I'm trying...but very confusedFollow

druids have been known to overnuke (doing too much damage too fast) and get agro from the mob , then quickly die when the mob starts beating on them . use a couple of smaller nukes while the tank builds up agro and the dps folks take the mob down to about 75% of it's health and then start to fire the big guns .

If you didnt actually take agro at any time then they were making a big fuss over nothing unless you were supposed to be the mail healer , in which case you should have saved your mana for heals .

i cant think of any other reasons to yell at someone for doing their job

Well you should wait before bombing anything until the tank has substantial agro...meaning the monster hates him the most and won't hate anyone else more then him(75% is a safe bet). Did anyone die? If not you prolly had a healer so that wasn't it...did you get hit alot after nukes? if so you need to give your tank more time to get agro. Some terms for positions in groups that might be helpful to you(MH = Main Healer if they say your mh get your heals ready that's all you'll be doing)(MT = Main tank he's gonna take all the damage)(MA = Main assist this is the guy your gonna assist on making kills, whatever he's fighting your fighting) Thats really all you'll need to know until higher levels. For druid get used to terms MH and MA.

If they were expecting you to "get in there and fight" as you put it then either they are complete idiots or they mistook you for a ranger.

I find it a little bit sad that people can reach 29 and still be unsure what they or others are supposed to be doing in a group.

As an earlier reply said, if you are at all unsure of your role in a group, ask.

Part of this is knowing the classes of the other players. If there is a ranger check which of you is doing the snaring (him preferably). Who is doing the healing, who is the MA etc, etc. If the group has made a mistake then it is better to find out immediately than in the middle of a fight.

I once got invited to a group as a healer when my best heal was 10hp. I told them straight away. Better to lose the group than get everyone killed because some nitwit thinks paladins can heal groups at level 12.

In looking over this thread, it appears to me that this is what happened - your spells did enough damage to the target that you got agro away from the main tank (agro refers to who the target feels is causing it the most harm and as a result will focus its attacks on that person until someone else does something to gain agro (attention) back).

In a group, the idea is to have the Main Tank keep agro for a couple of reasons - first that is their job and they should have enough AC/hps to withstand it, second reason is that if someone else gets agro, the mob will move off to attack them, which means that everyone will have to chase target (bad if you have a rogue trying to backstab or if the pathing to you pulls in an add), third it is much more efficient for the main healer to only have to worry about healing the Main Tank and grabbing agro likely means casting heals on you, Fourth potential problem is that by grabbing agro, the mob may hit you and then go hit someone else (like a sitting caster who is medding) which tends to get everyone running around and makes targeting difficult.

Note that nuking along with healing can grab agro, and most nukers do not cast their bigger spells until the target is down at least 50% (75% is better) - if you are nuking, it should be to finish off the mob and not establish early damage (damage over time spells cause less agro and work better early).

A real key to being a good group player is to understand your role in this particular group (since it changes depending on makeup) - if you were the main healer (likely if there was no cleric in group), then your job is to heal others and not nuke.

In this case, for example, the group is counting on you to keep them healed, not do damage. If you did have a cleric, then nuking is ok, likely just doing it to early.

Learning how to fit in and how best to help your group will pay big dividends in finding long term groups. Good Luck and keep learning.

I'm not saying this in a mean context, so please don't take it that way, but I've got to know:

How long does it take to reach level 29 if you don't know what 'agro' is?

I KNOW there are huge gaps in my EQ education, but I thought that this was something everyone picked up on, so I'm curious about the road you took to reach level 29.

A druid can get to 29 easily with out grouping very often, if at all...

Ok. Several issues that could be the problem here. The first is that you need to understand what different classes do in a group. That will change what you should be doing. I'll get back to that though.


It's important to understand *why* folks were angry at you. When you nuked, were you taking damage afterwards? If so, then that is the agro issue people were talking about. Agro is a kind of mutilated form of "aggression", meaning getting a mob mad at you. Mobs (that's MuD talk for enemies in this case, not a "mob" of monsters) will have to pick a single person to attack. They do this by keeping an "agro list", which includes everyone they are mad at, and how mad they are at each person. If you're at the top of the list, the mob will attack you. Every action you take within range around the mob will affect this list. Healing a friend, attacking another mob (in some cases) attacking that mob, and casting spells against that mob. Spells tend to generate more agro them melee damage, which is why you want to wait before attacking.


Another critical concept is Crowd Control (CC). The basic premise is that you never want the group to take damage from more then one mob at a time. There are numerous spells that can be used for this. Root is a common one. Root will stick the mob's feet to the ground and prevent it from moving. If it's a melee mob, that means it cant attack unless someone is standing right next to it (so move away from a rooted mob). Another form of CC is the "mez" (lots of different varients of this line of spells). Basically, this causes the mob to go into a trance (he's "mesmerized"). While mezzed, he'll just sit there and do nothing. You can stand right next to him and he'll ignore you. However, if the mob takes even a single point of damage, the mez will break and he'll continue attaking whoever's on the top of his agro list.


The final major concept is assisting. What this means is that there will be a designated character in the group who will pick a target to attack. The idea is that if you have multiple mobs in combat, you will kill them faster and take less damage if everyone concentrates on one mob at a time, kill it, then move to the next mob. The person you should be assisting is called the "Main Assist" (MA). In a single group, this should also always be the "Main Tank" (MT). The reason for this is simple. The MT's job is to attack a mob and make sure he stays at the top of that mobs agro list (that way he's "tanking" instead of anyone else). If the MT is going to be attacking a mob anyway, you may as well have him be the MA as well since attacking any mob other then his means the group is fighting two mobs (and taking damage from two mobs, which breaks the CC rule above).


