Some Good Banter Regarding Combat...

Distilled from SilkyVenom.com

The Original Poster Wrote:

Let's look at the following scenario:

You're in a group of 6 with one healer and without a Psionicist, and you and your group are going in to a dungeon populated with even-level 4 dots.

In the dungeon, one of these things winds up happening:

* A group of mobs repops right on top of you: you didn't realize that you were standing in a spawn location because a group that's also in the dungeon cleared that spot earlier.

* The tank over-pulls.

* Wanderers give your group some adds.

* Some combination of the above.


If you now have 4 or more 4-dot mobs in your midst, then:

* A squishy dies more or less *instantly* when he becomes the focus of attention. There's no way to heal him fast enough. In the case of a group of wanders or a re-pop, that squishy may have done nothing to gain aggro.

* Even when the main tank becomes the sole focus of attention for 4 4-dots, that tank is going to die too -- spamming a 1.5 second heal won't be fast enough.

* If you have 2 4-dots pounding on a squishy, and 2 pounding on a tank, you can start spamming a heal on the squishy and he might live, but the tank will certainly die, and vice-versa.

The same scenarios will occur also with 3-dots if there are enough of them.

These are not contrived/made-up examples: I've encountered every one of them myself. In the case of a mix of 3- and 4-dots, I was in groups in The Hive and the Temple of Dailuk. In the case of the 4-dots, I was in a group in a level 20-something dungeon in Northeastern Qalia (don't remember the name) populated with lizardfolk.

In the latter case, we had 6 complete wipes before we gave up. We didn't 'suck' -- we weren't unskilled players. We just didn't have the luxury of 2 healers and a psionicist. I'm not sure if that would have made a difference anyways. Thankfully, I wasn't the group's healer.

The fundamental issue in all of these: the rate of mob's damage output as a percentage of player's health; and, both the rate of and latency of healing.

I believe I read somewhere that it's a fundamental design goal of Vanguard's to have a more strategic feel and not be a test of lightning quick reaction times. Right now, combat even in the typical case is very far from this -- it requires ultra-fast reaction times; and often, the situations are just impossible to handle.





Okay, after reading that load of bullshit, here are the best replies, which offer solid tactics and advice for handling this kind of situation...


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Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with the situation you posted.

Your tank over-pulled, he messed up. Death.
Your tank wasn't watching closely for wanderers or adds. Death.

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Four 4-dots against a party with only one healer and no psi? And you don't want to die from that? You cite a list of mistakes that happen to a non-defensive team and don't thing a wipe is a realistic situation. Is there any situation where you think a DPS heavy party may be in grave risk? Evidently, you demand a combat system where you, the player, is never at risk of dying.

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Ask yourself these questions before each pull.

How many mobs will come, at most, at least ?
Are they linked ?
Are there roamers ?

How long till next respawn ?
Should you charge or should you pull ?

What are those mobs? 4dot or 3dot? Caster/warrior/Healer ?
Which one poses severe danger and needs to die asap ?

If there are more than your tank can handle, how do you cc, offtank, mez, root or what ?

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With a GOOD group there are so many ways to save in those instances it is not even funny:

If you have a monk have them FD and use a life stone to res.

If you have a halfling have him use his escape racial and use a lifestone to res.

If there is a repop ontop of you MOST non-squishie classes have rescues to pull aggro off of the squishes and buy time. I HAVE had that happen to my group occasionally and use my rescue to immediatly pull aggro for two swings off of a squishe so the tank has some time to get things under control (I'm a Cleric primary). Also if you don't know the spawn locations cold then I suggest you go VERY slowly until you can figure it out. Generally what my groups do is if they are fighting through mobs and suddenly come to an area where there are no mobs we will back up to the last area we were at and killing mobs and wait for them to respawn (since we know where they will be), take them out and then move forward because that will mean the ones that may or may not be missing will have repopped.

There are tons of ways in which to save the party, you just have to be smart, have well made macros for the various professions (tanks calling out the targets to attack, etc.), and people who actually know how to play their class and play it well. This is not a game where you can just hit auto-attack and go to sleep. You must know the ins and outs of your class in order to do well and one group member not having a clue can very well wipe the party and that is how it should be. It make the game "competitive" without actually making it "competitive" if that makes sense. In other words the good players become obvious as do the bad, and again that is how it should be.

As for the lacking a psionicist, there are more CC abilities than what they have. Bards can Mez, rogues can Sap, clerics can root, druids can root, rangers can snare (and root at higher lvls). There are so many ways to control the situation, you just have to be willing to pay attention and adapt. Stretch the mobs out, split them from one another, there are all kinds of ways to come out of those situations completely fine. You just have to ALL know what you are doing.

And I disagree Ariste... My groups have taken multiple equal lvl 4 dots at once (especially in the bottom of KE) there has been a few times we've even taken 6 at once without too much trouble. The secret is healers properly managing their mana and targets so they aren't over healing or double healing, and having the proper party build (generally the reason I build mine with 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 2 DPS... which is generally perfect for handling any eventuality). And once you get past 22 so your healers have battle res it gets even easier. It can be done, and relativly easily you just have to have intelligent players who work well together as a team.


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read up, tanks. you have no excuses anymore!