Am I doing something wrong? And if so, what can I do better?

[DarthToastage]

I'm a relatively fresh 55 merc healer and I have been having a somewhat common experience running 55 HM flashpoints. The experience is as follows:

 

1.) We come across a relatively large trash pull, 5-ish mobs, sometimes more, sometimes with strong or better mobs.

2.) as the tank proceeds into the fray, I use my supercharge cylinder and fire off both my relic and triage adrenal, knowing that the tank is about to take some massive damage.

3.) as expected, the tank starts gettng hit hard so I heal him with everything I have, first casting kolto missile, immediately followed by healing scan, rapid scan, and if necessary either emergency scan or another healing scan

4.) within a second or two, multiple mobs are now attacking me and the punishment is pretty severe. I use my energy shield and medpac to preserve my own life, LOS them if I can, use my threat dump if I can spare the GCD - whatever I can do to preserve both my own life and the tank's

5.) my efforts at keeping the group up fail horribly, either the tank dies or I do (usually both), followed shortly by the dps

6.) the tank either ragequits or initiates a vote to have me kicked from the group.

 

Now I should mention that neither I nor the tank is undergeared in these encounters, I myself am wearing gear which has, with but 1 or 2 exceptions, 69 level mods in all slots, with reflex augment 28's in all slots. The tanks are always geared as well, often better than am I.

 

I should also mention that this does not happen every single time, but often enough that it is extremely frustrating, both to myself and to the other members of the group. There are at least as many times where the overwhelming majority of the damage is on the tank, and a manageable amount spills over onto myself/dps.

 

At first, I just thought this was bad tanking, that there's no way I should be drawing this much threat only healing, even though healing does generate a high amount of threat. But then I had this exact same thing happen with a tank in my guild, a tank whom I have seen in action and know that he is not a bad tank. This of course leads me to conclude, given that the only common denominator in all these failures is myself, that the failure is in fact my own.

 

Is there something that I am doing horribly wrong in the above scenario? And if so, any helpful advice would by much appreciated.

[SandsS]

Simply put:

 

You're blowing your cooldowns too early. A tank can't hold threat against DPS who are going all out, and he can't hold threat against YOU if you're going all-out right up front, either -- unless the fight is short and it doesn't matter. An Operative can get away with this behavior because they have a total threat-wipe in the form of Escape.

 

One way to do this well is to buff your tank in advance (i.e. Kolto Shell) and start precasting. Don't blow your adrenals right away, and certainly don't combine your relic and adrenal -- combining them results in a huge initial burst of healing, but unfortunately props up your heals for a much shorter amount of time.

 

You're correct in thinking that you need to heal the most right up front, but you are somewhat overcompensating with your chosen method. After your initial burst of healing, be sure to tap your own threat-drop before beginning another round. I have actually pulled aggro from a tank on Dread Master Styrak when I was doing some pretty incredible burst healing -- healing aggro is a lot worse in some cases than it used to be!

 

If you have a guard on yourself (sometimes you will), stick close to the tank to get the full benefits and make it easier for them to AoE taunt mobs off you. If you're standing at range, the tank has to do more moving and has less mental room left to focus.

 

In some cases, if tanks are truly taking that much spike damage, they can be inexperienced. Inexperienced tanks tend to wait until about 40-50% health to use cooldowns (at which point it can be difficult for even an excellent healer to recover them). Experienced tanks have the sense and courtesy to cooldown at between 65-75% health, which allows more of a margin for error and gives your cooldowns time to come back up.

 

Think of your cooldowns as a sort of "range" that you use or combine in escalating levels of fight intensity. Start with the moderate or the reasonable. If the fight continues to be intense, dig out more cooldowns. But do try spreading them out more in your timeline. The result, in my experience, will be a higher and steadier overall output that has less chance of dragging mobs away from your partner tanks.

Edited July 28, 2013 by SandsS

[DarthToastage]

Excellent. Thanks for the input, I will give this a shot and see what happens

[msfyoung]

4.) within a second or two, multiple mobs are now attacking me and the punishment is pretty severe. I use my energy shield and medpac to preserve my own life, LOS them if I can, use my threat dump if I can spare the GCD - whatever I can do to preserve both my own life and the tank's

You're playing with a terrible tank. You mention trying it with someone who you think is not bad, but I'm afraid any time healer pulls aggro off a tank, the tank has failed at his job, badly.

Edited July 29, 2013 by msfyoung

[NoFishing]

You've got one assumption completely wrong...that healing generates "a high amount of threat." But it does generate a small amount of aggro on every mob you are in combat with. If nobody hits those mobs, they will start hitting you. And note that your threat dump will do absolutely nothing here, because for all practical purposes, the only things you can have aggro on are things that *nobody else* in the group has hit. So even if you dropped 99% of your threat, you'd still have more threat on the mobs than anyone else.

