Post Your Healing Horror Stories.

[technole]

On STR tanks: I know some people groan and instantly assume it'll be awful, but I've had some really impressive 12k HP / full STR accessory DRK/WARs in ex roulette and Alex normal in the DF.. they keep aggro and I mainly DPS because the fairy is enough to keep them going. I assume it's from having really good CD use?

Yep that is how it works. More STR helps maintain threat easier, plus self-healing skills/cooldowns are scaled to more damage = more HP healed.

However, of course with the STR/VIT debate I would only recommend starting to max out such when a tank can play their job correctly with appropriate cooldown use, isn't under-geared, and can meet a certain HP threshold for the instance. WAR has cooldowns like Thrill, Vengeance, and Raw Intuition easily available to help get "Defiance-like" defense while in Deliverance.

So I always use full STR even in roulette, alex, and Ravana EX. Like I keep a cooldown rotation going from mobs to bosses allowing healers to DPS, or at-least I hope with some DF healers.

Just like how we healers can use CDs like Bene, Dignity, Lustrate as-needed for a big heal burst for DPSing or what not. Using the big stuff like PLD Hallowed Ground early-on as an option to handle a bigger pull helps too to allow a healer stay in clerics longer, and it'll be up again for that instance. So double win. Of course we've all seen bad tanks go out there "saving" the good stuff like Sentinel and HG and end up never using them. That mindset for trivial content is just thinking there is going to be a fail.

[Saseal]

On STR tanks: I know some people groan and instantly assume it'll be awful, but I've had some really impressive 12k HP / full STR accessory DRK/WARs in ex roulette and Alex normal in the DF.. they keep aggro and I mainly DPS because the fairy is enough to keep them going. I assume it's from having really good CD use?

My FC's main tank is full STR on his WAR and PLD (and he'll probably do the same on DRK). He's religious with his CDs and timing, and not hard to keep alive (assuming things don't get derped) even with large pulls. Rarely loses hate, etcetc. I trust him to tank the difficult or big stuff and keep his peeps safe.
"I assume it's from having really good CD use?" It's exactly this, as far as I know xD

[Saseal]

I also laughed with that...
You should play BLM a bit, its very easy going and lets you see your DPS partner with contempt :v
Besides, you burn things with FIRE!!.

xD AST followed by a mass of monsters followed by a DRG, whom is followed by a DRK, and followed by a NIN. z.z

I find DPS more stressful, honestly. o.o Even worse when it's a DPS that can cross-class or has a heal-type (ACN/THM) and I'm trying not to step on the healer's toes by habit healing @_@ *Sits on hands* I tried THM for a while....... I always felt like I had judging eyes staring into my soul o____o Do I Fire II.... possibly throw hate from this tank.... and I get in trouble..... or do I not.... and only hit what he's hitting... and get silently judged for not Fire II-ing....? xD

[Soladiirn]

I'm at that point in leveling where I seem to get another horror story with each dungeon I do.

However, Titan HM continues to be one of the scariest things I've done. It's just that slow process of seeing people getting hit by landslide and watching the list of players still on the arena shrinking with each attack. I think the worst, other than a full wipe, was when the only three left alive at the end of the fight were both tanks and me as SCH. I'm fairly certain I got Gaoled just before Titan went down, and had something like 10% of my hp left, with only Eos actually able to heal anyone. The worst part of it is that even with HW gear, that was the smoothest Titan HM I've ever done.

[jcfoster11]

Do I Fire II.... possibly throw hate from this tank.... and I get in trouble..... or do I not.... and only hit what he's hitting... and get silently judged for not Fire II-ing....? xD

For what it's worth, here's how I approached it: Once I see the second Flash/Overpower and there are at least three mobs, I'll open up unless there's a priority target or some other compelling reason not to (Qarn bees, I'm looking at you ..... -.-).

