Riddle Me This: "Regen on pulls is bad"

[tinythinker]

I am still pretty new to the game, with a week left on my free thirty before the sub kicks in, so I ask in all sincerity what that quote in the title of this thread means, especially coming from a tank.

Was doing a basic Qarn run, put Regen on tank, switched to Cleric Stance, and did lots of Aero and Stone II during trash and boss fights. Re-upped Regen when it expired. Helped clear trash faster, tank's health stayed way up. Rarely needed to drop Stance and use Cure II. Run was going fast & smooth.

Halfway thru I get that one line from tank before next pull. So I stop using Regen during trash, have to use Cleric II a lot more, tank's health on average is lower (I also use more mana but that doesn't matter), spend less time in CS helping with damage. Basically from my pov things were worse.

Didn't get a chance to ask why he said that 'cause I type slow and we kept going full speed ahead, but, I am baffled. Is there some reason not to use Regen on a tank during trash pulls?

[AnaviAnael]

Regen will pull hate off the tank. Once it starts ticking and restoring HP, that generates enmity and pulls the mobs toward you. Often times the tank doesn't have time to Flash/Overpower/Unleash/etc before Regen starts ticking so mobs fly all over the screen.

[tinythinker]

Regen will pull hate off the tank. Once it starts ticking and restoring HP, that generates enmity and pulls the mobs toward you. Often times the tank doesn't have time to Flash/Overpower/Unleash/etc before Regen starts ticking so mobs fly all over the screen.

OK, that makes sense. Like I said I am new so I figured there was something I was missing. Didn't seem to be a problem, and in prior runs in DF people actually suggested that what White Mages do is to put regen on the tank, hit Cleric Stance, and load some DoTs/use Holy/fire Stones/etc, so I thought I was doing it right. Thanks for the insight!

[AnaviAnael]

OK, that makes sense. Like I said I am new so I figured there was something I was missing. Didn't seem to be a problem, and in prior runs in DF people actually suggested that what White Mages do is to put regen on the tank, hit Cleric Stance, and load some DoTs/use Holy/fire Stones/etc, so I thought I was doing it right. Thanks for the insight!

Our pleasure! It's always best to ask. How else are we to improve ourselves?

[tinythinker]

Our pleasure! It's always best to ask. How else are we to improve ourselves?

Always glad of thoughtful help. When I first ran Qarn a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea what doom was, that it shows up silently after a room-wide AoE in your debuff bar, to go to the glowing square, or that you should stand near the middle square since the first square fades fast. Got kicked from that group for being confused and dying a lot. Next run someone took 30-40 seconds to explain, never had an issue after. Same with story-mode Titan the next day. Kept getting knocked off even though I ran ASAP. A nice player in my third run (first completed w/ me dead, second gave up) told me to hug Titan's butt and someone later made me aware of legacy movement. Was wondering if I should continue with the game for a while because I was failing basic mechanics on pre-50 content, now I can run both of those very well & later that AoE in the big battle in Praet was no big deal.

[Saccharin]

OK, that makes sense. Like I said I am new so I figured there was something I was missing. Didn't seem to be a problem, and in prior runs in DF people actually suggested that what White Mages do is to put regen on the tank, hit Cleric Stance, and load some DoTs/use Holy/fire Stones/etc, so I thought I was doing it right. Thanks for the insight!

I have a habit of doing that too and most of the time it's completely fine. A tank should be aoeing a pack with flash or other class ability they have before they start their combos anyway to avoid stay mobs. Some tanks dont know how to approach a group of mobs properly. If the tank is a second too slow and your regen critical strikes it can generate a fair amount of enmity and position the mob away from the tank. With a 2.5 second global cooldown (the delay between next action) a stray mob can do quite a bit of damage until the tank can regain control.

[Mikita]

If you cast regen on the tank -as- he is rushing towards the mobs, you will pull hate and the tank will need to work overtime to prevent the mobs from rushing after you first.

Better to let the tank build up hate first, then cast Regen before going into Cleric Stance. ^^

[tinythinker]

If you cast regen on the tank -as- he is rushing towards the mobs, you will pull hate and the tank will need to work overtime to prevent the mobs from rushing after you first.

Better to let the tank build up hate first, then cast Regen before going into Cleric Stance. ^^

The reason not to use regen before a pull is because you will be the top target the moment the tank goes in to attack. Once the tank has aggro, feel free to pop a regen on them but before hand is dangerous for you and can mess the tank up, especially if they can't manually remove it easily like on PS3/4

OK, so I had it right EXCEPT wait for Regen until the tank finished pulling first, and lay off of it if s/he needs to reacquire aggro. Thanks so much. Lots for me to learn. I hope maybe other new healers will learn from my error.

[Ashkendor]

OK, so I had it right EXCEPT wait for Regen until the tank finished pulling first, and lay off of it if s/he needs to reacquire aggro. Thanks so much. Lots for me to learn. I hope maybe other new healers will learn from my error.

Yep, exactly! Shield Lob/Tomahawk/Unmend only targets one mob, but the rest in the pack will typically link to those and will automatically be pulled to the tank (often referred to as body pull/facepull) but they will have no aggro at all on them until the tank hits them with something (usually Flash, Unleash, or Overpower). Regen ticks go off faster than you can go from one GCD to the next so by the time your GCD comes up again and you can use an AoE hate skill, the mobs are nomming on your healer's face. Healers don't like having their faces nommed. On the off chance that you do pull hate, run to the tank. :3

BTW, you ask good questions. Also, kudos on being proactively DPS'ing. ^^

[MrsFluffyButt]

As a tank main, I can honestly say that if you or the tank you have is competent, regen on pulls is perfectly fine, especially with larger pulls. As a tank, if you plan on doing large, multi pack pulls, you shouled ALWAYS use your aoe emnity skill on pack before moving forward, isn't hard and you can do it whilst moving so there's no reason not to. That Regen could be the thing which keeps you up and running during large pulls, don't be an idiot tank.