Repose in dungeons?

I went to Qarn for the first time, and told my party it was my first visit. One of the DPS said I should stop wasting my time casting repose, and DoT them up instead. Someone kept breaking the CC as well - I'm guessing the same person ><

Do you guys use repose, dps, or both? My thought process is generally:
1: Heal
2: CC to make healing easier, and buy myself time to dps
3: DPS

I assume this is good habit, and thought process to prepare for endgame?

I guess it stuck with me because he said it with a bit more attitude, like - stop wasting our time and do something useful... which lead to me casting heal more :( If I felt it were a completely trivial I'd agree, but we did wipe once, and the DPS failed on the two bomb pulls. Also, another party member did use sleep a couple of times - which seems liek a completely idiotic tradeoff (DPS casting CC so the healer can DPS???). Is there a class that does better AoE damage than single target?

I rarely use Repose in a DF group because, even after telling my party I'll be sleeping mobs someone ends up waking them up, even if I mark them. This is less of a problem in later dungeons as a BLM seems to sleep for speed runs so I can concentrate on other stuff.

I generally prioritise healing, then switch out to DPS (add DoTs and cast Stone II while in Cleric Stance) when things are going smoothly. I haven't done a ton of end-game, but I didn't find Repose useful in any of my level 50 dungeon runs as generally the DPS are AoEing at that point.

Send things to sleep if you feel the need too. Its better to error on the side of caution than DPS and things go wrong. Guessing the person that told you not too wanted to do it fast or had no interest in actually watching what was going on.

Its situational to me; really depends on the tank and what mobs are around.

If I have time to Repose, and the tank is marking enemies, I'll Repose the last enemy (mine is a macro, so its noticeable that I'm doing it). Haukke Manner and Cutter's Cry are two I use it a lot in; also the poison plant mobs in Tam-Tara (hate having to esuna 3 stacks of poison)

However, if the tank isn't terribly good or there's too many mobs I won't Repose, since doing so may kill the tank (in fact, I was tanking Stone Vigil and the heal was Repose-happy...so much so that he let me die to about 6 mobs trying to sleep some [funny thing is, I think he pulled the second group...])

I don't Repose in WP or AK normally though...its just not worth it (WP speed-runs there is a use before the first boss, but since we run with a BLM its normally his job to do it.)


As for DPSing...if you have time to do it (tank is stable), go ahead. If the tank is not...you better be healing.

The reason it's good to leave sleeping up to BLMs in later dungeons is Deep Sleep adding the AoE. It's really helpful in WP, and would be a pain in the backside to individually cast!

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Originally Posted by Snat

Guessing the person that told you not too wanted to do it fast or had no interest in actually watching what was going on.

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That was my guess. It seemed like it wasn't even faster.. it was just lazy. I usually will heal first and foremost, but also use repose to make sure the tank and I can handle the damage, then DPS the primary target.


It seems completely idiotic at low levels for me to DPS, while a DPS CCs... or for me NOT to CC, and spend all my time healing. If the mobs were dropping fast, or we had a great AoE group, I'd understand - but I didn't feel that was the case ><

It's a terrible ability, don't waste GCDs on it and DPS instead.

Current MMOs seem to have a complete disregard for Crowd Control to begin with. Tanks and Healers are FAR too powerful for their own good.

I'm personally a sleep-a-holic. I love Crowd Control. But I also come from the "old school" where failed crowd control meant a party wipe. Being able to tank 2 or 3 mobs at once made you a God among Men. And that's the origin of the design flaw. Crowd Control was there to keep your Tank from being overwhelmed by incoming multiple sources of damage. The moment where you negate that by giving them enough defense to laugh in the face of patrols or packs of mobs, is the moment you have cut any need for crowd control.

You also cut any need for tactics beyond the basics.

The funny thing though is, the content is actually designed to be balanced around Crowd Control. Take AK for instance. While most of the mobs can't be put to sleep, those times have less incoming damage than the ones that can! The 3 hipogryphs in the front room cant be slept, but they get killed with nary a thought. However the room with the one demon beast and the two houndlights? There's a marked increase in how much damage your tanks going to take. It's no surprise that sleep works on the hounds, but not the hipogryphs.

