How to Win Friends and Influence Priests
#1
By Boltress, level 53 Priest

If you play a Priest, (I hope) that you picked it because you like to group up for instances. It's what they're made for. Human nature is a constant, and most people prefer to play tanks or damage-dealing classes, because they're more "fun." Now, some players pick Warriors thinking that they'll be the "ultimate melee class," and find out later that Rogues actually do more damage. Oh, well. But rarely will you see someone new to the game select a Priest because they wanted to "own with spell damage."

Priest aficiados know that the Priest, with shadow talents, is quite the nuker. But the term "Priest" invokes ideas of a class that cannot solo, and is only around to heal. This is reinforced from years of other MMORPGs like Everquest where a "Priest" class was mostly a healbot. So word's just now starting to sink in with the masses that Priests can solo just fine and nuke targets, to boot. Hence the sudden recent surge in Priest populations on some servers.

Still, when the time comes to group up for instances, it's time to play the role your class was made for. Some players have troubles with this - they want to do all the cool things they do when they play solo, and refuse to reduce their bag of tricks for the good of the group. Hence the shadow priests that get uptight when they're asked to "just heal" in instances, insist that they can nuke as well, and then run out of mana when their healing services are required, leading to a wipe. We know that Warriors rock with Berserker stance, but it's not the best use of the class' abilities when grouping. Rogues and Mages can annihilate, but they have to learn to hold back or they'll get aggro, draining the mana of the healers fast...etc. So, if you play a Priest, I hope you enjoy healing and get a kick out of being the "mother" of the party. Your job is to keep everyone alive, even when they screw up. Sometimes the screwup is too big to save, but the most fun a Priest can have is rescuing a group from what seems like a certain wipe through quick decision making and just-in-time heals.

For those who have never played a healer class (Shaman, Druid, Priest - Paladins are okay, but not as a primary healer), understand that the pressure put on a healer in an instance group is immense. It is very true that the two most critical positions are the primary tank and primary healer. Why's this? Because if one of them goes down, a wipe will usually occur within 20-30 seconds. Without a solid tank, the squishy players (cloth wearers) go down hard, and without a healer, death arrives quickly. A bad player in either position equals a doomed party. The healer is under the additional pressure that if they make a mistake, someone dies. Liken it to a goaltender in hockey - sure, the defenseman might make a horrendous mistake letting a forward get past him, but if the goaltender then blows the save, that's all anyone's going to remember. The pressure of being responsible for the survival of your party and having to deal with others who have no clue how to protect a healer tends to end the career of many potential Priest players. They give up in disgust after playing with bad groups.

What do Priests look for in parties? A good tank player more than anything. Someone who understands that the role of the tank is not about doing damage, but holding aggro and protecting their teammates, accepting that if anyone dies, they'll probably be the first to go. Ironically, a tank who is dedicated to being the "first to die" will never do so, because they make the job of the Priest so easy that the healer will have no difficulty keeping the tank alive. When tanks die is usually when Things Go Wrong™ and damage winds up getting spread out amongst too many party members, forcing the healer to use up their mana very quickly keeping everyone off the floor.

What else do Priests look for in parties? Well, along with a fantastic tank player, knowledgeable party members who understand that protecting the healer is key. That Hunter who sends their pet to growl a mob off of you, or a Mage willing to "take one for the team" by drawing aggro off of you with a nuke. This relates to what I wrote earlier - that the tank and the healer are the non-expendables. But perhaps even more important is aggro awareness. The most difficult parties to handle are ones in which aggro gets distributed. Every player decides that they're going to handle their own mobs, spreading the damage out and forcing the healer to have to zing off heals for 4 other players - this happened to me recently in a Sunken Temple run. Two Warriors (who had no idea what Defensive Stance was for taunting), a Rogue and a Hunter. On every fight, every one of them would get aggro in some way. With the Hunter and Rogue getting hurt too quickly, I'd be forced to heal them - and draw aggro in the process, because we'd be facing packs of monsters too many in number for all to be handled. Had quite a few wipes in there, and I knew I had no chance of explaining what they were doing wrong. They couldn't understand.

