05-02-2005, 09:46 PM
Spangles is a defense warrior who raids many times each week with her guild. A controversy arose briefly during a recent outing about Spangles' penchant for breaking into sheeped and shackled mobs. I posted this explanation on the guild site, and thought it relevant to this thread also.
Over the weeks that Spangles has been raiding with her guild she has seen raid tactics become increasingly sophisticated. This is most apparent in matters of crowd control. Our group of casters has become adept at removing mobs from the game momentarily. Spangles is often a MT, and good crowd control makes her job much easier, but it also entails some decision making that may not be apparent to others in the group.
She uses a macro that is always set to assist the raidmaster, who is usually the MA. If she is told to assist, her job is straightforward. She locks onto the MA's target and helps to beat it up. No thinking involved.
She still uses the assist macro if she is MT, but in this case to determine which target to avoid. She always switches her target to the last incoming mob on the pull, assuming that the first will be handled by the assists, and that the intermediate mobs will be taken out with crowd control.
If all the mobs are locked down and she doesn't have an immediate target, she starts a timer, and uses the first 15 seconds to patrol the interval between the casters and the MA/assists to guard the healers from breakaway mobs. The active term for this triage is healers. Mages and locks are expendable, in the short term. Priests and druids are not.
When the lifebar of the mob that the MA/assists are working on drops, which is usually less than 15 seconds, Spangles targets the first CC'd mob and breaks into it. She does this because it is easier to gain first place on the mob's hate table alone than in a group, and much easier than trying to peel the mob from a caster after the CC times out.
There is risk involved in this judgement because no tactic works every time, and the mob might head for the caster anyway. This is particularly bad with warrior mobs that charge after breaking CC. However, if Spangles can place a taunt on his hate table before he charges, he will rubberband right back.
A group of MA/assists will often do no better. Until we can field three defensive warriors, two as MT and one on assist, it is my judgement that it is better for Spangles to break CC early than to risk having to run to the backfield to defend a non-healing caster.
Don't even think about recasting on a target that Spangles has already locked down, unless there is a clear and present danger that is extreme. Stopping the next autoswing is very difficult, and a caster only has time to reapply CC if there is nothing dangerous going on elsewhere. If the mob breaks away from her, CC it by all means. Otherwise, find something else to do.
I am committed to improving Spangles' tactics in the raid environment, which is why I am asking for comments here. Be advised, however, that once the raid begins, Spangles takes direction on tactical matters from the raidmaster, and from nobody else.
Over the weeks that Spangles has been raiding with her guild she has seen raid tactics become increasingly sophisticated. This is most apparent in matters of crowd control. Our group of casters has become adept at removing mobs from the game momentarily. Spangles is often a MT, and good crowd control makes her job much easier, but it also entails some decision making that may not be apparent to others in the group.
She uses a macro that is always set to assist the raidmaster, who is usually the MA. If she is told to assist, her job is straightforward. She locks onto the MA's target and helps to beat it up. No thinking involved.
She still uses the assist macro if she is MT, but in this case to determine which target to avoid. She always switches her target to the last incoming mob on the pull, assuming that the first will be handled by the assists, and that the intermediate mobs will be taken out with crowd control.
If all the mobs are locked down and she doesn't have an immediate target, she starts a timer, and uses the first 15 seconds to patrol the interval between the casters and the MA/assists to guard the healers from breakaway mobs. The active term for this triage is healers. Mages and locks are expendable, in the short term. Priests and druids are not.
When the lifebar of the mob that the MA/assists are working on drops, which is usually less than 15 seconds, Spangles targets the first CC'd mob and breaks into it. She does this because it is easier to gain first place on the mob's hate table alone than in a group, and much easier than trying to peel the mob from a caster after the CC times out.
There is risk involved in this judgement because no tactic works every time, and the mob might head for the caster anyway. This is particularly bad with warrior mobs that charge after breaking CC. However, if Spangles can place a taunt on his hate table before he charges, he will rubberband right back.
A group of MA/assists will often do no better. Until we can field three defensive warriors, two as MT and one on assist, it is my judgement that it is better for Spangles to break CC early than to risk having to run to the backfield to defend a non-healing caster.
Don't even think about recasting on a target that Spangles has already locked down, unless there is a clear and present danger that is extreme. Stopping the next autoswing is very difficult, and a caster only has time to reapply CC if there is nothing dangerous going on elsewhere. If the mob breaks away from her, CC it by all means. Otherwise, find something else to do.
I am committed to improving Spangles' tactics in the raid environment, which is why I am asking for comments here. Be advised, however, that once the raid begins, Spangles takes direction on tactical matters from the raidmaster, and from nobody else.
![[Image: spangles_sig_3.jpg]](https://home.comcast.net/~swesson5/spangles_sig_3.jpg)