Just kind of skimmed through this but when playing my tank and pugging a HM FP i have learned one thing in this game. Most dps are idiots.

Now before the rage begins for me saying that let me be clear. In a guild group or in a group with people who know what they are doing chances are I will toss guard on a dps. However nine times out of ten the dps players think they are playing WoW. So you pull a group of mobs, grab the heavy hitters and the dps assist your target rather than killing the smaller normal mobs first. Thus the healer gets his hands full because he has 4 mobs beating on him while trying to keep the tank up.

My tank is geared enough to pretty much be unkillable in most tier 1 pve situations as long as the healer is up. So if it comes to choosing who is going to live or die in a situation like i mentioned above i am going to guard the healer every time.

I have, repeatedly, over and over, ad naseum, etc etc said: If a DPS pulls agro off of you, guard him, her or it. I have, repeatedly, over and over, ad nauseum, etc etc said: unless you are overgeared you will not lose threat.

 

People like you, who refuse to read what people like me write, frustrate people like me and cause people like me to dig in even harder against people like you. I acknowledge that it is possible to lose threat, but counter that you will not lose threat unless you are completely overgeared.

 

Again, with feeling: If. You. Lose. Threat. Put. Guard. On. That. DPS. There, I said it. Again.

 

But since I don't lose threat, because I spent credits, comms, time, blood, sweat, tears, etc on my gear...I from this point forward won't guard anyone. Because apparently guarding the healer when the DPS can't rip agro off of me is so heinous a crime that I might be stripped of my tanking card.

 

Thank you, good day.

Thank you for engaging in thoughtful discussion instead of resorting to hyperbole, using an insulting tone, and playing the victim. It's really refreshing to see someone discuss a topic like this in a mature way.

I haven't refused to read what you are writing. You are saying that the default should be to guard the healer and you should only switch if the DPS is pulling off of you. I (and most of the others in this thread) think it makes more sense to put the buff, by default, on the people that get more use out of it (DPS) and switch to the healer only if that seems like it is wise. I think you are the one that isn't reading what others are writing. Your opinion doesn't suddenly gain more weight because you continue to repeat it with an increasingly insulting tone. We understand what you are saying. We are reading your comments. We just don't agree with you. I know it's hard to believe that people might disagree with your opinion even though it is clearly stated and understood, but that is what's happening here. Perhaps you ought to try to be more persuasive instead of trying to be more insulting.

 

But since I don't lose threat, because I spent credits, comms, time, blood, sweat, tears, etc on my gear...I from this point forward won't guard anyone. Because apparently guarding the healer when the DPS can't rip agro off of me is so heinous a crime that I might be stripped of my tanking card.

 

Thank you, good day.

Really, blood and sweat? You must be onto something here, I bet other tanks have never thought of gearing up before. That's the thing, even though most of the time dps won't rip aggro off you, one thing for sure is that the healer will never do so. As I've tried pointing out, which you don't seem to want to listen to, any time a healer gets aggro guard wouldn't have helped, and any time a trash pack in a flashpoint kills your healer it's a combination of the healer being bad and not paying attention and your group not doing what it takes to recover. Guard doesn't help there. If it takes you more than a few seconds to get mobs off of a healer even without taunt you are failing. Do you really think a 5% reduction helps someone who dies in the time it takes to hit some mobs with a single attack?

Ok lets break it down numbers wise to try and make everyone understand that you put guard on melee DPS and never on a healer except for very specific things and even then you move it back to DPS.

Over the course of a FP or OPS the group takes damage I hope everyone can agree on this. So lets look at a HM FP. I don't have parses but I sure this is what you would see. Also we will ASSUME that the dps kills stuff in the correct order on trash and boss fights. AKA the group is doing what they are suppose to do to help the group.

Group comp 1 tank, 1 Melee DPS, 1 Range DPS, and 1 healer. Every one cool up to this point?

Now just to toss out a quick number lets say the ENTIRE group takes 1,000,000 damage total among all of them with NO guard being used. The break down of who takes this damage would look something like this. Keep in mind what I said above

Tank 80% or 800,000 damage

Melee 10% or 100,000

Range 6% or 60,000

Healer 4 % or 40,000

Who among the group would beneift the most from taking 5% less damage? While a Tank is almost nothing without a healer and guard won't save you from nearly wiping. Guard reduces the incoming damage to a group memeber thus helping your healer. So a Melee dps is always your first choice on who to guard because the 5% will have the greatest impact overall.

