Black Raven Dragoons

[alacor]

Make sure you know the loot rules before you start.

If you are in a PUG, be sure you know the loot rules beforehand. Also don’t be greedy. If you have gotten some nice loot Pass and let others have a chance. Also you need to know what your character and build needs equipment wise before you roll on that item that might not really be suited for you.

Primary Roles

The most important aspect of group play is that all group members know without doubt which of the three following roles they play, and put this primary function above everything else. Confusing these roles leads to disaster - a tank (or healer) who believe that they're damage dealers are immediate causes for wipes. Similarly, the damage dealers must be clearly aware that they're not tanks, and thus avoid getting aggro by all means.

Healers do no damage at all - even if this means they have nearly nothing to do at all on some pulls. They save their mana to keep the tank and everybody else alive. Healers can die from their heals drawing aggro. When they have drawn more aggro than the tank they have to stop healing everybody else except the tank. If the healer still dies, then the tank is either not geared enough to hold aggro or must do a better job at holding it.

The tank is the group member who should take all the damage. Tanks don't deal (much) damage themselves, their job is to gain and hold aggro on all mobs (a.k.a. enemies), and make sure nobody else is hit. A tanks primary task is to ensure survival of the healer.

Every class has the ability, with the appropriate talent points and gear, to deal significant damage. Without sufficient damage from the group, it is likely that the healer's mana runs out or the progress through the location is too slow to be practical, whether for Respawn or other reasons. A good damage dealer knows how to kill mobs without drawing aggro, a bad damage dealer doesn't and dies. The central and most important rule for damage dealers is "dead = 0 DPS". If a damage dealer dies, it's not the healers fault, neither the tanks, but always the damage dealers own. Stop DPS and bandage if everything else fails


Secondary Roles

After the above three functions are well understood and practiced, proper understanding and handling the following functions further increases the partys efficiency:

The Leader (mark mobs with Raid Target Icons) - selects targets for Crowd Control, damage, and off-tanking or kiting

Puller (start the fight with the first hit on the mob) - In groups of five this job of pulling is usually done by the tank himself. If available, a good Hunter can substantially increase the groups survivability in difficult pulls though (and since a good hunter is a bad hunter with a lot of practice, it's a good idea to let hunters do all the pulling all of the time)

Crowd Control (CC, take mobs temporarily out of the fight) - Often hinges on the type of the mob. Polymorph is the most popular since most mobs are humanoids or beasts, but there are many other forms of CC, such as Traps, Sap, Fear, etc.

Off-tank (OT, tanks extra mobs) - on some pulls, it's necessary to assign an extra tank to a mob, either because it's too difficult for the MT to build aggro on several mobs, or because he would take too much damage, and/or there's no CC available

[alacor]

Group Combat

Preparation

In this step, the tactic for the upcoming fight is discussed, and if the pull consists of more than one mob, a kill and CC order is determined and the mob are marked appropriately with the raid target icons (). It's a good idea to mark all mobs in advance, including a few extra mobs which might come as adds, just to be prepared. The players must agree on a order in which the mobs are going to be killed. A widely used "standard" sequence is to kill the Skull ) first, followed by the cross ). The moon and the circle are frequently used for a CC target.

Generally, healer mobs are killed first followed by caster mobs and everything else last. The reasoning for this is that enemy healers prolong the fight and casters usually do high amounts of damage, while both are usually relatively easy to kill. In some cases if a mob has disruptive abilities like wide range AoEs or fear, they may take higher than normal priority.

If there are too many mobs to mark them all, another method is to mark just the mob which is due to be killed (usually with Skull) "on the fly". Whenever the current target is dead, the group leader marks the next mob to killed, and the damage dealers just follow the Skull. It's also possible to use two marks (skull and cross), and alternate between them - after skull is dead, nuke cross, and then skull again.

[alacor]

Crowd Control and Kiting

CC can sometimes make the difference between success and failure, OTOH there are some cases where it's used out of habit, but is not really needed and just slows things down. Use CC sparingly, but don't hesitate to use it when really needed. The group leader needs to know the CC skills present in the party, and should reserve a few raid icons for each ability. All party members must know that CC is going to be used, and be very careful not to accidentally break it. Players tasked with must keep a watchful eye, and re-apply it if it breaks for any reason.

Kiting is a special form of crowd control. In some situations, a group may lack the proper form of CC to master a certain pull. In these cases, it's possible to designate one group member as kiter, and thus get the mob neutralized.

