Quote Originally Posted by TaleraRistain View Post
The sensible thing for the healer to do in this situation is avoid healing the DPS until a tank has aggro. It's much easier to recover by having to raise one DPS than taking that aggro, going splat, the rest of the party going splat, and then everyone having to waste time getting back to that point to continue on. There may be tanks who don't take aggro on purpose but there are also tanks not doing it on purpose. They may not see it in the rush, they may have been afk for a second, their cat was on fire, whatever. If we as healers don't see the tank react then we should expect action on our part is going to get unwanted aggro and possibly death and it will cause less strain on the party to just let the person die.
That's not how aggro works. Healing the tank and not not healing the DPS still generates aggro on the mobs the DPS pulled. Healing affects all mobs's aggro. The moment the DPS goes splat, the aggro immediately transfers over to the healer because they would be the 2nd highest on the enmity list due to healing aggro as the tank has not established any threat to them. This effect only compounds when you remember how integral and numerous healers' AoE healing skills are to their healing output - even if the sole target that needs healing is the tank. Telling a healer to not use a healing tool only makes the healing job more difficult since you have to gimp your healing output, not make it easier.

The ideal situation if the DPS pulls is that the DPS runs to the tank so the aggro can be immediately transferred over and nothing bad happens to the party - which is good party cooperation.

The unideal situation is if the DPS ends up with aggro and doesn't adjust by running closer to the tank. The less than ideal result would be for the healer to adjust to the situation and heal them to prevent a wipe. It taxes more on healing resources, but ensures no one dies or risks dying.

The worst outcome is to ignore them because now the healer will suddenly be accumulating threat on all mobs from healing the tank after the DPS dies, and tank has established 0 aggro on those enemies. Now the overall party DPS is lowered and the healer's resources is still taxed because the healer will have to heal themselves in addition to the tank as well, so there's a higher risk of wiping.