The "corner pin" is every one's favorite pin. If done properly, it gives everyone the rear arc of a mob for their DPS. The rear arc is important because mobs will not get a defensive skill (parry, riposte, block, dodge) check on the melee attacking it. It is also important that the majority of the DPS be aimed at directly pushing the mob into the corner evenly. If the push becomes unbalanced the mob will often be pushed through the wall or objects and then warp out to somewhere inconvenient... warping is always bad. I also suggest have 2 or so people designated to adjust to the majority push (designated as Escape Control here).
It's pretty hard to mess up the corner pin, but the lovely dev's at SOE have decided to design all their zones without corners lately or with object that interfer with corner pins. This is especially true in their raid zones. Apparently, being able to corner pin a mob is too powerful! Typical nerfage.
Since the dev team decided that corners were evil, the next best pin is called the "shoulder pin", or "side pin". The idea is to find a flat wall, place the mob and tank with their shoulders against the wall and then have the DPS push towards the wall. The DPS should do their best to align their push to be perpendicular (make a T) to the wall. But, even with the best push, the mob will still try to slide up and down the wall. To correct this I always suggest placing a few rogues in the positions marked 1. and 2. and then place a few monks, or tanks with good push, at positions 3. and 4. I always try to give the rogues rear arc in any pin.
Being able to react to the mobs position in this pin is very important. But once you have practised and get a good feel on how to balance the push, you will see a solid stationary mob. Also, the rear arc of a mob starts at the side position where I have the majority of the DPS here and thats important.
A good example of how the DPS should look at the various mob defense arcs.
As you can see, the front arc is very big, and the side arc eats up half of the rear arc. When you attack from the side arc you will still get the mob's defensive skill checks, but you will not suffer damage from any sort of Riposte damage. The priority should be pretty clear for where the melee want to attack from. Sadly, there are many situations that force the melee to attack from the less favorable positions.
For example, the dreaded circle pin:
The "circle pin" is the most painful of the basic pins. It's hard to balance and generally pushes the mob all over the place and wastes a lot of DPS. This is a situation where the melee must give up there rear arc preference and spread themselves around the mob evenly. It takes a while to get a good feeling for this pin. Furthermore, it's very difficult to assign the various melee to the various positions on the 360 degree attack arc. I always suggest placing rogues at position 1. and I always suggest placing monks and tanks at position 2. Berserkers, rangers, bards, and beastlords ( NO PETS) then need to fill in the side arcs.
It is important to note that pets are NOT allowed on a circle pin or the side pin. It is impossible to position and reposition the pets so that they don't ruin the pin's balance. Pets have a crazy amount of push, they also will ignore the pin's balance and push to whatever direction the mob begins to be pushed. (if the mob starts going left, the pets will all end up pushing the mob harder to the left, due to the way pets stick to a mob). Sorry pet users, but don't use your pets when the pin is important.
OK, well, that's my basic introduction to mob position and pins. I'll be writing more about pins soon, I still have many moving pins to cover. If your guild is having trouble with position, ask yourself, is there a place that I can pin this sucker? If not, start practising the circle pin. The guild who can master the circle pin, can defeat any mob in EverQuest.
Alrighty, enjoy your pins today!
Keep reading, and send me some email questions @ swampfunk@gmail.com
7 comments:
So... Why don't you just ask the Devs to take out push all together. It used to be good for interrupting mobs, but now any mob with a channeling skill > 1 can almost only be interrupted exclusively by stuns. For one, you would get to enjoy the models of particular NPCs a lot more (The Master of Dreadspire anyone?). They gave Mayong extremely cool movements, design, and during battle we get to see... a cape and a foot. WOOWOO! No. Push adds nothing to the game (Save one or two fights where pallies / monks are assigned specific push duties to interrupt mobs). I think Everquest would be much better off without push, or at least with certain classes being much better at push (monks with dragon punch, paladins with stuns), or at LEAST a major reduction in push.
In a nutshell: Push! It's getting a little out of hand.
They should remove push, Infact they have taken push out totaly in eq2 cause they realized how worthless it is, yet we are stuck with in EQ, bleh .
This game is very easy these days and the push only adds to the overall realism and challenge of the game. Pets especially beast pets do have an invredible amount of push but I disagree that it can't be controlled. I'm the raid pet class leader and I can usually manage pet push in a circle pin formation fairly well. But this goes back to everyone listening to raid instructions and paying attentio to mob positioning.
Ok, if you can manage a pet push in circle pin.
PLEASE JOIN MOMENTUM!!!
lol, that takes a ton of coordination to pull off, and truthfully, I thought no one was really willing to give that effort.
Pet push sucks, we lose more DPS from our DPS chasing mobs then the DPS that swarm and reg pets adds...they need to eliminate or reduce that at least...would make using pets managable...unless you have a miracle worker like rachel...which we don't
wouldnt it make sence that if people were using pets that the dps recognized this fact and compensated accordingly more push dps opposite the pet dps to counter this, seems silly to waste dps to preserve other dps, just because some people arent smart enough to counterbalance the pets.
An often missed detail is that the direction of push is the direction the player is facing - not along the path between the player and the mob.
This makes the shoulder pin quite easy, except for player's penchant for looking at the pretty pictures.
The target ring makes it so pathetically easy, I'm amazed that people incapable of pulling this off even manage to play WoW.
Post a Comment