Introduction

I thought I'd write up a quick explanation about the functions of each of the three major roles in group content--tanks, healers, and DPS(ers?). All too often, we experience a group member, usually in a pickup group (PUG) who seems to make trouble for the rest, either intentionally or unintentionally, due to their lack of knowledge about their role in the party or basic group etiquette.

Now, I assume that most players out there are not malicious jerks (although we've all encountered some). I assume that most players want to be useful in a group and make an earnest contribution to completing an instance in the quickest and most efficient way possible. And in their defense, we cannot blame them for their ignorance because there really aren't any in-game tutorials that educate people on how to behave in group content. This guide is for them.

If there is a player who is an intentional jerk, looting everything and going AFK, there's nothing I can do about them so I'm not bothering to try. This is for the people who want to be better.

What I'm about to provide is highly generalized information applicable to most MMOs. These are things that people assume are common knowledge, which is why they get so upset when others do not immediately conform to these standards. It is not intended to provide any specific class details or tactical information about specific encounters.

If you already know these things, great! If not, this is an opportunity for you to help out your teammates and have a more enjoyable gaming experience yourself.

The Holy Trinity--Tanking, Healing, and Damage Dealing

In group content, players are generally assigned to one of three roles-tank, healer, or damage dealer (usually referred to as DPS or damage per second). In most cases, there will be one tank, one healer, and the remaining party members will be DPS (SWTOR conveniently provides icons by player status bars to designate their roles). Each has a specific role to play, which I will outline below.

The Tank

The role of the tank is to attract enemies and bear the brunt of the damage. They commonly employ abilities that have high threat generation (threat is the metric that determines how desirable a target is to an enemy). When a tank has sufficiently high threat, they have aggro (derived from "aggravation" or "aggression") or the condition in which the are being attacked by a particular enemy. Maintaining aggro is important because it keeps enemies from attacking other party members who are often weaker targets due to lower health and armor ratings.

Concurrent with their role, tanks typically have much higher survivability than other classes. They endure constant attacks from enemies through any combination of damage mitigation mechanics, such as high / heavy armor (reduces damage), evasion (dodging attacks), shielding (using a buff to absorb part or all of an attack's damage), and draining (stealing enough life to offset damage taken).

It is the role of the tank to:

• Maintain constant aggro by using a rotation (the order and priority in which abilities are used) to maximize threat generation
  
• Use snap aggro techniques, such as a taunt, when they lose aggro to save party members
  
• Maximize her survivability by wearing gear with the appropriate defensive stats and choosing a talent specialization that enhances her tanking abilities
  
• Keep the enemy a safe distance away from their teammates and, preferably, turn the enemy around so its back is to the teammates
  

To help the tank, party members should:

• Let the tank initiate each encounter unless specifically told otherwise, such as when another player is pulling (usually with a ranged ability) or applying some kind of crowd control ability
  
• If ranged, stay an appropriate distance away as to be able to avoid damaging effects from enemies while still being close enough to apply their own abilities to enemies or teammates
  
• Focus firing on the tank's target. This is especially important because a tank's threat is most likely to be concentrated on one enemy and selecting a different enemy will cause it to attack you and force the tank to split her attention among multiple enemies
  

The Healer

The role of the healer is to provide life restoration to damaged teammates. Because players will be constantly sustaining damage during fights, healers must constantly plenish their health. They may employ a varitety of different heals that immediately restore health (burst healing), restore health over time (HoT), or grant health on specific conditions, such as being struck by an enemy or being within the area of effect of a spell.

Healers may also provide other valuable skills during team encounters, such as abilities that shield teammates, remove harmful status effects, apply beneficial status effects, extricate teammates from danger, and reduce threat.

It is the role of the healer to:

• Keep the life bars of the players at full, prioritizing herself, the tank, and DPS in that order
  
• Use the most appropriate heal possible to avoid overhealing that waste time and resources
  
• Maximize her healing by wearing gear with the appropriate ability stats and choosing a talent specialization that enhances her healing abilities
  
• Apply utility skills when appropriate
  

To help the healer, party members should:

• Not take unnecessary damage, such as by avoiding damage zones (red circles) and keeping aggro on the tank
  
• Employ their own survival abilities in case the healer is overwhelmed
  
• Defend the healer if the tank is unable to (should be a temporary situation such as if the tank is stunned or far away)
  

The Damage Dealer (DPS)

It is the role of the damage dealer to kill enemies while being mindful to the roles of the tanks and healers. Damage dealers may be ranged or melee and typically have high offensive statistics and damage dealing abilities. Their job is not simply to kill an enemy, but kill it fast because the longer the party remains in a protracted engagement the more susceptible they become to defeat by having the tank and / or healer run out of life or resources.

