Post by Galeforce on May 6, 2011 18:10:16 GMT -5
There is a Massively article on teaming currently linked on the news section of the CO main web page. This reminded me of a guide to teaming that I wrote last year. I have reprinted it here and have tried to update it a little to cover some of the more recent changes. I'll look over it a bit more later and try to make some adjustments if I see any that may be needed. Please let me know if you see anything in this guide that needs to be updated, but remember that this guide only covers the bare basics of teaming.
Teaming 101
Good teaming tactics are essential to success as a team in any game. CO is no exception to this rule. In fact, it may be the one game where good team tactics are paramount. Not that teaming is a complete necessity in CO except for certain instances but if you are going to team, you need to keep certain things in mind. This guide is tailored to CO but the basic concepts contained herein will serve well in any game. Much stated here has been stated a thousand times in a thousand guides for various games. Some of it is actually original material compiled by me. All of it makes the following assumptions: That a full and balanced team made up of a tank, a healer, and DPSers is being used; That the game being played is Champions Online.
First off, and arguably the most important, the healer's job is to keep you alive through slightly more than you would be able to do normally. It is not the healer's job to save you if you decide to aggro everything in three zones. It is doubtful that any healer can pump out that much healing and if he tries, he is going to draw more aggro than you are and get killed himself, leaving you to deal with the results. or vice versa if he is not able to keep up with the damage to you and you die leaving him with the aggro. This is true in every game that I have ever played.
So, how do you avoid the situation described above? By exercising good team tactics.
If you have a tank on your team... Let the tank go first. Allow the tank to draw aggro and get the mobs good and angry with him before the rest of the party starts in. This way the tank can (hopefully) keep the aggro and the healer can focus all his attention on keeping the tank alive while the rest of the party kills the bad guys. There are exceptions to the "Let the tank go first" rule but that is under advanced tactics. This is the basics class where the motto is "Keep It Simple Stupid."
Tanks:
Be in Protector mode. You generate more aggro and have better defenses but deal less damage. If you do not have Presence superstatted, have an alternate equipment setup for when you are grouping that has Presence heavy stats. This lets you generate even more aggro in Protector mode. Remember, you are not working alone here. You do not need the big bonuses to damage because that is what the DPS crew is for and, while the defense bonuses are still good to have, they are not as important as they are while soloing because of the healer standing behind you.
If you are the tank and are used to a highly mobile fighting style, keep in mind the position of the healer. Many of the healer's high powered heals root the healer in place during the casting. If you go outside of his range, you will not be healed until he can catch up to you. Having the healer run to catch up to you may expose the healer to dangers that will force him to heal himself rather than you. This is what is known as "a bad thing." If the healer is healing himself just to stay alive, he is neither healing you nor harming the enemy and probably fighting a losing battle. Also keep in mind the position of your damage dealers. They can deal more damage than you but, like the healer, many of their big damage dealing powers root them in place to either charge or maintain the powers. If you draw the enemy out of their range, they can't do their job. Also, unless absolutely necessary or unavoidable, do not aggro more mobs that you would normally be able to deal with solo. If it is necessary or unavoidable, draw as few of the mobs as possible. This makes things easier on everybody, yourself included. (And yes, for Serpent Lantern, this means not aggroing the Checkpoint Commanders until everything else in the area is dead.)
A moderately high level of aggro is best to maintain. Keep a few of your highest aggro generating powers in reserve in case you lose control of some of the mobs. This way, if one of the other members of your party accidentally generates more aggro than you, you can ramp up your aggro to compensate. (This is actually old information from when many of the best aggro powers had long cooldowns on them. New updates have removed or reduced many of the cooldowns to allow these powers to be used more frequently.)
There are threat specific advantages that a tank will need to take to be effective at generating and holding aggro. Crippling Challenge and Challenging Strikes will allow a power to generate more aggro than the power would normally and they also have specific effects that are very beneficial to teaming, such as damage debuffs and forced targetting.
Here's one common misconception about tanking, especially in CO: Blocking is not tanking. While you are blocking, you are dealing no damage and therefore generating no aggro. Only block when you see your opponent winding up one of his big attacks which are indicated by a symbol over his head. At all other times you should be hitting your opponents with aggro causing attacks. Blocking all the time and only opening up for the occasional attack is turtling and will not maintain aggro. Let your healer heal you and you keep up the attack.