The OP is right. The problem is that people still think putting guard on a healer is "helpful". IT IS NOT HELPFUL TO THE GROUP. It is far more helpful to group even in HM BT to guard a Melee. Also the less the healer is healing the more damage they get to do.

After parsing the data from several weeks of raiding, my guild found healers will never generate more aggro than the tank, and the gulf between the two gets wider the longer the fights go. While it is possible that in the beginning of a fight a DPS can pull off the tank, generally the longer the fight goes the harder it will be for a DPS to achieve that.

I've noticed that it seems like healing effects act as AoEs in terms of threat generation, while ranged and melee attacks do not. Thusly, if the tank and DPS focus on one target, all the remaining mobs in the pull will aggro onto the healer. The guard won't prevent that, and because of the amount of threat generated the 5% threat reduction doesn't matter because healing doesn't cause a lot of threat compared to DPS and tanks so it's wasted there.

The damage reduction can be useful to anyone but I prefer it to be on DPS, whom I, as a healer, actually rely on to pull those mobs off of me. In Ops, our tanks will switch their guards depending on who is getting hit hard and they generally work in tandem with the healers to help us out, they don't see the skill as a "set it and forget it" buff. They see it as a situational tool, dependent on what the encounter is and who is taking how much damage.

Thank you for engaging in thoughtful discussion instead of resorting to hyperbole, using an insulting tone, and playing the victim. It's really refreshing to see someone discuss a topic like this in a mature way.

 

I haven't refused to read what you are writing. You are saying that the default should be to guard the healer and you should only switch if the DPS is pulling off of you. I (and most of the others in this thread) think it makes more sense to put the buff, by default, on the people that get more use out of it (DPS) and switch to the healer only if that seems like it is wise. I think you are the one that isn't reading what others are writing. Your opinion doesn't suddenly gain more weight because you continue to repeat it with an increasingly insulting tone. We understand what you are saying. We are reading your comments. We just don't agree with you. I know it's hard to believe that people might disagree with your opinion even though it is clearly stated and understood, but that is what's happening here. Perhaps you ought to try to be more persuasive instead of trying to be more insulting.

The heavy sarcasm entered in when I got "People Like You."

And when people fixated on healer agro. Agro has zero to do with this argument, it was a minor part of the argument that if FP Armageddon hit I don't care if the DPS dies because the healer and I could duo the instance as long as both of us are still alive, which is why I guard the guy who matters.

Or when I said HM FP til I was blue in the face, then said its different in Ops where you want to guard your DPS, but kept getting "But you're wrong, you want to guard your DPS in Ops."

My frustration level has built up. I've also said we would have to agree to disagree about who is more important in an HM FP.

But I wasn't insulting out of the blue, only responding in kind to the tone I began to get.

Really, blood and sweat? You must be onto something here, I bet other tanks have never thought of gearing up before. That's the thing, even though most of the time dps won't rip aggro off you, one thing for sure is that the healer will never do so. As I've tried pointing out, which you don't seem to want to listen to, any time a healer gets aggro guard wouldn't have helped, and any time a trash pack in a flashpoint kills your healer it's a combination of the healer being bad and not paying attention and your group not doing what it takes to recover. Guard doesn't help there. If it takes you more than a few seconds to get mobs off of a healer even without taunt you are failing. Do you really think a 5% reduction helps someone who dies in the time it takes to hit some mobs with a single attack?

 

 

It doesn't

It isn't about agro. Say it with me now...

My point is: If you have decent gear, you won't lose agro to a DPS unless he really overgears you. The whole reason I keep saying that is becuase I am trying to get it through to people that it isn't about agro. But, if you are having trouble with a DPS...then guard him! It is about agro at that point.

