Bolty,Jul 1 2005, 06:18 PM Wrote:Anyhow, just wondering if anyone shares/disagrees with my thoughts, and also reaching out and telling anyone who might be a bit bored with a main who is a support class to try rolling a tank/healer class to see how they like it.
I think you have a funny notion, considering the sandbags and the medics the main thrust of a fighting force with the fighting men being a "support class" ;)
Anyway, what I like is the interest of trying out different classes and roles and tactical situations and group dynamics and solving the problems of the game.
My highest level character is a Hunter. For me this takes a lot of concentration and multitasking in an instance run
- I shoot stuff (duh!)
- I manage my pet
- I stop or slow runners
- I manage my mana pool, prioritising between saving mana to heal the pet when we need extra tanking and using the mana for damage. I try to plan ahead to minimise my 5 second rule mana regeneration downtime
- I Main Assist sometimes and Hunter's Mark targets for focus fire
- I constantly review my skills and try to find new uses for skills I don't use much or haven't seen a particular application for. I'm starting to use Aspect of the Wild if we encounter lightning using mobs which is new to me and seems quite useful
- I track mobs on the radar and call out patrols and warn of unseen mobs
- I'm quite often the puller. If I'm not the puller then I check the pulling and tell people when I think it needs to be done differently (for instance a ranged pull over a sap pull). I take a lot of satisfaction in pulling well. I've seen groups plunge into 6 mobs at once where if I were pulling it would be one at a time. I can pull fast while still keeping control (heh, usually ;) )
- It's quite easy for other players to inadvertently shut me down by retreating into my dead zone with my target. I try to anticipate where people are likely to move during a fight so that where they naturally go to won't have this effect
- I study how other players play and learn from them. I quite often ask questions
- I teach people how to play, taking the time to explain stuff fully and check they understand it afterwards
- I guard the healer. If mobs come to the healer I get them off him with pet or shots
- I try to manage the group dynamics, heading off possible arguments
- I try to inject humour into the play. I love puns and look for an excuse to make one and quite often people unwittingly feed you a good line
- I monitor players' life bars and healer mana bars just as when I tank or heal on other characters. If the tank's about to drop or the mage is in trouble or the healer's out of mana I can take appropriate action
- I watch for enemy players if we're outside an instance and relay information on levels and classes when i find some
- I watch guild chat and occasionally help someone who has a question or needs someone invited to the guild
- I keep track of how we're going to recover from a wipe
- I keep track of quests, juicy mineral lodes and so on
I should say that I don't actually view or play my Hunter as pure dps. In many tough fights I spend a lot of the time healing my pet. Decision-making about what my pet tanks (if it tanks at all) is a big part of my play. It feels like playing a hybrid (tanking healing and damage) although it's a less obvious hybrid class than some of the others
Bolty, it sounds to me that part of the reason you were bored might be in your build. Maybe a respec to Destruction or even working out Hellfire use would make the character more fun. Affliction is a bit over-rated imo. Sure it cuts down downtime but you've got money and Mage friends, just buy food or drink and spec to kill faster. Affliction is also nice for pvp with instant Corruptions and Shadowbolts but these are marginal for group pve
Possibly you need your tank to play a bit faster. A very competent group with a slow tank might be a bit dull although there's the deferred gratification of making game progress. If it's all "wait till everyone's on full mana, wait till the tank gets a Sunder on before you join in" with good pulling and mobs dying before your dots get to tick twice I can see you feeling like a fifth wheel. You could even try a pickup group - they can be frustrating but they are rarely dull and different players' methods can be very instructional.
I just wonder as well if you're overestimating the importance of tanking and healing compared to damage and crowd control. Of course they're big jobs. But so are the other two. There are times when a group can kill its way out of trouble. That's more obvious when you play a Rogue when you can see things have gone wrong and you pull out all the stops and manage to kill your way through the crisis. There are times when Curse of Recklessness and Seduction will make an enormous impact on the group's performance
I think one of the basic problems of the warlock is that the untalented damage is so poor. When I look at my damage meters for groups I'm in I hardly ever see Warlocks shine. I'm perfectly sure that Destruction warlocks with lots of + magic damage, especially with a group that supports their use of AoE are among the highest dps dealers in the game but the mid-game affliction locks with junk gear that I usually group with are below the other dps classes, usually below the tanks and shamans, and often not much above the main healer. It is a hard class to make effective but that clearly is the challenge of it