Hey hos.

I know group fighting tactics have been discussed many times over on this forum, but coming back to the realm of middle-earth I was wondering how a somewhat typical scenario should be played. Especially from the point of view of crowd control.

Let's say for example's sake that we have a group of 6, with one of each classes excluding a burglar/captain (somewhat typical group). And we go for 2 melee elite-trolls and 2 ranged elite-bastards. How do we approach the situation? Keep in mind that crowd control is of the essence here.

Too many times the case in my recollection is that the tank goes for one of the melee guys and MA goes for the another one. Then the ranged mofos turn their attention to the minstrel, the MA notices this and moves to one of them. I, as a captain, have zero CC abilities, so I just follow the MA like an idiot with no initiative of my own. And so it goes. Not fluently but usually without casulties.

But in a tough spot the execution of the planned attack should be much more solid. I don't know if any of our LM's or burglars read this, but I would be interested in knowing how they feel the situation should be approached. Which elites should be stunned/mezzed and tanked first and what should be the hacking order?

This is something i´ve been thinking about many times myself.

The most common way is propably the way you described...however i myself tend to do it most often, in the way that i, if acting as MA, attack other of the ranged mobs, regardless what the tank or anyone else does.
This might not be the best way to do it (i don´t know, never been critisiced about it), but at least it keeps one of the ranged ones out of the healer.

lately i´ve been in fellowships inlcuding LM, most often our own Worfdar And in situations where there are 2 ranged and 2 melee mobs for example, i´ve noticed that Worf ALWAYS stuns the other ranged mob, without asking or advicing. I´m in the opinnion that this has been the most succesful way to do it aswell. If having hunter in the group too he can trap other of the melee ones, and leaving only the other melee to the tank and the other ranged one to the MA and the others. These first 2 mobs are quite quickly dealt with, after that the ranged one can be stunned again or MA moves to that one and Tank to the melee one.

Wether it´s best to do in the way, that MA chooses the ranged one and Tank the melee one at the first place, is a matter of opinnion? Just that ranged ones tend to do less damage on melee than the actual melee mobs, thus making it "easier" for the MA to handle..
Opinnions on picking ranged/melee ones? Vany? Thopor?

I think crowd control is very undervalued matter in fellowshipping, you can even see it in the way that LM´s are quite often overlooked when people are looking for men for their fellowships.
I´ve been doing enough, though not too much , fellowshipping to notice that CC can be very essential part of smooth and fast fellowships and can sometimes just settle the entire situation.

I must stress out that i´m no expert in CC´ing as us champions have no CC skills what so ever. oh, sorry we do have that one AOE skill with that ridiculous horn, that stuns the mobs for few seconds and turns all the aggro on ourselves

I really really really hope that with the next patch, there would be some CC skills coming to our way too! or at least some useful skills, as i really do feel that us champs are starting to be the least efficient and useful class in the game.

A tank's opinion about that:

I hate these situations.. i really do.. just gets messy

if there is a LM or burglar I don't bother about running in since I expect them to stun or mezz the ranged mobs..
If not I usually have to run in since I have no ranged skills (except the ridiculous bow shot which is not even worth mentioning)... and I leave the melee to the MA... (the other way round if I'm fighting with Marlon since he usually picks up the ranged ones


The problem with that approach is.. and it happenes quite a lot... sometimes only the ranged mobs aggro and not other ones that are standing close by.. if I run in to fetch the ranged ones I usually pull these bystanders too.. and that can get nasty.. depending on how many they are...

and to Marlon: that is usually why I like to run in though I don't have a prob with you doing it.. as soon as the melee ones are dead everybody starts hitting the ranged ones.. and I like to have aggro on them by that time.. otherwise it's just impossible to get it back...
plus if I tank the melee ones and the MA the ranged and others are coming in it's hard for a MA to keep aggro (if he's not a tank that is)... so i have to move anyways..

(btw that happes quite a lot in carn dum or Uru with the elite patrols walking into your fighting group)


That works well in a full fellowship.. however, I had the same problems when there were only three or two of us... mostly me and Hadu... then I usually tank everything and once in a while shot at the ranged ones to keep them on me... works ok... though I wouldn't recommed it for teams in which not everybody is wearing heavy armour...

ok. sorry for rambling on about this... i love having a LM with me.. as long as he doesn't stun mobs next to me... tanking without Aoe is quite difficult