The Raven Council

Having gotten pretty annoyed by instances where poeple refuse to do what they should do in a group (i.e. warriors who refuse to tank, priests who refuse to heal "because they are shadow", paladins who refuse to tank if they're the only ones who can do it... etc...), I've made this list and would ask you if this is correct.

TANKS

1. Protection Warrior
2. Warrior
3. Feral Druid
4. Holy/Protection Paladin
5. Druid
6. Paladin

DPS

1. Mage
2. Rogue
3. Hunter
4. Warlock
5. Druid (where does a cat druid fit in these lines?)

PULLERS

1. Hunter
2. Tank

HEALERS

1. Holy Priest
2. Resto Druid
3. Priest
4. Druid
5. Paladin / Shaman

SUPPORT

1. Warlock
2. Paladin / Shaman (hey, think of it, if I put warlock in first place Khila's going to kill me, and if I don't, then it's simply going to be an angry paladin.... )

Is that list generally correct? With some exceptions of course, but still...
And here are the questions:

1. Rogue and Mage generally do more DPS than hunters but hunters require no attention from healers/tanks. Is this true?
2. Can a paladin tank? I'm not talking about MC here, I mean every non 60+ instance in the game. I've never played a paladin though I know that they have some things for +60% threat or something. Most paladins I've met always want to go wild dps with Seals instead, and it is very very annoying.

I haven't played the game for a few months, but I have no reason to believe any of this has changed.

Palas can tank ALL non-raid instances pretty decent. Depends much on the player I think.

All warriors can tank, no matter talent build. I was fury/arms all thru, and i did great imo.

Hunters are great DPS dealers, but they do need the attention of healers and tanks. Mostly tanks tho. And the attention they need is obviously less than rogue/mage, because they have mail, while the latter user cloth/leather. Hunter also has a pet (tho not so often in instances).

i.e. hunters pwn.

So basically when there's paladin in a group without warrior or druid and he says that he can't tank I know he's basically lying?

I think you forgot warlock somewhere between those lines.
Seeing as that warlocks are normally support (imp stamina, soulstone, healthstones), they play an important role in the main tank group. They can also be on top of the dps charts if they choose to. Sometimes, their versatile expertise is needed to e.g. drain a boss of all its mana so it can't heal, so they step down from the dps-dealing section.
They can also aoe, though it's more difficult than for mages. Of the cloth users, they generally have the most stamina i.e. the most hitpoints, so their survivability is slightly higher.

This puts them in your DPS group, but also in the SUPPORT group (missing). With support I mean buffs (stamina), healing (through healthstones), rezzing (through soulstones), offtanking (with VW), crowd control (with succubus).

haha, true, I forgot them in here... putting out an updated version lest I have a feeling that I'll awake with an angry felhunter in my house if I don't do it

Warlock are DDs, not support
Rogues are best DD! Why you put them on 2nd place?
Mage can easily do more damage, but : 1. He has limited mana
2. He dont have "Feint" or "Vanish" (he has "Iceblock" or something like this, but its not better than vanish )
And i dont like tank, which is not warrior.
PS About raid instances
Druid in the best gear(i.e tier 2) CAN tank Nefarion. I've seen it
PSS The only puller is warrior with gun/bow/xbow, or rogue with sap ( a bit suicidal, but with good priest (like Iry ) its ok )

Well, locks are both then .

Btw, I haven't been in a group yet (of about 10 man ubrs e.g.) where I didn't outdamage the rogue(s) . Maybe once or twice, but I have new armor since then.

As a Holy/Prot Pala, I just want to tank if there is actually noone else around that can do it. Yes, we have +30% extra threat, but that only count on Holy damage, and it costs alot of mana do do decent holy damage.
If I tank a boss, I need to get the boss down to below 80% health, or else *everything* will rise higher in threat.


All IMHO ofc

The hunter in my opinion is the one class who doesn't need attention from a healer or tank. He's out of AoE range and he shouldn't ever get agro. If he does then he's got disengage and feign death to lose it again.

