Pre-pull regen?

[NorthernLadMSP]

Healers that do this are nothing but plain annoying (and bad). There is quite literally no reason to do this in normal dungeons or 24-man content. I can maybe see what Sebazy was saying about doing it to optimize DPS in your own savage raid group, but then you would have discussed that with your tanks first vs. doing it to random DF tanks.

I know I'll never stop people from doing this, but every time I see a healer doing it in normal Omega or Rabanastre, I roll my eyes and immediately think you're a bad healer (and about 90% of the time, I'm right and they are bad).

[Cheremia]

Do:
Regen when all mobs of the pull are on the tank.
I always wait till the Tank aoes and the mob names change colors because i'm that lazy and i don't do regen to early to make stuff run off
If you happen to have regen on the tank when adds spawn, like they do in Kugane Castle, just plant yourself near the tank or in the MIDDLE of where the adds spawn. Less work for the tank.
Same goes for bosses, i wait till the tanks start running towards them and are about to attack, then i cast regen on them, like the exact same time as their attack hits, at leat i'll try
Divine bension/Tetra/Bene whenever all the mobs of the current pull cycle are on the tank and the tank has too much damage in between for some reason.

Don't:
Regen while the tank is still running around. Expecting every tank to aggro EVERYTHING while they're still on the way to their destination doesn't always happen and it doesn't need to.
Regen at the end of the pull. Nobody expects you to be a master in managing every regen every time because it happens that some groups just clear trash waaay faster than others.
I did get pre pull regen punched out of my system because i got told that thats where i get all the hate at the beginning from(noob me didn't know back then, the times)

If you tank yourself its pretty annoying if somebody insists of having regens on you all the time. I click it off if i have it at a bad time but a lot of others don't because always thinking of doing it isn't easy.
And most healer run away from the tank instead of literally bodyslamming them to help them not to have a konga line of mobs behind them.

[Gemina]

Why so? Because you aren't concerned with your DPS? If that's the case, isn't that a bit of a miss-use of the word 'optimal'?

Not at all. I stopped reading because maximizing dps isn't even in the realm of what this thread addresses. Posts like yours, is what veers a thread off topic, and into another healer dps debate. Sorry, not taking that bait.

Basically, what I'm saying is I can't think of any situation where it is optimal for the healer to grab initial hate, because that is exactly what Regen does. Your tank will always have to compensate for this, and work just a little harder, even if just a shoulder shrug to get the hate off of you. Sure, your dps goes up, and the tank's goes down.

When I speak optimal, I'm talking the entire party. Not just my own.

[Avatre]

Basically, what I'm saying is I can't think of any situation where it is optimal for the healer to grab initial hate, because that is exactly what Regen does. Your tank will always have to compensate for this, and work just a little harder, even if just a shoulder shrug to get the hate off of you. Sure, your dps goes up, and the tank's goes down.

Only time I can see that being a reasonable choice, is if there is no tank because they DCed/left right as the dungeon started. Had this happen in Fractal while I was leveling my AST. Tank left right away, and the two DPS and I decided to go ahead without a tank until we got a replacement(which came in 3/4 of the way through first boss). As healer, I tried to keep agro from the majority of the mobs so that I didn't have to heal everyone constantly, and just myself.

[CreinCrein]

Basically, what I'm saying is I can't think of any situation where it is optimal for the healer to grab initial hate, because that is exactly what Regen does. Your tank will always have to compensate for this, and work just a little harder, even if just a shoulder shrug to get the hate off of you. Sure, your dps goes up, and the tank's goes down.

When I speak optimal, I'm talking the entire party. Not just my own.

Except the tank's dps doesn't go down. Tomahawk/shield lob/Unmend hit before the regen tick goes off and there's absolutely no way to grab hate in savage scenarios off a single regen unless the tank is terrible. In all situations pre-pull regens is the most optimal way to start a pull, just depends on how good a tank is at timing their aggro skills.

[Rilifane]

The small benefits of pre-pull Regen on trash pulls are just not worth the potential hassle. You can't count on DF tanks to manage huge pulls in a way that makes pre-pull Regen safe and viable. Even if you toe your tanks it tends to interrupt the flow of the pull.
If the tank drops during pull, I just SC+CureII or Tetra. I usually use SC CureII because a) gives a lily to use on DB and b) I'd rather use my oGCDs while dpsing.
On bosses I pre-pull Regen unless I noticed the tank having a tendency to body pull.
Play in a way that is most beneficial and safe for everyone.

[Taika]

Not at all. I stopped reading because maximizing dps isn't even in the realm of what this thread addresses. Posts like yours, is what veers a thread off topic, and into another healer dps debate.

