Choose: Good tank or good healer?

[Ackermans]

So, if you had to chose between having a good tank and a bad healer, or a bad tank and a good healer, which would you choose? Personally, I'd choose a good tank. Maybe that's the obvious choice, but maybe not.

[Aerostein]

Good tank, bad healer for me. Personally, I feel like a bad tank would wipe the group faster than a bad healer would. At least, in most cases. That's just my opinion though.

[Crisiet]

I'm actually going to go with a good healer. A bad tank is frustrating, but a good healer can keep up with damage taken by them and the dps.

 

No matter how great the tank is, if the healer is bad then everyone is going to die.

[Whittledown]

It's kind of a chicken and egg scenario.

 

Good tank/bad healer: Healer lets tank die, chaos follows, likely wipe.

 

Good healer/bad tank: Tank doesn't hold aggro over healer, healer dies, likely wipe.

[Berrod Armstrong]

I'd choose good tank/bad healer.

 

A good tank can set a decent pace to get the instance run over with as quickly as possible, and will likely be able to rotate his cooldowns to make up for some of the healers ineptitude. Hopefully the tank is -nice and patient- enough as well; frustrated tanks usually make runs a little less enjoyable! If we're lucky, maybe there'll be a caster in the group with a cure or physick who can help the healer out a little.

[Warren Castille]

I'm biased because I'm a tank (thereby not having to work with other tanks in DF very often) but I'd rather have a good tank. It's really six in one hand, half dozen in the other though. Tales of horrible wipes to Garuda Normal mode because the tank doesn't understand to avoid the pillars or because the healer doesn't know how to dodge mistral after dying to it a dozen times.

 

On some fights you can skirt by without one or the other. I've had numerous near-wipes at Isgebind that turned into wins after the healer died because of abusing the enormous hate-lead a good tank will have and then cure-bombing with convalesence up and stone-skinning remaining party members to mitigate Rime. I've also seen SCHs take down Coincounter with PVP tactics of sprint-dot-run after everybody died to 100-Tonze swing.

[Tahzn Lhethi]

Bad Tank/Good healer. All 4 man dungeons can be done without a tank at all. Most can be 2 manned, even. 

 

As for coil.. well.. post T4, a good tank and healer is pretty much necessary.

Extremes the same.

 

 

Although I want to say good tank because I'm an ok healer. :C

[FreelanceWizard]

I'll say it depends on the content. In the 4 player instances, especially below 40, I've done them all without a tank when the healer is good. Garuda HM is entirely doable with a bad healer if the tanks are on the ball and, of course, CT is largely dependent on tank and DPS skill.

 

However, Titan HM? Pharos? In fact, most of the HM instances? A good healer is far more important than a good tank in those, IMO.

 

Concretely, the choice is easy for me; if I'm healing, I want a good tank. If I'm tanking, I want a good healer.

[Tahzn Lhethi]

However, Titan HM? Pharos? In fact, most of the HM instances? A good healer is far more important than a good tank in those, IMO.

 

I think more for these type of fights (Titan HM/Extremes), it's less dependant on the healers or tanks themselves. No amount of healing or excellent tanking can save you if you fall off or fail a one shot mechanic.

[Coatleque]

Good healer / Bad tank for sure.

 

What most people fail to realize is that aggro/threat/enmity is a two way street. If the tank is having trouble the DPS can always STOP and wait. That seldom happens though.

 

As long as the healer has mana and can keep up with the damage, a bad tank at least has some time make the effort. If they aren't at least making said effort, that's a separate issue entirely.

[Sounsyy]

Despite my main jobs being WAR/PLD, I also have an i90 SCH and WHM which I play regularly. And having done some veryyyyyyyy bad duty finder parties, I'm inclined to say Bad Tank/Good Healer.

 

I think with a roused Eos/Selene and six Lustrates a SCH can heal through just about any stupid mistake. Then again, the number of times I've ended up tanking, healing, and DPSing all at once as my SCH is incredible. Either because the tank couldn't hold hate, or stood in aoes, or refused to use buffs, etc. Eos is a surprisingly good tank as well, and whichever one of us gets the aggro, the other one will heal her through it.

