Note: These are intended for leveling pugs, where the tank is not made of Duranium and the DPS only think they do OVER 9000!! and the group actually needs a healer to survive.
1) If you are a tank, don’t tell the healer when they should stop for mana. It’s the healer’s job to watch their own mana. Only they know the rate that they expect to use it. Only they know if they’re good for another pull at 30% or if it’s okay to pull the boss before they’re full. If they say they’re good, they’re good. If they say they need to stop, stop. Remain stopped until the healer is finished drinking. Do not wait until they hit 50% and start pulling again. If your healer doesn’t get to drink to full, they’ll just need to stop again soon. And water isn’t free unless you’re tapping a mage. So let your healer finish his drink before moving on. And please, please do not say “mana up” at random times when it’s convenient for you. Frankly, implying that the healer’s mana pool is an inconvenience to your tanking awesome-itude (a real word!) is kind of degrading. Don’t degrade the person keeping you alive, it’s not nice.
Pro tip: Your healer will need to drink an awful lot in Mana Tombs. That’s because the mobs there drain mana at an incredibly annoying rate. This does not mean your healer sucks. It means the instance sucks. Please adjust expectations accordingly.
2) If you are the DPS, please do not use knockback effects or fears. I know some of those spells do damage, but trust me, they are not going to be part of your ultimate dps arsenal. Particularly do not use these spells right at the start of a large AOE pull. Don’t even use them if you get aggro. Instead, run toward the tank, so the mob follows you back to where it’s supposed to be. That way the mob remains controlled at all times. What knockbacks do is knock the mobs away from the tank and scatter them so they are out of the tank’s control and it’s difficult to pick them back up quickly. This generally results in lots of aggro flying everywhere, which results in damage to other party members to the tank. Common side effects are pulling extra mobs, people dying, your healer going out of mana, and embarrassing wipes.
Pro tip: for fast instances, avoid doing things that run your healer out of mana. The less time you spend sitting around drinking, the faster you finish the instance… though if you hate being there so much, I fail to understand why you queued in the first place.
3) If you are a tanking capable class that is running as DPS, take your taunt buttons right off your bars. Or at least put them in a hard to reach spot. If you bind Hand of Reckoning to 1 and Divine Storm to 2, when you hit hand of reckoning by mistake and that fel orc turns around and flattens you… well you have nobody to blame but yourself. For the Death Nuggets among us, Death Grip functions as a taunt in this situation. Don’t use it if you’re not tanking.
Pro tip: The tank doesn’t want help tanking. The instance does not require an assistant tank. It definitely will not make anything faster to have more tanks. The healer really does not want you to help with the tanking. The more people taking heavy damage, the faster the healer is running out of mana. You take heavier damage than the tank because you don’t have tank talents or tank gear. You are also much more likely to die than the tank. Especially if the healer is low on mana, or if you’ve been warned several times to stop assistant tanking.
4) If you are a ranged class, stand at range. They call it ranged dps for a reason. What happens when you’re standing at range is this: You damage the mobs, maybe the mobs get aggro on you and start toward you. While they close that distance the tank has an opportunity to taunt the mob before it flattens your ass. The healer has an opportunity to shield/hot you. And you (yes you!) have an opportunity to use a threat dump like feign death, ice block, misdirect, fade, disperse, and many more. If you don’t have a threat dump available stop dpsing the mob that’s after you. That’s right, change targets, so your threat on your former target starts to decay. This will make you a less effective pincushion. It’s true. When you’re in melee range, guess what happens? You aggro the mob, and it grinds you into the floor before anybody has an opportunity to do anything. Please, for the love of all that is holy (and for shamans and druids, for all that is naturey) stand at range.
Pro tip: Some things explode. Most notably bombs, but also some kinds of mobs. Standing in things that explode hurts. Usually, things explode in melee range. Standing outside of melee range offers excellent protection from explosions. Avoiding explosions helps your healer not go out of mana, which leads to an efficient run.
Pro tip 2: Don’t freeze/root the mob far from the tank. It may keep you from taking damage for a few seconds, but it makes it harder for the tank to get control of the mob again. If it’s chasing you go toward the tank (not away from the tank and definitely not around any corners that break line of sight with your healer) and let it follow you back to where it belongs. Rooting it where it doesn’t belong only keeps it in the wrong spot longer.
