PLDs: You have Clemency for a reason.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Okay, this hear-say knowledge of how Clemency is supposedly never to be used is seriously getting out of hand.

Clemency as a spell is indeed a damage loss since it replaces a GCD. At lv58-63, it replaces a physical skill, at lv64+ it also affects Holy Spirit and later Holy Circle / Requiescat usage. However, this does not mean that you should not use it ever.

You should NOT use Clemency when:
- Your healer is seemingly full on resources (MP, Aetherflow, hasn't used OGCDs in a while)
- Your HP is in a safe place between 30-100% and doesn't contain predictable damage spikes
- Your healer is skilled

You absolutely should use Clemency when:
- Your healer isn't quite as skillful yet and might not catch you in time (gauge at your own peril)
- Your healer is clearly struggling to keep you alive due to a mistake on either your or their end (mistimed cooldown usage, bad mitigation order)

Mind you, I am not saying this as some standard everyday DF tank, I've been raiding Savages (and currently also Ultimates) with PLD a lot - you know, the situations where DPS matters.

But you know what matters more than your DPS? Being alive. Damage is good and is indeed a way to mitigate further damage by virtue of killing faster, but if it gets you killed and you as a Paladin had a way to recover that mistake (regardless whose it was) with Clemency and you DIDN'T use it, the mistake is yours, doubly so if you were under Requiescat and not on the 5th cast for Confiteor. (Requiescat-boosted Clemency is worth 1800 heal potency, if critting and good enough crit + det this is easily 50% of your HP)

So for the love of Hyadelyn, actually do use Clemency when it means saving yourself from certain death. You have my full support on this.

[FirstnameLastname]

If I heal and see a PLD use Clemecy I (somewhat) kindly ask them to stop or solely rely on it because it's insulting.

[WhyAmIHere]

So I did Holminster Switch again this morning with trusts, and I got mixed up, I meant after the first boss. That long pathway with the gremlins. Some reason I was thinking that section was after the second boss. It had been awhile since I had done that dungeon, and I just remember a boss, and a long narrow pathway with gremlins. *shrug* Kinda silly to call someone a troll because they got segments of the dungeon mixed up with each other. By the time I got to that gremlin area, it just felt like it was taking forever because of the stress and because of how much I wanted that dungeon run to be over.

This is not a troll thread, I simply got mixed up on what section was where in the dungeon.

-----

Not paying attention to things like major cooldowns of your healers is a fail. A tank's job is all about situational awareness and failing to understand your healer and the cooldowns they are using if you are going to do something you know by now is a risky move, is just plain fail all the way around.

Just doing what you want to do and not caring about the rest of the group is not a good habit for any tank to get into, a tank needs to be mindful of the rest of the group, just like a healer should. The only people that can really get away with only caring about the enemies they are attacking are DPS and even then I would argue that they should at least pay attention to what's going on around them (for things like stack mechanics).

Fair enough. Yes, the two pulls with the gremlins is genuinely tough solely for those gremlins popping slow on the tank. Yes, that part is hard, but any skilled player (read: not many) will / should know how to handle that as a large pull, or just bite the bullet and do that pull split into single pulls.

However...

The part where you responded to someone else...
Do you even tank?
Tanks have to manage their own dps rotation, mitigative cooldowns, mob positioning, dodging AoEs, etc. A tank, no, a player cannot be expected to maintain full situational awareness for everyone in the party. "Did the melee feint this add? did the caster addle this damage? did the ranged use their partywide?"

You come off selfish and spoiled expecting random players to cater to your playstyle in group content. Most competent tanks will know what the three healers can do and cannot do, but every healer played well can handle large pulls. It's just to varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency. Just expecting someone you dont know to know how you play is not a good habit for any healer, no any /player/ to get into.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

However...

The part where you responded to someone else...
Do you even tank?
Tanks have to manage their own dps rotation, mitigative cooldowns, mob positioning, dodging AoEs, etc. A tank, no, a player cannot be expected to maintain full situational awareness for everyone in the party. "Did the melee feint this add? did the caster addle this damage? did the ranged use their partywide?"