"But it's unfair! Not every group is going to have CC!" There's actually a lot more CC in the game than people seem to realize. White Mage and Black Mage have sleep sure. But there's also other forms of Crowd Control out there as well.
Summoners have an off tank to hold an add with no threat to the group.
Archers can Kite a melee mob while it's buddies are taken out normally. Not to mention Rooting.
And let's not forget that Tanking, by it's nature, is a form of crowd control.

The tools are there. The Need is not. As long as the players CAN ignore complicated tactics they WILL ignore complicated tactics. And currently, the reason that they CAN ignore complicated tactics is because handling 3 mobs at once is usually not a problem for a tank/healer combination. (3 being the normal group of mobs you encounter, Stone Vigil and Haukke have rooms with more and suddenly things become much different).

But there's another factor involved. CC only really comes into play on trash, and we call it "trash" for a reason. I can only think of 1 or two places where Sleep is in play on a boss encounter (Brayflox, Drake boss comes to mind). So in order to really make CC worth it we'd need to make "Trash" not be....well....."trash"! Which really only brings me back to Haukke and Stone Vigil with their optional rooms. So obviously, I'm of two minds on the subject.

To take it back to Repose, when asked about it I usually go with this canned answer "Repose healed 100% of the damage you didn't take."

In packs of 3 or more I'll cast Repose on the first pack and see what happens. If I'm with a WAR usually it's not worth doing as they're going to use Overpower. With a PLD, it'll depend on how aware they are I'm doing it and whether or not the other DPS does single target damage or not. After a couple of pulls I'll have an idea of whether or not it's going to be worth my time to do it or just prepare to spam heals on the tank.

In a standard DF for the 4-man dungeons leading up to 50, Repose is a great tool as it mitigates damage. I've gone through a Brayflox with tank in full Calvary and the damage received from the pack versus a single mob is like night and day. A slept pull means you can DPS hard on the first target and only need to heal once the party engages the second target. For Brayflox, that usually means make the pull, sleep the 2nd and 3rd (if there) mob, top off the tank, pop Cleric's Stance and go rock the #1 target. Once that's dead, Aero the 2nd target, resleep the 3rd (if there), remove cleric's and top off the tank then resume flinging Stones. This is a sharp contrast in needing to Cure every 2nd or 3rd GCD as a WHM in Brayflox or most other low level DFs.

Repose loses a lot of its effectiveness in the 50 dungeons when mobs are either immune to sleep or the tank is so overgeared they can take it in the face and laugh. I used to Repose specific things in AK when the tank I usually run with wasn't the best geared, but now we can face roll them.

Just because Repose isn't useful in the late game doesn't mean it's not useful in the early game. However, if the tank / DPS don't allow you to repose effectively, either change your Repose pattern to match their style of play or just keep the tank healed through the brute force of WHM healing power.

TLDR: Repose is a great utility tool and should be used to allow you to DPS harder and help reduce the risk of your pulls in low end dungeons. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the full value a 30s sleep gives you.

Something worth mentioning is that you don't build further hate on slept enemies unless you actually perform actions against them. So tanks can continue building hate with Flash and your heals won't gain you enmity while the enemies are sleeping.

It's nice in lower level dungeons where you are capped, but at level 50 as people have mentioned, a lot of enemies will be immune and due to iLevel you will likely be overgeared and can just AoE them down anyway. Before that, go nuts sleeping. It's not like MP is ever an issue on trash mobs.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

. Repose loses a lot of its effectiveness in the 50 dungeons when mobs are either immune to sleep or the tank is so overgeared they can take it in the face and laugh. I used to Repose specific things in AK when the tank I usually run with wasn't the best geared, but now we can face roll them.

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You know, I think a lot of players would do well to downgrade their gear (like run AK in WP drops) just to keep themselves sharp and/or humble.

