Eat It or Dodge? What to Do About AoE?

[Jpec07]

If your healer get bored, because he's got nothing to heal, than he could do damage^^

She was. The WHM DPS rotation is extremely boring (almost as boring as the PLD DPS rotation of GB-RA-RA).

I guess my point with this thread was to validate what I've been doing, which is dancing around the AoEs like a madman.

[Bloody]

More dancing = more DPS from healer = faster death of mobs, because magic AoEs tend to be a bit more potent than the physical ones.

[Sieben79]

She was. The WHM DPS rotation is extremely boring (almost as boring as the PLD DPS rotation of GB-RA-RA).

I guess my point with this thread was to validate what I've been doing, which is dancing around the AoEs like a madman.

If you know for how much the aoe hits and what additional statuseffects you'll get by eating it and to know that wouldn't be a threat to your healer or your group, then go for it. But getting lazy to often will endanger your party, because overlapping aoes can hit really hard. For me I wouldn't recommend this. Always trying your best to not getting rusty!

I know that the rotation of a healer is nothing special but I (for me) find it boring and annoying to heal up avoidable and unnecessary damage

[Jpec07]

If you know for how much the aoe hits and what additional statuseffects you'll get by eating it and to know that wouldn't be a threat to your healer or your group, then go for it. But getting lazy to often will endanger your party, because overlapping aoes can hit really hard. For me I wouldn't recommend this. Always trying your best to not getting rusty!

I know that the rotation of a healer is nothing special but I (for me) find it boring and annoying to heal up avoidable and unnecessary damage

No need to make passive-aggressively rude insinuations.

It's not so much being lazy as it is trying to make sure the DDs aren't having a heart attack, and can output optimal damage more easily. For some of the pulls in Sohm Al Hard especially, the amount of movement that the mobs do as a result of following my dodging of their AoE has earned requests from otherwise silent DD friends that I not move them as much. So yes, I know there is more damage taken, but I've been trying to figure out if helping the melee DDs optimize their output would yield higher group damage output than if I were to dance around and allow the healer some more DPS uptime.

Obviously, if I've got ranged DPS or a MNK for melee, it's a moot point, since their AoE is typically stellar anyway (and not super reliant on position), but it gets a little more complicated when I'm paired with NIN or DRG, where they have higher sustainability and output against single targets versus their AoE rotations.

Based on discussion in the thread, it seems like the consensus is to dodge as much as I can, which basically confirms what I'd originally thought.

[Rongway]

I know that the rotation of a healer is nothing special but I (for me) find it boring and annoying to heal up avoidable and unnecessary damage

So many replies in this thread are like, "Obviously dodge, so healer can DPS more."

While it would be absolutely wonderful if we could just assume the healers are going to spend time nuking, there are some lazy healers who will either stand there doing nothing, or spam overheals.

Obviously, if the healer is doing damage, dodge all the things.

However, if the healer is being lazy, then you might as well eat whatever AoEs you need to in order to maximize your own damage output and the DDs' damage output up.


It's not about a tank "getting lazy to [sic] often". It's about deliberately choosing to maximize the effectiveness of everyone in the party who's actually working, rather than catering unnecessarily to someone who's already being lazy.

If healers don't want to heal avoidable or unnecessary damage, then they need to be too busy to deal with avoidable or unnecessary damage.

[Sieben79]

So many replies in this thread are like, "Obviously dodge, so healer can DPS more."

While it would be absolutely wonderful if we could just assume the healers are going to spend time nuking, there are some lazy healers who will either stand there doing nothing, or spam overheals.

Obviously, if the healer is doing damage, dodge all the things.

However, if the healer is being lazy, then you might as well eat whatever AoEs you need to in order to maximize your own damage output and the DDs' damage output up.


It's not about a tank "getting lazy to [sic] often". It's about deliberately choosing to maximize the effectiveness of everyone in the party who's actually working, rather than catering unnecessarily to someone who's already being lazy.

If healers don't want to heal avoidable or unnecessary damage, then they need to be too busy to deal with avoidable or unnecessary damage.

But isn't it wrong to reward the playstyle of people by ignoring mechanics intentional? If the healer never touch damagespells he'll be glad to heal you up and feels confirmed at what he does. As long you make an agreement with the healer ("Hey, I only heal." "Fine, then I'll do less movement to max my dam-output, deal?" "Deal") then I' think it could work but not as punishment. Punishment is if you let the healer know by your playstyle: "Hey look, you have nothing to do because I avoid all this damage and can also hold my damage output. Consider to use your damage skills or feel free to hit the jump button as much as you can and if I see you jump *kick*"

Of course there are also people who don't care.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

i guess the healer dps will drop a lot ^^

when i tank i dodge every aoe, with a very few exceptions (last boss in ARF when the floor is frozen for example). never heard any complaints.

Even on healer I eat the aoe during ice, as it is a waste of time to slide all over the place.

[Aquaslash]

but it gets a little more complicated when I'm paired with NIN or DRG, where they have higher sustainability and output against single targets versus their AoE rotations.

Finally, someone who understands ;_;

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Always dodge whenever you can unless it's a DPS loss. For instance, I'll generally heal through Black Mages taking damage so they can save Enochian. Their burst outweighs mine on single targets. For large dungeon pulls those, DPS should always be aoeing regardless of role. If they aren't, that isn't your problem to worry about.

[Jpec07]

Finally, someone who understands ;_;

After numerous complaints from friends in my FC who play these jobs, I started to listen. Looking at their theoretical outputs, NIN and DRG are just as ill-suited to burning down mobs with AoE as PLD is. I've taken to trying to adjust my pull size to the AoE output of the group. If I've got a NIN or DRG, I'll slow down and do smaller pulls to let them single-target the mobs down. Where it gets complicated is when my healing friend requests larger pulls because she's bored with the DPS rotation, and wishes to have more reason to heal.

Ultimately, my goal in tanking dungeons is not to run the most efficient dungeon possible, but to ensure everyone enjoys themselves. For some people that means pretending to be a blue hedgehog, and for others, that means executing the perfect rotation on a high-HP trash mob to burn it down extremely quickly.