One last bit for tanks... The healer's job is to HELP keep you alive. Be smart, you have certain recovery methods available to you such as healing patches and powers like Resurgence. Use them just as if you were soloing. Being in Protector mode decreases your damage dealing but self buffs remain as strong as ever. Do not take your healer for granted. Also, keep an eye on your healer's health as well as your own. If he starts being attacked, find his attacker and draw aggro off him. He is your emergency lifeline.
DPS:
Be in Avenger mode. This lets you generate more damage and less aggro but weakens your defenses. The weakened defenses should not be a problem if you will let the tank do his job. If you do not have Presence superstatted, have an alternate, Presence heavy, equipment setup. Higher Presence allows you to generate less aggro in Avenger mode, making the tank's job easier. You will not need as big of bonuses to other stats as you would soloing because with the tank/healer combo at work, you should be able to focus your attention on dealing as much damage as possible to take down the enemies.
If you are one of the damage dealers, keep in mind the aggro being generated by the tank and the aggro being generated by you. In some games this is easily done with damage and aggro meters that display relative aggro levels and allow you to tailor your damage output to let the tank keep control. In CO, this is a bit more difficult. There are no damage or aggro meters available beyond the target's current health level and current target. Watch the target's target box. If your picture pops up, you are generating too much aggro for the tank to compensate for. At this point, hopefully the tank will realize that he is not in control of the mob and use his highest aggro powers to regain control.
AOE or Area of Effect powers are a very good way to get yourself (and possibly the rest of your team) killed in group combat. Tanks are usually focusing their aggro on one opponent with the other opponents around him getting less aggro generated on them. If you rain a hail of arrows down on the area, the other mobs will see you as the big threat and proceed to give you a very bad day. The healer is most likely focusing on keeping the tank alive and with your lowered defenses from being in Avenger mode, you are going down fast. To avoid this, use single target powers and have your party's tank hotkeyed as a target. Target your tank then target his target and blast away as that is where the vast majority of the tank's aggro is focused. In CO, this is one step easier because there is an option in the controls area to "Assist target on attack." With this turned on (which it is by default), if you target your party's tank and press an attack button, you should automatically attack his target.
One last note to DPSers, keep an eye on your team healer. If you see he is being attacked, take out whatever is attacking him FAST. If your healer dies, the tank may very well follow then you are next on the menu.
Healers:
Be in Sentinel mode. As with the DPS crew, this lets you generate more healing and less aggro but weakens your defenses. The weakened defenses should not be a problem if you will let the tank do his job. If you do not have Presence superstatted, have an alternate, Presence heavy, equipment setup. Higher Presence allows you to generate less aggro in Sentinel mode, making the tank's job easier. Additionally Presence is the stat that directly affects healing. If you are planning to be a dedicated healer, you should already have Presence superstatted. You will not need as big of bonuses to other stats as you would soloing because the tank should be able to maintain aggro while you heal him.
Much of the advice to the DPS crew applies to healers as well. Just remember, you do not have to keep your tank at full health unless you are facing a boss capable of killing him with one shot if he is not at full health. Pay attention to your tank above all else. If one of your DPS crew is too gung ho and draws aggro off the tank, let him die. Hopefully he will learn from his mistake. If your tank is able to withstand the damage he is taking without a great deal of help from you, switch to targeting his target and help the DPS crew finish off the beasties even faster. If you do so, however, keep an eye on your tank. If his health starts dropping, switch back to healing him at once.
Teamwork:
Strangely enough being in a team actually requires teamwork. I know, that seems like a radical concept but there it is. Rushing headlong into as many enemies as possible and expecting the healer to keep you alive is not teamwork. There's another word for that kind of tactic but I'm going to be polite here and call it... unwise. Being in a team demands a system of trade offs. A successful team does not depend solely on the tank or the healer or the DPSers. The tank has to generate a certain level of aggro and is within his right to expect his teammates not to overdo it. DPSers have to deal their damage to the enemy without drawing too much aggro onto themselves, sometimes this means backing off a bit to let the tank reassert control. The healer has to help keep the tank alive and is within his rights to expect the tank not to draw him into situations beyond his ability to reasonably heal. He is also within his rights to expect the DPS crew to watch his back and take out anything that may decide he is a sweet treat. No one in the team should be operating at 100% efficiency, but five people working at 80% to 90% efficiency and doing so as a unit are FAR more powerful than one or two people at 100%.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome. Remember this particular guide covers only the basics. If you see something basic that I left out, please let me know.
