STOP RUNNING IN CIRCLESFollow

I have been tanking my entire eq1 and eq2 career and consider myself pretty damn good at it. My healers are rarely, if ever, attacked, but anyone who has played a tank knows inevitably there will be one of those rare situations when he comes under fire. Unfortunately 1 out of 10 of those healers decides it is a brilliant idea to run in a circle. STOP IT!!!!! You are not doing anybody any good and are making a bad situation worse because running in circles makes it difficult for the tank to target the mob that is on you. As wierd as it may sound a far better solution is to sit there and yell to the tank for help. He can then quickly come over and take the mob off of you. You could even score some tank brownie points and take the mob right to him. These people represent a small minority of casters, but they represent a huge amount of group wipes.

P.S. To all you finger wigglers and Stabbie Mcgee's show some patience. In eq2 your tanks are dealing with 4 mobs and up at a time. Give them a second to get good aggro so clerics don't have to waste mana on healing stupidity.

Facing the mob is not necessicary, but when you target the mob you will automatically face it. Furthermore, some or all tanks have an AE taunt, but this has limited range which means the mob must be near you in order for it to take effect. AE taunt also has a slow repop so your tank will most likely need to target the mob in order to get it off the healer. Generally if the situation has deteriorated to the point that the healer is getting hit it will require more than one taunt to re-establish aggro.

yup, though guardians get an all important rescue taunt, it instantly gets aggro from the mob you have targeted, but the recast time is like 10 min so you have to use it wisely. and yeah..i've pulled aggro from the MT several times from behind the mob when i'm using DW weapons. heh..the more damage ya do, the madder they get.

As a Druid from EQ1 to a Templar in EQ 2 I understand exactly what Baron von jvalle is saying. If nothing else the tank and the healer have to have a understanding of each other in an encounter. The Tank will ultimatly bring that group to its final destination. I think the number one messege I would send to the tanks is that is that it is hard to find a cleric that will stand his/her ground.

I took it as second nature to drag the mob in front of the tank when I was being hit. If I go down he/she will more then likely go down which in effect brings the rest down unless they run/fd etc.....

All instructions should come from the tank first and the templar second. Why do I say that......AOE's in case you have not noticed AOE's from the mob's and group encounters are abundent.

The healer can deal with others taking damage however it takes them off the main source which is that tank.

If you don't understand aggro and gain aggro superiority(spelling) you will fail.

The running thing as a cleric will get you a bad name quick.....The only time I run is when that tank tells me to.....and that is rare. Running is the end all for that encounter. As a cleric we need to let these tanks know we will be there until the last amount of power has been used.

Also in adversity we need to insure that everybody see's that we as clerics do not panic. It is the number 1 killer. Not only that you will as a healer lose all respect.

"Xardas" Level 32 Hailing from Befallen

IN response to Baron.. VERY true (the reputation thing). It was true in EQ1 (i was a cleric) and EQ2 (I am a templar). There are certian tanks (hammerfist on grobb) that I would never turn down a group with, but i do have a list of tanks that just suck. It's either due to power leveling or age.
I know as a healer, if you as the tank think I can do something better or even want me to try a new strat, send me a tell. Never critisize in group/guild/raid chat.
If you run across a good tank, always tell them so.

Yea I love it when you get a wizard who casts a big nuke before the mobs are even close to you. And every time the tank gets blaimed for not doing their job.

Nothing wrong with trying to step back, sometimes just steping back can help get the mob off you, but yea running circles or simply running out of range doesn't help. That is the problem I get is healer is in the red on health and i try to lay of hand them and they run out of range and die. Then before I can go give them a 100% health rez they revive and we wait 10 minutes for them to run back.

It's a habbit, I play a healer in all games, That i can play one in and I have learn after FFXi not to run, If im going to die.. i die? It's the ******* tanks fault.. ^_^