My advice to you OP is tell your group that you will sleep in order to help them(Less damage people take, the more DPS you can do, the faster the run will be.), if they break your CC after that warning then stop doing it. Just go full heal mode, If they don't want to be efficient then you shouldn't have to go out of your way trying to help them.

Also the suggestions to let a BLM do the sleeping is valid, but most BLM's at 50 don't bother sleeping and instead AOE everything and it's a reasonable thing.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

It's a terrible ability, don't waste GCDs on it and DPS instead.

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I hope you're trolling.

Casting repose once might save me casting Cure TWICE, therefore it's NOT a waste of a GCD... unless people are AOEing, and the damage done is greater than what it would be focus firing a single target including my DPS. I understand Blm AOE sleep is better than repose later, but in the meantime it's much better damage for me to cast repose, while they cast fire, instead of them casting Sleep, and me casting Stone. (This assumes the healing is under control)

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Originally Posted by Tridus1x

My advice to you OP is tell your group that you will sleep in order to help them(Less damage people take, the more DPS you can do, the faster the run will be.), if they break your CC after that warning then stop doing it. Just go full heal mode, If they don't want to be efficient then you shouldn't have to go out of your way trying to help them.

Also the suggestions to let a BLM do the sleeping is valid, but most BLM's at 50 don't bother sleeping and instead AOE everything and it's a reasonable thing.

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I think communication was really the only 'problem' but you know how DF groups can be sort of quiet and non-conversational - so then when someone does say something critical it just bedcomes negative...

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Originally Posted by Simaril

I think communication was really the only 'problem' but you know how DF groups can be sort of quiet and non-conversational - so then when someone does say something critical it just bedcomes negative...

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I start off with simply asking "Want sleep or no sleep?" If no one says anything, I say "OK, Sleep it is." If still no one responds I'd say 9/10 times the kill order gets respected pretty well. And the run goes smooth. Most of the time I get lines like "oh good, someone who knows how to sleep!" from tanks. Strangely, Warriors are the ones that usually like sleep the most, which I would expect to not be the case, but since natural timing lets them drop 1-2 Overpowers before the sleep hits it works quite well.
I do have Repose macroed to a /emote for "/em puts <t> to SLEEP!" Which I think helps nicely so that players aren't confused about what I'm doing.

The exception is if there's a summoner in the group, I don't even bother asking then since they seem utterly incapable of actually targeting something and not breaking sleep (I am 90% sure it's the pets, they say they aren't supposed to break sleep, but I watch them do it with AE attacks).

I always assume, unless told otherwise that the BLM will not actually cast sleep or will not maintain sleep past the initial cast. This has proven false exactly 1 (that's "One") time. When I play BLM I am just as guilty about not maintaining the sleep, but the record will show that I am pretty terrible at BLM.

Repose is great, especially in large packs/large pulls. Mark the mob you're going to Sleep and let people know, then cast it. If they break it, they buy it. But a tank can safely flash while a mob is sleeped, SMN/ACN can safely Bane while a mob is sleeped (won't break the sleep), dots can tick, etc. So it's a really good ability, imo.

Repose all you can if not aoe, will give you more time to dps, and chain pull next group non-stop which save time for tank to mark & pull.

And one more thing, don't let BLM sleep. They'll waste their time doing damage, while you can easily repose.

WHM Sleep BLM dps > WHM dps BLM Sleep

First off I say if there is no BLM there to sleep and you are the only sleep at low level dungeons sleep the adds, just do it, take control of your pt you are the healer you are not theirs to command you are there to keep them alive. Frankly if you are low level and are sleeping it means you have no BLM, if you have no BLM at those lower lvls you really lack the AOE firepower to DPS as a group effectively early on you also lack the healing potency and abilities to effectively cover your pt. Your party, your responsibility, your tank, your healing rules you don't want to risk it, DON'T. In the end remember who they will be crying about if their body hits the floor regardless of what you do or do not do. I had a tank once that did NOT want regen on him at any point regardless, ok well that's his call, his job and his responsibility so I rolled with it. Chin up you got this, do whatever you feel is right to keep your pt alive, that is your torch to bear.

