How do I not suck at Instances?

[Zerecon]

First of all I understand that a good group should have someone to take the hits, someone to heal, people to dish out damage, and some way to control/hinder the mobs. However every time I run in a group once the big battles start all my knowledge goes out the window, mass chaos ensues and I end up having no clue what I'm supposed to be doing.

How do I improve, because doing Instances/Raids is a big part of the game as you progress and if I don't learn how to get better now I'll pretty much be screwed in the End game. :undecided:

[Zendarin]

What class are you playing first of all?

Just some general tips I can give you - if you are a ranged class stay back with other ranged classes. If you are in the thick of things try zooming your camera angle back a bit so you can better see what is going on.

I have found that having all the particle effects turned on can be quite disorienting when everyones spells start going off so try turning off spell effects in the UI.

Hotkey setup is also very important - if you don't know where your spells/skills are intuitively on your hotkey bar you can become confused as to what to do very quickly.

Read as much as you can about your class in the appropriate class forum, pay attention to hotkey setup, spell/skill rotation, etc.

Other than that just keep practicing. Run instances that are a little low for you if you need to just for the practice and do them over and over until you learn the instance - once you know what to expect in the instance it will be easier for you to learn what you should be doing - and if you find someone who is your class and appears to be skilled in the instance don't be afraid to ask them questions and ask for their help.

Your brain needs to be trained just like any muscle in your body - you need to learn how to react to a given set of circumstances and your brain and eyes need to learn how to sort out all of the activity taking place on an instance run and this only happens by doing it over and over.

It WILL start to make sense to you and you will get much better.

Hope this helps.

[DrScience]

What class are you playing first of all?


Blood Elf Druid, duh!

[luziferial]

If you are tank, then your role is to recieve the damage and prevent the others from getting it. You may have to mark the mob also, and knowing the instance by heart (something like what to kill first, then boss strategies) helps a lot. For a starter, it would be hard to take tanking role straight away, but it is possible.

If you're Healer, then your role is to keep everyone alive, most importantly the tank. Also you need to be quick at dispelling unbeneficial effects on players, and most importantly, keep yourself alive.

If you're DPSer, your job is to dish out damage at the right amount. Too low and the group speed will suffer, including the tank's repairing bill. Too much and you're generate too much aggro, causing chaos and wipe. Everyone will suffer. You may also need to do some CC, so be ready for that.

General tactic for me in the instance is, know exactly how your toon/class work. then follow the tank (if i'm not the tank). Marking helps a lot in instance. You should be focusing on the first mob then continue down the list. After a few or a lot of instances, you'll develop your adaptation skills, because something may go wrong and you'll need to be quick for that (like Splash damage. Accident Pull. CC breaks early. All sort of thing) and adapt yourself to the situation.

[Zerecon]

My bad, haven't updated my info yet. Currently playing as a Paladin as my main class, and I guess that might be part of the problem from my understanding they can tank a bit, heal, and do some damage although...they aren't really great in any one area. The groups I've been in never give me any clear cut directions. So I'm never sure whether I should be up in front of the action attacking, or giving healing support.

I have most of my talent spent in Retribution. Not sure if it's what I should be specializing in or if I need to re-shift my points into Holy, or Protection. but I fear if I do that... I won't be able to train and level effectively solo.

[snowieken]

On the contrary, paladins can be terrific tanks and healers, depending on how they are specced. The retribution tree is somewhat less viable as a group role (since there are always better DPSers out there) but you can still help a lot with your unique aura's, blessings, and your ability to offtank or offheal. That's the fun part about retribution: you get to do everything and you can surprise some people when you do outdamage that DPS class in the party.

My main paladin is also Retribution specced at the moment. I used to think the same as you, that I can't actually do anything important as a Ret paladin in instances. But as Zendarin implied, I have discovered my strengths along the way. In instances, I generally fill the role of off-tank, making sure the healer is out of harm's way all the time when the tank screws up (Righteous Defense rocks for that, since you only take the aggro away from a specific target), but I'm pressing my healing buttons a lot of the time too. Off-tank and off-heal when necessary, that's the key. Apart from that, just whack the mobs with your two-hander and have fun. :smiley:

Oh, and if you still have doubts about your importance in the group, wait until you first use Divine Intervention to sacrifice yourself in favor of the healer and save the party from a wipe.

[Twoflower]

My bad, haven't updated my info yet. Currently playing as a Paladin as my main class, and I guess that might be part of the problem from my understanding they can tank a bit, heal, and do some damage although...they aren't really great in any one area. The groups I've been in never give me any clear cut directions. So I'm never sure whether I should be up in front of the action attacking, or giving healing support.

I have most of my talent spent in Retribution. Not sure if it's what I should be specializing in or if I need to re-shift my points into Holy, or Protection. but I fear if I do that... I won't be able to train and level effectively solo.


now that we know your class, it would also be good to know your level.

if your group is not giving you the information you need, ask for it. With a ret spec, you can tank a bit and you can also heal quite ok. at least till lvl 60 neither should be a problem, no matter how you are specced.

