Which Job should we raise first?

[ty_taurus]

Something else to consider is who's performing to what capacity on your team. Sure, SMN can help you raise allies, but if that SMN has been dying constantly throughout the encounter, then perhaps it's better to raise a more competent DPS and just handle the raising yourself. Post 64, RDM's Verraise is fairly unlimited in terms of doublecasting, so even if your RDM is incompetent, they should hopefully be able to at least raise a couple allies if the situation is dire.

[Veis_Alveare]

I really disagree with the whole healers > tanks > dps idea. Basically the only time I stick to that (and even then quite loosely) is when I'm very new to a fight and unsure of my ability to keep myself/the party alive on my own. Every healer has the ability to solo heal everything that isn't Ultimate and that goes double for non-Savage stuff.

I tend to prioritize the strongest dps (not by job, I just keep an eye on the threat throughout and if more than one person is dead I'll stick to raising the one who was the highest first, it's pretty easy when I'm already looking at that for AST cards) with the exception of needing a certain person up for a certain mechanic.

Like oh, is there a dual tankbuster like in e1/e2? Well then if that might be coming up I'll raise a tank first. Is there a healer specific mechanic like in the Chaos fight that might confuse a tank or dps if they get it? I might raise my cohealer just to avoid that targeting someone else.

In general it pays off more to raise dps first, you're getting more damage out of your MP that way. Plus if a tank or healer actually manages to die with all the mitigation and restoration they have access to chances are they aren't exactly going to be performing amazingly for their role. Everyone has first times of course but that often isn't the case.

If you're unsure of your ability to carry raise a healer first if you really think you need to but you'd be surprised how little actual damage comes out in most casual content. It's literally the difference between (as a WHM) being able to heal with just lillies and oGCDs and having to occasionally toss a Medica 2 out or maybe Regen a tank.

[LeonKeyh]

I really disagree with the whole healers > tanks > dps idea. Basically the only time I stick to that (and even then quite loosely) is when I'm very new to a fight and unsure of my ability to keep myself/the party alive on my own. Every healer has the ability to solo heal everything that isn't Ultimate and that goes double for non-Savage stuff.

I tend to prioritize the strongest dps (not by job, I just keep an eye on the threat throughout and if more than one person is dead I'll stick to raising the one who was the highest first, it's pretty easy when I'm already looking at that for AST cards) with the exception of needing a certain person up for a certain mechanic.

Like oh, is there a dual tankbuster like in e1/e2? Well then if that might be coming up I'll raise a tank first. Is there a healer specific mechanic like in the Chaos fight that might confuse a tank or dps if they get it? I might raise my cohealer just to avoid that targeting someone else.

In general it pays off more to raise dps first, you're getting more damage out of your MP that way. Plus if a tank or healer actually manages to die with all the mitigation and restoration they have access to chances are they aren't exactly going to be performing amazingly for their role. Everyone has first times of course but that often isn't the case.

If you're unsure of your ability to carry raise a healer first if you really think you need to but you'd be surprised how little actual damage comes out in most casual content. It's literally the difference between (as a WHM) being able to heal with just lillies and oGCDs and having to occasionally toss a Medica 2 out or maybe Regen a tank.

I'm not sure that this argument really tracks. Content is easy enough to solo heal, but there are more than 1 person on the floor and we need to discuss rez order? Sure, it's likely more so due to people making mistakes than a complete failure by the healers. Rezzing the healer not only allows you to mitigate _some_ of the mistakes that people are obviously making, but also halves the amount of rezzing that needs to be done by you. From there, if you're able to solo heal, then you can spend 2,500 rezzing the other healer and the other healer can rez the DPS that are on the floor. THAT would be a better use of personal MP and ultimately the better long term play.

I'm sure that there's specific instances where what you're doing is right, but I don't think that you can argue that rezzing DPS first in a situation where there are healers, tanks, and DPS dead in a fight is a good general rule.

[Veis_Alveare]

I'm not sure that this argument really tracks. Content is easy enough to solo heal, but there are more than 1 person on the floor and we need to discuss rez order? Sure, it's likely more so due to people making mistakes than a complete failure by the healers. Rezzing the healer not only allows you to mitigate _some_ of the mistakes that people are obviously making, but also halves the amount of rezzing that needs to be done by you. From there, if you're able to solo heal, then you can spend 2,500 rezzing the other healer and the other healer can rez the DPS that are on the floor. THAT would be a better use of personal MP and ultimately the better long term play.