 

The *only* thing in the game that the healers can pull aggro on is TfB, because he has a significant damage reduction buff that hinders the tank's ability to generate threat with attacks. This is the only case where healing aggro can outpace tank aggro, and is the reason most groups guard healers in phase 2, and the reason that healers should make use of their threat drops.

 

On these pulls, what is the tank hitting? A minimally competent tank will use their high threat AoE abilities very quickly to try to get initial threat on most of the mobs, using their pushes/pulls to group up straglers, and using their defensive cooldowns to mitigate a large portion of the incoming damage. Then they focus keeping threat on whatever strong or higher mob the DPS are focus firing on, while keeping an eye out for any strong mobs that have taken an interest in you. A bad tank will go hit the strongest mob in the pack and focus only on that mob until it dies, without using any cooldowns.

 

And what is the DPS doing? Baddie DPS will just attack the strongest mob and ignore everything else, when what they should be doing is killing mobs from weakest to strongest while focus firing or using their AoEs.

 

Also I would not advise to buff the tank with Kolto Shell in advance except on boss fights. It is likely to make pulls with bad tanks and bad DPS worse. The problem is the tank leaps in, takes a hit triggering Kolto Shell, and presto the distributed healing threat means everything starts hitting you within 2 GCDs...this can make it hard on even a really *good* tank to get aggro.. HoTs can have the same problem, in fact a scoundrel in my guild has stopped pre-HoT-ing tanks (even our very good guild tanks) on trash pulls because it can cause threat issues.

 

Finally, why start off with Kolto Missle? If only the tank is taking damage, single target heals (healing scan, etc) should be the order of the day. Especially healing scan since it buffs the tank's armor.

Edited July 29, 2013 by NoFishing

[SandsS]

You've got one assumption completely wrong...that healing generates "a high amount of threat."

 

Finally, why start off with Kolto Missle? If only the tank is taking damage, single target heals (healing scan, etc) should be the order of the day. Especially healing scan since it buffs the tank's armor.

 

Well then, let's clear this up directly: healing generates a proportionally low amount of threat when compared to tank taunts or DPS abilities. It is, however, a mistake to assume that healers can NEVER pull threat and therefore be lazy about the use of threat-drops and surprised when you do, in fact, find yourself dodging mob potshots.

 

On your last point I agree, single-target heals are preferable. And in particular for Mercenary, the armor buff from scan is preferable -- you can precast it or cast it immediately following the first initial hit. I play a similar waiting game with Sorc heals and prefer to bubble first (note that Bubble does not contribute to your aggro because it has no 'active' heal component ) and follow up shortly after the first hit with Resurgence. Only the first real tick of Kolto Shell contributes to aggro; as a notably small and slowly paced heal, it is proportionally insignificant when compared with the higher numbers of say -- Kolto Missile or Scoundrel/Operative HoTs -- and I find it a reasonably safe choice to use in the case of normal healing and wanting to have 'something reactive' already present on the tank.

 

In the case of Scoundrel/Operative healing, the pre-cast HoTs are almost without exception required in order to keep TA at maximum. If you can't or don't want to pre-HoT tanks, the other option is pre-HoTing yourself or DPS. This is widely and unarguably regarded as a sort of best practice by both Operative/Scoundrel theorycrafters and raiders ... but your mileage and preferences may vary in PuG groups.

 

On single-target pulls pre-HoTs don't cause any problem at all -- mostly because the "first strike" pull tags the major points of initial threat and it's a straightforward situation.

 

Multi-target pulls work somewhat differently, depending or whether the mobs are melee or ranged and whether or not line-of-sight is being used.

 

Here's how that moment actually works from a healer's perspective:

1. Tank makes initial pull (uses single target threat on the strong mob, or AoE if it's a smaller group that stacks).
   
2. Tank takes large spike damage.
   
3. Healer opens with high-volume heals to cover initial "spike" damage on multi-target trash pull.
   
4. Bad tank -- if has not used AoE threat -- loses aggro on four out of five mobs.
   
5. Good tank -- may see mobs "blink" or fire once at healer, but is prepared and uses AoE damage or threat abilities to refocus aggro.
   

 

Mobs at range in a group are more likely to target healers than at any other time (ex. 'distributed pull' in Cademimu 'casino' looking room). In this scenario, pulling aggro as a healer is inevitable and it is preferable to single-target heal the tank as long as possible before moving to DPS -- who likely have aggro on several other "single" mobs. This scenario repeats itself immediately before the Xander fight in the same instance, when there's a mixed group of ranged-melee mobs, including some extras that 'spawn.'