Another example of a bad group: I was in Zul'Farrak with a pickup group (of course) where the Warrior "tanked." I use the term loosely, since countless Warriors assume that they do enough damage in Battle or Berserker stance to hold aggro, and they don't. Anyway, this Warrior insisted that the only viable strategy to take down a boss was to zerg in there and have everyone pound solely on the boss to kill it quickly. There's a catch, of course, in that the moment you face the boss it summons about 10 basilisks to help out, and continues to spawn more as the fight continues. Patiently, I explained before the fight that this won't work.

Me: "This won't fly - the moment I heal *anyone* even one hit point, every add is going to turn and romp on me."
Warrior: "No I protect u"
Me: "This isn't going to work!"
(Warrior attacks)

Here was the fight:
1) Party attacks boss
2) Basilisks start ripping into the Warrior, Mage, and Hunter of the party, because they spawn in various locations
3) I'm forced to heal the Mage
4) 10+ Basilisks start to rip me to shreds
5) I cast Fade, basilisks head back to other party members and tear them apart
6) I heal Warrior
7) New basilisk spawns start wailing on my squishy body
8) Fade wears off
9) Boltress dies in a glorious swarm of 15 or so basilisks, while Warrior shouts "HEAL HEAL" as he's dying
10) Wipe

Here's the kicker. We did that *twice* because the other party members insisted after the first horrendous attempt that it would work, and that I just "didn't know how to heal right." I left the party after the second wipe so they could find another healer to abuse.

Then again, I've been in some great pickup groups. I did a Sunken Temple run with four members of the guild Raiders Haven, and they all knew their roles in the party very well. No wipes, no difficulties, and none of us were over level 53 (we weren't overpowered). It was a bit close on the final boss fight until their Druid cast Innervate on me to give me a huge mana boost. That was the only time we were threatened. The Warrior tank used Defensive stance (gasp!), the Mage and Warlock rocked with AoE damage when needed, and the Druid used Bear and Cat form when the situation warranted. But what made the instance such a good experience was that the Warrior was just as psychotic about holding aggro as I was about keeping everyone alive, with constant target switching, taunting, and group attacks (Cleave, shouts) to keep the monsters' attention. With 90% of the fights, the only time I'd need to heal someone else (other than the tank) in the party was when I would need to shield and heal the AoE attackers.

Other healer pet peeves:

1) Others in the party who heal. If you're in a 5-man instance, and you're a Priest especially, it can be particularly irritating when another player (Druid, Paladin) starts whipping out heals. If you're a character specifically designed to do one thing really well - heal - as I am with a Disc/Holy Priest, I don't want to see someone else doing my job. It's not an ego thing, it's an efficiency thing. When players get hurt, I'm going to heal them. However, if another player is healing them too, one of us is going to waste a gob of mana on the double-heal. Add to that the fact that "overhealing" - when you heal someone to completely full and then some - generates a lot of threat. The end result is that the Priest will get aggro more often, waste mana healing someone who was healed a moment earlier, and watch as another player used up their mana that would have been better used for offense. Kill things faster instead; I've got the healing down, thank you very much. You'll be better played using your mana offensively, because my contribution to offense is usually just my wand damage. The caveat to this is when the healer runs out of mana and requests help in the healing department, and all healers learn quickly that announcing they are /oom is crucial, so that the other players know that they're in a bind. But mana efficiency is something all Priest players devote themselves to, and good players will rarely run out (provided they're in a group with some modicum of gaming expertise and don't force the Priest to waste heals like mad).

2) Players who insist you heal them when they have only 10% damage. The most mana-efficient way for Priests to heal is in large chunks. Also, at the start of the fight, a Priest wants to wait as long as possible before starting to heal, because they want to avoid drawing aggro. At level 53, my Greater Heal can heal a whopping 2300 hit points per cast. That means that, if you're a tank, you won't see that loving until you have at least 2500 hit points in damage (because I want to avoid overhealing). Tanks that get nervous when they're at 50% health amuse me - relax, the heal's coming. You won't die unless your healer runs out of mana. I notice that the higher in level I get, the less I see the tank with the "heal me" shout macro when they get low on health. They learn that annoys the crap out of healer classes and turn it off. Trust your healer - it's their job to keep you alive just as much as it is yours to hold aggro, because if you die, they're going to die. I forget who said that if you're the primary tank, the one thing you never really need to pay attention to is your own health. Everyone else's health, sure, because you need to draw aggro off them if they're getting hurt - but you have to trust your healer to do their job.

