Tanks and somethings they may not tell you

[Zintair]

There are many different aspects of PvE. HM FPs and Raids are COMPLETELY different.

 

For Flashpoints your best bet is to Guard a MDPS. Definitely Scoundrel/Op or Sent/Marauder. I usually do this in Raids as well however there are certain scenarios where you need to keep your head on a swivel and understand the mechanics of the fight.

 

Most of the time your MDPS is your best bet.

 

Not to mention pulling aggro in this game != wipe unlike other games.

[BroadStreetBully]

There are many different aspects of PvE. HM FPs and Raids are COMPLETELY different.

 

For Flashpoints your best bet is to Guard a MDPS. Definitely Scoundrel/Op or Sent/Marauder. I usually do this in Raids as well however there are certain scenarios where you need to keep your head on a swivel and understand the mechanics of the fight.

 

Most of the time your MDPS is your best bet.

 

Not to mention pulling aggro in this game != wipe unlike other games.

 

Do you have a scenario in mind in any of the raids or flashpoints where you would possibly guard the healer rather than the DPS? I'm not trying to be confrontational. I am genuinely curious if you have found a place where you feel this is a necessity.

[Tholan]

Do you have a scenario in mind in any of the raids or flashpoints where you would possibly guard the healer rather than the DPS? I'm not trying to be confrontational. I am genuinely curious if you have found a place where you feel this is a necessity.

 

I have found some value putting guard on a healer in situations where there are a lot of mobs, particularly ranged mobs. For example, at the beginning of EV when you are fighting those large droids. Some of them (the ones that knock you back) fire from range and touching all of them can be a pain. Especially for a melee tank.

 

The reason being is that healers threat will always affect all mobs. Whereas DPS, even when spaming AOE, won't be hitting all mobs. It can be difficult to keep enough threat on all the ranged mobs to keep them from turning on a healer.

 

Not at all game breaking of course. Easy for an off tank, or dps, to pull the one or two that may get through to give me enough time to get it sorted out.

 

But overall I tend to agree that putting guard on you best MDPS is the way to go.

[RahlLegacy]

Not at level 50 yet but still either way ***** dps need to learn not to nuke withing the first 5 seconds

 

So you said the wrong thing, but instead of taking the advice, you counter with an insult.

[Cleet_Xia]

Guard will never save a healer from pulling aggro. It isn't situational. This will never happen.

 

Healers only have aggro when no one else is touching the mob. Decreasing their threat by a % will not prevent them from having aggro when everyone else has zero threat on that mob.

 

Whether they have guard on them or not they will continue to pull aggro on mobs no one has touched and they will continue to not have aggro on mobs that people are attacking.

 

Guard is wasted on the healer in every situation that it is used on the healer.

 

 

I think you are possibly assuming that your healers are doing nothing but healing during a HM. I do have aggro, pretty regularly, because my sustainable damage output is actually pretty good. I do get targeted and dinged by mobs that are being tanked. And I do take damage from single mobs while running with awesome tanks, who know the HM and know how to hold aggro. Sometimes things are on CD, and it happens. I can use my threat dump, if I have any warning from the mob that gained their attention. That isn't always the case. Some mobs have instants, the threat dump only affects 1 mob, and sometimes my threat dump is on CD.

 

I get targeted quite often, even when I'm doing nothing but healing. Because overhealing generates a great deal of threat. I do my best to avoid it, but it can be difficult to judge when to heal a player I'm not familiar with yet. With so many possible gear combinations, the quantity of health each player has is pretty variable. But the bars are always the same length, and my heals come in crit and non crit. If I heal a moderately damaged player with an appropriate heal, and it crits for a huge overheal. I'm probably going to get shot at. But I can't wait on them to be damaged enough not to overheal, if I'm expecting AoE to start falling any second. Overhealing even myself can generate too much threat. And if I AoE heal on 3 damaged players, but someone is healthy.... that counts as overhealing.

