Avoiding a Wipe by Monitoring Aggro
This is the first in a series of articles for beginning players in the World of Warcraft. For more information, on MMORPG news, check out the main news page on MMOsite.com.
Successful World of Warcraft raiders know that every class needs to consider more than a damage count to be successful in an instance. While everyone agrees that a boss kill is a success, players often argue over the best way to achieve this win. In an ideal situation, an instance run will see the Main Tank (MT) absorbing the brunt of the damage while a healer concentrates on maintaining a full health bar. With the addition of the necessary damage-per-second players, things can get tricky.
Many social and beginning players are unfamiliar with the concept of Aggro. Aggro translates roughly into non-gamer speak as "the enemy's attention". By participating in a fight (whether hitting, healing, or casting spells), a player grabs some of the enemy's attention. As more damage is caused or as more healing is shared, the attention of the opponent begins to shift from one player to another. A good tank can maintain the attention (aggro) by causing threat. A tank will never need to cause the most damage (he often will not come close to the damage of a DPS class). Instead, he maintains aggro through taunting attacks that are designed especially for this purpose.
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What a player needs to know about controlling aggro depends greatly on the role he assumes in the battle.
Prior to any fight, a Tank needs to know which attacks and taunts cause the greatest threat. When fighting a single opponent, the tank needs to focus only on high threat and causing damage. When fighting multiple opponents, a tank must gather aggro from every opponent before focusing on any single enemy. Whoever leads the party will mark the primary opponent with a skull to show that this opponent must die first. Every member of the party is responsible for monitoring their own level of threat, but a tank has the ability to quickly cause threat (and often save everyone from a painful wipe).
While the MT is taunting and yelling, Healers focus their efforts on making sure the party stays alive. If everyone is monitoring their threat level, a healer needs to focus primarily on casting spells on the tank. If someone else starts taking damage, healers are taken away from their primary purpose and the whole party can fall. If they heal too greatly, or they do not occasionally drop their threat level, they can risk a very quick death. Once the healer is killed, the rest of the party is often quick to follow.
Melee and ranged DPS classes need to quickly identify the primary target. If a DPS focuses attacks on the wrong target, they risk drawing aggro away from the tank. Once aggro is drawn, the enemy will begin to attack the other members of the party. With practice, everyone should be able to teach themselves to read the standard threat meter above the player heath and mana bars. If a DPS starts to take too much aggro, it is best to stop attacking (giving up their DPS rating) instead of allowing the entire party to wipe.
Before beginning a dungeon, players should agree to the marking system used to identify the first, second, and third targets to be attacked in any mob. If this topic is not discussed, most players assume that a skull will be killed first, then an "X". When any movement-impairing spells are available to the group, crowd control tactics can also be discussed. WOW gold, Often, a rogue is sent in to stealth behind a humanoid target to "sap" them into a non-agressive state temporarily. This allows the rest of the party to focus their attacks on the rest of the mob without taking the extra damage from the sapped target.
As with any new situation, the skills needed for a professional level of understanding are developed over time. Hardcore raiding guilds only accept players with a great deal of experience in many different instances and the best players will always learn their role in a group. Whenever a question of strategy or etiquette arises, ask the party leader first. If they are not able to help, ask a guild member, ask a friend, or send your questions to: [email protected]
For more information on World of Warcraft, check out Blizzard's site.
About the Author - SeaShaman
SeaShaman is an active gamer and freelance writer. He serves as a raid leader for the Ivory Sepulcher guild in the World of Warcraft and can also be found playing Second Life, Age of Conan, and in many free mmorpgs. When he is not staring into his favorite computer monitor, he also enjoys photography, biking, cooking, and world travel.
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