Question - Puller as your main/driving character?

[cintile]

I know many say you must use your SK / Tank as your driving character ect and for missions or raids, i can see that.

Are any of you tho, using you a pulling class as your main driving character? Using a bard and focusing on it or monk or Bst? Seems like as long as your tank is on CWTN you should be able to pull to the group and let the tank start smacking mobs. I actually think it would be more fun to pull with something other than a bard and just let the MQ handle tanking and CC and you just focus on pulls and dps.

Thoughts?

 

[Sic]

my approach to boxing is about being the team "captain" or maestro - I want to guide/direct/lead --- doing that on the tank is much easier imo.

I drove on a necro (who i pulled with) for a long time, but using the tank is much easier for control imo

 

[strongbus]

I 100% control my bst on my team and sk is under kissassist full control. Not had any real issues with it.

 

[an_image]

my approach to boxing is about being the team "captain" or maestro - I want to guide/direct/lead --- doing that on the tank is much easier imo.

I drove on a necro (who i pulled with) for a long time, but using the tank is much easier for control imo

@cintile ... I had that same mentality when I first started ... and argued the point quite feverishly for some time ... only to prove @Sic and the rest of the pro's here the wiser ...

It's not that it can't be done...but as you start to scale and specialize your team you don't want to waste time tabbing other to other shit unnecessarily. Your tank screen is where shit is going down usually and where adjustments need to be made on the fly to tag a different target, reposition...or task (via commands) people with doing other shit...

Now in group gameplay...yea...you can get away with it for the most part...but again less efficient. To @Sic point...mage or necro if you're trying to go that route...maybe bard since you can reposition, split pull...or somewhat control outcomes...other classes...possible...but less efficient

Bottom-line-up-front...better to bite the bullet and embrace your tank. Once you do that...completely different perspective on the game as everyone else (other than crowd-control/healer) are puzzle pieces you move around as/when needed.

It's gotten so good in fact i hardly ever tab to anything but a tank screen in my set-ups. Tank/Bard/Enc/Cleric can handle eveyrthing up to raid content you throw at it...with minimal disruptions...wether it's a small train or half a zone...just let the plug-ins do their thing and focus on what target is next...very zen experience once you get there...turn charm on for additional pwonage on shit.

 

[Darkwynd3]

I think it mostly depends on if you’re geared for content and the specific attributes of that content.

When I was 115 trying to do Temple of Veeshan while undergeared, I drove from and pulled with my bard, because a bad pull was a wipe due to gear and not being able to CC there. That’s an edge case though: 99 times out of 100, driving from the tank is easier.

 

[Rumble]

I always drive the team and handle pulls with my warrior. I don't see much of a reason to switch toons for pulling. I think just do what works best for you.

 

[juice999]

I've actually never not just pulled with the character I'm driving with. I prefer to be active so I don't really do full automation in a group, opting to instead manually drive 1-2 characters to keep me engaged. So, I'm almost always getting them and bringing the mobs into camp. As long as you have Selo's (or even Cheetah) then you should be able to effectively pull with just about any class, but especially tanks. Hell, Knights don't even need run speed boost if it's an outdoor zone because of the instant mount.

 

[vandersl]

As always - play how you like and have fun.

That said, I don't find it fun to struggle through things, so I find it easier to combine puller, MA and tank on the same character (SK in my case). Unless I am questing or gearing, if I have to tab to another character I consider it a failure.

BTW - pulling isn't even a thing with a full 6-man team with CC and a properly geared tank. Pull? I just target and attack. Split pulling? No need. I am a ham-fisted, take no prisoners SK with a death wish and I don't think I have considered splitting a pull in years.

 

[vee]

I switch my main driver between my bard and SK. Depending on how difficult the pulls are, or if it's a camp I'm breaking in then I'll use the bard at first and then switch it to KA and drive with the SK. Depends on the mood and how engaged with the game I want to be. I like driving with the bard and often I'll leave the SK tanking pulls in camp while I'm out pulling with the bard. Other times I just want to be semi-afk while watching a show or something and let the SK do the work.

 

[Nendiil]

I prefer to drive from my bard - if I weren't using MQ, or if I were solo on a TLP, that'd be my preferential class so I tend to manually pull to the group.

I tend to not auto pull a ton, if that's the intent, I often just jump into a grind. For the times I do let the tools pull, I usually end up letting the SK pull just as it guarantees aggro upon arriving to the camp and the bard can twist during the pull.

I also use ISBoxer still, so swapping between is pretty fluid and easy at this point. I'm considering dropping ISB, not sure how that would change my preferences here about driving from something other than the tank. Also having everyone in the group mostly in crafted gear, I really am not worried or trying to avoid/split a 4 pull. Whatever, let 'em die..

 

[RobRenfro]

Once upon a time I would pull with anything. Shaman, Necro. If they made a plugin I probably pulled from it. Then I started listening to more experienced players like Sic and an_image.
Now I pull exclusively with my tank. Why?
I started playing smarter not harder.

 

[Zeusdracco]

Sounds like something I might try just for shits and giggles.. Bard for sure tho if im gonna try it. FM is a useful tool to have while u learn new craft heh. GL on what you're doing. hope its fun.

