Pre-pull regen?

[MoroMurasaki]

I didn't read this entire thread since I imagine it's a ton of the same exact points over and over again. That said, my one bit of advice.

If you pre-gen prepare to get hit a few times. The way attacks interect with the aggro table means if a mob can queue an attack it will on it's primary threat target (so, the healer in this case) and even getting provoked off of said target that attack will still complete. If you stun the attack (Holy/CO) you can avoid it but other than that you're looking at eating some damage.

If you're okay with that and remain calm under pressure you are generally fine, most tanks will pull the mobs off of you, but at lot of regen-happy healers are inexperienced and will freak out when their health isn't capped. If this means running around to try to kite you are making the pull a lot worse for everyone involved.

I think the best answer is during trash just don't pre-gen, it isn't worth the potential headache. If your tank is great it probably won't matter but on the off chance you get a crap PUG tank (so like, kinda often for me at least) you might wind up burning a bunch of resources keeping yourself alive.

I think on bosses it's a totally normal thing and should be encouraged. Precasted Medica II seems excessive to me but you'll get the MP back if you have a few server ticks before the boss is pulled.

My main advice is just calm down and stay near your tank while dodging any AoE targeted on either of you if you insist on pre-genning.

[VanilleFang]

You can do it if you want like a... what? 1% increase to your overall DPS? And thats being generous, and only against bosses.

It may be optimal but I would really only recommend it if playing with a tank you trust. Even then I personally don't do it because I find it rather unnecessary. If you want to slightly increase your own DPS than sure, but I just don't think the increase is really all that noticeable. It'll literally save you 1 CD...

[Gemina]

Except the tank's dps doesn't go down. Tomahawk/shield lob/Unmend hit before the regen tick goes off and there's absolutely no way to grab hate in savage scenarios off a single regen unless the tank is terrible. In all situations pre-pull regens is the most optimal way to start a pull, just depends on how good a tank is at timing their aggro skills.

Actually it does. How else does the tank compensate in this situation? A tank shouldn't be tanking in DPS stance if any of their icons in the enmity list are not red. And in this situation, not only are they not red, these mobs aren't even on their enmity list! If they are focused on taking hate onto themselves, especially if someone else in the group has it, they have to focus on enmity gain instead of damage, so it relatively goes down. This isn't the worst of it though.

As was pointed out to you, a tank's long range skill tags only one mob out of a pack. All the others, however many there are that link, will beeline the healer. Not only does the tank's DPS go down in this situation, the DPS who are aware go down as well. If they start blasting, the tank will be forced to stop, which completely puts the pull to a halt, as a result, less dmg per gcd is going out because they're spent on three mobs opposed to 6+. If the DPS don't attack so the tank can take the hate off of the healer, again, the DPS of the entire group goes down. All because the healer wants to maximize their damage. Something that isn't even required of them, as the expectation of an optimal/ideal healer is one that keeps everyone alive, while tossing out damage when heals aren't needed.

Even in a situation where you have a good tank that can effectively erase the inconvenience, it's sloppy, it's clunky, and most tanks can't and won't be bothered to cancel it. If you want to start damaging early, it would be more optimal to observe the tank to see if they AoE the pack, and then alternate the mobs pulled by hitting them with an insta-skill like Aero2/Bio2; hell, even swiftcast and Aero3 if the pack is tight enough. You can't do any of this, if you grab the initial hate, because you have to wait for the tank to get that hate off you. How are you maximizing damage when you have to spend gcd/ogcds on yourself?

Now, against bosses, you are talking about one mob. So casting regen here does nothing disruptive assuming the tank doesn't just run-agro the boss. I suppose in four-man, this could be optimal considering the tank will start getting auto attacked immediately after being targeted. In everything else, they will likely have a shield up, and your GCD might be better spent elsewhere, otherwise the first several 1-2 ticks of the regen will all be over-heal. We are quite honestly not required to heal until after damage is dealt. Pre-emptive regens, really just aren't necessary if they are going to cause you to get hate.

[pushin_tin]

In dungeon mob packs, prepull regen is BAD. If the tank needs to be topped off while mobs are being gathered, it is far safer to simply use a non-HoT heal. On the other hand, for single target pulls (bosses), prepull regen is fine and actually encouraged so you can begin the fight with a free GCD. If a tank loses hate on a SINGLE TARGET on pull from a regen tick, something is cataclysmically wrong.

[Sebazy]

Actually it does. How else does the tank compensate in this situation?

Crein was referring to savage there =(

Back on topic though, the devil is in the details really. Please remember that as far as trash goes, I'm most certainly not suggesting that anyone throws a regen before the tank has even started pulling. That's just a nuisance no matter how well you position yourself. We are both in agreement here.

