Every healer should play a level 15-20 glad tank

In all of my time MMOing, the most difficulty I ever had tanking was this game's level 15-20 gladiator tanking. New players in the group go mad with dps and heals, generating more enmity than I can put out. And of course, my own enmity is total crap without the blind on flash. It got INFINITELY better after level 20, but up to that point? Brutal.

My main in this game is a healer- scholar to be exact, and I cannot express how much better of a healer I am because of that small amount of time tanking. I always knew that overhealing generated enmity, but I had no clue how much until I experienced the frustration of tanking with a conj who Medica spammed.

The first time you realize that, as a tank, you simply cannot generate as much enmity as an overhealing healer, you realize just how important it is to heal properly and not just throw heals out at random and them blame the tank when you get aggro.

Every battle now, as a healer, I watch my threat meter (if you heal and don't know where this is- find it NOW. No excuses for not knowing about this anymore). For me, it doesn't move. Out of an entire dungeon, there are only 2 or 3 fights where I even have a small bit of white on the bar at all, much less reaching anything close to 25% enmity. And it's possible without losing any players.

If you want to become a better healer- play a gladiator tank from levels 15-20. I promise you, it will not only change how you play, but will result in a lot less people blaming the tank when THEY pull aggro.

They should also play a level 26 thaumaturge. Just sayin'...

Basically, people should just learn that enmity management is a team effort.

...and that spamming Medica as a healer is just a great way to get yourself killed. Not sure why some healers seem to like it.

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Originally Posted by Tari-F

Basically, people should just learn that enmity management is a team effort.

...and that spamming Medica as a healer is just a great way to get yourself killed. Not sure why some healers seem to like it.

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I wish PLD could equip Medica... or as I like to call it, Flash II.

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Originally Posted by Phantasmid

I wish PLD could equip Medica... or as I like to call it, Flash II.

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I was able to hold aggro against a medica spamming healer (Since they couldn't "Click" on me to target me, and they were upset due to my small size.) It was glorious. (Tam Tara)

Being a lalafell tank helps me find healers who use the HUD.

No thanks.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

I was able to hold aggro against a medica spamming healer (Since they couldn't "Click" on me to target me, and they were upset due to my small size.) It was glorious. (Tam Tara)

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If you ever get a healer that medica spams because they can't click your character's hitbox, do the world a favor and explain to them the concept of clicking the player's name on group list / using the F1-F4 keys to target you. As a healer, that is seriously the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. >_> That healer and all of their future groups are in for a rough ride until he/she figures that out lol

LOL Flashing Medica FTW

It's good to play every role to experience how it feels and works. It helps you decide what's the best course of action based on experience.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

It's good to play every role to experience how it feels and works. It helps you decide what's the best course of action based on experience.

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And Brayflox is a good first test of your skill with each class.

Yeah, I already know this. Now, if tanks could play a healer and realize they need to aggro all enemies in a pack before I Cure them, and DPS could play healer so they see how annoying it is when they constantly stand in easily avoidable AoE attacks...

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

Every DPS should play a level 15-20 glad tank

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Fixed! Most healers I've met have been fairly competent in regards to threat. DPS, not so much.

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Originally Posted by Eldaru

Yeah, I already know this. Now, if tanks could play a healer and realize they need to aggro all enemies in a pack before I Cure them.

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This x1000.
To all tanks, you will not get a single regen or cure from me until all your links (names in orange) turn red. When they are orange you have 0 hate on them and they will insta agro the healer with any spell, including stoneskin.

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

but I had no clue how much until I experienced the frustration of tanking with a conj who Medica spammed.

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Kind of ironic in view of the complaints I've seen moaning about CNJ NOT using Medica.

Face it, the healing skills in this game simply INVITE over-healing .. it's crass having no instant heals and heals with 2s cast times, when in that time a tank can be two-shotted in the healer isn't chain-casting. The early dungeons are brutal for new healers, either they spam and get yelled at (as you're doing here) or else they wait till the tank has taken damage before starting to case and get yelled at when the tank dies .. of course, since many tanks doing the pre-level 20 instances are horribly undergeared there's often no chance for the healer to get off a second Cure before the tank goes down.

I use flash to blind my ennemies when I get aggro because of my healing, it's a very good strat when the tank can't keep up with the aggro

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

If you ever get a healer that medica spams because they can't click your character's hitbox, do the world a favor and explain to them the concept of clicking the player's name on group list / using the F1-F4 keys to target you. As a healer, that is seriously the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. >_> That healer and all of their future groups are in for a rough ride until he/she figures that out lol

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If you are clicking the boxes you are going to be in rough shape come end game. They need to have mouse over macro's, clicking the players takes far to long.

I tanked through Sastasha and Tam Tara during beta phase 3 after having been conjurer so far, just to try it out, and have been Conjurer/White Mage for the most part since Open Beta/Early Access/Launch.
Tanking didn't really change my perspective anything.
Perhaps I'm just used to being a healer...

