Healer preference for tanks?

[Fallenlore]

Sorry no this isn't a class discussion.

 

Assuming tank can hold aggro perfectly, no issues with boss mechanics, etc. Would you healers prefer a tank that has more mitigation or a larger health pool?

 

Taking extreme examples, say a tank has only 15k health but 45% armor mitigation, 35% avoidance, +30% shield absorbsion etc. Compared to a tank with say 22k health but with much lower mitigation stats. Which would you prefer to heal?

 

Just wanted to get an idea from the healers on which type of tank they would prefer to heal. Thanks.

[Duxk]

In my opinion more mitigation because:

 

1. It means you have put the time into your class and role in understanding what mitigation does, and by that logic I trust you not to stand in fire.

 

2. Making a big hit from a boss hit for smaller is pretty much healing to me because whatever less damage you take I can use that time that I would have had to heal you to heal a stupid DPS who stands in fire.

 

In the end don't stand in fire and learn the finer points of your class and role.

[Sicae]

I can't say I know how tank stats interact in this game but in other games I prefer mitigation over health.

[Fallenlore]

Well from speaking to other healers in the game, they don't seem to have major "resource" issues and can heal all day. So some prefer a larger health pool to say more mitigation just so they don't have to react faster.

 

Not to infuse WoW into this, but druid bear tanks use to have way more health than the other tanks but crappy mitigation stats. It worked out easier for some encounters because bosses hit so hard and healers had inifinite mana that it was easier for them to heal the tank with the much larger health pool.

 

I mean in the end hopefully you have both a large health pool and high mitigation stats. But I'm still gearing up in EV / KP so I'm trying to focus my gear in one direction or the other. People seem to be impressed with larger health pools and they never seem to notice (and can't see) your mitigation stats.

[XtremJedi]

In general, really big spike damage doesn't seem to be a major issue in TOR from what I've seen so far. So on the whole, you probably want to go for mitigation over health pool.

 

Extra HP is great when unexpected stuff happens - such as an extra group being pulled by accident, or when your DPS is foolish enough to break CC etc... then having the extra health to help survive a period of more damage than the healer can heal can be useful. But on the whole, if you're a good tank, who sets out strategy and makes sure everyone's doing their job well, those things shouldn't be a consistent problem.

 

Also, I'd say that those healers with restricted resource pools, would probably prefer tanks to have mitigation. Big health pool allows bigger drops but then as a healer, you want to be able to do a burst of healing to gain some back, above the still incoming damage.

 

If you're not a Sage/Sorc, then those bursts of healing cause problems, because your regen may drop too low and once you get behind on that, it can be difficult to manage the level of healing you need to cover incoming damage. There are still some issues for Sage/Sorc when they have to do it, but they're more able to cover bursts of healing than the others.

 

Again though... if you're managing your group reasonably well as a tank, those situations shouldn't happen very often - and the other healers do have CDs to help them get back from such situations every minute or two.

 

I should say, that I don't have any level 50s yet though, so it may well be that end-game is somewhat different.

 

X

[RuQu]

As a Commando, we can heal all day, so long as you don't want to be healed too often.

 

Tanks who only stack Endurance are "squishy" tanks. If you aren't going to wear defensive stats, you might as well put a high Endurance dpser in the role for all the good it does. A DPS vanguard and a tank vanguard only differ by the Ammo Cell they use and those defensive stats.

 

Mitigation means you need healing less often. I can drop some big heals on you, but on heal is on a 21 second cooldown and my big spike is a 9s cooldown rotation. If you need major healing more often than that, you need better mitigation.

[Mirdthestrill]

As a Commando, we can heal all day, so long as you don't want to be healed too often.

 

Tanks who only stack Endurance are "squishy" tanks. If you aren't going to wear defensive stats, you might as well put a high Endurance dpser in the role for all the good it does. A DPS vanguard and a tank vanguard only differ by the Ammo Cell they use and those defensive stats.

 

Mitigation means you need healing less often. I can drop some big heals on you, but on heal is on a 21 second cooldown and my big spike is a 9s cooldown rotation. If you need major healing more often than that, you need better mitigation.

 

Agreed, fellow commando here.

