Focus fire VS Tunnel vision

[NovaZero]

This is just to put up my thoughts on a lot of the PvP qq I hear. Firstly... PvP is going to always have some complaints about it (which is alarmingly normal but let's not get into that). It's not the class or specs or game balance I'm talking about, but what I feel I have to adress is conduct.

Namely what's in the title.

I'll start by pointing out the term that, in my experience is overused and often misunderstood.

Focus fire is concentrating damage on to a single target.

Now in a warzone, it makes sense. Without focus fire, you're not going to kill anything -- especially if there's a healer around. Focus fire is a sound strategy. If you're on the receiving end of it? It sucks! True! But if it doesn't happen, and the damage is spread out? Then it sucks for the other guys. Any co-ordinated team will always focus their fire and even running around with pugs -- no matter what kind of class or spec you are, attacking the target of a team mate is rarely a bad call.

This differs from tunnel vision. To explain the term, it's what happens when, like a careless shooter you abandon your peripheral vision. To be precise, you go after the same person repeatedly forgetting about objectives, forgetting about killing the other guys, no, you'll pick this guy out and hound them until they're permanently stuck in their  team's respective spawn zone.

Going on this.

Just because you die a lot, doesn't necessarily mean the guy's tunneling you. A good indication at the end of the match is if said person got over 30 kills on the scoreboard because that without a doubt proves that you alone clearly weren't just in their sights, it mean that person was just on a killing spree.

And lastly... if you're a healer, you're fair game. Sorry, but... not killing a healer is a crime  .

[Zuhara]

I would say tunnel vision itself goes beyond the actual idea of abandoning your peripheral vision or focusing on one specific person. Tunnel vision, IMO, is when you completely focus on one specific factor in the WZ and discount everything else (IE, a healer too focused on healing a group to see that their lifebar going down, or someone ninja capping).

That is not so much of a problem if you are able to avoid putting yourself in a situation where you have to focus on more than one thing (which is very rare but does happen), but yes, tunnel vision is the leading cause for stupid and losses in WZs at least for this server. The second, IMO, is lack of capability as a DPS, which is attributed to more than just lack of focus fire.

There are actually two types of DPS for WZs that 90% of the players don't know: Team Damage and Single Target Damage. It is very inefficient for a DPS to try and single burst down a healer in a spec designed for hurting an entire team, such as Rage (Smash monkey) spec for the Warrior. So in reality, there's three different aspects you need to have down to be a good DPS:

1) Know your spec and rotation
2) Know how your class and spec matches up against others.
3) Know how your spec works in damage, whether its through making it impossible for a healer to keep 4-8 people alive at once or by forcing the healer to focus on one target from the massive single burst damage.

That determines a good DPS player. A good team in DPS knows all these things, but at the same time, they know how to focus the damage, known as "focusing fire" :)

[NovaZero]

Abandoning peripheral vision is exactly what tunnel vision quite literally is. How you apply that in the scope of a warzone is beyond the scope of the intended purpose of this particular thread.

You can go on about some tripe and yes I can go "lol l2p". But as I've said? This isn't about that. It's about the rants you hear where someone spouts that they're getting focus fired.

There's a difference. Now you know it.

As for PvP in general? You don't want to know my thoughts but here it is:

Doesn't matter. Whatever works. There's endless tutorials and guides out there and you can surely use your own head. Hey, you win versus the other guy that's telling you you're doing it wrong? I can rationalize away why you won. Same thing for a loss. But on the scope of the individual player's experience in relation to the actions of others? There's not exactly a lot to be said.

[Zuhara]

Oh, I think I see what the topic is about now.

And if people are QQing about whether or not they are getting focused in a WZ from either the team or just one player tunneling, then that's a problem. A majority of those complaints aren't sound at all, as your point is accurate: a lot of the times, the enemy team really is just stomping and burning the hell out of you.

But on those rare occasions, there also people who will get singled out by the enemy team where some of the DPS won't attack anything else but you. However, there are literally only two kinds of players that get this sort of treatment:

1) People who can easily get three shotted, such as people wearing greens or old Centurion/Champion gear. Or people that are just too easy to kill even with 2018 Expertise.
2) People who the enemy deems necessary to kill, such as the healers and exceptional players.

From those two, only one is going to actually complain seriously about being focused since the other knows that is what the fight is about: avoiding the attempts the enemy team does to shut you down. Which in all honesty, the only response really is that they need to change thier game up somehow.

