Prepulling as healer

Edit: I had made this thread in General Discussion soon after creating this one (after finding out this subforum isn't very active). For those interested: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...mobs-as-healer

That thread got kind of out of hand, so maybe it can get discussed further here in a more civil manner. I doubt there's much left to discuss though but feel free to give your insight.
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Original Post
If you know the dungeon and have an idea of what's coming and how much damage there will be dealt, there's imo no point in not rushing ahead and pulling more mobs as healer when tank keeps pulls small, especially when tank is geared to the point you barely need to heal. Me and many other healers/players are constantly calculating which move will lead to most dps while keeping everybody alive, and rushing/pulling ahead is sometimes the best move in that regard

I usually don't prepull even when I know I can without problems, except for some cases, like in those lvl 50/60/70 dungeons. Sometimes I literally have to use maybe 5 healing abilities (oGCD/GCD) throughout whole dungeon even when tank pulls wall to wall. They are an absolute joke to heal through and thus they are very boring as healer cause you're stuck spamming 1 dps ability all the time.

Yet several times I've heard tank or dps get mad and tell me to stop prepulling, even when they had ignored my request to pull more. Meanwhile tank proceeds to not go beyond 80% health without any healing. Why is prepulling considered rude/bad in this case? Everyone is completely overgeared to the point they may solo the entire dungeon.

I don't mind at all if tank wants to keep pulls small, but they should also not mind if I go pull mobs and bring them to the tank. They literally don't have to do anything except their aoe rotation, which they are doing anyway.

I would imagine they get upset because it's not your job.

For example, what if you got a PLD that focused on healing the party and had you pull/tank? The PLD really should focus on their tanking and DPS.

That said though, sometimes I will pull as a healer if the tank isn't confident. Ya know the type of tank that pulls 1 group at a time, never seems to know where they are going, pauses before and after engaging any group. They haven't expressed being upset with me, but if one did, I'd explain why and go from there.

As a tank, it would frustrated me a bit if a healer was pulling. On trash, I pull to the wall. I expect mobs to be in a certain place and time my gcds accordingly. I really don't want the healer to mess with my pull, solely because aero has a longer range than shield lob. Besides, it's not like that single mob aero dmg is really going to make the AoE at the end of the pull faster. On bosses, it's a similar thing. I'm going to place the boss in the position I think is best, and don't want that processes to take longer because a healer outranged me/started on my approach.

I personally don't like prepulling just because it's not my job. The same way i don't like it when a RDM starts healing the tank.

However i think that when you ask for a bigger pull, if the tank says no (even though it's clear they can handle it), then you're free to prepull ... maybe ? I mean, it's just your opinion versus theirs at this point, so ...

In the end, as i said in another thread, 4-men dungeons are kind of boring anyway, big pull or no big pull. I don't get in there to be challenged, so i'd just rather respect the tank's job and do mine, even if i'm not too busy with it.

The problem with it is that then the tank has to chase down the mobs you pulled, wasting gcds trying to hit them while failing to compensate for the positional lag as they chase you and not the tank. Aside from that if you can manage threat better than the tank while keeping the party alive, go for it I guess.

I generally wall-to-wall regardless of what the party thinks, and if we die, well then that's their fault for not keeping up on healing and dps -- unless I have under geared/leveled noobs, I tend to back off a little then.

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Originally Posted by Magictrix

The problem with it is that then the tank has to chase down the mobs you pulled, wasting gcds trying to hit them while failing to compensate for the positional lag as they chase you and not the tank. Aside from that if you can manage threat better than the tank while keeping the party alive, go for it I guess.

I generally wall-to-wall regardless of what the party thinks, and if we die, well then that's their fault for not keeping up on healing and dps -- unless I have under geared/leveled noobs, I tend to back off a little then.

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Imo healers generally shouldn't be pre-pulling (even though I'm all about big pulls), but at that point the healer should be dragging the enemies on top of the tank, and the tank should be spamming aoes anyways. If the healer is pre-pulling and dragging the enemies around, they're being bad. If the tank is trying to pick up aggro on multiple enemies with single target skills despite everything being clustered, they're being bad too.

Please do not pull as healer that is a tanks job. Seriously, healers make a bunch of threads bitching about PLD using clemency and know you want pull for tank.

You wanna run ahead of tank pull gl to ya I will not pull agro and have no problem with being kicked either. Besides saves me the irritation of running a dungeon with an arrogant healer.

Tanks pull for agro that is the tank job, healers heal that is the healer job, DPS deal damage that is the DPS job.

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Originally Posted by Jimmymagic

Please do not pull as healer that is a tanks job. Seriously, healers make a bunch of threads bitching about PLD using clemency and know you want pull for tank.

You wanna run ahead of tank pull gl to ya I will not pull agro and have no problem with being kicked either. Besides saves me the irritation of running a dungeon with an arrogant healer.

Tanks pull for agro that is the tank job, healers heal that is the healer job, DPS deal damage that is the DPS job.