It is the role of the damage dealer to:

• Deal as much damage to an enemy in the shortest time possible
  
• Allow the tank to initiate encounters unless told otherwise
  
• Minimize her threat generation by attacking the same target as the tank unless specified otherwise
  
• Stay out of harms way to avoid unnecessary damage
  
• Interact with the environment for specific fights (such as pushing buttons) because the tank and healer will be preoccupied with their primary roles
  
• Maximize her damage by wearing gear with the appropriate offensive stats and choosing a talent specialization that enhances her damaging abilities
  
• Support the tank and healer's roles before her own. If the tank and healer die, the DPS follows shortly thereafter
  

To help the damage dealer, players should:

• Keep the DPS alive as they are crucial to eliminating enemies
  
• Apply threat reducing buffs to her as she will generate a lot of threat by dealing damage
  
• Allow her some autonomy as the tank and healer's focus will be on their own roles
  

General

There are some things that every party member is responsible for that both increase the chances of success in an instance and makes the game enjoyable by making things fair and productive.

Pre-fight

• Apply buffs to party members
  
• Know the encounter if there is a specific tactic that is required to defeat the enemy
  
• Make sure everyone is ready before engaging (have full health if it's a boss)
  
• For difficult encounters, apply crowd control effects to reduce the number of enemies and avoid breaking the effects (usually by attacking said targets) during the fight
  

Looting

There are two different rolling options, Need and Greed.

Use Need when:

• You can actually equip the item on yourself and it has stats appropriate to your talent specialization AND is bind on pickup
  
• The item is equally useful to everyone, such a token, mount, or crafting material (could be sold)
  

Use Greed when:

• You want the item, possibly for a companion or to sell, but you don't have any direct benefit from equipping it
  
• The item is bind on equip
  
• You feel generous and don't care if you get the item or not
  

Other Etiquette

• Avoid becoming distracted or going away from keyboard (AFK) unless you notify your teammates beforehand. Even then, try to keep your absence down to a minute or two
  
• If a player disconnects, give them a minute or two to try and re-connect
  
• Keep the pace of the encounter. Allow players the chance to heal and re-apply buffs, but don't try to slow down more than necessary
  
• Immediately boot players who do not conform to the guidelines above, especially for looting. They will cause more headaches in the long-run and are often times weaker contributors to the group
  
• Be nice. Greet your teammates at the start of the instance and thank them afterwards. Feel free to make pleasant conversation with them if you're not busy. After all, this is a social game and people should have positive interactions with one another
  

I will update this post as needed...

Good luck getting ppl to read it though And you might want to put it in other languages I had a KDY group the other day with 2 new ppl and one person that either didn't care that they had just lost one person and the replacement (me) was trying to keep the group from dying again (which we did twice before I realized) or didn't speak English because he went straight to the boss and stayed then "never" got rid of the grenades Krupp dishes out; thereby, damaging the rest of the group if they didn't get out of the way.

I thought your thread was extremely well written though and would definitely be guidelines to follow if only people will. Thanks for the effort!

I like the info here. Wish I had known it all at launch when this was the first MMORPG I'd ever played. I've gradually been learning all of this since then through trial and error.

I hope a lot of new players see your post

This is great, even if it is the zillionth time that someone has set this all out for us. It's always good to have a fresh guide and most if it is right on the money.

The one thing that raised the alarm was this statement under the "what DPS should so" section....

[*]Minimize her threat generation by attacking the same target as the tank unless specified otherwise

DPS must attack enemies starting from weakest to strongest, and NOT the tanks target, unless there is only one target. While it is ideal for the tank to keep and hold aggro on all enemies all of the time, it's not very realistic. Sure the tank may start the flight with aggro on everything, but soon enough DPS can rip aggro using AOEs and of course healz will pull aggro on enemies that are not being attacked.

