Ishnu-alah! It's Ankalima, your friendly neighborhood Druid here to take just a little bit of a detour from what I was talking about earlier. Yes, this is a little early for me, and worry not! - I will be continuing from where I left off last week this coming Monday, but a good friend of mine thought I should point something out that's a little more focused than I intended to go. Still, it's good advice, and as such is the topic of my Ninja-Druid-Blog-Post! I call it that because you'll never know when I'm doing an extra post, so it'll sneak up on you like a ninja, and the idea of a Ninja Druid is just plain awesome. Anyway, back to the task at hand - Pet Classes in Instances.
Rule number 1 - Pets on passive. Really, I could stop there and this would still be a helpful post. I can't stress this enough though, and lack of following it has caused many a wipe. Aggressive pets in an instance just plain should NOT happen. Only time an aggressive pet is a good thing is for Battlegrounds and Arena, generally speaking in any other situation it could easily spell death. Defensive isn't bad, but I would recommend avoiding it for dungeon settings. A lot of mobs' agro is linked, and if you get the attention of one, you've got the attention of many - and your pet will cycle through each. Sounds like it's not a bad thing? Well, your pet will cycle through each, which move and run and change agro as the fight progresses, and that means it is very easy for your defensive pet to go and pull an entire room.
Rule number 2 - Food and Soul Shards. Hunters need to be sure, before starting an instance, that they have not only food and drink for themselves, but also for their pets. I don't know about anyone else, but the last thing I want to deal with is a crabby pet that has decided in the middle of a boss fight that it no longer wants to play nice with the rest of the group. On the flip side of that, Warlocks need to be sure they have as many soul shards as they can carry. Not just for re-summoning their pet, but also for Health Stones, Soul Stones, Summons portals, Soul Fire, etc. Honestly though, the only reason a Warlock should have water on them is so they can pay off the healer to keep their hit points up enough for Life Tap.
Rule number 3 - Understand Your Role in the Group. I don't doubt that the Warlocks and Hunters of WoW have a complete understanding of what they're capable of. Fantastic at leveling solo and extremely good at dps, there's more warlocks and hunters than most people can stand sometimes. The true downside to being very good at solo leveling is that often times you don't realize you need to do things different in a group. The Tank is not your pet, the Healer is not your personal health potion, and The Mage does not have pet-envy. It's hard, to sit back and let others steer when you're used to being in the driver's seat 99% of the time, but it's important to understand your role in the party. Trust me, you'll need to tone it down. You want the dps, you want the burn, you want to do what you're good at doing - turn off the pet taunt, and give the tank a second to get a nice firm grip on the agro. After that, have at. Maybe a nice friendly competition with the other dpsers in the group to see who can pull agro off the tank. Especially entertaining when you've got an awesome tank.
~Ankalima |