What I really think is, as I have stated ad nauseum, Guard doesn't matter in an HM FP. It really, really doesn't. But if I have to choose someone who matters more to me just for the sake of using guard? It would be the healer. Unless a DPS was ripping agro off of me. Otherwise, the threat reduction doesn't matter (weren't ripping agro without it) and the 5% doesn't matter to a DPS (if they were that low in an HM FP then the healer wasn't going to heal them anyway.)

It isn't about agro. Say it with me now...

 

My point is: If you have decent gear, you won't lose agro to a DPS unless he really overgears you. The whole reason I keep saying that is becuase I am trying to get it through to people that it isn't about agro. But, if you are having trouble with a DPS...then guard him! It is about agro at that point.

 

What I really think is, as I have stated ad nauseum, Guard doesn't matter in an HM FP. It really, really doesn't. But if I have to choose someone who matters more to me just for the sake of using guard? It would be the healer. Unless a DPS was ripping agro off of me. Otherwise, the threat reduction doesn't matter (weren't ripping agro without it) and the 5% doesn't matter to a DPS (if they were that low in an HM FP then the healer wasn't going to heal them anyway.)

For someone who likes to accuse people of not paying attention to his point you sure do avoid others. What good does guard do for a healer that is going to die from trash before you can get them off? If they die that easily that quickly guard is not going to save them

Why do you think reduced damage on a healer is better than reduced damage on a dps? A healer has to heal everyone. The dude taking 2-3 times more damage than the healer should have guard. It's less stressful on a healer to put the reduction on the person taking consistent damage rather then the healer taking a hit now and then. After the healer gets hit it will take 1-2 heals to top themselves off without guard. With guard, it will take 1-2 heals for them to top themselves off. Get it? The guy taking damage much more often needs the reduction more, in the long haul that will be less healing needed in a fight than if guard was being wasted on the healer.

If the healer dies just because they didn't have guard your group or the healer sucks anyway. I already told you, I agree guard is pretty pointless in a HM FP but you keep arguing that you should guard the healer just for the sake of arguing when I've already explained in your scenario why guard won't make a difference (a dps pulling another group). If that's the one reason you can come up with, "keeping the important person alive", then I'm done with you because you get stuck on one measly scenario that somehow justifies guarding a healer by default for you. Numbers, mechanics and common sense don't support it. If you want to guard healers in a FP go for it, I'm not here to stop you, but stop spreading false information to others that it's a good idea to guard a healer by default.

This thread is about guarding healers on a whole, not just in easy content where it's not needed on anyone. Default guarding the healer is just a waste of the skill, period.

Guard doesn't matter in an HM FP. It really, really doesn't. But if I have to choose someone who matters more to me just for the sake of using guard? It would be the healer.

This issue isn't hard to understand, and several people have explained it, so I'm not sure why you still don't get it. Guard is a skill just like any other you have. You can choose to ignore force sweep as a guardian tank or only use it on single targets, and it probably won't wipe the group in a HM flashpoint, but you are still ignoring or misusing one of your main skills. Let's take this down to as simple a level as possible.

The group's goal in a HM flashpoint is to defeat the bosses and clear the instance as efficiently as possible. If one or more people in the group are undergeared, being efficient may be the difference between wiping or not. If everyone is at the appropriate gear level or better, it may just mean clearing the instance faster. If as a tank you are guarding the healer by default you are, by definition, lowering your efficiency. It will not help you. You keep acting like you can never lose aggro as a tank, but you don't always have aggro on every target. When everyone on the team is doing their job right, DPS will take more damage than the healer. The DPS may be burning strongs while you are tanking an elite. They will take damage from one or more of those strongs, especially if they are using AOE skills. If a DPS makes a mistake and, say, breaks CC, they will pull the aggro of that mob as well, taking damage until you can taunt or switch targets. Putting guard on the highest threat DPS who is pulling the most aggro on the mobs you aren't tanking reduces the incoming damage to your team by more than if you are guarding the healer, who should take very little damage during most of the instance if your team is doing its job. Guarding the highest aggro DPS will make everyone's job easier because you will kill things faster and put less pressure on both your DPS and your healer, who will spend less resources by casting less overall heals.

TL/DR: It's simple math. DPS will take more damage than heals even in a HM flashpoint when done correctly. Guarding the melee DPS or, if no melee, the highest damage ranged DPS is most efficient use of the skill unless there are special circumstances.