SWTOR works best if DPS kills weakest mobs first then moves to stronger mobs, and ultimately the boss. The Tank will aggro the boss, or the strongest, then move to weaker enemies in the unlikely event that that she dispatches the boss before DPS is finished mopping up the rest.

[*]Focus firing on the tank's target. This is especially important because a tank's threat is most likely to be concentrated on one enemy and selecting a different enemy will cause it to attack you and force the tank to split her attention among multiple enemies

So basically you want healer to aggro all the remaining enemies?

Only tank class that has trouble with AoE is Guardian/Juggernaut. But even that isn't impossible if in right hands.

Shadows/Assassins have a lot of AoE especially now after they buffed Force Breach / Discharge damage.

Vanguard/Powertech is just lazy mode when it comes to AoE threat.

No, tank's job is not to hold aggro on everything. Of course it helps but as tank your main task is to keep all stronger enemies from attacking healer/dps. DPS can easily deal with weak/standard enemies that are attacking them or healer (in this case they should). Unlike in other games DPS has DCDs in this game and every class has something to stun the enemies (amount of stuns Scrapper/Concealment has is hilarious).

Introduction

 

 

 

To help the tank, party members should:

 

• 
   
  
• Focus firing on the tank's target. This is especially important because a tank's threat is most likely to be concentrated on one enemy and selecting a different enemy will cause it to attack you and force the tank to split her attention among multiple enemies
  

 

...[/i]

i finished reading at this m8 tank keeps agro on strong mobs while dps takes out week to strong before u complain on others u should look up you're own mistakes only inexperience player attacks tank main target while week adds are still up

as for healing if i would have u in a group and u would att tank target before cleaning week mobs u wudyn't get a heal as i would be busy healing my self due to incompetence of dps

Please learn actual dps kill order before posting about it.

Weak > Strong > Elites

On Boss fights, unless mechanics of the fight say otherwise, dps kill adds then back to boss.

Love watching those fantastic dps that stay on the boss while the healer gets murdered because the adds aren't getting killed.

as for healing if i would have u in a group and u would att tank target before cleaning week mobs u wudyn't get a heal as i would be busy healing my self due to incompetence of dps

This is why I position myself near the healer usually on ranged dps. So if even one weak enemy runs to healer I'm already there to use knockback and/or stun. "Nope! We are not having that!"

Pretty well written, except for the already mentioned kill order. Add that and it's almost perfect*

*almost as in "there's always room for improvement"

^ What he said.

Love watching those fantastic dps that stay on the boss while the healer gets murdered because the adds aren't getting killed.

Nah, even funnier was that one Sage dps tunnelvisioning the Champion while one weak add was munching away on him until he was at 10% health.

Well written. Here's what I'd add regarding the looting options:

 

There are two different rolling options, Need and Greed.

 

There are actually three options, the last being "pass". If you don't need something for whatever reason (for instance, in ops I'll pass on token earpieces if I already have the one I need, since it sells for very little, is bound, and I'd rather someone use it for an off-spec than me using it on a companion). People all too often forget about pass and end up with gear that's useless to them but might not be to someone else.

Please learn actual dps kill order before posting about it.

 

Weak > Strong > Elites

 

On Boss fights, unless mechanics of the fight say otherwise, dps kill adds then back to boss.

 

Love watching those fantastic dps that stay on the boss while the healer gets murdered because the adds aren't getting killed.

His advice is correct in certain situations. For example after Malaphar some joker decides to pull every enemy between you and sword squadron amd there are like 15 champion enemies. Then it's best to focus target the tank and repeatedly target his target.

His advice is correct in certain situations. For example after Malaphar some joker decides to pull every enemy between you and sword squadron amd there are like 15 champion enemies. Then it's best to focus target the tank and repeatedly target his target.

Exceptions make the rule.

Anyways there is a 4th loot roll type besides need greed and pass: disassemble. It has the same 'priority' as greed but when you win it you won't get the item but you get the same crafting mats you would gave gotten from reverse engineering it.

Exceptions make the rule.

Don't you mean exceptions do not make the rule .

Even in Ops where boss fights have adds it is invariably up to the DPS to kill those adds asap.