 

 

Concretely, the choice is easy for me; if I'm healing, I want a good tank. If I'm tanking, I want a good healer.

 

HA I second this.

[Kage]

I'm sorta biased but in terms of actually completing things..

 

I'd say a bad tank/good healer will win out. The healer can overcome the agro loss and bad tank with healing through it. The dps will eventually take down the healer's aggro'd mobs. They should anyway.

 

I'm not sure how well a good tank and bad healer will hold out when the bad healer can't heal well and everyone is dying. The tank would just die faster with keeping all the hate while potentially trying to heal himself or mitigate the damage dealt to him.

 

As BLM I like BOTH good heals and good tanks.

As PLD I like good heals because I think I'm a bad tank.

 

 

... My CNJ and ACN are only lvl16 so I can't comment on that.

[Nebbs]

For a safer run, good tank. This mainly keeps things in control.

 

For surviving, good healer, so they can compensate when it goes wrong.

 

However, for a lot of content I see eos healing and healer dpsing, especially with a good tank.

[Oscare]

In my honest opinion, why not both? But I rest my case.I definitely say bad tank/good healer. Aggro can wait most of the time, damage doesn't wait for anyone. But at the same time, if a healer is healing TOO much, then THEY pull the aggro and will probably die very quickly due to low HP carried by healers -- especially in low leveled dungeons.

[K'nahli]

After so many failed Garuda Extreme runs with randoms I can't help but think that a good tank is more necessary. I imagine a healer would be easier to educate if they kept failing plus the party can run off of a lone healer for at least a while afterwards, whereas off-tanks cannot sustain both roles in most trials.

[Eva]

Good question. I'm WHM main so probably somewhat biased, but the only other job I play with any regularity is DRG, and in those cases I think I'd prefer good healer and bad tank. I think there's a lot more potential for a healer with his/her head on a swivel to get a party out of some tough situations than a tank doing the same. Not to trivialize the benefits of having an awesome tank.

 

I've been put into some rather odd situations myself as a healer. One that comes to mind is main tanking the flayer and golems in Amdapor Keep as a WHM after the tank d/c'd - back when AK was new and still a little tricky and everyone was i60-70.

 

That leaves me to think about situations and how things might go if one or the other disconnected and left the rest of the group to fend for themselves. Obviously the content and party makeup would be important variables, but I feel like the group would have more of a fighting chance with a healer and no tank as opposed to the opposite.

 

One thing I will add is that - having done some roulettes as WHM with excellent tanks and lousy DPS - no amount of skill/gear with regard to both healing and tanking can offset the impact on a party from terrible DPS. I can stretch my MP pool pretty far and I work pretty well in tandem with tanks' cooldowns, but if DPS isn't melting things down fast enough it can also wipe a run. I have a lot of admiration for skilled DPS and feel they don't get as much recognition as they deserve.

[K'nahli]

On a related note to the above post, I like healers that actually contribute to the DPS instead of just sitting there, waiting for the tank's health to go down far enough to warrant a heal. I do roulettes with my friend most days and it really does make a massive difference when she introduces a few Holys to large groups/bosses - especially if I get Requiem up in time. It has stretched a bit to the point that, the seldom time I do dungeon alone, I silently glare and moan at the random healers that decide their massive MP pool is too precious to spare some dps of their own for with small groups that aren't really challenging the tank =w=

[Eva]

On a related note to the above post, I like healers that actually contribute to the DPS instead of just sitting there, waiting for the tank's health to go down far enough to warrant a heal. I do roulettes with my friend most days and it really does make a massive difference when she introduces a few Holys to large groups/bosses - especially if I get Requiem up in time. It has stretched a bit to the point that, the seldom time I do dungeon alone, I silently glare and moan at the random healers that decide their massive MP pool is too precious to spare some dps of their own for with small groups that aren't really challenging the tank =w=

Oh I agree with this 110%. If the tank is doing a good job and there's big pulls I'll slap DS+Regen on him or her and put up Cleric Stance and drop Holy to help with the DPS. And if there's small pulls I'll slap the Aero spells on each of the mobs and sometimes spam Stone2 instead. A pet-peeve of mine when I'm on other jobs is WHMs that spam Holy when there are only 2-3 mobs. I'm sure someone out there has calculated where the cutoff in terms of MP efficiency and effectiveness is with regard to # of mobs and such.

