Tanks, what do you wish healers knew about you?

[Spoekes]

Cover is a great skill but is has some difficulties:

1.) 10yalms range, so the target to cover has to be relativly close.
2.) If the targets moves away from you more than 10yalms while covered, the effect is lost.
3.) It only affects physical attacks.

It is a great skill that can even be used in combination with Hallowed Ground to nullify damage.
However, the range results in only beeing able to give it to ppl close to you and the limitation to physical damage requires one to know what attacks are phys/mag, which sometimes can be a little tricky and unintuitive (i.e. like bosses throwing physical attacks at ranges and having AoE Attacks to melees which are magical).
Can also be of good use if you are offtanking and the MT is low on HP.

[subteraneanbird]

Hallowed Ground does not work with Cover. However, Rampart does.

As someone who plays both tank and healer, here are my tips:

Be persistent about Stoneskinning me between pulls. Please. I love it just as much as you, but I can't stop the run entirely for SS and sometimes healers get huffy if I point it out. Become a master at timing it so there's as little downtime as possible (with a 3s cast time, the last 10-20% of a trash mob's HP is a real good place to start the spell).

I have a macro for Holmgang. When you see that macro yelling at you about Holmgang, get off your ass. Pop Bene, Lustrate, whatever. That macro exists so I don't die right when Holmgang ends because you weren't paying attention.

If you notice your enmity creeping up a bit, lay off for a few seconds. Probably not the best time to Divine Seal>Medica 2 for example. I won't die for a few seconds without healing I promise.

When I say "I'm a primary WHM" and offer you advice, it's usually in your interest to listen! I know it's common for people to pretend to get healers even when they don't, but I DO so when I'm offering you a suggestion it's actually coming from a place of experience.

Generally you guys are okay though when you aren't baddies so keep doing what you're doing.

[Spoekes]

are you sure 'bout HG? I can't test it right now but why should it not work?

[subteraneanbird]

I am sure. It's for a balance reason I presume. Sentinel and Rampart do (and I guess Foresight but lol) but no Hallowed Ground has never worked with Cover. You'll still take the Cover damage.

[Kitru]

Ooh and Scholars.
On big-ish pulls Shadowflare is a bigger dmg mitigation than sacred soil and on smaller pulls it's still better as you don't need sacred soil on those.

Shadowflare is a 5% reduction in attack speed. Sacred Soil is 10% DR. Care to explain to me how taking 95% of incoming damage is better than taking 90%? The mitigation contributions from Shadowflare are basically negligible; you're not really going to notice them. More importantly, Shadowflare is going to contribute a bit of AoE DPS, which you're much more likely to notice.

Furthermore, Sacred Soil and Shadowflare don't interfere with each other in the least. Shadowflare has a cast time and consumes MP; Sacred Soil is instant and consumes Aetherflow stacks. Now, as to when to actually use Sacred Soil, it has to contend with Lustrate. Unless your tank is taking a helluva lot of damage, Lustrate will be more effective. The only times Sacred Soil beats out Lustrate are occasions like speed run trash pulls where you've gotta be spam healing the tank the entire time.

As to the OP, beyond what has already been said I've got a few things I'd like to say:

• To SCHs, if I'm at full health and you've already applied your DoTs and no one else needs healing, don't be afraid to throw an Adloq on me. Adloq is expensive but mp is basically a non-issue for SCHs and at least half of it is never wasted on overhealing.
• To SCHs, if I'm barely taking any damage, stop wasting your pet heals and just let Eos/Selene take care of me while you DPS. If you constantly keep everyone topped off, you're wasting your fairy.
• To SCHs, when you see your tank use Conv, this is the perfect time to start throwing Adloq at them even if they're at full hp. When you get an Adloq crit on a Conv'd tank, you're liable to be able to ignore them for a good long while (I've gotten a 1.9k Adloq crit before; it took 15 seconds for it to wear off and that was against an EX primal).
• To all healers, don't overheal. If I'm taking dinky little 200 damage hits every few seconds, you do not need to throw Cures at me for 600-800 hp every time one of them lands. You could just Regen me and then ignore me (on my WAR, you can probably just outright ignore me because I have self heals).

[Snowaeth]

Shadowflare is... snip[/list]

Before pointing things out get your facts straight.

Shadowflare and Sacred soil can never be up at the same time, since once you put one up it removes the other.
Shadowflare is permaslow inside the area which is a 20% speed reduction and not 5%
Shadowflare does dmg, so helps with killing mobs faster = they die faster = they do less total dmg.

[Kitru]

Shadowflare and Sacred soil can never be up at the same time, since once you put one up it removes the other.

I never realized that. Had to go in game and test it myself. Quite interesting.

Shadowflare is permaslow inside the area which is a 20% speed reduction and not 5%

Go read the tooltip. It explicitly says "Additional Effect: Slow 5%". I have no idea where you're getting the 20% from.

[Wadoka]

Anyone want to explain to me why tanks don't use cover half the time when we get bashed on? Long GCD? Lowers attack?
Lowers emnity? Huge mp cost?

Limited useful scenarios.

- Very short range. 10 yalms. Have to be close to the Covered party.
---> Usually the Tank is on the boss and the Healer is waaaaaaay over there ===>

- Only protects against physical damage, not magic damage. So it doesn't help a lot of the time.

- Misuse of Cover = Tank Suicide. Takes all the damage aimed at him; takes all the damage aimed at you; insta-dies.

It is good to protect people who are just up from a Resurrection... and a few other niche situations. There's a good thread about it buried in the Tank Roles forum.


***

Rule 1. Please don't shoot first. Do not attack or heal until you've seen the Tank engage and use several of their Enmity-generating skills. Read a magazine. Take load off.

Rule 2. Please don't use Fluid Aura, unless not using it, means you'll die.

Rule 3. If you draw enmity, run to me. Not away, and not in a crazy arm-flailing panic, no matter how funny that is.

Rule 4. A Tank at 50% health still has a LOT of health (in most scenarios). Don't panic. Don't over-cure. Be analytical.

[BinaryJack]

As a noobish level 50 scholar with a noob level 23 conjurer this thread is incredibly helpful.

Some questions from my side to improve my class/job:
How close/far should a healer be from the tank? Is there a difference for SCH and WHM?
In an 8man party, which DPS class is more helpful to the party and should be raised if possible?
- I always try and get the Summoners back up due to their inherent Swiftcast/Raise skills.
WHM or SCH? Any preference of one over the other during certain dungeons/trials/primals?

Thanks for a great and informative thread and thanks to the experienced tanks and healers that are helping healers improve their classes and jobs.

[subteraneanbird]

1) Depends on the fight, but this isn't a big issue. If you're at a range where you can play past all the mechanics effectively while healing, you're doing well.

2) Also dependent. Triage is a skill that varies not only between fights, but in different situations in the same fight. The best way to handle this to have at least an inkling of what other classes can do, as well as observing their skill level. No matter what the role is, if they're playing at a level where there's little to no chance of survival there is no reason to get them back up.

3) They are supremely balanced against each other, and 1 of each is nearly always the optimal setup. As a personal bias, I'm sad WHM isn't more popular so do that WINK