Some players consider fear effects to be a form of CC too. Theoretically, fear has a similar effect as CC - particularly Warlocks can keep a mob eternally feared, so that it's effectively out of combat. The problem with fear though is that feared mobs tend to bring adds into the fight. Therefore Fear should not normally be used as CC measure, but instead only in special situations (where adds are impossible), or as a last resort.

[alacor]

The Pull

Every group should have one designated puller. He should try to pull one mob cluster at a time without aggroing more mobs than absolutely necessary, and pull clusters in a logical fashion.

Aggro building After the pull, it is imperative that the group does not immediately start blasting away with all available means. Give the tank enough time to build solid aggro on the mobs. Beyond protecting the party immediately, all tanks need to take damage in order to be able to build threat. Druid and Warrior tanks gain rage from taking damage, and Paladin tanks get aggro from damage through their reflective abilities (Retribution Aura, Holy Shield, Blessing of Sanctuary). It generally not a good idea to put damage reducing buffs (like Power Word: Shield) on tanks at the beginning of a battle.

Don't shoot, don't backstab, and don't heal any more than absolutely necessary. Instead, concentrate on crowd control and watch for the tank to generate threat. Feel free to sheep, sap and shackle, but stick to some plan. Learn to recognize the Sunder Armor debuff of Warriors on the mob, the Swipe and Maul motions of Druids, and the distinctive Judgement of Righteousness and Consecrate animations for Paladins.

Priests with Holy Nova can also use this early in the pull. It heals and damages everything in range while causing no threat, but pay attention not to accidentally break CC. Similarly, Prayer of Mending and Earth Shield are very good on the tank, because they do not place threat on the healer, but rather on the tank.

Warlocks and Hunters, turn off auto-cast of torment and growl on your Pet or Voidwalker or just set them to passive, since their abilities draw mobs away from the tank and prevent him or her from being able to build aggro. It would sound like having aggro would be good on your pet, as long as it's not on a squishy, but it will hurt the tank's rage or mana generation and the healer needs to mostly be watching the tank.

******You need a threat meter we use Omen.

[alacor]

The Battle

Battles in an instance should be precise and controlled. Novice players often behave the same way in an instance that they would when soloing. They separate and attempt to fight individual skirmishes. This defeats the entire point of grouping, and virtually guarantees a wipe. Instances are designed to be almost impossible for a single player, so your group must try to act as a single entity.

Post Battle

This is when you loot. Not during battle.

First of all the group needs to stay together post-battle. One easy mistake is that the next mobs are pulled too early before the casters have regained enough Mana. The most common mistakes novice players make post-battle are:

Abandoning Casters who are regenerating mana.

Wandering from the group, becoming lost or aggroing mobs.

Failing to wait for members who need to accomplish quest tasks.

Failing to wait for everyone to be resurrected before looting.

Remember: It's as much the Leader's job to check everyone is ready, as it is your own. You can help by making sure you communicate in plenty of time if you are ready or not; equally the Main Tank should check to see if the group is ready for the next encounter.

[alacor]

The most common mistakes novice players make during battle are:

Scattering, thus drawing adds.
DPS failing to focus their damage on one mob (e.g. the one marked with a skull raid icon).
DPS overpowering the threat of the tank. Biggest reason for most wipes.
Tanks not understanding which of their abilities produce the most aggro, and thus failing to keep aggro off the healers or damage dealers.
Healers not understanding how to avoid running out of mana.
Pulling multiple groups of mobs at once.
Failing to act as a team.
Breaking crowd control (Sheep, Hunter traps, Sap, or Shackle).
Looting during battle. This is highly unwise because it diverts attention away from the battle as the group members examine the loot popup. It is especially detrimental to the tank and the healer in their abilities, or else if they stay on their task, they may lose out on a loot roll.
Fearing, because fear will frequently cause mobs to run away randomly into other mobs causing more aggro. (For exceptions to this rule, see the section on Fear, below).

In many fights (boss fights in particular), there is usually more to watch out for than simply tank and spank the mobs. Make sure you aren't making life harder in battle by standing in range of an AoE attack when you're a long ranged attacker, or standing in places that may get you attacked by patrols or other nearby mobs. On the same note, watch out for mobs that can fling you away, into the air. They'll run at you and you'll go flying – make sure this doesn't send you toward another group of mobs or maybe worse, off the edge of a cliff. When possible, fight these mobs with your back to a wall.