PLDs: You have Clemency for a reason.

[Maeka]

I read the thread—very entertaining tangent in the middle there, accusing raiders of being the toxic ones in this community while throwing insults at anyone who dares disagree with the statement, by the way—but I don’t know if I ever saw this mentioned by the OP:

At any point in time, did you communicate directly your concerns/problems with the tank? Or did you just expect them to pay attention to what you were doing the entire time? With no communication, how could they possibly know that you were struggling or missing certain cooldowns or just generally unhappy? People aren’t clairvoyant.

This honestly sounds like it’s more so an issue with the way you were handling the situation as opposed to anything else. Assuming that the PLD was popping all of their defensives, if you were unable to keep them alive, that’s on you. You can spread the blame around a little bit if the DPS were slacking and not AOEing the mobs (to that person who was ranting about DPS dealing damage: yes, that is their primary job function and what they should be worrying most about); but if they were AOEing, most of the blame falls on you if the tank was using mitigation correctly. That can be due to inexperience—but it’s your responsibility to communicate your own inexperience to the party if it’s present because they wouldn’t know otherwise. You made a comment about how you hadn’t played SCH in a few weeks: the PLD isn’t going to know that unless you tell them “Hey, I’m a bit rusty”.

Should they have Clemency’d? Probably. I would have. But it’s very likely they thought you’d lose it at them if they did—because that’s a thing that happens. I‘ve even seen healers say they’ll stop healing entirely because a PLD dared Clemency themselves. Overall, I agree with both the notion that PLDs should Clemency if it is absolutely necessary—but I also agree that they shouldn’t be required to mash Clemency because their healer is not able to handle standard pulls in dungeons (the pulls you’ve described are standard for Holminster—including the first one with the three groups).


I also wanted to point out something that I didn’t see mentioned before:

When you were discussing other healing options tanks had, you cited “Astral Drain” for DRK. I’m assuming you meant Abyssal Drain here? If so, Abyssal is on a 60 second cooldown now. It won’t be nearly enough to keep a DRK alive in a large pull. It’s nice to have as a little boost to help healing, but one heal every 60 seconds is not something you should be relying on as a healer. This isn’t HW or SB anymore where DRKs could Dart Arts + Abyssal Drain and laugh as they healed themselves during large pulls (sadly).

A reasonable response.

I will admit that I had kept kinda quiet, but then just like PLDs who are afraid of casting Clemency, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, asking people to pull less, well... I've had bad experiences in the past, where people give not-so-kind grumbles, sometimes people immediately drop group, sometimes tanks drop group...

And I said earlier in the thread, that Healers need to stop whining if a PLD casts Clemency for exactly this reason. If a PLD feels that the healer is struggling, they should not get offended at a Clemency cast. They should just simply heal more because the tank doesn't like getting that low. I know I certainly don't like getting low myself if I'm playing PLD.

As for Abyssal Drain, yes, I realize it's a 60 second cooldown but it is still a spike heal, even if it is only once per 60 seconds, and no, it should not be relied upon for main healing. Heck, I wasn't even claiming Clemency should be relied upon. It is there, however, and I see DRKs using it frequently. They wait until they're halfway or a third or what-not and pop it, and all is good.

Kinda wish PLDs would do that with Clemency now and then, because even if it was unnecessary, a Clemency cast, especially if it Crits, lets me get out an extra two Holy, Gravity or sometimes 3 Arts of War which I'm sure would do a wee bit more damage than one Holy Circle would, assuming I was not struggling at the time.

And if I was struggling at the time, well, that Clemency just might have saved a wipe.

So.....

While I'm not saying that Clemency should be popped like candy, it is a nice tool that should be used on occasion in certain circumstances.

Maybe I should speak up a bit more, but then, maybe Healers should stop whining about Clemency so much.

I know some people in this thread like to paint me as this person who is refusing to listen to input which is simply untrue, who is refusing to take any blame which is also untrue, as I did say that I had missed things like Fey Union and I simply got flustered with the 3-group pull off the bat without warning before I was even mentally ready to deal with that kind of stress, and the fact I didn't know how bad Sacred Soil was because I trusted what the game actually told me about the ability that is apparently false information...

But...

I would like to point out that most of this thread was me going "It wasn't ALL my fault." because I predicted (correctly so) that the majority of those posting in it would try to put 100% (or dang near it) of the blame on me.