The most easy way to determine if the tank is a bad/dumb one

[Khevar]

... Really sucks too, because I have to tap my aggro dump and then wait a few seconds before re-engaging for tank to regain aggro and by that time i have to start all over again building up damage. ....

Just a suggestion (which may not always be feasible depending on how quickly the mob you pull can kill you), but if you do pull, see if you can wait until the tank taunts him back before dumping aggro.

 

The taunt adds 30% to the highest threat (yours since you pulled), and assigns it to the tank. If you have Target of Target turned on, you can immediately see when the mob switches back to the tank then hit the aggro dump.

[Stressfire]

Just a suggestion (which may not always be feasible depending on how quickly the mob you pull can kill you), but if you do pull, see if you can wait until the tank taunts him back before dumping aggro.

 

The taunt adds 30% to the highest threat (yours since you pulled), and assigns it to the tank. If you have Target of Target turned on, you can immediately see when the mob switches back to the tank then hit the aggro dump.

 

Might be feasible - the only things I dps pull without planning to is usually the boss. Most adds I can handle. Will give it a try, I'm usually a bit delayed on my Chaff flares anyways - but like previous poster said, sometimes boss doesn't stay away, even with the aggro dump + dps lull.

[odawgg]

As an assassin tank, I generally put the guard on a healer. Might as well put the guard on a healer if no one is going to pull threat, which should be the case if you are an assassin. Assassin tanks generate the most threat by a large amount.

 

Pretty much, I put the guard on whomever I think needs the most amount of damage reduction. That is usually the healer, because we want them to take the least amount of damage as possible, so they don't have to heal themselves as much. If for some reason someone is pulling threat off of me, I'll switch a guard to them. But that should not happen.

 

Challenge accepted!!!! I roll an assassin tank, love him, does generate a lot of threat, very difficult to pull it off. However you get my merc in your group and don't guard me I GUARENTEE you I will pull that threat off you before you can say Hakuna Matata threat dumps or not.

 

LOL! That being said, guard needs can vary in FPs, depending on the group. If you're rolling through EC NiM with no guards on dps then ur just adding style points, but isn't ideal. I will agree with OP that there are a lot of bad tanks...there are also a lot of bad healers, and bad dps. Bad tanks just stand out cuz they have the most control on pace and raid-wide damage.

[Twickers]

Honestly I notice most tanks guard the healers, but that's because we tend to pull a lot of threat at the start of a pull with how many mobs in this game are ranged, I try to hold off healing for a few seconds at the start of a pull but inevitably I need to start healing and so all the normals/weaks start shooting me, that's quite a lot of damage coming the healers way, being guarded helps cut down a bit on the threat generation and damage being taken untill the tank gets the mobs attention.

 

Now if there's a DPS who's just pulling like a madman, by all means guard that DPS, but you can NEVER go wrong guarding the healer, the less we have to heal ourselves the better, lets us focus on keeping the rest of the group alive.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Twickers
Edited to make what I said clearer

[Khevar]

Honestly I notice most tanks guard the healers, but that's because we tend to pull a lot of threat at the start of a pull with how many mobs in this game are ranged, I try to hold off healing for a few seconds at the start of a pull but inevitably I need to start healing and so all the normals/weaks start shooting me, that's quite a lot of damage coming the healers way, being guarded helps cut down a bit on the threat generation and damage being taken.

 

Now if there's a DPS who's just pulling like a madman, by all means guard that DPS, but you can NEVER go wrong guarding the healer, the less we have to heal ourselves the better, lets us focus on keeping the rest of the group alive.

I just have to comment on this, as it bears repeating.

 

If you, as a healer are pulling aggro from a particular mob, it is because nobody is attacking that mob. Healer threat is 50% of heals done divided by mobs present.

 

Let's take the first big pull in HM FE. 2 sith mauraders, 2 big droids, 3 ranged in the back. Let's just pretend for the sake of the argument that you're healing 1500 hps. 1500 * 50% / 7 = 107 threat per second. A dps can beat that with occasional free attacks while having tea and scones with his teddy bear.

 

If you're being attacked, it's because that mob was being ignored by the dps. If you have guard, you're going to generate 80 tps instead of 107. Like that's going to do squat.

