A blog about the game behind the game™.
Many articles or features were originally posts from Wowhead.
About the author: Arideni, a veteran of World of Warcraft, now contributes often through freelance writing at the Wowhead database. Usually found pondering the meaning of life, Arideni's unique perspective allows for insightful conversation.
His current projects include a weekly forum discussion, "Topic of the Week," which can be found reposted here as well as his own opinions & theories, and two guides maintained for the Wowhead Warrior Forums.
Many articles or features were originally posts from Wowhead.
About the author: Arideni, a veteran of World of Warcraft, now contributes often through freelance writing at the Wowhead database. Usually found pondering the meaning of life, Arideni's unique perspective allows for insightful conversation.
His current projects include a weekly forum discussion, "Topic of the Week," which can be found reposted here as well as his own opinions & theories, and two guides maintained for the Wowhead Warrior Forums.
Controlling Crowd Control, part 2
Posted 10-09-2008 at 10:53 AM by Arideni
Updated 10-11-2008 at 05:10 PM by Arideni (Fixed technical error.)
Updated 10-11-2008 at 05:10 PM by Arideni (Fixed technical error.)
It became apparent to me that a lot of players felt differently to my approach on the timing of crowd control. I am not a "CC-hater," so to speak. However, I do not particularly understand players who continue to use certain abilities even though it may not work or is blatantly unnecessary.
Yes, I broke your sheep.
So, you sheeped the unmarked elf in a 3-mob pull. Thanks, but really we are ok — we can survive it. Unless these creatures are heavy-hitters like the Destroyers in Heroic Ramparts, I really don't feel a need to worry about them. Beyond that, Mortal Strike is the least of my concern in that dungeon & I would prefer you sheep the creatures that Disarm instead.
This isn't rocket science.
I'm a big fan of Thunder Clap, always have been. The old days of Charge -> Thunder Clap -> Defensive Stance are over, and a lot of players have either forgotten or never learned that we often Thunder Clap (especially early on). It's a great way to catch aggro on creatures who run by. I've even experienced mages who tried to sheep, in Heroics, while the creature was clearly standing inside of Consecration. After over a year of The Burning Crusade, it's time to learn about paladin tanking, too.
So pull back to avoid the sheep.
The problem is, a tank should always be pulling back. The sheep target shouldn't be able to really hit the tank because it should be sheeped, so why exactly do we need to pull back? Not all areas in the game have a large room to maneuver in. Start the sheep before it gets to the tank so it never gets near the group. Sheep pulling on non-critical fights is another option in many of these situations (make sure no creatures are near the sheep in case it breaks). A simple Bloodrage, Thunder Clap, or Shout will easily regain aggro of all the non-CC creatures. Paladins can taunt the creatures, or use Consecration, and druids can swipe or use a Roar.
Crowd Control sucks.
Wrong. Crowd control works wonders in new content or progressive content. Back in patch 2.0 & 2.1 groups were still doing regular dungeons & starting to tackle Heroics more often. Using crowd control to the point it made a tank healable allowed many players, myself included, to start playing in the big leagues without any special gear. The same trend will occur in Wrath of the Lich King & I will be sure not to push my healers too hard or stress them out. That's not going to help anyone.
Use Crowd Control, if you need it.
If the tank has things under control, forget about CC & just go with the flow. If something peels off, watch what the tank does. Is he paying attention? If not, obviously you should intervene to protect the healer.
Behave yourself!
Make sure you watch your aggro, throwing the tank for a loop because you wanted to impress your friends with damage meters doesn't help anyone. In fact, it causes a chain reaction on creature threat tables (especially for tanks still gearing up, so to speak).
Yes, I broke your sheep.
So, you sheeped the unmarked elf in a 3-mob pull. Thanks, but really we are ok — we can survive it. Unless these creatures are heavy-hitters like the Destroyers in Heroic Ramparts, I really don't feel a need to worry about them. Beyond that, Mortal Strike is the least of my concern in that dungeon & I would prefer you sheep the creatures that Disarm instead.
