Group Combat Guidelines

[Joram Lionheart]

In the last few events I was part of, I couldn't help to notice we are lacking in organizational skills when it comes to group hunting. Perhaps I'm glorifying the past a little but I recall us being more of a well-oiled, mobs-thrashing machine. So for the sake of our glorious memory (and our future wellbeing), I've decided to write a not-so-short manual to group hunting. Please feel free to lay it on me if you disagree or feel I've missed something.

The following is a list of common sense guidelines to follow when fighting in a group setting. This is not a guide to being the best warrior or mage that you can be. Everyone has their own personal preferences when it comes to combat. But fighting in a group means adapting your playstyle to compliment your teammates strengths and (hopefully) mitigate your own weaknesses. It also means being considerate of other people’s needs and wishes. And the first step is to realize that . . .

1. Everyone has a role to play.
When fighting solo, you do it all yourself—attack, defend, heal. But in a group, you shouldn’t do it all. Tanks don’t always deal the most damage but they sure can take a beating. Mages are easily overwhelmed in hand-to-hand combat but their ability to heal, buff, and curse greatly compliment the melee fighters’ skills. It is up to you to decide if your character build allows you to be on the frontline taking damage or in the rear working your magic.
Of course, not everyone falls neatly into these two categories. It is more helpful to think of your character’s primary method of dealing damage—close or ranged combat, including spellcasting. Tanks are obviously melee fighters but a tamer with a pet would also be considered a melee fighter. Likewise, bards would be considered ranged fighters because they don’t usually engage in hand-to-hand combat, at least not very effectively.

2. Warriors advance first.
Simply put, if you can’t take the heat, get behind those who can. It does not help anyone if the group’s mage is constantly being attacked because he or she can’t stay behind the advancing line. And related to this rule is the implied understanding that there is such a thing as a frontline. A disorderly advance will result in multiple mobs locking on to multiple players, which will make it harder for mages to keep up. [Note: Mages are not the only effective healers. Warriors can heal others with bandages when they're not taking damage. However, this is not advisable when facing firebreathing mobs.]

3. Mages are good for more than just buffing and healing.
Just because you are a spellcaster doesn’t mean you won’t be dealing damage. It just means you need to be judicious in your choice of spells and timing. Assuming that your warriors are handling the mobs well and don’t need healing, you can begin with a barrage of curse spells since they won’t draw attention to yourself [note: spellcasting mobs cast reflect each time they switch targets]. Use mana vampire constantly to replenish your mana supply [hint: don’t use on mobs with high magic resistance] and always keep your reflect up. Summoning, or dead raising (if a necromancer), non-spellcasting pets can also be very helpful. Finally, be ready to deliver the coup de grâce.
Remember that lower circle spells (e.g., magic arrow, harm, fireball) are better, in terms of overall effectiveness and mana consumption, than higher circle ones. Also, to conserve mana, you shouldn’t begin casting offensive spells until the mob is more than half injured. NEVER let yourself run out of mana. It is near impossible to meditate when you are completely drained and you can’t start a campfire in the middle of combat.

4. Use archery.
Any character can use bows and archery is effective even at 60 skill. Arrows/bolts cannot be resisted or reflected the way spells can and their range of damage is the same whether you have 100 archery or 60. However, the primary purpose of using bows is to lure your attackers to you instead of walking up to them. This is especially important when there are hidden mobs. A bow attack lures only visible mobs thus making your fight more manageable. Also, bows allow close combat fighters to attack archers/marksmen and spellcasting mobs without chasing them [hint: warriors can use wands and exploding potions for ranged damage too but should use the latter judiciously].