 

In this situation the tank typically starts with the visible melee mobs and most all of those will stack on the tank naturally. The ranged mobs are a different story and usually cannot be persuaded to "not attack" the healer unless the tank is very precise and conscientious about going around to hit everything.

 

Another situation: the "pulls" of extra robots that occur at some points in Hammer Station (they are groups of four-six if I remember correctly, and spawn from behind doors). The groups of "new spawn" mobs will attack the person who pulled unless someone else either acts on the mobs directly or overrides the initial "pulling" aggro (by healing the tank-puller, usually). Understanding this secondary balance of threat is important because you can manipulate it quite successfully to your advantage.

 

For instance: a tank can pull, and an Operative healer can wait to one side and use flashbang to delay the initial "strike" damage until the first group has been killed. If the cc fails or breaks early, all of the action threat remains on the Operative. The Operative can then escape and all the mobs will go back to focusing on the tank-puller. Any threat gained in combat is actually wiped by Escape, which makes Operative uniquely positioned to get up to all kinds of shenanigans. A merc healer could similarly choose to cc one mob, attract the attention of the others, and then LoS the group (negating a fair amount of damage while the mobs caught up) while the Tank/DPS handled the initial pull.

 

Healers generally have far less to fear from a "closed" cell group of melee mobs (i.e. dogs in Cademimu or Manalorian Raiders) than they do from mixed or spread out groups. On the finer point of threat in Hammer Station or dog packs in Mandalorian Raiders, it's easy to handle these from a tank perspective by starting with single-target threat and delaying AoE target threat slightly in order to be sure that no positioning or server delays foul up the taunt "actually hitting" every mob that pounces in on the tank (i.e. making sure every mob is in taunt range). Usually, a threat loss here is more about ill-timed ability usage than healer threat.

 

There's absolutely nothing a healer can do in either scenario but use a threat-drop in hope of sending mobs back to DPS or tanks -- anyone else but the healer! -- just by being in melee range and hoping that someone's used an AoE ability that will draw off the mobs. My advice perfectly covers this situation because I've been in this situation.

 

I don't rely on people doing their jobs. Ever. I make it easier for them to do their jobs and even to do their jobs by happy accident whenever possible. >_> Spreading out cooldowns is one of the easiest passive ways I know to make a tank's job easier, just because for the most part mobs won't even blink at you -- and if they do, it will be in manageable numbers rather than entire bloodthirsty groups.

 

The beginning of the fight is the most vulnerable time for everyone involved. This includes tanks. It is very easy for a healer to pull threat on mobs in the initial seconds of a battle and becomes gradually harder and harder to do after the tank has had a chance to build up and control the situation. The healer's job is to get the group out of those initial seconds as safely as possible, to make it easy for the tank to get that control (by standing in melee range if necessary), and to know when the conditions of an "initial fight" are repeating themselves after a threat-drop.

 

You are also correct that most of the time it is impossible for raid healers to get threat on a boss -- and if it's a two-tank fight, this is largely correct. There are circumstances with inexperienced tanks, newly spawned adds, or with threat-drop mechanics that can and will result in a healer grabbing threat after a round of very, very high burst or even normal maintenance healing. I no longer take chances with this happening on my main operative or any of my other alt healers and quite religiously use my threat-drop.

 

Newly-spawned adds in fights (DG Kel'Sara, Titan 6 probe/bots, Thrasher Snipers, Cartel Warlords little guys), although they may initially aggro to someone else, almost always end up focusing on healers until tanks or DPS do something deliberate to pull them off. This can take a while if there's a lot of other stuff going on.

 

We'll put it this way -- I'd rather threat drop and maybe get mobs off than not threat drop, die, and follow up with excuses about it not being my responsibility. There's no reason at all for a healer to not use a threat-drop if they're being attacked.

Edited July 30, 2013 by SandsS

[Sarielle]

Finally, why start off with Kolto Missle? If only the tank is taking damage, single target heals (healing scan, etc) should be the order of the day. Especially healing scan since it buffs the tank's armor.

 

I don't pretend to be a good merc/mando healer, but I assume for Kolto Residue which increases the incoming healing on the tank (and any anyone else hit by it, of course). And a HoT never hurts.

[Dominoris]

I don't pretend to be a good merc/mando healer, but I assume for Kolto Residue which increases the incoming healing on the tank (and any anyone else hit by it, of course). And a HoT never hurts.

 

Yep. Standard practice for Merc healers to use KM early in order to apply +heal and damage resistance buffs, even in single target heal situations.