So if you've never played a healer class, I hope reading this gives you some perspective on what pleases a healer. I've played both sides of the coin (healer and tank), so I know how difficult holding aggro is and there's nothing I respect more than a good tank player. Nothing else has a larger impact on the Priest than the ability of the tank to hold aggro.

Comments? Thoughts from another class on group play? Maybe this can be a "gripe" thread about roles in parties. :)

-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.
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#2
I did a few pick-up WC and ragefire runs with my new troll priest this weekend. It was a blast despite being everyone being pretty new to the whole business. I got my Deep Fathom Ring, and advanced my personal quest to teach everybody about the instance event in WC.

My question is: Is there a standard (and fast) way to express the concept that "Your priest is being attacked by an elite four levels above his and will die if somebody doesn't pull aggro of him right now"? My usual cry of "help" on the party chat tended to have the result of a shaman or druid quickly throwing a lesser healing wave on me, then going back to their business till my health fell again. The heal was not at all unwelcome but didn't actually solve the problem; the only reason I wasn't healing myself was because I was attempting to "play dead" and minimize my threat level.

These weren't clueless parties. They were aware of the need to keep things off their underlevel priest, and it only happened a few times. The only way I could deal with it was by dropping out of the role of party healer and wasting all my mana keeping myself alive, until somebody figured out what was going on. That happened in the graveyard more often than it should have.

It seems like the kind of thing that happens all the time, and that WoW culture would have come up with something to say in that situation by now... any suggestions?

-- frink
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#3
Professor Frink,Feb 22 2005, 10:17 AM Wrote:any suggestions?

-- frink
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Set up a macro saying "/e is getting mauled by %t. Get it off!"? ;)

Sorry. I'm a bit spoiled with my healer and I can just yell at GG sitting in the same room as me to get the critter off so I don't have to worry about it really. Wish I could help you more.
Intolerant monkey.
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#4
My one comment would be that I think a secondary healer could work, if you agree in advance who will heal who. Maybe the secondary healer can heal an off-tank or the party's pets and you'll heal the rest. Maybe their charge will be to heal you, if you ever get aggro and are getting beat on, so you don't have to generate more by healing yourself.
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#5
Xanthix,Feb 22 2005, 12:26 PM Wrote:My one comment would be that I think a secondary healer could work, if you agree in advance who will heal who. Maybe the secondary healer can heal an off-tank or the party's pets and you'll heal the rest. Maybe their charge will be to heal you, if you ever get aggro and are getting beat on, so you don't have to generate more by healing yourself.
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If I am not the main tank then I see my responsibility is to protect the squishy folks and especially the healer. If the healer has taken damage I heal them and attempt to take aggro off the healer. I also will tell the healer that I will heal the squishies and remove magic/poison effects so that the main healer can conserve their mana for the maintank. I have to be careful with my mana, however, because if things go wrong™ with the main tank I have to be ready to step into his role.

If Blizzard would fix the threat level of Paladin heals to what it was like at Beta end it flash heals would be the ideal taunt to work in conjunction with Seal of Fury.
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#6
Quote: Add to that the fact that "overhealing" - when you heal someone to completely full and then some - generates a lot of threat.
This is something that still has me kind of wondering if it is true or not. I've read it in several places, but then I've also read:

Quote:Since aggro is generated based on HP healed, overhealing has no effect on aggro.
from http://www.theamazonbasin.com/wow/forums/i...?showtopic=3871

I know enough to admit that I don't know enough about the topic and so I find that I'm generally in the dark as to if overheals are actually really bad for aggro or not. Of course they are horrible for mana efficiency, but neglecting that; I find I'm confused about the whole deal.
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#7
Professor Frink,Feb 22 2005, 12:17 PM Wrote:These weren't clueless parties.  They were aware of the need to keep things off their underlevel priest, and it only happened a few times.  The only way I could deal with it was by dropping out of the role of party healer and wasting all my mana keeping myself alive, until somebody figured out what was going on.  That happened in the graveyard more often than it should have.
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They were clueless. A tank who lets his lifeline get pounded upon is not being a tank. A Shaman who doesn't steal aggro with rockbiter from the priest isn't being effective.

As a tank I appreciate a macro that says "On me" from the priest to know when an add has taken an interest in him/her. Otherwise I play as main tank the way most folks on the PvP server do. By constantly scrolling around with the mouse to check out my party and surroundings.