You come off selfish and spoiled expecting random players to cater to your playstyle in group content. Most competent tanks will know what the three healers can do and cannot do, but every healer played well can handle large pulls. It's just to varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency. Just expecting someone you dont know to know how you play is not a good habit for any healer, no any /player/ to get into.

This right back at us tanks, are we supposed to expect that the healer is 100% responsible for us or is this also our job? I mean, it clearly is based on cooldowns, but if after cooldowns and your healer spending stuff as well he still might have issues, what is more important, doing 1x 525 potency / 375*n (n = amount of enemies) more damage or recovering 1800 potency of healing, stabilizing the situation?

[WhyAmIHere]

This right back at us tanks, are we supposed to expect that the healer is 100% responsible for us or is this also our job? I mean, it clearly is based on cooldowns, but if after cooldowns and your healer spending stuff as well he still might have issues, what is more important, doing 1x 525 potency / 375*n (n = amount of enemies) more damage or recovering 1800 potency of healing, stabilizing the situation?

my opinion? In the absolute worst case of "I popped all of my cooldowns, I'm out of MP, my healer is out of MP and maybe resources, what do?" I'd say just eat the wipe and try again. it's a dungeon, not savage/ultimate. A wipe in a dungeon isn't the end of the world. Tanks: space / use your cooldowns more smartly. Healers: plan / use your tools more smartly. DPS: idk just faff about and kill things quicker.

Otherwise as long as everyone was doing everything right (and i've been in situations where I had to heal a supermegabigdudechad tank that never used cooldowns, not fun) then no one is "at fault." It happens. Move on, learn from the experience.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

my opinion? In the absolute worst case of "I popped all of my cooldowns, I'm out of MP, my healer is out of MP and maybe resources, what do?" I'd say just eat the wipe and try again. it's a dungeon, not savage/ultimate. A wipe in a dungeon isn't the end of the world. Tanks: space / use your cooldowns more smartly. Healers: plan / use your tools more smartly. DPS: idk just faff about and kill things quicker.

Otherwise as long as everyone was doing everything right (and i've been in situations where I had to heal a supermegabigdudechad tank that never used cooldowns, not fun) then no one is "at fault." It happens. Move on, learn from the experience.

Unless the PLD is actually also out of MP and thus can't be using spells to begin with, I agree to disagree and believe it is smarter trying to bridge the gap to the next cooldown with a Clemency instead. You learn enough knowing that this was an awful situation you don't want to be in again (one would assume so at least); wiping is an unnecessary and arguably more painful process than in Savage / Ultimate because it hits down on the morale harder when you wipe to entry-level content rather than end-game content.

[Yorumi]

This right back at us tanks, are we supposed to expect that the healer is 100% responsible for us or is this also our job? I mean, it clearly is based on cooldowns, but if after cooldowns and your healer spending stuff as well he still might have issues, what is more important, doing 1x 525 potency / 375*n (n = amount of enemies) more damage or recovering 1800 potency of healing, stabilizing the situation?

I admit I say this as someone who hasn't healed since early SB and took a break from the game but I always found that if I was just pure healing and not trying to dps it was pretty braindead to keep a tank alive. I made sure to keep my weapon near the ilvl of the dungeon and that was all it really took. Even tanks that didn't use cooldowns weren't a major problem. I won't outright refuse to use clemency or pull smaller. At the same time my experience healing before was that if a healer is failing to heal more than one group at a time then they're really failing to meet even the most generous competency standard and probably shouldn't be in that dungeon in the first place. I'm not trying to say there aren't terrible tanks out there but healing is just not a terribly difficult job when all you're doing is healing and nothing else.

[HollyWhyte]

I feel like OP was treated unfairly. Even if you are a decently geared/overleveled tank, a healer that does not outgear/outlevel the instance can still have difficulties. So many people seem obsessed with things like pulling wall-to-wall or DPS numbers (on a non DPS class) that they forget that not everyone is as progressed as they are. Personally I feel that if your style is always sprinting forward and wall to wall pulling without seeing if your healer is able to keep up with it, then you're not a very good tank. People seem to be defending the way this tank played in this situation when really they just displayed poor empathy for their party. Like especially if there are 3-4 wipes. There is a player behind that healer and they might not be happy with the 25 or so minutes of stress you're putting them through when you could just slow down a tad.

