Take it easy, Tanks.

[Tridus]

1. I pull as little as possible to see if the healer becomes compelled to ask to pull bigger.

2. If they ask nice, I'll comply. If they are dicks about it, I continue with my current pace.

If a DPS opens their mouths, they don't exist.

Amusingly, I'd never say anything in that case. You're comfortable single pulling? Cool. It pretty much guarantees a smooth run and I'm going to blast the hell out of stuff.

It's when people big pull while in Shire gear in Doma Castle and I can't do anything except use every GCD on Cure 2 without them dying that I get frustrated.

[Spiriel_Basanda]

They are not, however, fun because of the playerbase whining at us. I enjoy tanking. I enjoy my job's abilities and buttons. I enjoy the role itself and what it entails. I don't, however, enjoy people complaining when my pacing isn't to their liking.

I always have fun while I am tanking but it just takes one person to whine and complain about if I pull to much or pull to little even if it is just the first pull and I am trying to get a feel for the healer and dps. Then come to the forums and complain about it. Even when I am doing my job right by holding threat and not taking to much damage I still get people complaining I am not in my tank stance.

This is why I don't say a thing outside of actual conversation or telling new people boss mechanics when I'm in a group while I'm playing a DD job. I've healed, I've tanked(in WoW at least, trying to level a tank in this, though I'm admittedly a little bit.....let's say worried about getting the "Going to slow!" thing as a tank while I'm learning how to do the role in this), and I know it's rough.

There's no reason to hassle the people that are willing to do the jobs most of the people playing an MMO don't want to do, if you were to ask me. As long as we aren't wiping over and over, you do you, it doesn't bother me. <3 to the healers and the tanks.

[Ftail]

As the one who got quoted in that... yup. It annoys me a lot as a healer, but the only party I've ever been kicked from? Tanking Brayflox on-level when levelling my Paladin. Did a double pull, and got squashed. So did single pulls. Halfway through, got kicked without a word. Considering how long it takes to find another tank when you're that far into a dungeon, I'm really not sure how they thought that was better than simply doing the pull size that wasn't resulting in wipes.Running back is NOT faster than single pulling, especially since it's so easy for healers to contribute a lot of DPS to single pulls (with the relatively low healing requirements).

I've seen a lot of nice folks in the community of this game, but some of the decision making just makes no sense at all.

It probably took them only a single minute to find another tank, if you are already inside the dungeon you get priority above other people for getting party members.

Edit: SE takes kick abuse seriously, did you remember to report them?

[MoroMurasaki]

Amusingly, I'd never say anything in that case. You're comfortable single pulling? Cool. It pretty much guarantees a smooth run and I'm going to blast the hell out of stuff.

It's when people big pull while in Shire gear in Doma Castle and I can't do anything except use every GCD on Cure 2 without them dying that I get frustrated.

You seem to always have such quotable, likable posts. This is (again) very much the exact way I feel, I'm almost compelled to change my signature...

[Maeka]

Amusingly, I'd never say anything in that case. You're comfortable single pulling? Cool. It pretty much guarantees a smooth run and I'm going to blast the hell out of stuff.

It's when people big pull while in Shire gear in Doma Castle and I can't do anything except use every GCD on Cure 2 without them dying that I get frustrated.

This is exactly how I feel too. Single pulls, I can throw lots of DPS spells, and my play experience is more enjoyable.

However, I have had *good* tanks multipulling.. still mildly stressful but nowhere near as bad as undergeared people doing it. I met this 49k Paladin today... Kugane Castle. He multi-pulled every multi-pull possible in the zone, but he used his cooldowns, and all that jazz. It was somewhat hectic, but comfortable still. We also had a pair of rather good DPS who were actually capable of killing the junk in some reasonable time-frame. I was able to squeek out a few Aero 3s, even a Stone IV now and then, though admittedly I was more focused on healing the tank, almost lost him once but nobody died. It was a good run.

But for every run like that, there's 10 where I am doing nothing but Cure2 and/or Tetra/Assize/Lucid the whole dungeon and those are just not fun for the healer. Yeah, sure the tank and DPS are having a ball blowing stuff up but the healer? It isn't fun whatsoever. I have more than 4 buttons. I would appreciate the chance to use them, kthx.

[Zarabeth]

One problem right now is that SE has killed off a lot of the aoe damage while also making tanks squishier. This makes it a lot harder to heal the huge pulls especially if you're new to it. I'm a 70 WHM (just hit 70 today) and I let people know at the start of each dungeon that I'm not great at speed runs (unless the tank is a pld who knows their job). Some tanks listen, other run off pull 3 packs of mobs and usually die. Most will adjust after that and the run goes smoothly. The best you can do is speak up at the start of the run and then let it go how it goes.

[Fealow]

Had some more time mull this over and im generally of the opinion that Tanks should at least communicate their intention, but I'm not really getting behind this whole bad tanks not mitigating enough etc...

