Talk:Instance grouping guide

Dead Links
The "Per Class Tips" links are to the old forums and now broken. --Sharlin 11:56, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

bigness
I suggest we cut this article in pieces, its getting too big. If anyone disagrees please say so., if not, i'll take initiative at a later time. -- CJ
 * I agree... added template. -- &#8465;ilver&#167;&#8465;ide|undefined 03:08, 2 Jan 2006 (EST)

The Personality types could probably be put on their own page. --Pittsburghmuggle 11:19, 9 January 2007 (EST)
 * I agree. The personality types, first of all, should be organized into some logical set, as they seem awfully random at the moment.--Doomchild 17:55, 25 January 2007 (EST)
 * And tagged as silly. Nothing makes me laugh more than seeing these people in my groups before I leave. Makes it difficult to get the right group, at times, but an hour spent building a viable party beats three spent wiping and running. :) Qii 18:05, 25 January 2007 (EST)

Alright, I've started a page labeled Aberrant Personalities. I haven't removed any content on this page yet, since not everything that could be moved has been. Feel free to improve.--Doomchild 12:48, 26 January 2007 (EST)

The Pull
Why not talk about the Rogue's sap ability in the paragraph "The Pull." There is a line where it's mentioned that some crowd control methods must be employed before aggro, Sap is one of them. Oversoul 14:59, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

This entire page is misleading, the concept is horrid, it completely screws up new people that get into fights where the holy trinity cannot be used (Black Morass comes to mind)

Neutral NPCs
It's false information that the NPCs in Blackrock depths and Scholomance aggro if someones talks to them. -- Stipa


 * Whereas I contend it's very accurate info. I shall get confirmation.
 * Edit: perhaps I was wrong! You may make the change. -- Kirkburn  (talk) 17:13, 26 December 2006 (EST)

Pointless descriptions
90% of this page is pointless. Every single one of the "witty" descriptions can all be merged into one, under Jackass.


 * Agreed. This article needs to be more immediately useful. Witty-ness is okay, but not in excess. 23:36, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Individuality
I must disagree that individuality is a bad thing, and feel that the What Not To Do section sounds bigoted and comes from a (very rigid and flawed) perspective regarding absolute class roles. Player ingenuity and individuality is, by contrast, what makes an MMO great. There would be no point to nor fun in playing a game wherein everyone is the same and all go along with the established norms.

While I realise that this guide is intended for PuGs (which are quite untrustworthy in any case, and wherein someone's ability can't be known beforehand) rather than established teams (wherein people have experience working with each others' unique characters), someone's ability to successfully perform the role they claim to be able to is what matters as regards the success of the group. If the person wishes to do this in a different or odd way, that's not a bad thing at all. In fact, the best players I've ever known have notably also played what are considered "off-specs," or otherwise play in an oft-unaccepted and/or unexpected manner, doing it superbly. They generally have a higher understanding of their class, and are willing to work harder to perform their stated role in the group.

I am, therefore, amending this page to reflect this. If you dislike my alterations, please let me know how you feel I could improve them.

-- Aulus

Obsolete old Holy Trinity
I think most people agree now the so-called "Holy Trinity" of prot warrior + holy priest + mage is obsolete already. Restore druids, restore shamans and holy paladins can all heal very well in instances. Feral druids and prot pally can tank as good as prot warrior in instances, sometimes better actually. (e.g. prot pally tanks are famous of their multi-tanking ability, which is especially useful in situation where you need to AOE a lot of mobs, when the group does not have enough cc, or even multi-tanking 3-4 elites at the same time for the whole instance just to make the run faster. Prot warriors can never be as good at this. (Feral Druids, when geared properly, can have higher armor and higher health than a Warrior of the same level. Felindre)) Mages are good at dps and cc, but so are hunters, warlocks and rogues. Actually, mages' cc is only good for humanoids and beasts, and there are many occasions that cc of undead/demon/dragonkins is needed, which makes hunters and warlocks better cc!