But take heart, WC and RFC are early instances. Folks at that level are still learning their way around a class. If you find yourself getting hit a lot in fights talk to the tanks about it. Let them know that your job is to provide for their welfare, theirs is to provide for yours. Remind them that if you take a dirt nap so do they which is counterproductive to completing the quest. :)
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#8
Tal,Feb 22 2005, 10:47 AM Wrote:A Shaman who doesn't steal aggro with rockbiter from the priest isn't being effective.

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Earthshock first, then swing with Rockbiter on if the shock didn't pull aggro. You're more likely to miss with your melee weapon than the critter is to resist your earthshock (except for the druids in WC) and earthshock is just quicker if you happen to be wielding a slower weapon.
Intolerant monkey.
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#9
I come from the opposite end of the spectrum. I play a warrior (after a year of playing a healbot, sorry, White Mage in Final Fantasy 11) and it's interesting to see how it is for the other half of the party's defensive line. Your logic is solid, and I just have a few questions/additions.

Power Word: Shield. I love this skill, and it's great that Priests can spam it on a warrior in its improved form. That doesn't mean they should. Warriors gain a small amount of rage from being hit, and while it's not a lot (especially right now, with Parries and Blocks bugged so that they give the warrior no rage, thus making Deflection and Shield Specialization actually hurt you in a small way), it adds up when there's >1 monster on the warrior. So, save spamming PW:S for that crazy mage that feels like nuking the night away.

I'm curious about how the warriors you group with keep agro on multiple targets. Do they use AoEs such as Demoralizing Shout and (if they took talents for it) Piercing Howl? I know that's my current method, but it doesn't seem to work as well as I'd like, especially if the party seems hell bent on not focusing on one target. Howl also has the benefit of locking down runners, and therefore I try to reapply it within its 6 second duration. Still, I'm not holding hate as well as I'd like. Do you have any advice?

The other thing I want to ask is your thoughts on backup tanks and backup healers. I know you've given bits of your opinion in regards to them thus far (mainly, that backup tanks existing to save the priest is a useful role, and that a secondary healer can screw things up with overhealing), but I'm curious what you think of secondary tanks as regards to them being more useful for holding agro on a large number of targets, or less useful because they require you to alternate heals between two targets. I'm also curious what you feel about a backup healer, be it a druid, a shaman, or even another priest (likely shadow) for when things go wrong and more healing than you can provide is required.

That about sums up all I can ask/provide. I'm only 33 at this point, so while I've seem a good amount of the game's instances (horde side up to Razor Fen Kraul and Gnomereagan), I haven't seen them all, and I'm curious, as a shield using defense focused warrior, where to go from here. I may not need to worry about, say, finding healers (I'm good friends in real life with two even leveled Shamans and a Priest), but I do want to know how to care for them.
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other.

"Of Death" Sir Francis Bacon
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#10
I think the game would be helped GREATLY by a quest that demonstrates how aggro/threat works. Something of an escort quest that has increasing numbers of elite enemies and a fairly fragile AoE mage or healer to escort.

Many people would probably just complete it overlevel or ignore it, but it should be there, have a good reward and be available at every major city in some form or another.

Too many times my priest(s) have been teamed with the "melee damage" warrior who focuses on only one target. Most recently one who didn't pay attention to my mana bar and kept charging to pull (causing at least 2-3 extra adds on top of what we should have had) He, of course caused a wipe because he started a battle when I literally had zero mana.

I used to think the healer was the most important party member, but after having played priests and warriors in several instances, I'm going to have to change that to the tank is the single most important member of the party. The healer's role is fairly well defined and self evident, while the tank's role is apparently not as easy to pick up. I've partied with more good priests as a warrior than good tanks as a priest.

Add to the complication that in 2 out of 3 character trips to RFC, someone in my party has called in someone 40+ from their guild to help out, and I'm beginning to understand why people in higher level instances have little clue how to play their class in a group.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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#11
swirly,Feb 22 2005, 12:42 PM Wrote:This is something that still has me kind of wondering if it is true or not.  I've read it in several places, but then I've also read:

from http://www.theamazonbasin.com/wow/forums/i...?showtopic=3871

I know enough to admit that I don't know enough about the topic and so I find that I'm generally in the dark as to if overheals are actually really bad for aggro or not.  Of course they are horrible for mana efficiency, but neglecting that; I find I'm confused about the whole deal.
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The ideal way to test this would involve a paladin and any healing class.