I'm sorry, but how is "this is the optimal way to use this skill in this situation DPS-wise" in anyway out of "the realm of what this thread addresses", when the thread is specifically about what's the best way to use the discussed skill in discussed situation? What Sebazy said is no doubt the optimal way to do it DPS-wise - and for the whole party, not just the healer - and pointing that out is definitely relevant for the discussion and for the OP. It doesn't mean that this is how the skill should be used in DF groups most of the time, and Sebazy didn't claim that either. No one is debating or derailing here except for you.

[bounddreamer]

Except the tank's dps doesn't go down. Tomahawk/shield lob/Unmend hit before the regen tick goes off and there's absolutely no way to grab hate in savage scenarios off a single regen unless the tank is terrible. In all situations pre-pull regens is the most optimal way to start a pull, just depends on how good a tank is at timing their aggro skills.

Most of us are talking about dungeon trash pulls, not O4S.

Tomahawk gets ONE mob. And as soon as I tag that mob, the other two start heading for the healer. I'm not wasting my steel cyclone on two mobs. So now I have to stop the pull's momentum, line up overpower for those two stray mobs or hope two tomahawks will work, then keep going to the next group by which point the dps are going ham on the mobs because they think I'm done with the pull.

It's awkward. It's unnecessary. Don't do it with randos. It may seem more efficient to the healer who's doing it, but it's usually much messier and more inefficient than what healing they thought they'd be saving with a regen.

[Sebazy]

Basically, what I'm saying is I can't think of any situation where it is optimal for the healer to grab initial hate, because that is exactly what Regen does. Your tank will always have to compensate for this, and work just a little harder, even if just a shoulder shrug to get the hate off of you. Sure, your dps goes up, and the tank's goes down.

When I speak optimal, I'm talking the entire party. Not just my own.

Most of us are talking about dungeon trash pulls, not O4S.

Dungeons have bosses, as does 24 man content. On these, a pre pull regen (Not medica II tho!) is 100% indisputably 'optimal' and shouldn't cause any problems. Of course it's down to an individual player to make the choice to optimise to that sort of level. As you say, that's a subject that's been done to death and I've got no interest in going there either.

Rather than just flatly stating that pre regens are bad the end, I guess a good TLDR would be:

Avoid precasting on trash, but precasting for bosses is generally fine and can be a respectable dps gain?

I'm not trying to bait a DPS argument here. If you branded your approach as 'safe' or 'cautious', I'd have absolutely no objection to it, but I disagree that your approach is 'optimal', sorry =/

However, I think it's a shame when I see stuff like the following banded around:

I know I'll never stop people from doing this, but every time I see a healer doing it in normal Omega or Rabanastre, I roll my eyes and immediately think you're a bad healer (and about 90% of the time, I'm right and they are bad).

This is just flat out wrong and utterly narrow minded as far as normal Omega or Rabanasty goes (Rabanastre trash is in some ways an exception and in some ways it actually isn't, Also assuming you're not referring to precasting media II before the pull, in which case I retract my statement and will gladly roll my eyes in agreement with you <3 ). *edit* Clarified on the next page! Apologies if I come across aggressively whilst making my point <3

WHM is a job that is most definitely at it's best when you play dynamically whilst adapting to the situation at hand, we don't have great group buffs or such like the alternatives, but what we do have are some fantastically potent GCDs and a solid toolkit that really lets us get the best out of them. Precasting regen is potentially one example of this and it's something that shouldn't automatically be disregarded. Keeping an open mind and not being afraid to push the boundaries a little when the situation allows will make one a better player IMHO.

And most healer run away from the tank instead of literally bodyslamming them to help them not to have a konga line of mobs behind them.

This is a very good point that I probably should have mentioned as well. It's one thing to walk the line with agro and take a few hits as penance, but it's entirely something else to start turning or moving mobs because you can't manage your enmity or positioning correctly.

I'll happily go gung ho on the second Skalla trash pull because I can hug the tank like a limpet with no worries (And I've had runs where I've been tanking half the pull alongside the tank up until the moment they die), whereas on the last Skalla trash pull with the aoeing Doll, I'm much much more cautious.

[whiskeybravo]

As a tank, it can be slightly annoying, more or less depending on the situation itself. It doesn't annoy me enough to say anything in chat, though I certainly yet at my TV when it happens lol. If the healer is going to do that then they better be OK with possibly taking a few hits until I get back to gather them up. So if you don't want to deal with that, then don't regen pre-pull. Otherwise it's all gravy.