Just make it clear before you go into the instance who will tank and who will heal. Then stick to your task. Of course you can do a little damage if you see that the tank does not loose much life. But healing ( if you are a healer ) should always be your first, second a nd third priority.

Zendarin said to turn down the graphics a bit, but i dont know if i can fully agree to that. I dont know what particle effects do exactly, but i know that with some low gfx settings, you dont see all AoE spells any more, which can be quite nasty ^^ specialy if it is fire on the ground which you should rather not walk trough or some such thing.

[Dhoum]

If you're a retridin then chances are you'll be doing melee dps, off-tanking or patch-healing (probably in that order). The most important thing in my experience is to know how to use your function keys (F1-F5) to target specific party members and also to use the "F" key to switch to your target's target. Hitting a function key twice on a pet class will target that player's pet (this is occasionally useful).

So say your tank is on F3 and your group healer is on F5, at the start of the fight you'd hit F3 and F in order to get the same target as your tank. If the healer gets aggro, then you hit F5 and then activate "Righteous Defence" to drag the mob off them and onto you. There are, of course, many other tricks in the Paladin arsenal but mastering targeting group members and assisting without using the mouse pointer is key in my opinion.

[Zerecon]

Ok I have a basic idea of how an ideal instance run should go in my head, someone tell me if my idea is close to being accurate?

- Group has a Main Tank leading the way, preferably someone who knows the layout of the dungeon/instance. This person is heavily armored, and will ussually be a few steps ahead of the rest of the group to Pull monsters, and build Aggro on them so that no one else in the group takes much damage.

- Group has a Healer/s, who stay generally in the back. Making sure the Tank has sufficient health, (the tanks health takes priority over everyone elses) as he needs to stay alive. Also will dispel harmful effects, debuffs...and ressurect fallen members after battle.

- Group has specialized Damage dealers who wait a few seconds before attacking so that the Tank has enough Aggro attracted to him, so that the DPS don't draw the monsters attention onto themselves. Will do a lot of damage fast and will generally trade off having speed and power hitting, instead of high survivability, defense.

Is this how an effective group should be functioning, if I am missing something please point it out.

My questions:
1. I understand you need Threat to keep Aggro, and you the person who attracts Aggro on a mob is the person who is the biggest threat/most hated. How exactly am I supposed to know whether I have generated enough Threat to maintain Aggro? and if I'm not the Tank how in the world am I supposed to know when someone else has enough Aggro so I can attack the target without drawing the attention to me?

2. How can I effectively Tank as a Paladin? Are there spells, abilities I can use to build a lot of threat and keep aggro on me?

3. What are some examples of Crowd Control? and why is it useful to a group?

Thanks a lot for the tips guys.

[Twoflower]

3 : sheep, ice trap, seduce, banish etc. usefull cause you can take some mobs out of the fight. so the tank takes less damage at once.

2 : yes very much, but you may want to read in the paladin sectino a bit, i am no expert. but i think you tank mostly with damage and reflecting damage back to mobs.

1 : as a tank, always generate as much agro as you can. as a damage dealer, either you learn by mistakes and get a feeling, or you download the addon omen.

for more paladin tips, go to the paladin section and read up the guides and stickies in there. i have not played a paladin past lvl 10, so i dont realy know much about the class :)

[jrkraken]

When you're doing instances with random people, use the first mobs to test out threat. If you are the tank, then typically you can tell your teammates to hold back more on damage, or start earlier. In lower level dungeons(and higher for that matter), people will usually go all out on damage anyway, so you should do what you can to keep up. If you are not the tank, then do the same, use the trash mobs to see how well the tank can keep aggro.

Remember, if you are the healer, and the tank dies before you, it's typically your fault(often it can't be helped though). But if you die before the tank, it's typically his fault. The tank always has priority, because if he dies, you all die. You'll probably get some comments for letting a rogue or whatever die repeatedly in an instance, but if healing the rogue will kill the tank, you can't do it. Damage dealers need to learn to control their aggro sooner or later anyway, consider it an expensive education:)

I have no idea how to tank with a paladin, but I can say it's fairly uncommon.

As for you question on CC, the most common ones are mages and rogues. Mages can polymorph(sheep) mobs, making them completely harmless until they are hit. Rogues can sap targets before combat starts, also making them harmless for a while. The benefit of this is obviously less mobs to fight at the same time, making everyone's jobs easier. Other forms of CC are warlocks with fear and a Succubus charming, and hunters with traps. From my experience you very rarely see hunters being effective CC until level 70, not sure if it's because they don't get the appropriate tools until late or because it's a difficult form of CC.

A typical group will consist of a healer, a tank, a CC and 2 randoms.

And one last thing. Being a paladin, most people will assume you are a healer. If you don't intend to heal, you should tell your group before going to the instance. Very rarely will you get an invite for tanking, unless you specify so beforehand.

[Dhoum]

I have no idea how to tank with a paladin, but I can say it's fairly uncommon.

...