Thus, you want to "assist" the MA/MT. This does not mean "help out", like you may think. There is a command in EQ called /assist. If you target someone and type that command, your target will automatically change to match the target that that person has targeted. So if your MA is currently targeting a particular mob (which he should be), then when you type /assist, you will also be targeting that same mob. You can also add a name after the command ("/assist <tank's name>") and that will automatically aquire that person's target no matter who you are currently looking at. I would *strongly* suggest making two hotkeys. One should just have the command "/assist", in it. That way you can use it freely to toggle back and forth between someone and their target. I would also create a hotkey called MA, with the command "/assist <name>" in it. <Name> can be anything initially. The idea is that when you join a group, find out who the MA will be, then edit the hotkey and put that perons name into the command. Now, when a mob is in camp, all you need to do is just hit the button and you'll automatically target the correct mob. In many cases, the MA/MT will "call for assist". If so, that's when you should hit the button (and when it's ok to start attacking). Sometimes, they don't need to call for assist (there's only one mob in camp). Use your judgement as to when it's safe to start attacking...


Knowing these concepts, there are a few specific applications you need to worry about. First off, you need to understand how certain of your spells work (you can look up the descriptions of your seplls at castersrealm.com , or the spells lists on this site). There are several basic "damage" type spells that druids get (I play a wizard, so someone correct me if there's something different with druids).

Nukes These are spells that simply do direct damage (DD) to a single target.

Dots Stands for "damage over time". Every six seconds this spell will do a set amount of damage to the mob.

AE "Area Effect". Same as a nuke except it hits multiple targets at the same time. Usually hits a limit of 3 or 4 targets at a time no matter how many are in the actual area of effect.

Rain These spells hit multiple targets, but does the damage in "waves". You'll see up to 3 waves of effect. Can hit up to 3 targets in the area around where your target is. Will only actually do 4 "instances" instances of damage though, spread out across up to 3 targets in up to 3 waves. So a single target will take one hit of each wave for a total of 3 hits. Two targets will each take a hit on two successive waves for a total of 4 hits. Three targets will each take one hit on the first wave, and one will take a hit on the second. 4 or more targets are treated just like three with the three affected (and the final one hit on the second wave) determined randomly.

PB AE This stands for "point blank AE". What this does is hit *every* enemy within a short radius. However, this is a no range spell. No matter what you have targeted, the damage radiates out from you. You can hit any number of targets though.



How to use these? This depends on the group you are in and the CC tactics being used. If you have someone in your group using a mez spell, you should *never* use AE, rains, or PBAE spells. They affect multiple targets and will wake up the mobs that are mezzed (which will **** of the mezzer quite a bit since mez generates a lot of agro and he'll likely be the one getting beat on when mez breaks). Classes that can use mez spells are chanters, necros, and bards. If you have one of those in your group, pay attention to their messages. If they say they've "mezzed a target", don't use any AEs. Heck, to be safe, don't even load them. Odds are you'll just do more harm to your own group then good.


Dot's are questionable if you've got a mezzer as well. A doted mob cannot be mezzed (since he'll take damage a few seconds later and mez will break). If you are absolutely confident that the MA has selected a target and will not need to change that target, you can probably use a dot. I'd just stick with DDs (nukes). They're safer since they hit just one target, and do all their damage at once.


If you are using root for CC, you *might* be able to use rains or AEs. That's really iffy though. For them to work, you'd need to have the rooted mobs next to the other mobs you are fighting. Most often you'll want to root mobs out of melee range so they aren't hitting anyone, so this usually wont work.

In some groups, you'll use an "offtank" for adds (more then one mob). In that case you can *cautiously* use AEs. I recomend rains simply because they are most efficient against two targets and two is the most likely number of mobs that will be offtanked (most groups don't have more then 2 characters that can tank anyway).


In all cases, be aware of agro. Learn how long you need to wait before dropping that nuke on the mob. Always wait until the MA/MT has engaged and the health of the mob has dropped some level before nuking (how much will be up to you to figure out). You do not want to grab agro off the MT. If you do, the mob will run away from where it is and over to where you are. This means that everyone else has to run over and get the mob back. This wastes time and swings on the mob. Additionally, you're not nearly as tough as the tank will be so you are wasting the healers mana (you'll take more damage in a couple swings then the tank might take in 10).


It's a lot to learn, but for the most part, if you just make and use your assist keys, and just stick to assisting the MA/MT and dropping nukes on his target as needed, then you'll do fine in terms of not ******** up any CC, and not getting any agro.

Heh. Also keep track of people's health in group and heal them as needed. But that's kinda easy... :)

Very well done gbaji *claps*

I never knew about the /assist command. Then again I never really needed it because I'm usually the main tank anyways.

However if my perception is wrong and it turns out I do need it, please tell me. I am eager to learn

I did wonder if this was the problem of the OP. It isn't clear but the comment



made me wonder if it was not the nuking itself but the choice of target that caused the problem.

The comment reminded me of a trip to Droga before they uprated it when the druid consistently, conscientiously and methodically DoTted each and every mezzed mob. He gave much the same kind of comment when shouted at.

If it was then the "learned treatise" will have given the answers they needed.