[wetslampigduex]

I don't know about your rotation as far as healing and I didn't read any posts but yours.... however if what you described is happening I.E. all mobs attack you, the tank is horrid... maybe if it's a single mob say 1/7 in a pack that's attacking you that shouldn't be an issue... I tank all these new HM's on a PT and a Juggy... not one where the tank can't agro everything.. the one difficult one for a jugs is prob the last pull b4 for the first boss in Cad... even then should only be 1 mob he cant hold threat on. Edited July 30, 2013 by wetslampigduex

[DarthToastage]

Some good questions and information in this thread, so thank you all for contribution.

 

To answer some of the questions put to me by previous posters:

 

As for my rotation, it depends entirely on how much damage is being sustained by the tank/DPS, but:

 

I do generally keep the tank buffed with kolto shell, but I will swap it to myself or the DPS if I know the tank is just sucking and someone else is taking some damage that shell will help me out with.

 

Mild damage: prebuff with shell, KM --> R shots X3 --> KM.

 

If this fails to keep the tank above 75-80% then:

 

KM -->HS --> R shots x2, lather rinse repeat

 

If this fails to keep the tank above 75-80% (or if I pre-emptively judge that it is unlikely to do so), then:

 

KM --> HS --> R Scan --> (if necessary, TSO + another rapid scan) --> KM

 

If all this fails to keep the tank above 50%, or if I know that a lot of damage is coming on the upcoming pull:

 

Supercharge gas + relic/adrenal --> KM --> HS --> R Scan --> H Scan --> KM (repeat as necessary) --> vent heat when heat reaches 75ish (possibly use R scan, followed by TSO/PS + R scan to get a instant, free burst heal).

 

of course this is all highly flexible and subject to a lot of factors including how long I judge the spike damage is likely to continue.

 

As far as the poster who asked which mobs the tank is attacking:

As far as I can tell, almost always in these situations the tank is one one mob, usually the gold or silver one in the pull. I don't know enough of tanking in this game to ascertain whether or not they are using any aoe taunts or damage abilities.

Edited July 30, 2013 by DarthToastage

[Targarion]

I'm a relatively fresh 55 merc healer and I have been having a somewhat common experience running 55 HM flashpoints. The experience is as follows:

 

1.) We come across a relatively large trash pull, 5-ish mobs, sometimes more, sometimes with strong or better mobs.

2.) as the tank proceeds into the fray, I use my supercharge cylinder and fire off both my relic and triage adrenal, knowing that the tank is about to take some massive damage.

3.) as expected, the tank starts gettng hit hard so I heal him with everything I have, first casting kolto missile, immediately followed by healing scan, rapid scan, and if necessary either emergency scan or another healing scan

4.) within a second or two, multiple mobs are now attacking me and the punishment is pretty severe. I use my energy shield and medpac to preserve my own life, LOS them if I can, use my threat dump if I can spare the GCD - whatever I can do to preserve both my own life and the tank's

5.) my efforts at keeping the group up fail horribly, either the tank dies or I do (usually both), followed shortly by the dps

6.) the tank either ragequits or initiates a vote to have me kicked from the group.

 

Now I should mention that neither I nor the tank is undergeared in these encounters, I myself am wearing gear which has, with but 1 or 2 exceptions, 69 level mods in all slots, with reflex augment 28's in all slots. The tanks are always geared as well, often better than am I.

 

I should also mention that this does not happen every single time, but often enough that it is extremely frustrating, both to myself and to the other members of the group. There are at least as many times where the overwhelming majority of the damage is on the tank, and a manageable amount spills over onto myself/dps.

 

At first, I just thought this was bad tanking, that there's no way I should be drawing this much threat only healing, even though healing does generate a high amount of threat. But then I had this exact same thing happen with a tank in my guild, a tank whom I have seen in action and know that he is not a bad tank. This of course leads me to conclude, given that the only common denominator in all these failures is myself, that the failure is in fact my own.

 

Is there something that I am doing horribly wrong in the above scenario? And if so, any helpful advice would by much appreciated.

 

First off I am making the assumption you are pugging it. If so, you don't deserve all the blame for your groups misfortunes. The truth be told if your tank sucks, you will be blamed why the mobs killed your entire team. A good tank can hold agro against any Melee or healer. I know because I tank with my Jug, he has inferior stats I still can hold agro from any healer and dps. It's easy for me. However most pug tanks are just awful and they don't realize how bad they are. And you are the easiest scape goat because a healer should be able to heal through anything. Wrong.

 

But that's out of your control. What you can control is how you mitigate threat.

 

First off don't blow your cool downs off the bat. Not because I am worried you will generate agro, but because you won't be able to sustain that level of healing for very long. Most fights last between 3 to 5 minutes. Keep that in mind.

