tanks not using cooldowns?

[Jpec07]

I've seen this frustratingly often in DF. I suspect a lot of it is because of tanks who come to FFXIV from games like WoW, where your mitigation is handed to you just for doing your rotation, and your cooldowns are to be saved for times when you're taking more damage, like a boss fight. This also matches the attitude wherein such tanks are my open to correction (which was a huge thing in WoW).

Unless it's the end of a pull, a tank should always be using their cooldowns. The big ones are generally spaced out enough to where you can usually use them at the head of every trash pull to great effect. More of our mitigation comes from our cooldowns than any other source, so tanks in this game need to get in the habit of using them more, and more frequently.

Or... You can just heal... My cooldowns are for when you go stupid and I'm getting dangerously low on HP and you're still DPSing the mob instead of doing your job and healing me. If this game wasn't so obsessed with the DPS that tanks and healers do, then we'd be more willing to cycle our cooldowns to make your job easier. But the problem is that half the healers don't heal. My cooldowns are for emergencies / HUGE hits from bosses, not so that you can dps an add. Sorry, bad healers ruined it for everyone.

Wrong! This isn't WoW; the majority of your cooldowns aren't "OH SHIT" buttons. Your cooldowns are there to help you mitigate damage, so you take less and require less healing, so the healers can spend more time on the rest of the party and/or DPSing, because a healer in cleric stance is going to severely outclass a tank's DPS. If you're not cycling your cooldowns and using them effectively, you have no one to blame but yourself for slow runs, high damage, complaining healers, deaths, and wipes.

[rockint]

Wrong! This isn't WoW; the majority of your cooldowns aren't "OH SHIT" buttons. Your cooldowns are there to help you mitigate damage, so you take less and require less healing, so the healers can spend more time on the rest of the party and/or DPSing, because a healer in cleric stance is going to severely outclass a tank's DPS. If you're not cycling your cooldowns and using them effectively, you have no one to blame but yourself for slow runs, high damage, complaining healers, deaths, and wipes.

I'm not completely self-sufficient without a healer, that's the reason we have them. With a known healer, yeah, I'll cycle cooldowns, because I know he's not going to let me die. But I've had way too many deaths where I didn't watch a single heal get cast at all. I need my cooldowns for those idiotic periods, with a healer like that, my cooldowns are wasted during the time they actually know where their heal buttons are.

[Jpec07]

I'm not completely self-sufficient without a healer, that's the reason we have them. With a known healer, yeah, I'll cycle cooldowns, because I know he's not going to let me die. But I've had way too many deaths where I didn't watch a single heal get cast at all. I need my cooldowns for those idiotic periods, with a healer like that, my cooldowns are wasted during the time they actually know where their heal buttons are.

There's really two classes of mitigation cooldowns that all tanks have access to: rotational cooldowns (decent effect, >10s duration, shorter cooldown, like Rampart, Foresight, Bulwark/Awareness, etc.), and tankbuster cooldowns (powerful effect, 10s or less duration, longer cooldown, like Hallowed Ground, Sentinel, DA-DM, Living Dead, Holmgang, etc.). The tankbuster cooldowns are the ones you should be saving, if anything, because they are the ones that can actually save you if the shit hits the fan. The rotational cooldowns are substantially less effective, and are more designed for smoothing out incoming white damage; they cannot and will not save you in a pinch. You absolutely need to break the mentality of "cooldowns are for saving my ass" and realize that that's not how tanking works in this game. The amount of damage you mitigate passive through your tank stance and through the gear you wear is a pittance compared to what you can provide by keeping up at least one rotational cooldown at a time. Especially when there are so many of them that last for so long, there is absolutely no good reason why you should not be rotating them.

[Dzian]

There's really two classes of mitigation cooldowns that all tanks have access to: rotational cooldowns (decent effect, >10s duration, shorter cooldown, like Rampart, Foresight, Bulwark/Awareness, etc.), and tankbuster cooldowns (powerful effect, 10s or less duration, longer cooldown, like Hallowed Ground, Sentinel, DA-DM, Living Dead, Holmgang, etc.). The tankbuster cooldowns are the ones you should be saving, if anything, because they are the ones that can actually save you if the shit hits the fan. The rotational cooldowns are substantially less effective, and are more designed for smoothing out incoming white damage; they cannot and will not save you in a pinch. You absolutely need to break the mentality of "cooldowns are for saving my ass" and realize that that's not how tanking works in this game. The amount of damage you mitigate passive through your tank stance and through the gear you wear is a pittance compared to what you can provide by keeping up at least one rotational cooldown at a time. Especially when there are so many of them that last for so long, there is absolutely no good reason why you should not be rotating them.

From a tanking point of view I do not cycle cooldowns on general trash and even various phases in boss fights. I use them on an as needed basis.
From a healers point of view I hate tanks that cycle there cool downs Would much prefer tanks that tank similar to the way I tank.

As a scholar in a dungeon, it annoys the hell out of me seeing a tank use defensive buffs on pulls where even my fairy falls asleep from lack of damage to heal. it's a total waste of cooldowns. made even worse by that tank then making a big pull and not popping any defensive buffs because there on all cooldown. this includes convalescence. not technically a defensive buff but seeing tanks use it on small assed pulls that need next to no healing is really annoying. even more annoying are the tanks that pop convalescence half way through a big pull when 2/3 of the mobs are already dead and healing the rest is a cake walk...

On my Paladin I use them as needed. I won't use convalescence on a pull if I know the next pull in a minutes time is going to be a bigger one. it makes more sense to use it at a time where incoming damage is going to be at a peak. I won't use it and then run into that big pull without it. because it's in that big pull where it would provide the most help to the healer. I won't use rampart if a scholars fairy or whms regen is pretty much keeping me up.