5. Use leadership.
No, not henchmen—they can be a real nuisance and hard to keep alive in a group. The ability to taunt, however, is VERY handy in a group. Like archery, taunting is effective even at 60 skill. Taunting allows a warrior to take the heat off of a fellow player just when he or she needs it the most. Imagine a scenario where a group of three warriors and a mage are fighting an ancient dragon. Instead of one fighter taking the full brunt of the damage, with taunting, they can take turns being the punching bag. This means that their health won’t drop so precipitously that bandages become useless and the healing mage can spend a bit less mana. There’s also the obvious benefit of warriors being able to taunt a mob off of their mage(s).

6. Do not use area effect spells or attacks.
This seems like an obvious thing but people often forget. They also forget that spellcasting summons and exploding potions cause area effect damage. There are a few instances where area effect attacks could be useful such as using exploding potions to ‘reveal’ hidden mobs or casting earthquake to damage mobs on the other side of a wall. But as general rule it is best not to rely on these. It is not hard to accidentally kill one of your fellow players with area effect damage, mostly because they’re not expecting the attack to come from YOU. [Note: tamers, don’t forget to give “battle orders” to your firebreathing pets.]

7. NEVER run ahead or give chase.
This is another obvious rule that is too often forgotten or ignored. There’s nothing worse than an inconsiderate player who draws a large throng of mobs and gets people killed unnecessarily. Instead of chasing a dying mob, switch to a ranged attack like a bow or a wand. Or just let it be. It won’t get very far. [Hint: when the mob is close to dying, position yourself facing the direction that you want the mob to run to. For example, if the rest of the spawn is east, put yourself east of your attacker so that it flees west.]

8. Designate a fallback zone and a rebuff break.
Sooner or later you might need to retreat and take a minute to heal and/or meditate. If people run indiscriminately in every direction, which sometimes they do in their haste to stay alive, they can make matters worse. Related to this is designating ‘rebuffing’ breaks. Ideally, everyone in the group would refresh their buffs at the same time so that you don’t need to stop your advance every five minutes. I believe Nature’s Bless is the shortest lasting buff (10-12 minutes), assuming you have a druid. So you can choose to rebuff every 10 minutes or just let that one buff wear off and recast it the next time.

9. Take a minute to strategize.
Every so often you come across an enemy (e.g., a quest boss mob) that calls for a unique type of strategy. Running ahead guns blazing is likely to get people killed unnecessarily. Take a minute to figure out a strategy that works for everyone involved. This means acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses. The character(s) with the highest magic resistance will handle the magical attacks better than the full plate tank(s) who specialized in parry. By the same token, hardhitting mobs like dragons are best left to the AR specialists. You may very well decide to cycle your attack so that the mana draining part is handled by one character, while the hand-to-hand finish is handled by another. Also, realize that people may die not matter how flawless your strategy was. It happens.

10. Be patient and gracious.
We all make mistakes. That player who keeps running ahead may not be doing it on purpose. Part of being in a group is teaching inexperienced players how to work together. Chastising another player in anger for their lack of etiquette is not likely to yield positive results. Plus, it’s just a game. People’s feelings are more important than virtual stuff.

[Chelsea Duklain]

You might make a quick mention of how we deal with the loot. That's a big part of the 'after the quest' party.

[Vincent Tel'Imoen]

Thanks for posting this Joram!

3. Mages are good for more than just buffing and healing.

Tanks are good for more than just tanking! Bandages are very effective at healing others. If you're not taking hits, you're probably not using your bandages and your fingers won't slip. Chelsea saved my hide more than once like this during the last quest.

5. Use leadership.

If a tank (particularly a Virtue Guard) volunteers to taunt any and all mobs, it might make healers' jobs easier.

I've never really played a mage, but can someone who does, refresh my mind about the effectiveness of scrolls and why they might be preferred to casting out of the book?

[Xanola]

Scrolls are easier to cast from and use less mana HOWEVER they are consumables and not everyone carries them (including me) because of weight and cost.

[Joram Lionheart]

The loot split is a touchy subject. I can offer my opinion of how I think it should handled but there are probably many valid ways of doing it. Feel free to improve on my suggestions.