I'm sure that there's specific instances where what you're doing is right, but I don't think that you can argue that rezzing DPS first in a situation where there are healers, tanks, and DPS dead in a fight is a good general rule.

Expecting DF healers to be able to comprehend the idea that they need to rez someone else (while simultaneously not dying again) is a big ask based on what I've seen, especially if we narrow the scope to DF healers who manage to die in casual content.

Living dps should be contributing a ton more damage than healers or tanks, you will get a faster kill if you prioritize raising dps first. As I said this is contingent on your confidence in your ability to reliably solo heal whatever content this is, if you aren't sure by all means dont risk it. If you are then a dead DF healer should be the lowest on your priority list.

[Ezlin]

Note that you can actually sort your party list in the game's options such that certain jobs appear before other jobs. See below. My party list is sorted by:

Healers
Tanks
RDM
SMN
With the rest of the DPS jobs sorted by their theoretical DPS and utility.

My rez macro then executes /psort and casts Raise first on my selected target, and then moves down the party list until it finds a party member that can be raised. Since the first attempt is on my selected target I can manually prioritize another player if necessary. Eg; RDM is below level 64 so I manually select the SMN.

Without Swiftcast, Raise takes an eternity to cast. If the DPS are down then most likely mistakes have been made, and more mistakes will probably be made during the glacial pace at which Raise casts.

Here is my raise macro:

/merror off
/psort
/macrolock
/ac "Raise" <t>
/ac "Raise" <2>
/ac "Raise" <3>
/ac "Raise" <4>
/ac "Raise" <5>
/ac "Raise" <6>
/ac "Raise" <7>
/ac "Raise" <8>
/p Raise <t> <wait.1>
/micon "Raise"

The party sort option is located in Character Options -> UI Settings -> from there, choose "Party List" near the top of the options window. Now at the bottom of that window click Role Sort Settings.

/psort does what it sounds like, it sorts your party list according to the aforementioned setting.

/macrolock prevents other macros from executing until this one finishes. Thus no other macro can cancel or interrupt the raise macro.

Combined with macrolock, the wait of 1 second prevents spamming your party if you quickly tap the raise two or three times in a row.

/micon of course just sets the icon of the macro.

edit:

/merror off prevents the macro from spamming you with unnecessary error messages.

and also, adding a quick line to /party chat informs your cohealer about the raise so that they can avoid burning a Swiftcast.

[Hysterior]

Here is my raise macro

This is a joke... right?

[LeonKeyh]

Expecting DF healers to be able to comprehend the idea that they need to rez someone else (while simultaneously not dying again) is a big ask based on what I've seen, especially if we narrow the scope to DF healers who manage to die in casual content.

Living dps should be contributing a ton more damage than healers or tanks, you will get a faster kill if you prioritize raising dps first. As I said this is contingent on your confidence in your ability to reliably solo heal whatever content this is, if you aren't sure by all means dont risk it. If you are then a dead DF healer should be the lowest on your priority list.

That's certainly fair I suppose. Like I said, I just feel like a lot of these instances seem to be anecdotal (albeit frequent, I'm sure).

I agree that you're pushing for them to be "better" than just good though. It's extremely important to understand what is happening to be the most efficient with your gameplay, and raising a good DPS would be more efficient than raising a mediocre healer if, like you said, the healer is confident enough to solo heal. I think that would be a good thing for them to strive for and I understand why you're pushing that.

This is a joke... right?

In my line of work, we call that "Over Engineering" .....

[Ezlin]

Possibly true. I've been coding since I was a kid so I am inclined to take that kind of approach to situations. Setting this up by arranging the party list as such was a bit of work upfront but it's ultimately far more effective than manually targeting a party member.

OTOH that Raise macro isn't particularly involved or complicated.

[Bsrking5]

This is a joke... right?

I certainly hope so. Im lazy so one macro for all healers and even that is a bit overkill in itself.

[Ezlin]

I certainly hope so. Im lazy so one macro for all healers and even that is a bit overkill in itself.

Obviously the raise macro is shared, or copy / pasted with the name of the rez changed where necessary (SMN rez for example). This other guy probably saw the word "macro" and got stuck on that because he heard "never use macros".

Which is entirely true for combat macros obviously.