Originally Posted by
Kalielle
I'm going to come out and say I do this all the time. Go ahead and flame me please :p
I think it's actually a bear's responsibility to make sure the fight doesn't happen over a fire grate. A lot of bears are just too timid about rounding up mobs. They walk 3 steps until they're barely level with the first 3 mobs, then immediately beckon them even if they're right on top of a fire grate. At that point my choices as mage are a) attack and get the grate too or b) don't fight, or perhaps use single target attacks only which is pretty much the equivalent (seriously does anyone ever do that, other than with cockroach after the bins respanwed?). I don't attack grates or barrels if there's no one around, but if the fight ends up over a grate because that's where the tank decided to put it, the grate is gonna get attacked too.
Mobs in BS maps have pretty long leashes for a reason. As a bear the thing to do is run ahead until you're past the fire traps and find a good place to gather the mobs, like at the end of the corridor. Also you can detonate barrels with beckon and if you do it from across the corridor from them you don't even get injured - I try to do this ahead of time if I think the fight will be so close to the barrels that they'll end up blowing up. (And I'm not just trying to lay blame on a class other than mine - I actually play my bear more than my mage these days).
Oh yeah and btw, don't play with me if you're worried about your k/d ratio. :P I do try to keep people alive and I actually cringe inside every time someone dies and I'm tank. But for me this game was meant to be played and I'll always aim for farming efficiency rather than minimizing deaths. Oh and my k/d is pretty awful on all my alts, I'm sure, but I can't say I've checked recently or really care.