Priest tips

[Zanchief]

I pulled all the time cause the warriors weren't pulling at the speed of Quolyte (there's a mathematically equation to calculate the exact speed but I don't think you guys have the intelligence to crunch all the numbers). Worked ok, had to fade a lot and my group yelled at me all the time.

[The Kizzy]

I like pulling, I pull when I am on my mage, and on my priest. I can control aggro pretty well on my mage, and now I know how with my priest, or at least I am learning how.

We 5maned LBRS on Sunday twice and all I did was MC, it was awesome. Warrior, priest, mage, and two hunters. I rarely had to heal.

[Tacks]

[Arlos]

Stratholme is actually a good place to let pallies pull, at least the undead packs starting from the front door. Throw up righteous fury, tag 1 mob in the pack with our undead nuke, start casting the 2-sec cast AOE undead nuke, and when they hit melee range, consecrate. Keeps the pack on the pallie for a significant amount of time before the AOEing mages/warlocks draw aggro on themselves. "Paper Tank" or not, pallies DO actually, you know, wear plate, and can take the hits from those mobs significantly better than mages, plus at least against undead, Pallies have significantly better AOE aggro generation than warriors do, and as a result make perfectly acceptible tanks. Even a holy spec paladin isn't going to take THAT much more damage than a warrior, unless the warrior is in defensive stance all the time, which is pretty pointless against yard trash.

Refusing to heal someone just because they're a paladin and are drawing aggro is incredibly retarded, and shows an utter lack of knowledge about the game. Sure, waiting for mana is a good thing, but it's utterly pointless to sit around on your ass waiting for everyone to get to full mana, when it's manifestly not required, given that you said you were able to keep people alive starting at 10%. Newb groups sit around for full mana every pull. Competant groups don't bother, only wait for as much mana as is necessary, and get done with the dungeon in half the time.

-Arlos

[Tacks]

It's not even about who can tank better than another, it's about agro control. I've tanked the entire live side of Strath including Balnazzar as a rogue before, if everyone isn't a noob and knows how to play the game then it's not difficult. A naked paladin who knows his shit can tank the instance if the healer isn't an overagroing-wannabe puller fool. AKA if people -do their jobs- you do a lot better.

[The Kizzy]

No, arlos, pulling at 10% mana is never a good thing. I can keep a group healed when I have 30 mana very easily, but pulling when you're healer is OOM completely is never a good thing.

As far as mages pulling, I don't know how you guys do it, but the tanks in our groups rarely have problems drawing aggro before that first hit makes contact.

You must play a pally. Plate wearer or not, they can not take the same hits as a warrior can.

[Arlos]

I don't deny that aggro control is vital, notice I mentioned that against undead, Paladins have significantly better AOE aggro generation than Warriors do. Given the choices of classes to draw aggro if more than one are capable of doing so, however, it is generally more efficient to use a class that is better able to take the hits, cutting down on the healer workload. Means you can get through it faster, as you wait less time to get mana back, since less mana is used per encounter.

-Arlos

[The Kizzy]

Good point, I missed the whole pallies are better against undead thing in the beginning. I totally agree with that.

[The Kizzy]

By the by Arlos, how do you suggest pulling in ZG? We use our tanks of course, but when there is a crowd of 3 or more, we generally utilize sheep. On the snake boss, our tank tanks the boss in the corner, we keep the minions sheeped and pick them off one by one and then all concentrate on the boss after the adds are down. Lot more to it than that, but you get the jist of it.

[Arlos]

Yes, I DO play a pally, and even before I had a single piece of MC gear, I could tank in Stratholme just fine, with a mostly retribution spec build. Hell, in the same level of gear, I MTed Stratholme all the way to the Baron back when it was hard, all of Scholo back when IT was hard, and Dire Maul East as well. Whether I could do it now in the same gear I had then, I don't know, because paladin single-target aggro generation just got power-nerfed in 1.9. AOE aggro generation is unimpaired, however, which leads me back to my paladin-tank comment for the undead packs.

Yes, warriors have superior single-target aggro generation to a Paladin, and have snap-aggro abilities which we lack. That is absolutely unrelated to the ability to TAKE hits, however. The *ONLY* difference in the ability to take hits between Paladins and Warriors of equal armor value and +Defense gear comes from the Warrior's Defensive stance, which gives an innate damage reduction. If the warrior is in Battle stance, Paladins and Warriors take hits IDENTICALLY, given, as I said, equal gear levels. And funny, no competant warrior I know uses Defensive stance unless he absolutely has to, as it lowers DPS, which slows down how fast stuff dies, and speed is the important thing.

Good friend of mine is a priest, and any time I do an instance with her, we never spend much time waiting for mana. If she's at 30% or better, unless we know it's a boss fight, we're pulling. If she runs OOM, I can fill in healing while Blessing of Wisdom ticks her mana back enough to take over again. There's zero point in waiting around for everyone to get full after every pull, it just means you're more likely to have to deal with respawns, and you take twice as long to do a dungeon.

Edit: Our methods of doing ZG are not going to be applicable to anyone without a gear level equivalent to ours. We generally roll through it fast and loose in a big hurry. Sheep some stuff, aoe other stuff, use off-tanks on some stuff rather than worrying abotu sheeping, etc. Since we're mostly in BWL gear, ZG isn't exactly much of a challenge.

-Arlos

[The Kizzy]

I dont think we ever deal with respawns. We did Strat in a little over an hour last night. I am never at fullmana, and I don't whine about it. If you pull when I am at 0 mana though, there might be a problem.

I have noticed the pallies cannot take as hard of a beating as they were able to before 1.9. Just personal observation.

[Tacks]

99% of the time warriors pulling is preferrable, period. It's all about the initial agro. There is absolutely no reason to pull with sheep/shackle/seduce when it can be done .2 seconds after the initial pull.

[Adivina]

We like to pull with Grommit and Jake (AV wolf and a bear), but thats just because it looks so fucking silly when you see Geddon running after poor fat little Jake, its pretty much just for laughs.

Sometimes Jake likes to pull when he isn't told to. Like the day he decided to help us speed up ZG while we were all still arriving. He went for a swim in the river and brought half the zone back to the inzone, lots of dead afk people rofl. Jake got put away in the stable for a couple weeks after that.

[Tacks]

Like I said 99% of the time. There's some very obvious situations where it's better for a rogue or hunter to pull.

[Adivina]

Oh yes, but we try to make it a habit to let Jake and Grommit pull. I think it amuses us far too much.

[Mop]

pull at 10% if you dont suck were fine~ if you suck you now know you suck and we can move on

[Zanchief]

If you're at 10% mana just freakin drink and you'll be full before you need to heal.

[xaoshaen]

99% of the time warriors pulling is preferrable, period. It's all about the initial agro. There is absolutely no reason to pull with sheep/shackle/seduce when it can be done .2 seconds after the initial pull.

Why is it that hunters have such a hard time understanding this? I never really despised the general population of hunters until I started playing a warrior.