 

I'm almost never out of range of being guarded, unless it is a boss fight where big AoE is expected. If your healers are not doing any damage, it's because they got tired of the group running ahead and pulling aggro while they were still using their out of combat regen. And if you're treating your healers like walking medpacks, whose only purpose for playing this game is to witness your awesome skillz.... have fun looking for a new healer shortly.

 

I would guess you're also assuming thet the DPS of the group will actually peel for the healer. This shouldn't be problem for healers, but in PUGs it's a fact of life that at some point in a HM, a whole pack of mobs will be chewing on me, while the DPS blast away on an elite. In those cases, It doesn't really matter if the tank takes aggro for those mobs, I just need the dps to start killing them fast. But it doesn't always happen that way. And being guarded in those cases really helps.

 

Most of what I do is watch 4 health bars, and we're discussing a damage mitigation ability. I'd be curious to know how many tanks even watch their own health bar, because many don't seem to consider it worthwhile to use their out of combat heal.

 

If I'm in a group with 3 troopers-- I definately want the guard on me between every boss fight. But if I'm in a group with a consular dps--- they need to have that guard at all times. It comes down to who is most vulnerable to wiping. Because I don't want to see anyone wipe. I'm coming at it from the perspective of where it's needed in order to minimize how much healing I have to do, and not how easy it is for the tank to hold aggro. If a dps burst goes off while a tank is on CD--- they'll have aggro even with the guard on them. But If I don't have to heal, I get to dps ~ and we all beat the enrage timer EZPZ. That is why I say that it is situational. It's not as simple as saying always use guard on X.

[thorizdin]

Because overhealing generates a great deal of threat.

 

All healing generates 50% threat so if you "over heal" by 10k you generate 5k threat. Are you really putting out twice the amount of healing compared to the damage your dps is doing?

 

If I'm in a group with 3 troopers-- I definately want the guard on me between every boss fight. But if I'm in a group with a consular dps--- they need to have that guard at all times. It comes down to who is most vulnerable to wiping. Because I don't want to see anyone wipe. I'm coming at it from the perspective of where it's needed in order to minimize how much healing I have to do, and not how easy it is for the tank to hold aggro. If a dps burst goes off while a tank is on CD--- they'll have aggro even with the guard on them. But If I don't have to heal, I get to dps ~ and we all beat the enrage timer EZPZ. That is why I say that it is situational. It's not as simple as saying always use guard on X.

 

It is situational and if you have extra classes that can guard it is a good idea to stick it on healer.

Edited April 2, 2012 by thorizdin

[RDeanOU]

I think you are possibly assuming that your healers are doing nothing but healing during a HM. I do have aggro, pretty regularly, because my sustainable damage output is actually pretty good. I do get targeted and dinged by mobs that are being tanked. And I do take damage from single mobs while running with awesome tanks, who know the HM and know how to hold aggro. Sometimes things are on CD, and it happens. I can use my threat dump, if I have any warning from the mob that gained their attention. That isn't always the case. Some mobs have instants, the threat dump only affects 1 mob, and sometimes my threat dump is on CD.

 

I get targeted quite often, even when I'm doing nothing but healing. Because overhealing generates a great deal of threat. I do my best to avoid it, but it can be difficult to judge when to heal a player I'm not familiar with yet. With so many possible gear combinations, the quantity of health each player has is pretty variable. But the bars are always the same length, and my heals come in crit and non crit. If I heal a moderately damaged player with an appropriate heal, and it crits for a huge overheal. I'm probably going to get shot at. But I can't wait on them to be damaged enough not to overheal, if I'm expecting AoE to start falling any second. Overhealing even myself can generate too much threat. And if I AoE heal on 3 damaged players, but someone is healthy.... that counts as overhealing.

 

I'm almost never out of range of being guarded, unless it is a boss fight where big AoE is expected. If your healers are not doing any damage, it's because they got tired of the group running ahead and pulling aggro while they were still using their out of combat regen. And if you're treating your healers like walking medpacks, whose only purpose for playing this game is to witness your awesome skillz.... have fun looking for a new healer shortly.