 

Guard the healer, guard the dps, whatever. But don't ever think that being guarded is going to help you escape aggro from a mob that isn't being attacked.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Khevar

[Twickers]

I just have to comment on this, as it bears repeating.

 

If you, as a healer are pulling aggro from a particular mob, it is because nobody is attacking that mob. Healer threat is 50% of heals done divided by mobs present.

 

Let's take the first big pull in HM FE. 2 sith mauraders, 2 big droids, 3 ranged in the back. Let's just pretend for the sake of the argument that you're healing 1500 hps. 1500 * 50% / 7 = 107 threat per second. A dps can beat that with occasional free attacks while having tea and scones with his teddy bear.

 

If you're being attacked, it's because that mob was being ignored by the dps. If you have guard, you're going to generate 80 tps instead of 107. Like that's going to do squat.

 

Guard the healer, guard the dps, whatever. But don't ever think that being guarded is going to help you escape aggro from a mob that isn't being attacked.

 

Well no freaking duh sherlock holmes, of COURSE you're going to continue to get shot if no one aggros the bad guy shooting you, but you're taking less damage and when an AoE/attack does hit the mob shooting you, it's a hell of a lot more likely to turn their attention to the one who did the AoE/attack.

 

I merely said it helps reduce damage healers are taking during pulls and makes it easier to get the attention.

 

I'll always recommend guarding a DPS/ particularly a melee DPS but guarding a healer is never a sign of a "dumb tank"

[Khevar]

Well no freaking duh sherlock holmes, of COURSE you're going to continue to get shot if no one aggros the bad guy shooting you, but you're taking less damage and when an AoE/attack does hit the mob shooting you, it's a hell of a lot more likely to turn their attention to the one who did the AoE/attack.

 

I merely said it helps reduce damage healers are taking during pulls and makes it easier to get the attention.

 

I'll always recommend guarding a DPS/ particularly a melee DPS but guarding a healer is never a sign of a "dumb tank"

(emphasis added by me)

 

Pardon me for misinterpreting your statement:

Honestly I notice most tanks guard the healers, but that's because we tend to pull a lot of threat at the start of a pull with how many mobs in this game are ranged ...

Which said nothing about the 5% damage reduction, but instead talks about threat.

 

The misconception about healers and threat is a common one. It sounded like you had it from your opening statement.

[Twickers]

(emphasis added by me)

 

Pardon me for misinterpreting your statement:

Which said nothing about the 5% damage reduction, but instead talks about threat.

 

The misconception about healers and threat is a common one. It sounded like you had it from your opening statement.

 

I should apologize for not being clear myself, edited my post to make it a bit more clear.

[odawgg]

I'll just add that if you're a "good" tank, healers will never ever ever ever ever need a guard from u...the potential threat generated from them should never be more than ur pulling as the tank. That's what high threat generating attacks and well timed taunts are for. DPS could on the other hand, steal it from u if ur not careful.

 

However...if ur a tank, still learning...I can maybe see that as a situation where guarding the healer could come in handy during large mobs...but never on a boss.

 

*Edit: ok maybe not never, but geez it's rare...example, dread guard in tfb, healers being guarded helps since no one is attacking Kel and Ciph during the first phase, including the tanks. Also Last phase of TFB

Edited March 19, 2013 by odawgg

[Mowermanx]

I dont think I've ever put guard on a healer before, it makes no sense. They generate next to no threat, and they won't even get the damage reduction unless they stay fairly close to you, like 10m or something.

 

LOL just LOL

The OP is talking about pug T1 FP's

As a geared healer, I can pull aggro from everyone in the room if the dps and tanks are not doing their job correctly, but 9 times out of 10 its the derpers that cause the problems, and in pugs, that's very very very did I say very 3 times? ok once more, very often.

 

As for guard on my jugg, I rarely use it outside of guild raids, if someone asks for it, ill pop it on them to make them feel better.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Mowermanx

[Khevar]

LOL just LOL

The OP is talking about pug T1 FP's

As a geared healer, I can pull aggro from everyone in the room if the dps and tanks are not doing their job correctly, but 9 times out of 10 its the derpers that cause the problems, and in pugs, that's very very very did I say very 3 times? ok once more, very often.

 

As for guard on my jugg, I rarely use it outside of guild raids, if someone asks for it, ill pop it on them to make them feel better.