 

Save Trauma probe for yourself, unless your tank is taking instant massive damage. Stand 10 meters from him if you have guard on you. Guard is ineffective if you are more than 8 to 10 meters away.

 

The more damage is mitigated onto the tank the less you have to worry about yourself and the group.

 

Warn every one that you will CC at least one NPC and mark all NPC's that will be CC'd. That way if a melee jumps that NPC you can now put some blame on him for your team dying. Here is what I would do in your situation.

 

1) Stand about 30 meters from the pull to start. You may throw your Kolto missle or rapid scan. To stack your charge to 30.

 

2) I would not use my adrenals here unless the tank is taking massive damage. Jugs in particular take about 10 seconds to build up agro.

 

3) Kolto missile, rapid scan to start and perhaps Trauma probe or the merc equivalent, to mitigate damage. Fill in with Rapid scan when needed. Keep throwing your kolto bomb every time it's off cool down.

 

4) This is a sign of a weak tank. I do have an instant threat reduction ability. I don't know what it it's called on the merc side. Instead of running away from the tank, run towards him. The mobs will follow. The guard will activate and hit shield. Throw down Kolto missile and concussion charge. Your tank has an AOE taunt so tell him to use it if he doesn't.

 

5) again if this happens examine what occurred during the fight with your group. You will discover that the tank failed at his job or the dps themselves broke a CC. Either way don't take BS from any group.

 

6) Either way if your tank sucks he will rage quit or blame you. All you can do is do your best.

[Darth_Dreselus]

The mere fact that you are looking for help means that you are doing something right.

 

As explained what you are experiencing seems to be a combination of possible issues; insufficient AoE threat, high initial HPS burst and undisciplined DPS not following the kill order.

 

I presume you see this issue mostly in Mando Raiders on the pulls with multiple Hounds. These pulls are somewhat difficult, as they deliver a lot of burst tank damage and the tank needs to keep sufficient AoE threat.

 

Follow the tips given so far such as not bursting too much at the start (obviously if needed to keep tank alive do burst).

 

Just a few more details about threat that should be useful. Pardon me for not producing all the evidence but the information can be checked elsewhere.

 

-Tank threat is 2 per 1 damage, unless modified further by skills

-DPS threat is 1 per 1 damage

-Heal threat is 0.5 per 1 health restored (overheals do not generate threat)

-An NPC will switch threat when a second player is generating more than 130% threat than the first (current target). -This threshold is lowered to 110% within 4m from the centre of the NPCs hit box and it is not the indicated distance which is measured from the outside edge of the hitbox.

-A taunt will generate 110% or 130% of the current threat following the same rules and force the target to attack the taunter for 6s regardless of threat.

-A designated threat drop lowers threat by 25%.

-Extrication, Intercede, and Force Camo and mirrors reduce targets threat to 0.

-Healing threat is spread across all engaged enemies.

-When pulled, enemies generate 1 threat on the person who pulled them. Any adds that spawn will generally spawn with 1 threat on the current highest threat holder. Note that in some fights this value is larger.

-There are boss mechanics which do not follow some of these rules, an example is the bonus boss in Mando Raiders who switches target periodically.

 

It is useful to keep these facts in mind even as a healer as it will allow you to better anticipate target switches and incoming damage.

 

Also note that Guard which lowers threat generation by 25% does not prevent enemies which have not been engaged from attacking the healer as the healer will generate 1.30 threat with any heal. This is why Guarding healers is not recommended unless there is a specific reason for it (DG, TFB).

 

As for pulling threat from a current tank, provided there are no threat altering mechanics the healer would have to be restoring 5 health (4 to match and 1 to overtake) for every 1 damage the tank deals. This is very unlikely.

[idnewton]

The bottom line is that if you or the tank is dying because of aggro issues, that is his fault entirely.

[Doulo]

55 Shadow Tank and 55 Guardian Tank

 

The mobs in 55 FP are some of the most difficult to tank in the game. The dogs have an Alpha Strike that will shred 50% off every tank, and 85% off Shadows. This necessitates choosing between mitigation abilities and threat abilities. On any group, it will take every tank 3GCDs to establish enough threat to hold them. However, itf the tank chooses to use an ability to mitigate it could extend the time to aggro lock to 4 or 5 GCDs.

A second component is whether the tank is focusing on one mob in the group or tab-targeting. Shadows have great AOE threat, but still need to rotate through targets to maintain it. Guardian have to rotate through targets or they will lose at least one mob.

Single target taunts should be saved to grab the runaways, and the AOE taunt used after 3 GCDs to establish aggro lock. If the tank isn't using these properly, he will lose one or two mobs.

