The Rules of Teaming

[charleyd]

I'm not sure if this is the proper forum for this, but here goes:

I just thought I'd put together a list of rules and general advice that, if followed, should make a team better than if they are not. I am looking for any sort of comments and contributions anyone is willing to make.

Here they go, in no particular order:

The Do's and Don'ts of teaming:

(1) If you loot a chest, list it's contents!

(2) If you loot a body, try to take the items off it (to avoid on screen clutter). If you don't want them, delete them (or list in team window first to see if anyone is interested).

(3) Do not steal items off boss! List everything that you looted, including any junk. One person's junk will be another's treasure.

(4) Looting a boss that was someone else's loot can get you /ignored.

(5) Do not loot chests unless your team agrees to it. _Never_ do it in the middle of a fight.

(6) Remember the /afk command. Use it!

(7) Do not cause un-necessary aggro. This includes things like standing in front of open doors to other rooms, attacking things that are not in the same room as you (especially shooting through open doors), running around looking for chests while someone else is pulling, using autorun in a laggy mission, and so on and so forth.

(8) Make two assist macros, one by typing "/macro a /assist <puller'sNameInHere>" and the other by typing "/macro b /assist %t" , and use the exclusively when fighting. There is room for 100 items on your shortcut bars - I don't care how many of those you need, you can spare at least 2 for these macros.

(9) Do not break calms! That means, don't use attacks, nanos and items which have an area effect when there is a calmer trying to keep you alive. This includes things such as the Challenger nanos, which cause all MOBs in the vicinity to aggro you, special burt ammo, etc...

(10) Do not join a team unless you have the time to complete at least one mission. If you don't have the time to complete the mission, quit before you start! Or offer to quit, and let the team decide if you should stay.

[_________Slicendicen]

I agree. This is what team rules should be like, too bad many people do not follow them.

One thing bugs me:

Originally posted by CharleyD

(9) Do not break calms! That means, don't use attacks, nanos and items which have an area effect when there is a calmer trying to keep you alive. This includes things such as the Challenger nanos, which cause all MOBs in the vicinity to aggro you, special burt ammo, etc...

I use AB (area burst) in missions if there are adds, I usually have more AC, but can't pull aggro from the tank due to crappy gun (my implants are set up to focus on armor, not guns). However, if there are adds, AB can cause aggro, which relieves the tank in times of trouble.

[charleyd]

I guess it depends on the situation. I magine a room full of 4 mobs. 3 of them are calmed.

If, as a team, you cannot both keep the tank alive and kill just one mob, your breaking the calm on the 3 mobs that are not fighting is a really bad idea. There is a good chance that they will all 4 now attack you, or the tank, causing two casualties (if the tank was not you and was in trouble with just one, how can you expect to survive while taking on 4 at a time?). Unless, of course, you are also a good tank, and can take the beating that would ensue, at least for long enough for 3 of the mobs to be calmed again and for the tank to heal (remember that your healer(s) will probably be low on nanos, and, if they can't keep up with one mob, will certainly not keep up with 4).

You should warn the calmer, though, that you can do that and you plan to do it before the team starts its mission. It's also a good idea to announce that you are breaking calms as you do it, to let the calmer turn his attention from killing to recalming mobs before anyone gets killed.

In general, I think it would be better if the tank started running if he's doing poorly. Usually, calmers also have roots, which will allow the tank to run while the rest of the team keeps beating on the MOB, killing it or breaking aggro.

If the tank runs smartly, he can take advantage of the poor pathing AI that MOBs use. With a bit of cleverness, you can get the mob stuck on one side of the wall trying to run towards the Tank, with the team right behind the mob beating it the whole time.

[charleyd]

a little bit more on pathing:

walls are not the only useful obstructions u can use. Furniture and other room decorations serve just as well. The mob can get stuck behind a table running at you while the team beats it up. this is a technique often used by good pullers, in teams in which the puller is not also the tank.

A useful tip is to remember is that ranged weapons need line of sight to hit you. An enforcer stuck behind a table will still see you but won't be able to reach you with his mace. An assasin will see you and shoot, but, if you sit down behind the table, he won't be able to get a target.