5) If you are the tank, please don’t pull mobs when you are under 50% health. If the healer is up and walking around, wait for a heal. If the healer is drinking, sit your scrawny tank ass down and eat something. Or if you’re a paladin, heal yourself. If the healer is dead, there is a multi-step process you must follow before it is safe to pull more mobs. 1) Notice the healer is dead. Believe it or not, many tanks fail on this step. 2) Wait for the healer to run back, or if a rezzer is alive, rez them. 3) Allow the healer to reapply any buffs they need to. 4) Apply any buffs you may be capable of bestowing to the healer. All party members should participate in this step. 5) Allow the healer to eat and drink until they have sufficient health and mana to continue. 6) Double check that you have more than 50% health. 7) Now you may continue pulling.
Pro tip: Occasionally you may encounter debuffs that continue to drain a tank’s health until they are healed to full. If the healer is out of mana at the end of combat, they’re not going to be able to remove this debuff for you. Try anything you can to stay alive until they are able to assist you. If you are a paladin, HEAL YOURSELF. If you are not a paladin, use bandages or potions to try and hold out until they can remove the debuff. Do not blame an out of mana healer for not healing you, unless you have done everything possible to save yourself. It’s not fair.
Bonus!
6) Pay attention to party chat. No matter who you are: tank, healer, dps, warlock, vanity pet… All kinds of useful information can be conveyed in party chat. Things like “I’m oom” or “afk phone” are important messages. Also, experienced party members might be warning you of things like debuffs, boss mechanics, exploding worms, traps, or the fact that you’ve got a 17 pound catfish equipped in place of your shield. If you’re not paying attention to this kind of message and it causes you to die… well, don’t blame your healer. Instead, in the words of the immortals… L2Read nub lol.
Rippchen August 8, 2010 at 5:23 am
I would disagree with a few points
-as a tank (and if the tank is half-awake also as a healer) I'm ok with deathknights deathgripping the odd ranged mob to the tank, just makes it easier on everyone
-if a dps pulls aggro on a almost dead mob then often enough the best aggro dump is just finishing the mob off
-'afk' and 'oom' have no real meaning if they don't come from the healer or the tank, being a dps short for a while usually isn't a problem so just keep moving
-tanks healing themselves is in most cases a waste of mana, a better idea would be to sit down, eat and/or drink something and wait for the healer to top you off, otherwise a pally might go oom himself or a druid might lose precious rage (which in the lower levels is somewhat harder to come by) shifting out of bear
also i would add these two:
-as a tank always make sure the healer is keeping up, if he's 100yards away skinning a mob or drinking then wait for him to catch up before you pull something
-the most important rule for dps (and even some healers :-X): let the tank pull! not only is pulling mobs yourself a good way to antagonize the tank but it also can get you and everyone else killed
Rhii August 8, 2010 at 7:41 am
I'm gonna rebut, just to be argumentative, because there's not much wrong with what you've said… however, it's all just general principle stuff. Like watching party chat. Maybe oom from a mage doesn't mean a wipe, but if you're not paying attention to chat you won't see it from heals either. And honestly, if I'm the mage, I'd rather actually *participate* in the instance than stand up to let the dog in and miss half of it. DPS are here to play the game too, it's not like they don't matter.
Again with general principles, 99 out of 100 DPS death grips are counter productive, so as a rule, if you're new to the class, don't use it. If you're experienced, be my guest. Same with pulling aggro, the general rule should be drop your aggro… finishing the mob with your next spell is an exception.
And lastly, with the tank healing themself, I really only was talking about times when the healer can't heal you and you might otherwise die. Like if you barely survive combat and have a dot on you still, but your healer's oom. Save yourself if you can, any way you can. You can drink afterward if you have to. And if you're a druid waiting on a drinking healer, you're losing that rage anyway, so why not toss a heal and avoid death?