The paladin goes into battle with the wonderful bubble of immunity up and full health The priest would heal the paladin and see if that pulled hate. If this pulls hate, then overhealing generates at least some agro. If nothing happens, overhealing is a myth.

What this won't prove is the amount of hate overhealing generates. Whether or not it's truly the great amount of hate our priests think cannot be proven without further testing.

Anyone care to try this out? I play a horde warrior, so there isn't much I can do to test this.
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other.

"Of Death" Sir Francis Bacon
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#12
Thawwing Light,Feb 22 2005, 11:03 AM Wrote:I'm curious about how the warriors you group with keep agro on multiple targets. Do they use AoEs such as Demoralizing Shout and (if they took talents for it) Piercing Howl? I know that's my current method, but it doesn't seem to work as well as I'd like, especially if the party seems hell bent on not focusing on one target. Howl also has the benefit of locking down runners, and therefore I try to reapply it within its 6 second duration. Still, I'm not holding hate as well as I'd like. Do you have any advice?[right][snapback]68689[/snapback][/right]

May want to peruse this thread about defensive stance. It's got some interesting little things about tricks of the trade for warriors. I know Gnollguy's Gnolack can hold aggro really well, even multiple critters (if the rest of the group waits a short while before charging in). I still only have baby warriors around so I can't really answer much about it. I have already seen sunder armor do great things though for aggro management, but things can get complicated if you have two warriors in the group, even when one is designated as main tank beforehand. If you do have two warriors in the group, I think only the main tank should be doing the AoE aggro generators. I know it's thrown off Gnolack for the second warrior to throw out dem shout or another AoE "taunt" at the same time he is. It seems like then neither one of the warriors has things stuck really well to him/her and then it's easier for some squishy to accidentally pull aggro. Let the main tank hold aggro on most of the critters. The off-tanks/second warrior should only really work to get aggro if more than one thing is loose among the squishies.

This is mainly coming from watching Gnolack work and hearing GG's comments and seeing just how much more healing I have to throw out so I may be slightly off, but things work best for the groups where the second warrior just does more basic attacks rather than all the AoE type skills he uses when soloing - the MOBs are less likely to get to the squishies (yeah, I know that seems a little backwards), the healer only really has to heal one target, and the second warrior can just pick a critter to attack and the rest of the group knows (if they don't know, be sure to tell them after the first fight) to /assist that second warrior rather than the main tank so damage doesn't get spread out all over the place and the group of critters ends up dying quicker with the player group being in less danger through it all.

Edit: Changed a little wording.
Intolerant monkey.
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#13
Tal,Feb 22 2005, 10:42 AM Wrote:If Blizzard would fix the threat level of Paladin heals to what it was like at Beta end it flash heals would be the ideal taunt to work in conjunction with Seal of Fury.
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No, that would be bad. A Paladin should not have such a short timer AoE taunt. That is what a heal is, an AoE taunt. A paladin should not have any better aggro tool than a warrior. I do not want to see a paladin hold aggro by healing himself under a druids innervate while everyone else freely pummels everything else. I didn't get to really see the paladin heals in beta but I heard about them. Healing the priest to save his life and take aggro at the same time is just out whack.
---
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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#14
Thawwing Light,Feb 22 2005, 10:18 AM Wrote:The ideal way to test this would involve a paladin and any healing class.

The paladin goes into battle with the wonderful bubble of immunity up and full health The priest would heal the paladin and see if that pulled hate. If this pulls hate, then overhealing generates at least some agro. If nothing happens, overhealing is a myth.

What this won't prove is the amount of hate overhealing generates. Whether or not it's truly the great amount of hate our priests think cannot be proven without further testing.

Anyone care to try this out? I play a horde warrior, so there isn't much I can do to test this.
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I'll try this next time our group is on together. I'm surprised to find out that priests hate it when someone else heals. I can't help but think that it is extremely wasteful to not allow a secondary healer to help. It just needs to be communicated correctly in some way.

As far as wasting mana due to overhealing, I suggest simple healing macros.

