1. The MA's (main assist) job is to grab and hold agro. Everyone else's is job exactly the opposite. So, all melees should also keep the farthest distance possible from a mob to hit it.

2. Assist and then Attack ONLY AFTER the MA call goes out. If you don't see the call, DO NOT ATTCK. It will become apparent that the call was not heard when the MA is at 10% health and he is soloing the mob.

3. If you don't know, ask. If you don't know ASK. IF YOU DON'T KNOW, ASK. Do not assume anything, and DON NOT ask the Raid Leader, that is what your group leader is for, if they don't know THEY will ask the raid leader.

4. Between fights, hang near your group leader. They will be the target of group buffs and refreshes.

5. If you see an uninvited mob sneak in, TELL SOMEBODY. Piss it off, but DONT hurt it, Its not that mob?s time to die. Beg, taunt, non-damage spells, SIT ON IT if you have to. Taunt an add only if you have the HPs to survive a beating while the group focuses on another mob. Druids, mages, and wizards need not apply here, although wizard root is a viable option. Druid root has a damage component which will break an enchanter's mezz - don't use it for parking if there's an enchanter trying to do crowd control.

6. Backup to the Kill Area after EVERY kill. Doesn't matter if there are 3 more mobs mezzed and waiting. Move back to the kill area after each and every kill. If you are not sure where or what the kill area is ... see number 3. (Note this exclude the Pull, Mezz and Tag teams)

7. Less is more. lets keep our messages to each other clean and clear. 30 people in a channel don't need to see your 'assisting the MA' hotkey. It is expected. When considering your messages think about whether anybody will take actions based on your message. Please turn off your cute emotes, or limit them to your group.

8. If you have to AFK (and you will, this raid is too long), be sure to auto-follow a member of your group. Preferably a caster. And tell them so they know to not drag you into a pit or something. Also tell them when you are back :)

9. Casters move up to melee range to cast. If you get agro stand and let the MA regain, don't nuke early or too hard at once. And don't sit down right after casting either, you need to drift down the mob's hate list a bit.

10. When the raid leader sends out who the MA and SA will be over the channel, you should set up two hotkeys:
MA: /assist (MA's name)
SA: /assist (SA's name)

11. The three prime things to expect on a raid:
-- No loot
-- No XP (Kinda fixed with raid system)
-- Possibility of many deaths

12. /assist off should be everyone's default assist setup. That means when you hit assist, you don't automatically attack.

13. Do what the raid leader asks you to do without arguing about it. When he says, "Paladin, go help pull Cazic Thule and take the Death Touch for the regular pullers!", just go do it.

14. Listen and PAY ATTENTION - If you can't chat and watch for instructions at the same time, don't chat.

15. Be on time, Be On Time, BE ON TIME!!!!! If you are late, don't expect for your place to be open unless pre arranged. If you might be close to getting there on time camp in the meeting spot the night before. If you are late I will replace you with someone that can be on time. If you need a port, make sure you are on 30 min before the raid for a port, we won't send anyone for you 10 min before a raid, you'll have to find your own way.

Advanced Raiding tactics

Mob Positioning

Surround - This is typically done on smaller mobs. The smaller the mob is the more sides we need to be able to hit from in order to get all our melee in rage. The MA should be in the front, rogues will be in the back. Ideally they don't have to move. Now we will need the bigger tanks who can handle a little repost damage to be in the front as necessary to offset rogues and lighter tanks push from the back. As much as possible people should be fighting from the sides. BOTH sides to counter the push from the other. If you find yourself having to step forward into a mob, run around to the other side. In an ideal situation the mob doesn't move at all. At the least we must avoid moving it into casters (hard to walk over them), too far from the healers (healers hate that), or into a wall.

Pin - This is often done on really big mobs like wurms and giants. It can only be done in a place where the wall is flat. A curved wall of any sort and a pinned mob can be pushed through it, bad news. In this case again we will have the MA in the front, rogues in the back, and everybody else on the side. If the rogues are pushing enough that the MA is backing up, again we will want big tanks to move around to the front and help hold it steady. At times it will get pinned in the wrong spot, and we'll want to move it, these same large tanks should be ready to move to the back or front as necessary to move the mob, then off to the side when the position is right.

We will do this to the King.


Lag

As we get a lot of folks into the fight or group of mobs you will notice performance coming right to the ground. This will kill us. If a healer is lagged they won't see someone is hurt, CH circle will get behind etc. Even if a melee is lagged, you might not get the message that you are rampaged until you're actually dead.

We should all know how to turn off luclin models, spell effects, spell particle density, 3D sky, PC names off, dynamic lights off etc. One thing many people don't know about is a little file called 'datarate.txt'. This file lives in your EQ directory. By default it reads '5.0'. That's all there is in this file. This is set up for a dialup 56 modem. If you are on broadband, up this to 9.0. Trust me you'll be amazed. BTW, if you go over 9.0 it doesn't know what to do so it actually uses the default of 5.0.


Gating Mobs

A mob that gates away from a raid is BAD NEWS. The mob will then typically start summoning people and making a huge mess of things. First, to avoid gating there are couple things we can do. We can try to interrupt with bash. They won't stun mobs 55+, but it can interrupt. Watch for the gating message and give it a whirl. Second, we nuke. Mobs typically gate at about 10% health. The gate spell should take 4 seconds to cast. During that time we need to do 10% of the mob's damage. If casters save their nuking towards the end of a fight like this, we get fewer gaters.

The second part of this is what to do IF the mob gates. If you are summoned, let everybody know you've been summoned. Type /loc immediately. If you know your way back to camp, run. The raid leader will then either decide to charge or camp. If camp is called, you know what to do, park it and /camp fast. Then log in to an alt and join the raid channel. If charge is called, follow the puller and or the MA. Try not to pass them.