rogue a macro lets me time my sap so that it hits the same time as a polly pull. This pretty much goes for every caster pull which will have a timer attached to the pull. These are pretty situational though.

First of all, some classes should never have to worry about popping a sheep.  These include rogues, hunters, cat-form druids and any paladin or off tank who is providing dps (shamans?).  These people should all be following some sort of assist pattern and the person who is main assist simply has to pick targets off of the tank's aggro list.  As long as this main assist is competent and everyone is assiting him none of these characters should ever pop a sheep (or shackle; I'm going to consider them to be synonomous for the purposes of this discussion as they work virtually identically).[right][snapback]71780[/snapback][/right]

I totally agree that any class that is there solely to /assist will never pop a sheep. There's a caveat there though. These classes are often not there just to /assist. There are several times when a mob will step outside the standard pattern. Adds come in all flavors from walkers, tossing a heal too soon, accidental body pulls, having a sheep walk off in the wrong direction, etc. I don't care what group you are with or what the plan is, picking up 3 unexpected adds is not going to be covered by "the plan". The warrior can taunt one and then you have to wait for the cool down. A mage can sheep one - if there isn't already a sheep in play. Off-tanks can try and pull aggro temporarily.

Now, if a situation is going as expected, there's no need for macros at all. If everyone's /assisting correctly then whoever is assigned to watch for adds is doing so and the party will know when the priest runs out of mana because /assisting really isn't that tricky. But assume things are in Chaos. Here's the question: what goes over the chat now?

I personally like to see the following things:

1) Main Healer is Out of Mana. If you aren't the main healer, I don't care. What's more, this shouldn't require party chat - this should be /oom, possibly with a party chat back up comment.
2) Incoming! - Ideally only once. Again, use the voice emote, possibly with a party chat back up comment.
3) On me! - I blew it, and pulled aggro. /help with back up party chat comment. This should be used when there isn't a warrior in the party. In general, a warrior will see you get hit and taunt back the aggro without requiring the message. If there's no warrior, aggro is much more problematic and it may be time for an off-tank to swing into play.
4) Crowd Control/Got it! - In general the commands we're talking about here. These are answers to incoming/on-me that let the party know who's responding to the problem. Sure we all plan for an add, maybe two. Three is situational. If you get three adds, I'd like to know who's responding to what. Popping that sheep may very well be the difference between a wounded and shaky priest and a party wipe. Having two people try and control the same mob and let two of the others kill a cloth wearer - again - could be the difference between a wipe and a close encounter. Obviously still up for debate.

That's it. Incoming and On Me! will only get called once - maybe twice per encounter (if adds show up, on-me shouldn't be called since it's obvious the aggro needs to be cleaned up and the party should be working on it) You'll note there's not a place on this list for people to call for heals. If the healer can get to you, you'll get your heal - they know what your HPs are - that's ALL they're looking at. What's more, the only thing that doesn't get a voice macro is the "On the way" or "sheeping" or "shackling" messages. If you need them - they're there in chat. If not, say you're playing the tank and aren't part of the intercept plan? You can ignore them.

1.)  Spamming chat.  Even if the spell is only cast once or twice in a battle things like LoS issues, retargetting, and out of range castings can spam chat with a lot of poly messages in a short time.  This can distract greatly from more important information.[right][snapback]71780[/snapback][/right]

There is no reason why a sheep message should be spammed. It can be on a different button (click sheep, click "sheeping" macro) or a mage can have two buttons - one with the message and one without. What's more, there's really only two more important messages that I'm aware of (priest oom and incoming adds) and both of those have voice emotes that are far more effective than the party chat message. The sheep macro is the Mage's way of saying "I'll help control the chaos" - every class has a way to do this. It's no more cumbersome for a mage to have a "I'm throwing a sheep your way!" macro than for a rogue to have a "I'm Off to Save the Squishies!!!" macro (yes, I actually ran into that on-line - made me giggle).

2.) Distinguishing targets.  As has been metioned before there can be multiple targets with the same name or it can be difficult to recognize which target a macro is referring to.  This just distracts people from their real jobs.  You'll know soon enough that a sheep is coming when it polymorphs and then you will see the sheep and know exactly which target it is.  Once again this requires holding off for 2 seconds to see what is happening before you start switching targets.  If you do pop a sheep you should instantly switch to a different target.  The mage will almost certainly try again in another second and if you pop it twice then you are hindering the party.  As Skan said, I have been in situations where if a shackle got popped I've had people apologize to me after the battle.  If you pop a sheep you know who you are, just fix it and move on.[right][snapback]71780[/snapback][/right]

I'm not sold on this one either. Lets assume that the spam issue is dealt with so that having information in the party chat isn't costing you anything. You have several adds. You spot a SHEEP macro come through the chat as you move to intercept the adds. One of two things happens:

A ) You can differentiate the mobs. Result: if you are targetting the mob with the sheep call, you can press tab and between the sheep and the intercept you are performing, the chaos is likely contained.
B ) You can not differentiate the mobs. Result: you pick one and hope.

The alternative: No SHEEP macro:

A ) You can not differentiate the mobs. Result: you pick one and hope.

How is this a negative?

Let me make this clear: I do not think that crowd control macros (or macros in general for that matter) are done correctly in game. Folks are still working this stuff out. Popping a sheep is hardly trivial. It often creates a mob who guns straight for the mage and if the range is close, getting that second polly off can take much longer. If a polly comes off successfully (or any CC for that matter) it generally means that what was a nightmare is now containable. I've seen far too many times where a mage went to polly, someone popped the sheep, the mage sheeps again, the sheep is popped again, and (if things are truly going wrong) about this time people start dying and a wipe follows.

Preventing this would be great. Rather than say "Don't use macros" because how they're implemented currently is obnoxious (and don't get me wrong, tying a macro straight into a spell and having it go off every time that spell does - that's pretty obnoxious no matter what the spell is), isn't it better to see if there's a way to use macros that works? This reminds me of how everyone used to say hunters have no part in a group... until people figured out how they worked effectively.