Having played EQ1 for 6 years and EQ2 for half a year (clerics) I can't say I have ever run circles around a tank. Usually I just say "on me" and I expect the tank to use the "F" key corresponding to my name and then the assist key to target the mob. I guess I just take it for granted that everyone realizes how much faster it is to use keyboard commands than the mouse. Also, I do encourage whomever needs a heal badly (is dying) to remain close enough to me to get the heal, so I encourage over nuking wizards to run around me until I can get to their heal. Tank heals are primary, then everybody else. The worst thing is when a tank does not pull back to camp, but starts fighting off somewhere and I see his health bar going down. Or a secondary tank gets bored waiting for the main and goes off and pulls something and doesn't bring it to camp. Organization is the key to any successful group. When fighting with a group STAY TOGETHER! When someone panics and runs, inevitably they die and then we gotta find the corpse. If you are gonna die, die in the camp. I realize they may think they are being heroic ("I got 'em save yourselves!!!"), but really it should be more of a "You go, I go" situation. I have told others to run around me, since I can use the keyboard, but I don't run. I come from the times when we had to sit and look at the book to med to have healing juice. Tanks knew back then that they HAD to come to you. If you were up off your **** then your mana was not regening enough. I guess that is why i hate to chase after people who don't stay with the group. i would rather they run a circle around me than run off though.

Ok, just for the record, I learned to stop running in circles about 5 years ago when my party kept getting wiped out while doing low level Woolies in EQ Classic Everfrost. We'd be grouping one wooly, I'd smack the thing a little to hard, it'd aggro on me and the chase was on...with the end result being the beastie would waste me from behind and the other two or three in my group would be at the bottom of large footprints when I wasn't there to heal. Inexcusable.

In a well organized group, where everyone knows their job, all anyone has to say to the tank is "ON ME!" and continue to do their job...heal(self until tank can recover aggro), buff, debuff...and if the tank is any good, everyone lives. The most important thing is to trust your group. If you don't trust the abilities of someone in your group because you keep getting your butt handed to you, it's time to have a 2 minute heart to heart or quit the group and find another. Most often, all you have to do is take a few minutes and clearly define roles.

During my adventures, I'd say it was a toss up as to who directed the action in any particular encounter. Sometimes it was the Tank. Sometimes it was me, the Shaman. Just remember, the Tank is in the middle of things and can't always see what's going on around the fringes. The Shaman, on the other hand, is usually on or near the fringe of the action and can see just about everything that's going on. That leads me to my five rules for groups...

1. The key to a successful group is communication.
2. In order to communicate well, we must listen as well as speak.
3. People were given two ears and one mouth for a reason; we should listen twice as much as we speak (unfortunately, this doesn't apply online as much because we were given two eyes and ten fingers and people tend to typing much more than they can read...DOH!)
4. Without communication, you might as well spill coke on your keyboard.
5. Did I mention that communication is key?

I was going to rant about twitchy nukers, but...that's a different thread.

Halefryk

YEAH Baron! For Tunare's sake Don't run!! What do you think the gods let us wear plate for anyway? Just those few hits it takes for Mr. Tank to turn around and smack the mob to get it's attention, then all is well.

And for you over nukers, that goes for you too, yes you wear a dress but you run out of range and you're going to trip on the hem and fall because like one of the other posters says, I'm not running after you.

I'm a cleric from EQ1 and was constantly asked for by my guild and others. With a good reputation I'm a cleric/healer in EQ2 as well, with the same reputation.

Baron sounds like a great tank. Though there are sucky tanks out there that caused me to "byot".. yes I brought my own Tank and he "byoh" brough his own healer. People would join us because they knew we did our jobs well.

I only ran when my tank said to, he knew whtat was going down and knew when we were bitting off more than we could chew. And he always stood tall with his thumb in the wall so everyone else could get out. He never gates or logs before I do so if in that precious 20 seconds I get wacked he's there.

So stand tall, don't trip on your dress and take a few dents in that shinny plate armor for the team.

Mikasi's Wife.

I have playing a 70 templar for 3 years. If I become underattack, I run towards the tank and bring the mob to him. Never had a compliant from any tank doing it, and he pulls it off fast.

Running in circles is absolutely stupid.

Now im only 18 but ive been a casual EQ player since the origanal and played 2 since it came out. Dad got me hooked when i was a little rat but dont play much do to school and baseball. ANyways, as a tank i stand my ground and litteraly stand my ground.

If a DPSer pulls agro and runs, chances are he isnt the only one in the group so im not gunna follow. And If you die in camp guess what, there is a rez commin soon as fight ends but if you run off and then revive chances are you'll die on the way back to camp. And thats what i hate the most is fightin my way all the way back through a zone because someone ran off like a 4 year old.

The bottom line is dont run anywhere but right to the tank. Ive played all Pieces of a group and if i can figure it out only being 18, and deffinitaly not the smartest kid in class then everyone should be able to figure it out... its common sense and if you dont have any. Well, you should've learned after your group got wiped the VERY FIRST TIME
:)