Things you learned about a Job/role by not playing it

Hello, everyone!

I'd like to see what y'all learned about a Job/Role by playing a different one.

For example: I knew that I shouldn't spin mobs when tanking, but that didn't really hit home until I played Monk. It was a big "Oh God, I'm a fool" moment.

Second example: "Would you do something other than the SIT EMOTE?!" <- Me learning how important Healer DPS is when a WHM would /sit for all of his healing downtime.

Seeing healers dps all the time and wondering why they weren't focused on healing. Then actually playing a healer and seeing that I actually have plenty of time to dps in a lot of situations.

Not putting regen on the tank pre-pull on healer. It's not impossible to deal with it (even without clicking it off),
but I sure as heck had a really hard time catching all monsters that made a beeline for the healer as soon as they saw me when I played tank.

Not sure if it counts because BLM is actually my main, but..singing songs for my magic DPS on BRD,
because I knew from my BLM that it makes such a noticable difference (even back when all songs would gimp BRD dps).

Not standing close to/on top of BLMs, BRDs and MCHs, especially not on BLM's Ley Lines, when an encounter throws AoE circles at random players soon.
I keep away from them on all other classes, because I know from playing BLM how much it hurts when the Ley Lines get covered by lava because DRG no.3 thought he had to drop his AoE there.

Not healing DRKs who popped Living Dead when I'm on healer. Until I played DRK myself,
I wasn't aware of how much of a waste it is to get healed when you popped it, to the point that you actually never hit 0 HP and then it just runs out unused...>.>

Also, never understood all the MNK "MY STAAAAAACKS" cries and whines and rants until I finally finished MNK a few weeks ago,
after not playing it since 1.0 and therefore being completely oblivious to any stack traits it had.
Didn't exactly change how I play other jobs, but it raised my understanding for MNKs just ramming into bosses and mob groups without waiting for the tank to pull them ;)

Back in the old times I would pre-gen tanks....such a fool I was until I saw how frustrating that was as a tank.

I learned from playing Paladin that many (not all) DPS believe that their positional attacks matter more than avoiding avoidable damage.

I learned from playing WHM/SCH that many tanks underestimate the amount of damage they take trying to pull the entire dungeon; especially when the healer is wearing level appropriate gear, and cannot really keep up with the incoming damage.

From actually playing Bard I learned how incredibly frustrating it is when bards a) don't use Wanderer's Minuet, b) don't use all their DoTs - Windbite exists for a reason and c) forget flaming arrow even exists. You notice these things if you play Bard for a while and go back to tanking, you wonder why you only ever see/hear one or two attacks from Bard when Bard has so many damn options for off GCD attacks.

After taking WHM to 60 a year ago, I began playing a little more defensively as a tank.

Make the healers life easier, and everyone's life is easier. Lose a few hundred dps, gain more since the healer can dps. And/or I'm not dead.

I'll still stance dance on fights I'm comfortable with, and especially if the healer has good gear and is skilled. But I learned how much of a pain in the ass it is to heal a tank that stays in dps stance all the time.

I learned an annoying little thing about MCH and WHM playing as a tank, especially as a pre-40 PLD

Whenever a mob shifts it's enmity to them for even a second, their knee-jerk response is to hit their panic button and use their knockback ability, this is fine if they are far away from me and are facing me so that the mob is knocked close enough to me to pick it up, but most of the time they are relatively close to me and send the mob way beyond my reach.

I'm not going to follow that mob to pick it up and risk having the other mobs attack the other party members.

The best thing you can do is deal with it and let the tank pick it up if you are close enough, a good tank will grab the mob off you before it can get a second or third hit in, or even before it gets the first hit in if the tank is really on to it, but it seems we have MCH and WHM who are afraid of taking a little bit of damage.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

Second example: "Would you do something other than the SIT EMOTE?!" <- Me learning how important Healer DPS is when a WHM would /sit for all of his healing downtime.

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LOL makes me wonder if they played EverQuest. There you had to sit to initiate the meditation state so you would regen your mana pool.

When I played DRG I would die all the time and sometimes not even know what killed me. Playing WHM helped me learn about all the ways DRGs can die.


And I learned Blood Price was a thing from a web comic where a derpy miqote WHM spammed holy and made the DRK mad. I still spam holy on DRK tanks, but now I feel slightly bad about it.

Not a whole lot really. At least not in comparison to actually playing the class/job.

I have learned what a lot of the icons I am seeing mean, especially the tanks. I learned why it is ok for a DPS to pull sometimes. I've learned a lot about how AST works despite me not spending one day playing this job. I feel it should be more from merely observation, but I am always so focused on what the tank is doing. It is a big reason why I will play DPS jobs so I can get a better understanding of what they are doing, or trying to do.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

LOL makes me wonder if they played EverQuest. There you had to sit to initiate the meditation state so you would regen your mana pool.