A rogue or mage will out-dps the hunter but they will need healing or the help of an off-tank. I see a hunter as free dps - a rogue costs healers mana, and a mage costs the dps that the off-tank could be causing.

And for tricky pulls a hunter is unequalled. Being able to abort a bad pull with Feign Death can save a lot of lives. Some of the new level 70 skills are going to improve the hunter's pulling too (I believe there's one that transfers the agro of the 3 next attacks to another party member).

Azyrae wrote: And for tricky pulls a hunter is unequalled. Being able to abort a bad pull with Feign Death can save a lot of lives. Some of the new level 70 skills are going to improve the hunter's pulling too (I believe there's one that transfers the agro of the 3 next attacks to another party member).

Yep, this one:

Misdirection

Requires Level 70
326 Mana100 yd range
Instant cast2 min cooldown
Threat caused by your next 3 attacks is redirected to the target raid member. Caster and target can only be affected by one Misdirection spell at a time. Effect lasts 30 sec.

Such a nice skill - is it possible that hunters will now be pulling with aimed shot/distracting shot giving the tank free aggro at the start of a fight?

Nice topic:)

I agree with Ryvaine that Warlocks aren't a support class. Handing out healthstones and soulstones doesn't make you a support class. The MT group needs a lock for the stamina buff and depending on the encounter, so do other group(s) but this doesn't make them a support class. Might aswell put mages as support class aswell then for handing out water and food, buffing the raid with intelligence and decursing in alot of encounters.

I wouldn't say rogues are better damagedealers than mages btw Ryviane In some instances they are, in some instances they aren't. A PvE specced mage will blast you away in DPS though We get -30% threat now which is sexah. I think in BWL I did as much as 20% more damage compared to rogues, which is insane ofcourse, though in AQ40 rogues did 5-10% more damage than we mages could do On average though, I think Mages are the best damagedealers, closely followed by Warriors, then Rogues and then Warlocks. Hunters last! Warlocks can do lots of damage but they have zero threat-reduction which means they can't possibly dream of ever out-dpsing a mage in an 40-man instance. Rogues, although having slightly better aggro-reduction, have to be in close range of their enemy while the mage can just blast away at a safe distance. Same goes for warriors. Hunters do good dps and pretty much can't be killed. But overall, mages top the damage meters in pretty much any instance I've been in


Warriors:

You only need 1 or 2 Protection specced warriors in the raid. So depending on how reliable their attendancy is, you only need 3-4 Protection specced tanks in the guild. The rest can, if they like, spec offtank. Offtank means they have the vital protection talents (15 now?), but not the extra ones. They are required to have compatible tanking gear along with their dps-gear, so that they can offtank when asked to. Two or three warriors in the guild should be allowed to spec and focus their gear on DPS. Depending on the instance, DPS Warriors can and will top the damagemeters by extreme amounts, without causing the raid any trouble. So don't underestimate it hehe. Warriors can and should be allowed to spec DPS, just aslong as there are enough MT's

On a sidenote, the warrior's gear is the most important part of his tanking, not his spec. MT's need those little extra gimmicks that the protection tree provides, but the offtanks definately do not. Like Nelle has said, you can be fury and still tank nicely.


Druids

Shouldn't be in the DPS list. Not as a cat and especially not as a moonkin hehe. They heal better than they do damage. Not by far, but their DPS isn't needed as much as their healing is. Their offtanking isn't required either. We have Warrior offtanks for that and although Druids can offtank just as well as a Warrior, they warrior doesn't loose efficiency in his roll by spending 15 points in protection to be able to offtank. Druids need to waste alot of precious talents if they wanna be a good offtank.
When you are 5-manning something it's a different story ofcourse. They can heal, dps or tank, depending on the group-setup and spec of the Druid. Generally speaking, Druids are insanely usefull to raids due to their abilities such as Innovate and Combat res, but Blizzard has kind of screwed them over. Their cat-dps is nice, but not adequate. Their Moonkin damage is average when bursting, but fails in every possible way at bosses. Not enough mana, no aggro-reduction at all. Druids are definately very usefull, but not as DPS/Tank unfortunately


Priests:

