Who To Sheep?

[RumbleBee]

Just a quick question regarding both dungeons and large groups.

As a Warrior. If I was marking the targets in an instance, who would I be best marking for the mage's sheep. Is it one of the casters or is it best to target a melee mob. I've been lead to believe it's wise to take down casters first. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm sure the sheep target will change depending on the group in question (or even the dungeon), so this is just a rough guide to your average dungeon group.

Edit. I should add this applies to Sap, Hunters trap and any other CC. Sheep just spring to mind as I play with a fellow mage.

[cyradis2003]

Just a quick question regarding both dungeons and large groups.

As a Warrior. If I was marking the targets in an instance, who would I be best marking for the mage's sheep. Is it one of the casters or is it best to target a melee mob. I've been lead to believe it's wise to take down casters first. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm sure the sheep target will change depending on the group in question (or even the dungeon), so this is just a rough guide to your average dungeon group.

Edit. I should add this applies to Sap, Hunters trap and any other CC. Sheep just spring to mind as I play with a fellow mage.

Most groups I am in tend to sheep the casters, trap/sap a melee and kill the rest fast.

The sheep should be able to last through the entire fight with a few refreshes and casters are tough on most hunters without silencing shot because they won't run to the trap. Once all the other mobs are dead the tank can walk up and tap the sheep to steal aggro off the mage.

We don't want to sap casters usually because they will start casting when they wake up and if the healer heals the rogue before the tank can get all the way to the caster you can lose a squishy healer.

Casters are fine to pull with line of sight but that takes communication to be sure no one jumps the gun and starts attacking it before it gets to the right position.

[Clavina]

Generally I will mark a caster/ranged for sheeping as they can be tricky to pull properly. I like to tank the melee mobs as they will follow me around and it's easy to keep tab-sunders on them.

[Shellar]

The general rule of thumb is to sheep the nastiest and most dangerous mob in the pull. Usually this means a healer or a caster (particularily those with CC spells), but an occasional melee mob with Mortal Strike or similar abilities can also fall in this category.

[RumbleBee]

Thanks for your replies. Much appreciated

[Pongle]

Casters are first cc priority if you can get all of them - you do not have to do fancy LOS stuff with them.

Thats as a basic principal, sometimes you will want to CC melee though.

[Wintrow]

Simple, if you trap/immobilize a melee only mob he's effectively neutralized. A caster mob doesn't care as long as he's within casting range so something 'more' is needed. Off course, this is where counterspell gets handy :tongue:.

[Twoflower]

The general rule of thumb is to sheep the nastiest and most dangerous mob in the pull. Usually this means a healer or a caster (particularily those with CC spells), but an occasional melee mob with Mortal Strike or similar abilities can also fall in this category.

what he said.

always use your most reliable CC form for the most dangerous mob. Sheep is reliable since it can be recast in fight and the mob just stands still.

also very reliable are fear, banish, shackle.

hunters ice trap is also good, but has a build in cooldown, so not as reliable.

sap cannot be recast in combat, so not that good.

[teck21]

what he said.

always use your most reliable CC form for the most dangerous mob. Sheep is reliable since it can be recast in fight and the mob just stands still.

also very reliable are fear, banish, shackle.

hunters ice trap is also good, but has a build in cooldown, so not as reliable.

sap cannot be recast in combat, so not that good.

IMO, sap, like ice trap and seduce are opnly as good as the player performing them.

A good hunter knows how and where to position the trap while maintaining high dps on primary target. The bad ones spend all their time unsuccessfully trying to trap a mob, getting themselves into trouble and dealing no dps.

Seduce, I understand is hard to use continuously and reliably without a mod (or so I hear from locks), so generally I never try to use it unless strictly necessary. If I have to, mainly I ask the lock to use it as a back-up for when sap breaks. That makes reliable CC for one mob, which is better than unreliable CC for 2 mobs which can run around causing confusion, and confusion wipes groups.

Some rogues I've seen are able to sap and still maintain some cc after it breaks by doing that thing called blind? Or whatever it's called, just has the mob walk aimlessly for a few seconds. They're good, demonstrating high awareness.

To OP: but mainly after a few run-ins with instance mobs of each kind, you'll soon find out which ones need to be CC'ed the most and which ones you can pretty much regard as harmless.