As for a story, I wasn't the healer but I could sympathize: Copperbell normal, I'm on arcanist. Two pulls in, I get a vague idea that it's going to turn into one of those interesting runs when on the first two-mob pack, the healer takes a mob with her first heal (and she waited for the tank to hit ~65%). It took a couple moments for the tank to react, but it's still early, so I'm not worried yet. Only thing is ... it keeps happening, to the point where I've had to pick mobs off her more than a couple times because the tank isn't reacting quickly enough (or at all).

After the first boss, I'm toying with pulling out Topaz, but I hold off. We struggle to the second boss, but the tank still isn't responding to the healer's pleadings to hold aggro. The hardest thing to do on this boss is stay awake, though, right? Nah -- he throws his shield at the first bomb to come out, which causes Carby to finish it off. Oops. OK, I switch him to passive -- one problem solved. The tank then gets blown up by the next bomb and returns to start (!), so he's now out of the fight. Healer ends up tanking the remainder so we can deal with adds (I nearly went to Topaz here, but didn't want to split my attention).

Boss goes down, we move on, and I finally decide I can't take any more of the healer having to tank everything -- out comes Topaz and the entire third section turns into the tank handling the one mob in each group he's paying attention to and me covering the others. The tank still hasn't said a word through all of this, by the way (I'd have expected some sort of reaction to what was basically a direct challenge to him), so I just left my pet out to tank the final boss.

I don't know why, but it's always Copperbell. Except, that is, for this one bad Haukke run I had, but that's one for another day.

[Azurr]

Speaking of kiting I was on my whm and the tank in cutters cry was new, so when I started to kite the ants he chased after me in circles for a good 3 minutes (we got the new player message but they never said it was them). That was long enough for a second set to spawn at which point he gave up xD

My favorite comment was made by a scholar in t1 back when it was kind of relevant. 'I am a battle mage, I don't heal~'

[MXMoondoggie]

Lol never had a Tank chase me with the ants but have had DPS start attacking them and then they pull all the aggro and die. I normally state in chat before the boss starts to touch nothing but the boss and I will handle the rest.

[Lunaxia]

TFW you worked your absolute butt off keeping everyone alive and know you're the only reason the party won but you don't get a single commendation and on the outside you're like "it's fine I don't do this for comms!" but inside you're like

[NanaWiloh]

Ok, so did A3 normal for the first time today healers were me and a AST. Run went smoothly down it on the first try, only negative thing about the run was that I solo healed pretty much 95% of the fight. Yep solo healed the tanks and the dps through out 95% of the fight why, cause the AST did next to nothing other then get carried. They did not even dps their mana bar went down too about 80% near the end of the fight cause I was out of mana, other then that they didn't shit!!!

[Bamboofox]

I went into Dusk Vigil on my monk over the weekend. We said our customary hellos and started the first pull. As I'm punching, I hear the sound of the limit break bar going up like crazy and I realize the tank is hovering at about 2k hp. "Huh," I think, "is the healer here? Yes, he's here. What's going on-"

Tank dies. We manage to last long enough to kill 2 of the 3 mobs, but ultimately wipe.

We dust ourselves off and I inspect the AST. Oh geez, a level 41 weapon... four of his accessories are int. He barely had 5k health. I hadn't seen gear this behind since the time I got a DRK using the i75 moogle sword in Sohm Al.

It was certainly an interesting run. Any time we fought a pack of 3 or more, the tank's health floated at critical levels and by the end of it, the healer would be OOM. I asked him if he had a better weapon, but he replied that if he did, he would be using it. (Why he didn't buy a lovely i115 white quality weapon from the vendors in Ishgard is another question.)

We couldn't quite deal with the last boss; while the fight is normally quite forgiving, the AST's max hp was so low that virtually any mistake meant his doom, and subsequently ours. We wiped three times due to the AST getting sucked into the whirling gaol and dying in short order - keep in mind no one was new - I advised him to get better gear and we vote kicked him. Our replacement healer not only kept us topped off easily, he spent most of his time in Cleric Stance.

tl;dr For the love of the Twelve, keep your gear up to date D:

Also props to that DRK for awesome cooldown usage.