Take it easy, Tanks.

[Tridus]

Had some more time mull this over and im generally of the opinion that Tanks should at least communicate their intention, but I'm not really getting behind this whole bad tanks not mitigating enough etc...

Every healer has access to what I call predictive healing spells and some kind of regen (healbot in SCH case) Example of predictive healing spell:

AST - Earthly star

I honestly don't see how we healers can't keep a bad tank alive if we plan ahead using such abilities. A largesse regen when the tank has finished the pull will keep them reasonably healthy for the majority of it's duration and using one of the predictive healing spells after you apply said regen will normally involve the spell being ready to do it's thing as the regen is finishing it's countdown. If that is not enough then you always have your oGCD heal to fall back on. I've done plenty of runs myself where I've only ever used regens and my oGCD heal to get us through it.

Here's a trick for you - the post length limit only applies to original posts. You can edit a post to make it as long as you want.


Anyway... Last night I had a tank in Sohm Al who sprinted away when I started casting Protect and grabbed 3 packs of stuff on the way. By time I caught him (because my sprint can't close the gap with him also sprinting), he was at 10% health. Regen isn't gonna get it done at that point. Hell, Cure 2 isn't gonna get it done at that point, since he'll be long dead by time it goes off. So hey, Benediction it is! Course, then the DPS started taking damage (because of all the poison flying around when you combine those packs), and if I stop tank healing long enough to help the DPS, the tank dies. That's exactly what happened.


There's no preparing for that, except maybe a macro on Protect saying "I'm casting Protect, don't run away."

I also think you grossly underestimate the variance in squishiness between tanks. I've gotten the same class in the same dungeon and it's night and day. One guy can be healed by Regen with an occasional other spell, and the other one requires my full attention. I've never played a MMO with wider variances in just how difficult tanks are to keep alive. Like, this:

Largesse > regen > Earthly star on tank > Collective unconscious on tank > observe tank health for next 15 seconds > respond accordingly with oGCD heal or using stellar detonation

Lovely advice, when you don't get some guy who thinks Sword Oath is just as good for tanking 9 things as Shield Oath. When you get that guy, you've got about 4 seconds before you're the new tank. Those are the ones that bug me. If I can't reapply Regen because the tank is taking so much damage that the GCD not providing immediate healing is going to result in death, the tank pulling too much stuff for their gear/skill. That's just a raw "HPS keep up with incoming DPS" race. I mean, I've done plenty of dungeons where I only needed Regen and oGCD stuff too. Those ones are AWESOME. It's the ones where that results in a swift and terrible death that we're talking about.

[Maeka]

Lovely advice, when you don't get some guy who thinks Sword Oath is just as good for tanking 9 things as Shield Oath. When you get that guy, you've got about 4 seconds before you're the new tank.

Remember the old days when you'd go into, say, <Lv30 dungeons like Copperbell, or even Toto-Rak and if you had a horrible tank that refused to use Flash, you'd tank stuff yourself and just not care, as you could tank better than the actual tank could anyways? lol

A part of me misses those days. I used to tank Graffias (last boss of Toto-Rak) and all of his adds and walk away with 3/3 commendations more often than a WHM should lol.

[Tridus]

Remember the old days when you'd go into, say, <Lv30 dungeons like Copperbell, or even Toto-Rak and if you had a horrible tank that refused to use Flash, you'd tank stuff yourself and just not care, as you could tank better than the actual tank could anyways? lol

A part of me misses those days. I used to tank Graffias (last boss of Toto-Rak) and all of his adds and walk away with 3/3 commendations more often than a WHM should lol.

Back when Medica was known as "Taunt for Healers"? Good times.

[Deceptus]

There's no preparing for that, except maybe a macro on Protect saying "I'm casting Protect, don't run away."

This is why my protect macro says exactly that.