04-23-2005, 01:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-23-2005, 02:10 AM by playingtokrush.)
In my late-game experience, the main assist is an off-tank who selects one mob at a time for the group to focus fire on and kill. The MA's goals (more or less in order of importance) should be:
1. Don't target CC'd mobs, which of course applies to everyone, but since all the damage dealers in the group/raid should be diligently assisting the MA, it is critical that he/she does not target a CC'd mob.
2. Do not change targets until the current target is dead or just seconds from dying, barring emergency situations. If the MA switches targets, anyone who is late in assisting him/her will end up on a different mob than the players who assisted before the switch, thus spreading damage haphazardly instead of properly focusing fire.
3. Target the most dangerous mob so that it can be removed from battle as quickly as possible. Depending on the situation, this might be a high damage melee mob (monks, assassins, and so on), a mob with very bad debuff effects, or a healer.
4. Target the lowest health mob. It's not necessary to make distinctions between targeting mobs with, say, 75% and 80% health. This mostly applies if one mob is noticeably more damaged than the others (i.e., something is at half health while the others have residual damage from attacks like thunderclap or cleave).
Note: Points 3 and 4 are of similar importance, depending on the degree of damage on remaining mobs and the danger posed by the presence of individual mobs.
5. Do (or don't do, in points 1 and 2) all of the above in a fairly hasty manner. When the battle starts or the current target dies, it is important to target the next mob to be slaughtered within a couple seconds. People who diligently assist the MA tend to get frustrated if he/she is slow in acquiring a new target, and people are more likely to just give up and attack random mobs if this is the case. If you're in the heat of battle (and thus can't ask for others' advice) and you're not sure which mob is the biggest threat and they all have similar health, don't hesitate to decide which mob to target. The most important thing is just having something targeted and sticking to it. If the rest of your group/raid is assisting properly, enemies will drop relatively quickly.
I think that covers everything an MA needs to know in general. This is more like your second scenario. Frankly, it's incredibly difficult for a warrior to keep enough threat on everything to prevent them from going after the healer(s) while also keeping enough threat on the main target so that the DPS squad doesn't peel it off. I could see this being somewhat of a problem in a five-person group scenario, if the MA isn't a class that can off tank. In raid situations, there will almost always be at least one other class that can easily off tank and serve as MA.
In either case, if everyone knows his/her role (liberal use of an assist macro), then there's nothing more the MA should have to worry about.
1. Don't target CC'd mobs, which of course applies to everyone, but since all the damage dealers in the group/raid should be diligently assisting the MA, it is critical that he/she does not target a CC'd mob.
2. Do not change targets until the current target is dead or just seconds from dying, barring emergency situations. If the MA switches targets, anyone who is late in assisting him/her will end up on a different mob than the players who assisted before the switch, thus spreading damage haphazardly instead of properly focusing fire.
3. Target the most dangerous mob so that it can be removed from battle as quickly as possible. Depending on the situation, this might be a high damage melee mob (monks, assassins, and so on), a mob with very bad debuff effects, or a healer.
4. Target the lowest health mob. It's not necessary to make distinctions between targeting mobs with, say, 75% and 80% health. This mostly applies if one mob is noticeably more damaged than the others (i.e., something is at half health while the others have residual damage from attacks like thunderclap or cleave).
Note: Points 3 and 4 are of similar importance, depending on the degree of damage on remaining mobs and the danger posed by the presence of individual mobs.
5. Do (or don't do, in points 1 and 2) all of the above in a fairly hasty manner. When the battle starts or the current target dies, it is important to target the next mob to be slaughtered within a couple seconds. People who diligently assist the MA tend to get frustrated if he/she is slow in acquiring a new target, and people are more likely to just give up and attack random mobs if this is the case. If you're in the heat of battle (and thus can't ask for others' advice) and you're not sure which mob is the biggest threat and they all have similar health, don't hesitate to decide which mob to target. The most important thing is just having something targeted and sticking to it. If the rest of your group/raid is assisting properly, enemies will drop relatively quickly.
I think that covers everything an MA needs to know in general. This is more like your second scenario. Frankly, it's incredibly difficult for a warrior to keep enough threat on everything to prevent them from going after the healer(s) while also keeping enough threat on the main target so that the DPS squad doesn't peel it off. I could see this being somewhat of a problem in a five-person group scenario, if the MA isn't a class that can off tank. In raid situations, there will almost always be at least one other class that can easily off tank and serve as MA.
In either case, if everyone knows his/her role (liberal use of an assist macro), then there's nothing more the MA should have to worry about.