Tanks Pulling Trains (Who's Wrong?)

[Roeshel]

Today is the first time I've been yelled at for not keeping a tank alive in his massive trains (Dohn Mheg).

The DPS lectured me that I should be spamming Holy instead of heals, and the tank accordingly blamed me for his deaths because of it. I know that wasn't it because the tank died in 2 globals and the packs lived far beyond 3 casts (diminishing returns).

So we either wiped because:
a) Cure II spam wasn't enough to keep the tank alive (and I mean literally button smashing)
b) I ran OOM before the packs died because (a)

Am I at fault here, or is this guy just not using cooldowns / pulling too much?

Tanks wiping in Dohm Mheg because of Cure II spam is not possible. The flaming DPS is garbage and so was the tank because they blamed you for their deaths while being spam healed. Mob packs don't have enrage timer. Cure II is more than enough to survive wall-to-wall pulls in that dungeon. I have tanked many times and most often than not I get a healer that is not dpsing during mob pulls and we do just fine. I am a healer main and as a fellow WHM player, I would advise you to learn how to spam Holy during wall-to-wall pulls. Most often than not you will end up out-dpsing everyone in the party while providing sustain for the tank, especially if you hit every mob with misery. If by some odd chance someone dealt more dmg than you when you were spamming Holy then that person really knows how to play and is deserving of a comm. It a lot more fun wielding power and demolishing the mobs than being a helpless cure spammer that relies on idiots to play their role correctly.

[Roeshel]

I am reading a lot of "Cure II is your last resort replies" but honestly imo if you want to learn to dps as a healer you should not resort to using it at all. Force the tank to start playing and use his cds wisely, use your other healing resources and ogcds so that you don't skip more than 1-2 Holy casts. I'd rather wipe than cast Cure II on the tank personally if I am correcting their mistakes. It is what I did when I was leveling and learning ast as well, at some point you gotta kiss goodbye to those gcd heals or you will always keep using them.

[Canadane]

8. Benediction as oh-sh!@ button

Use Benediction as a planned healing cooldown rather than some kind of emergency.
There's an activation delay on it by design so if your tank is about to die, it's already too late.

[Deceptus]

Use Benediction as a planned healing cooldown rather than some kind of emergency.
There's an activation delay on it by design so if your tank is about to die, it's already too late.

Pretty much, I pop it at around 20-25% just to be safe.

[blue_skies]

I am reading a lot of "Cure II is your last resort replies" but honestly imo if you want to learn to dps as a healer you should not resort to using it at all. Force the tank to start playing and use his cds wisely, use your other healing resources and ogcds so that you don't skip more than 1-2 Holy casts. I'd rather wipe than cast Cure II on the tank personally if I am correcting their mistakes. It is what I did when I was leveling and learning ast as well, at some point you gotta kiss goodbye to those gcd heals or you will always keep using them.

That's a bit too extreme IMO. I'm not really interested in letting a group wipe just to teach a tank a lesson. Especially if it's just 1 or 2 pulls.

Let alone all of the synced content where Cure II is your only single-target heal.

[Roeshel]

That's a bit too extreme IMO. I'm not really interested in letting a group wipe just to teach a tank a lesson. Especially if it's just 1 or 2 pulls.

Let alone all of the synced content where Cure II is your only single-target heal.

Obviously, I am talking about 60+ content. Cure II is not your only single-target heal, regen is your strongest single target heal and it synergizes with the stuns from your Holy AoE perfectly. It also allows you to weave Benison + Tetra or Assize + Asylum without clipping.

[Roeshel]

Especially if it's just 1 or 2 pulls.

Usually, you can't wipe on 1 mob pulls if you are only dpsing instead of healing unless the tank has broken gear. I don't heal tanks who are not pulling more than one mob pack, there is nothing to heal, to begin with.

Tanks should put themselves in situations where their cds become useful and they should use those cds in a useful way. Pulling more than 1 pack at a time is just how you learn how to play as a tank and honestly, while I was leveling my gnb I disliked overhealing healers because I couldn't see if I was using my cds the right way, they make it so that even if I don't use my cds I would survive and I pull as much as I can but sometimes it's not enough to test the limits.

[RopeDrink]

I met a healer today who would try to mask their lack of button pressing by needlessly running around in circles to act like they were dodging non-existent mechanics. They pressed a grand total of 7 Stones in 20 minutes, usually 1-3 when a boss was practically dead, thrice as many full-HP Medica II's for no reason, and a grand total of 0 Holy's throughout. Despite giving themselves all the time in the world to be 'reactive' (which is a poor substitute for preemptive), they still allowed the tank to die during a mediocre pull in a soft-hitting dungeon (Kugane Castle), and packs took forever. It's not ironic how their chosen method costs more MP and more trouble compared to just lashing out Holy and the odd weave.

