Jester's Tech Blog

MMORPG Raiding for Beginners

While my blog mostly focuses on tech tips for gamers I thought I would do something a little different. So here it goes...


The Beginner's Guide to MMORPG Raiding

What is a raid?
In most MMORPG's an instance (or "dungeon") is a special area where you and up to 5 - 8 friends can go to get more powerful weapons and items that you wouldn't get anywhere else in the game. An instance usually contains elite or higher level creatures that require your entire "party" to take down.

A raid is similar to this except can allow 10 - 40 people to join together into many smaller "parties" (or "groups") that all play as a whole unit. So let's say that your game allows for a maximum party size of 5 players. A raid would consist of 4 parties joined together to form a larger group. All the players in these smaller groups can see all the other players in the raid and can chat back and forth, and fight along-side each other. Each group will consist of a healer, melee dps, and caster dps. Often in a 20-man raid there may be up to 3 - 4 tanks all in their own "group" with one or two healers with them, or one or two off-tanks. Raids can take hours or days to complete and are extremely difficult as even a regular (non-boss) creature in a raid area may be as much as 20 - 50 levels higher than you.

So let's break this down and look at what each class does and how they work together to form a successful raid.

Tank
A tank does very little or no damage, but is focused on threat (also called "hate" in some games) building skills/talents that allow him/her to keep a group of creatures or boss focused on them, so that the rest of the group can pound the boss down without taking much/any damage. A tank will have *VERY* high armor and health, a shield, a sword/mace/axe, and talents/skills that provide evasion and threat building abilities. A tank must keep his threat level above everyone else in the raid so the boss/mob/creature stays focused on him. The downside to the tank, is that if a tank dies (depending on the game) he may incur an armor penalty, causes his armor to weaken over time. Since armor for tanks is the most expensive, it can sometimes be very very expensive to repair. Tank repair costs are covered by the guild or raid to keep things fair.

Off-Tank
Off-tanks are not very common in raids. However, if you do see them in a raid, they are basically tanks (as defined above) that have less armor/health/resistance/mitigation (mitigation = physical damage avoidance). It is their job to keep threat directly underneath the main tanks. This way if a main tank (MT) dies for any reason, they can continue to work with the other tanks to keep the mob/boss/creature at bay until the MT is resurrected and healed, and is ready to begin tanking again.

Melee DPS
Melee dps is any up close fighter who uses swords/maces/axes/daggers/hammers. Melee dps characters are not tanks but instead deal high amounts of damage standing behind the creature/boss/mob the tanks are holding, or standing to the side of the tanks (never on top of the tanks, as this makes it difficult for the healers to heal the tanks). Melee classes are: warriors, rogues, dervish (this class varies from caster to melee in some games), duel-wielding hunters, and assassins.

Caster DPS
Caster dps is defined as "clothies" (so called due to their armor being made of cloth), who stand behind the tanks at a considerable distance to hammer away insane amounts of damage on the mob/boss/creature using magical skills. Casters deal more damage than any other class and will generally perform 70 - 90% of the entire raid's damage output. Classes that fall under the caster dps category are: warlocks/necromancers and mages/sorcerers/wizards (name depending on the game you're playing).

Healers
This one is pretty self explanatory. Healers heal the whole raid. Generally in a 20-man raid you need at least 5 - 8 healers. Healers should be focuses entirely on the tanks, as no one else should be taking damage (except on non-stationary bosses). There are some cases in which a boss fight may require healing to the whole party. These fights however should be short as healers run out of mana very quickly. Healers generally stand with or behind the caster dpsers.


So now that you know how each class operates in a raid, let's look at a few raid do's and dont's. This is a list of general rules that apply to almost all MMORPG games:

1) Stay BEHIND the tanks. If you are fighting your way to a boss, never get ahead of the tanks. You might think you're cool doing all that damage and that you think you could solo the whole place because the raid is going so quick and smooth, but if you do this you will be kicked from the raid, or (at minimum) you may aggro another group that might wipe the raid. If you wipe the raid, and you don't know the other members in the raid that well, count on being kicked out and replaced with someone else. You are not a special and unique snowflake.... STAY BEHIND THE TANK(S)!!!

2) If you are on ventrilo/teamspeak do not shout, curse, argue, or yell if you are amongst strangers. This will get you banned from vent and kicked from the raid.

3) Don't ever scream at a healer to heal you nor claim someone is a crappy tank if you have never tanked before. Healers and tanks are the heart and soul of the raid, if you insult them you might find yourself getting killed by a tank bringing a boss to you, or a healer not healing you, and once dead, kicked from the raid. Healing and tanking are very difficult in large raids, so do yourself a favor and don't yell at them. However, it is ok to yell at caster or melee DPS who do something stupid (like running ahead of a tank, and aggro'ing an entire mob that wipes the party).

4) If you are a healer be sure to bring plenty of mana pots. If you go oom (out of mana) you will be yelled at, considered a noob, and may be kicked from the raid.

5) If you are a tank, be sure to bring plenty of potions, stamina food, avoidance scrolls, etc to make the job easier for the healers. This may sound optional, but trust me, if you're tanking and you don't have your own "buffs" with you, you may end up getting kicked from the raid and called a noob, if you are unable to take the damage the creatures/bosses are dealing to you.

