How I Play my Tank

[Treesh]

Knowing the abilities of every other class in the game makes you a better tank - which you need to be if you want to be a TRUE tank (in my opinion) who takes the responsibility of party survival on their shoulders.
[right][snapback]73591[/snapback][/right]

Knowing the abilities of every other class in the game just makes you an overall better player which will be an immense bonus to any group you are in. Yes, you can learn a lot by grouping with as many different classes as you can, but you don't usually get to see all the tricks of the trade either. This is one of the many reasons why I have so many characters - I want to know just what each class is capable of and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Unfortunately, the pally was so non-intuitive to me that she's fallen way behind, but I've got Balador to watch sometimes when I play my Pepperi so I'm seeing more of the pally now.

About the quick pace of groups. Sometimes I like to just get it done, sometimes I like to have a more leisurely pace. RFK was quick, which was fine because there really wasn't much in the way of trouble. The first time I went through Blackfathoms Deeps, we took a slow pace - partially because GG and I still played slow back then and partially because one of the members had a horrible previous group in there (wiping multiple times even at the start of the instance). One of the most leisurely instances ever. Until we got some bad pulls toward the end and then we had to actually wake up and play. ;) My mage and my priest always try to conserve mana so I don't slow the group down much by a lot of drinking, but I don't conserve so much that I'm a complete drag on the killing speed (except with my holy priest. She doesn't throw out damage nearly as much as she probably should, but I'm always paranoid about something going so wrong that I'll need every spare bit of mana I have to keep us alive).

I don't necessarily agree with you Bolty on who should set the pace though. I wouldn't say it should always be the main tank. I say it should be the main puller though. Sometimes that's the tank, sometimes it's a hunter, sometimes it's a pull from the magic users because the main tank is a pally who hasn't mastered the art of body pulling yet. I'm still not convinced of the idea that it should always be the warrior who is the puller, but as most people I've grouped with by now know I like to try new tricks a lot anyway if I'm overlevelled for an instance. Some work, some don't, some only work after we get some of the kinks worked out. I've seen warriors who are excellent pullers, I've seen some hunters who weren't good pullers. I've seen horrible warrior pullers (put him on my ignore list right away!) and magic users who were the best pullers in the group. Different group compositions really change group dynamics and if you force everyone into the same old role and do things the same old way every time, you really aren't living up to your playing potential and the instance may not go as smoothly and as quickly as it could be.

Edit: Oh, and poisoning doesn't actually take much longer than using sharpening or weight stones. I may have given you the impression that it takes longer than it does, but I like to have both my weapons poisoned at once rather than just one. Sometimes it just takes me longer to decide what poisons I want to apply. ;)

Edit2: Another thing that's not really on topic, but speaking of tricks of the trade for other classes made a little spark in my mind. If you have the money, buy all the skills available to your class. You never know when those "useless" skills will come in handy. I've even had a case where levitate was required in a situation with my Aleri. We got trained, spawned on and patrolled when the two of us were playing around outside the Uldaman instance, but inside the cave. Gnolack died giving me enough time to run to the instance and lose any critters chasing me. I came out, worked my way back to his body, but couldn't get line of sight without aggroing about three of the stupid buggers because I was too short even when standing on a barrel or else it was a plank. I don't quite remember. So I levitated and managed to res GG that way. Healed and buffed him up, drank, and we took out the critters I would have aggroed if I didn't have levitate. So, buy all your skills that you can so you have as many tricks up your sleeve as possible.