While reading this blog, one may often come across the phrase “Main Assist”. You may have even read the lovely articles written on this subject by our very own Vonya. We know what a main assist does: he or she picks the target for the other dps and the tank to focus their aggressions on, making everyone’s job easier, even the healers’ (two wounded mobs do more damage than one healthy mob). But is that really all there is to it?

No. The mantle of MA isn’t one that can be assigned arbitrarily. Not only must you consider class factors (do the mechanics of this person’s class require them to switch targets often to apply CC or other effects), but you must also consider the ability of the player. The tank and other dps rely on the MA to provide them with a primary target in a timely, intelligent fashion. The job of being MA can be just as difficult and nerve wracking (and fun) as tanking or healing. Just like a bad tank or bad healer can ruin an otherwise good group, a bad MA can turn hard pulls into wipes. A good MA plays a large part in pulling a group through difficult battles and large pulls, and in concert with a good tank, creates order from chaos, allowing the team to do things that the average player would consider improbable or even impossible without being ridiculously overgeared. Raid icons, while handy, are no replacement for a skilled MA that can adapt to changing situations.

Not all mobs are created equal. Some are far more dangerous than others, designed specifically to ruin your day, and most of them have some kind of trick up their sleeve. One key component of what makes a good MA is the ability to recognize high threats and prioritize targets so that the most dangerous enemies - which can vary wildly depending on the composition and overall skill of your group compared to the composition of the pull - are taken down early, before they can cause a wipe. Sometimes it’s as simple as “kill the casters first”, but more often it’s not.

In our travels together, we’ve found that not only is the concept of the MA completely alien to many players, but so are the dynamics of prioritizing targets beyond the most rudimentary of guidelines. Further, many of those that do understand the concepts fail to deliver once the pull is engaged - they talk a big game, but fall to pieces when the pressure is on. This is who the MA system is designed for. One skilled player takes on the workload of the entire dps team so that the rest can focus entirely on dealing damage, and all they have to worry about is assisting properly and watching their threat.

As a tank, I have a very different view of each pull than the MA or healer, and will sometimes see things that they do not (and vice versa). Part of the learning process for an MA is communication with the tank and every other group member to learn the damage outputs and tools of every enemy in every pull. And just like tanking, it’s a learning process that never really ends. Adding a particular class or spec that you aren’t used to working with, or even a particular player, can turn your established system on its ear, and a good group has to adapt to that.

In an effort to exercise my own knowledge and possibly arm someone with some new knowledge, I will attempt to break down the various types of enemies encountered, examine their effects on the group, and offer general guidelines for prioritizing them based on the threat they pose.

Stage One

This category is for the most dangerous mobs, designed specifically to throw a wrench into the works and wipe the group. If applicable, it’s always best to CC these and save them for last, else kill them as fast as possible before they wreak too much havoc.

Tank Busters - Any variety of mobs that employ a mechanic that causes them and every other mob to ignore the tank outright, if even for a few seconds. The most dangerous are those that use gouge, scatter shot, or other non-dispellable CC effects. In even a small pull the disablement of the tank can easily kill the healer. Dispellable CC is only slightly less of a worry if you have a dispeller that is on the ball - the mobs will continue to ignore the tank’s threat until the tank does “something” to get their attention again, and even that brief moment can result in deaths.

Controllers - Mobs who employ CC against targets other than the tank, usually some form of polymorph, fear, or mind control. They are all dangerous in that they may target the healer. The fearing subtype is particularly dangerous while fighting near groups of unengaged mobs. The mind controlling subtype is especially dangerous because a significant damage boost is usually given to the controlled individual, allowing certain classes to quickly kill other members of the group.

Mortal Strikers - Any mob that applies a debuff to the tank that reduces the healing received. In smaller pulls they can be demoted to stage two, but in pulls that require a high healing throughput they are exceedingly deadly.

Aggro Droppers - Includes mobs who periodically reduce the threat of their current target, or attack randomly. Though not too much of a problem on their own, as they are seldom immune to taunt, they can become a big problem if there’s more than one or they are accompanied by other stage one types. Best to deal with them quickly.

Healers - Usually more of a nuisance than anything, but combined with other stage one and two types, can severely tax the group’s resources. If you happen to have a tank or dpser who is skilled at using interrupts on off targets, these can be demoted to stage two in multiples, and stage three if they are the only healer in the pull.

AOE - Any form of 360 degree punishment that is spammed relentlessly or devastatingly powerful. They come in both melee and ranged varieties, and can vary from deadly to insignificant depending on your group composition. Obviously, a melee range AOE attack is a small threat if you have no melee dps. Cleave is not included in this category, since any melee that isn’t retarded should be able to avoid cleaves after positioning, as long as the tank isn’t dancing in circles.

Stage Two

Mobs that are designed to be extra hard on the healer and tank fall here. CC is debatable, depending on the composition of the pull and your groups’ gear and ability.