Shadowpriests are much less efficient at healing compared to disc/holy priests obviously, so any shadowpriest saying he can heal just as good as a holy specced priest is playing stupid This doesn't mean they can't heal at all ofcourse, but still, it needs to be said.
Put shadowpriests in the DPS list though! If - and I realise that might be a big 'if' in a casual guild like ours - there are enough healers in the raid, a shadowpriest should definately be one of the dps-ers. Place them in a group that requires frequent healing and see improved Vampiric Embrace shine. Watch the warlocks skyrocket in the damagemeters and notice how the shadowpriest still holds a firm spot in the top-10 damagers. I assume you have atleast 4 warlocks in the raid, which means you buff their damage by 10-15%. That's 40-60% added up. A shadowpriest can do 85-90% of the damage a mage would do with same gear and skill. Add those up and your shadowpriest is responsible for 125-150% of the damage a lock, mage or rogue could do. The party-healing comes as an extra. Along with that, they can go healing / dispelling mode when asked (specific encounters)
So a priest who says he can do good DPS is absolutely correct. But when more priests want to spec shadow and have the gear to do so, it becomes difficult. And priests that say they won't heal should not be invited to raids at all. Even shadowpriests must heal during certain encounters.

So, long story cut short: IMO add Warrior and Shadowpriest to the DPS list, remove Warlock from support and Druid from DPS and Tank.


NOTE:

Most of my opinions are geared towards serious 40-man instancing. We don't force specs and don't really spend enough time raiding to justify any such rule. But for the sake of this topic, I posted my thoughts on how it should be. I don't mean to piss off druids for example, though I know I probably have

Ehm ''DPS Warriors can and will top the damagemeters by extreme amounts,'' yeah but only if you got good gera in most cases. gief Deathbringer plx and Ill do it =P

Drub, holy dmg has a special threat so the +60 threat from R-fury *extra if prot* just helps it. I know cuz Ive ''accidently'' taken aggro on some hard bosses from warriors....

Thought id add my comments about Palatanks.

As much as i hate it, i can be done, Paladins can tank if needed, although, no where nearly as good as Warriors / Druids. I myself find myself a Healadin in raids. Only time i go to do any melee is when i hit them with my little mace because of Judging Wisdom / Light.

Now, when we do have to tank, its much harder because we dont (Or didnt untill now, i think, not sure) have any taunt ablities. But, imo, prot sucks, ive always been Holy / Retri ( Or Retri / Holy or full Holy.) R-Fury is ofc needed, then with Retri Aura, and you need Holy Shock. Now, in places like Scholo, its all to easy, i didnt even need R-Fury and i was accidently taking aggro because of Paladin Spell Damage against Undeads. But, if i really wanted Solid Aggro in places like Scholo, then it would be something like this. R-Fury / ZHC / JoC / Holy Shock / SoR / (Judge Every 8 secs). Now, the DPSers need to wait a few seconds so the Paladin can actually build some aggro, because like i said, they cant just take it straight back like Druids / Warriors. Exorcism / Holy Shock is good for taking back aggro. Even more so if you hit Divine Favour then Holy Shock then Exorcism, if you dont take aggro after that, your not getting back aggro any time soon.

But, the problem is when in normal (None Raid) Instances (DM North) for Example, we cant properly tank 3 targets. Once again, everyone has to wait a few seconds for the Paladin to get some aggro. This takes more time then if a Warrior or Druid was tanking, but if its time you've got, then its not a problem, but no one wants to spend more than 3 hours in a crappy little instance like that do they? ^^. Now, if your using Retri Aura, the "Add" would be hitting you, and your Retri Aura will be hitting them back causing a bit of threat due to it being Holy Dmg, so, hopefully they wont run off when you get healed. If they do, change targets, stun them, Holy Shock (or if thats on CD, JoR [ Judgement of Righteousness, seems this is Holy Dmg, when Seal of Command isnt, its Physical, although Judgement of Crusader is Holy] if your judgement is on CD, then just keep hitting it with SoR till its not ) Then hopefully you should have aggro on both targets pretty stably.