If no BLM I use it. I love it. My CNJ is only 34 but even when I run with a FC BLM friend we chat and each sleep a different mob to make it even faster/safer. It is just another tool to be used when appropriate. ^^ That being said, I have had a few times where there was no BLM and certain pulls have a lot of damage fast. In those cases spam curing has been better and safer than trying to sleep first and then cure.

Repose is great if you are with people who are actually paying attention to the mobs you sleep and don't wake them, but if you pug it varies, some people will like it and some wont. You have to judge if its a good idea to use it depending on the party you are with.

Repose is a great ability early to mid-game. Most tanks take so much damage early on, so it helps. Has some uses in a few cases at end game too, if you're doing a normal run and the tank is taking damage at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, even if you do make macros, most people will wake them up regardless.
If I'm to be honest, it's not like most black mages even bother to use their CC anyway, so the CC falls on you in most normal cases.

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Originally Posted by Tridus1x

My advice to you OP is tell your group that you will sleep in order to help them(Less damage people take, the more DPS you can do, the faster the run will be.)

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How did you come up with that logic? You can't AoE because you'll simply wake up the target, therefore less DPS and consequently longer pack kills.


Repose is the tool of a lazy and terrible Healer. If you want to use it, go ahead, but don't try to justify it as if it helps the group.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

How did you come up with that logic? You can't AoE because you'll simply wake up the target, therefore less DPS and consequently longer pack kills.


Repose is the tool of a lazy and terrible Healer. If you want to use it, go ahead, but don't try to justify it as if it helps the group.

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You act like every group composition is a WHM PLD BRD BLM. In non-level 50 duty finder randoms, this is generally never the case and thus Repose is an infinitely better tool in mitigating damage. Even the at level greens puts you (more or less) at the level cap of the dungeon and they still are better then synced DL gear. Therefore, you can't over gear for it like you can for WP or AK and burn through the dungeon as efficiently as you would with a iLvl70+ group running for Mythology farming.

In end game instances where being over geared up the ying yang is standard, Repose does lose its luster because your tanks and DPS can take damage and not give a flying care about it. Your cures are OP and your tank takes so little damage anyway you can DPS for the majority of the run anyway. On top of the fact that many of the mobs found in these instances are immune to sleep, thus the utility of a sleep is lost.

In early end game dungeons where a lot of classes don't have their toolkits fully developed and not every class even has access to an AoE, sleeps combined with 2.5 DPS (since the healer can DPS more readily) will drop groups faster than trying to AoE burn them down. If you happen to get a 2x THM or BLM, then that might change, otherwise, stick to the single targets.

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Originally Posted by Tzain

You know, I think a lot of players would do well to downgrade their gear (like run AK in WP drops) just to keep themselves sharp and/or humble.

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A couple of my friends and I have thought of brushing off the old AF gear + primal weapon + HQ 49 accessories and see how we can handle AK / WP for fun. If it does happen, I'll let you know how it goes.

Just please, don't be obsessive about repose, seen some tank deaths because the healer was busy casting repose instead of healing the burst. If you have a BLM sure, they can do more damage than you, but no one dies if they sleep someone. You on the other hand can cause a tank death if you waste 2 GCDs on repose during pull.

If DPS was sleeping the mobs I assume you had a BLM. They have an aoe sleep and this may be why they told you not to sleep the mobs. Crowd control is great in lower level dungeons. I've use it to keep my party alive, especially when someone accidentally aggros a second pack of mobs.

I've done some dps in CC but quite frankly I usually don't have time in lower level dungeons. Most parties are not overgeared for content at those levels and need the healing support.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

How did you come up with that logic? You can't AoE because you'll simply wake up the target, therefore less DPS and consequently longer pack kills.


Repose is the tool of a lazy and terrible Healer. If you want to use it, go ahead, but don't try to justify it as if it helps the group.