Intelligent use on an as needed basis is much better than cycling or rotating them.

[Jamillion]

snip.

Intelligent use of cooldowns does involve cycling them though. Sure you don't use strong cooldowns unnecessarily but he's referring to people that save all their CDs then blow their load and die. Realistically, cooldowns exist for tankbusters, and for allowing healer DPS. Cooldowns are not for popping off in a chain at the last second.

[Jpec07]

As a scholar in a dungeon, it annoys the hell out of me seeing a tank use defensive buffs on pulls where even my fairy falls asleep from lack of damage to heal. it's a total waste of cooldowns. made even worse by that tank then making a big pull and not popping any defensive buffs because there on all cooldown. this includes convalescence. not technically a defensive buff but seeing tanks use it on small assed pulls that need next to no healing is really annoying. even more annoying are the tanks that pop convalescence half way through a big pull when 2/3 of the mobs are already dead and healing the rest is a cake walk...

On my Paladin I use them as needed. I won't use convalescence on a pull if I know the next pull in a minutes time is going to be a bigger one. it makes more sense to use it at a time where incoming damage is going to be at a peak. I won't use it and then run into that big pull without it. because it's in that big pull where it would provide the most help to the healer. I won't use rampart if a scholars fairy or whms regen is pretty much keeping me up.

Intelligent, anticipatory use on an as needed basis is much better than cycling or rotating them.

On this (bolded), I think we can agree (I also fixed to include "anticipatory," because thinking ahead is substantially rewarded here). Using Rampart on a low-damage 3-mob pull when you've got a high-damage 6-mob pull coming up is silly, and bad gameplay (though arguably, so isn't taking those three mobs by themselves and not pulling them to the next group). Effective cooldown usage is the greatest nuance of tank gameplay in FFXIV, and it's what separates the great tanks from the good.

Having a rotation is a good idea when you're taking enough damage to need it (i.e. start of a bigger pull, boss fights, etc.), but if you've only got one and a quarter mobs left before the pull is done, or the boss is one LB away from faceplanting, the incoming damage has been reduced enough to where not using a CD won't hurt you.

[jmanfrw]

I've had way too many deaths where I didn't watch a single heal get cast at all. I need my cooldowns for those idiotic periods, with a healer like that, my cooldowns are wasted during the time they actually know where their heal buttons are.

Tanks like you die a lot more than you have to for a few reasons.

1 you aren't using Cd's effectively and so it's harder to heal/ catches us off guard (I should be able to hop in cleric stance after regen + e4e for at least 5 seconds)

2 We get super bored just babysitting you and get distracted because we aren't kept busy stance dancing (you're essentially asking us to sit there and hit one button every 5-20 seconds for 20-40 minutes.)

Basically your behavior is causing you to see the worse in healers causing a vicious cycle where we perform poorly or in untrustworthy ways (letting your hp drop so you actually use your so called "emergency" cooldowns) which only fosters your distrust of healers.

[rockint]

Basically your behavior is causing you to see the worse in healers causing a vicious cycle where we perform poorly or in untrustworthy ways (letting your hp drop so you actually use your so called "emergency" cooldowns) which only fosters your distrust of healers.

OR, it's hard to catch up because the healer hasn't cast a single heal the entire pull because OMGIGOTTADPS. Healers like that are why so many tanks use their cooldowns REACTIVELY.

Tanks are NOT 100% self-sufficient on our cooldowns, we need to be healed. Even with that damage reduction from Vengeance, I'm still going to die if you don't do your job and actually cast heals on me.

Do your job, and make the groups survival your #1 prioirty, and you'll see more tanks use cooldowns so you can DPS rather than use cooldowns because of mechanics.

When something is going to hit me for 70% of my HP, sorry, my cooldowns are being saved for that hit, not your sad DPS.

[Jpec07]

OR, it's hard to catch up because the healer hasn't cast a single heal the entire pull because OMGIGOTTADPS. Healers like that are why so many tanks use their cooldowns REACTIVELY.

Tanks are NOT 100% self-sufficient on our cooldowns, we need to be healed. Even with that damage reduction from Vengeance, I'm still going to die if you don't do your job and actually cast heals on me.

Do your job, and make the groups survival your #1 prioirty, and you'll see more tanks use cooldowns so you can DPS rather than use cooldowns because of mechanics.

When something is going to hit me for 70% of my HP, sorry, my cooldowns are being saved for that hit, not your sad DPS.

I think we're all on the same page here:

• Healers who don't drop Cleric Stance to heal when it is clearly needed are not performing adequately in their role.
• A healer's primary role is keeping everyone alive. If they can do that and have time to spare (say, if Regen/Medica II is keeping everyone topped off), they can jump into Cleric Stance and throw out some DoTs, and maybe Holy/Stone II/III, if they've got plenty of room.
• If a healer is DPSing while the group is dying, they are not performing adequately in their jobs.
• All the cooldowns in the world (except maybe Hallowed Ground) are not going to enable a healer to not heal the tank/group.
• Tanks who blow all their CDs during periods of low damage are not performing optimally.
• Big cooldowns should be saved for big damage.

I think the disconnect is in people's assumptions, and the things people aren't saying. I doubt rockint would advocate not using smaller cooldowns at the start of a pull; they just seem disgruntled at the attitude where healers expect to be able to DPS and get upset when they can't. Cooldowns make the healer's job easier, which is really why tanks exist at all (it focuses the incoming damage on one point to give them somewhere to focus their energy), but healers should still be healing primarily (unless they're a Scholar in pre-30 content. Then the fairy does literally everything).

[Red_Wolf]

etc...

The other thing that's often forgotten is something called "crowd control". For whatever reason DPS doesn't feel required to learn or use it. Tanks and Healers will get blamed all night long but often a simple root can fix a lot of these issues.