If you're pulling aggro because the dps aren't doing their jobs, what on Earth is Guard going to do for you? If you're the only one on the aggro table, 25% reduction of your minuscule threat is going to do exactly jack / diddly - squat. You'll STILL be at the top of the aggro table.

[Mowermanx]

If you're pulling aggro because the dps aren't doing their jobs, what on Earth is Guard going to do for you? If you're the only one on the aggro table, 25% reduction of your minuscule threat is going to do exactly jack / diddly - squat. You'll STILL be at the top of the aggro table.

 

If you read what I was replying to you would know I didn't even mention guarding a healer, I was specifically addressing this quote:

They generate next to no threat

Which is total BS, in context of this discussion.

[slafko]

You also said "if the tank and the dps aren't doing their jobs correctly".

[Never_Hesitate]

If you read what I was replying to you would know I didn't even mention guarding a healer, I was specifically addressing this quote:

Which is total BS, in context of this discussion.

 

If the dps and the tank do their job a little better than very bad, a healer will never (maybe except of asation's endboss) get the aggro simply from healing

[JamieKirby]

Well, under normal circumstances, if the healer snuffs it, the whole lot of you snuff it too, but if i even remotely liked to tank, i would put the guard on the healer too and see who does the most aggro as we approach the first boss.

 

I think basing it on gear is abit dumb itself, since i have known players that do better with less gear, so its down to the player's ability at playing the class.

[SWGEvictee]

You're most welcome to try that with me tanking. I don't give a rats *** about anyone's percieved imba dps. You aggro, you tank. You break cc, you tank.

 

I hold myself to the same rules when playing as Sentinel.

 

Heh. I was called a bad tank last night by a Sent. for holding myself to those same rules. Doing Kaon he ran down and started the first fight before I had even loaded in completely. It didn't get any better once I caught up to the group. Dead set on running a speed group he raced to every encounter and initiated every fight regardless of the group being ready or not.

Now I'm still learning and not well geared yet. I make mistakes and learn from them but one thing I won't do is bust my *** tryin to recover agro from a dps dead set on playin as a tank. He never quite grasped why his actions cost the group its tank and healer, despite being lectured on it by both of us.

 

His lament in whispers afterward before being ignored was, You didn't even give me a guard!.

[slafko]

again this .........

 

Guard is used when only nessecary, as an assassin tank 99% of the time you dont need in a fp cause that stuff is just 2 easy, most of the time my guard goes to the person with no awarness of the fight, ( alot of times its the marauder cause they like to jump in before the tank " no awareness " ) sometimes the healer gets it for example koan hm the fight were the tank most of the times mount the cannon then ill guard the healer so if he gets aggro he will have slight dmg red untill the adds are peeled of of him.

 

Tank using the turret in Kaon never made any sense to me. Especially when there's a mdps in the team, which is all the time. They should be on the cannon, not the tank. The tank should aggro the Screamers and the Bloated ones and position them outside their effective range in order to minimize their influence on the rest of the team. When back near the turret, aoe damage is king. No stragglers ever touch the healer or the rdps.

 

Heh. I was called a bad tank last night by a Sent. for holding myself to those same rules. Doing Kaon he ran down and started the first fight before I had even loaded in completely.

 

I had two healers like that in the same night several hours apart. Turned out it was the same B'stard.

Edited March 19, 2013 by slafko

[RaineyDaze]

Playing a healer I don't want your guard, I play in back so don't get any benefit from it more often than not, so it's wasted on me. I've seen tanks and dps who are bad. I chastise tanks that break cc before killing rest of group of mobs. If you are a dps who pulls I'll give you one warning. If that doesn't convince you then I just won't heal you but will make sure rest of group is pampered in bubbles and heals. If you die repeatedly oh well. If you start playing right I'll once again bless you with my healing abilities.

If the tank is taking their time I don't care. I'm in no rush and wouldn't have queued if I didn't have time.

Unless I'm being neglected and adds aren't being picked up, you will never have to worry about "am I going to get a heal" and if you are you might want to look my way because I am fighting for my life, and guess what, I'm out of range of your guard.

I have voted to kick one player. A commando who would pull differnt mob groups than the one tank was engaging and would more often than not drag them through third group on way back, plus he insisted to roll need on every piece of gear no matter the stats on it.