[Gariuys]

Both are needed, DR is a healing multiplier effectively, it makes your health points worth more. BUT, 15k health isn't a lot of buffer when my normal heals are 2.8k and crits are over 5k.

 

Ideally you dont want to be overhealing, and with such a small buffer, I have throw out my main heal when you're at 12k, meaning that if it crits, I just wasted 2k healing.

[darreke]

Sawbone speaking here, and i rather have a crapload of mitigation then lots of HP.

 

With the high mitigation i can heal the tank with my 2 hots + my aoe hot running and focus on other aspecs like laught at the dps standing in the fire, or wtfdps the boss when he has a short enrage timer.

 

When they just got a huge HP pool i need to keep healing him over and over resulting in less time to do fun stuff.

[Battilea]

A tank needs to have enough hp to live to get healed. Beyond that though, the value of HP diminishes rapidly.

 

More mitigation, on the other hand, reduces the amount of healing I have to do and makes any heals I do use more effective.

[Caelrie]

Mitigation. It doesn't matter if you have twice the health of everyone else if you only mitigate as well as I do. You'll drain me dry.

 

 

<-- Op healer.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Caelrie

[Tinmancreeping]

um If your using PvE gear and not self modding everything then every tank once geared will have 20k+ hp and 40%+ mitigation. It's a moot point.

[Omarax]

The way the gear works in this game you can't really trade one for the other. I mean you can always choose more threat stats over mitigation and hp but thats it and threat doesn't seem to be even remotely an issue in this game.

[Airski]

In my opinion more mitigation because:

 

1. It means you have put the time into your class and role in understanding what mitigation does, and by that logic I trust you not to stand in fire.

 

2. Making a big hit from a boss hit for smaller is pretty much healing to me because whatever less damage you take I can use that time that I would have had to heal you to heal a stupid DPS who stands in fire.

 

In the end don't stand in fire and learn the finer points of your class and role.

 

This especially number 1.

[Rafkin]

In TOR keeping the tank alive is trivial regardless of their stats. Its everyone else in the raid/group thats the real challenge.

[Prophetic]

In TOR keeping the tank alive is trivial regardless of their stats. Its everyone else in the raid/group thats the real challenge.

 

This completely.

 

I swear, we have a Jedi Sentinel that NO ONE can keep up.

 

Keeping the tank healed is easy.

[KittyPrawn]

As a sorc with all my goodies, I would still prefer mitigation. Damage resisted/avoided is always better than damage done.

 

It's why shields are generally better than hots, even if they had the exact same "heal" amounts.

[Kallti]

OP, I think you are confusing your terms, or perhaps asking the question too simply. HP is pretty irrelevant, at least after a certain point. So, ignoring HP, I think the question becomes about preference of mitigation stats themselves.

 

So, let me ask you, what exactly do you mean by mitigation?

 

I assume all healers would prefer a steady influx of damage as it allows them to just play through their rotation and plan any future event quite simply, it's spike damage which puts a healer on the back foot. So, by that assessment you could say that a constant flow of small hits will always be preferable to a random set of large hits, which would put shield rating (absorb) higher than defence rating (dodge) in a healers mind.

 

To use your example of a bear tank in WoW, they did have larger HP pools than other tanks, however they were a defence tank (dodge) whereas a warrior was a shield tank (absorb) and I always seemed to find people who preferred healing warriors due to this.

[Prophetic]

So, by that assessment you could say that a constant flow of small hits will always be preferable to a random set of large hits, which would put shield rating (absorb) higher than defence rating (dodge) in a healers mind.

 

I agree with this completely.

 

There are two tanks that I heal for on a regular basis, a Vanguard and a Shadow. The Vanguard stacked shield rating and I find that he's much, much easier to heal than the shadow who's an evasion tank.

 

I mean, main tank healing in general for this game is pretty damn easy either way, so it's not such a huge deal, but shield tanks are nice.

 

If you do make an evasion tank, a big health pool helps give us some time to actually react to the sporadic burst damage.

[clutchmrchurch]

any tank that rolls health over damage mitigation is a fail tank and should reroll to something that wont affect the raid

[Tetrodotoxin]

I agree with this completely.