Glass Cannons - If it does a ton of damage but dies really fast, it’s a glass cannon. They’re usually casters, but not always. Left unchecked, they can be a heavy drain on the healer’s mana bar, but aren’t otherwise too much of a threat unless there’s a group of them. Since they die so fast, it’s usually best to kill them ASAP.

Monster Trucks - Heavy hitters with high health. They’re usually melee types, and thankfully tend to come in single or double pulls, but not always. In the right situations they can drop a tank in the blink of an eye, especially if the tank is undergeared. They also tend to be immune to most forms of CC.

Intimidators - Since the nerfs to aggro mechanics in relation to fear and the following nerfs to NPC versions of Intimidating Shout, these guys aren’t quite the threat they used to be. However, aside from the risks of the feared group running into adds, a feared tank generates no threat and loses a significant portion of their mitigation, making them a considerable danger in larger pulls.

Stunners - Knockdowns and regular old stuns. Like fear, the tank loses all avoidance while stunned, and taking multiple stuns back to back can put a serious damper on their threat generation. More annoying than anything, but can cause some squirrely aggro if you throw a couple of them into a decent size pull, unless your tank is a paladin, in which case they can be demoted to stage three.

Buffers and Debuffers - Whether they increase the attack power of surrounding mobs or slow the attack speed of your melee dps, these guys decrease your group’s power relative to theirs. They tend to be vanilla aside from their one trick, but that one trick may be the catalyst of your demise in a close match. Some of these can become stage one threats, depending on a number of factors. For instance, if your tank is a paladin and your healer a druid, Silencers with a long duration silence can be quite troublesome.

Stage Three

Those mobs that don’t have any tricks. There’s usually at least one in every pull. Depending on the composition of the pull, you may even wish to CC these and take care of the truly dangerous opponents first. Some varieties of stage one and stage two mobs lose their bite when they don’t have the extra damage of the stage threes (who are very seldom immune to any type of CC) to make their tricks lethal.

Casters - Your tank cannot mitigate magic damage as well as physical damage, so as a general rule, offensive casters should die before other stage three types.

Ranged - Using bows or guns or other non-magic ranged damage. They’ll run away if your tank is stunned or otherwise held in place, sometimes into the range of another group of mobs. They can be annoying to reposition when they do this, but are otherwise harmless.

Melee - Just cannon fodder.

Mopping Up

If the situation has dictated the use of CC, then there still remains the question of “Which one do we kill first?”. Think ahead so that there is no delay between the last active mob hitting the floor and breaking the first CC. Leave the breaking to the tank though, preferably with a high threat maneuver preceded by a taunt if applicable. You may even wish to leave it up to the tank to choose, just to avoid accidents. However you choose to go about it, CCs have priorities as well, and a little coordination between the MA and the tanks, whether through verbal communication or a simple understanding, can go a long way.

Sapped - Being a nonrenewable CC, sapped mobs will usually take the highest priority. Rogues can delay them for a few more seconds with blind if necessary, but in any case, if it hasn’t broken yet, it’s about to.

Mind Controlled - When used as CC, there is a constant danger of mind control breaking early, and when it does, the priest who cast it is in for a beating. The 3 second cast time can make it difficult to refresh in the event of a resisted taunt. Best to deal with it before it deals with you.

Seduced - Seduction can be unreliable at times, and the high mana cost gives it somewhat limited renewability. As it is a channeled spell, killing the seduced target before other CCs will free up the succubus to contribute some damage, if nothing else.

Trapped - Pretty reliable and renewable, depending on the hunter’s skill and spec. Extended trapping runs the risk of resists, however, and the long cooldown means the mob will run rampant and possibly kill the hunter before it is under control.

Banished - Very reliable and renewable, with one catch: the warlock cannot apply a new banish on the target until the old one has worn off. Sometimes nasty things can happen in that window. For this reason, banished targets should take precedence over polymorphed targets in most cases.

Feared - Utilized properly, fear can keep a mob locked down indefinitely with little risk.

Polymorphed - The most reliable and renewable form of CC, these can usually be saved for last.

The priorities I’ve listed here are a general guide. Every pull can have a different interpretation depending on the group. For example, the wise paladin may choose to tank a gouging mob without actually facing it, accepting the extra damage to allow the group to deal with other dangers first.

The hallmark of a good MA, and a good group in general, is one that can weigh these minutiae in an instant, even in the middle of a chaotic fight, and change their strategy on the fly in the event of disaster (adds, death of a CCer or tank, etc). Every pull has its own quirks, and many mobs have unique abilities that can give them their own special priority. It’s everyone’s job to be familiar with these dangers, but it’s the Main Assist’s job to help them safely navigate their way through each fight.

A group or raid that can depend on their MA to pick the right target on time, every time, is a more relaxed team that will make fewer mistakes, clear instances faster and more efficiently, and have more fun.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 and is filed under DPSers, General Info, Tanks, ~ Aensu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.