[Kitru]

Tank using the turret in Kaon never made any sense to me. Especially when there's a mdps in the team, which is all the time. They should be on the cannon, not the tank. The tank should aggro the Screamers and the Bloated ones and position them outside their effective range in order to minimize their influence on the rest of the team. When back near the turret, aoe damage is king. No stragglers ever touch the healer or the rdps.

 

The reason tanks take the turret is because turret damage isn't dependent on gear/spec/etc. It's a flat quantity that simply varies depending on what targets are being hit (strongs/elites are hit for half as much as standard/weaks). In addition, the turret *does* actually maintain threat modifiers so a tank is going to generate a crapton more threat through the use of the turret than a DPS will.

 

In short, a tank and a DPS on a turret will do the same amount of damage, but the tank will actually be able to still tank effectively while on said turret, keeping threat on both the strongs and the standards that spawn. You're also maximizing DPS by allowing the DPS to stay off the turret since the DPS definitely has better damage than the tank does.

 

If you're having problems with the strongs, you're doing it wrong. The strongs do barely any damage, well within the confines of a DPS to pseudo-tank (that is, if the tank on the turret isn't just blasting them and getting aggro anyways after chewing through the strongs in all of 5 seconds). The only risk the strongs pose is their special abilities, which the tank can actually ignore because they're on the turret (the Scream and Grapple both resolve with no effect and the suicide explosion doesn't KB and only does a marginal amount of damage that can easily be healed through). If the tank *isn't* on the turret, you'll actually be subject to those annoying mechanics.

 

As long as the DPS realize that they don't need to help against the standards and should just focus on burning the standards asap, it's *way* easier to just put the tank on the turret. Hell, even if they *don't*, it's easier to 2 man that event with a tank on the turret than a DPS.

[Mowermanx]

If the dps and the tank do their job a little better than very bad, a healer will never (maybe except of asation's endboss) get the aggro simply from healing

You cant change the goal posts and argue that, I explained what happens regularly in GF, and there's plenty of bad players around.

Yes you are right, if the roles are played right, even if they are not real good at it, or the gear is a little weak, the healer wont have too much problem, but thats not what I was arguing, the statement of healing not pulling aggro is a lie, and not even up for discussion.

 

How many HM FP pugs as a healer have you done since the game released?

 

You come up to an mob, 1 champ, 2 strongs, and 4-6 weaks, the tank jumps in, gives the boss and tickle to get him interested and grabs the strongs as well, he may at that stage garner a little interest from the weak, but they are quite a distance from him, then here comes one of the dps, being a fine chap and all, helps out the tank with the boss, what a thoughtful gesture, and then in comes the second dps, he likes the look of one of the strongs, and starts to give him a work out, all is fine, the heroes save the day, yay, oh, whats that?, the tank is copping quite a bit of flack and needs a heal... you know what happens next... If you dont, Ill tell you, the millisecond you pop that heal, every gun in that room except the boss and a strong will be on you.

If I had a dollar for every time this or something similar happening, Id need much bigger pockets.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Mowermanx

[Khevar]

If you read what I was replying to you would know I didn't even mention guarding a healer, I was specifically addressing this quote:

They generate next to no threat

Which is total BS, in context of this discussion.

Eh?

 

a) The context of this discussion, if you didn't notice, just happens to be guarding the healer.

b) Healers generate next to no threat. That is NOT BS.

 

1500 hps * 50% / 7 mobs present = 107 threat per second (my example with the opening FE pull)

 

The only way you're pulling aggro is the mobs are not being attacked by anyone else, not because you're some kind of threat monster.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Khevar

[ubermouth]

I know, as a dps, if the other dps just focuses elites or champs, I'm all like, eww. And then I say to myself, nothing matters. Then I help me healer bro out.

You cant change the goal posts and argue that, I explained what happens regularly in GF, and there's plenty of bad players around and all is fine.

Yes you are right, if the roles are played right, even if they are not real good at it, or the gear is a little weak, the healer wont have too much problem, but thats not what I was arguing, the statement of healing not pulling aggro is a lie, and not even up for discussion.

 

How many HM FP pugs as a healer have you done since the game released?