Now, theres one problem with this. Mana. Especially Undead instance. You need -alot- of mana to keep solid aggro. So, make sure you have a Mage around for Intellect and alot of water. (Admit it, your a friendly vending machine that gives change in fire) Also, the group should be prepared to have to wait for your mana after every fight, if they dont, thats their problem making you tank in the first place. But, overall, i dont like tanking as a Paladin. I have my Warrior for that. I prefer just being support with my GB's (Greater Blessings) and Off Healing. Although, (Up untill the new patch) i could actually be the main Healer. (Got to say thanks for TAW for giving me some imba healing gear) I only ever had problems healing in AoE Packs. Especially if the mage isnt Frost, with the Frost Armor thingy.

So... There are my opinions on the matter, not facts. Just what i think about it. Hope it helps you Palatanks out there, or, those Paladins that prefer off tanking to off healing. (Dont know why you would, off healing is so much easier and more fun )

the list almost good but a (normal) druid are always better tank then a paladin it is verry hard to do much agro
and as you share paladins in group the ret paladins do the most damage of all paladins ( they are to weak for a dps)

prot are more made for off tanking (not for main they are worst tankers)
we paladins miss skills for tanking (tanking the agro back)

holy paladins are completly for healing and i think they are better healers then other normal druids (more choise for a right heal and they get by a crit heal mana back)

tip for healers: start with a small heal on 90-95% as you are ready they are much more hurt

tip for tanks: say to your party/raid that you want time to get agro (make an macro that you get enough agro)

tip for a dps: wait with casting when the tank get agro and listen to the tank and as you are the target stop with casting with strong spells (use wand)

this is my opion and my experience i have no raid experience but i know the mostly mistakes are been make by bad communication :p

Laverga wrote: Druids

Shouldn't be in the DPS list. Not as a cat and especially not as a moonkin hehe. They heal better than they do damage. Not by far, but their DPS isn't needed as much as their healing is. Their offtanking isn't required either. We have Warrior offtanks for that and although Druids can offtank just as well as a Warrior, they warrior doesn't loose efficiency in his roll by spending 15 points in protection to be able to offtank. Druids need to waste alot of precious talents if they wanna be a good offtank.
When you are 5-manning something it's a different story ofcourse. They can heal, dps or tank, depending on the group-setup and spec of the Druid. Generally speaking, Druids are insanely usefull to raids due to their abilities such as Innovate and Combat res, but Blizzard has kind of screwed them over. Their cat-dps is nice, but not adequate. Their Moonkin damage is average when bursting, but fails in every possible way at bosses. Not enough mana, no aggro-reduction at all. Druids are definately very usefull, but not as DPS/Tank unfortunately

Most of my opinions are geared towards serious 40-man instancing. We don't force specs and don't really spend enough time raiding to justify any such rule. But for the sake of this topic, I posted my thoughts on how it should be. I don't mean to piss off druids for example, though I know I probably have

You sure managed to do that Lavera, nonsense like this is the main reason I dont enjoy or play big raids anymore.

I've heard of some very effective feral dps druids. If I was forming a group and the druid in the party said "I'm cat-specced, we'll need a healer" then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

This is a game which is primarily played for fun. People can play what they want how they want - who am I to tell someone else how have fun?

If I was in a group with a feral druid that was trying his best but wasn't hitting hard enough and a poo-hard epic-geared tank that whined and moaned at the druid for being crap then the only one I'd invite to my next group would be the druid.

I'd rather fail with friends than succeed with arseholes.

Here's a link to a post that Zoltan made a while back:

http://www.ravencouncil.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95

It's a very good post that advocates druids making the most of their shape-shifting, multi-talented abilities and breaking away from the mindset of "druids in raids should only be resto".

Druids, like paladins, can be good all-rounders. Even if they specialise in one particular discipline, having skills in other areas can be a big help as it can "top-up" those areas in times of need. This can make the difference between a wipe and a save.

I'm sure many of you may have had times where a swift shape-change from a druid who took up another role to help turn the tide of battle. This type of play will become even more useful as the party sizes grow smaller for BC. That's not to say that druids filling many different roles can't be useful in larger raids too.

