I agree with Debalic 100%. While those witty messages may be cute and all, and can even be a bit fun, I think if you are creating messages just to say something clever, you're waaaaay overdoing it.
I have nothing wrong with saying a message in a clever way though. If you want your Inc message to read: "I've lit a fire under %t's pants! He's coming in and pipping mad!!!", that's all well and good. After all, the group needs to know when an mob in incomming, and this message at least gets that message out.
My problem is that most of those messages listed are completely unesessary, and only server to clutter my chat box an increase the chance that I'll miss a message that really does matter. IMO, there are very very few messages that need to be made *before* an action is done:
Inc messages Need to know before the mob gets here.
CH messages They take long enough that it's nice to know that the cleric's casting a CH and not just asleep.
Assist Me messages Note: This is *not* a message to tell people you are assisting. It's assumed you are assising the MT. Putting a message out saying this is equivalent to putting one out that says you're breathing. It's pointless. This message is for the MT to tell the rest of the group what and when to attack. And even then, in a group with a single mob in camp, it's not really needed either.
That's all of the pre-messages that are needed. There are also a few (but still very few) messages needed after something has happened:
Mob slowed Don't tell me when you're trying to slow a mob. Tell me when you're done. The healers are going to assume the mob is unslowed until you tell them otherwise. Sending out a "slowing %t" message just increases the chance that if you get a resist someone might think you got it off and not heal as hard as needed. Don't do it! Only send a message on a success.
Mob mezzed Same logic applies. I don't really need to know what mob(s) you are mezzing. I need to know when they are mezzed. In a multi-mob situation, the MT should pick a target to attack. Everyone should assist him for that target. No other mob should ever, for any reason, be hit with an effect that will prevent or break mez. Note, that others can root and stun and even taunt mobs if they wish to assist in CC, but they should not attack, nuke, or dot any mobs but the one the MT has identified (via his handy "assist me" message. There's some logic for having a "mezzing %t" message, but only if you have group members that don't now how to work with a chanter in the first place.
Mob rooted Again. Tell me after it's rooted. Even including a "step away from it if you don't want to get hit!" works (and is a message I have on my wiz).
Mob snared Same concept. Tell me when you've got it done. If I don't see a snare message, I'm going to assume one of two things. You either didn't snare it, or you did and you aren't sending a notification (which is fine if you're consistently not sending one. Again. I assume people are doing their jobs).
Other important messages There are others as well that still follow the same logic. If there is a signficant debuff that you're throwing around (I've seen messages for cripples), that may affect how fast heals should land, it's not a terrible idea to put out a message (but again, after it's done). You might also have a message for important failures: (Snared failed!, Slow failed!, etc). Um... Don't use that every time you fail a spell though. Use it if you get several resists in a row, or when the failure is going to noticably affect the group (mob's low on health and you haven't been able to get a snare to stick is a classic example). In some situations, it might also be useful to let the group know when you've dropped a dot on a mob (since that mob can no longer be mezzed).
For the most part, if another group members does not need to modify their actions based on the message you are sending, there is no reason to send it. I don't need to know if you're casting a 100 point heal on me. I'll see the heal message when it lands. I don't need to know that the rogue is attacking the mob from behind, and the ranger is firing away with archery, and the wizard is nuking the mob, and the druid is snaring the mob. All of that is assumed in a group. If you aren't doing that stuff, then why are you here? That's your job. I don't need to know if you're doing your job. I need to know *sometimes* when an important part of your job is done, and I need to know if an important part of your job didn't work. Other then that, don't spam the chat channel with useless information.
You may think this is kinda overreacting. After all, how bad could a few message be? Um... It can be bad, really. Multiply the number of messages you send by the number of people in the group. That's a lot. Now imagine you're on a raid... yeah. Ugly.
Some classes need to carefully watch for various chat messages to do our jobs correctly. The healers need to know when slows and debuffs land. Patchers need to know if the CHer needs a patch to help out. As a paladin tank, I have to watch my own health and time early stuns to keep damage down until a slow lands. Then I watch for CH messages (and my health) to estimate whether I need to chain a stun or two in there to make it till that CH lands. I'm also watching for NPC cast messages so I can interrupt with either a bash or a stun. I can't see that stuff very well if I'm getting 10 pages of spam because every member of the party decided to tell me every detail of their activities.
Don't take this to mean you can't be cutsie with your messages. Just makes sure folks can figure out what your messages mean, and don't send extra uneeded messages just so you can be cute. Um... Also, keep your messages consistent. I've seen folks that literally had banks of different messages to say the exact same thing (usually pull messages, which aren't too bad). I've got one eye on chat, one eye on my health, one eye on other folks healths, one eye on my spell gems, and one eye on the mob and surroundings (good mob positioning is critical to good tanking). Um... I don't have that many eyes. I can recognize a familiar line of text very quickly if I've seen that line over and over throughout the evening, and react to it without having to stop and read the line. If you're changing your messages every few minutes to be cute, it's going to slow down the whole groups reaction time to your message (and you're only supposed to be sending messages that folks will need to react to, right?). Just because you've got an easy job in the group (sit back and nuke, or whatever) does not mean that others aren't really really really busy. Distracting them unecessarily is just a pain in the butt IMO.
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King Nobby wrote:
More words please