 

I would guess you're also assuming thet the DPS of the group will actually peel for the healer. This shouldn't be problem for healers, but in PUGs it's a fact of life that at some point in a HM, a whole pack of mobs will be chewing on me, while the DPS blast away on an elite. In those cases, It doesn't really matter if the tank takes aggro for those mobs, I just need the dps to start killing them fast. But it doesn't always happen that way. And being guarded in those cases really helps.

 

Most of what I do is watch 4 health bars, and we're discussing a damage mitigation ability. I'd be curious to know how many tanks even watch their own health bar, because many don't seem to consider it worthwhile to use their out of combat heal.

 

If I'm in a group with 3 troopers-- I definately want the guard on me between every boss fight. But if I'm in a group with a consular dps--- they need to have that guard at all times. It comes down to who is most vulnerable to wiping. Because I don't want to see anyone wipe. I'm coming at it from the perspective of where it's needed in order to minimize how much healing I have to do, and not how easy it is for the tank to hold aggro. If a dps burst goes off while a tank is on CD--- they'll have aggro even with the guard on them. But If I don't have to heal, I get to dps ~ and we all beat the enrage timer EZPZ. That is why I say that it is situational. It's not as simple as saying always use guard on X.

 

I'm not assuming anything. I have never EVER lost aggro to a healer on a mob I was tanking. It has never happened. They simply CANNOT generate enough threat with the current mechanics.

 

If I lose threat it is always always always to a dps that is bursting.

 

Now, can the healer get hit? Of course he can. If I am not tanking a mob and no one else is hitting it either it will start attacking the healer. Let's say I am tanking two silvers, we have cc'd the gold, and there are 3 regular mobs as well. I am not going to focus on the regular mobs. I am going to trust the dps to nuke them down in a couple of seconds. If they aren't doing that or lets say they both start in on one mob and the other two aren't getting touched.

 

In that situation the healer can get hurt, but Guard does nothing to keep the healer from getting aggro in that situation. I can reduce their threat by 50% instead of 20% and it won't matter. They still have all of the hate because no one else is getting any hate at all.

 

Guard is a waste on a healer. The damage reduction in PVE is a paltry 5%. Its only real utility is the threat mitigation and healers do not produce enough threat for that to matter.

 

I promise you that if you have ever ripped aggro from heals on a mob that someone was tanking then you were playing with the world's worst tank and the world's worst dps. There is NO WAY that you can produce enough threat from healing to do this if you are playing with even slightly competent players.

[RDeanOU]

All healing generates 50% threat so if you "over heal" by 10k you generate 5k threat. Are you really putting out twice the amount of healing compared to the damage your dps is doing?

 

This.....there is no way you are healing twice as much damage as a competent dpser is doing.

[Kil-Gorbane]

You keep saying the same thing over and over. You aren't letting this die. Points that trump your point of view, and that you still have yet to counter:

 

- Oh **** scenarios

- Playing with bad DPS

- Healer is able to do his job and do damage, different threat generation

- What to do when have equally strong DPS'ers, hell - all melee. That situation is the same as if the tank has no DPS on guard.

[JLapp]

Most of what I do is watch 4 health bars, and we're discussing a damage mitigation ability. I'd be curious to know how many tanks even watch their own health bar, because many don't seem to consider it worthwhile to use their out of combat heal.

 

I don't really see it as a damage mitigation ability. It is a threat reduction ability with a little perk of damage mitigation.

 

IMO only time it is worthwhile on a healer is when threat is completely taken out of the picture (i.e. bonethrasher). In any other case the threat reduction far outweighs the damage mitigation and healer threat can basically be ignored in this game.

[JLapp]

- Oh **** scenarios

 

Unlikely to make a difference.

 

- Playing with bad DPS

 

Maybe...Guess the implication is that the bad dps would cause the healer to take more damage? Seems just as likely they would cause themselves to take more damage...though then again there seems to be a common disdain for DPS among non-dps roles.

