CM aggro management

[ndruo]

I'm playing a CM, and it's my first healing character in a video game.

 

Ever.

 

I'm noticing that I tend to pull aggro a lot. I am typically very good about overhealing (sometimes I crit and the dude gets topped off, but I'll be the last person to complain about that) and I have been complimented on my ability to keep a group alive in a few FPs. Still, I find myself the target of an angry add more often than not, and am incredibly thankful for the heavy armor. This usually happens when a DPS takes an AOE shot and I bring him back up.

 

Is aggro management I can control as a healer, or should my ONLY concern be "keep the party's health up" at all costs?

 

I think combat medics are the MOST vulnerable to this kind of thing thanks to our insanely huge heal bombs, but I'm trying to get better at this role and I'd like to know if there's more that I could be doing.

Edited January 1, 2012 by ndruo

[Ni-hao]

I figured I'd jump in on this.

 

As a experienced healer in most games, yes keep your party up at all costs. The problem isn't your agro managment its your choice of ability, try using a less effective heal nuke, use your lower healing skills vs higher healing skills as it keeps agro down and keeps the over heal to a minimal (over healing doesnt do anything) heal at 50% not 90% you just need to keep them alive not 100% all the time, its nice being 100% but its not nessisary.

 

The other thing, your tank should be able to hold agro over you easily I havn't had a problem with healing yet in CM spec at all. Hopefully that helps (if 50% doesnt work for you try 60 or 65 but dont let them get below 50% if possible )

[Astares]

Make sure the Tank has Guard placed on you, it reduces your threat by 25%. The only mobs that should be hitting you temporarily are any adds that turn up during the fight. They usually aren't that dangerous and able to survive several hits from them but the tank should be taunting them off very soon after they appear or DPS burning them down.

 

Heals generate x0.5 threat compared to damage, unknown if over healing generates any threat, my guess is that it doesn't.

[Sylanaris]

Yeah, if you are having aggro issues on a FlashPoint, I will stare like this to your tank:

 

¬¬

 

 

 

Try to be as efficient as possible, I always try to think that my abilities will Crit, so if there is a tiny gap on somebodys help, I use Kolto bomb or Hammer Shot

[malevs]

I'm pretty sure our aggro dump doesn't work.

 

When I use it, mobs don't peel off me. Perhaps the threat reduction is too low?

[StarCadence]

The healing aggro in this game seems to be higher than any other MMO's I've played.

 

I generally don't use MP unless someone is in the 50%-60% health range, becuase a crit is definately going to pull aggro off the tank. And playing a tank on a different char, I know how long their Taunt cooldown is (and it's single target) so I try to use AMP, HS, and KB more if they just aren't losing that much health.

 

Seems to work better than our threat dump does.

[Darth_Jermz]

so far I've only had healing aggro issues when the group doesn't bother to grab the whole group of mobs.

[Rigsta]

I'm pretty sure our aggro dump doesn't work.

 

Take it from me, it does. I abuse diversion as a gunner

[Ronamo]

I'm pretty sure our aggro dump doesn't work.

 

When I use it, mobs don't peel off me. Perhaps the threat reduction is too low?

 

It might just be that you're actually the only one in the group that's caused any threat to the mobs at all. Even if you drop it to zero, if there's nothing else registering on their threat table, they aren't going to swap away from you.

 

Of course, that makes some assumptions about how threat and aggro work in SWTOR, which might be a bit dangerous.