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With the spellbook open, so you couldn't see what was going on either.

Learning to change targets if tank comes close to losing it.

Healers and tanks get commendations (healers from everyone, tanks from healers, usually) while DPSs don't and if they do, that's very rare. Oh, and tank is difficult. I'll probably give up on it if I unlock PLD and still can't manage to keep aggro on me.

Gladiator has an extremely hard time taking aggro and doing damage.

I like Dark Knight infinitely more at lower levels.

thou I have never got the following classes to lv60, my RL/FC friend has & main's them: my respect for a WAR or SCH/SMN that can do so much extra effort & see something for it (& my respect for comunication as we use PSN chat when in-dungeon together, I use WHM or PLD respectivly in most cases makes both our jobs easyer on high dmg fights like uber-pulls)

I did learn about certian ways to "cheese" mechanics as PLD by seeing another PLD do it back in 2.0, as for positonals & proper Def CD managment I just learned those by lv'n PLD (as it was my 1st class, MNK/BRD/BLM were 2nd didn't pick up WHM till 2.4... didn't start DPS'n in-dungeon with it till 2.55)

When playing a DPS for the first time in forever during what should have been a simple void ark run has taught me that pug healers are not to be trusted.

At least in PvP, I learned what Attunement was in the early days of 72-man Secure when I finally decided there must be some short timer happening that is making said healers seemingly impervious to my attacks. Needless to say, I noticed it and felt a lot better about finally understanding why my attacks weren't going through.

I also partially learned that Provoke was super good for Tanking in Garuda EX but I assumed it just gave you a ton of aggro so the actual workings of it weren't figured out until much later after lots of trial and error.

I learned how nice Foe Requiem is by playing casters and how unnecessary Mage's Ballad is by playing healers.

Whilst leveling DRK I learned to check the tanks buffs before Holy spamming mobs.

I also learned the importance of not rotating or kiting mobs needlessly when tanking after leveling a few melee classes.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

Not putting regen on the tank pre-pull on healer. It's not impossible to deal with it (even without clicking it off),
but I sure as heck had a really hard time catching all monsters that made a beeline for the healer as soon as they saw me when I played tank.

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Sometimes the opposite for me. If the tank is going to pre-pull, I can either sprint-drag the mobs to where the tank wants them to go, in which case Regen is fine and ideal for others being able to pop DoTs on the few he does grab with actual enmity, even if it means the tank has to move off the quickest way to the gather point, or I can just run ahead and ready a Holy, Gravity, or Bio II pre-cast. I didn't realize how clear the cut is though until doing speedruns from both perspectives. Either allow the face-tanking, or tank yourself (really just gather mobs for the tank's ease of tanking).

The healer's perspective also taught me when my stance-dancing really isn't costing nearly as much as the healer (who spends half the time idle and refuses to HoT) would have me believe.... Sometimes the shock therapy of forcing him or her to use more than just Cure/Physic/Benefic has lead to smoother experiences over the rest of the run, even if my life was never at risk. Scholar further taught me that I rarely actually need a tank in 4-man content, unless the lead enmity dps insists on taking TBs in BFB, simultaneous with a critical strike auto-attack. So if they're holding up a pull by more than their personal dps and positioning could aid rDPS, rudely and/or overly frequently, I will pull, usually to the DPSs' satisfaction.

First two things I learned from playing healer:

1) Using Fluid Aura or any other knock-back skill on mobs is a melee's worst nightmare when it doesn't kill the monster. Especially when the user of knock-back isn't being hit.
2) Learning when a tank buster is coming and when to Stoneskin for a little extra mitigation.

Countdown timers are a blessing for openers.

When tanking, it's nice to always be on the move and not waste time in between pulls (great for summoner, monk and ninja).

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Originally Posted by Rennies

Gladiator has an extremely hard time taking aggro and doing damage.

I like Dark Knight infinitely more at lower levels.

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Oh yeah, like Warrior and Dark Knight are vastly easier to play early on - its awkward how huge the difference is. Keep aggro easily, do more damage, still not worry about defensive issues. They're just better at that point.

This was long ago in the 1.0 to 2.0 changes but I tried tanking out for the first time in the transition and for a while I'd just move the monsters around however I wanted (never mattered when I played BLM so I never thought of it lol), no one said anything to me - later (like level 25-30) I found out that made positional nearly impossible to pull off :3... I wonder if they were being polite or if they weren't trying do them lol.