I play a paladin with a druid as our primary healer and a warrior as primary tank. Frankly as a paladin my mana is not nearly as valuable as the druids. I can only increase my DPS somewhat by burning mana--it seems a waste to not be able to help out by healing now and then. Both of us always use heal macros that state who we are healing, and we both know to watch for those. I think my heals are quite useful particularly so our druid can focus mainly on our warrior.

I am wondering about our party tactics. They seem to be against what everyone suggests, but we are highly successful (enough so that I no longer do pickup groups for instances as they frustrate me). We pull with warlock, distribute aggro (we have warrior, paladin, and voidwalker), and use a secondary healer occasionally.

Yet as a full party we have not wiped since our first try at the Deadmines (none of us really knew how to really play at that point) at levels 19-21. Our most recent "new" instance excursion was doing the Scarlet monastery cathedral, at 39-40 (druid at 42). We had a little fun with Whitemane/Mograine because we were too slow clearing everything and we had several respawns join in just before Whitemane resurrected Mograine, but only lost the mage.

Are these tactics going to run out of gas as we get to higher level instances? If so, what is going to hurt us, and what should we change?
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#15
Thawwing Light,Feb 22 2005, 08:03 AM Wrote:I'm curious about how the warriors you group with keep agro on multiple targets. Do they use AoEs such as Demoralizing Shout and (if they took talents for it) Piercing Howl? I know that's my current method, but it doesn't seem to work as well as I'd like, especially if the party seems hell bent on not focusing on one target. Howl also has the benefit of locking down runners, and therefore I try to reapply it within its 6 second duration. Still, I'm not holding hate as well as I'd like. Do you have any advice?

Even if your group doesn't focus fire there are some things you can do. I always try to either pull with charge or if someone else is pulling then charge them just before they get to the group. Then I hit them with Demo Shout, Piercing Howl, maybe Thunder Clap, or even a quick Whirlwind with my big weapon. Then I ususally switch to defensive and try to get a whack or two and maybe a sunder on all the active targets, then switch to the main target (or assist the squishiest of the non focus firing groupmates), build a little rage, taunt and begin the Shield Block/Revenge/Sunder spamming with Mortal Strike for flavor if Thrash and Windfury start doing their thing. But tell your teammates to focus fire, they will usually listen.
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#16
Although the priest is a "passive" character in an instance, I find it a demanding intense class to play. One has to be constantly aware of everything that is going on and keep constant track of everyone and their pet.

Anyway, I have another different gripe about playing a priest. Out of courtesy, I will usually pass on leather, mail, swords, etc. But players playing other classes do not extend the same courtesy. I was once in a 5 person party that included an orc hunter. A wand dropped. The hunter won the roll. I asked him nicely for it. He refused, but then offered to sell it to me later. After a partial wipe we all took a break outside the instance to buy and sell. I asked to see the wand and he told me he had already sold it to a vendor. I reallly didn't feel like healing that guy anymore in combat and was delighted when he left the group.
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#17
Alram,Feb 22 2005, 12:44 PM Wrote:Anyway, I have another different gripe about playing a priest.  Out of courtesy, I will usually pass on leather, mail, swords, etc. But players playing other classes do not extend the same courtesy.t guy anymore in combat and was delighted when he left the group.
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This also is a problem that turns up with the need before greed loot setting. I find that it helps caster characters very little. This is because all it really does is restrict people to rolling on items that they can theoretically use. Since every character can use cloth items, they all can roll on them even if the caster in the group is the only one who actually has a use for the item. Wands are a little fairer in that not all classes can use them, but overall I feel that casters have the toughest time lotting just because more of their items are usable by all classes.
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#18
Gnollguy,Feb 22 2005, 01:47 PM Wrote:No, that would be bad.  A Paladin should not have such a short timer AoE taunt.  That is what a heal is, an AoE taunt.  A paladin should not have any better aggro tool than a warrior.  I do not want to see a paladin hold aggro by healing himself under a druids innervate while everyone else freely pummels everything else.  I didn't get to really see the paladin heals in beta but I heard about them.  Healing the priest to save his life and take aggro at the same time is just out whack.
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As it stands now a Paladin has three means of holding (haha) aggro. Seal of Fury, consecration and dps. Seal of fury works fairly well as long as I get the first hit in and stay on the upside of the Aggro mound. If a mage or priest overpulls aggro it is very, very difficult for me to get it back. Consecration is a AoE DoT that works fairly well, again, so long as no one overpulls aggro. It also has the effect of breaking sheep, sap, and mez. Granted this isn't as much of an issue if you fight the main mob out of range of the CC'd mobs. DPS on a paladin is a joke so unless I'm partied with lowbies, I won't pull aggro that way. So if you have a paladin as main tank, and things go wrong™, there is very little I can do but go OOM healing and smacking things with Seal of Fury and finally as a last resort hit divine intervention.