This isn't rocket science.
I'm a big fan of Thunder Clap, always have been. The old days of Charge -> Thunder Clap -> Defensive Stance are over, and a lot of players have either forgotten or never learned that we often Thunder Clap (especially early on). It's a great way to catch aggro on creatures who run by. I've even experienced mages who tried to sheep, in Heroics, while the creature was clearly standing inside of Consecration. After over a year of The Burning Crusade, it's time to learn about paladin tanking, too.
So pull back to avoid the sheep.
The problem is, a tank should always be pulling back. The sheep target shouldn't be able to really hit the tank because it should be sheeped, so why exactly do we need to pull back? Not all areas in the game have a large room to maneuver in. Start the sheep before it gets to the tank so it never gets near the group. Sheep pulling on non-critical fights is another option in many of these situations (make sure no creatures are near the sheep in case it breaks). A simple Bloodrage, Thunder Clap, or Shout will easily regain aggro of all the non-CC creatures. Paladins can taunt the creatures, or use Consecration, and druids can swipe or use a Roar.
Crowd Control sucks.
Wrong. Crowd control works wonders in new content or progressive content. Back in patch 2.0 & 2.1 groups were still doing regular dungeons & starting to tackle Heroics more often. Using crowd control to the point it made a tank healable allowed many players, myself included, to start playing in the big leagues without any special gear. The same trend will occur in Wrath of the Lich King & I will be sure not to push my healers too hard or stress them out. That's not going to help anyone.
Use Crowd Control, if you need it.
If the tank has things under control, forget about CC & just go with the flow. If something peels off, watch what the tank does. Is he paying attention? If not, obviously you should intervene to protect the healer.
Behave yourself!
Make sure you watch your aggro, throwing the tank for a loop because you wanted to impress your friends with damage meters doesn't help anyone. In fact, it causes a chain reaction on creature threat tables (especially for tanks still gearing up, so to speak).
Total Comments 10
Comments
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I hate it when I start also attacking the sheep target because they were so slow sheeping I decided they must be afk, then they complain. I usually try say something mild like "Oops, thought you stepped away or fell asleep..." or "Are you on dialup?" but a few times I've just got mad and said "Are you slow or stupid or both?"Posted 10-09-2008 at 12:17 PM by Thist 
- Ex-nay on the ial-up day, friend. I play on dial-up & am an MT for my guild. No excuses!
Posted 10-09-2008 at 01:00 PM by Arideni - If there are 3 mobs and the mage wants to sheep one, please by all means, go ahead. Sheep the caster if you like so I can easily control the 2 remaining melee. Apologies, but insisting on tanking 3 mobs just because you can (and not a pally at that) smacks of that e-peening thing that you accused dpsers like hunters/rogues of in your last post.
Personally, I hate sheep pulling. There are many occasions where I was asked to sheep pull and the tank was just too slow in picking up the mobs after. Nowadays, I prefer go to the frontlines with the tank, and hit that sheep button just as his gun/arrow goes off. The sheep stays out of melee range and aggro is still entirely on the tank.
And the rationale to move away from the sheep? It's to prevent auto-attack happy melee from breaking sheep accidentally and the mob running straight at the mage and 1-shotting him/her. Especially in a raid. A mage can ice-lance, break sheep and resheep again if he/she is fast enough, but that's a dangerous maneuver. I always move the tanked mob from the sheep for this reason. Even within TC range but out of melee range helps a great deal.Posted 10-09-2008 at 09:46 PM by Elyvern
Updated 10-10-2008 at 08:37 AM by Elyvern - "Start the sheep before it gets to the tank so it never gets near the group."
I agree with this 200%. I can't tell you how often I've pulled a group across an entire room only to have the marked mob *poof* into a sheep right beside me. Blizzard gaves us a wonderful engineering tanking gun that goes CLICK two seconds before the pull. That's your cue, mages!Posted 10-10-2008 at 04:07 AM by McBash - In general, if a mob is in my range, it's too late, I'll pick him and you'll just waste your time trying to sheep it. The exception is in raid but our mage have a macro to whisper the tank when they sheep, so we can stop attack.