If everyone keeps taking damage, I will Medica to keep everyone alive. More efficient than trying to cure everyone individually.

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Originally Posted by Greytarkis

I use flash to blind my ennemies when I get aggro because of my healing, it's a very good strat when the tank can't keep up with the aggro

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I assume you're joking here, because healers can't use Flash to blind anything... nor does it help in any way with reducing enmity.

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Originally Posted by Greytarkis

I use flash to blind my ennemies when I get aggro because of my healing, it's a very good strat when the tank can't keep up with the aggro

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You should always flash, constantly, even throughout the fight. It is tank 101 skill, gathers hate and blinds to reduce damage. Arguably a Glad/paladin's most valuable skill.

Now I haven't played a glad tank, but I have as a mara. It's really not that hard to be honest. Keybind the 1 2 and 3 signs and you're pretty fine. The pulls I had issues with were the ones I didn't mark at least number 1. Because the Thama and the lancer would attack different targets because I didn't tell them which one to attack.

I think I was a bit under geared to be honest but the conj did awesome job and nobody died.Though from what I can see, glads generate less threat but are a bit more stocky and mara's do more threat but are a bit squishier.

I know what you mean, I think. I brought GLD/PLD up to 50 first, but I wanna take WHM up next. I took my 16 CNJ to Sastasha the other night for funsies and really began to understand how cure enmity is like. Granted, our tank didn't like doing Fast Blade>Savage Blade and used flash infrequently...but you do understand that side better when you've actually played it.

Whoops, thought he was the tank. Nobody besides the tank should ever flash

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

I was able to hold aggro against a medica spamming healer (Since they couldn't "Click" on me to target me, and they were upset due to my small size.) It was glorious. (Tam Tara)

Being a lalafell tank helps me find healers who use the HUD.

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Well if he's like me he just doesn't heal falafels :D

I remember this dungeon (CM I think) where one of the tank was just dead most of the time because the second healer was afk or unable to heal him alone, that was funny.
Silly falafels, when will they learn ?

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Originally Posted by Tari-F

I assume you're joking here, because healers can't use Flash to blind anything... nor does it help in any way with reducing enmity.

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Yup

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Originally Posted by Synfrag

You should always flash, constantly, even throughout the fight. It is tank 101 skill, gathers hate and blinds to reduce damage. Arguably a Glad/paladin's most valuable skill.

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I'm a WHM mate.
Edit: ok you corrected it yourself before I answered.

Only agro pull problems I've had is where the tank doesn't mark (even in the lvl 40+) dungeons I still find tanks who don't/don't know how to mark or when the tank can't keep agro after I use bane...once ._. I'm now using fester more now to avoid the second problem more but sometimes miasma 2 or tri disaster (I never use it, used it once when we accidentally pulled a group we didn't want and I wanted to save the tank and healer from being overrun) pulls agro more than I would like.

In my previous mmo, Lord of the Rings Online, I found it very useful to level different classes, even if they were not my main playing classes, to get an understanding of what goes on with others I'm grouped with and how to be a better tank.

It is pretty much a requirement in ARR that you play multiple jobs.

something i learned playing a tank:
tankin ain't easy. some think it's just "run in there first" flash apparently takes MP not TP like everything else, and MP isn't something my tank has a lot of, keeping enmity off the other players can be tricky, especially when there is a huge creature blocking your view of everyone else.
two toughest classes is tank and healer, because they are so important to the team. if you loose the DPS the enemies just take longer to die, if you lose a healer everyone dies, if you lose the tank everyone dies. tanks and healers are the most important, so little surprise they get the most flack from the rest of the party and one another. "you didn't heal me enough" "i couldn't i was healing myself because you didn't get these monsters off me" "if you weren't spamming heal that wouldn't have happened" and so on and so one.

Tanking Halatali as a Marauder (actually, downleveled Warrior) meant that for a given pull, I could use Flash twice, and maybe a third time before going OOM. But I made sure I did it when I had a Thaumaturge in the party as actions like Medica still develop enmity on slept targets. But so does Flash, and my Flash develops MORE enmity than their Medica. For the most part, I didn't lose enmity on a squad, and one errant monster -- because someone is whaking on him instead of the one I'm on -- going after a party member is acceptable so long as it isn't the healer. If I start seeing the blinking square indicator transition to up-pointing triangle, or down-pointing triangle, then I have to use that third Flash and shift targets. (I still haven't got Provoke, but then that's what it's for.)

My favorite (See: most frustrating) time as a healer was healing a Hydra party where the other whm wanted to spam Cure 3. I asked him to cover healing the off tank and that I would cover the main tank. He responded with "That's ridiculous, they stack on top of each other so I'm gonna cast Cure 3."

I /facepalmed and tried to explain why it was a bad idea, but he ignored me and did this through the whole fight. The rest of the party was already frustrated with him and he was booted. (or left on his own, not sure really) And once we replaced him we got a win.

