Repose in dungeons?

[Simaril]

I went to Qarn for the first time, and told my party it was my first visit. One of the DPS said I should stop wasting my time casting repose, and DoT them up instead. Someone kept breaking the CC as well - I'm guessing the same person ><

Do you guys use repose, dps, or both? My thought process is generally:
1: Heal
2: CC to make healing easier, and buy myself time to dps
3: DPS

I assume this is good habit, and thought process to prepare for endgame?

I guess it stuck with me because he said it with a bit more attitude, like - stop wasting our time and do something useful... which lead to me casting heal more If I felt it were a completely trivial I'd agree, but we did wipe once, and the DPS failed on the two bomb pulls. Also, another party member did use sleep a couple of times - which seems liek a completely idiotic tradeoff (DPS casting CC so the healer can DPS???). Is there a class that does better AoE damage than single target?

[Sirantha]

I rarely use Repose in a DF group because, even after telling my party I'll be sleeping mobs someone ends up waking them up, even if I mark them. This is less of a problem in later dungeons as a BLM seems to sleep for speed runs so I can concentrate on other stuff.

I generally prioritise healing, then switch out to DPS (add DoTs and cast Stone II while in Cleric Stance) when things are going smoothly. I haven't done a ton of end-game, but I didn't find Repose useful in any of my level 50 dungeon runs as generally the DPS are AoEing at that point.

[Snat]

Send things to sleep if you feel the need too. Its better to error on the side of caution than DPS and things go wrong. Guessing the person that told you not too wanted to do it fast or had no interest in actually watching what was going on.

[PArcher]

Its situational to me; really depends on the tank and what mobs are around.

If I have time to Repose, and the tank is marking enemies, I'll Repose the last enemy (mine is a macro, so its noticeable that I'm doing it). Haukke Manner and Cutter's Cry are two I use it a lot in; also the poison plant mobs in Tam-Tara (hate having to esuna 3 stacks of poison)

However, if the tank isn't terribly good or there's too many mobs I won't Repose, since doing so may kill the tank (in fact, I was tanking Stone Vigil and the heal was Repose-happy...so much so that he let me die to about 6 mobs trying to sleep some [funny thing is, I think he pulled the second group...])

I don't Repose in WP or AK normally though...its just not worth it (WP speed-runs there is a use before the first boss, but since we run with a BLM its normally his job to do it.)


As for DPSing...if you have time to do it (tank is stable), go ahead. If the tank is not...you better be healing.

[Sirantha]

The reason it's good to leave sleeping up to BLMs in later dungeons is Deep Sleep adding the AoE. It's really helpful in WP, and would be a pain in the backside to individually cast!

[Simaril]

Guessing the person that told you not too wanted to do it fast or had no interest in actually watching what was going on.

That was my guess. It seemed like it wasn't even faster.. it was just lazy. I usually will heal first and foremost, but also use repose to make sure the tank and I can handle the damage, then DPS the primary target.


It seems completely idiotic at low levels for me to DPS, while a DPS CCs... or for me NOT to CC, and spend all my time healing. If the mobs were dropping fast, or we had a great AoE group, I'd understand - but I didn't feel that was the case ><

[Garnatian]

It's a terrible ability, don't waste GCDs on it and DPS instead.

[Tzain]

Current MMOs seem to have a complete disregard for Crowd Control to begin with. Tanks and Healers are FAR too powerful for their own good.

I'm personally a sleep-a-holic. I love Crowd Control. But I also come from the "old school" where failed crowd control meant a party wipe. Being able to tank 2 or 3 mobs at once made you a God among Men. And that's the origin of the design flaw. Crowd Control was there to keep your Tank from being overwhelmed by incoming multiple sources of damage. The moment where you negate that by giving them enough defense to laugh in the face of patrols or packs of mobs, is the moment you have cut any need for crowd control.

You also cut any need for tactics beyond the basics.

The funny thing though is, the content is actually designed to be balanced around Crowd Control. Take AK for instance. While most of the mobs can't be put to sleep, those times have less incoming damage than the ones that can! The 3 hipogryphs in the front room cant be slept, but they get killed with nary a thought. However the room with the one demon beast and the two houndlights? There's a marked increase in how much damage your tanks going to take. It's no surprise that sleep works on the hounds, but not the hipogryphs.

"But it's unfair! Not every group is going to have CC!" There's actually a lot more CC in the game than people seem to realize. White Mage and Black Mage have sleep sure. But there's also other forms of Crowd Control out there as well.
Summoners have an off tank to hold an add with no threat to the group.
Archers can Kite a melee mob while it's buddies are taken out normally. Not to mention Rooting.
And let's not forget that Tanking, by it's nature, is a form of crowd control.

The tools are there. The Need is not. As long as the players CAN ignore complicated tactics they WILL ignore complicated tactics. And currently, the reason that they CAN ignore complicated tactics is because handling 3 mobs at once is usually not a problem for a tank/healer combination. (3 being the normal group of mobs you encounter, Stone Vigil and Haukke have rooms with more and suddenly things become much different).

But there's another factor involved. CC only really comes into play on trash, and we call it "trash" for a reason. I can only think of 1 or two places where Sleep is in play on a boss encounter (Brayflox, Drake boss comes to mind). So in order to really make CC worth it we'd need to make "Trash" not be....well....."trash"! Which really only brings me back to Haukke and Stone Vigil with their optional rooms. So obviously, I'm of two minds on the subject.

To take it back to Repose, when asked about it I usually go with this canned answer "Repose healed 100% of the damage you didn't take."

[Orophin]

In packs of 3 or more I'll cast Repose on the first pack and see what happens. If I'm with a WAR usually it's not worth doing as they're going to use Overpower. With a PLD, it'll depend on how aware they are I'm doing it and whether or not the other DPS does single target damage or not. After a couple of pulls I'll have an idea of whether or not it's going to be worth my time to do it or just prepare to spam heals on the tank.

[Ghishlain]

In a standard DF for the 4-man dungeons leading up to 50, Repose is a great tool as it mitigates damage. I've gone through a Brayflox with tank in full Calvary and the damage received from the pack versus a single mob is like night and day. A slept pull means you can DPS hard on the first target and only need to heal once the party engages the second target. For Brayflox, that usually means make the pull, sleep the 2nd and 3rd (if there) mob, top off the tank, pop Cleric's Stance and go rock the #1 target. Once that's dead, Aero the 2nd target, resleep the 3rd (if there), remove cleric's and top off the tank then resume flinging Stones. This is a sharp contrast in needing to Cure every 2nd or 3rd GCD as a WHM in Brayflox or most other low level DFs.

Repose loses a lot of its effectiveness in the 50 dungeons when mobs are either immune to sleep or the tank is so overgeared they can take it in the face and laugh. I used to Repose specific things in AK when the tank I usually run with wasn't the best geared, but now we can face roll them.

Just because Repose isn't useful in the late game doesn't mean it's not useful in the early game. However, if the tank / DPS don't allow you to repose effectively, either change your Repose pattern to match their style of play or just keep the tank healed through the brute force of WHM healing power.

TLDR: Repose is a great utility tool and should be used to allow you to DPS harder and help reduce the risk of your pulls in low end dungeons. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the full value a 30s sleep gives you.