 

The bottom line is that if you or the tank is dying because of aggro issues, that is his fault entirely.

 

This is not entirely true. Tanks are responsible for aggro, but so is everyone else. DPS can easily yank a mob off a tank if they want to, or are stupid. The tank may be trying to fight for aggro on the elite that the Sentinel is hammering instead of the weak one. So not all aggro problems are solely the tanks fault.

 

The big thing you can do is not have so much healing going out in the first 2 GCDs. So less precasting and clickys. Here is why. That stuff is all ready to go and the tank get's hammered for 15-20k in the first GCD. Your healing kicks in and covers 10-15k that generates 5-8k threat in the first GCD. No tank can match that for threat in the first GCD at 3k TPS. The 2nd GCD you still have all that power headed out so you go for another 10-15k healing / 5-8k threat. The tank will be catching up at this point on most of the mobs but only at about 6k threat total. The healer is at 10-16k threat total. IF the tank can't get to all the mobs in the 3rd GCD the initial aggro from the pull will be surpassed by your normal level of healing on the 3rd GCD, and bingo, you pull aggro on one or two mobs that the tank couldn't get to, for whatever reason (Bad Tank, Bad dps, whatever). If it 3 or 4 mobs coming at you, the tank and the dps all suck because they aren't doing things right.

 

If you only have a few things going out to start and ramp up the 2nd and blast healing on the 3rd GCD you will have fewer issues. Make sure you are communicating with the tank, as it is a dance. Sometimes I will pop resilience or saber reflect to avoid the initial burst only to have a crapton of overhealing. Sometimes I wait and get threat and then use my CDs to give the healer time to catch up.

[idnewton]

Yes, DPS can focus down a mob the tank isn't hitting. But heals? Heals should never get so much aggro that every cooldown they have isn't enough. If the tank sees every mob shooting at the heals, he has taunts. He should have the healer guarded, if it's taking so much damage. This isn't rocket science. It's a bunch of if/then statements, and if the tank doesn't know them (in other words, know the basics of tanking) the OP's described situation happens.

[Doulo]

Yes, healers SHOULD never get enough aggro to pull a mob. However, as the OP said he was pulling aggro, regardless of what SHOULD happen. So dealing with the reality of the healer pulling aggro, we look at what might be the cause. Seeing that there may be several reasons, a set of IF/THEN scenarios would allow the OP to attempt various solutions.

 

The OP stated that this happened with tanks in PUGs, but also with a tank that he knew was good and well geared. So if the OP (healer) said the tank is good and knows what he is doing, the OP wondered what he could be doing to pull aggro from the tank he says is good. My discussion is focused on assisting the OP understand why this might be occurring as he says they are and what he SHOULD do to address the problems he perceives with his play.

 

The initial post spoke of the first two seconds of the fight, hence my response was how the first few seconds of a fight develop in terms of aggro in reality as opposed to how tanks SHOULD behave.

[wetslampigduex]

Save Trauma probe for yourself, unless your tank is taking instant massive damage. Stand 10 meters from him if you have guard on you. Guard is ineffective if you are more than 8 to 10 meters away.

 

This is not true, in a PVE area guard works at any range for threat reduction.(not sure if the 5% dmg reduction works 30+ meters away but the threat portion does)

[SandsS]

The initial post spoke of the first two seconds of the fight, hence my response was how the first few seconds of a fight develop in terms of aggro in reality as opposed to how tanks SHOULD behave.

 

This guy has all the details from the tanking perspective that I dealt with in a more general fashion in my own post. Listen to him. He knows whereof he speaks and he gave you an excellent breakdown.

 

Healing and tanking is indeed more of a dance in those first few seconds.

Edited August 8, 2013 by SandsS

[kennethdale]

Its all been said before but just adding in the experience of a very experienced healer and a decently experienced tank and dps.

 

1) It is perfectly normal, natural, and fine for a dps to pull aggro on a weak mob in the early stages of a fight. No dps is squishy enough that this will cause significant damage or be unmanageable for them to deal with completely on their own. In some cases even a strong is worth pulling simply to alleviate pressure if it can be killed solo fast enough and be done without putting ANY strain on a healer.

2) Any tank worth his salt will have aggro on all champion, elite, and strong mobs in a trash pull that he/she needs to hold with in 4 gcds. Losing a weak mob or two can happen on spread out pulls and for the most part the tank should not worry about these as the healer should be able to control them or the dps burn them with ease.

3) Healers need to be aware of how much threat they generate in their first 4 gcds so as to be aware of what dangers they are in during that period as it is the most dangerous time for a healer.