Honestly, the reason I included this is because my priest got bawled out by a pally tank for letting him die. It was in Slave Pens after Rokmar. The fight took forever because some dps were afk, and he does a continual health draining debuff until the target is healed to full. I finished the fight with only enough mana to cast a renew, but not enough to heal the tank to full. That left the tank with a reasonably decent amount of health, but that ticking debuff. I sat down to drink figuring, well he's not going to let himself die right? Wrong. He just sat there and died, then screamed at me for not removing the debuff. Seriously? Eat something, use a bandaid, drink a potion, heal yourself! As a general rule, don't ever die if you can avoid it. Maybe I should have put that rule in? XD
Lara August 8, 2010 at 11:23 am
That was especially rude of him, since once the fight is over, he could have just bubbled off the debuff. There was really no reason at all he had to die from that, even if you were completely out of mana.
I think a lot of people don't realize that the first priority of a tank—or in fact any player—isn't threat, it's survival. First you survive, then you generate as much threat as possible on the mobs. The difference between a tank and a dps is that, the dps are allowed to drop threat if they have to in order to live; the tank shouldn't.
Rhii August 8, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Allowed? Encouraged!
Rhii August 8, 2010 at 7:52 am
Oh and yes, some healers loot and skin. They do it just to annoy the tank, I know. Nonetheless, doesn't hurt to check and see if they're there before starting the boss fight. Glad you brought it up!
LOL, I really only post this stuff because it makes me laugh. I'm not as bad of an angry ranter as I sound.
Dechion August 8, 2010 at 8:12 am
Wow, nice one.
I actually have a macro for my healer that I use right when I zone in.
"Hello, In this wonderful day of the dungeon finder I was out questing till about 3 seconds ago and trees dont fare too well at that. Please gimme a second to buff everyone, swap specs, and drink my blue bar of tank health back to full. Once you see me pop into tree we are ready to go smash the place. "
Amazing how many "Lol, kk" type comments I get, and the one time a tank randomly started pulling while I was swapping it was the tank that telled at himself to L2Read =)
Mia August 8, 2010 at 11:09 am
haha I especially like the 'Bonus' tip
Lara August 8, 2010 at 11:18 am
Great advice!
There are just a few things that, as a long-time pug-healer, I'd like to add:
This is totally true, but I feel the tank should watch the healer's bar anyway. A good healer will keep track of her own mana usage, but the tank should keep a weather eye open. A good tank will be chain-pulling, moving smoothly from one group to the next; and if you're not careful, the healer may not be able to drop combat long enough to hit the water bottle. Or, even if she does, she might not have time to type something in party chat before you've started up the next group. So: Yes, it's her responsibility to deal with mana, but it's okay to ask "is your mana ok?" If she doesn't answer, or says yes, it's probably fine.
I completely agree! Most of the abilities that knock back can also be glyphed to eliminate the knockback effect (e.g., Typhoon, Blast Wave, Thunderstorm, etc.), and you should wear that glyph if you plan to use those abilities in a PvE group. If you don't want to glyph it, just don't use it! If you really want to use it anyway, then just carry around a stack of extra glyphs for it, which you can swap in when you're running with a group.
Yes, I know, some players are smart about using their knockback, and it can be a good thing in some cases. But unless you know what those situations are, just don't do it.
What's more, the threat cap is lower for someone standing in melee range. If you're at range, you must exceed 130% of the tank's threat before the mob will change aggro. In melee, the threshold is only 110%. So, if you're a warlock (say) slamming away at a mob, it's in your own best interest to get out a bit.
On a related note, your point about rooting things is especially important. Let's say a mage and a healer are standing near each other at range. A mob comes running for the mage. The mage, true to form, casts Frost Nova, freezing the mob in place, and then blinks away. The mob, being rooted, can no longer reach its primary target (the mage) so it picks a lower-priority target that is in range—the healer. If the healer is paying attention, she'll get the heck away, but sometimes having to interrupt a cast to run away from a rooted mob can make the difference between the tank living and dying. So, please, don't do that.
Rooting in range of the tank isn't necessarily bad, but take care—if the tank is trying to position the mobs so that they're in front of her, you might screw that up. It's very bad for mobs to wind up behind the tank.