 

- Healer is able to do his job and do damage, different threat generation

 

Not really. Unless you are ridiculously over-geared compared to everyone else you are still going to be using some of your time healing which is going to reduce your threat generation compared to DPSing.

 

- What to do when have equally strong DPS'ers, hell - all melee. That situation is the same as if the tank has no DPS on guard.

 

Guarding one is better than guarding none. Presumably one won't have to hold back as much as the others.

[SpoeMeister]

I will speak from a healer's point of view. We were doing a BT HM and we encountered the mini-boss (the droid after destroying the consoles). Tank put guard on me and started to attack. At some point I was using everything I had on healing the squishy sorc dps because the tank couldn't keep aggro. DPS stopped doing DPS to allow the tank to take over aggro again...

 

Because of this, we wiped 5 times because we lost to the enrage timer. We dropped the tank, got a guildie of mine who guarded the highest DPS class... Facerolled the boss.

 

I agree that MDPS should be guarded. I as a healer have a way to drop threat via passive skills and one instant. I have no need for the bubble as I always keep myself Hotted up, as well as the tank. so even if a small mob is attacking me, I'll survive.

 

 

As a soon to be 50 PT tank, I will be doing a lot of HM's and see how I add up. I will not be guarding the healer though, because I am indeed always further than 10m away from the tank, always between 15-20 meters to maintain a good view. In close quarters I still find the healing hotspot, where I see everyone and there's little chance of losing LOS.

 

 

TL;DR: Healers don't need guard. If tanks do their job well and stay alert, threat is not an issue.

[RDeanOU]

You keep saying the same thing over and over. You aren't letting this die. Points that trump your point of view, and that you still have yet to counter:

 

- Oh **** scenarios

- Playing with bad DPS

- Healer is able to do his job and do damage, different threat generation

- What to do when have equally strong DPS'ers, hell - all melee. That situation is the same as if the tank has no DPS on guard.

 

Guard isn't going to make a difference in any of those scenarios when put on the healer. A 5% damage reduction just isn't significant enough to matter when the healer is getting focused. The threat reduction will NEVER keep the healer from getting aggro in any of those situations either. Reducing their threat 20% just means that they are at 80% threat and everyone else is at 0 threat.

 

None of that changes in an "oh ****" scenario or because you have bad dps. Even if the healer is doing a little dps they are still gaining aggro more slowly than everyone else b/c the bulk of what they are doing is healing.

 

As far as when you have equal melee dps, do you not understand how foolish it sounds that you think I should put threat reduction on the only person in the group that doesn't need it in that scenario?

 

Unless you can come up with a scenario where healers gain aggro as quickly as others or where a 5% damage mitigation on the healer is likely to be the difference between success and failure you are still telling people to put a threat reducer on the person who needs it the least.

[Kil-Gorbane]

"As far as when you have equal melee dps, do you not understand how foolish it sounds that you think I should put threat reduction on the only person in the group that doesn't need it in that scenario?"

 

I've said this before. You still have to prepare for this scenario. You have already stated that the DPS should always be going full throttle. Well in this case, all 4 DPS going full throttle with 1-2 guards to go around. Bottom line is that as a tank you shouldn't be relying on guard in the first place. I've said that. And I will continue to say that. Learning how to properly play our tanking class relies on communication and planning. It shouldn't be ultimatums and absolutes. A properly working unit should work with fluid and flexible play. Guard is the safety net at the end for those unprepared scenarios because IT IS better to have a dead DPS than a dead healer.

[moman]

Not at level 50 yet but still either way ***** dps need to learn not to nuke withing the first 5 seconds

 

Healer here and agreed. DPS need to wait solid second for the Tank to pull aggro. If they do pull too much, start taking damage and lose LOS with healer, most healers would rather let you die then chase after you.

[JLapp]

Guard is the safety net at the end for those unprepared scenarios because IT IS better to have a dead DPS than a dead healer.

 

I don't know how you can determine one wipe is better than another.

[RDeanOU]

"As far as when you have equal melee dps, do you not understand how foolish it sounds that you think I should put threat reduction on the only person in the group that doesn't need it in that scenario?"