 

You come up to an mob, 1 champ, 2 strongs, and 4-6 weaks, the tank jumps in, gives the boss and tickle to get him interested and grabs the strongs as well, he may at that stage garner a little interest from the weak, but they are quite a distance from him, then here comes one of the dps, being a fine chap and all, helps out the tank with the boss, what a thoughtful gesture, and then in comes the second dps, he likes the look of one of the strongs, and starts to give him a work out, all is fine, the heroes save the day, yay, oh, whats that?, the tank is copping quite a bit of flack and needs a heal... you know what happens next... If you dont, Ill tell you, the millisecond you pop that heal, every gun in that room except the boss and a strong will be on you.

If I had a dollar for every time this or something similar happening, Id need much bigger pockets.

Edited March 19, 2013 by ubermouth

[mikebevo]

My main is a healer; I don’t need or want guard. Tank can guard whomever they want or no one for that matter in a HM FP. I don’t care, because I am geared well enough to handle it now. I no longer even care is DPS have gold fever. I can deal with that too in any HMFP where I don’t get stun locked while handling it. However a year ago gold fever or dps constantly pulling would have lead to a wipefest. All groups are different, each will bring its own abilities, skill and gear to a group and it is up to us to adapt to the situation. If you want consistence, find a group and run HM FP, daily heroics and Operations with the same people every day. Otherwise what is the proper way to play an instance is going to be very depended on the makeup of the group you are running with at that moment.

 

So to me what is dumb is trying to do a speed run with a 13k HP healer or tank. You see them in a group then plan on tweaking your strategy to fit the group, like healing between pulls and giving the healer a chance to recoup force/energy between pulls.

 

Oh if dps have gold fever and I can't handle it, I just stealth out until the mobs are attacking the dps. That usually shows dps there are other things needing killing.

Edited March 19, 2013 by mikebevo

[ubermouth]

Reasonable and very doable.

My main is a healer; I don’t need or want guard. Tank can guard whomever they want or no one for that matter in a HM FP. I don’t care, because I am geared well enough to handle it now. I no longer even care is DPS have gold fever. I can deal with that too in any HMFP where I don’t get stun locked while handling it. However a year ago gold fever or dps constantly pulling would have lead to a wipefest. All groups are different, each will bring its own abilities, skill and gear to a group and it is up to us to adapt to the situation. If you want consistence, find a group and run HM FP, daily heroics and Operations with the same people every day. Otherwise what is the proper way to play an instance is going to be very depended on the makeup of the group you are running with at that moment.

 

So to me what is dumb is trying to do a speed run with a 13k HP healer or tank. You see them in a group then plan on tweaking your strategy to fit the group, like healing between pulls and giving the healer a chance to recoup force/energy between pulls.

 

Oh if dps have gold fever and I can't handle it, I just stealth out until the mobs are attacking the dps. That usually shows dps there are other things needing killing.

[Kawabonga]

All these fancy numbers mean nothing

 

I do not have problems with aggro anymore, but when i was worse geared and less skilled it was the healer, not the dps that took aggro during mob fights. Sometimes because they started the healing before i was able to hit all the enemies at least once, sometimes because those 4 ranged standards at the side were being completely ignored after i withered them and passed on to tanking the champs/elites.

 

My experience as tank dictates my actions. The general rule i go by is guard the healer, and i only do it for completeness. If everyone is doing their job right no one needs a guard. If a dps is so amazing that manages to out-threat me on boss fights or when i'm tanking the champs/elites in a mob after disposing of the standards(and that has never happened recently) i'll use my damn taunts. Dps are meant to have some aggro in mob fights, the one from the standards they're about to kill while i'm tanking the big bad guys (always after saying hello to everyone first).

 

If the dps are ignoring the standards what's gonna happen? Either tank goes and kill the standards himself, risking that the dps take aggro from champs or he keeps doing what he's doing, risking that the healer takes aggro from the ignored standards. Sometimes it is possible to simply go back and forth from champs to standards using AoE abilities, but that isn't always the case. Some packs have slows and roots and are very far apart, making it impossible to tank this way. Who's gonna yell at the tank then? The healer because he's not tanking the standards or the dps because he's not tanking the champs? Who should the tank guard? The dps that have defensive cooldowns and can get healed, or the healer that might get hit by multiple enemies and suffer tremendous pushback?