4) Healers should NEVER be guarded except when specifically necessary for example TFB where there is both a large amount of aoe damage which needs to be mitigated off of the healers and significant threat generation issues. Aside from very specific situations it should always be on a Marauder or Sniper.

 

My conclusion is a combination of two things: You are putting out too much healing burst at the start for pulls that do not necessitate that (notable exceptions include any pack of 3+ dogs due to the massive spike damage they cause) which for a merc this causes more resource management issues than it should create threat. Second, these are just BAD tanks. A Pt should start out with a flame sweep, sins should be using wither, and a jugg should open with smash. That's one ability each that will put enough threat on the mobs to prevent any healing aggro pulls. That's my opinion.

[Targarion]

This is not true, in a PVE area guard works at any range for threat reduction.(not sure if the 5% dmg reduction works 30+ meters away but the threat portion does)

The shield procs approximately 15 (not 10) meters from the tank. You will notice this transition when the blue reticle changes into a shield bubble.

 

However you may be right about threat reduction.

 

Still the key word is MOST EFFECTIVE out of guard, the healer will need to stand about 15 meters from the tank.

[OlosBC]

The shield procs approximately 15 (not 10) meters from the tank. You will notice this transition when the blue reticle changes into a shield bubble.

 

However you may be right about threat reduction.

 

Still the key word is MOST EFFECTIVE out of guard, the healer will need to stand about 15 meters from the tank.

 

This is only applicable for the PvP benefit of guard(the damage transfer). The threat reduction and 5% damage reduction work at any range. This can be easily proven using an exhaustion zone and combat logs.

 

In any case, only bad tanks put guard on healers in PvE outside of specific scenarios, and only bad healers demand guard from their tanks in PvE.

[Targarion]

This is not entirely true. Tanks are responsible for aggro, but so is everyone else. DPS can easily yank a mob off a tank if they want to, or are stupid. The tank may be trying to fight for aggro on the elite that the Sentinel is hammering instead of the weak one. So not all aggro problems are solely the tanks fault.

 

Incorrect assertion. Every dps class soul purpose is to do as much damage as possible. Hence if they are not generating threat, it's a sign they are not hitting hard. Although all classes have a threat drop ability, it only can be used after a couple min cool down.

 

This leaves a heavy burden on the tank to mitigate threat for the entire group. This is where experience and skill comes in. How well does the player play his class?

 

The big thing you can do is not have so much healing going out in the first 2 GCDs. So less precasting and clickys. Here is why. That stuff is all ready to go and the tank get's hammered for 15-20k in the first GCD. Your healing kicks in and covers 10-15k that generates 5-8k threat in the first GCD

.

 

Again for an experience tank, who has a strong understanding of his class and the mechanics of the fight. This should never become an issue. Unless that boss isn't tankable.

 

I want my healer to feel free to use whatever heals he deems necessary to keep me up. Dps must do everything necessary to make sure the fight is over in a couple of minutes. That's the way a well gelled team works.

 

 

No tank can match that for threat in the first GCD at 3k TPS. The 2nd GCD you still have all that power headed out so you go for another 10-15k healing / 5-8k threat. The tank will be catching up at this point on most of the mobs but only at about 6k threat total.

I know it various from class to class, but regarding my Jug, my stance generates 50% more threat than the highest threat person in my group. Hence it's irrelevant how much damage or healing a group member generates. They way you build threat is to use your highest threat abilities against your stance.

 

No dps or healer can pull threat from me for more than 1 second. That's in the chance I am cc'd by the boss or off a cool down. Then maybe for a brief moment I will lose threat. But it's easy to grab it back if you use your direct agro abilities.

 

 

The healer is at 10-16k threat total. IF the tank can't get to all the mobs in the 3rd GCD the initial aggro from the pull will be surpassed by your normal level of healing on the 3rd GCD, and bingo, you pull aggro on one or two mobs that the tank couldn't get to, for whatever reason (Bad Tank, Bad dps, whatever). If it 3 or 4 mobs coming at you, the tank and the dps all suck because they aren't doing things right.

 

Virtually Impossible. You can't simply lose threat just because a dps gets a crit on a mob. Your level a threat depends on the amount of threat generated by your hardest hitting dps. This is a proc from your stance. that's also why it's a good idea to always guard the highest threat toon, which isn't necessarily the healer.

 

If you only have a few things going out to start and ramp up the 2nd and blast healing on the 3rd GCD you will have fewer issues. Make sure you are communicating with the tank, as it is a dance. Sometimes I will pop resilience or saber reflect to avoid the initial burst only to have a crapton of overhealing. Sometimes I wait and get threat and then use my CDs to give the healer time to catch up.

 

First off, if you are not taking damage, than a healer shouldn't be using his best heals right away. That's common sense. But in a mob situation, you will need your healer throwing down big sustained heals to keep you at a reasonable level.