It would be better if someone can rewrite that whole part, so that newbies reading this won't have the wrong impression that healer == holy priest and tank == warrior and cc == mage. Blizz was trying to break the warrior/priest monopoly with TBC, which was quite successful. Good players should know the pros/cons of different tanking/healing/dps/cc classes, instead of thinking there is one single best class. The best guilds now always have a mixture of all different classes for uses in different situations.

-- WakemanCK 12:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The same user who added the Holy Trinity remarks added a note to the How to work with a... (Druid) article saying that druids shouldn't main heal. Their contributions on this page usually note a single class in a multi-class role (tanking, CC, scouting, etc.) I don't think anyone else would disagree with removing or deleting that section.

Quamarett 00:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I was the one who wrote that comment, Quamarett, and I stand by it. As a resurrection spell, the limitations of Rebirth are horrible.  (Cooldown, reagent)  Most Druid healing spells also have long cast times which can be extremely dangerous in hectic fights.  They are also substantially less mana efficient than a Priest, as well.


 * For tanking and DPS, the Druid is great, (and for DPS in particular is overlooked far more often than it should be) however in my own mind, main healing is probably the one role for which they don't work. Out of all of the hybrids, the Shaman is probably closest to a main healer that I can feel comfortable with.
 * Petrus4 21:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You are such an idiot. Okay, so Druids can't RESSURECT as well as a Priest, Paladin, or Shaman, but they are perfectly viable for healing and wipe recovery (which Rebirth is usually used for!). As for your comments on casting time, there isn't a single Druid healing spell that has a casting time longer than those of a Priest (Regrowth (the Druid's most mana-efficient heal before Lifebloom is available at level 64), with its 2 second cast time, is still very viable in end-game content (all the Priest's major heals have long cast times, and the Shaman's fast heals are mana-inefficient); with Nature's Grace, it can have a 1.5 second cast time) and they are just as mana efficient if specced into Restoration.
 * There's also the fact that Druids can make their AoE heal, Tranquility, THREAT-FREE. Priests only get Holy Nova for threat-free AoE heals, and the healing isn't really worth it. Felindre


 * I wouldn't discount them completely though. I've known some awesome resto druids that I would choose for MH any day.  It's a different kind of healing style is all.  You have to gear for it and know how to play it.  Certainly you could say that of any class, but maybe druid healing is more difficult to learn.  The only drawback as I see it is the limitation of Rebirth, but if have more than one death per half hour, you might have bigger problems than your healer anyway.  At any rate, I don't think we should be pigeon holing any class here, but rather giving well balanced info. --  22:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Druids can of course "main heal", so can priests, pallies and shamans as long as they have the gear and skill (+/- the right spec). Each of them have their pros and cons but they can all do the job. They just do it differently. I like priests and shamans mainheal more when I'm dpsing because of their group heal. I like druids and pallies mainheal more when I'm tanking because of the druids' huge HoT and the pallies' efficiency that they almost never oom. WakemanCK 05:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In addition to above comments, you're factually wrong or have a bizarre view of druid healing that leads to bizarre conclusions. I'm not sure how to even respond to it because the misinformation there is so odd.


 * "Most Druid healing spells also have long cast times [...]" Healing Touch, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Swiftmend, Nature's Swiftness and Tranquility. Could you explain how you are counting? 4 out of 7 actual spells are instant. Counting combinations that produce healing, it's 7 out of 10.


 * "which can be extremely dangerous in hectic fights." NS + Healing Touch is 3000+, and it's instant. Lifebloom stacked and Rejuvenation stacked is 600+ HPS, ticking before a priest could cast flash heal. If there is unexpected huge damage to random party members, yes, that's a problem, but that's what NS and swiftmend are for.


