WoWGrrl's World

Focusing Damage In Party Play

One of the big differences between a Pick-up Group (in-guild or through other Looking For Group methods) and a cohesive team is coordination when it comes to taking down packs of mobs in party situations.

The standard "stamp" of an unexperienced team is that the tank ends up running around a lot, pulling mobs off of leather and cloth-wearers who have "pulled aggro" on an enemy target that wasn't focused on the mail and plate wearers well enough yet, due to ill-coordinated targetting. If they're lucky, the healer doesn't run out of mana keeping the cloth and leather-wearers alive. If they're not lucky, the healer does run out of mana, and then doesn't have enough to keep the tank up, and the party wipes.

Simple explaination of Pulling Aggro:

Each attack against an enemy builds "threat". Enemies determine who they are attacking by these "threat points". If an enemy does not have the tank building threat on it, a caster or non-tank DPS party member may find themselves the target of the enemy's attacks and at risk of death or draining of healer mana which may wipe the entire party.

A team that gets to play together more often than in some random Pick-up Group is one that can start to coordinate efforts more, because while the teammates learn their own capacities and that of their team partners, the absolute basics of successfully progressing through a dungeon become easier, and in turn, new "order" can be added to the team's understandings.

The Strategy of An Assist Macro

One of the easiest ways to begin coordination within your team is to get each member to set up an "assist" macro which is hot-keyed for quick execution. You can find quick-and-easy information about how to set one up in this entry.

At the beginning of each party, discuss and agree upon who everyone will configure their 'assist' macro for. Usually I find it's best to designate the Off-Tank (whether it's player or player's pet) as the one players will assist, as a good Main Tank switching targets regularly and wouldn't reliably be a good one to assist at any given moment.

Once the macro is configured and accessable by hot-key, every "squishy" wearing cloth and leather should hit that macro before firing off attacks, and hit that macro again after every mob is downed until the entire group has been taken down.

The Strategy of Raid Icons

Raid icons augment the 'assist' strategy as above, giving the Main and Off-Tanks instruction as to "burn-down order" of mobs being pulled, as well as giving Crowd Control party members a chance to reduce the number of attackers for a while early in the fight.

The first step in a successful strategy with Raid Icons is to decide upon and communicate what each icon being used means. The person in charge of assigning Raid Icons (called the "Main Assist" or MA) can assign any symbol as long as it is explained, but consistent teams will generally find themselves developing a consistent symbol order no matter whether this Main Assist job is always done by one or if it switches around.

Something To Remember About Raid Icons:

Less is better than More. Too many symbols gets confusing. Consider using three or four symbols at the most until your team is very comfortable and wishes to increase complexity or Crowd Control practices.

Here are some suggestions:

Skull: Pulling target, First to die
Red X: Second to die
Moon: Sheep
Square: Ice Trap

Also, check out this thread in the Official Forums: Marking Targets.

With icon-marked targets, it's much easier to avoid breaking of the various forms of Crowd Control designed to make multi-mob fights easier, and with focused assisting from all partymates, healing can be focused as well - on the tank, where it's likely to be the most efficient.

Good luck as you gel with your online buddies!

Related posts:

1. Creating an Assist Macro (for coordinated party play)
2. The Great Debate: Who Pulls?
3. Mage Basics In Instances