[rottentomato]

shellar has it on the head right here... usually healing mobs become first target, and depending on the casters damage type and your group, they could be 2nd, or a hard hitting high armor mob with be important...its really whatever becomes the scariest mob out of a pull, as sheep is reliable and can be cast whenever needed much like fear, etc...traps are usually for a 2nd melee or to drop in front of healer. sap is a good talent as long as you end up killing the mobs and get to that one before it breaks otherwise healer becomes lunch meat.

as far as hunter traps are concerned, ill drop a trap while everyone is drinking up by the time we get to pulling i have a 2nd trap there...if one is resisted then cool i have number two...if both get resisted for some off chance, i wont keep trying to trap and will just focus fire on what the tank is on, and let the other mob beat away at my body instead of hitting FD and then having to worry about my healer getting hit. once the main mob drops tanks usually help me out...if not then i have a trap pretty much ready again and ill drop before targeting next mob. i havent really seen a time where my traps get resisted three times, so i pray i dont experience that.

[Baboon]

I say casters because they don't oneshot the mage when they break, or kill a healer. Also, I'd say a tank rather has a melee mob beating on him for rage.

[Wintrow]

Follow-up question:
Does a CC-ed mob still generate hate from heals?

Seems to me it'd be very hard for the tank to pop a sheep and keep it's attention without using Taunt...

[Naolin]

Follow-up question:
Does a CC-ed mob still generate hate from heals?

Seems to me it'd be very hard for the tank to pop a sheep and keep it's attention without using Taunt...

It shouldn't get aggro from heals, but I don't know for sure I usualy run with a pali tank that just tanks them all with silly AoE thing.

[Twoflower]

IMO, sap, like ice trap and seduce are opnly as good as the player performing them.


well this can be said about anything, anywhere :)

my point about sap was that you cannot reapply it once the combat starts.

[Valas Azuviir]

Follow-up question:
Does a CC-ed mob still generate hate from heals?

Seems to me it'd be very hard for the tank to pop a sheep and keep it's attention without using Taunt...

My experience. If you sheeped something, once it pops then it directs its attention to the one who sheeped it. But if a warrior whacks it while in defensive stance and with a high threat generating move, like sunder or heroic, then they stick to them.

Only if a healer overheals just at the sheep pops, will it go for the healer. I usually fireblast at that point, to draw it away from the healer and back to me, giving the tank a wee bit more time to correct things, considering I tend to focus on a lot of eagle stuff. So, I tend to be able to take more blows than the regular priests who go owl.

[Twoflower]

Only if a healer overheals just at the sheep pops, will it go for the healer.

overheals dont generate agro. :)

but yes, the sheeped mob does not generate agro on the healers while in sheep. just have a tank brak sheep with shield slam or another high agro skill, and our healers will be safe.

[Valas Azuviir]

overheals dont generate agro. :)


All I know is what I saw, I'd sheeped one mob in SM Lib, once it popped it came after me, healer dropped a heal on one of the warlocks, and then it went after her. So I fireblasted it and got its attention back. We were running a two warlocks, two mages, one priest group. *shrugs*

[Herald of Doom]

Healing generates aggro
overhealing does not

So if that warlock got healed for... 5K and got additionally overhealed for 2K the mob will go after the healer for healing that 5K. I think you guys are saying the same using different words :p

It's very simply, the mob goes for the sheeper unless the sheep got broken (practically anything is higher threat than sheep) or someone generates threat while the mob is running to the sheeper (eg, tClap, Demo, healing something for a large amount).

EDIT: If we're talking about CC this is my list:

1) Sheep. It's the one of the most reliable and the most commonly used. My mage can keep anything sheeped as long as you want it without it EVER breaking for more than 1.5 seconds. Use this for the most dangerous mob (usually a caster/healer)
2) Ice trap. Slightly less reliable due to cooldown, but can be used on practically anything. My hunter can keep anything cc'ed using a combo of FD, icetrap scattershot en silencing shot, however a resist can seriously make things dangerous (scatter en silence displaying the "immune" is a real in the ass). Use this for the most dangerous melee mob.
3) shackle/banish: one mobtype, but it does an excellent job on that one type. Banish is shorter I believe but nothing a focus macro wont solve :) Use it on whatever it can target !
4) Sap is good if you're sure you kill the first mob in 45 seconds and that the tank picks up the sapped mob before that. Problem is that if it breaks early the rogue needs to pop some cooldowns if the tank doesnt pick it up so it's more risky. Use it on a humanoid on big pulls where other cc is already used.

HoD

[teck21]

well this can be said about anything, anywhere :)

my point about sap was that you cannot reapply it once the combat starts.

My point is that as far as CC goes, compared with sheeping, trapping and sapping require more skill to apply effectively as CC. No CC application is easier than sheep.

Pretty much any mage can sheep and resheep, all one does is stand there and cast the spell.

Not every hunter can trap well and maintain dps, and not every rogue has, or takes the initiative to deal with thier sapped mob when it breaks. Sure it's the tank's responsibility to handle it when it breaks, that's what I mean by the rogues being proactive in helping out the tank. As if tanks don't have it hard enough, especially warrior tanks who have to deal with multiple mobs.