Protect? Really important? Low level content

[Sida]

I too have Protect only as third after CS and Swiftcast. How I see it, especially on lower level content it only makes the healers job slight easier. Not putting it on the party I only marginally increase my own workload but if no one keeps dying or even getting close to it, it's not really vital. Quitting over it, or lack of it thereof, only shows the person had very narrow view of the game mechanics.

(Reminds me of one old WoD run, someone complained "gasp, both healers in CS" my answer "is anyone of you taking damage?" To which he admitted that no, no one in particular was in need of heals. Me and the other heal were swift to turn to heal mode if necessary.)

[Lunaxia]

It's just strange not to use it. As the healer, your primary job is looking after the party, and DPS spells should always take a backseat to that. Why wouldn't you want added defence for the full run at the cost of a few seconds?

That said, I changed to a new class for the first time (DPS) after being solely a WHM and on one of my first dungeon runs, the CNJ didn't cast Protect. Everyone stood around waiting for it, but nothing.

I was left very ????? ?? ???? by it, since it just seemed default CNJ practice to use it. He ended up being pretty bad though, so maybe that's why...

[ArcheDragon]

All this back and forth about it has really made me think about some stuff.

1) Trust your healer. It's easy enough to see if they are not new so you should trust that they might just know what they are doing. It's, frankly, quite insulting for a tank, or anybody, to try and tell you how to do what you do very well very frequently!

2) I will not back down from bullies. Their opinion on a matter is not matter of fact. If I, in my experience as a healer and having used reasoning and logic, decide that the group benefits more, directly or indirectly, from my having dps than protect, then deal with it! I guarantee that I have put more thought into it than a random tank in the duty Finder.

3) If you find a healer who isn't using protect in low level dungeons please take a moment before you complain to consider that no matter what you get them to do it will be very minor and may not be worth arguing over.

To clear something up, I didnt "stomp my feet" when I was asked "cleric stance?" I said something along the lines of "we don't need it for low levels, this will be faster" and they simply left. It would be nice if we could try not to make up wild fantasies so as to better make our points as I don't really need people making up my story for me.

[Seryl199]

1) Trust your healer. It's easy enough to see if they are not new so you should trust that they might just know what they are doing. It's, frankly, quite insulting for a tank, or anybody, to try and tell you how to do what you do very well very frequently!

It's kind of tough on this point, not sure if you tank much, but there are DPS healers that are bad. It took me a while to see this since I'm a healer main and queue almost exclusively as a healer, but some healers try to DPS and are entirely unable to do so safely. Since the point of the discussion is low level dungeons, the tank could very well be low level and not be experienced enough to tell the difference between a good healer a bad one right off the bat. It is frustrating that people don't put their faith in you when you have absolute confidence in your ability, and I think that's one reason why it's such a volatile subject. You zone in with the intention of doing 100% of your job and more, and people tell you you're doing it wrong.

[Leiloni]

It's kind of tough on this point, not sure if you tank much, but there are DPS healers that are bad. It took me a while to see this since I'm a healer main and queue almost exclusively as a healer, but some healers try to DPS and are entirely unable to do so safely. Since the point of the discussion is low level dungeons, the tank could very well be low level and not be experienced enough to tell the difference between a good healer a bad one right off the bat. It is frustrating that people don't put their faith in you when you have absolute confidence in your ability, and I think that's one reason why it's such a volatile subject. You zone in with the intention of doing 100% of your job and more, and people tell you you're doing it wrong.

This is a very good point for one thing. Along with the fact that Protect is one cast. It doesn't hurt to cast it to make your group happy and then go back to slotting Cleric. It's just stubborn and I'm of the opinion that we are healers first, so any extra damage reduction we can add is our job.

But further, how many times do we as healers complain about bad tanks? Or tanks that don't use this skill or do this other thing a certain way? Or a dps that isn't putting out enough damage, or getting hit by things he shouldn't, etc. That goes both ways. If you are thinking things like that about your groups occasionally and feel like you have the right to do so, I guarantee your groupmates are sometimes thinking the same about you and they're not always going to be wrong about that. A lot of the healers in this community have this idea that they're perfect and know everything and should never need to listen to anybody else. It's really not helpful and nobody likes any player of any role that acts like that. Be a team player.

[Cynfael]

This is a very good point for one thing. Along with the fact that Protect is one cast. It doesn't hurt to cast it to make your group happy and then go back to slotting Cleric. It's just stubborn and I'm of the opinion that we are healers first, so any extra damage reduction we can add is our job.

Agreed...providing that your group is willing to wait for the CD on ability-swapping. If they aren't, and you're limited to using one or the other, CS is clearly the superior choice for damage reduction in low-level duties, assuming that the healer is pulling enough weight.

[Leiloni]

Agreed... providing that your group is willing to wait for the CD on ability-swapping. If they aren't, and you're limited to using one or the other, CS is clearly the superior choice for damage reduction in low-level duties, assuming that the healer is pulling enough weight.