My simple rule of thumb. Find best geared or highest lvl'd MELEE dps and guard them. If no Melee DPS is present then I guard the healer and add Chilling Scream into my rotation so if I DO lose threat it'll take the mob an hour just to run back to the DPS.

Damage reduction for ranged (including heals) is useless so my only perk for using this ability is for the threat reduction.

1- Are there Melee DPS present (Yes? - Guard them, No? - Proceed to 2)

2- Are there Ranged DPS that are WAY to high as far as gear or level goes? (Yes? - Guard them, No? - Proceed to 3)

3- Do you have a healer? (Yes? - Guard them, No? - Proceed to 4)

4- Are you low-balling it with a companion healer? (Yes? - Guard them, No? - Drop group and do something else)

As a healer, I expect guard to be floated to who needs it. There are certainly times and instances where it makes sense, but as a rule I'm more concerned with the tank being aware of my energy levels and how fast he's pulling.

I can count on one hand the number of times me not having guard has gotten me killed. If I had a nickel for every time the overgeared DPS has ripped threat off the tank, got crushed , and then the mob came running over to me with a blood-handed "hi" I could afford to buy Hawaii.

learn how to play op. Guarding the healer makes sense. It may not make sense to have the healer continously guarded, but any tank who doesn't guard the healer initially is bad.

It doesn't make any sense at all to have the healer guarded in PvE because out how minuscule the threat they generate is.

Guard the Melee DPS, chances are, they're the ones that are going to be pulling threat.

if dps has bad kill priority or doesnt include threat dumps in their rotation, then i will put the gaurd on the healer to spite them... until they learn how to kill in the right order, protect the healer, along with myself, and put their threat dumnp in their rotation. healers are often guilty of not using their threat dumps/cc as well.

i do not like using my gaurd to cover up bad playing. if everyone is doing well, i will put it on the melee dps taking the most damage, as threat is not a huge concern when everyone is playing properly.

if dps has bad kill priority or doesnt include threat dumps in their rotation, then i will put the gaurd on the healer to spite them... until they learn how to kill in the right order, protect the healer, along with myself, and put their threat dumnp in their rotation. healers are often guilty of not using their threat dumps/cc as well.

 

i do not like using my gaurd to cover up bad playing. if everyone is doing well, i will put it on the melee dps taking the most damage, as threat is not a huge concern when everyone is playing properly.

^ this. If it's a PUG I start by guarding the healer. Once I see the DPS doing their jobs on the low level adds , then I put guard on the highest DPS. Ive been amazed at how many DPS in PUG's have bad kill priority.

I've played all 3 at end game and some groups force my healer to waste multiple threat dumps in each fight. Meaning the next trash fight, none are available.

^ this. If it's a PUG I start by guarding the healer. Once I see the DPS doing their jobs on the low level adds , then I put guard on the highest DPS. Ive been amazed at how many DPS in PUG's have bad kill priority.

I've played all 3 at end game and some groups force my healer to waste multiple threat dumps in each fight. Meaning the next trash fight, none are available.

I don't understand this mentality at all. You are making the run more difficult for everyone by only putting guard on the people that need it when their play style meets with your approval. Why make a run that is already difficult because DPS aren't following kill orders properly even MORE difficult by wasting your guard buff on the healer?

I can understand that there might be an extreme situation where guarding a healer might be advantageous, but when you put it on the healer by default it makes you look like you know your role even less well then the DPS who can't follow a kill order.

So basically those DPS that can't properly follow a kill order can now blame you equally because you are foolishly guarding the healer and you clearly don't know how to tank properly. You are making yourself look just as bad as they are. Guard the people that need guard and not the person that needs it the least. You advertize that you are bad when you guard healers by default in pugs. Why do that?

As a healer, I would like to point out that I'm never out of range of a healer.

Also, I judge tanks who put guard on me automatically. I judge them harshly. I am unlikely to take much damage and extremely unlikely to pull threat.

It's beneficial for me as a healer for a DPS to be guarded. They're taking 5% less damage, and since they're more likely to get hurt than I am. this can actually be a significant number. Furthermore, the guard will help reduce the chances of them pulling a mob off of the tank.