Anyway, none of this detracts from what you've said here, which is all really great advice. And as Vidyala has pointed out in the past, the key to making it all work smoothly is communication. Is the tank pulling too fast for you? Say something! Is the healer letting your health sit low? Ask if you're taking too much damage, or if mana is a problem. A lot of puggies stew in silence, and I think it would be a lot happier for everyone—not to mention smoother—if we'd just politely communicate about our troubles.
youyankityoutankit August 8, 2010 at 11:20 am
Regarding Point Number 1 – As a tank, I watch your mana like you watch my health bar [I have a healer as well so familiar with the role]. I'm going to keep an eye on it and pause to give you a chance to drink or if you're really low – ask if you need a mana moment. Don't tell me off because I do it – it's not a slight on you… I'm supposed to be watching your mana. No, I don't know when you need to mana up or when you can keep going because of divine hymn, shadowfiend, innvervate, or if your boomkin/kitty buddy innervated you. An "I'm good" is sufficient if I ask. [You have no idea how much snarking this invites from healers nowadays - and if I don't watch mana, I get screamed at by the healer who needs me to full stop everything and ask them to drink before they'll start drinking - those actually exist].
As the tank I'm typically expected to be the leader and orchestrate the foundation for a good dungeon run/raid. Part of that is keeping an eye on your mana and making sure you have time to drink when you need it.
Also, telling me "Pull more, faster faster gogogo," isn't really effective either. Whispering me or saying politely in party something like "If you feel comfortable pulling more, I'm good". Also don't be surprised if I ramp up rather than instantly do bigger pulls. Just as you have to see how I function [cooldown usage/hardiness], I need to see how you function [mana efficiency, etc].
Pugnacious Priest August 9, 2010 at 11:18 pm
I asked a healer at 3k/12k mana – do you need a mana break – and they go 'Hell no"! When tanking I keep an eye on it – depends on how many cool downs up my sleeve I have if I am a little worried about how OOM they are. I get more mages asking me to stop for mana then I do healers though.
Jen August 10, 2010 at 4:30 am
"Pro tip: Your healer will need to drink an awful lot in Mana Tombs."
I felt like smashing a few tank skulls in MT. Especially that guy who told me that he had a priest on the previous run who never ever stopped to drink. Riiiight. (Same tank kept pulling badly, never let me drink enough and had regular bitchfests, so I wasn't surprised.)
As for mana, I think it's cute when a tank checks on me. "Healer, drink" is not the same as "[name of alt], need a drink?", but I try to ignore the rudeness… and, half the time, even the rudeness helps. I'm used to healing on my ICC druid and I tend to forget mana breaks on my leveling priest/shammy until it's too late…
My recent post My take on the RealID Blizzard fail
Morcain August 10, 2010 at 6:38 am
Hi
“What’s more, the threat cap is lower for someone standing in melee range. If you’re at range, you must exceed 130% of the tank’s threat before the mob will change aggro.”
This!
Told my brother the 5.9K gs warlock this a month ago and he was all..”WTF? are you serious?”
He has played since the game came out and I think he’s pretty good at his job..but it seems that this little fact is not known to all DPS. Does make for a huge difference as I told him when my newly minted tank had ‘some’ difficulty keeping aggro when we queued together in the dungeon finder.
Anea August 12, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Rhii August 13, 2010 at 8:36 am
I always want to say that… but the tank always answers "I don't have any food" so the point is moot. Tanks, carry freaking food!
philotag August 14, 2010 at 10:08 am
> Pay attention to party chat. No matter who you are: tank, healer, dps, warlock, vanity pet… All kinds of
> useful information can be conveyed in party chat.
As a vanity pet myself, I really appreciate this comment. All too often I see another character's parrot or small grey cat continue to flutter around or scratch themselves when they should be contributing to the group effort.
Rhii August 16, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Had to be said. Vanity pets these days think it's all about them… they just do whatever they want whenever they want.
That's right Lil' KT, stop frostbolting those spiders and learn to focus fire the boss! God, what good are you?
Chimpeh August 23, 2010 at 5:36 pm
You should release this in an e-book on WoW etiquette, would fit in perfectly I'll say. Over the course of my dungeon crawling I've been guilty of some of these aswell, but most of those bad habits you quickly get rid of once you start healing yourself.
It's hard to imagine people can get ticked off just because you tell them to "get some mana" or "stop lettting me drop to 5% health just because you think it's funny to see how low you can get my health without letting me die". I'm sure everybody hates being told what to do as much as your local healer and I'd just stick to that train of thought.
Rhii August 23, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Yeah, it's the telling me shortly and rudely how to go about my business that really gets me. I have NO problem if tanks want to take mana breaks, none at all!