As has been said, kill order in SWTOR is NOT the same as most MMOs. While it is not difficult for a tank to hold everything it can be "resource draining" as in having to use every area taunt ability in their repertoire for a single pull.

He was being sarcastic towards my comment I believe.

Anyway, there are two situations. Multiple adds of varying difficulty and multiple adds of equal difficulty. Even if you can kill an add in the latter situation, focus target is still better. I encounter the latter more often (Ops), but perhaps the intended audience of the OP would see the former more (heroics and FPs). I'd say it's debatable which situation is the exception.

In addition to the other problems that have already been pointed out, there is no mention of guard. At all.

*Insert pointless line here about how you shouldnt post guides about things you clearly do not understand*

Kill order is actually "whatever-is-after-your-healer">weak>strong>etc

Always expect tank to screw up. And in that case, it's your job to babysit your walking medpack

His advice is correct in certain situations. For example after Malaphar some joker decides to pull every enemy between you and sword squadron amd there are like 15 champion enemies. Then it's best to focus target the tank and repeatedly target his target.

Sure let's stretch it out to something rediculous... you should be nuking the adds that can heal in that situation rather than the tank targets btw.

On the whole the etticate is correct and a basic knowledge on groups, but as others pointed out usually the DPS have a kill order of weakest to strong while the tank keeps the strongest of the mobs on him until the DPS can burn through the rest and catch up.

Also no mention of guard being used, despite many mentions healers still request guard, despite the fact that guard exists to reduce the threat of the guy most likely to take aggro from the tank, unless you are a level 20 tank running with a level 50 healer it is not likely that a healer will ever generate more aggro than the highest level DPS ( I say not likely as there are some shoddy DPS out there, me included if I am not paying particular attention of the flashpoint).

Introduction

...All too often, we experience a group member, usually in a pickup group (PUG) who seems to make trouble for the rest, either intentionally or unintentionally, due to their lack of knowledge about their role in the party or basic group etiquette.

 

Now, I assume that most players out there are not malicious jerks (although we've all encountered some). I assume that most players want to be useful in a group and make an earnest contribution to completing an instance in the quickest and most efficient way possible. And in their defense, we cannot blame them for their ignorance because there really aren't any in-game tutorials that educate people on how to behave in group content. This guide is for them.

 

...This is for the people who want to be better...

 

What I'm about to provide is highly generalized information applicable to most MMOs. These are things that people assume are common knowledge, which is why they get so upset when others do not immediately conform to these standards. It is not intended to provide any specific class details or tactical information about specific encounters.

 

If you already know these things, great! If not, this is an opportunity for you to help out your teammates and have a more enjoyable gaming experience yourself. ...[/i]

OP outlined exactly what the guide is for and some of you are nitpicking things he specifically doesn't spend time on. For people new to this game and MMOs in general, I think this guide is an excellent starting point. People can follow class-specific guides and what each individual ability does to insane mathematical detail all they want, but having this base set of principles (for the most part) will improve a lot of our PUGs and the overall quality of running the group content.

Thanks everyone for the supportive comments and constructive criticism.

Let me address what seems to be irking a lot of people, which is the prioritization of targets.

In most MMORPGs, a good offense makes for a good defense. The quicker enemies are killed, the less damage they will inflict on the party over the duration of the encounter. Killing enemies quickly also reduces the frequency with which they may use other debilitating effects, such as debuffs, stuns, interrupts, etc. In this vein, it makes sense to eliminate the weakest, easiest targets first. So yes, the priority of targets in most situations should be weak > strong > elite.

There will also certainly be situations in which adds ("additional enemies") may spawn and should be "burned" down even if they aren't being targeted by the tank, but as prefaced, this topic wasn't intended to cover specific boss encounters.

In most situations the practice of focus firing on the tank's target still holds true because enemies of like strength tend to be clustered together. If there are two or more enemies of the same level strength, the DPS should not be selecting their own targets, but rather focus down the same target as the tank for all the reasons already mentioned.

... In most situations the practice of focus firing on the tank's target still holds true because enemies of like strength tend to be clustered together. If there are two or more enemies of the same level strength, the DPS should not be selecting their own targets, but rather focus down the same target as the tank for all the reasons already mentioned.

