Pre-pull regen?

[Kazumac]

Don't be bad, don't prepull regen or medica II. A tank can adjust... but should they have to?

It's like intentionally failing all the mechanics that I know won't kill me because I know the healer can adjust.

(Edit just read Sebazy's post about it in a raid context. Makes sense in the context laid out there. Still not going to suggest it as a rule of thumb.)

[Cynfael]

It really depends on the situation at hand really.

In raids? Absolutely, regen at 5-6 seconds so I'm ready to go full tilt from 3.

On pulls in dungeons? I look at a few factors:

If the tank is a PLD, more often than not I will regen after the first pack has been flashed on the pull, it can add up to a pretty big sum over the course of a long pull and most PLDs don't really have an issue with it. Same goes for DRKs usually. For Warriors I usually avoid regen and save my agro headroom for dotting up on the pull instead. There's also their preference to take into account as well. Some are happy to let me get away with it, some are really not so keen.

In short, if I can get away with it without annoying the tank or making a mess of the pull, I'll regen once the first pack is tagged and my dots are ticking. Getting regen going before the pull comes to a halt gets me an extra holy right off the bat so it's worthwhile if it doesn't cause issues IMHO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdU4tRrX984 pretty much demonstrates how I work. (except pretend the regen I cast on myself was meant for the tank, oops!)

You're right, especially about raids. Any situation without mass targets is whatever unless the tanks are asleep at the start of the pull. I also don't disagree with applying regen after aggro has been established but before the tank has fully stopped.

Personally I have no trust in random DF and tend to advocate the path of least potential foolishness. Even when I am the tank, I prefer that the (random) healer leave me alone while I pull since I'm not likely to pull past my tolerance and will use a major CD if they have difficulty keeping up.

[ElazulHP]

I never regen before a pull when healing. It annoys me when I'm tanking and it's sloppy/annoying to start out that way imo. I'll usually go Cure into Regen after the tank pulls to give him time to get everything under control. If it's a really large pull and they're taking a lot of damage I'll wait until they round everything up and then either go Tetragrammaton into Regen if moderate to severe damage or Benediction into Regen if they're really low.

[bounddreamer]

As a tank main, I would ask for healers in general not to do this. If you feel that you need to do it during a pull, you're also accepting that you may need to break the flow of a pull in order to heal yourself if a mob beelines for you due to the regen ticks. The ranged aggro move (Tomahawk/Shield Lob/Unmend) only hits ONE mob. Any other mobs nearby will be attracted to the healer. Then it's a matter of using aoe aggro moves on the tank's part to get them off the healer. Due to timing, aiming, and even server latency/ticks, that mob can get in a few good hits on the healer before they realize yes, the tank has their attention.

I had a dungeon recently that I did as DRK where the healer would put a pre-pull regen AND Medica II on me. Every pull that was two groups was an absolute pain, even with multiple Unleashes, because mobs were pretty sure they hated the healer and not me.

[Almandaragal]

When I play my DRK, pre-pull regen is a huge pain in the butt. When I'm pulling, and based on other tank pulls that I've seen and observe, we have two main ways it gets done. One, you can use your ranged enmity move, run to the pack that is triggered, then use your AoE threat generator on them. If pulling more, keep moving. Two, you can just run at the pack and let them trigger to you, use your AoE threat generator to properly grab them, and if pulling more, keep moving.

The latter is definitely more risky because if someone pops a quick AoE (Looking at you, fellow RDMs, I have to watch this myself), the whole pack can get distracted before you can gather the reins of enmity. However, in either case, there are going to be multiple mobs that do not have threat established before the regen can tick. The ranged enmity move is a global cooldown, so you still have to wait 2.5 seconds to use Unleash/Overpower/Flash and gather up the other enemies, assuming you aren't a poor Warrior and accidentally misfire your cone (why did they do that to WAR? Jeez). So regen goes off, and that one that hates on you stays, but the other two say "screw you tank, I'm eating the healer" and now your pull is messed up if you can't catch them before they run off and get out of your AoE enmity range.

The short of it is basically that throwing a regen on the tank prior to the pull is essentially landing an auto-attack on anything that looks the tank's way, focusing them on you as the healer instead of them as the tank. Outside of notable coordination or great ping/reaction time from the tank, a pre-pull regen is generally going to cause more headaches than it solves, unfortunately.

[TaleraRistain]

Thank you all for assuring me I'm not suddenly lost in Bizzaro World. People were calling me a bad healer for waiting until the tank had stopped to start either healing or dropping out some damage. My mentality is that I never assume a pug tank is going to pull in such a way that they can maintain constant aggro while they are still gathering. I assume that they are going to tap and run and sight aggro. So regen in that case seems counter-productive, since at best it causes the tank to have to double back for stragglers or at worst I'm a chunky pile on the floor. Plus even with a tank that AoEs as they go, as MeridaQ pointed out, AoE skills have a range or positioning and there's not always an assurance that the tank can snag everything.

I was also being told that we healers need to have regen ticking away on the pull because the tank can't survive without it. I can't think of a single time when Bene or Tetra was up that I couldn't save the tank from death on a big pull. Most of the time I can without the instants available if I make good use of PoM and SC with my Cures. And it's even easier the more the tank manages their cooldowns.

My big issue is that the dps also want to do their stuff while we're still pulling. I often end up having to get the tank stable and rescue a dps who goes into their full rotation while the tank is still running. I'm not sure when this mentality started to be more accepted, but it definitely makes the healer job a lot harder on big pulls. And I definitely agree that the mentality seems to have gone from "healer adjust" to "tank adjust" which seems to cause many of the same sorts of problems.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Normally its considered rude/an annoyance... but since SB, people tried treating leveling dungeons like they are Lv cap dungeons where they overgear it to heck and back.

In short, if they dont want to use CDs, or want to pull more than they can handle, then they are getting a regen. (technically it depends if its a part where im getting 6-10+ seconds of movement, due to being targeted by trash mobs, and the attack would 1 shot me, and or nearly 1 shot the tank if they dont dodge (which is also common in SB) if I dont have to dodge a lot, then i can safely use my instant casts during the long pulls, rather than needing to use regen to keep them alive as they keep running. But if we stop, and i need to dodge a lot, im using my instant heals for doging instead, so ur stuck with a regen mid pull. Which is arguably not a pre pull, but mid pull regen, but w/e, same annoyance)

[Tridus]

As a healer and a tank... just don't do it. You can Divine Benison/Aldo pre-pull if you want the extra cushion as that doesn't interfere with threat. Regen is just annoying because it sends everything going in the wrong direction and if Flash timing is off, now the tank has to turn around and run back to pick everything up off the healer.

[Linx0r]

Meh. For dungeons, it's not the end of the world if the healer Med2's or Regen's before pull. If the tank is any good, they will adjust. It's best practice to NOT do it....wait for the tank to get a few hits in then go nuts if you want.
For raids/primals: it's up to your group. ask them

[SieyaM]

I really try to avoid even having regen left on the tank after a group is finished. In regular content it usually just leads to the healer being knocked around a bit and the tank trying to gather all the mobs for longer. With Tetra being oGCD its easy to throw that out at the end of a pull to get the tanks health back to a reasonable amount before applying your regen. I also have been trying to see how well Benison will work as a pre-pull shield. It's ok but never lasts the entire length of the pull, but it does get the tank usually through the first group without taking any damage. I don't know if that's a good WHM thing to do but it has been working out for me pretty well.