Healers: Leading the party. Anybody else?

[Taemek]

lol, you just made four posts about this?

I think the server being down is hitting some people harder than others.

Well I agree that the issue is that bad.

90% of my Duty Finders are bad tanks and I would say thats being generous.

The compounding issue to it though is because some classes that can be tanks if they choose to be can also DPS, so they queue up as a tank without the intention of tanking, suck at not only tanking in general but have no morale obligation of leading the group or care for it.

[Ghasto]

I'm with you, as a SCH I often find myself leading PUGs unless the tank is competent (fairly uncommon).
I don't mind it so much, but what I do mind is bad tanks backtalking me when I give them tips to play their role better.

[Dranmarth]

Welcome to being a healer, thing is though, there's nothing stopping you from finding a competent person on your server that likes tanking, helping them build themselves up, and creating your own pocket tank. That's essentially what I've done, I've surrounded myself with about 4 good tanks that I would heal through anything, and they trust me to heal them through the most chaotic situations. At one point I had a 3 tank 1 healer dungeon run, that was fun times, slow, but easy and fun since they were people I enjoyed being with.

TLDR; Find and mentor a tank (or multiple tanks) on your server to be your tank.

[Azayne]

Yeah, as a WHM healer, I feel that healers should be leading PUGs more, especially if you're knowledgable. Teaching new tanks where to tank, what to interrupt, etc will make your job easier (allowing you to dps more).

Also, if you're on the search for good tanks, it is generally a good idea to "network" and add good tanks you come across to your friends list.

[Alente]

It's not that uncommon for either to take the lead really.

Healers do tend to have a bird's eye view of the fight though so it makes sense for us to make calls if the tank isn't making them.

[Taytar]

I'll be honest I felt the same way, I've been playing WHM since launch and really been enjoying it. I usually always tank and the change of pace was great! But I felt the tanks were just god awful... until I played it and found at least WAR to be insanely clunky and hard to play. Maybe its just not my style but this could be what other tanks are struggling with... because its gotta be something because I've never seen tanks this bad.

[Kusumura]

-snip-.

Aye, but in no other game has it ever been so drastic. If I've had to take the lead elsewhere, the tank takes it as the most dire insult I could possibly give them and they'll get into an argument about it. Even if the tank's new to a dungeon, I'll only have to call once, maybe twice, then they'll get the hint and take it back over.

And it's abnormal for a healer to lead for one reason: Healers are the one (Or two) member(s) of a group that cannot possibly be allowed to lose focus.

What happens if a DPS stares off at butterflies? You kill things slower. Boohoo.
The tank decides to run off and make a coffee mid-fight? Mobs run around everywhere, but it's not dire.
Healer takes an interest in some of the porn they forgot to exit out of? The fight's screwed. They're dead, Jim.

[Alente]

Aye, but in no other game has it ever been so drastic. If I've had to take the lead elsewhere, the tank takes it as the most dire insult I could possibly give them and they'll get into an argument about it. Even if the tank's new to a dungeon, I'll only have to call once, maybe twice, then they'll get the hint and take it back over.

And it's abnormal for a healer to lead for one reason: Healers are the one (Or two) member(s) of a group that cannot possibly be allowed to lose focus.

What happens if a DPS stares off at butterflies? You kill things slower. Boohoo.
The tank decides to run off and make a coffee mid-fight? Mobs run around everywhere, but it's not dire.
Healer takes an interest in some of the porn they forgot to exit out of? The fight's screwed. They're dead, Jim.

You're certainly right that DPS losing focus in most fights, bar the DPS races of Titan etc, is pretty inconsequential.

A tank spacing out not being dire though? WHMs in particular can easily pull massive amounts of threat, a tank not paying attention on when to use their CDs to reduce the amount of healing we need to do can easily result in a potential wipe with endgame content especially at the start of a fight. There's also the need to grab adds, position, correctly time interrupts, and dodge hard hitting cones/aoes/etc. Hell certain fights a tank not being on point (Hydra) can get everyone killed pretty fast.

Don't get me wrong; I do see Healers (myself included) taking charge a lot in this game but that doesn't mean we're the only ones with a hard job to do during fights.

[Brandstone]

In most MMOs I've usually mained healers and I've found this to be true more often than not. I've tanked and healed before, and found it easier to keep track of things when I'm healing versus tanking. As a tank you're up in the front, and while there're may things you have to pay attention to, you've usually got your hands pretty full. As a healer you still have a lot to take care of, however; it's easier to keep track of everything when you're sitting in the back, and can keep an eye on everything all at once.

In this I feel like I tend to be keeping my eye out for everything, calling for pats, marking targets, usually taking on the "tactician" role as it's been stated.

[PetiteMalFleur]

This game is really unforgiving to the tank. It's super hard to hold aggro on 3+ mobs, and impossible when the DPS start fighting the mobs the tank is not targeting. Then they expect him to get back aggro while refusing to pull back their dps or switch targets. Meanwhile, since the tank has now lost control of the mobs trying to get back aggro over the rogue dps, I suddenly have full emnity from trying to heal everyone and start to pray to the gods to save my ass.

If I'm throwing a huge amount of heals at a tank who lost control of a single mob then I'll let the DPS die, or at least watch them drop to 100 hp before throwing them a cure 2. They always seem to target the correct mob after getting raised.