 * "They are also substantially less mana efficient [...]" See Healing Comparison. Pick any two reasonable healing approaches for priests and druids, and compare overall efficiency. What reasonable scenario makes you say that priests are more efficient? Untalented? At 0 +healing? With the priest using nothing but lightwell? Quamarett 17:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha ha, I can't stop laughing after reading that bit about the Survival-spec Hunter stepping up to tank before a non-healing paladin. Two words to those people who think this is a good idea: A paladin that isn't healing is either A) tanking already, or B) doing damage. It's trivial for the retribution-spec paladin to pop Righteous Fury, drop a consecrate, and start tanking. Qii 07:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Mergers from other articles
See Category:Merge_candidates for all the "branch" articles from this one. Some of them aren't even linked in here any more because they haven't been kept up or weren't very good. Most of them overlap quite heavily with content elsewhere.

I'm presently working on the healer article so that it deserves linking in and maybe merging.

Regardless, the branch articles should probably either all be merged back in, or none of them should, unless there is very little to move. Quamarett 09:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

"Wall of text" and main articles
Whenever I don't think someone will argue I've been splitting up longer paragraphs, adding sections and highlights, and redirecting to main articles instead of trying to be comprehensive. I think it makes the article much more readable to have highlights and a good ToC rather than covering everything possible. Quamarett 18:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

"Crowd Control" at least as important as "Damage Dealing"
I believe the main roles in an instance are "Tank", "Healing", "Crowd Control", and "Damage". And between crowd control and damage, CC is much more important for someone putting together an instance run.

It is true that if you have over-geared characters, you can out damage the need for crowd control. But when you are putting together a group, you are much more likely to find a hunter or mage with low or medium dps but who knows how to push their CC buttons than a character capable of sustaining 700 dps. Plus most instances in BC require some sort of crowd control for at-level groups to complete them. Since this page is aimed at PUGs, I'd propose elevating CC to a top level function.

If there's no huge argument, I could take a stab a re-working the introduction. --Mycuhl 19:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, though I haven't been to endgame content to really confirm it. I think my idea about it was mainly that this is most useful as a guide to new players, and it's easiest to learn the tank & spank strategy first, and then add other elements to it rather than giving it all in one go. (For instance, emphasizing that tank and damage are separate encourages new tanks to concentrate on threat rather than damage.)

Anyhow I won't argue with however you write it. Quamarett 16:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * While I agree CC is important in a group, I don't prefer adding an additional "CC" role into the three basics roles. It is better to add a line to DPS indicating that "some DPS classes have good CC as well and this should be considered when forming group". Also consider: sometimes the priest or druid healers need to CC as well. WakemanCK 15:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Other than Gluth's Zombies, I have yet to see a situation in endgame content where CC is even possible, let alone necessary. Besides, CC doesn't need a seperate section; it's always going to be part of a DPSer's/Tank's job (Healer's too, in extreme cases) when they can do it. Felindre (talk) 11:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Links for DPS
Check the links related to DPS/damage dealer on this page:DPS, damage dealer. Right now it is linked to two not very useful pages. I think people checking those pages expect it will give a talk about the role, skill needed, gear, expectation of dps classes, just like the links for tanks and healers. I'm not sure if such wowwiki pages exist right now. If no, it will be cool if someone can write it up! WakemanCK 12:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'm writing up a whole new page about damage dealers myself. Hopefully I can put it up next week. :) WakemanCK 15:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Completed the page. Take a look at it if you have time! WakemanCK 06:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

About the last edit......
It is suboptimal. "Running Instances with a group of five or more players is one of the three major ways to spend time in World of Warcraft (the other two being solo play and PvP)." Terrible introduction sentence. "If healers die from drawing aggro, they have to stop healing everybody else except the tank, and if they still die, the tank must do a better job." Highly misleading statement and oversimplification of the issue. "If a damage dealer dies, it's not the healers fault, neither the tanks, but always the damage dealers own." He was lucky that he had never met a bad tank in his life.

I was thinking of undoing all his edit but it would be a bit too cruel since he had written so much things. Maybe someone can help revising the whole section again? --WakemanCK (talk) 02:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Death Knight I.G.G.
Is there going to be an instance grouping guide for Death Knights? Felindre (talk) 11:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)