Now some would say that this is working as intended™ but I believe it isn't. Blizzard has stated that in their class vision for the paladin that they wanted a group who had a paladin as MT to not feel gimped. This is certainly not the case as it stands in the game now.

Lets look at the other hybrid class in the game, the Druid. The druid in bear form has a taunt ability but not as many skills for holding aggro as a warrior. The difference is that druid heals do cause aggro, especially if done on the person that has drawn aggro off the druid tank. However, I can go /OOM healing folk when things go bad without drawing aggro off anything. You saw this first hand in the fight before the boss of Gnomeregan. I fully healed Aleri twice and healed you for half life once without drawing any more mobs that what were already pounding on me. This would seem out of whack to me in what Blizzard intends for the the heal to threat ratio.
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#19
Unfortunately, damage is the way to hold aggro right now. Defensive Stance sacrifices damage output, and that means you're MUCH more reliant on skills to contain aggro, rather than sheer damage output.

Obviously, this is fine if your party wants to wait thirty seconds or so for you to get a Sunder or two on every mob in the pull, but that just takes too long.

My party frequently has two mages. A pull works like this: I use Charge, and use the rage generated for a quick Whirlwind, then a Dem-snare combo. The mages charge in and spam IAE and/or Blizzard interspersed with Frost Novas and Blinks. The mobs die, the Priest has about 80% MP left, the Mages have about 35% MP left. I start a new pull, and the Shaman and I proceed to kill the mobs while the mages drink. The mages get up after they're done drinking, nuke whatever's left, and rinse and repeat.

I honestly think that using a heater and beater isn't productive. Some swear by it, but it is MUCH easier to hold aggro with a standard 2H setup. The way my group clears the instances might not be the "correct" way, but it's DAMN sure faster than the "correct" way.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
The original Heavy Metal Cow™. USDA inspected, FDA approved.
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#20
Artega,Feb 22 2005, 01:08 PM Wrote:Obviously, this is fine if your party wants to wait thirty seconds or so for you to get a Sunder or two on every mob in the pull, but that just takes too long.

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If it takes you 30 seconds to sunder everything in the pull, your party has pulled incorrectly, linked mobs or no and there are other ways for your main tank to hold aggro than simply sundering everything. A tank who is solely relying on sunder to keep and hold aggro simply isn't going to be a good one. You can hold aggro and hold it well when you are in defensive stance if you have the mindset for it. There are plenty of tools available; you just have to know what ones to use and when. I'm not saying you can't hold aggro with two-handers (because you can), but you can also hold aggro with a one-hander and shield too. It depends upon how well the different stances/weapons fit your playstyle. If something is completely against your playstyle, then it's not going to work as well for you, but in groups you do typically have to adjust your playstyle at least slightly for most classes.

Edit: Typo in the formatting.

Edit2: Though of something I forgot to say.

Artega,Feb 22 2005, 01:08 PM Wrote:My party frequently has two mages. A pull works like this: I use Charge, and use the rage generated for a quick Whirlwind, then a Dem-snare combo. The mages charge in and spam IAE and/or Blizzard interspersed with Frost Novas and Blinks. The mobs die, the Priest has about 80% MP left, the Mages have about 35% MP left. I start a new pull, and the Shaman and I proceed to kill the mobs while the mages drink. The mages get up after they're done drinking, nuke whatever's left, and rinse and repeat.[right][snapback]68716[/snapback][/right]

Personally, it just bugs me to have a group take off when I'm drinking. As long as you guys are usually grouped though and the mages don't have an issue with it, do what works for you. Different groups means different chemistry which means different tactics used. Do you use the same tactics when you don't have high DPS monkeys in your group? Does it work just as efficiently (I know you're big on efficiency) without the DPS monkeys as it does with the DPS monkeys?
Intolerant monkey.
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