Clemency usage should also be at the player's discretion, not "it's a DPS loss never use it". Guess I should just remove all my GCD defensive/support abilities from my bars because they're a DPS loss, right?

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Guess I should just remove all my GCD defensive/support abilities from my bars because they're a DPS loss, right?

Well, how many do you have?


...


Oh, right. Only this one.

[And no, you shoudn't remove Clemency from your bar. There is use for it, after all. I've finished more then one boss fight all alone thanks to Clemency, it is indeed a powerful tool that can save you when your healer's dead. But that's just the point. When the healer's alive you really shouldn't have to use it, because they can usually heal way better than you. Same is true for RDM's Vercure: It's an emergency spell. A spell to replace an healer if they are missing.]

[Maeka]

Okay, this hear-say knowledge of how Clemency is supposedly never to be used is seriously getting out of hand.

Clemency as a spell is indeed a damage loss since it replaces a GCD. At lv58-63, it replaces a physical skill, at lv64+ it also affects Holy Spirit and later Holy Circle / Requiescat usage. However, this does not mean that you should not use it ever.

You should NOT use Clemency when:
- Your healer is seemingly full on resources (MP, Aetherflow, hasn't used OGCDs in a while)
- Your HP is in a safe place between 30-100% and doesn't contain predictable damage spikes
- Your healer is skilled

You absolutely should use Clemency when:
- Your healer isn't quite as skillful yet and might not catch you in time (gauge at your own peril)
- Your healer is clearly struggling to keep you alive due to a mistake on either your or their end (mistimed cooldown usage, bad mitigation order)

Mind you, I am not saying this as some standard everyday DF tank, I've been raiding Savages (and currently also Ultimates) with PLD a lot - you know, the situations where DPS matters.

But you know what matters more than your DPS? Being alive. Damage is good and is indeed a way to mitigate further damage by virtue of killing faster, but if it gets you killed and you as a Paladin had a way to recover that mistake (regardless whose it was) with Clemency and you DIDN'T use it, the mistake is yours, doubly so if you were under Requiescat and not on the 5th cast for Confiteor. (Requiescat-boosted Clemency is worth 1800 heal potency, if critting and good enough crit + det this is easily 50% of your HP)

So for the love of Hyadelyn, actually do use Clemency when it means saving yourself from certain death. You have my full support on this.

Thank you.

I don't really know what else to say.

I don't claim to be the best SCH in the world, and yes I struggle. But seeing a PLD hover at <10k left while I'm spamming Adlo with and without Tactics on him and he's going from 10k down to 2k back up to 10k back down to 2k ... that would be a clear sign of "I should clemency now because one small delay/crit is gonna end me".

To respond to some other stuff:

Yes, I tank. My PLD is 73 and the other 3 tank jobs are 71. I have tanked Dungeons, Trials, MT, OT, etc.

And if I'm going to do something I know is dangerous, like a big pull.. I ask myself... are my big cooldowns up? And in the pull preceeding the dangerous pull, I'd watch for things like Lustrate, Soil, Excog, etc. "Hmm. I saw a couple lustrates and an Excog and the SCH has 2 stacks of Flow up. That means he had to have just used Aetherflow. Maybe I shouldn't." etc.

Not saying you should keep track of every single buff, but Aetherflow Stacks are displayed for a reason.

EDIT: Anyhow probably end up finishing SCH with roulettes. Which means I'll have to do more DF with DPS jobs which will take longer, but eh. Oh well. Better than wiping as SCH. I did 2 Don Mhegs earlier today as AST and.. there were a couple minor sticky situations, but no wipes at all, even with 3 group pulls. I don't *like* 3 group pulls, but AST has way more tools. Synastry+Lightspeed will get you out of just about any jam you could think of. Not to mention Essential Dignity helps too.