 

I've said this before. You still have to prepare for this scenario. You have already stated that the DPS should always be going full throttle. Well in this case, all 4 DPS going full throttle with 1-2 guards to go around. Bottom line is that as a tank you shouldn't be relying on guard in the first place. I've said that. And I will continue to say that. Learning how to properly play our tanking class relies on communication and planning. It shouldn't be ultimatums and absolutes. A properly working unit should work with fluid and flexible play. Guard is the safety net at the end for those unprepared scenarios because IT IS better to have a dead DPS than a dead healer.

 

No one is suggesting that we rely on Guard. It is a safety net, but we still ought to use it on someone who actually needs it.

 

Also, you inadvertently answered my question. You clearly don't understand how foolish it sounds when you claim that the solution to having several people who could benefit from the buff is to give it to the one person in the group that doesn't benefit from it.

 

Stop looking at Guard as a damage reducer because it isn't significant in that regard. Realize that it is for threat reduction and how useless threat reduction is on a healer.

 

Personally, if I had 2 dps going crazy I would be guarding one and guardian leaping the other instead of foolishly throwing the buff away on the person that doesn't benefit from it.

[RDeanOU]

I don't know how you can determine one wipe is better than another.

 

Yeah, his line of thinking here makes me believe he is operating on his knowledge from other mmo's instead of from any experience playing this game at 50. Since every single encounter in this game has an enrage timer losing a dps early or mid fight is just as guaranteed to wipe the group as losing the healer or tank. At the end of a fight dps burning their cooldowns have a better chance to finish off the boss without the healer than the healer and tank do without anyone to do damage.

 

It's just not correct to believe that a dps is less valuable than a healer in this game.

[RG_jhanlec]

Dps- "Why aren't you guarding me I am pulling aggro off you so if you guard me I can do more dps"

 

Tank- "You know there is this thing called a healer that tends to be the most essential thing to keeping not only me alive but you alive and suprisingly enough Healing people causes threat and no offense but I would rather keep the whole party alive rather than just you

 

when I first started tanking months back on my Jugg I immediately assumed the same thing, guard the healer and he will never go down.

 

Then after wiping on HM BT 3-5x on the robot boss with all the adds I realized that the healer NEVER takes agro and rarely takes damage outside of raids and a few special fights.

 

Guard your highest DPS, this is your off-tank with usually sub-par defense... However, you should have guard easily accessible to put it on someone taking damage. For instance I have Guard hot-keyed to mouse button 5 so that I can click on the name of person taking damage in the Op frame name and then click button 5 quickly.

 

Aside from taunts, Guard is going to be your next best friend in most instances.

[Cleet_Xia]

A 5% damage mitigation during a HM fight involving multiple eltites or bosses will add up to several big heals with long casting times, or a whole lot of instant cast small HoTs, at the very minimum. Depending on who that guard is placed on, how the RNG rolls, and if anything stupid happens, that %5 can be huge. I don't think many tanks or DPS realize just how many heals are cast during these fights. Any of those casts could have been used for added DPS. This is why I want the guard on a dps during a boss fight. I'm not going to be close enough to get blasted by the AoE. Most bosses can 1 shot me before I can heal, if I let that happen. So the guard won't mitigate nearly as much damage, because I won't be getting hit. I also have to heal more on a boss fight, so my dps is quite a bit lower.

 

Threat reduction itself is just a different way to achieve damage mitigation.

 

My dps output is higher than a similarly geared tank, and I will pull aggro away from them at some point in every HM, while I don't have the guard. If I run with a tank with lower gear than mine, I'll pull aggro from them in every fight sometimes even with the guard. If you're saying I shouldn't run HM with tanks who don't have a full set of endgame gear, my question is, "Why are they still running HMs?" And if that %50 threat reduction won't keep me from generating too much threat with heals & ranged dps, it's not going to stop a specced DPS from generating too much. This is why I say that I want the guard on me between boss fights. If I manage to pull a melee mob away from a tank, they'll take it back before I get hit- so the guard is unecessary. But if it's a ranged mob, there is a good chance of me being hit pretty hard, before they can regain control.

