So I'm sure this will get moved but I decided to ask in TLP forum in case anything about my question may be different with a TLP. I have been a pulling machine for the last 38 lvls and always getting compliments and thank yous after grouping, then I moved from Assas/Sup area to Cav/sav/exec...oh boy.... So group was Monk (me), Cleric, Shadowknight, Bard, Enchanter, and Rogue. I tried to pull exec room, got everything, laid down...seems the higher I get the longer I have to wait for agro to reset, the mobs seem much more on edge and back track with agro quickly if I pop up as the adds run away from the targets that are left standing over me...this correct so far? Then twice I made large room pulls to split 4-6 mobs, but even when I timed my FD right after wizard nukes I could not shake them, was rooted, was dead sooo quick....I have not died but maybe 3 times in 38 levels and I dropped 3 times in maybe 30 minutes. Had a bard in group with songs running so I know if I FD that'll switch agro to them which is no good either but it wouldn't keep me from properly FD would it? I am just irritated because I don't understand what changed suddenly. I am guessing most those people left with the impression they'd rather not have me pulling for them, and I love the fact that I bring chain pulling, FD splitting, and non stop rains of exp to groups...but...I hit that lguk camp and man, I just butchered everything. Am I missing something, how come I just ate crap on all my FD back to back...is there something I'm missing? If anyone knows where I can find some guides to old school classic FD pulling, please post them and toss me any advice you may have. I know it was one bad experience but I am trying to build a good rep as puller/dps. Tonight did not help my cause, of course, maybe ive just had it easy till almost lvl 40 and now the real monks with skill outclass the rest, maybe I am the rest. Thanks in advance, can anyone relate at certain points or am I maybe just realizing that this may be way more complicated then what it seemed at first?
Well you're not splitting anything in range of the bard who's playing songs first of all, so tell him to shut them off when you're trying to split. You are correct about agro and higher levels. They don't instantly forget you after the mid 30s or something. As far as casters go, get out of line of sight on them before you flop and have a window with spells going to it so you can watch them cast. edit: unless you're intimately aware of the pathing and spawns a camp/zone you're mostly going to need a buddy to tag the pulls off your flop that you want to split. Especially in tight quarters. edit2: audio trigger your flop fails
Make sure you get a magic resist buff when pulling in LGuk. Roots are nasty. Mobs level 35+ are not guaranteed to lose aggro right away after a successful FD. Sometimes they lose it instantly, sometimes they lose it when they path back to their original spawn point, and sometimes you have to wait for the "your enemies have forgotten you" message. It's good to use an audio trigger on that message in addition to your FD fail message. When pulling casters, even if you FD the moment a spell hits you, they'll often have already started another spell which will break your successful FD. Your only defenses are your resists and using line of sight to hide from their next spell. In the exact group you described, it's probably a lot easier to split the exec room if your bard/chanter/cleric is high enough level to land pacify on just 2 or 3 of the mobs in the room. Monk splitting with very little space against 5 mobs including casters is just generally more dangerous. Also unless your enchanter is super under leveled just pulling the entire room and AE mezzing should work fine. Don't be afraid to just say "incoming some" and pull the entire room as long as your group is reasonably leveled for the camp.
Ya honestly, FD splitting in EXP groups is not needed. The only times FD splitting is important is in raids and you will always have a tagger in raids. Monks make excellent pullers because they can pull and avoid death pretty easily. Lets say your pulling a room and you get 4 mobs and all of a sudden you get rooted. Any class without FD would most likely die. Monks can wait it out feigned and then successfully pull them.
