Pre-pull regen?

[CreinCrein]

Basically, what I'm saying is I can't think of any situation where it is optimal for the healer to grab initial hate, because that is exactly what Regen does. Your tank will always have to compensate for this, and work just a little harder, even if just a shoulder shrug to get the hate off of you. Sure, your dps goes up, and the tank's goes down.

When I speak optimal, I'm talking the entire party. Not just my own.

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.

[bounddreamer]

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.

Most of us are talking about dungeon trash pulls, not O4S.

Tomahawk gets ONE mob. And as soon as I tag that mob, the other two start heading for the healer. I'm not wasting my steel cyclone on two mobs. So now I have to stop the pull's momentum, line up overpower for those two stray mobs or hope two tomahawks will work, then keep going to the next group by which point the dps are going ham on the mobs because they think I'm done with the pull.

It's awkward. It's unnecessary. Don't do it with randos. It may seem more efficient to the healer who's doing it, but it's usually much messier and more inefficient than what healing they thought they'd be saving with a regen.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Sebazy]

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?.

No, as I've stated (And Vanille stated right above your post), keep an open mind and never say never. Hitting a regen before everything is planted is frequently absolutely fine.

On the poison dot thing, do you realise how little damage that dot actually does? (Spoiler, amusingly little, it's either bugged or a troll ability frankly) I don't cleanse it because it's just not worth the GCD to do so.

I'll agree the blm was caught napping, but at the end of the day, he did 5.4k dps across the run which is highly respectable and miles above the 'average' (And well above what I did across the entirety of the run ofc). The Nin was at ~4.8k or thereabouts, also more than me (3.4k) for reference, this was his second run ever in the dungeon and as a weekly raid logger, he did absolutely fine, well above average right out of the gate with plenty more room for improvement once he figured out decent timings for his CDs. Not really sure what Coro was doing, I'd assume he was being lazy since he was on PLD and sitting pretty in Shield Oath. I've never really seen PLDs do much more than the numbers he did, but frankly Warriors are so far ahead of everyone else in the current expert dungeons that it's fairly irrelevant anyway.

My personal performance on that pull was reasonably close to 'optimal' IMHO, frankly I could have either not used Tetra or not bothered with the second regen until we were about to tag the boss. I also wasted a few GCDs on the pull that I could have used to get Aeros up on the larve whilst we were still moving as well. More importantly tho, I didn't step on anyone's toes or cost the group any DPS in doing what I did. I'd have done precisely the same thing with a warrior in deliverance frankly. Even if I pulled hate off them towards the end of that trash pack: A)It doesn't matter because it doesn't hit hard enough and B)In some regards, it's a benefit because I'm absorbing a little of the damage from the tank with my own HP pool meaning I'm even less likely to need to top anyone for the boss. Obviously, I'm already 'optimising' to try hard standards as it is, beyond that is getting into silly territory for something that doesn't have rankings to chase or such.

*edit*

I'd legitimately be interested in knowing what you think I could have done better or even more optimally there? It'd make for a good alternative PoV I think.

If you want an easier reference to go by, that entire Skalla run was just under 15 minutes long. That's a pretty decent time by my thinking, my DF average is more around 20 minutes. If 15 minutes is your average then blimey.

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

Challenge accepted!

Gordias: WHM Healing all-stars - 4th in the world
Midas: WHM Healing all-stars - 24th in the world (Had a fairly nasty house fire that halted my progression in early A8)
Creator: AST Healing all-stars - 2nd in the world
Omega: WHM Healing all-stars - 82nd in the world, my group made me DPS more =(

As the numbers above suggest, I'm actually a lot more reserved in raids, erring on the side of being much too cautious. My high HPS rankings are actually kind of a booby prize, hardly something to be proud of. It just means that I'm pushing my co-healer to DPS more and optimising less than I could be due to not being willing to trust the rest of the group to not make mistakes.

An old replay of A12S that I uploaded previously if you're interested in how I play in raids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGUMzl2cV0

As you've probably noticed, dungeons and 24 mans are my cheeky little DPS outlet. Why? Because quite frankly, bar maybe 2 pulls in the entire expansion (First pull in bardams, double apes+dogs+mech in Ala Mhigo), it's actually pretty hard to fail enough to cause a wipe outside of ex/savage. Most of the time, it's somewhere between irrelevant and easily recovered.