You don't really need to wait. I've had groups in low level dungeons where I buff, swap it out, and as they're running to the first pack of mobs I'm waiting for my CD. Sure they might be killing stuff as you stand there waiting for the CD, but they shouldn't need many heals that early anyway. And at that level your heal does a lot so one heal gets them back to full. You don't need your group to wait for you at all.

And this is literally only a problem in the first two dungeons when you have just one cross class slot (if you're leveled down in DF). By the time you hit Copperbell it's a non issue since you can equip both. Unless you really are afraid someone's going to somehow die in a low level dungeon and you need Swiftcast slotted, then you have a couple more easy dungeons to worry about before level 30 at which point there's no excuse not to have all three.

I see your point, but a new tank should not be trying to comment on how a healer does their job. There are bad healers. There are also bad tanks. I've done runs where the tank forgets to put up shield oath but you don't see me rage quitting. I heal them. I don't see the point in assuming that all players are bad and thus their play style should be homogenized or else you quit. Respect your fellow players, and if then things go wrong, try and help. If you honestly believe that a group wouldn't have wiped with the extra 1-4% mitigation that protect offers, then your healer isn't the only bad player. For something like that to cause wipes it must be progression content or an ill-equipped tank AND a very bad healer. A healer so bad as to have NEVER healed before and not even know that they should be HEALING... Again, that is if you think protect would have saved a group. That isn't even considering the fact that dps is another form of mitigation and if a healer doesn't heal at all then they must be putting out plenty of mitigation, in which case they should have been healing but protect wouldn't have saved you as it is less mitigation than the damage that they were doing.

In other words, in cases where one physick fully heals a player, protect isn't important, imho, and that is the case for most healers in low level dungeons.

Right but that Cleric Stance isn't going to have a huge impact, either at low levels with easy content. But if your first job is as a healer and you can make things easier, then why not do it? Are you trying to say if something isn't absolutely game breaking that healers should just slack off and only do what's absolutely required? People should be giving it their all and making the run as smooth as they can. I mean you can go in with no cross class skills and be fine and do only the bare minimum by throwing occasional heals and no dps and no buffs, that doesn't mean you should.

[ArcheDragon]

It's kind of tough on this point, not sure if you tank much, but there are DPS healers that are bad. It took me a while to see this since I'm a healer main and queue almost exclusively as a healer, but some healers try to DPS and are entirely unable to do so safely. Since the point of the discussion is low level dungeons, the tank could very well be low level and not be experienced enough to tell the difference between a good healer a bad one right off the bat. It is frustrating that people don't put their faith in you when you have absolute confidence in your ability, and I think that's one reason why it's such a volatile subject. You zone in with the intention of doing 100% of your job and more, and people tell you you're doing it wrong.

I see your point, but a new tank should not be trying to comment on how a healer does their job. There are bad healers. There are also bad tanks. I've done runs where the tank forgets to put up shield oath but you don't see me rage quitting. I heal them. I don't see the point in assuming that all players are bad and thus their play style should be homogenized or else you quit. Respect your fellow players, and if then things go wrong, try and help. If you honestly believe that a group wouldn't have wiped with the extra 1-4% mitigation that protect offers, then your healer isn't the only bad player. For something like that to cause wipes it must be progression content or an ill-equipped tank AND a very bad healer. A healer so bad as to have NEVER healed before and not even know that they should be HEALING... Again, that is if you think protect would have saved a group. That isn't even considering the fact that dps is another form of mitigation and if a healer doesn't heal at all then they must be putting out plenty of mitigation, in which case they should have been healing but protect wouldn't have saved you as it is less mitigation than the damage that they were doing.

In other words, in cases where one physick fully heals a player, protect isn't important, imho, and that is the case for most healers in low level dungeons.

[Makeda]

At level 30 its a toss.

I just got out of that bracket on my scholar and I ran this dungeon 3 or 4 times alongside a lot of guildhests. I found every few tanks is annoyingly soft and takes a lot of active healing... but that for the others I could almost AFK and let my fairy run the dungeon on her own...
- At level 30, I also find the DPS I do seems to not matter much. Things did not speed up in the runs I DPSed a lot, nor slow down in the runs I was spending all my time healing a softer tank.

So protect... some of the tanks at that level will need it, a lot - maybe they are undergeared or underskilled or both. Some of them only need you there because the Duty Finder insists on a healer...


As others noted, this is the level bracket where things finally start to actually hit you with something bigger than a toothpick - and there isn't really a flat out 'yes or no' answer. My tank got up to level 48 before I left this game a year or so back, and I remember not taking much in the way of damage until I think the level 35 or 38 dungeon...

I'd wager that by level 40+, a tank has the right to demand the healer be putting up Protection. Under that - its kind of something the healer needs to guage based on how soft the tank is... and you might as well slot it in there because under level 40, your DPS is kind of insignificant anyway...

[WingsOfAzrael]

its not vital to have early game but it is end game