There is a third, and that stems from who the actual players are and of the other team is filled with people that personally hate you. And I doubt anyone would legitamitely ask why they got focused in that case lol.

[NovaZero]

I personally don't mind getting tunneled; it's still something I can exploit. Dragging out your life affects the macro aspect of the game. What's frustrating is when your team doesn't seize the opportunity. If it takes 4 people to kill you, and only you, the other 7 in your team had better trump the 4 they've outnumbered and taken that objective.

Otherwise, that game is going to go about as well as can be expected.

[Rukol Tiber]

In my opinion, since my Marauder is Rage spec, is actually agreeable with Zuzu. But the only problem with that is that if you don't have a healer that focuses on everyone, then the rage spec is useless unless you know how to twist it into something more. I'm still learning the mechanics of PvP since most of my time is spent in RP with my guild, but I've been getting the hang of it. But tunnel vision is for people who go for one thing, instead of hooking up with the team for objectives. And Zuzu's pointed out before to me before that even I'm guilty of that sometimes. I've been trying to more or less go for objectives and such, but against people of Zuhara's calibur, I tend to go into tunnel vision mode and try my hardest to beat them specifically. No offense in those situations, Zuzu, I just want to see how I fair against people such as you or Cavy in those situations.

[Zuhara]

In my opinion, since my Marauder is Rage spec, is actually agreeable with Zuzu. But the only problem with that is that if you don't have a healer that focuses on everyone, then the rage spec is useless unless you know how to twist it into something more. I'm still learning the mechanics of PvP since most of my time is spent in RP with my guild, but I've been getting the hang of it. But tunnel vision is for people who go for one thing, instead of hooking up with the team for objectives. And Zuzu's pointed out before to me before that even I'm guilty of that sometimes. I've been trying to more or less go for objectives and such, but against people of Zuhara's calibur, I tend to go into tunnel vision mode and try my hardest to beat them specifically. No offense in those situations, Zuzu, I just want to see how I fair against people such as you or Cavy in those situations.

None taken.

And even then, you should also be wary as many players don't really seem to understand how their class and specs work. IE, single target tunnel visioning with Rage is not only bad because of tunneling: it's bad because you are trying to use a spec designed in the complete opposite strengths it has.

Damage specs are designed in one of two ways: A focus on multiple target damage with small solo target attacks, or the solo target attacks with little multiple target capability. Specs such as Rage, Madness for the Inquisitor, Lethality for the Agent, and Pyro for the BH are designed to hurt multiple groups of people, as your main priority in damage is to utilize what many people call "fluff damage" whenever there isn't enough single target damage on a team.

Opposites of these specs would be like Deception for the assassin, Concealment for the Operative, Lighting for the Sorc, Arsenal for the Merc, Vengeance for the Jug, or Carnage for the Marauder. So keep in mind what type of spec and role you play in a WZ as well, as it's important to realize whether or not you're playing to your strengths or weaknesses in a situation.

[Hawking]

In my opinion, since my Marauder is Rage spec, is actually agreeable with Zuzu. But the only problem with that is that if you don't have a healer that focuses on everyone, then the rage spec is useless unless you know how to twist it into something more. I'm still learning the mechanics of PvP since most of my time is spent in RP with my guild, but I've been getting the hang of it. But tunnel vision is for people who go for one thing, instead of hooking up with the team for objectives. And Zuzu's pointed out before to me before that even I'm guilty of that sometimes. I've been trying to more or less go for objectives and such, but against people of Zuhara's calibur, I tend to go into tunnel vision mode and try my hardest to beat them specifically. No offense in those situations, Zuzu, I just want to see how I fair against people such as you or Cavy in those situations.

None taken

And even then, you should also be wary as many players don't really seem to understand how their class and specs work. IE, single target tunnel visioning with Rage is not only bad because of tunneling: it's bad because you are trying to use a spec designed in the complete opposite strengths it has.

Damage specs are designed in one of two ways: A focus on multiple target damage with small solo target attacks, or the solo target attacks with little multiple target capability. Specs such as Rage, Madness for the Inquisitor, Lethality for the Agent, and Pyro for the BH are designed to hurt multiple groups of people, as your main priority in damage is to utilize what many people call "fluff damage" whenever there isn't enough single target damage on a team.

