The feedback, while good intentioned, and not wrong from their point of view, >is< wrong from your point of view. "Properly" to them means keeping up with a top notch, OCD group that wants constant big pulls. However, that's not the proper comparison. The proper comparison is, that so-so geared PC tank vs. the merc you'd be using otherwise. And for that comparison, your PC tank will be much better. Just as your PC priest char will bring a lot more to the party than a merc cleric, which will heal, buff a bit, and do NOTHING else.
There're only two puller classes. Monks and bards. Rangers and necros can pull sometimes, but they are usually god awful. They depend on a lot of luck.
Let’s say i plan on running; Chanter/mage Ranger/beast Chanter/beast Will they suffer from not having a bard or monk for pulling?
I do not believe pulling is what you will complain about with those combinations. Most groups consist of a Tank (most important role) and a Healer (2nd most important role), and then any combination of support and DPS classes to fill the other 4 slots: Chanter is primarily support. Ranger and Mage are primarily DPS. Beastlord is a combination of support and DPS. So you are basically relying on pets and mercs for the most important group roles. You will probably spend a lot of time cussing at the "stupid mercs" and "stupid pets", instead of being able to take matters into your own hands and do the tanking (and pulling) with your own real tank. But to answer your question, I would go with Chanter/mage. Ranger/beast might also have good synergy, but I think the chanter will be better for CC & pulling (especially at lower levels), which seems very important to you. I think the chanter/beast combo will be too much support and not enough DPS.
Well, they are situational though. Anyway, .. I run a few different combination of 4 boxes on different servers. The one that can pull just about anything with np is the Mage, Ranger, Bard, Enchanter team with a Healer merc and a Tank merc. I also run a beast, Enchanter, Druid, Mage group and they can pull very well. The Druid actually is used quite often to pull. Team pulling works best, like Bard/Enchanter, Enchanter/Druid, Enchanter/Mage, etc, etc. Druids and Enchanters can put out quite a bit of dps fyi. All depends on what you want to do. If I am going for a tough named I might 6 box it, with my cleric and my Warrior added, instead of the mercs. I use mercs as I am lazy, and also just use in game macros, no 3rd Party Software. If 2 boxing I would not even try to suggest, as the possibilities are many and will vary by what you think is fun, and want to do. Things change with time. Back around Omens of War, my Beastlord and Mage were kings of pulling, using low level pet pulls. That no longer works as they changed the way agro works.
I love grouping with an old school Enchanter that knows how to pull, it is amazing. With runes and stuns, mez, calm, root, etc. Hard to beat. Not only that, they can bolster an under geared Tank, using Stuns and Runes.
It is two platstyles, where the tank based one is very superior (Live). CCing is fun, but looking at kills pr hour, assuming you have the same dps in both playstyles, CCing is worse. Take the duo you prefer, and then add a bard: even a FTP bard only playing /melody is always worth it.
it is so easy to pull when you have a mage in group ( COH ftw ). even easier if you have snare but many other tools work as well ( snare ~ root ~ stun ~punt, ect ). I was using a druid (and they got with shm aa communion of cheetah run speed at level 85 ) that mean you can run faster than mobs ** ).* it is group cast * so any in group can have it if in range . {6: Increase Movement Speed by 115% This ability, when activated, increases the movement speed of your target's group by 115% for 48 seconds.} * once maxed aa the length is over 2 min , but it doesn't matter much ,since it is instant cast , same for instant cast invis aa, so on same hotkey you can cast cheetah aa and aa invis . I was pulling many , on way back I was snaring them one after the other one , ( snare aa is pretty fast cast and refresh ), 5 , 6 or more mobs. then I was coh'ing my druid not too far from camp ( coh clear all agro if mobs not damaged and if away from agro range ) and all the mobs were staying there not moving until I pick them. ~~ so with mage you got pulling , tanking and dps covered
This is a pretty good summation, the only thing I'd add to why I'm not big into CC / fancy pulling is that if you're group can put out 1 million DPS on average, every second you're waiting on pulls is a million damage you're not doing. That means fewer AAs, no chance at ultra-rare gear etc. Most of my time is spent camping as many named mobs as I can, and I've tended to look focus on how much DPS I do averaged over a longer period of time (ex: half an hour), any time my guys aren't fully engaged with a mob is just missed opportunity.
