Appropriate times to use Clemency?

[Jeeqbit]

In order to understand when to use Clemency, you need to use your gut instincts.

1. Judge if the healer seems to be competent. Are they casting damage spells? This is a sign of confidence; that healing you is such a breeze that they can get away with not healing you. If healing you is that easy for them, trust them.
2. Have they, at any point, demonstrated keeping you alive under sustained pressure, like a huge pull with 20-30 mobs attacking you?
3. Have they not struggled to heal you? Haven't had to cast Cure 5 times just to get you to full health? If they have, that's a sign they may be undergeared or inexperienced, and may not be able to save you at some stage.

Only actually use Clemency if the healer has failed the above criteria, your health is imminently approaching 5% and a heal not being casted now will be your death.

This is all assuming you are thinking of using Clemency on yourself. If another party member is near 5% health and devastating mechanics are incoming, use it immediately or use Cover if mid-combo. What may aid this decision is again the demonstrated competence of the healer and whether any party members are already dead.

If you're doing it right, you won't use Clemency at all in most dungeon runs, but will encounter plenty of situations over time where it prevents a wipe and turns the tide back in everyone's favor.

I've personally used it a lot during wall-to-wall pulls of Drowned City of Skalla, Ala Mhigo because it's somewhat tightly synced and hard on some healers and The Burn because the last boss wipes a good amount of parties.

[Urthdigger]

As a healer main that dabbles in tanking, the problems with Clemency are three-fold. First, any healer worth their salt will already be on it if you desperately need a heal, meaning one of you will overheal. Secondly, you're likely able to do more damage than them and they may even have a few oGCD heals ready so they don't even need to pause to heal, so it's often better to let them do it than stop healing. Lastly, it demonstrates a lack of trust in the healer, which is why it can be seen as insulting.

Things that can make a healer's life easier are using oGCD abilities to heal or mitigate. Using Second Wind or Bloodbath on DPS, popping Sheltron before a tankbuster, using reprisal before an unavoidable AoE, these are all welcome. It's when you spend a GCD of your own to heal that it can feel like you're trying to do their job.

That all said, feel free to talk to your healer. There are some slight areas where it can be useful, like when a DPS is targeted for an AoE, and if you warn the healer ahead of time that you'll handle it they'll be a lot more receptive to it.

[Bright-Flower]

Times I use clemency:

A. When the healer in a dungeon goes down, or maybe if a healer is undergeared like if I get a healer in shire gear in castrum abania or something like that.
B. When both healers are down in a raid or trial or just one healer but the healer that's up needs to hard cast raise to get the other up.
C. Sometimes on things like flare if I have to run out of range of the boss, I'll time one to hit me as soon as the damage goes out, if I don't think it's going to delay the requiscat part of my rotation.
D. Healers get hit with some sort of mechanic, like say they're not paying attention to ghosts on phantom train. Or if say I though t a dps was going to die before we could kill the choke collar in The Griffin's fight.

So basically, I don't use it very often. I see clemency as a sort of backup heal in group play. It has its uses, but assuming the healers are up and running you shouldn't ever need to use it. It's pretty niche, but there are times when I've had to use it and saved a run using it to keep myself or dps up when healers blow up.

I guess the short of it is: Are your healers active on the board? Don't use it. Are your healers dead or otherwise not able to heal? Use it. At least in pugs I imagine in a static you could probably ask in voice chat if they want you to toss out some clemencies or if they'll have it nailed, but in pugs I err on the side of caution.

[Duskane]

if your healers are day dreaming and you want to pop divine veil

[Freerider]

Honestly only times I'd say clemency are useful is at the start of a pack as a quick aggro grab or if you are about to go down in progression.

[ValentineSnow]

If you let a dps die cause you didn't want to use clemency cause "mah deeps" then you are bad. Yes your healer is bad too, but that doesn't excuse you.

[Naoki34]

I’ve been getting my PLD to 70 so I have a main HLR, DPS, and TNK. Variety. Anyway, tanking is my weak point and by tomorrow my tank should reach level 70. So I ran a dungeon today. In this dungeon, our healer was doing amazing, and I let him know. He then told me “If you think I’m doing so great, why the hell are you healing yourself? Don’t insult me.” I didn’t mean to insult him. I just wanted to make it easier. I can cast Clemency, then Holy Spirit then return to my tank rotation. So my question is, are there bad times to use Clemency? Am I really insulting other’s by using it? If so, I’m sorry!

- To apply the effect of Divine Veil, when you see that the heal does not come.

- When you see your HP very low then you have 15 mobs on my face and the heal sleeps.

- When the heal is stupidly dead in an AoE and I have to keep the dps alive to finish the boss.

- When you want to troll a heal that makes you a whole speech, to tell you he finds it insulting to his healer status. (True)

[Bright-Flower]

- To apply the effect of Divine Veil, when you see that the heal does not come.

- When you see your HP very low then you have 15 mobs on my face and the heal sleeps.

- When the heal is stupidly dead in an AoE and I have to keep the dps alive to finish the boss.

- When you want to troll a heal that makes you a whole speech, to tell you he finds it insulting to his healer status. (True)

Hmm, and in ShB they could all be isntant cast heals to boot every requiscat...

[Derio]

I only use Clemency if I am about to die( i.e less than 20% hp) or if someone in the party is about to die and the healer doesnt have the mana or if I dont trust the healer to heal them in time.

[Naoki34]

I only use Clemency if I am about to die( i.e less than 20% hp) or if someone in the party is about to die and the healer doesnt have the mana or if I dont trust the healer to heal them in time.

Believe in my heal it will be difficult in roulette when you meet 75% of Noob.