Every healer has access to what I call predictive healing spells and some kind of regen (healbot in SCH case) Example of predictive healing spell:

AST - Earthly star

I honestly don't see how we healers can't keep a bad tank alive if we plan ahead using such abilities. A largesse regen when the tank has finished the pull will keep them reasonably healthy for the majority of it's duration and using one of the predictive healing spells after you apply said regen will normally involve the spell being ready to do it's thing as the regen is finishing it's countdown. If that is not enough then you always have your oGCD heal to fall back on. I've done plenty of runs myself where I've only ever used regens and my oGCD heal to get us through it.

Continued in next post...

[Fealow]

We also have mitigation to offer the tanks and I think a lot of healers overlook this when it comes to pulling trash mobs. It seems as though there is some kind of ingrained behavior that can be observed with middle of the pack healers where they never use their mitigation during mob pulls. I can only imagine that they equate a long cooldown with the ability being "precious" and are reluctant to use it outside of anything that is not a boss fight. However if you use these abilities at the start of a pull they're usually ready by the time you get to the next set of mobs or boss.

You have a versatile and powerful kit as a healer, you need to use all of it in a smart way instead of spamming a single spell because you found yourself in a situation you failed to prepare for. You should always be prepared and have a plan of how to keep someone alive for situations you have encountered before.

example of me finding myself in a situation where tank immediately pulls everything at the start of a run when playing AST:

Largesse > regen > Earthly star on tank > Collective unconscious on tank > observe tank health for next 15 seconds > respond accordingly with oGCD heal or using stellar detonation

That's not difficult to do and it won't drain your mana at all. because you've provided a secondary regen, damage mitigation and a 720 potency heal for absolutely 0 mana cost... Wow! At this point enough trash should be dead to where your tank is not being bombarded with damage. All 3 healers have their own version of the above, so I don't see why bad Tanks is a good excuse.

[Capn_Goggles]

The problem is that there's no set pace to go at. If I pull big a healer at some point is going to get mad, if I pull small a healer is going to at some point get mad, if I pull just right the healer might just get mad anyway because everyone always thinks they can do someone's job better than them, regardless of whether or not it's true. Without any input, I will continue to pull at the pace that has worked for me in countless other runs of the dungeon.

I'm not here to get in a tug-of-war with anyone, I just want to get through the dungeon as smoothly as possible. If the tank is pulling too big: tell them. If they're pulling too small: tell them. Otherwise, we'll continue to do as we've done. Now, who you should REALLY be mad at are the DPS who think they run the show and try to pull more mobs.

[Tridus]

Had some more time mull this over and im generally of the opinion that Tanks should at least communicate their intention, but I'm not really getting behind this whole bad tanks not mitigating enough etc...

Every healer has access to what I call predictive healing spells and some kind of regen (healbot in SCH case) Example of predictive healing spell:

AST - Earthly star

I honestly don't see how we healers can't keep a bad tank alive if we plan ahead using such abilities. A largesse regen when the tank has finished the pull will keep them reasonably healthy for the majority of it's duration and using one of the predictive healing spells after you apply said regen will normally involve the spell being ready to do it's thing as the regen is finishing it's countdown. If that is not enough then you always have your oGCD heal to fall back on. I've done plenty of runs myself where I've only ever used regens and my oGCD heal to get us through it.

Here's a trick for you - the post length limit only applies to original posts. You can edit a post to make it as long as you want.


Anyway... Last night I had a tank in Sohm Al who sprinted away when I started casting Protect and grabbed 3 packs of stuff on the way. By time I caught him (because my sprint can't close the gap with him also sprinting), he was at 10% health. Regen isn't gonna get it done at that point. Hell, Cure 2 isn't gonna get it done at that point, since he'll be long dead by time it goes off. So hey, Benediction it is! Course, then the DPS started taking damage (because of all the poison flying around when you combine those packs), and if I stop tank healing long enough to help the DPS, the tank dies. That's exactly what happened.


There's no preparing for that, except maybe a macro on Protect saying "I'm casting Protect, don't run away."

I also think you grossly underestimate the variance in squishiness between tanks. I've gotten the same class in the same dungeon and it's night and day. One guy can be healed by Regen with an occasional other spell, and the other one requires my full attention. I've never played a MMO with wider variances in just how difficult tanks are to keep alive. Like, this:

Largesse > regen > Earthly star on tank > Collective unconscious on tank > observe tank health for next 15 seconds > respond accordingly with oGCD heal or using stellar detonation

Lovely advice, when you don't get some guy who thinks Sword Oath is just as good for tanking 9 things as Shield Oath. When you get that guy, you've got about 4 seconds before you're the new tank. Those are the ones that bug me. If I can't reapply Regen because the tank is taking so much damage that the GCD not providing immediate healing is going to result in death, the tank pulling too much stuff for their gear/skill. That's just a raw "HPS keep up with incoming DPS" race. I mean, I've done plenty of dungeons where I only needed Regen and oGCD stuff too. Those ones are AWESOME. It's the ones where that results in a swift and terrible death that we're talking about.