The one dungeon I see that consistently gives middling Healers trouble is Bardem's Mettle, which still stings after all these years, and we've no shortage of Tanks who forget this and don't gauge their healer before sprinting off for a no-mitigation opening pull. Always amusing counting how many runs start with a death or three when I head there to level non-healer alt-jobs.

Mheg can be a bit spicy as well, but I've never had any problems there except for real outlier tank moments such as base item-level no-CD pressers allowing everything to go off whilst party lacks DPS, in which case it can be a bit of a slog.

In almost all cases (in dungeons that allow it), it's a simple case of -- setup train, holy it, if no additional healing setup required (asylum, regen, medica, etc), resume holy. So long as the stun goes off, you have ample time to decide how to babysit, with very few tanks needing more than the odd weave, give or take the odd Cure II during a blitzkrieg. Of course, that's purely speaking for myself @ 520, usually with equivelant (or better) tanks, give or take the odd outlier levelling one up with some sub-optimal pieces who thinks it's good to pull wall-to-wall and then 'spread mitigation coz I might need some of it later', when they really should just use them now -- you'll only ever really need one for very specific tank-busters, none of which can kill a tank outright anyway unless they're truly made of paper or eat one on low health for some reason.

Regardless -- individual situations cannot really be explained without recordings. I can tell you how my side went, and give an estimated assumption of how the tank side went, but for accuracy, recordings are king. There's just too many variables one has to consider to truly see if (and how) each side could have done things better.

[IceBlueNinja]

Like others had already explained, this is almost definitely caused by multiple factors all at once. Not just a simple "lol haha bad <insert role>".

As a WHM, I'd normally still rotate around my healing abilities until I have to resort in a few Cure IIs. In average runs, the Cure IIs doesn't last long enough from needing 1-3 casts before most of the mobs are already dead.



Honestly, assuming that you've exhausted all healing abilities properly while squeezing in Holy as much as possible in beefy pulls such as dohn meg wall pulls, the remaining Cure II spams only serves to prolong the inevitable (your tank's death). Ideally when you begin to resort in Cure II spam, at least a good chunk of mobs' health should already been depleted or preferably dead. If not, well... you've just eliminated one of the unlikely cause: yourself.

Most of my Dohn Meg runs that went downhill are mainly caused by either low overall party dps, or tanks continuously eating bad stuffs like cookies. These are the most generic timelines that I can recall in one of those average runs:
Tagging Dia on as much target as possible while tank is pulling --> Regen+Assize+Benison/Asylum/PoM a few sec before tank make their stop --> Holy spam until stun resist kicks in --> Regen/Solace/Misery+Tetra/Benediction/Asylum depending on how much healing you need & what's available --> More Holy until less than 3 mobs left --> Glares until everything dead. Normally the Cure II spam phase only starts kicking in in 2nd to last phase.

Never had I've been asked to spam Holy though, it's usually the opposite lol (despite nobody in danger of dying, sometimes!).

EDIT: Nobody should ever need to point this, however; if anybody's undergeared, they are partly in wrong too.

I agree sometimes the tank and healer is not at fault the dps can be another blame . cant tell you sometimes me and tank gear is high enough we have our tools using properly but dps has poor gear like 20 i lvls or lower not even base i lvl requirement so eventually healer my out of mp and tank tops over cause low i gear dpses tbh sometimes if i see where in a set of trash pulls my mp is going down a certain amount i know it aint to, its rude but i leave cause i can already see boss fight or what not going south and it aint tank fault its dps and low ilvl gear. rather a low gear tank low ilvl gear dps. Makes even pro healers then become a healer bot lol

[blue_skies]

Usually, you can't wipe on 1 mob pulls if you are only dpsing instead of healing unless the tank has broken gear. I don't heal tanks who are not pulling more than one mob pack, there is nothing to heal, to begin with.

Tanks should put themselves in situations where their cds become useful and they should use those cds in a useful way. Pulling more than 1 pack at a time is just how you learn how to play as a tank and honestly, while I was leveling my gnb I disliked overhealing healers because I couldn't see if I was using my cds the right way, they make it so that even if I don't use my cds I would survive and I pull as much as I can but sometimes it's not enough to test the limits.

I think you misunderstood what I said/meant. I'm not saying 1 pack (or single mob) per pull. I'm saying 1 or 2 entire pulls -- that could consist of 1 to infinity packs.

For example, there are 4 packs between each boss in Dohn Mheg with a gate after every 2. Thus there is a maximum of 2 packs per pull.