Tanks Pulling Trains (Who's Wrong?)

[Jaelommiss]

I appreciate the help, I do want to clarify a couple points:

1. I know how Holy works. He was telling me to use Holy instead of heals. He thought you could endlessly spam a 4 second AOE stun for eternity. He said afterward, "oh I didn't know Holy had a DR".
2. I didn't just blindly mash Cure II. I'm just trying to convey the estimated healing output needed to keep him above 0%.

I responded above with the general approach I've been using. This is the first time I've had a tank die during a train pull, so I'm trying to figure out what went wrong.

I have the normal FFXIV log files, I don't have ACT installed.

My mistake. I misunderstood what you had originally said and apologize if my tone came across as accusatory.

This combined with your other updates makes me think it's most likely both you and the tank were undergeared coupled with inadequate CD management on the tank's part. If you use everything before Cure II spam then there's really not much else that can be expected of you. I'd still recommend buying Augmented Scaevan for poetics in Rhalgr's Reach. Healing margins on large pulls can be incredibly tight if the pull goes long (low party dps) or if the tank is undergeared. Having an extra 20% healing output can make all the difference.

Edit: Another thing that might help is to glue yourself to the tank while they're pulling. If they sprint, you sprint. If they start moving ahead, you start moving ahead. In the best case you're in position to Holy as soon as they stop. If they take massive damage while pulling you can stop to heal without falling behind. If the tank is using light or no CDs while waiting for your first Holy they can take a ton of damage if you're three or four seconds behind them.

[blue_skies]

My mistake. I misunderstood what you had originally said and apologize if my tone came across as accusatory.

This combined with your other updates makes me think it's most likely both you and the tank were undergeared coupled with inadequate CD management on the tank's part. If you use everything before Cure II spam then there's really not much else that can be expected of you. I'd still recommend buying Augmented Scaevan for poetics in Rhalgr's Reach. Healing margins on large pulls can be incredibly tight if the pull goes long (low party dps) or if the tank is undergeared. Having an extra 20% healing output can make all the difference.

I'm re-running it now with a Trust to try and re-create the pulls. The Trust tank isn't taking nearly as much damage and I'm not having any issue weaving Holy.

Here's a screenshot of the equivalent pull (sorry if I'm doing it wrong): https://imgur.com/a/XfamZxu

[ninninin]

Umm.... I don't think compare Trust party to Player party is a good idea.... Not like I say you're bad so anything but I think they are different. Might need to compare player party vs previous player party.

And form the picture. That pull is like 2 packs at best not a really big pull.

[Ksenia]

Today is the first time I've been yelled at for not keeping a tank alive in his massive trains (Dohn Mheg).

The DPS lectured me that I should be spamming Holy instead of heals, and the tank accordingly blamed me for his deaths because of it. I know that wasn't it because the tank died in 2 globals and the packs lived far beyond 3 casts (diminishing returns).

So we either wiped because:
a) Cure II spam wasn't enough to keep the tank alive (and I mean literally button smashing)
b) I ran OOM before the packs died because (a)

Am I at fault here, or is this guy just not using cooldowns / pulling too much?

Healers are in a tight spot right now. We have old tanks that pull wall to wall and want you to know every mechanic and new tanks that do baby pulls and get confused at every crossroad. Just roll with it and if you fall down, get back up. If you get know it all advice, agree and flush. Nobody taught me how to heal. I learned.

[Jaelommiss]

I'm re-running it now with a Trust to try and re-create the pulls. The Trust tank isn't taking nearly as much damage and I'm not having any issue weaving Holy.

Here's a screenshot of the equivalent pull (sorry if I'm doing it wrong): https://imgur.com/a/XfamZxu

I did a bit of testing just now. A trust tank takes roughly the same amount of damage as a synced tank does when using CDs. That pull in particular has a mob that needs to be silenced or it will dramatically increase an enemy's damage. There's another mob that uses a decently strong tankbuster every 15-20 seconds. If your tank was undergeared (especially if using right side to inflate ilvl), used CDs poorly, and failed to silence the mob then they would take an impossible amount of damage. It might be survivable with a healer in full i400 gear, but certainly not anything less than that.

[blue_skies]

Umm.... I don't think compare Trust party to Player party is a good idea.... Not like I say you're bad so anything but I think they are different. Might need to compare player party vs previous player party.

And form the picture. That pull is like 2 packs at best not a really big pull.

Someone asked for a screenshot/video of the pulls for reference so I'm providing them. You can't do more than 2 packs because each section is gated off. I imagine it would be easier with a group since I'm not the one having to pull the second pack while Thancred is taking damage from the first.

Here is the last pack pull: https://imgur.com/a/BfWLsI2

I did a bit of testing just now. A trust tank takes roughly the same amount of damage as a synced tank does when using CDs. That pull in particular has a mob that needs to be silenced or it will dramatically increase an enemy's damage. There's another mob that uses a decently strong tankbuster every 15-20 seconds. If your tank was undergeared (especially if using right side to inflate ilvl), used CDs poorly, and failed to silence the mob then they would take an impossible amount of damage. It might be survivable with a healer in full i400 gear, but certainly not anything less than that.

Thank you for helping, I appreciate it.

I think you hit the nail on the head. The tree's do a tankbuster but thancred was popping mitigation CDs on the pack and avoided all of the telegraphs. The damage wasn't remotely as burst as the real player (Paladin) was. I had enough time to weave Holy's and oGCD's + Regen were enough to keep him up.

I'll run it with a real group again at some point, but I don't want to force them to be a science project.

[ninninin]

Does trust party use aoe attack? Also I'm not sure if trust tank AI is the same with tank player.

[blue_skies]

Does trust party use aoe attack? Also I'm not sure if trust tank AI is the same with tank player.

They do use AoE but it's really bad. My experience with Trust tanks is that the avoid most/all AoE tanks and use CDs frequently, but they're bad at picking up AoE threat.

[Reiryuu]

Does trust party use aoe attack? Also I'm not sure if trust tank AI is the same with tank player.

A few do use AoE abilities but very rarely. Thancred and G'raha will use AoE abilities to get aggro on mobs, for sure. Urianger does cast a gravity with slow + heavy on it which is huge, but he doesn't seem to cast it all the time. I'm sure Y'shtola has a flare-like ability that is AoE and G'raha as a black mage does too. G'raha as a WHM will cast Aero III and.... I want to say I've seen him use holy a few times as well, but I am not too clear on that.

Does trust party use aoe attack? Also I'm not sure if trust tank AI is the same with tank player.

The trust tank AI is pretty decent. The only problem is, as the trusts follow you, you have to get close to the mobs before the tank jumps in. And for mobs that spawn like the ones from the town square in Holminster's Switch (SP?), they will aggro on YOU, not the tank even if the tank is in front of you.

[ninninin]

I think Trust tank don't do wall to wall pull am I correct? But regardless, Tank died because whm did not spam holy is hardly the case. Since Holy can only stun for 3 times. If Tank died in a trash pull it would because the damage taken per second exceeded the hp restored per second and manage to deplete their hp bar to 0.