[Trapspringer]

to stay in team like yesterday it was difficult.
Becouse it started to flash and making lots of noise. well yes it was a big ass storm outside. so i had to quit. just had cleaned the first room, but atleast i let em know why.

[___________Gattolina]

One more rule:
If you die during a mission, try to get back to mission site as soon as possible.
Do NOT try to find someone to give you mochams, or go getting someone to assemble implants or cut precious stones, and THEN go reorganize your inventory. Unless you really need to buy nano rechargers or treatment labs, you should get your ass back to the team asap.

(Happened yesterday to me. Still annoys me...)

Gattolina

[_____________Flyhard]

And if your team has appointed a puller, follow him. don't just take over without letting anyone know. Worst case both the puller and you pull 1-2 MOBs, which will get you all killed...

[__________Elizabetha]

The three rules of Whaasabi, badass Drill Instructor extraordinaire in Division 9:

1. Protect the doc.
2. Respect the doc.
3. Death is only a minor inconvinience, never an excuse.

[_____________Faolrin]

if you have a calmer though there is no reason to use AB and break the calms. the calmer himself can take care of the tank. calm/mezz will affectively clear an aggro list.

as a crat I watch the team window carefuly and when i see the the tank is in trouble and the doc is low on nano I will mezz the mob currently being attacked. this will clear aggro. the next hit the mob takes will break the mezz and the next hit it takes will steal the aggro. 9 times out of 10, this will pull aggro from the tank and give the doc that second he needs to heal.

you would be surprised how well this works.

[____________Margause]

Just a couple of my pet peeves:

Give healers, calmers, buffers and debuffers time to recharge you throw away a big group advantage--asking fo a "ready" check off after a fightis a good practice.

Turn autoattack off.

NEVER open a chest in combat.

Keep team window open. Monitor health and nano levels of the team. It is not 100% accurate but beats the heck of of operating in complete oblivion.

On loot distribution:

Talk about loot and decide how to handle it up front. I personally like team leader for the boss (I NEVER act as team leader; so this is not self interest).

Do not take profession-specific items for use by an alt if there is anyone of the same profession in the team who wants it. They helped get you there; your alt did not.

Do not distribute by who asks first.

If there is a single item that has huge resale value like an Albrechts try making total distribution fair. Think about having the recipient kick in cash to other team members rather than giving everyone else instruction disks for Bootleg Beamers n' Bolters.

[____________IronTide]

Rule #1: Don't die.


The team has been a failure if anyone dies. This does not mean it's the tank's job to die to keep the doc alive. This does not mean it's the doc's job to die to keep the tank alive.

This is not EQ where there are 42 respawned froglok ghouls that proc root and see invis between you and the nearest zoneline. Exits are available and under normal circumstances the path is clear to them.

If you have trouble seeing elevator buttons in a fight and it causes you to die, maybe you should learn how to use 3rd person fixed camera and also... cancel catform before going up.


Don't die. It's the first step toward effective grouping.

[Wobble]

Originally posted by Talonpheonix
I use AB (area burst) in missions if there are adds, I usually have more AC, but can't pull aggro from the tank due to crappy gun (my implants are set up to focus on armor, not guns). However, if there are adds, AB can cause aggro, which relieves the tank in times of trouble.

The thing is that calming a mob aggros the **** out of it, but it's calmed so it dosen't fight, In combat aggroing a mob clears it's hate list, but as soon as it's broken it seems like it counts the calm as the first hit. In my experience if a calmed mob is not hit with a decent hit by someone other than the calmer to break calm, the mob turns onto the calmer, so the crap damage from area burst, might just force 3 mobs onto the calmer, and not onto the fixer. Same goes with mongo, or what ever that area aggro enf thing is, a lot of times if an enf aggros, the calmed mobs come straight at me

this said, I found some decent bracers last night and I've started to adopt the get a reflect shield and just duke it out method of killing stuff, much more exciting, if slightly less safe, than calming them.. just treat pvm like pvp

[engelstein]

Originally posted by Womble
just treat pvm like pvp

Do I get to be the one with 40k HP?