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If you're the only one AoEing, then your dps is better - but how much does it really increase the group's dps? Your AoE damage better be good, because if you're AoEing, then the healer is probably contributing next to 0 dps because the tank is taking lots of damage. If your tank and other DPS aren't AoEing, then your increase in DPS might not be more than what you lost from the healer.

Pre-50 dungeons and at level runs, sleep does really well as does other CC methods. Once people are overgeared, it doesn't matter though and AoEs are much more useful. There are some groups of course where this is not so.
Tank/Heal/MNKs (I'm pretty sure mnk doesn't have much in the way of AoE...)
Tank/SCH/SMN/BLM (SCH+SMN Bane DoTs will not break sleep so BLM can sleep and burn targets 1 by 1 while SCH+SMN DoT to death).
Tank/WHM/SMN/SMN (Same as above, WHM sleeping)
Most other combination of DPS will probably find more use out of AoEs, but particularly in DF not everything is so clear cut. Remember to change and adapt to the setup as each run is different.

On the subject on AOE, After playing Black Mage and white mage to 50....I still don't get what everyone is so obsessed about.
I mean, if we're talking about a swarm of 5-8 mobs that have low health and need to burn down? (Aurum Vale Seedlings) Then YES! accept no substitutes. But on 3 or less mobs I just don't see the amount of damage done as being that much more useful than just focus firing a target. I did some napkin math and single target with average proc rates of firestarter had about 3 times the potency/second of Fire II and that's not even taking into consideration the mana efficiency and how long your burn phase is. Generally speaking 4 mobs seems like the bare minimum to make fire II worth casting.

If the healer cant contribute to the total damage done because of Fire II breaking CC then that's just a double whammy of inefficiency.

(If memory serves, the potency/second of Fire II was 33, the potency/second on Fire I + Firestarter procs was 99 when adjusted for GCD and % rates.)

Of course, I freely admit to being pretty bad at black magery, so most likely I'm doing it wrong.

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Originally Posted by Tzain

On the subject on AOE, After playing Black Mage and white mage to 50....I still don't get what everyone is so obsessed about.
I mean, if we're talking about a swarm of 5-8 mobs that have low health and need to burn down? (Aurum Vale Seedlings) Then YES! accept no substitutes. But on 3 or less mobs I just don't see the amount of damage done as being that much more useful than just focus firing a target. I did some napkin math and single target with average proc rates of firestarter had about 3 times the potency/second of Fire II and that's not even taking into consideration the mana efficiency and how long your burn phase is. Generally speaking 4 mobs seems like the bare minimum to make fire II worth casting.

If the healer cant contribute to the total damage done because of Fire II breaking CC then that's just a double whammy of inefficiency.

(If memory serves, the potency/second of Fire II was 33, the potency/second on Fire I + Firestarter procs was 99 when adjusted for GCD and % rates.)

Of course, I freely admit to being pretty bad at black magery, so most likely I'm doing it wrong.

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This is along the lines of what I was thinking. I was hoping someone might show why AoE is better or worse in a given circumsatance. I'm also afraid that my lack of experience as a Blm means I'm missing something???

If people are breaking CC just leave it. No point.

Pre 50 I'd say sleep but warn your tank but you've gotta remember that if you're busting out cures like mad while a mob is asleep it's gonna turn on you straight away. If I see a slept mob and the healer is getting close to stealing hate I'll be comboing that and you can cast repose as much as you like but I won't stop till I'm comfortable with aggro.

Majority of times you'll find it's the DPS that usually break sleep. But remember again a WAR can only fire off a few flashes before he's got to overpower. So maybe wait till he's done that a few times before sleeping?

As you get higher levels, not 50, but before 50, repose is your strongest heal. There's no reason not to use it and there's no reason for DPS not to comply with you using it. You will get DPS from time to time who refuses to play right. Just make a macro that says you cast repose on non-tank targets and that it is your strongest heal. If they refuse to comply, feel free and speak up or let them die to let them know that you are the healer. They won't get away with that so easily in later instances.