6) Be respectful of the RL (raid leader). Raid leaders have short tempers and have no problem at all either calling the raid (ending the raid) or kicking people for being stupid. It's difficult for a RL to create and manage a raid. Give them the respect they deserve. Listen to what they're saying and do it. If you don't understand something, then ask, but only when they are finished explaining the strategy and while no fighting is going on.

7) Go to the bathroom, eat, have drinks ready before the raid begins. You WILL be kicked from the raid if you go afk in the middle of a boss fight. The appropriate time to announce going AFK, is when no fighting is going on. Be sure to request permission to go AFK over vent and in raid chat. If permission is granted to you, don't take more than 5 minutes. You will get kicked from the raid, and replaced quickly if you take too long.

8) Protect the healers at all costs. If the tanks have died and a boss/creature/mob is running throughout the raid killing everyone, there's not much you can do. But, sacrifice yourself by joining with the other DPS classes to hold off the creature(s) long enough for the healers to break aggro. This way the healers avoid any kind of death penalty and allows them to come back to resurrect the everyone who died. Note: A death penalty a healer (depending on game) might mean a decrease in healing power which is essential to keep the raid alive.

9) KNOW YOUR CLASS!! If you don't fully understand every aspect of your class, then your build sucks. Simple as that. And if your build sucks, then no one is going to let you raid with them (they can check your build without your permission in most games). Be sure to ask the requirements of the raid before joining, to make sure that your class is capable. If you have never raided before, you may find yourself in the wonderful position of having RL's telling you to do more instances/dungeons to get better gear. If you can't take a hit from a boss, or deal less damage than the tanks, then you will not be allowed to raid. You need to have several raid builds at your disposal that are proven to work (not just something you found on the internet). If your RL tells you to respec yourself, then do it, or don't raid.

10) Consider this list your beginner's bible on MMORPG raiding. If you break the rules of this list, do so at your own peril.

I hope this has helped to cover the basics of raiding. There's alot more to raiding that I've left out. This is because raiding is something that you have to experience. Start off by doing some raids with experienced players or friends, who can teach you the ropes. I have been raiding now for 4 years in games such as: World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Lineage II, and Knight Online. World of Warcraft is the primary focus of this guide, but it will help with raiding in other games as well, as the information in this blog, is general raid knowledge.

If you have any questions about raiding, send me an email or contact me on the forums, and I'll do my best to help you out.

Note: If you think entering the last area of Diablo II with your friends is raiding, you have seriously misunderstood or did not read this article. Scroll back up and read it again.

1. Comment by Jester, Feb 19 2009, 02:34 PM

   While this article does use WoW as a common factor for describing a raid, the tank aspect is global in all MMORPG's. Having played more than 7 MMO's just in the last 3 years (and some MMO's prior to that), the tank is always the same. The biggest thing to remember is that, threat and damage are not the same thing. Threat is a result of damage. However, tanks have auras, stances, and talents that increase their threat generation, which is what allows a tank to hold aggro. The reason for this is that no melee class can ever do as much damage as a caster class. Casters deal massive damage and build massive threat. So a tank needs to have abilities available to out-perform the caster threat level. Which is the purpose of the talents, auras, and stances.
   
   This article focused more on WoW as a descriptive means, but the raid descriptions are global for ALL MMORPG's. The biggest thing I think that gets confused is that pen and paper rpgers tend to think that the name means what it says ("MMORPG") when in fact it can not be looked at in terms of an RPG because it's not. It's more of a massively multiplayer action game with a couple of rpg traits (such as speccing into strength, stamina, dexterity, etc). The term "tank" itself is a global nickname used to describe the person who can hold aggro (threat). As far as tanks go, generally they are melee, but in some rare circumstances it takes a caster to tank a specific boss (WoW specific), for example, an ice mage must tank a particular boss in WoW's SSC (serpent-shrine caverns).
   
   As for comparing a GM/DM to a Raid Leader, that kind of rubs me the wrong way. I understand that a DM must create campaigns, characters, dungeon maps, etc. And I know that is very difficult work. At the same time, you have to look at a raid leader this way. A raid leader is 9x/10 going to be an officer rank in a guild. That officer has to handle up to 40 people. Constantly telling them what's wrong with their characters, helping them get gear, and teaching them more about their class that they don't know. On top of that having to setup, manage, and maintain a raid which can take as long as a week to complete (generally played every night for about 6 - 8 hours). In comparison I think both have a near-equal stress factor, with the exception that a raid leader, must deal with actual people in all his decision making, and making the wrong decision affects the whole raid, and the stress factor is sleightly higher. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing DM's or anything, I'm just stating what I see. But I think people should have a better understanding of both worlds before critisizing one or the other. Like I said, I don't know much about pen and paper RPG's, but I do understand MMO's (it's what I do more often than FPS). I have been a raid leader, a guild leader, and have played as both a tank and a caster in a raid. Which is why I felt confident that I could write this article.
   
   Like I said, I hope my comment isn't offensive, but this is my opinion.
   I am however interested in learning more about the pen and paper RPG's so that a true comparison can be made. I think it would make for an interesting article.

2. Add new comment:

   Post Comment