Ok, well thank you for the tips about Audio triggers, FD/caster separate chat box, and the information about pulling in tight quarters. Yes it was pretty hard to break line of sight unless I ran a direction not even towards the group to possibly cut a corner. I kept thinking that I could prolly pull the whole room but even with an enchanter and a bard, there were times when we had 4-5 mobs and our cleric almost died, and I would notice at any given time it seemed like 2-3 mobs were constantly dpsing...and 1-2 normally were beating on him. So maybe was not all my fault but absolutely felt that way and looked that way. So quick final question, if you were pulling that camp, do most of you guys as monks just pull the whole room and use enchanter to mez all adds then just burn them down one by one or do you guys even try to FD split at all? I mean honestly, the group was so close to everything we were pulling it was near possible to even have enough room to FD without being 10 ft away from our camp. I'm thinking the issue wasn't really my pulling per say, it was more the tactic I was trying. I should have just pulled whole rooms, then relied on proper group roles to control and manage the situation? I know once we had broken the rooms apart down there it would have become pretty easy. We were all 35-42 in that range and it just seemed like it should have went smoother. Been eating me at what went wrong but I think it was a combo of what I was trying, bard songs messing with my FD, and mezzing not being too well done. I am not pointing fingers though, understand that. I handled myself very sloppy and tried to over protect the group by trying to split and then just kept forcing them to drag and rez my corpse so I was a sore spot as well. P.S. I repeatedly kept asking that we target wizards as we broke the mezzes we did have and main assist constantly worked down all the melee first then did wizards last. Am I wrong or don't you take out high dps first? Because when mez broke and took 5-10 seconds to get reset we had 2-3 wizards just blasting the hell out of our cleric, etc.
FD splitting takes too long in classic for how quickly mobs die. The enchanter should be pulling while you're in camp DPSing the mobs along with his/her charm pet. Monks are the highest melee dps in the game in classic there's no sense in you being out of camp pulling when the enchanter can and should pull. What's up with all these bitchmade enchanters that can't or won't pull these days?
It's a good camp to learn the ropes of real pulling. You hit the level 35+ mobs and have a solid number of casters thrown in the mix. That being said, use your cc/dps personnel accordingly. If you really need to split due to low dps or no cc, move your group further away than the corner between exe and sage that I suspect you were at. You need room to work.
If you have an enchanter you shouldn't need to split a room, just bring it all. But yeah, what everyone else has said, at that level in order to split rooms you'll need someone to tag after you feign and they start going back staggered. They don't always go back staggered though. It can take a long time to split a room, that's why it's usually not a good idea to split when just doing EXP if you don't have to.
From what i remember from 2001 each mob has its own resist to FD ... Were you in lower guk ? i don t remember any FD split there, may be we had a luller (bard, cleric, chanter) from time to time but generally they just pulled what was there.
Some camps are a pain for any one even a Mnk, Brd, or Enc. Everyone has difficulties with something, enchanters get rooted and killed, lull is resisted and the Cha check fails and the whole room comes, etc etc there is no blanket get out of jail free class on pulling, what works in most will not on all. Not knowing how the cons were going mezing may have been an issue slowing down to the point of the poor Clr getting a beat down. So I am not going lay any blame on anyone other than those that think simple answers exist for everything and always seem to have a pat scapegoat at hand. As a monk with really only FD and whatever MR you have root and dot casters are a royal pain. Dots make FD worthless so if any dot lands that is your . Resist gear is the key for monk pulling but sometimes "the wind wont blow and rain don't fall" to paraphrase Little Big Man and you get kilt. Get used to it as it is going to happen some times. You see that attitude of people about pulling, like somehow others are obligated to comply with their entitled buttmashing laziness. It is why I did not roll monk on AG, had enough of it but of course their entitlement then just rolls on to anyone else but them. Heheh tie a krono onto the pulling task and I am betting they would try to pull NToV with a cleric.
Well thanks for all the reply guys. I have learned a lot from this one post, and it also confirms what I thought...I think our biggest problem was me even trying to split that stuff in the first place. We would have faired better had I just pulled it all back instead of dying, risking bard songs already having grabbed agro, then left group 1 DPS short to deal with the full pack of mobs I died trying to split. When I am unsure of an area I normally ask about anything I need to be aware of, hidden holes in the floor, funky pathing, etc. I should have asked how they wanted me pulling that stuff instead of just assuming I would need to split it. Thanks again everyone, safe hunting and I hope to see you in game.
Cannot ask for more from a good monk and player. Have fun man, monk is blast when you do. Enjoy SoV it is a hoot for the class.