 

I stance dance a lot with Cleric Stance on WHM. And I've had people before try to correct me because they thought I was doling out cures from Cleric Stance - which is seldom the case. But they see that icon and assume, y'know?

 

Anywho yeah, any healer that contributes towards DPS and is still able to keep the party alive and well usually earns my commendation when I'm on DRG.

[FreelanceWizard]

On a related note to the above post, I like healers that actually contribute to the DPS instead of just sitting there, waiting for the tank's health to go down far enough to warrant a heal.

 

Seconded! For content where I don't need maximum healing per second, as SCH, I always keep my DoTs up and spread. As WHM, I usually switch between the tank and the current target after each spell, alternating between healing and doing damage. If the content is particularly unchallenging (both the tank and I are synced down from 50), I'll Cleric Stance dance to do more damage. As SCH, I usually let Eos/Selene heal and sit in Cleric Stance the whole time.

 

I took the Conjurer class quest where you have to both heal and DPS to heart.

 

On the topic of AE efficiency, my understanding is that 4+ mobs is when AE becomes more efficient than single-target DPS. I could be wrong on that, however, and Flare makes things all kinds of weird because of how its MP cost works.

[Gar]

First, to the whole "Healer DPS" thing, I'm going to advocate more of the other side. I'm a full-time tank, and I have died because the healer chose to DPS then couldn't get me back up. (This is due to big pulls, I don't have crappy gear or anything) The most common I see is "Oh, I'll Holy until they're low then use Benediction." Dead.

 

On a lot of pulls, yes, tanks take little damage and throwing in DPS is fine and hey makes it go a little quicker. But at the end of the day, DPS is not the healer's job. If I have PUG healers that don't DPS, its usually because they're still learning. This game has become needlessly hostile to people actually learning their roles who have the audacity to run without a full pre-made party.

 

Not that I'm against healers ever throwing in DPS, I just don't really care how much they do it or not.

 

But, back to the question of the original post, I can't really decide since the fights are so varied. Like people have said, some early dungeons you can get away with not having a tank. But you can do the same without a healer. Our healer d/c'd and I BLM Physick'd us through the dungeon. A lot of content can be out geared and out skilled without having to fit into the trinity.

 

I think I would have to go with tank, though. The sole purpose being that I find it easier to invest in healers and teach them how to heal more efficiently. Healing isn't easier than tanking, or vice versa. In my experience it just seems harder to teach someone this game's aggro mechanics. I am constantly explaining to newer tanks that Provoke isn't an enmity boost that can be used alone, but most healers get the basic concept of their abilities even if they're bad.

 

So tank, but barely.

[K'nahli]

First, to the whole "Healer DPS" thing, I'm going to advocate more of the other side. I'm a full-time tank, and I have died because the healer chose to DPS then couldn't get me back up. (This is due to big pulls, I don't have crappy gear or anything) The most common I see is "Oh, I'll Holy until they're low then use Benediction." Dead.

 

On a lot of pulls, yes, tanks take little damage and throwing in DPS is fine and hey makes it go a little quicker. But at the end of the day, DPS is not the healer's job. If I have PUG healers that don't DPS, its usually because they're still learning. This game has become needlessly hostile to people actually learning their roles who have the audacity to run without a full pre-made party.

 

Not that I'm against healers ever throwing in DPS, I just don't really care how much they do it or not.

 

But, back to the question of the original post, I can't really decide since the fights are so varied. Like people have said, some early dungeons you can get away with not having a tank. But you can do the same without a healer. Our healer d/c'd and I BLM Physick'd us through the dungeon. A lot of content can be out geared and out skilled without having to fit into the trinity.

 

I think I would have to go with tank, though. The sole purpose being that I find it easier to invest in healers and teach them how to heal more efficiently. Healing isn't easier than tanking, or vice versa. In my experience it just seems harder to teach someone this game's aggro mechanics. I am constantly explaining to newer tanks that Provoke isn't an enmity boost that can be used alone, but most healers get the basic concept of their abilities even if they're bad.

 

So tank, but barely.