As a tank I really hate it when DPS take their target from me.

First of: groups are more often then not mixed in mob strength. So as others have already said DPS should follow their kill order instead of fighting for the tanks mobs.

Assuming DPS follow correct kill order and have more than one target of equal strength to choose from. I will switch targets constantly as a tank to build threat on all the targets and see whether they are still targeting me. Depending on when each of the DPS has choosen their next target based on my current target they may end up on different mobs which makes live for me as tank more difficult (because I have to tank 2 targets against DPS) and it will make the healers life more difficult (because it takes longer until the first enemys die and incoming damage goes down).

Because of this DPS should not(!) choose their target based on the tanks current target but instead look at each others target and switch targets if necessary. A symbol on the next mob to kill may help (crosshair or flame are most often used on my server for that purpose)

Well lets think about this,

The two most basic and helpful guidelines for any DPS are:

1. Do Not Die

2. Kill Order: Weak > Strong > Elite

Now, lets review what these two items entail.

1. Do Not Die: if you are dead you are not doing damage, fairly obvious

2. Kill Order: Weak > Strong > Elite

To investigate this we have to look at each part individually. Lets look at a basic pull in star wars, there are a couple weak mobs (both melee and ranged), two silvers (these typically deal the most damage), and one gold (takes the longest time to kill).

In this pull we will assume the tank knows what they are doing i.e. maintains aggro on the enemies which deal the most damage and attempt to keep the others out of harms way by taunting the enemies who cant be reached but is focused on keeping those strong/elites away from the others. If there are any the tank can't hit, after six seconds they will be free to hit whomever they please (probably healer)

Weaks:

kill these before the taunt drops off and they either hit you or the healer. If you don't hit and then kill them they will go and have fun with the healer

If ranged, stay an appropriate distance away as to be able to avoid damaging effects from enemies while still being close enough to apply their own abilities to enemies or teammates

Not take unnecessary damage, such as by avoiding damage zones (red circles) and keeping aggro on the tank

Defend the healer if the tank is unable to (should be a temporary situation such as if the tank is stunned or far away)

Deal as much damage to an enemy in the shortest time possible

Allow her some autonomy as the tank and healer's focus will be on their own roles

Thus killing weaks assuming a competent tank will accomplish those things in the OP and allow the tank to build aggro on the higher damage mobs, strongs/elites.

Strongs:

These do the most individual damage(terminate anyone?) but also can be killed quickly. Removing anything doing a not insignificant amount of damage will make both the healer's and tank's jobs easier and these can be killed faster than the gold thereby reducing the length of time where there is increased damage. If you killed weaks first, the assumed competent tank should have a large enough lead in aggro that you will not rip from him and you can still kill the silver without taking any damage from them. Oh, and interrupts are also amazing with silvers. So what are you doing at this point?

Let the tank initiate each encounter unless specifically told otherwise, such as when another player is pulling (usually with a ranged ability) or applying some kind of crowd control ability

Not take unnecessary damage, such as by avoiding damage zones (red circles) and keeping aggro on the tank

Deal as much damage to an enemy in the shortest time possible

Allow the tank to initiate encounters unless told otherwise

Support the tank and healer's roles before her own. If the tank and healer die, the DPS follows shortly thereafter

Allow her some autonomy as the tank and healer's focus will be on their own roles

Elites:

At this point the group should be pretty relaxed and there should be a minimal amount of damage going out as there is only one enemy left, enjoy a relaxed final kill of the pull!

If a dps follows the "focus the tank's target" then aggro has the potential to be all over the place with mobs that should be dead still dealing damage and possibly dealing damage to people who it would be helpful to not take damage thus making the healer frantically

Keep the life bars of the players at full, prioritizing herself, the tank, and DPS in that order

This will probably end badly more often than not, especially in a pug.

In most situations the practice of focus firing on the tank's target still holds true because enemies of like strength tend to be clustered together. If there are two or more enemies of the same level strength, the DPS should not be selecting their own targets, but rather focus down the same target as the tank for all the reasons already mentioned.

I still don't get it...

I mean my Scoundrel one shots weak/standard enemies with Sucker Punch. That's actually very annoying since I have to constantly switch to new target. Yes, I know I'm undergeared.