 

Gear/ Mobs/ Players Involved ~ there are too many variables to say it's always best to do X. Some fights the threat reduction is more important, and in others the damage mitigation is more important. If I were a Trooper medic, with better inate damage resistance- I doubt I would ever have a desire for the guard to be on myself. I'm not doing NM modes yet, but I can't imagine that the healing load will allow me to do much dps at all - so the guard wouldn't be needed on me at all.

 

If you doubt my dps, duel a similarly geared sage healer...

1) without either of you using CC/interrupts/KBs/heals/cast shielding abilities

2) look at how much health you've got left when they lose, and they will lose because of your damage mitigation.

3) figure how much health you lost (z) & adjust that number upward for your damage mitigation %(x) - their damage mitigation %(y)

 

z /((1 -(x-y)) = how much dps they layed on you in the same time it took you to drain their health pool completely.

[nametakenz]

Dps- "Why aren't you guarding me I am pulling aggro off you so if you guard me I can do more dps"

 

Tank- "You know there is this thing called a healer that tends to be the most essential thing to keeping not only me alive but you alive and suprisingly enough Healing people causes threat and no offense but I would rather keep the whole party alive rather than just you

 

P.s. the only thing healers will pull aggro on is mobs you have 0 aggro on, oh if you take away any percentage from that 0 you are still left with 0, it wont magicaly make the mob you forgot to aggro come running to you.

 

But nice try.

 

You are doing it so wrong.

Its even more funny because you think you're right

[nametakenz]

No way? So the tank can hold aggro on all mobs for the entire op/flashpoint? All trash throughout the PVE event? The mobs dont have stun/knockback mechanics that throw wrenches into the plan? Keep in mind that the threat generation mechanics work for a healer too. A healer is the same as a DPS'er in this regards. A healer crits and so does a DPS'er.

 

The healer has the option to move within 15 m if it does come under threat.

 

 

The healer has the option to move within 15 m if it does come under threat

The healer has the option to move within 15 m if it does come under threat

The healer has the option to move within 15 m if it does come under threat

The healer has the option to move within 15 m if it does come under threat

 

so if a healer gets threat he should run towards the mob?

[RDeanOU]

A 5% damage mitigation during a HM fight involving multiple eltites or bosses will add up to several big heals with long casting times, or a whole lot of instant cast small HoTs, at the very minimum. Depending on who that guard is placed on, how the RNG rolls, and if anything stupid happens, that %5 can be huge. I don't think many tanks or DPS realize just how many heals are cast during these fights. Any of those casts could have been used for added DPS. This is why I want the guard on a dps during a boss fight. I'm not going to be close enough to get blasted by the AoE. Most bosses can 1 shot me before I can heal, if I let that happen. So the guard won't mitigate nearly as much damage, because I won't be getting hit. I also have to heal more on a boss fight, so my dps is quite a bit lower.

 

Threat reduction itself is just a different way to achieve damage mitigation.

 

My dps output is higher than a similarly geared tank, and I will pull aggro away from them at some point in every HM, while I don't have the guard. If I run with a tank with lower gear than mine, I'll pull aggro from them in every fight sometimes even with the guard. If you're saying I shouldn't run HM with tanks who don't have a full set of endgame gear, my question is, "Why are they still running HMs?" And if that %50 threat reduction won't keep me from generating too much threat with heals & ranged dps, it's not going to stop a specced DPS from generating too much. This is why I say that I want the guard on me between boss fights. If I manage to pull a melee mob away from a tank, they'll take it back before I get hit- so the guard is unecessary. But if it's a ranged mob, there is a good chance of me being hit pretty hard, before they can regain control.

 

Gear/ Mobs/ Players Involved ~ there are too many variables to say it's always best to do X. Some fights the threat reduction is more important, and in others the damage mitigation is more important. If I were a Trooper medic, with better inate damage resistance- I doubt I would ever have a desire for the guard to be on myself. I'm not doing NM modes yet, but I can't imagine that the healing load will allow me to do much dps at all - so the guard wouldn't be needed on me at all.