Opposites of these specs would be like Deception for the assassin, Concealment for the Operative, Lighting for the Sorc, Arsenal for the Merc, Vengeance for the Jug, or Carnage for the Marauder. So keep in mind what type of spec and role you play in a WZ as well, as it's important to realize whether or not you're playing to your strengths or weaknesses in a situation.

+1 to what Zu's said. It's incredible to me how many Warzone's are lost due to lack of fluff damage. A good healer can quite happily heal through a single tunnel visioner(I know from being constantly stunned and murdered by Sages on my Mara.... ), but fluff damage is amazingly useful. Instead of you jumping to a Sage on full health while bubbled, why not jump to one who's on 70% with DoTs on them? Even one or two people using one of those specs can be insanely useful.
also, SLOWS. PLEASE. THINK OF THE MARAUDERS.

[Zuhara]

In my opinion, since my Marauder is Rage spec, is actually agreeable with Zuzu. But the only problem with that is that if you don't have a healer that focuses on everyone, then the rage spec is useless unless you know how to twist it into something more. I'm still learning the mechanics of PvP since most of my time is spent in RP with my guild, but I've been getting the hang of it. But tunnel vision is for people who go for one thing, instead of hooking up with the team for objectives. And Zuzu's pointed out before to me before that even I'm guilty of that sometimes. I've been trying to more or less go for objectives and such, but against people of Zuhara's calibur, I tend to go into tunnel vision mode and try my hardest to beat them specifically. No offense in those situations, Zuzu, I just want to see how I fair against people such as you or Cavy in those situations.

None taken

And even then, you should also be wary as many players don't really seem to understand how their class and specs work. IE, single target tunnel visioning with Rage is not only bad because of tunneling: it's bad because you are trying to use a spec designed in the complete opposite strengths it has.

Damage specs are designed in one of two ways: A focus on multiple target damage with small solo target attacks, or the solo target attacks with little multiple target capability. Specs such as Rage, Madness for the Inquisitor, Lethality for the Agent, and Pyro for the BH are designed to hurt multiple groups of people, as your main priority in damage is to utilize what many people call "fluff damage" whenever there isn't enough single target damage on a team.

Opposites of these specs would be like Deception for the assassin, Concealment for the Operative, Lighting for the Sorc, Arsenal for the Merc, Vengeance for the Jug, or Carnage for the Marauder. So keep in mind what type of spec and role you play in a WZ as well, as it's important to realize whether or not you're playing to your strengths or weaknesses in a situation.

+1 to what Zu's said. It's incredible to me how many Warzone's are lost due to lack of fluff damage. A good healer can quite happily heal through a single tunnel visioner(I know from being constantly stunned and murdered by Sages on my Mara.... ), but fluff damage is amazingly useful. Instead of you jumping to a Sage on full health while bubbled, why not jump to one who's on 70% with DoTs on them? Even one or two people using one of those specs can be insanely useful.
also, SLOWS. PLEASE. THINK OF THE MARAUDERS.

It also depends on the situation. IE, jumping onto a Sage who is at full health as say, a Carnage Marauder might be a good choice because of where that Sage's focus is. For some healers, it takes some pretty heavy focus on single target healing players, especially in the case of the Sorc since they are more sustained type based heals over a Merc who has the best single target burst heals in the game with the Supercharged Gas and spam Rapid Scan they can do.

So, taking that scenario further, I've actually played on my Marauder where I would leap to a Sage/Sorc and send their health bar to below 25% simply because they were actually focusing on healing that person at 30% with DoTs ticking on them, both ended up dying because of inability to recover from the successful damage utilization being made. The unique scenario with healers is that they have the ability to heal through one of two types of damage, but they can't do both.

A skilled healer, no matter if it's a Sorc/Merc/Operative can heal through fluff damage on a team
A skilled healer, no matter if it's a Sorc/Merc/Operative can heal through single target burst damage.

But no amount of skill in the world can make a healer capable of healing through both if both of those are applied successfully. Damage maximization is the key to determining whether or not you are successful in shutting down a healer, in most cases for reg WZs. If the healer is still able to survive after the amount of damage being put out, the opposing team either didn't do enough fluff damage or they didn't do enough solo burst on targets.

This, of course, is the comparison between DPS and healers only. Scissors (DPS) beats Paper (Heals) every time if those are the only two, but when you factor in Rock (tanks), the game becomes more complex than ever.

[Shank]

Preach Zu, preach.