ZD

 

[brilucdestiny]

i think you need fd to lose aggro mainly if you are pulling using a non-tank or have a tank that can steal aggro really fast (like an SK + cleric small heal combo)

 

[Many_Whelps]

I've always driven from my Bard

 

[Daengazi]

My main was a monk from '99 when I started playing.

When I first found RedGuides, my whole KA setup was done on the same principal. To be fair, I found myself switching to the tank quite a bit which of course meant I needed separate hotkey setups on the different toons. It was a bit of a pain, but I quite enjoy using different toons to drive and play so I didn't mind too much. I only really boxed a single group then so I had each toon setup to drive from. As you can imagine hotkey maintenance used to take up quite a bit of time...

The plugins were an epiphany which made it vastly more efficient irrespective as to which toon I was driving with - but I found myself barely touching any toon other than the monk or tank as there's just no need. I still maintain the hoykeys across all my toons however, just in case anything goes west so I can still jump on any to drive and everything is duplicated so it's easy. Like I said though, it's a lot of effort to maintain this as the hotkeys need to be archetype and/or class specific.

I still drive mostly with the monk and now I run up to 27 toons in a half raid format. I do group content with all, so can and do drive with various toons depending on which group I'm on or which toons needs to. That said, a lot of raid content at higher levels doesn't really need a monk puller anymore, this makes me very sad and often, I cry inside... I love my monk and back in the day I used to take a good deal of pride from the fact that I was bloody good, so the lack of content to show off my monkly skills these days is rather disappointing.
During raids, I find myself almost exclusively driving on a tank because there's just no need to use a puller so switching back actually makes it more effort for no benefit.

I have this multi-toon raid setup across 2 different level ranges. I do have some monks in the lower-level raid where monks are arguably much more useful but I never drive on them, preferring to use the tank or a bard. Mostly this is because I've always enjoyed the pulling functions and playing a bard main was always on the agenda, but in part also because there is not yet a plugin for them... I expect when MQ2Bard is finally released, which I'm hoping is pretty soon, the bard will be used less by default.
(@Sic, please note that I didn't ask when MQ2Bard will be released, so there's no need to ostracise me !)

The hotkey maintenance and management is still quite a time sink especially as I'm often tinkering with and trying to improve it. Although to be fair, I rather enjoy it, sad and alien as that may sound to some.

For me, it's all about what I enjoy, so despite never actually "needing" to drive with the puller, I do so as much as I can regardless because that's the part of the game I enjoy the most. After tinkering with hotkeys and re-arranging my bank bags, anyway.

 

[wowfool]

I tried driving my puller, but I kept getting lost. Then I would keep asking mobs for directions. It rarely went well, but when it did, my bard had a lot to sing about for some reason. Now I let CWTN pull for me, the bard is a lot happier. Actually, I will drive my tank/puller for tight spaces some, but if any wandering is needed, back to the automation so I do not wind up pulling half the zone.

 

[ChatWithThisName]

I don't pull anymore. I use Hunter/manually drive a toon, then have everyone else in chase mode.
Returning to a camp double the time it takes you kill something per pull. The faster you kill, the longer the distance is to kill again. You have the departure, and the return trips. Remove the return trip = profit.
This way, everyone is already there, no chance of dying far removed from your party's assistance. Allows for a higher Kill per Minute, which results in faster EXP/AAEXP. etc.
Downtime tends to be easier because you rest at the location of the last thing you killed, which means usually it's about 15 minutes before you have to be concerned with a repop (depending on proximity to nearby spawn points).
Almost never a random repop inbetween you and the pull target (because you're not passing through spawnpoints of things you killed when you first setup the camp.)

There are very few scenarios where a camp is actually NEEDED.

With that said, you want aggro on the tank, when you pull with a non tank then the tank needs to get aggro from you. If you just fade the pull off onto the group it could decide to engage any of the party members first. Initial aggro can be annoying. If you pull with the tank, they just already have aggro on everything.
You can setup in such a way that the tank is just in tank mode, then have another toon on pullerassist. This means they would pull, allow the MA to engage and then assist them. Which is a bit like the conventional camp group. Something like that may be useful when first engaging a camp to split it so that you can pull it more effectively to reduce sticky situations.

If I want to put a character in manual mode and participate in the group as that class I would setup my pull area on the tank, put them in hunter, set everyone else on chase, and then manually operate the character in question. This allows me to participate in the group as a class other than the tank, while letting the plugins do their thing. The plugin stays in the designated area, the tank will automatically rest as needed for the groups benefit, and I get to wander off if I want.

 

[cintile]

I'm actually thinking about no tank. I seem to be doing just fine with bst/bard/mage and a cleric merc. However, I really want my druid which is on my bard account. The druid is level 111 but is my oldest character. So I might add an Enchanter to replace Bard and open up spot for druid. Additionally, on my BST account is a 113 SK. I can always work on him from time to time and use him if the need arises.

 

[Nightmare327]

I tend to mainly drive with my warrior, unless I have a tricky pull situation, then Ill hot-key to the monk to pull, then hot-key back to the warrior to tank.