 

If you doubt my dps, duel a similarly geared sage healer...

1) without either of you using CC/interrupts/KBs/heals/cast shielding abilities

2) look at how much health you've got left when they lose, and they will lose because of your damage mitigation.

3) figure how much health you lost (z) & adjust that number upward for your damage mitigation %(x) - their damage mitigation %(y)

 

z /((1 -(x-y)) = how much dps they layed on you in the same time it took you to drain their health pool completely.

 

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that you don't heal on trash pulls? What % of your spells on trash pulls are heals and what % are damage spells?

 

The thing is, if you are spending time healing then you will NOT be generating threat fast enough to rip aggro from the dps, let alone the tank.

 

Let's say you do 15% more dps than the best dps (let's say it's a sentinel) in the group (that would be damn impressive), but you are only using damage spells 60% of the time. That means you are doing 115% threat of our sentinel 60% of the time. That translates to getting roughly 69% of the threat the sentinel is getting solely from the damage spells you are doing. The other 40% of the time you are doing less than 50% of the threat they are getting because your heals gain aggro at a 50% rate and I am sure that you took the threat reduction on your heals. Let's say 50% for 40% of the time....that is another 20% of the aggro the sentinel is getting. That means you are doing roughly 89% of the threat the sentinel is doing. Also, I would hope you are dumping threat with cloud mind.

 

Do you see how this works? Your healing (even only doing it part of the time) gives you so little aggro that you can't catch that sentinel. If the tank is taunting on cooldown and doing his job you are just never going to catch up. You also have to out threat the tank or sentinel by 30% to even get aggro in the first place because you are ranged. I'm sorry, but I just don't see that happening.

 

Now, as the healer you get aggro on all mobs so if no one is hitting those ranged mobs then yes, you will get aggro and you will get hurt. That won't change because you have a guard buff on you though because no one else has any threat on those mobs.

 

Honestly, I don't see any setup or scenario where guarding a healer is a good idea. It's a threat reducer and healing threat is so weak in this game it just isn't an issue.

Edited April 4, 2012 by RDeanOU

[Ashphael]

If you're placing guard on the healer during PvE, you're doing it wrong. Period.

 

Well, there are fights with random aggro / frequent aggro resets. There are fights where the healer will invariably stand within 15 meters. I like to switch guard to the healer in such fights.

 

FE hm... HK47, healer normally in range (if only to be able to drop a bomb on a gun in time, so we can kill it more quickly once HK is down). OK, I rarely lose aggro on the guns, but the healer can still be targeted. Later, Malgus himself. Shield on Healer if they are the ones fighting malgus alone for a while. They usually stay in place and heal through it. This way, they have a little less to heal through. Just basic courtesy.

 

So you see, it's not that simple. I'd agree to "Always guarding healer is wrong, always guarding DPS is better, but still wrong, knowing the fights and guarding whoever will probably benefit the most is right."

[Siorac]

Well, there are fights with random aggro / frequent aggro resets. There are fights where the healer will invariably stand within 15 meters. I like to switch guard to the healer in such fights.

 

FE hm... HK47, healer normally in range (if only to be able to drop a bomb on a gun in time, so we can kill it more quickly once HK is down). OK, I rarely lose aggro on the guns, but the healer can still be targeted. Later, Malgus himself. Shield on Healer if they are the ones fighting malgus alone for a while. They usually stay in place and heal through it. This way, they have a little less to heal through. Just basic courtesy.

 

So you see, it's not that simple. I'd agree to "Always guarding healer is wrong, always guarding DPS is better, but still wrong, knowing the fights and guarding whoever will probably benefit the most is right."

 

This, all the way. To add another example: there's the Krel Thak fight on Battle of Ilum; it's a good idea to put Guard on the healer because of the adds he spawns with such annoying frequency. They like to ******** the healer while you're still stunned (there are workarounds to this, I know).