My first character in World of Warcraft was a Human Warlock, pre the deathcoil patch and class revamp. So I was a Warlock before the preceived point at which we became over powered. I leveled the vast majority of the way solo and only did a handful of instances before the high 50s. This means that my fighting style was aggressive and nuk 'em. Demonlogy specc'd, I did a lot of drain-tanking to kill mobs. This doesn't work very well when you start questing with groups.
I remember the first time that somone told me to control my aggro I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Do what? Don't go all out damage why?? I mean - they gave me the ability to do this damage, you don't want me to do that? I had little or no experience with Warriors, let alone priests. I was still fighting "every man for him/herself". And too, I expected to get healed. I think in the back of my mind it was suppose to be nothing different from what I'd been doing with the exception that I'd never die because there's a priest in-toe. How wrong. How foolish. I didn't come to WOW completely ignorant of MMOs. I'd leveled an Enchanter in AC2 and messed around a bit in EQ1, before doing my EQ2 Summoner. But in those games the idea of holding back my casting just didn't exist. I was expected to go all out every-single-time. Take it down quick. Take it down fast. All out nuk it with whatever you've got. NOW. This idea of controling my damage was like asking me not to breathe.
It took me a little while to "get it". Most of the time I was thinking, "This priest is a freakin idiot." And wondering, "Why isn't this summofbitch healing me?" No one bothered to really explain until I hit Molten Core. After they did explain to the first time raiders why, it was crystal clear. When you pull aggro off the tank the mob becomes a loss cannon. Besides killing you, it could then turn on the next party member, and the next and so on until we all die. When the priest is wasting time healing you - lil clothier that shouldn't be taking damage, they are not healing the tank, the off-tank and they are consuming precious mana. It only takes wiping a raid once to realize the severity of uncontrolled aggro. Luckily, I pulled it in my younger raid days, but never wiped us. *Whew*
Now an older and wiser player - okay, jaded too, I can spot a non raiding character in the first pull. It's the Mage that casts before the Warrior gets off his first swing, the Rogue that thinks he should attack his "own" target, the Warlock that thinks he/she can tank yet a different target with their pet and the Druid that doesn't break bear form to help heal even as we are all dying. And anyone that is opening corpses while a significant mob is still on us, and I'm barely bringing the tank back from the brink of death because everyone else is looting and not fighting. Yeah noobs - and as a preist, you run across far too many of them.
You forgot the hunter who has his pet on aggressive, aggro-ing everything.
Posted by: Christine | July 07, 2006 at 12:51 PM
Oh yeah. I haven't had many hunters in my groups so far and at least they can withstand a hit or two.
Posted by: Lauren | July 07, 2006 at 04:16 PM