The Roles

In a group, you might be playing more than one role depending of your Spells/Combat Arts and the fight situation even if you clearly have one main role. Take the time to learn what the others in the group are supposed to do and how they do it. That will help you play your role to the best.

• The Tank
• The Healer
• The DPS
• The Specialist

The Tank

Tough many class can tank (Rogue, Summoners), the best tanks are fighters. Some have great protections, others have great avoidance. The tank is the one who should gets the hits from the enemies. He/she has Combat Arts and Abilities that generate hates so the mobs want him/her dead. If the encounter turns bad, he should be the only one to die, if anyone dies at all. Beside very specifics situations, the tank is always the puller.

If you are the tank you should do as follow:

• Focus on the defensive aspect of your character
  • Upgrade your defensive Combat Arts to Adept level at least
  • Taunts should be upgraded to Adept III as soon as possible
  • Wear the best armor you can afford (we have Armorers who can make one for you)
  • Use your Defensive Stance Combat Art
  • Use a shield if your class have this skill
• Before pulling, make sure that everyone is ready with their health and mana fully regenerated
• There are many ways to engage a fight. Inform the group members about what you are going to do and what you want them to do. For instance:
  • Pull the mobs back to the group so the group have to stay put
  • Attack the mobs where they stand so the group join you after the taunt
  • Pull with a projectile so the group have to wait to attack that you have taunted
  • Make a body pull so the group have to wait that you taunt
• Call the pull using a macro. Ex. Pulling %t in 5 seconds. (then wait 5 seconds, it is about the time for the bubble of your message to disappear)
• When you pull, your first action should be a taunt. If it is not possible to pull with a taunt, your very first action after the pull should be a taunt
• You should be the only one facing the target at all times, always turn the mobs around whenever possible so the members of your group are behind the mobs
• Taunt as much as you can
• You are the one who targets the mobs, so be prepare to select another one when the mob you are hitting dies
• Learn to choose the best target and how to select them.
  • Select the target in the following order:
    • The priests, to prevent them to heal and buffs their friends
    • The mages, to prevent them to cast their debuffs and they are usually easier to kill
    • The weaker members of a group
      • The more mobs that can hit you at once, the more they can interrupt you, you can do less damage, you get hit more often. So it makes sense to reduce their number as fast as possible
      • If you concentrate on the tougher mob, it will take a long time and all along you will get hit by each and everyone of them, rendering your Combat Arts less effective
    • Of course there are exceptions to this, but very few. Use your judgement and consult your group members when in doubt
  • The best way to select a mob is to click on it and activate the Auto-Attack. There are a few ways to activate the Auto-Attack
    • Use the Abilities icon Auto-Attack that you can put in a Hot-Bar
    • Use the key "~" on your keyboard which is near the top left on your keyboard (it is configurable)
    • Use any Combat Arts that do damages, this will put you automatically in Auto-Attack
    But there are some other considerations regarding this, while in combat
    • Here we stress the importance of having all the mobs aggro on the Tank, when the current target dies, the next mob that will hit the Tank will be targeted automatically. Then just activate the Auto-Attack if it is not already activated. If this is not the target that you need, just click on the one of your choice
    • Now, if the other mobs are not aggro to the Tank, when the target dies you will have to click on an other mob and activate the Auto-Attack. This can be tricky when you don't have a good view on the combat, or if there are some group members fighting too close. (Though they are not supposed to interfere with your visibility)
  • Never use the tab key to select the mobs
    • The tab key selects anything targetable in a wide area, even harvesting nodes. You might end up bringing a mob in the fight that wasn't even aggro
    • You may use it when you are in a closed area with only the mobs you are fighting but we don't recommend it

• Know that some mobs have Spells/Combat Arts that make you change target. Be aware of this, when it happens just select back the target you were fighting with.

The Healer

The role of the Healer is to keep the Tank alive, to complete the Heroic Opportunity, buff, debuff, and to resurrect members who have fallen in the battle. All the mana of the Healer is reserved for the Tank. If the situation allows it, he/she can heal other members of the group but just enough to keep them alive.

The Healer can participate in the melee but he/she has to make sure to be behind the mobs at all times, just close enough to be able to hit the enemy. Avoid using damaging Spells, especially at the beginning of the fight as it can make you aggro to the mobs. Make sure the tank has the control of the fight. Remember, keep as much mana as possible for the main task.

Prepare your spell before the fight but make sure the tank gets the hate before you do anything otherwise you will be the target. Mobs hate healers, a lot.

Although, the task description of the Healer is rather short, it is not less complicated.

• Learn how your healing Spells work. Some do heal over time, some ward and others are instant.
• Memorize who's associated to which F key (F1 is you, F2 - F6 is the rest of the group members). You don't have time in a fight to browse around for another group member.
• Avoid casting group heals unless very needed. Mobs just hate that.
• Learn to sacrifice a group member to save another. Healers can resurrect during fight when reaching a certain level and other Specialist/Support classes have also this ability.
• Try to figure out when a "Cure Spell" is worth it. These spell use a lot of mana so when you use them against a debuff that lasts only a few second, it's wasted energy.

The DPS

All classes can DPS, some better than others. Typically, Predators, Sorcerers and Brawlers are referred as DPS but many other classes can fairly compete with them. DPS means Damage Per Second, which implies they do a great deal of damage.

They have to target the Tank always, even if the tank is lost for a second. Patience is key to the DPS role. His/her role is not to make the most damages per second as they can, but to do so without stealing aggro from the Tank. This means that DPS should be careful of the Spell/Combat Arts they are using.

When the fight starts, if you are using your most wonderful spell, you will get the aggro. Start progressively and make it a blast afterwards.

Supervise the mobs health: There is no point casting your most damaging spell if the mob is almost dead.

It is very easy to take the aggro when you DPS to your best and if you don't have much avoidance or armor class, it will very likely lead to your death.

Watch your Spells, watch for Area Of Effect and Target Encounter Spells. They will likely get you some aggro if you don't play them wisely.

The Specialist (Support)

The Specialists can fill a variety of roles. They are somewhat not very visible in their role in the group. However, they have abilities that are not found in others. These abilities have a great influence in the outcome of the battle, they can help in many different ways. They can enhance the Skills and Attributes of all the group members, and some have more specific abilities like Crowd Control.

Some of these abilities are strategic. For instance:

• Escape ability: Must be cast at the right time. Make sure your group agrees before a fight on what are the criterias to run away. Once one member his dead, he will not follow the group if an Escape is casted.
• Mezz: This is a powerful ally, if you keep breaking the Mezz by hitting the mobs that are mesmerized, you will loose a great battle advantage.
• Combine classes: Dirge have very good buffs and debuffs that are better used with a warlock and useless with a wizard. There are many other examples.
• Root target: Very useful to slow down the amount of mobs that will run towards the tank but useless if cast too late.

If you play a Specialists/Support role, use those skills first and then think of doing some damage if you have time. Overall, your skills will be more beneficial to the group than any damage you can do. We said that the DPS should always target the tank, for a Specialists/Support class, it can be the other way around. There is no point casting a debuff on a dying mob.