With the recent respec of skills, it's still taking me a little time to get used to Celsan's new abilities (almost all talents are in the balance tree now). Even though I'd rate his equipment being about tier 0.5 overall, spell crits are currently around 2000-2100 a time on a 3 second cast (2.5 if Nature's Grace has procced). Add to that the ability to sling in the tree helpers (who hit for around 150-200 each at around a second per hit I think) and I'd expect to be high on the damage list if not the top. Yes, that's spell crits, but I've had 6 in a row before in Moonkin form so it happens a lot...

Although I now have less healing talents, I'm still pretty good at healing most of the time, partly because I carry some good healing gear with me all the time. Given that Restoration now stacks, druids healing an MT in a raid can have a massive effect on the outcome even with no resto talents and no healing specific gear.

Vanoviel, you shouldn't feel averse to coming on raids - you can be as feral as you want! Indeed the alliance raid we did with The Approaching Storm on Monday night had a feral druid that I think was cat form almost all the time (a little bear at some point too) with no comments from anyone about "you should be healing" etc.

I'm sorry if I have offended you by that post, Vanoviel. I didn't mean to. Druids can be whatever they want to be and they are awesome partymembers in 5-man instances. I did state however that DPSing druids aren't optimal in 40-man raids. Their healing potential is awesome and I can't see why so many druids fail to understand that, or simply ignore this fact to fit their own goals. HC raiding is all about teamplay, and guys like that are selfish and will get no respect from me because they are profiting from other members that do put effort in the guild. I realise that taking such postion in this matter will get me some negative responses from the Druid community but if that's what I get for stating simple facts, then so be it.

I empathise with the druids and the flaws in their talents. I have sat with many druids, trying to help them make a suitable talentbuild for them. But as we both agreed in the end, there is no such thing as a true Hybrid build. You can try, you can unleash some theorycraft, but in the end it's just a dream. I don't like that either; I'd much rather see Druids happy. In the end we concluded that atleast we should help the druids (and priests for that matter) get some gear/spec that would help them grind faster. So we adjusted our itempriorities so that druids and priests had a chance to get some extra gear aswell. They'd have to have adequate healing gear in order to be eligible ofcourse. Plus I actually helped the druids that were serious by giving them some tips like where to find cool +dmg items and which reputation to grind etc. To the extent that I searched the internet for hours and hours just to help these guys. Plus, we discussed the usefulness of certain talents and tried to find a compromise that would satisfy the druids and suit the raid. It boiled down to having Natures Swiftness as a requirement to join raids. That's not too bad imo, considering we were a HC raiding guild.

This just to sort of show where I'm comming from. I do feel for you guys and do want to help you, but I can't change facts for you.

Having that said, we are by no means a HC raiding guild and aren't enforcing talents at all. So the things I mentioned have no relevance to our raids. I specifically mentioned that in my previous post and do that again right now. It would be very harsh and unfitting to enforce specs with only one raid per week. I myself have specced PvP Shadow with my priest, and PvP with my rogue for example, and I don't mind anyone doing the same. You can be whatever you want to be. I saw 2 Moonkin's in MC last night and didn't see any bitching, so you shouldn't feel bad about raiding in MC with whatever spec you have. Anyone giving you sh*t for offspeccing should get his act straight and stop making useless comments.

Thanks a bunch for the replies, I must admit I was a bit etchy yesterday because I had quite alot of bitching about my spec lately (not from guildmembers btw)..After reading what you said about hc raiding guilds Laverna I can only say Im even more happy with the guild I am in that is focused on having fun and not on the most optimal spec.

That being said I think since 2.0 and even more so in BC feral druids will be a viable choice, even in big raids, as long as they commit to their feral spec and like Cels said be prepared to switch roles when needed..Id therefore much rather see druids (especially feral and maybe also moonkins) classified as support (if classification is even needed) then anything else. Even though I heard from other ferals that we are on par dps wise now with rogues..Also, we do have aggro reduction and bring some nice buffs to the group and with our new improved leader of the pack talent can even provide some relief for the healers while in feral form, be it bear or kitty..