I have every right to ask people to perform to their fullest in a multiplayer game, regardless of whether I'm paying for their sub or not. If you find that unreasonable, maybe you should stick to playing single player games.
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Considering protect doesnt do much until like lv 30-40 I have it third in my cross classes.
I would put cleric stance first(since fairy can solo heal a lot of really early stuff) and aero second.
If a tank asks for it in an early dungeon i explain to them it doesnt do much at that point. If they insist i tell them to wait while my skills cool down After switching twice. If they dont wait, too bad their fault they died
This is contradictory. If I'm asking for protect (whether that means they just swap to it at the start of the dungeon and switch it out later, keep it on their bar permanently, or whatever they want to do), then I'm asking them to play to the best of their ability. Protect > no protect in 100% of situations. So "demanding" that they cast it is absolutely not unreasonable.
Cleric Stance and Aero go in my first two slots as SCH/AST. At the low levels especially, proper DPS from the healer will prevent more damage than Protect will.
I don't bother with swapping cross skills. People can live without Protect prior to Brayflox.
I will concede that point; it's still early here, and I'm just on my first cup of coffee now. However, as pointed out by other posters already, the time it takes to swap for Protect compared to spending that time actually killing things at that level is less effective than just not making a big deal about it in the first place. Protect is pretty inconsequential until later on, and this thread was originally about someone asking how important it is. Sorry to have drifted off-topic.
I generally agree with most comments you make, Eudyptes. I just get irritated when people suggest tanks somehow maintain the power to demand people play how they see fit.
If your healer needs protect before level 50 dungeons to keep you up then they suck too much to play to their fullest. Cleric>aero>stoneskin>swiftcast>protect.
Cleric is obvious, aero because its more potency than any healer nuke, stoneskin buys more time to dps, swiftcast because some dps are stupid and stand in things, and if used right also buys more time to dps cus you can SC an adlo if the tank is dropping slightly quicker.
You want your healer to play to their fullest then they should be putting out as much dps as possible while keeping everyone alive, if they fail at keeping people alive (stupid dps who stand in everything excluded) then the problem isn't protect it's the healer.
While it might be better for mitigation in every circumstance, waiting an extra minute to start a duty so you can swap to protect then swap back is not. 99% of time tank won't wait and you will wipe because as soon as they get protect it means time to pull. Considering most dungeon runs take about 20 minutes that 5% extra mitigation also makes it take 5% more time, which is not worth it when any half decent healer is more than capable without it and a really good healer is not only capable but by not having protect they can excel at speeding the run of the dungeon up.
As others have indicated, more damage is mitigated at low levels by killing things faster.
While swapping skills to cast Protect on top of this technically provides additional benefit, not all parties will wait for it. If they do, great; you have everything covered. If they don't, the better option for low level duties is always more DPS.