Since Epic 3 and the inclusion of the new dungeons and in particular the Moonlight dungeons in the game, the number of people clammering for a dungeon party has obviously increased dramatically.

Whilst this is probably a good thing, the number of people who haven?t got a clue about how to run or be part of a dungeon party seems to have increased through the roof. In the last week I?ve been part of some of the most disorganised and unproductive dungeon party?s imaginable. Here?s a few things that I?ve noticed going on far to regularly for me and I suspect why alot of clerics are starting to shy away from dungeons because the lack of organisation makes it harder work than it needs to be and essentially takes away from the everyone?s enjoyment of dungeon party?s.

1: Heroes - We had 2 DM?s who had NO IDEA how to manage their aggro or MP. They would be spamming Darkness Arrow and Lightning everytime it was available, sometimes even before our poor tank had even gotten aggro in the first place. As a result the HW quickly runs out of MP trying to get aggro back so he can?t tank anymore, as does our cleric who is continually wasting MP healing the 2 hero DM?s. This ends in alot of downtime for the whole group not to mention the inevitable death of both mages when the cleric runs out of MP (which made me lol anyway, they deserved it). The only respite we got was when the mages had spammed so much they ran out of MP and had to resort to whacking the mob with aqua staff to get MP back.

2: Pulling - Now, I thought the idea of a puller was for everyone except the puller to stay somewhere out the way of the aggro mobs and for the puller to PULL mobs to the group and then before the mob dies go get another one so there is a steady chain of things to kill. This week I?ve seen the worst pulling ever, from pullers bringing back 3 or 4 mobs at once to the whole group waiting on a puller every single time a mob goes down. One group this week, the guys idea of pulling was running upto a mob, chipping it from a distance then attacking it straight away expecting the rest of the group to chase him around in an area stacked with aggros. Needless to say I was in that group for all of 2 mobs before i left and then the guy sends me a pm telling me i?m a noob

3: Chipping - It is my opinion, that ONE person should take at the start and retain most of the chips and that unless they log/go afk/or more frequently nowadays crash that person should be the only one to chip the monster. Someone else should hold an amount of chips for emergencies like a possible crash. EVERYONE (except the cleric imo) should bring 50 chips minimum to the party, I?ve been in numerous parties this week where people turn up with no chips at all which is imo not acceptable as others then have to stump up chips to cover the shortfall. If you want a DP bring chips it?s quite simple. On the flip side, I was in a party this week where the chipper picked up a strike cube and tried to enchant his weapon there and then resulting in the weapon breaking. He left without warning to go get a back up he had in his wh without giving the chips to anyone leaving us up sh*t creek for 15 mins till he got back.

4:AFKing - If your cleric needs to afk for whatever reason, STOP. If your tank needs to afk for whatever reason, STOP unless someone else can temporarily step in and do a decent job till they return. If anyone else afk?s, make sure you sit yourself out the way of both the rest of the party fighting and any mobs which might aggro you. I?ve seen half a party die because someone who was afk started getting attacked and someone jumped into to save them and chaos ensued.

5: Tanks - Firstly, let the tank do their job and TANK. I?m sure some will correct me on this next point but here goes anyway. From a clerics point of view, I don?t really understand how a HW can do their job as well without a shield, it would be like me healing with an axe sure you can do it but it?s not nearly as effective. You?re giving up a huge % block ratio for a 2H weapon when your job is taking damage not DD?ing, the less damage you take the less healing the cleric has to do which also gives the cleric the capability to use their de-buffs in flash (-accuracy for the mob(helps healing also xD)) and acid spray (-P.Def for the mob). I don?t know, maybe maintaining aggro is easier with a 2H weapon but shield to me just makes more sense from a defense perspective and it gives you a 13m(?) stun capability incase someone steals the aggro from you and runs. To others, the first person to hit the mob besides the puller should be the tank. However don?t think because the tank has hit once you can go spamming skills like there is no tomorrow otherwise you?ll just take aggro away from him.

6: Everyone else - My main point with regards to others is if you steal aggro, DO NOT RUN AWAY. Running makes it alot harder for the HW to get aggro back for starters (hence my point about shield charge) and alot harder for everyone else in the party to hit the mob to kill it. You will get hit again by it in the confined spaces of a dungeon anyway and there is a possibility of aggroing other mobs in the area. The first thing to do is decide if you trust the cleric to heal you in time. If not then log, the EXP you will lose out on from logging will probably be alot less than you would if you die anyway and at least you?re protecting your lak. If you trust the cleric to heal you then PRESS ESC ONCE, you will stop hitting the mob and allow the tank to regain control of it much easier and more quickly without wasting too much MP. Once the tank has control resume as normal. If you continually find yourself taking aggro away from the tank then tone it down a little. Normally after a few minutes I?ve figured out what levels of skills I should be using to be bordering on stealing aggro but not quite managing to, it also helps your MP consumption if you aren?t spamming skills all the time.

7: A more broad point about making a party - Every class has a place and I?d rather have someone who?s knows how to be most use/least of a pain than someone like the DM?s in point 1. Yet I?ve been in plenty of groups where people have been rejected from parties because they are a weak class....Weak class??? As long as the party has 1 cleric and 1 HW as far as I?m concerned the others really don?t matter too much what they are. Sure ideally you?ll want a logsplitter and maybe a kahuna/2nd cleric but aside of that every class is capable of damaging the mob so it doesn?t really matter. I personally have been told a couple of times on my Sorc that they bring nothing to the party. That?s fine, if you don?t know what skills I have then your loss but me+pet=good damage and I think Shadow Pressure (-evasion for the mob) is a great party skill especially on higher lvl mobs.

And that concludes my rant haha. I appreciate this is probably wasted as most who don?t know probably don?t visit the forums anyway If any who do read this disagree with any points made please comment (in a mature way, I don?t want this getting locked because people can?t resist the odd flame) and state why you disagree. If anyone feels I?ve missed anything important and I?m sure I have but this post took me too long to write anyway please add their point to the discussion.

The idea of me posting this is to get parties working better together, which is beneficial to everyone. Plus I?m sick of getting 1 good group for every 3 bad one?s recently

Original Resource