 

There are two tanks that I heal for on a regular basis, a Vanguard and a Shadow. The Vanguard stacked shield rating and I find that he's much, much easier to heal than the shadow who's an evasion tank.

 

I mean, main tank healing in general for this game is pretty damn easy either way, so it's not such a huge deal, but shield tanks are nice.

 

If you do make an evasion tank, a big health pool helps give us some time to actually react to the sporadic burst damage.

 

A shadow should have 40% Shield chance without even taking Shield Rating into consideration (5% from Shield Gen, 15% from Combat Technique, 15% from Kinetic Ward, extra 5% on Kinetic Ward from 2 set PvE tanking pieces), in boss fights KW never disappears really.

[Doki]

My preference for a tank -- geared.

 

Honestly in HM/Op runs, I don't care who my tank is as long as they are properly geared. I have a slight preference for Assassins/Juggs as the main tank and teh PT as the crowd control tank due to mechanics, but gearing is far important, and I wouldn't kick one class in favor of another.

 

From my impression, thats balance.

 

I've been thinking of rolling a tank myself lately and have gotten an Assassin and a PT rolling currently (both still under 20, so no real opinions outside flavor an be formed yet). Prior to this, I read through the tank boards for hints on what class would complement my playstype (looks like PT is the way to go). From reading though, I got the impression that the imbalance in tanks is virtually non-existant, especially in comparison to the huge healer imbalances.

 

If this impression is untrue, can someone correct me?

[Prophetic]

A shadow should have 40% Shield chance without even taking Shield Rating into consideration (5% from Shield Gen, 15% from Combat Technique, 15% from Kinetic Ward, extra 5% on Kinetic Ward from 2 set PvE tanking pieces), in boss fights KW never disappears really.

 

Hmmmm, maybe it's a gear issue, then. I don't claim to know the specifics of tanking numbers, since I don't play a tank at all, I just know that the shadow took higher damage more often and wasn't quite as easy to heal, and he says that he's an evasion tank.

 

In the context of this thread, though, the point remains the same. I prefer steady, consistent damage rather than random, inconsistent spikes. Especially since I'm a Scoundrel healer and we don't deal with burst very well.

[Veriu]

Hmmmm, maybe it's a gear issue, then. I don't claim to know the specifics of tanking numbers, since I don't play a tank at all, I just know that the shadow took higher damage more often and wasn't quite as easy to heal, and he says that he's an evasion tank.

 

In the context of this thread, though, the point remains the same. I prefer steady, consistent damage rather than random, inconsistent spikes. Especially since I'm a Scoundrel healer and we don't deal with burst very well.

 

he isn't an evasion tank...

 

if anything, Assassin/shadow's are THE shield tank. It's just that they actually have to play their class correctly.

 

what I mean is:

 

PT get passive bonuses to mitigation from talents and the only thing that a PT tank has to do is keep agro (and keep a 12 second long debuff on the target that is applied by their filler spell).

 

Assassin: Has what? 2 debuffs to keep on the target & 3 buffs on themselves most applied with abilities that have cooldowns & procs...

 

Played correctly the assassin has more mitigation. But the PT can be played with someone face rolling their keyboard (though they'd overheat and then lose agro, it wouldn't really affect their mitigation).

 

The idea that "assassins are evasion tanks" is from people looking at their armor and seeing the word "light". If you look through their talents & abilities it all balances out very well with a good player (note, I don't play an assassin, just someone who can look at numbers).

 

OT: general rule of thumb for any tank in any MMO "get enough max health to survive for like 5 seconds without getting a heal, then stack mitigation" It's why in WoTLK tanks all stacked HP, because with very few exceptions no tank could survive even 1 gcd without receiving a heal. But if you can survive for awhile without a heal, then stacking more health doesn't matter.....

[KeltikTwo]

Been a raid healer in multiple games now, and my preference for tanks always goes:

 

1: Predictable mitigation - armour, a stable value of reduction etc

2: Health - mostly to counteract spike damage, not really an issue in swtor yet

3: Chance based mitigation - dodge etc, can lead to spike, unpredictable.

 

Personal preff though, opinions will always vary.