Teaming 101
Good teaming tactics are essential to success as a team in any game. CO is no exception to this rule. In fact, it may be the one game where good team tactics are paramount. Not that teaming is a complete necessity in CO except for certain instances but if you are going to team, you need to keep certain things in mind. This guide is tailored to CO but the basic concepts contained herein will serve well in any game. Much stated here has been stated a thousand times in a thousand guides for various games. Some of it is actually original material compiled by me. All of it makes the following assumptions: That a full and balanced team made up of a tank, a healer, and DPSers is being used; That the game being played is Champions Online.
First off, and arguably the most important, the healer's job is to keep you alive through slightly more than you would be able to do normally. It is not the healer's job to save you if you decide to aggro everything in three zones. It is doubtful that any healer can pump out that much healing and if he tries, he is going to draw more aggro than you are and get killed himself, leaving you to deal with the results. or vice versa if he is not able to keep up with the damage to you and you die leaving him with the aggro. This is true in every game that I have ever played.
So, how do you avoid the situation described above? By exercising good team tactics.
If you have a tank on your team... Let the tank go first. Allow the tank to draw aggro and get the mobs good and angry with him before the rest of the party starts in. This way the tank can (hopefully) keep the aggro and the healer can focus all his attention on keeping the tank alive while the rest of the party kills the bad guys. There are exceptions to the "Let the tank go first" rule but that is under advanced tactics. This is the basics class where the motto is "Keep It Simple Stupid."
Tanks:
Be in Protector mode. You generate more aggro and have better defenses but deal less damage. If you do not have Presence superstatted, have an alternate equipment setup for when you are grouping that has Presence heavy stats. This lets you generate even more aggro in Protector mode. Remember, you are not working alone here. You do not need the big bonuses to damage because that is what the DPS crew is for and, while the defense bonuses are still good to have, they are not as important as they are while soloing because of the healer standing behind you.
If you are the tank and are used to a highly mobile fighting style, keep in mind the position of the healer. Many of the healer's high powered heals root the healer in place during the casting. If you go outside of his range, you will not be healed until he can catch up to you. Having the healer run to catch up to you may expose the healer to dangers that will force him to heal himself rather than you. This is what is known as "a bad thing." If the healer is healing himself just to stay alive, he is neither healing you nor harming the enemy and probably fighting a losing battle. Also keep in mind the position of your damage dealers. They can deal more damage than you but, like the healer, many of their big damage dealing powers root them in place to either charge or maintain the powers. If you draw the enemy out of their range, they can't do their job. Also, unless absolutely necessary or unavoidable, do not aggro more mobs that you would normally be able to deal with solo. If it is necessary or unavoidable, draw as few of the mobs as possible. This makes things easier on everybody, yourself included. (And yes, for Serpent Lantern, this means not aggroing the Checkpoint Commanders until everything else in the area is dead.)
A moderately high level of aggro is best to maintain. Keep a few of your highest aggro generating powers in reserve in case you lose control of some of the mobs. This way, if one of the other members of your party accidentally generates more aggro than you, you can ramp up your aggro to compensate. (This is actually old information from when many of the best aggro powers had long cooldowns on them. New updates have removed or reduced many of the cooldowns to allow these powers to be used more frequently.)
There are threat specific advantages that a tank will need to take to be effective at generating and holding aggro. Crippling Challenge and Challenging Strikes will allow a power to generate more aggro than the power would normally and they also have specific effects that are very beneficial to teaming, such as damage debuffs and forced targetting.
Here's one common misconception about tanking, especially in CO: Blocking is not tanking. While you are blocking, you are dealing no damage and therefore generating no aggro. Only block when you see your opponent winding up one of his big attacks which are indicated by a symbol over his head. At all other times you should be hitting your opponents with aggro causing attacks. Blocking all the time and only opening up for the occasional attack is turtling and will not maintain aggro. Let your healer heal you and you keep up the attack.
