WARs, Please learn how to PT

[Lunakat]

Hasent changed yet. Hit 24 and grouped with 2 other wars (for lack of other classes). These guys didnt have a clue.

Quotes you dont wanna hear:

Main Tank "sorry bout that, was rollin a blunt"

Main Tank a bit later "dude, my damage rocks with beserk"

Main Tank after that "WTF, i just got killed and you guys are disbanding!!!!!"

....

Im not so afraid of higher levels anymore, these guys wont make it there.

Lunakat

[wizzy]

Originally posted by Rico
You shouldn't have 4 melee and 2 mages it's just too much of hassle. Did you tell them not to provoke? that the paladin was the main tank?

Yup I agree too many damage dealers and not enough healers.


Maybe they should had two white mages,one black mage, A tank and two damage dealers?

[Lunakat]

keep in mind, that party was just thrown togather. didnt have a lot to pick from. 3 wars suck in a group, usually.

[LordBiGGs]

WARNING LONG POST! ^^

i have some things to say in regards to previous posts...

1. 4 melees isnt too much in the dunes. clearly a lot of you dont remember the dunes very well. let me tell you, they're hell. i hate the dunes so much that when i lvl a job there i look forward to qufim. remember about 1/2 of the lvl 1-30 vanadiel population is warriors so in the dunes you take what you can get. i actually just lvl'd nin while taking a break from pld so i can clearly recall how bad the dunes are.

2. pld's are always better than wars for tanking (no offense). level doesnt matter, they're always better. although war/nin's can tank almost as good IMO. if you dont think theres a noticable difference before 30, you havent played with a good pld at low levels. from 20-30 monsters were basically always stuck on me. even if i was about to die and someone else provoked they didnt leave me most of the time. the noticable difference isnt with damage taking, its with keeping hate. i didn't have any trouble holding hate with pld from when i got cure II until i started fighting soldier crawlers cuz they hit hard and make you lose hate fast.

3. 1 healer should be enough if theres a pld in the party. lower lvl's dont need as much of a party balance as higher lvl's. 1 whm and 5 melees can work. just have to make sure the whm isnt stupid. OW I GOT SMACKED, OK THE ENEMY LEFT ME BETTER HEAL MYSELF. OMG ITS COMING BACK....stupid stupid...another mistake low lvl whm's make is wasting their cures on someone who gets agro'd once and then is never going to get hit again. whm's need to realize if they have a good main tank, the only person they need to heal is the main tank cuz no one will get hit other than them (unless the enemy has an AOE).

4. provoke is bad for pulling because A. its range isnt very good so the puller gets hit on the way back and B. if the puller isnt the main tank, the main tank has to use more than a voke to gain hate.

5. the pld in your party should have said something. he obviously has at least one job at lvl 30 and by then he should know what he's doing. he should have told everyone he was the tank and to only provoke if a mob left him or he was about to die.

6. this is how hate works.

hate = abilities used base hate + damage + healing - damage taken - time passed.

abilities base hate means that every action you do has a set amount of hate it generates regardless of damage this amount of hate is probably stat based, although i have no idea which stat it depends on, probably differs from skill to skill. an example of base hate is attacking causes hate. even if you miss, it generates hate, if it didnt, you wouldnt be able to pull with a missed ranged attack. this rule of base hate applies to everything, casting buffers, attacks, special abilities, even resting generates hate, since when you rest you are in essence healing (you can test this, pull with a ranged attack, preferably a missed one or get hit a few times while pulling. have someone in your party rest, when the enemy comes to your camp, it will smack the person who's resting first.). if you don't believe any of that, test it or try to explain how flash or provoke work.

damage is fairly obvious. you damage a mob, you get hate

healing, once again obvious

damage taken also obvious, you get hit, you lose hate. this is why a mob will sometimes leave the tank, smack a mage once, then go right back to the tank. also tanks have more trouble holding hate on heavy hitting mobs. no its not because the whm does more curing, because in my experience whm's dont get agro'd much after lvl 30. its the drk's, rng's and blm's, sometimes sam's

time passed, means hate fades over time. i heard on a JP site that healing and damage hate, but frankly i have no idea. i'm not the kind of person who trusts someone just because they're japanese and i think people who do are stupid. regardless hate definitely fades over time. if someone pulls with provoke and manages to not get hit (no hate loss by damage taking) on the run back to camp, then say a blm casts a weak spell that produces far less hate than a provoke, the blm will still get agro because the hate from the provoke has already faded.

ok, i'm done lol. either believe or go test.

[Thorrion]

Good post Biggs.

I think it needs mentioning also that hate balance isn't solely the tanks duty...

In an average to good group, I can keep hate very strongly as a warrior... to the point where people try to voke off me and can't. I don't need to use Warcry for hate unless someone (for example) uses a Sneak Attack right at the start before I've built any hate up, or throws in a huge nuke, etc.

Rangers pose a problem... I'm not sure how it fares for paladins, but I find that a Barrage means I won't have hate for the rest of that fight, assuming it lands well.

The thing is, a good group will know how to balance hate according to the tank... a good Blm will cut back a bit on nukes if he repeatedly finds himself stealing hate for example.

A good tank will provoke every time it pops, that keeps enough solid hate by itself... throw in cures for paladins, or boost for a war/mnk and you have enough to keep a good amount of hate, but it isn't infallable with a bad group.

[LordBiGGs]

very good point thorrion. hate control isn't the sole duty of the tank. other jobs should take note of what the tank is doing and learn how to not draw hate to themselves. if theres a thief in the party you have to around some means of the thf using TA/SA. in one of my parties the thf actually had to SA/TA off the bard because we didnt have any other melee. this actually worked quite nicely because bards draw almost no hate and the enemy never turned from me even after a 600 point SA.

another note for the heavier damaging classes, if you notice a pld is starting to get low on life and has had his casting interupted, dont be afraid you use one of your more powerful spells or weapon skills. the hate on the pld will be loose since he hasnt casted. this will cause the enemy to leave him for a moment, then he will cast his spell and most likely get hate back. this happens to me when i hit a lag spike and its hard to time my casts or i just kinda timed it wrong. for instance if an enemy double strikes, his next attack is coming sooner than it normally would since the cooldown is based on the first hit.

on a side note, depending on the fight, pld's can keep hate over a barrage. mostly depends on how hard the enemy hits (how much hate is being lost to damage) and how much the whm has been curing. if the enemy his for low damage, pld's have a little more trouble keeping hate cuz they cant heal. on the other hand, if it hits for a lot of damage, lots of hate is gone quickly.