 

That's why I said "silently"  ^^ ;   I wouldn't dare comment on that and tell someone what to do. I am very shy in that respect. I don't even like to bother random people with unnecessary macros and sound effects. If someone is new and learning the role and that is fine but perhaps I came off a lot worse than how I intended. There is a sole example that still lingers in my head of a well-geared healer just jumping on the spot over and over and then casting a heal on me every ten or so seconds and that is the image I always return to when I think of healers not helping with DPS.

 

I don't expect them to, especially if they are uncomfortable with it, but I mean if they are clearly well experienced and have nothing better to be doing(i.e a tank that isn't being challenged) then I don't see why they wouldn't. Unless they were half afk then it seems like a boring concept in fact.

 

Perhaps I am guilty of immediately defaulting to the idea that someone isn't new if they don't announce it right away at the beginning of a dungeon but its not something I would bring up directly unless it was for the player's own benefit. I remember tanking a dungeon before and some black mage was pulling every single group and it started to annoy me a little. I said nothing in the end but I was getting more and more agitated though at some point the thought returned to me about my first Copperbell run, where a tank scolded me for attacking a group first. Being that FF was my first real MMO of this kind I had no idea about the enimity/trinity aspect and how difficult it was for them and thought that I was merely helping pick them up from a distance.

[Eva]

On the topic of AE efficiency, my understanding is that 4+ mobs is when AE becomes more efficient than single-target DPS. I could be wrong on that, however, and Flare makes things all kinds of weird because of how its MP cost works.

 

I think this varies depending on the spell/ability and TP cost. I recall reading some threads awhile back about DRG and at what point it's better to use the AoE abilities on multiple targets rather than plowing through them one by one (and a discussion of the effectiveness of Doom Spike). In any case, I think each job is a bit different in where the point lies that single-target DPS actions are no longer as effective/efficient as multi-target. BLM's MP pool is arguably much more expansive as a result of the ice aspect status (I do not confess to being an expert at BLM at all) so I think there's less qualms about burning through MP to cast Flare. I usually wait for at least 4-5 mobs before casting Holy though, figuring it's cumbersome to keep Aero on that many, but 3 is pretty easily manageable (would love it if we got something one day to extend the duration of the Aero spells, make them more potent, or something like ACN's Bane that transmits them to nearby mobs without having to recast multiple times).

 

Basic rule of thumb for me on WHM is ABC though - "Always Be Casting". If not buffs, heals, then stacking DoTs, then nuking. I think the only times I ever break from this policy are where it seems like the MP pool might hit 0 for whatever reason and I know that cures are absolutely going to be needed, but even then I'm usually doling them out.

 

I totally agree that there's nothing as noisome as a healer with a full MP pool that casts regen and just stands there when they could be nuking.

[Eva]

First, to the whole "Healer DPS" thing, I'm going to advocate more of the other side. I'm a full-time tank, and I have died because the healer chose to DPS then couldn't get me back up. (This is due to big pulls, I don't have crappy gear or anything) The most common I see is "Oh, I'll Holy until they're low then use Benediction." Dead.

 

Oh I've witnessed this happen too when I'm on DPS. With larger pulls this is far less viable and depending on the party makeup when I am healing I often won't nuke at all if there is that risk. I usually get a good sense of things from the first pull. I confess I'll let the tank's HP drop a fair bit [when there are smaller pulls] but I've learned what they can endure and a lot of times a single DS+Cure2 is enough to just about top them up again.

 

That's not really the way Bene should be used though. At least, not imo.

 

You are absolutely right though. Nuking should be a secondary thing and a healer's eyes should always be on the party HP first and foremost.

[K'nahli]

You are absolutely right though.  Nuking should be a secondary thing and a healer's eyes should always be on the party HP first and foremost.

 

*nods sheepishly in agreement*

[FreelanceWizard]

Yep! Healing is always the primary job. I like to think my strategy is the same as Eva's -- get a feel for what's going on and adapt accordingly. One of the things I like best about playing a healer is the level of situational awareness and adaptation required. "ABC" sums it up, I think.

 

"A. B. C. A, Always. B, Be. C, Casting. First prize is a trip to Costa del Sol. Second prize is a Darklight ring. Third prize, you're dead."