 

He should not have to worry about how much treat he is generating, when he has to worry about keeping the people in his team alive. Your only responsibility as a tank, is to absorb agro. That's it. Everything else is secondary.

 

If you fail at your one responsibility than you are to blame not the healer or the dps.

 

Ask any experience tank, and none will ever tell a healer. Please watch your agro. That is complete rubbish.

[Doulo]

Targarion, there is a significant error in every single section you wrote AND you missed the point. The point is not what should tanks do to hold aggro and how should a tank behave. The discussion is about what the OP healer is/is not doing wrong in a repeating instance of the first few seconds of a fight. This is not about 15 or 20 seconds, or a minute into a fight, it is about the opening sequence and how threat is being generated (not mitigated, not absorbed). In the opening a sequence, anyone can pull threat off the tank. A hard hitting burst dps will open with 4.5-6k dps, at least, across the first 3 seconds of the fight, 2 GCDs. I already showed how the healer can generate 8-10k threat across the first two GCDs. After 4 or 5 GCDs (6-8 seconds) it SHOULD not matter. But we are dealing with reality of what IS happening in GCDs 1, 2, and 3.

 

As far as your errors, I will just point out this:

I know it various from class to class, but regarding my Jug, my stance generates 50% more threat than the highest threat person in my group.

Every Tank stance generates an additional 100% threat over that tank's personal dps , not 50% over the highest dps in the group. It doesn't vary from class to class. Soresu form, Combat Technique, Dark Charge, Ion Cell/Cylinder, all generate 100% additional threat.

 

It is clear that you don't think about how you tank (though it sounds like you are a dps with tunnel vision) and are successful by happenstance and not knowledge or skill. Go get good info pounded into your head in the tanking forum by Kitru, KBN, dipstik and Gralleh, then tank for 18 months, then come back and try to assist someone else.

[Targarion]

Targarion, there is a significant error in every single section you wrote AND you missed the point. The point is not what should tanks do to hold aggro and how should a tank behave.

I digress

 

The discussion is about what the OP healer is/is not doing wrong in a repeating instance of the first few seconds of a fight. This is not about 15 or 20 seconds, or a minute into a fight, it is about the opening sequence and how threat is being generated (not mitigated, not absorbed).

I am aware what we are discussing, and my point is reiterated by other people on this thread. Minus the mistake I made with the threat percentage. Which in fact is a moot point, since I under cut the true threat generated by tank stances.

 

In the opening a sequence, anyone can pull threat off the tank.

Pulling threat and crowd control go hand in hand. Because your first three moves are stacking threat. Hence you should not be losing agro until you stop doing sustained dps. If you are, than you are doing something wrong.

 

 

A hard hitting burst dps will open with 4.5-6k dps, at least, across the first 3 seconds of the fight, 2 GCDs. I already showed how the healer can generate 8-10k threat across the first two GCDs. After 4 or 5 GCDs (6-8 seconds) it SHOULD not matter. But we are dealing with reality of what IS happening in GCDs 1, 2, and 3.

 

But didn't we just establish that our stance alone does more threat than the highest dps on the team? Yes I believe we did. So once again, the tank will ALWAYS generate MORE threat then the HIGHEST DPS in your group if he is using the right rotation.

 

 

Every Tank stance generates an additional 100% threat over that tank's personal dps , not 50% over the highest dps in the group. It doesn't vary from class to class. Soresu form, Combat Technique, Dark Charge, Ion Cell/Cylinder, all generate 100% additional threat.

 

Either way you validate my point which was our stance generates more threat than the highest dps in our group.

 

It is clear that you don't think about how you tank (though it sounds like you are a dps with tunnel vision)

What is clear to me is people who speculate what they cannot know always look foolish in the end.

 

The only thing I was wrong about was the percentage of threat caused by our stance. It turns out it did 50% more threat than what I suggested.

 

Go get good info pounded into your head in the tanking forum by Kitru, KBN, dipstik and Gralleh, then tank for 18 months, then come back and try to assist someone else.

 

Nah. I am pretty good as it is. However unless you want to put your theory to the test, in let's test our tanking rotation off each other. And find out where you are going wrong. There is little use to continue this discussion.

[Doulo]

Nah. I am pretty good as it is. However unless you want to put your theory to the test, in let's test our tanking rotation off each other. And find out where you are going wrong. There is little use to continue this discussion.

I have little interest in dropping tank-trou in the healer forums. Come over to the tanking forum and post some logs and call me out there.

 

As for here, I am interested in hearing whether the DarthToastage attempted any of the strategies offered and whether or not they have helped.