And one last thing. Being a paladin, most people will assume you are a healer. If you don't intend to heal, you should tell your group before going to the instance. Very rarely will you get an invite for tanking, unless you specify so beforehand.

:shocked:

Not that uncommon thankfully. For normal instances I'd much rather go with a Paladin tanking than any other class. On the servers I play on it's really not that unusual to have Paladins tanking and once you've seen a good one at work you'll wonder why you ever thought they were healers.

As a Paladin tank you need to be using:
Seal of Righteousness (adds Holy damage)
Retribution Aura (adds Holy damage)
Consecration (does Holy damage to all enemies around you)
Blessing of Sanctuary on yourself (does Holy damage to anything that hits you and reduces the amount of damage you take)
Righteous Fury (increases the amount of threat generated by your Holy damage by 60%)
Righteous Defence if, by some miracle, you lose threat on something.

You really always need to have a shield equipped, especially if you are Protection specced.

When you're soloing as a Paladin then you're better off using a different set of spells (and, if you're not Protection specced, probably a different weapon combination) as threat generation is no longer your prime concern.

[Zerecon]

One more question? As a general rule of thumb once the tank has enough aggro on the mobs, should the DPS classes always focus all their fire on the same MOB that the tank is attacking all at once? to take the target down faster and move onto the next one?

is their anyway to setup an easy key for that action?

btw most of my gear is currently +Sta, +Str.... if I want to tank effectively do I need to gear more for +Int, Def?

[MacBlimp]

One more question? As a general rule of thumb once the tank has enough aggro on the mobs, should the DPS classes always focus all their fire on the same MOB that the tank is attacking all at once? to take the target down faster and move onto the next one?

Focus fire is the way to go. Mark first target skull, second x and so on, depending on which marks the group decides on. Mobs drop faster, less total damage on tank, less mana spent on healing, faster and more efficient fights, less downtime between fights, easier to manage aggro, and so on...

Everyone firing on their own mob, nope. No good reasons for doing this in a typical instance.

[Tikki]

The most important thing to do is prior to going into the instance everyone needs to clearly know their roles. That way if something happens (because i'm like you, I panic in mass confusion and just start pounding my key board hoping no one dies), everyone knows their roles.

Communication is the key to instance survival. Regroup in the middle if you have to...just always make sure you have well defined roles/goals :) This is especially important for a paladin, since you can take on multiple roles at once :)

MacBlimp, as a DPS'er, I tend to DoT all the mobs and then focus on one...is this an incorrect strategy?

[Meds tbh]

imo either the tank or main healer takes control early on - make it clear if people pull agro by being dicks you'll let them die. They either leave group or behave. That's it then, the rest of the time if people do their jobs you can chat and have fun - which is why we're here :)

[Dhoum]

One more question? As a general rule of thumb once the tank has enough aggro on the mobs, should the DPS classes always focus all their fire on the same MOB that the tank is attacking all at once? to take the target down faster and move onto the next one?
Yes always all on one target, this makes it much easier for the main tank to keep threat on the other mobs. The exception to this is crowd control classes who may deliberately target a mob other than the main target in order to control it.

is their anyway to setup an easy key for that action?
In order to all assist the main tank then use the function keys to select the tank in your group (F1 is you, F2-F5 are other group members) then hit the "F" key to target the same mob they are.

Alos (as has been mentioned) you can use marks to define different mobs. Target the mob, right-click its portrait and you should be given options to mark. This is especially useful if you have more than one CC class in the group (say, for example, a Mage and Rogue). You can mark the main target with a skull, then define other targets as necessary (eg. red X for the Rogue to Sap, blue triangle for the Mage to Polymorph) in order that there is no confusion.

btw most of my gear is currently +Sta, +Str.... if I want to tank effectively do I need to gear more for +Int, Def?

Eventually you'll need to get your Defense very high but before you start getting into the end areas of the game you are probably best to prioritize Stamina and Strength. Stamina allows you to stand up to more punishjment and is crucial for a tank, while Strength increases your AP which in turn increases the amount of threat you generate. When soloing you can use Seal/Judgement of Wisdom in order to regain mana but in a group (at mid to high level) you gain mana every time you are healed which means that you should have quite enough to maintain your threat-generating spells.

MacBlimp, as a DPS'er, I tend to DoT all the mobs and then focus on one...is this an incorrect strategy?

Sorry to hop in but yes, it is an incorrect strategy unless you have a tank who is putting out a huge amount of AE threat or is on top of their game. To be honest in an instance DoTs are pretty much wasted on anything other than boss fights. This is because fights are over so quickly in a group that DoTs just aren't as mana efficient as your nukes.

[Tikki]

Dhoum: Thanks! I'm only just really starting to get into instances with my lock. I suppose I'm going to have to research on the best strategy for an affliction lock- since DoTs are my strong point.

Up until now I bring out my imp. DoT here and there, and then use my fiery rainy thingy- only if threat is being held by a tank.

[Wintrow]

Indeed, all good and well if things are going along ok.

Only when a target needs to be burned down asap does optimal dps become important.