I rarely received complain about me breaking sheep, and when I do, I just say "sheep before it reach me or do like hunter, pull it off me and sheep it away".
"The problem is, a tank should always be pulling back. "
Well in my case the problem is, when I go pull and run back, there is always someone who followed me but who don't move back when I move back. Even when I tell them to stay there because I'll pull back. So I often end up with the everyone around me and have to move "again" so they don't get killed by a cleave, all this while they stand there, mashing "2" to rank up in the DPS meter.Posted 10-10-2008 at 09:28 AM by djiss - I try pulling back, but people are amazingly stubborn about moving back with me. I can say I am los pulling back, and very obviously run behind a section of wall so all mobs will come towards me, and some idiot will still be standing out in front, and will throw me a heal or dps something then I have to jump out and try grab everything before disaster ensues. It's especially frustrating when the only cc we have is multiple fears and there are multiple mob groups. If they only all moved back we could fear in emergencies, but no way is that happening.
Posted 10-10-2008 at 04:42 PM by Thist - Yup, this keeps happening to me in Shattered Halls. I say "LoS pull to right", run up to the mobs and shoot their leader. I run back behind the left wall where there's a wooden bench and, sure enough, there's the rest of the rest of the group in the middle of the hall watching the mobs run in...
Usually if they don't buff or anything it doesn't matter, the mobs will run through them and onto me anyway. But it would be much safer, and certainly reassuring, if the melee also hide behind the left wall and the ranged behind the right one. The same applies to MgT.Posted 10-10-2008 at 05:55 PM by Machus - I should probably do an introductory post telling about my game play habits & constraints so that everyone will have something to reference me by.
Until then, understand that lately all I have been doing is let the group handle things their way & I'll just stand in the back next to the healer jumping up & down repeatedly.
I'm not sure if it really works yet, but it's pretty funny.
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@Elyvern: One could misinterpret my posts to be elitist, but it borders more on the line of "QQ" ranting than showing off.
I won't lie, though — I am one of those tanks who doesn't feel the need to roll paladin for 3-mob pulls (as my example showed).
EDIT: I would also like to add that a tank should never have to pull away from CC for fear of a person auto-attacking it. That is not the tanks responsibility. If a DPS breaks CC, then it is their fault & theirs alone. I say this from a rogue's point of view in which I use auto-attack on switching targets. It all comes down to live & learn...to play.Posted 10-11-2008 at 05:03 PM by Arideni
Updated 10-11-2008 at 05:08 PM by Arideni (added note about auto-attacks) - Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the challenge of holding multiple mobs on a warrior as well. I confess I spend an obscene number of hours playing WoW and can be called upon to lead/tank several raid/heroic instances on top of levelling alts and doing dailies a day so I try to go easy on myself to maintain gaming performance.
Yes, dps breaking CC is not a tank's fault. Realise though that quite often, the aggro resulting from accidental breaking does not fall on the offender but on the poor mage/hunter/priest that is CCing. Then it becomes a tank's job to save their asses. So why not cut that intervening step and just move the target away? There are countless of times, when I get 1-shot by a mob that a rogue or a fury warrior breaks (esp before IB was trainable) when there is alot of maneuvering space to move the target away from the sheep. Try playing a raid CC class, it's more frustrating than you can imagine.Posted 10-13-2008 at 12:57 AM by Elyvern
Updated 10-13-2008 at 01:09 AM by Elyvern - The main issue here is that you are shifting responsibility from the player who breaks CC to the tank. Ideally, it is not necessary for us to go out of our way because a rogue or Fury warrior, etc. can't control their actions.
Blame the DPS who breaks the sheep, not the tank who didn't move for fear of their stupidity. A tank who caters to ignorant players doesn't help them learn from their mistakes!Posted 10-14-2008 at 10:59 PM by Arideni