However, what I object to is the whole 'It's bad! Don't even think about trying it!' mentality. That's just not an approach I think anyone should ever be advised to take for anything beyond standing in the fire.

If you can get the timing down, you can get away with mid pull regens with little risk (Of all my logs, recordings and roulettes in 4.1, I've got one occasion where I messed up and the tank actually noticed and needed to adjust, and I've got a lot of logs!).

The best example of this is Skalla's second trash pull with the Salt Swallow+Larva, it's a very substantial pull with 13 mobs in total but actually doesn't hit that hard at all. There's no cleaves, there's little aoe and pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable or even wise here can net very substantial DPS gains if you are so inclined.

I've not got a video clip of how it works with a lob/tomahawking tank, but if the tank is tagging packs with flash or such then it makes things super easy and I've got a replay of that uploading right now which I'll link when I get back home. Are the results worth it? I certainly think so, but I'll let you be the judge of that.

Please remember, I'm not trying to say 'throw a regen before your tank's even started moving', I'm simply saying, keep an open mind, make your own decision and don't be afraid to push the boundaries of what's considered acceptable in the pursuit of improvement. Playing within a rigid and suffocating ruleset hampers your performance and is just flat out boring IMHO. At the end of the day, it's a game, if you over step the mark, apologise, adjust and carry on. Very few people will care.

*Edit*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddDzccpPLro

As promised. Note the regen at 12 seconds in, halfway through the pull and long before everything was settled and in position. And yes, whilst I was on TS with them as we were finishing up after Omega, I do pretty much the exact something with pug tanks as well. The universe didn't explode, I didn't pull anything away from the pack and no kittens got hit by stray Fire IVs. What I gained was the ability to spend the entire time full out DPSing thus even outdoing the BLM. #worth in my eyes.

[NorthernLadMSP]

This is just flat out wrong and utterly narrow minded as far as normal Omega or Rabanasty goes (Rabanastre trash is in some ways an exception and in some ways it actually isn't, Also assuming you're not referring to precasting media II before the pull, in which case I retract my statement and will gladly roll my eyes in agreement with you <3 ).

I am referring to people who precast Medica II/Diurnal Aspected Helios before the pull.

[Sebazy]

I am referring to people who precast Medica II/Diurnal Aspected Helios before the pull.

Updated accordingly! Sorry if I came across a bit too strongly <3

To keep things on track, one potentially interesting expansion on my point regarding precasting Medica II on Rabanastre trash; a WHM can help ensure the first set of trash packs are stacked neatly, particularly useful if you've got 1 or two tanks that aren't interested in actually tanking anything (which seems to be the case more often than not lately).

What WHM lacks in group buffs can often be made up elsewhere with left of field use of our other 'utility'. Another example of left of field thinking. When Rofocale's 3 demon adds pop, I apply both Aeros then proceed to holy spam. The stun lock lines up beautifully with the annoying aoe/cone they do which in turn avoids the whole comedy show of people dieing to the aoe+rofocale trample combo.

[Canadane]

I click off regen if a healer does it.
And I'll just passively continue to do so if they continue to apply it at inopportune times. Now and then you'll actually find a healer inquisitive enough to ask about it. They're the ones that get told what's up because they're willing to ask and learn. Those that don't ask will simply have a tank without regen on them, and it's not like that's a very big deal.

Of course I let regen continue if it's at an appropriate time of the pull.

[VanilleFang]

Sebazy, I think you're looking at the "pre-pull" Regen thing differently than others. Your example shows you use 12 seconds into a pull, not 12 seconds before. Most people when they think "pre-pull regen" think about healers who toss a regen in the tank before they even begin pulling trash. 12 seconds after a pull has started is, like, standard I thought.

[Gemina]

As promised. Note the regen at 12 seconds in, halfway through the pull and long before everything was settled and in position. And yes, whilst I was on TS with them as we were finishing up after Omega, I do pretty much the exact something with pug tanks as well. The universe didn't explode, I didn't pull anything away from the pack and no kittens got hit by stray Fire IVs. What I gained was the ability to spend the entire time full out DPSing thus even outdoing the BLM. #worth in my eyes.

What am I supposed to take from the video? That pre-regens are okie-dokey?

Ok. But you never cleansed the tank. The BLM is on cloud-nine. The tank is desperately spamming Flash and CoS. Basically, you guys are succeeding despite less than optimal, even average play, and this is supposed to prove that preemptive regen is a good thing? But kudos to you, I am quite sure your fflogs are higher than everyone in that group. This couldn't mean that you are playing than anything other than optimal, correct? However, how would you rate your group's performance as a whole? And how do you think they would fare in content less forgiving?

I wonder... How do you do when shit actually hits the fan? Based off of your video, I wouldn't be so confident.