On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, Sylly Songsynger wrote:
> > From: "Reece, Tom - 25IDL G4" <g4mntofcr@...>
> >
> > Conventional tactics in EQ when you pull multiple mobs is for everyone to
> > /assist the main tank and take out the mobs one by one.
>
> E N C H A N T E R
>
> Don't leave home without one.
You don't always have an enchanter in the group, so the topic
still warrants discussion. Some of the things you find are
not so obvious.
For example, in a 2-mob pull, I'll usually Pixie Strike the
weaker (less chance of resists, less damage I take when I'm
resisted) while the group kills the stronger. We found out
the hard way that a paladin + ranger + cleric take a really
really long time and use up almost all their mana to kill a
bok knight. Meanwhile, I sat there PSing a dar knight for
probably 5-8 minutes, occasionally tossing in a buff here or
there trying to make myself somewhat useful.
The next time this happened, I just PSed the bok continuously
(no other buffs) while the group killed the dar. Not only did
they manage to kill the dar, they killed another dar, wan, and
urd who wandered into the fight. The bok only woke up twice,
and I was able to get it back under control requiring only a
single heal. Then all of us killed the bok. If we'd done it
the other way, I would've ended up having to control 2 dars, a
wan, and an urd while my group fought the bok. (Controlling 4
mobs is not impossible, but really difficult - charm one, PS 2
others.)
Also, mez is not the ultimate crowd control solution. If your
enchanter has multiple mobs mezed and your group is taking a
long time to hack down each one, there's a danger the
enchanter could go OOM keeping up the mezes. In that case,
it's better to charm a couple mobs (both you and enchanter
can, but probably safer if only you do it so the enchanter can
keep up the mezing). That'll help the group kill the current
target much more quickly. When I try to do this, nothing
annoys me more than an enchanter who insists on mezing the mob
I'm charming. (I did this to Rokenn's pet once so I'm not
completely innocent either. :)
Another mistake I see groups make is to not take their time
when they have the luxury of crowd control. Too many people
feel that immediately after killing a mob, they have to start
hacking away at the next mesmerized mob. In one unfortunate
case, the cleric went OOM healing us from the current mob, the
tanks killed it, and instead of waiting to give the cleric
some time to rest up, immediately jumped on the next mob.
They also (incorrectly) followed the "kill the caster first"
rule when a relatively weak melee mob was also standing by
mezed. As a result, the caster nuked two of the melee folks
to death before we bailed out of the situation.
I explained it to them afterwards - in between mezed mob kills
is basically free time, equivalent to you being able to cast
heals and buffs with zero combat delay, debuff the mob with no
threat of retalization, and being able to med and (with a
bard) heal up. Next time this happened they listened when I
said "kill the (green) melee mob next." As a result, the
cleric had about 45 seconds to med in peace, while I played
Clarity and Hymn to give each of the tanks back about a half
bubble despite the damage they were taking from the greenie.
So there are lots of situations where turning conventional
tactics on their head result in better outcomes.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...