One last bit for tanks... The healer's job is to HELP keep you alive. Be smart, you have certain recovery methods available to you such as healing patches and powers like Resurgence. Use them just as if you were soloing. Being in Protector mode decreases your damage dealing but self buffs remain as strong as ever. Do not take your healer for granted. Also, keep an eye on your healer's health as well as your own. If he starts being attacked, find his attacker and draw aggro off him. He is your emergency lifeline.
DPS:
Be in Avenger mode. This lets you generate more damage and less aggro but weakens your defenses. The weakened defenses should not be a problem if you will let the tank do his job. If you do not have Presence superstatted, have an alternate, Presence heavy, equipment setup. Higher Presence allows you to generate less aggro in Avenger mode, making the tank's job easier. You will not need as big of bonuses to other stats as you would soloing because with the tank/healer combo at work, you should be able to focus your attention on dealing as much damage as possible to take down the enemies.
If you are one of the damage dealers, keep in mind the aggro being generated by the tank and the aggro being generated by you. In some games this is easily done with damage and aggro meters that display relative aggro levels and allow you to tailor your damage output to let the tank keep control. In CO, this is a bit more difficult. There are no damage or aggro meters available beyond the target's current health level and current target. Watch the target's target box. If your picture pops up, you are generating too much aggro for the tank to compensate for. At this point, hopefully the tank will realize that he is not in control of the mob and use his highest aggro powers to regain control.
AOE or Area of Effect powers are a very good way to get yourself (and possibly the rest of your team) killed in group combat. Tanks are usually focusing their aggro on one opponent with the other opponents around him getting less aggro generated on them. If you rain a hail of arrows down on the area, the other mobs will see you as the big threat and proceed to give you a very bad day. The healer is most likely focusing on keeping the tank alive and with your lowered defenses from being in Avenger mode, you are going down fast. To avoid this, use single target powers and have your party's tank hotkeyed as a target. Target your tank then target his target and blast away as that is where the vast majority of the tank's aggro is focused. In CO, this is one step easier because there is an option in the controls area to "Assist target on attack." With this turned on (which it is by default), if you target your party's tank and press an attack button, you should automatically attack his target.
One last note to DPSers, keep an eye on your team healer. If you see he is being attacked, take out whatever is attacking him FAST. If your healer dies, the tank may very well follow then you are next on the menu.
Healers:
Be in Sentinel mode. As with the DPS crew, this lets you generate more healing and less aggro but weakens your defenses. The weakened defenses should not be a problem if you will let the tank do his job. If you do not have Presence superstatted, have an alternate, Presence heavy, equipment setup. Higher Presence allows you to generate less aggro in Sentinel mode, making the tank's job easier. Additionally Presence is the stat that directly affects healing. If you are planning to be a dedicated healer, you should already have Presence superstatted. You will not need as big of bonuses to other stats as you would soloing because the tank should be able to maintain aggro while you heal him.
Much of the advice to the DPS crew applies to healers as well. Just remember, you do not have to keep your tank at full health unless you are facing a boss capable of killing him with one shot if he is not at full health. Pay attention to your tank above all else. If one of your DPS crew is too gung ho and draws aggro off the tank, let him die. Hopefully he will learn from his mistake. If your tank is able to withstand the damage he is taking without a great deal of help from you, switch to targeting his target and help the DPS crew finish off the beasties even faster. If you do so, however, keep an eye on your tank. If his health starts dropping, switch back to healing him at once.
Teamwork:
Strangely enough being in a team actually requires teamwork. I know, that seems like a radical concept but there it is. Rushing headlong into as many enemies as possible and expecting the healer to keep you alive is not teamwork. There's another word for that kind of tactic but I'm going to be polite here and call it... unwise. Being in a team demands a system of trade offs. A successful team does not depend solely on the tank or the healer or the DPSers. The tank has to generate a certain level of aggro and is within his right to expect his teammates not to overdo it. DPSers have to deal their damage to the enemy without drawing too much aggro onto themselves, sometimes this means backing off a bit to let the tank reassert control. The healer has to help keep the tank alive and is within his rights to expect the tank not to draw him into situations beyond his ability to reasonably heal. He is also within his rights to expect the DPS crew to watch his back and take out anything that may decide he is a sweet treat. No one in the team should be operating at 100% efficiency, but five people working at 80% to 90% efficiency and doing so as a unit are FAR more powerful than one or two people at 100%.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome. Remember this particular guide covers only the basics. If you see something basic that I left out, please let me know.