Lol....you've got not 1, not 2, but 3 classes in that group that can lull pull..... In that group, the monk should be staying in camp and DPSing, the bard should be chain lull pulling and stacking up / mezzing mobs in conjunction with the chanter until you get the spawn broken, at which point you could pull if you like. You are actually the 4th worse puller in that group There are situations where monks should pull....when you are trying to split tough content that can't be lulled, or when the likelihood of lull not landing and training the group would result in death. Some place like hate for instance, where you are working with a tagger. Speaking of tagging, are you using sneak? If you are FD and then sneak, a tagger can grab a mob once the other mobs start to path back, if you are not in sneak and someone tags, they will all leash until the mobs get back to their spawn points and reset. If you're pulling content that lull can pretty reliably land on, it's much easier and faster to have someone that can lull pull do it. If you are fighting deep reds, and the only chance you have at splitting without a wipe is to split, then monks shine.
P.S. For tight quarters, a cleric can invis undead, target mobs, then back off and lull through walls. Easiest way to break rooms like sage.
As someone else said, realistically it's so much easier for a bard to be pulling basically exe/cav and above in lguk. Lull/mez pulls are so much quicker for splitting than trying to split tag with FD. So as a person in the same exact shoes you're in (was 40 on monk and went to exe last night) I feel your pain. It took me about 3 stupid deaths until I got the hang of timing casters and what not. Biggest thing that helped me with the wizards was tagging them and making sure they started casting and then immediately LoS and time the flop before they get LoS again. The other thing too is that if your group needs you to split this stuff is to find the person ahead of time that's going to tag and tell them exactly where to stand and tell them to wait for your call to tag. That is of course unless they're already familiar with how to do it. Ideally if it's another class with FD you can get pretty reckless and speed things up a bit but best bet is to just have the tank tag. A last parting piece of experience I picked up is keeping a mental track of what order you pulled things in so you can keep each of the respective camps broken. Honestly up until last night I didn't realize how much of a pain in the it is to have to rebreak camps for med breaks, etc. Since you're going to be getting mostly singles or doubles though there shouldn't be any real need to pause for mana. Some people do keep an actual timer on spawns but after a while you kinda know when stuff should be popping. That and you're very likely going to be clearing exe/cav much faster than things are popping, especially if there's a hamlord group and /sup group in your pick.
Update: So I hesitantly excepted an offer to pull/tank for the exec/sage/cav group again the other night. Whole different story, thankfully. First caster heavy group I have been in but we had a Mage, Cleric, Necromancer, Necromancer, Enchanter, and myself, a Monk. Broke spawns no problem with enchanter mezzing well, we were pulling everything so fast I think all casters constantly had 70% or better mana and it was a cake walk. Gained 3 levels I think, a few drops, and owned the hell out of the place. I know when a group is going solid because I get bored as all get out because there is not enough to pull and nothing is a challenge. Heck, I was running to places ive never seen before and pulling all the way back to our camp lol. Anyways, thanks again guys, and it does go to show... One bad night in an area should not reflect on your ability as we all have an off night, or cause that one mistake that brings the roof down. A little practice and TRUSTING that your group will all do their job is huge...that group I speak of in my first OP...had less DPS but def. had the CC abilities to handle any/all of what was down there. I should have just pulled each area, fought through it all, then just handled the nice easy 2-3 spawns with camps all broken. I was over thinking, and trying more then was needed for this area. Be safe Norrathians, and may you bring swift justice to those that do you wrong.
After several groups with monks trying to pull, I prefer the tank pulling. Let the monks pull raids, multiple monks can work together. Nothing worst than the monk flopping 5 mobs on the group which rush the casters sitting down... not to mention most pulls are 3 mobs or less so not sure how they brought 5.
This has nothing to do with monk pulling and everything to do with the person playing a monk not understanding how aggro works.
I wouldn't pay much attention to those who say you don't need to split pulls in leveling content. That's the best place to get practice. Otherwise people complain that their monks in raids haven't figured out how to split pull yet. Leveling isn't just about getting exp. Its also about learning your class. OP is one of the few Monks that is trying to learn and actually doing a role. That should be celebrated.
