Healer Horror Stories: Redux

[tinythinker]

My worst enemy in Expert is DRK. Most of them aren't ... hm ... "great".

Roughly 85% of the time I've been told that it's probably the player (inexperience, managing the CDs, etc.); 15% that it's the job. Maybe it's both - mostly one and a little the other? Wondering now how things for tanking and the tank-healer relationship will look in 5.0, especially with the shadow theme. Some DRKs think they will get a significant rework as this a darker-themed expansion is up their alley...

[Lorgana]

Roughly 85% of the time I've been told that it's probably the player (inexperience, managing the CDs, etc.); 15% that it's the job. Maybe it's both - mostly one and a little the other? Wondering now how things for tanking and the tank-healer relationship will look in 5.0, especially with the shadow theme. Some DRKs think they will get a significant rework as this a darker-themed expansion is up their alley...

Inexperience with the job doesn't really computer to being terrible I can DRK in savage even though I'm the main paladin because fundamentally the concept is the same, CDs on TB's, SW instead of SENT TBN instead of Sheltron. Of course, there's far more in terms of optimization but as long as you have some experience tanking, in general, you shouldn't suck enough to result in casual content wipes. I would say 99% of the time its the player because they're bad to combine that with the fact that DRK is definitely the hardest of the tanks to actually play well (because the class is so bad) then you've got a recipe for disaster. Alot of players THINK they're playing the class right but don't often look too deeply into whether they are or they aren't.

[EaMett]

Roughly 85% of the time I've been told that it's probably the player (inexperience, managing the CDs, etc.); 15% that it's the job. Maybe it's both - mostly one and a little the other? Wondering now how things for tanking and the tank-healer relationship will look in 5.0, especially with the shadow theme. Some DRKs think they will get a significant rework as this a darker-themed expansion is up their alley...

Oddly enough some of my best runs have been with DRK. Other good runs have been with WAR and some of my worst runs have been with WAR. odd how it works.

[tinythinker]

Inexperience with the job doesn't really computer to being terrible I can DRK in savage even though I'm the main paladin because fundamentally the concept is the same, CDs on TB's, SW instead of SENT TBN instead of Sheltron. Of course, there's far more in terms of optimization but as long as you have some experience tanking, in general, you shouldn't suck enough to result in casual content wipes. I would say 99% of the time its the player because they're bad to combine that with the fact that DRK is definitely the hardest of the tanks to actually play well (because the class is so bad) then you've got a recipe for disaster. Alot of players THINK they're playing the class right but don't often look too deeply into whether they are or they aren't.

I just know my own experience and what others report, so I share then read and consider feedback. I've even had one player who prefers tanking who thinks their DRK is squishier than their WAR. Still, only a few people who have discussed this think it's because the job is harder to manage or has some Achille's heal, while most (I estimated 85% in my prior comment) of the people I've communicated with say it's probably the player. And inexperience doesn't have to just mean with the job, it can also be for the role.

It just seems (to me) that even what seem to be the more skilled and experienced DRKs are more likely to see larger health drops than other tank jobs on average (but not necessarily every time). That doesn't make them a big risk or the job a bad job, yet I've wondered why that might be so if is true beyond just my own limited observation. Because then knowing that reason might help me do better when I heal. For example, it helped me a lot when I learned that if I see a Living Dead text macro I need to top the tank off as fast as possible. And in this thread I learned that some DRKs use abilities that work by taking damage, which doesn't happen if I stun trash packs with Holy.

In any case, on my end what appear to be the more skilled and experienced DRKs have less of a health drop than the DRKs who appear to struggle. They recover well from such drops and can manage pulls just fine. The ones who struggle... don't recover so well. Or at all. They just eat a steady diet of oGCD heals and Cure II spam until the pull is done... or they die.

I don't play the job (or role) so I can't say it is good or bad or well-designed or not, only that I've read plenty of comments about people hoping it gets fixes/buffs for 5.0. And yes, I've run with both amazing and struggling Warriors and Paladins, the only difference I notice is that those jobs appear to keep their health more even over the course of a pull.

Such a perspective could easily be observer bias or sampling limitation or various confounding variables. But honestly I run 100% DF roulettes, that's my sample pool based on one player. So it doesn't really demonstrate anything significant.

[tinythinker]

Oddly enough some of my best runs have been with DRK. Other good runs have been with WAR and some of my worst runs have been with WAR. odd how it works.

Yes, exactly. There are some healers who also seem to think DRKs are more likely to have issues during trash pulls, while others disagree. Which led me to wonder if there is something in the mechanics that could give some healers different experiences. Like an average healer might have issues with a certain tank job but a great healer wouldn't.

However, differential player skill and experience remains just as if not more valid of an explanation for what some of us think we're seeing. Plus I try to remind myself that when people start believing their own perspective is *the* way to see something, and that a pattern they think they see *must* be real, they will pay attention to/recall what fits their expectations and forget what doesn't. It becomes self-reinforcing. In terms of games like FFXIV that can turn into unproductive or destructive stereotypes about roles or jobs.

The people on the forums who say they have experience with tanking jobs are nearly uniform so far in siding with a difference between players over other possible factors. So, I don't have much I can use to argue against that, other than to wonder for example how a pull would be different in terms of weaknesses or mechanics between one tank job and another.

I only wonder about things like this occasionally on the forums. In-game I'm just trying not to make any unforced errors while keeping the party alive and doing mechanics properly. I figure unless someone is being toxic or having seriously massive issues keeping on top of things, I should probably worry more about my own role rather than someone else's.