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why so agressive with this post? I actually felt so much anger

Oh god not this thread again. Didn't this already happen a few weeks ago?

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Oh god not this thread again. Didn't this already happen a few weeks ago?

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Yes I had posted exact same thread in general discussion after finding out this subforum was kinda dead. This is actually the original thread :P

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Prepulling as healer

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If I ask you to stop pulling enemies and you ignore me, I'm letting both you and the DPS who try bailing you out die. You pull it you tank it.

Sometimes I don't care and just let it happen. If you ask to pull more, I usually do. If I pull more and I can see that you CLEARLY cannot handle it, I stop over-pulling. Sometimes there are REASONS why I am not pulling what you want pulled. If you don't agree with those reasons, I really dgaf. Either deal with it or find a new tank. Penalty doesn't bother me, I WILL leave your azz.

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Originally Posted by Alaeacus

If I ask you to stop pulling enemies and you ignore me, I'm letting both you and the DPS who try bailing you out die. You pull it you tank it.

Sometimes I don't care and just let it happen. If you ask to pull more, I usually do. If I pull more and I can see that you CLEARLY cannot handle it, I stop over-pulling. Sometimes there are REASONS why I am not pulling what you want pulled. If you don't agree with those reasons, I really dgaf. Either deal with it or find a new tank. Penalty doesn't bother me, I WILL leave your azz.

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In situation I'm talking about it wouldn't even matter if you left. Those over geared dungeons can easily be done without a tank.

Note that I'm not saying that prepulling as healer is always okay, just in given specific situation I described in OP.

Imo if the tank ignored your request to pull more, there is probably a reason for that. Either they are not comfortable with big pulls, don't know the dungeon well enough, aren't geared super great, or waiting on CDs. This situation is arguable more so an issue now due to people having the ability to boost jobs.

Even if its content that you are grossly over geared for and the dungeons are easy, if the tank does not want to pull more you should respect that instead of pulling more for them, even if you are bringing the extra mobs to them so all they have to do is aoe them. I understand that you will probably be bored to tears because of it. It sucks, it bores me to tears when dpsing and healing, but it's understandable.

I think I heard once, years ago now, that in Japanese dungeon eitquette the healer runs ahead first, directly showing the tank how much he thinks everyone can handle. That seems backwards to me, and I'm not even 100% sure if it's true. I don't endorse pulling as a healer, it's better conceptually for the tank to go first and learn how to position each pull for optimal AOE spread, due to some jobs having unusual line or conal spreads for their AOEs.

Thing is, what you want to do in a dungeon is not what everyone else wants to do, and you're really sort of forced to roll with what the group wants, leave if you don't like it, or potentially get kicked. I mean, literally in the dungeons you describe, it's possible to do them without healing if pulls are kept small, so they don't even need you. If you find such lowly dungeons boring on healer, a class not required for duty completion, then I'd say play something else for the lower dungeons if you can.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I think I heard once, years ago now, that in Japanese dungeon eitquette the healer runs ahead first, directly showing the tank how much he thinks everyone can handle. That seems backwards to me, and I'm not even 100% sure if it's true. I don't endorse pulling as a healer, it's better conceptually for the tank to go first and learn how to position each pull for optimal AOE spread, due to some jobs having unusual line or conal spreads for their AOEs.

Thing is, what you want to do in a dungeon is not what everyone else wants to do, and you're really sort of forced to roll with what the group wants, leave if you don't like it, or potentially get kicked. I mean, literally in the dungeons you describe, it's possible to do them without healing if pulls are kept small, so they don't even need you. If you find such lowly dungeons boring on healer, a class not required for duty completion, then I'd say play something else for the lower dungeons if you can.

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Yes, I've pretty much drawn the same conclusion. In the end it's my problem and my fault if my personal principles don't apply to the community so I shouldn't be surprised if I'm met with backlash. I had concluded to either stop playing healer in those overgeared dungeons or be prepared to potentially get kicked.

If I'd go the purely efficiency and fun route, pulling ahead with risk of getting kicked would be the way to go since I'd get instant queue back as healer. However it's hard to ignore backlash and don't really like getting people mad at me, I might be too tempted to respond as well. I'll probably just play less healer.

Btw it's also not like this is such a big problem :P. Those ridiculously overgeared dungeons aren't a big part of the game. It was just that the backlash seemed strange and unjustified to me at the time, leading to me creating this thread. This and the other thread I had made (in general discussion) clarified community's position, so it's served its purpose in changing my expectations.

i dont like pre pulls as a non tank, even if my request to pull more gets ignored or rejected, it doesnt give me a right to pull more :P i dont want the tank to be stressed out bc im to impatient.
The only time i do a pre pull is (that is the only exception): if there is a mob walking towards us and the tank doesnt see it coming, only then i hit it and pull it towards him so the healer doesnt get the aggro of it.

PS: im a big fan of tanks who pull a lot but if they dont want to i wont force them.