There is no right answer. Every zone is different and may require different skills and abilities. Every group can be made up of different classes, skills, gear. Every player has different abilities with their toons along with differing levels of gear. Everything is situational. Having said that, I have played an Enchanter for 18+ years. I will put my skills up against anyone as far as pulling and I will either win or be a damned close 2nd. I have not played a monk, sk, bard, necro or ranger - but pulling is an art. Skill and knowledge based. I can pull better on my wizard or rogue or even my cleric than some people on any toon simply due to my game knowledge and skill. Under certain circumstances, certain bards monks sks necros can do a better job than I - but only under specific circumstances and for a short time. Those classes are worth more in the group killing than out pulling. Overall, I would rank Bard and Ench tied for #1. FD classes waste too much time doing nothing ( FD ). And do not discount tanks or rogues. It depends what you want from your puller. I have been with some awesome tanks. Your puller needs to know the group, the zone, their skills - if they have all that - it wont matter much. Enjoy the game.
I am going guess you never group with a necro or at lest if you have one that gives you a heads up when joining the group. cause as a necro I will give a heads up bout this. 1 or 2 mobs and a tank can have them all. 3 depends on whats going on. 4+ mobs and one of them is getting punted and root rotted(if they can be rooted and don't summon). Most necros I know including myself, If the group is pulling groups of mobs. one of them is getting root rotted. group mobs die so fast its a better use of our mana then trying and doing crap on the mobs the rest of the group is on.
I regularly group with a necro and the top coordination things I do are: 1. Kill the mob at the end of the ETW list last, so that he can DoT the piss out of it. Otherwise I try to avoid targeting whatever he's dotting until last. 2. Pull as many mobs as I can handle so that he can use his sphere of decay and the 30k DPS that it does per mob that I remember calculating before. So If I pull 6 mobs that sphere alone is doing 180k DPS. And sometimes I'll even switch targets when a mob is at 30% health because the sphere + random DoTs + AE will finish it off, why waste time focus firing it? 3. I'll frequently have him pull, and he'll start pulling when he's done loading up a mob with DoTs. If he brings in a fresh group of mobs to camp I'll avoid killing the mobs that are DoT'd to just let them expire. What does this have to do with CC/pulling? Not much, except to show how when a tank/heal team can absorb massive amounts of damage, it becomes much more efficient to pull groups of mobs together and AE/DoT them down vs using CC.
. as a shaman we settled camp right in middle of the zone in skyfire mountain ( ROS ) killing ph to try to get nameds to pop to get some hunter done. while they were killing ph's near that camp, I was going to pick 2 or 3 ph's far away , near walls or near zone in area , or near gorowyn . was much easier than I expected , I had my level 97 root ( shackle ) memed . with aa root and instant cast cheetah run speed, I didn t had any problem , I only had to use my fade once in 90 minutes. we didn't had a mage for coh either , was not needed at all. .i play 3rd view ( I press F9 four times ) since 15 years and it rock once used to it , I can move ahead while checking behind to check if mobs pathing well or not .ect. in a fast killing group it is pretty easy as well, if too many for the group to take care I can AE root them and pick one to kill after.
Exactly! If you know how to pull, there doesn't need to be CC done at the camp. If your tank can handle doubles, you pull doubles. If they can handle triples, pull that. If you can only do singles, then pull a single. If you need CC with a puller consistently, then you don't have a good puller or the wrong one for the situation. Pulling is not the same as getting agro from a bunch of mobs and bringing them to the group, making CC necessary. A good puller will be willing to die if a pull goes wrong. A good puller never brings bad pulls to group and wiping group. A ranger in the hands of someone who understands the class is as good a puller the game has. Most people don't roll rangers for that purpose. Most people don't understand how to fully play one. Every pulling class has situations where another type of puller class might be better, but I think the ranger has the most tools available for pulling. Those who say rangers are god awful, for example, probably are not that good at playing that class or have seen others trying to pull with one that don't know the class. Pulling is an art and someone who is a pulling artist can use several classes to pull very well. Most people are not pulling artists. Know your class, know your zone and know your prey. That is what you need to be a pulling artist. I have seen people use a rogue to pull better than others can with a bard. I have seen truly impressive pulling with a chanter and a bard. You are a pulling artist...or not. Rangers get a lot a criticism in many areas, because of all the pew pew rangers out there who hardly know the class. I see them all the time.
So much is situational , and dependent on the skill of the player. One class missed here is rogue, an excellent rogue makes a fantanstic puller in some places. VP being one of them. I say this as a fairly skilled ranger.