But in my experience, there's no need AT ALL to use the AoE heals unless the entire party has taken a considerable amount of damage. And then, I'll use 1 MAYBE 2 to get past the "OH S**T WE'RE GONNA DIE" part and then resume individual heals to each party member to top them off.

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Originally Posted by Synfrag

You should always flash, constantly, even throughout the fight. It is tank 101 skill, gathers hate and blinds to reduce damage. Arguably a Glad/paladin's most valuable skill.

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Didn't the commenter you reply on imply he/she is using flash as a Healer?

usually i will use medica if:
i am really hurt AND the tank is really hurt, and someone else is really hurt. or:
i'm really hurt, im getting hurt more by a monster, the tank is also hurt. because if i focus on the tank, i will die and we all die. if i focus on myself the tank will die and we all die. so i medica so i can cure both of us at once.

Healer/Tank here. I agree on the topic. Although maybe warrior as well, since I have a really hard time understanding how warriors work like and when my warrior tank keeps losing aggro I don't understand why.
Or when they don't aggro mobs who were put to sleep. With my pld I always flash mobs who are put to sleep so they don't go straight for the blm/whm when they wake up. I've noticed warriors don't do that.

Agreed with the OP, GLD tanking gets a fair bit easier at the higher levels. Getting Shield Oath as Paladin is amazing! Makes such a difference.

The most frustrating thing I find in pugs is people using abilities while I'm pulling stuff from a distance. So I'll mark a patrol, shield lob/provoke it from a distance to draw it back and before it even reaches my melee range someone will start attacking it or casting abilities. When you do lose a mob it's also pretty frustrating to pull it back with the abilities you have in this game. If something aggros you don't just continue to attack it, wait till the tank pulls it back...otherwise you're basically having an aggro race with the tank who'll have to run over to you so he can melee the mob off you which is just a positioning nightmare.

and yeah, healing seems to generate so much aggro in this game. I've experienced the medica spammers...

I was playing my mara in Haukee with my wife on her arc yesterday and we had this problem. The healer and bard in group would run ahead of me (the tank) start attacking mobs and then would curse at me in party chat for being a "f'ing bad tank" when I could not magically get 3 or 4 mobs off them as soon as they started getting hit.

My wife and I asked them several times to let me go in front and mark targets and for the white mage to sleep targets. The WHM flat out refused to sleep adds and insisted on a "fast run". We somehow managed to clear the dungeon despite these idiots. At the end the WHM and bard both cursed me out pretty badly for being a bad tank when they in fact were the ones that acted like morons.

I agree with the OP so much. You don't just need to play a GLD, try a marauder and warrior without flash or damage mitigation and tank in a dungeon with those kind of morons to appreciate what we have to deal with.

if a healer is Medica spamming they are not a good healer lol they would run out of mp :P and this is why a healer should use stone skin on the tank and let the tank hit things for a bit first if not using stone skin then still let the tank hit for a bit first :P

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Originally Posted by Omagana

Agreed with the OP, GLD tanking gets a fair bit easier at the higher levels. Getting Shield Oath as Paladin is amazing! Makes such a difference.

The most frustrating thing I find in pugs is people using abilities while I'm pulling stuff from a distance. So I'll mark a patrol, shield lob/provoke it from a distance ...

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OMG, I just hit lvl40 yesterday, and Shield Oath finally makes me feel like a real tank. -20% incoming damage, big boost in all aggro, and who cares about -20% dps. Agree on the impossibility of tanking in this game with dps pulling or healers setting up heals at the pull. Other games with a forced taunt makes this still a bad idea but often survivable, but not here. One comment. Shield lob yes for the pull, but not provoke, as it's a threat copy not an outright threat skill (as I understand it) and ideally no one else in your group has threat at the time of the pull.

And tanks need to play a healing job. To many times the tank pulls a group of mobs and I land ONE cure... every mob but the one the tank is currently attacking comes after me.

Whats that? Don't cure them till they get hate? Yeah most of the time that means dead tank.

I have come across a few instances where my emnity was greater then the tank and it is usually because of a bad team and no fault of the healer themselves. Usually when i draw too much agro it is due to other members of the team not dodging aoe. They lose massive amounts of health forcing me to put out healing like mad and then i become a target. It is not as simple as dropping heals to lose agro because people will die if i do. In these instances i have to soldier on and take the hits until the party gets their act together.

I personally respect the roles of Tanks and healers because they are truly responsible for the team unlike DPS which only have to deal damage, dodge and on occasion throw in a stun or 2. (Which is likely why there is so many DPS)

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Originally Posted by necrosis

And tanks need to play a healing job. To many times the tank pulls a group of mobs and I land ONE cure... every mob but the one the tank is currently attacking comes after me.

Whats that? Don't cure them till they get hate? Yeah most of the time that means dead tank.

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Agree. What you describe is probably a tank pulling with a shield lob and not following it up with a flash or two to solidify aoe aggro before going to his bread and butter single target aggro chain (at least on a glad/pally).