1. Designate loot collectors.
How many depends on the size of the group but there should be at least two. If one needs to leave early, he can hand his loot bag(s) to the other. Obviously, if you don't plan to stay for the whole event don't volunteer to collect the loot. Remember to give a .owned bag to the looters before you leave if you want to partake in the loot split.

2. Unless asked to, do not loot.
That's what the loot collectors are for. The more people who loot, the harder it will be to split the loot later. If a quest item goes missing, you don't want to be accused of having taken it.

3. Designate a loot splitter.
Here there should be only one, and it doesn't have to be one of the loot collectors.

4. Sell everything.
A quest isn't the time to stock up on hides, shovels, or gems, unless there's an explicit consensus to keep some of those items. Check all sell bag options in the .options menu. Quest items and unique items cannot be sold to vendors so don't worry about selling these things by accident.

5. Split everything.
Being the loot splitter isn't an opportunity to stock up on regs or other resources. If people are not interested in getting their share of obsidian or wyrm hearts then you can keep them. But you HAVE to offer. People cannot ask what they don't know to ask for.

6. Gold is for death taxes.
Because of the amount of people involved, you're not likely to get rich from a quest hunt. Those who died during the event should get priority in the gold split. There are many ways to handle this but the most popular option is for the splitter to ask who would like to receive gold. Those with death taxes to pay receive a double share.

7. Roll dice for 'special' items.
The real prize is the magical and unique quest items. Again, the convention is that the splitter announces all the dice worthy items ahead of time so that the participants can choose which items to roll for. Once somebody wins something, they cannot roll for another item until everyone involved has received at least one item.

8. Don't let the loot get in the way of your fun.
I've participated in many events where I didn't 'win' special items. If your only motivation for questing is the loot, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Quests are about having fun with your fellow players. They are a rare opportunity to NOT worry about getting 'stuff' and just enjoy yourself. The prizes, if there are any, are just icing on the cake.

[Joram Lionheart]

Tanks are good for more than just tanking! Bandages are very effective at healing others. If you're not taking hits, you're probably not using your bandages and your fingers won't slip. Chelsea saved my hide more than once like this during the last quest.

Ok, I updated the list to include a mention of bandage healing. What Xan said about scrolls is right. I think that's a playstyle decision. I prefer to use them because of the casting speed bonus but I could see why not everyone would want to use them (they're expensive and heavy). Obviously, you can't carry every kind of scroll there is so you'll need regs, anyway. But in battle timing is everything, so I like to use offensive and curse spell scrolls.

[Randell]

Randell prefers the use of scrolls over normal casting, though that gets done as well, the less mana use isn't the reason why; rather, it's the fact that I can cast faster that way. There is a weight issue with doing this and ya gotta be-careful about what scroll you trigger. By keeping area affect in a different bag from other attacks and defensive scrolls (greater heal and what not) separated from the rest of them, one is less likely to cause a mishap on the battle field. A lesson I learned the hard way by harming several others and killing one with an accidental triggering of an earthquake.

[Mack]

One thing to add is to ask at the start of the quest ask who has the most hp and who has the highest magic resist to tank caster mobs. If it is a melee with 80 magic resist or someone with 100 magic resist the 100 magic resist should prolly tank the casters and let melee handle melee.

[Atei]

This was such a GREAT read! Can parts or all of this please be added to the Rules?

[Vincent Tel'Imoen]

7. Roll dice for 'special' items.
The real prize is the magical and unique quest items. Again, the convention is that the splitter announces all the dice worthy items ahead of time so that the participants can choose which items to roll for. Once somebody wins something, they cannot roll for another item until everyone involved has received at least one item.

Should the right of first refusal be given to players who can directly use an item and should there be a distinction made between usability by the player's character that participated in the quest and one which did not?

This isn't a question solely directed to Joram, but to everyone. I personally believe that should be a preference given to — in descending order — a character that can directly use an item, a player that can directly use an item, a player that has not received an item yet and then everyone.