Am I a chess piece or a saxophonist or an audience member?

So much to discuss in those two great postings, I figured I'd go whole hog post rather than comment also. Mostly I'm trying to share point of view here, given your Rashomon comment, with which I heartily agree btw.

So here we go. I did not get to look at the meter as much as I had thought I would. As a clothie, I am never fully comfortable until the baddies are all down and accounted for, and that's my focus point. Nothing like being ganked from behind when you're wearing Kleenex. I did notice what I thought would be exactly what I thought it would be: The DOTs start slow and hit a critical point where the mob is drawn to you as the main threat, after which threat drops like a rock because the spell time is up. I'm not much interested in the threat meter actually. I learned, while in Crimson, to rely on the target of target and always watch the baddies to know when I'm stealing aggro from the tank. Bizzarov was a good mentor about that. But sometimes, now at lvl 67, I"m okay with handling a little aggro, especially when I know the mob is going to bleed to death before he actually gets to me.

However, as you have pointed out, a warlock spec'd affliction, as I am, is a DOT monster. Yeah I have some DPS blasts but they are very slow casts, eat a soul shard, suck mana, and generate high threat. That's a lot of bad against the one good DPS blast they let off. They are my last resort when I'm in trouble.

Let me add that, as a healer, you are without equal. Over the past 67 levels of running with groups, you are the only healer who has bothered to heal me regularly in runs. Generally all heals go to the tank and off-tank. Unlike the mage or priest or pally, I have no self heal beyond the healthstone, which has a cool down on repeated use. Yeah I can suck life. It tends to buy me time; it does not sufficiently heal me to allow me to do anything offensive beyond continuing to suck life, which of course, both requires and uses mana. Another mixed blessing spell. I rely on my VW to self-bub as well, but then there goes my body guard, eh? lol. So locks are tough to play. That's partly why I really dig 'em.

After laying down a good DOT I don't bring a lot of DPS and I don't heal. So yeah, if I'm not DOT'ing up the next guy (Skull, X, whatever the chain is), I"m standing around throwing 100 DPS wand whacks and waiting for the next part. I don't like how that feels. If we're pulling four guys down on us, I'm playing all four. I'm not stupid enough to break the sheep or the sap or the icey trap. But if there are four guys in play, I'm playing four guys, esply if there is a pet or minion tanking the off guys so I don''t have to melee.

Here's how I control my "pumping out" DPS. My routine is to lay down the two killers DOTS: COA and Corruption. I only get to lay ONE curse at at time on a mob; they don't stack. If I use Curse of Tongues to reduce a caster's speed by 60%, or Curse of Weakness to reduce the mob's DPS a bit, I don't get to lay COA on top of that. So, I have found it better to: COA, Corruption, Immolate (bec. I can then stack Incinerate which pumps up the Immolate), and depending on the diffculty of the fight I add either Life Drain and then pull life (the green string you see, which is a steady switch of their health to me, albeit at a lowish rate in the 150s) or I go wanding. The idea is to lay low as long as I can. If a buddy is in trouble, I can't heal I can only bring out the best DPS I've got, which is slow to cast but packs a wallop. If the priest is getting hammered and I'm still healthy enuff and no one seems to notice, I'll pull out my AOE fire rain just to get the aggro off the priest, not cuz I think it's the right spell for the moment. Generally, I won't use Shadow Burn, Soul Fire, Death Coil, or Howl of Terror unless I am going down w/o any sign of a heal. They have high DPS, thus high threat, so since I"m gonna get slammed they better be killer shots. Trust me, I really do know what I"m doing, but a lot of the time I'm making decisons based on how I think the fight will be or is going.

What I want from a leader is info., and the biggest piece of info I need and RARELY get is: are tanks pulling it back to where we are standing or do I have to run up to get in range. It's precious seconds of time off the DOT clock if I have to a) realize you're not pulling back to me, and b) run up to get in range, and finally c) cast (can't cast while I'm running). I cannot begin to tell you how amazingly RARE it is to know that bit of info before a fight. The leader will say go ahead and pull, and I will discover that the notion of pull is going to be fairly relative: the tank runs up ahead and pull the guy closer to him/herself, but not BACK to us who wait. Should we charge too? LOL.

I also appreciate knowing when we're starting to engage. I don't need a ready ck, but I do need a NOW or GO or "for Gnomeregan!" Why? When you say, put your pet/minion on the purple diamond, that means when we "go" I am first targeted on the purple in order to send the pet/minon, THEN have to acquire my target after all hell has broken loose. I also have a bias about wanting to take the casters out of a mob group first. They heal. They silence. They create havoc. I want them gone. You can tell me to focus on the X, but if the Skull is a caster, it's really, really, hard for me to let go of skull.

I *do* also want local knowledge if I'm new to the instance. I sure don't want to float down off the cliffs into a mob group. LOL. JK.

I understand the need to train as a team in order to reach the improv stage. At least, that's what I'm heading for... And I understand there's a lot to know about the make-up of the team, but also the way people are spec'd within class. For instance, Saami is spec'd marksmenship. I don't think Assy is, and it means we play hunters differently. I'm guessing she's beast mastery, based on her kick ass pets, and the fact that she's mostly solo'd to level. Spec'ing for marksmenship is a lot like playing warlock, as it turns out. For intance, my aimed shot is huge DPS and tends to grab aggro. but it's slow to get off.

I think we need to just chat for an hour without playing, to find out what we do and when / why we do it. If the highest end runs are about more simultaneous mob pulls, then I think improv becomes very important. You have to know and trust what your buddies are doing. If the priest is healing the tank and off tank, and we're NOT doing anything about controlling the extra mobs, I'm toast. If we lock'm up with traps or saps or sheep, they're still coming off that at the same time, roughly. And that's three classes: mage/sheep, rogue/sap, hunter/trap. You add warrior/tank and priest/healer (or druid or pally in either spot) and you have a 5-man. I didnt see warlock in that list. LOL. The succubus might give us another crowd control with soothe, but she can be killed so easily.

P.S. I have never put much stock in damage meters, since I know that they usually don't include the damage done by your pets/minions. I was just stoked to see how much damage I can do, since I am rarely complemented for it and often chided or overlooked as a playing class in favor of rogues, warriors, pallies, and even mages, and priests. I"m down there with the pets. YOu just don't see "looking for warlock" much in the grouping chat unless they're running molten core and want someone to banish elementals.

P.P.S.
It would be awesome if we had an uber rogue on the team. Mine is only at lvl 40something.