In SM there's really not much if any healing needed. There are healing pods on the bosses, and on the pulls between if you're in decent gear as you should be it's pretty much a non issue. I've run it with a number of configurations and other than splashes to keep us up between pulls on a speed run healing is nothing more than a convenience.

This is a great thread, I've been reading it on my lunch breaks at work for a couple of days now and chucking to myself like a mad woman. This isn't really long or noteworthy but it left me stunned so I figured I'd share.

 

I was running Black Talon on my lowbie operative healer with a random pug the other day, and we get to the bit where you can choose to kill the captain. Well, I don't see the point in killing for no reason and all of my characters are light side, so I hit the LS option thinking nothing of it.

 

Next moment in chat I see:

 

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!! YOU DON'T PICK LIGHT SIDE, LOL U NOOB."

 

Or something very similar to that effect, from the Jugg tank. I wasn't bothered of course, just... Stunned. He starts berating me for being "nice" when playing imp side until the DPS chime in telling him to **** and that people can choose what they like. Anyway, the moment passes and he holds his tongue for the rest of the FP as we continue merrily on. Strange people.

Strange people: healers that ask for guard and tank that guard the healer by default.

Strangest of all people: tanks who give in the healer's demands for guard.

 

 

I've had healers ragequit teams because of me not guarding them as tank. One left when I (sentinel) took the tank's side of not guarding the healer. No idea what's wrong with people and why they want that guard to be wasted on them.

I've actually found that this happens because there is a lot of tanks that tunnel vision one add and forget that they are supposed to take the aggro from all.

 

When this happens the healers ofc get in trouble. So bad tanks put a guard on them when the thing is that they are simply bad tanks.

 

Then crappy healers that don't know really what's happening start to demand guard on every fp they go.

 

Chaining bad to worse

Today I got grouped up with the laziest *********** kid that did nothing but run his mouth and ***** about how the other people in the group played.

first person I ever set to /ignore so I would never get grouped with him again

 

rage much? yeah people like that are annoying but votekick feature is for a reason : D

Strange people: healers that ask for guard and tank that guard the healer by default.

Strangest of all people: tanks who give in the healer's demands for guard.

 

 

I've had healers ragequit teams because of me not guarding them as tank. One left when I (sentinel) took the tank's side of not guarding the healer. No idea what's wrong with people and why they want that guard to be wasted on them.

 

I've had healers demand guard then leave because I ignored their demands. It's quite amusing, especially when next to nothing is hitting them. Like they take two hits from weak mobs during a pull while I'm moving around grabbing everything and they freak out.

 

I also dislike queuing as one of my dps alts and having the tank guard the healer. Only to find myself pulling threat on every pull, with my threat reduction ability on cooldown and no way to drop threat, short of just stopping all actions.

I've had healers demand guard then leave because I ignored their demands. It's quite amusing, especially when next to nothing is hitting them. Like they take two hits from weak mobs during a pull while I'm moving around grabbing everything and they freak out.

 

I also dislike queuing as one of my dps alts and having the tank guard the healer. Only to find myself pulling threat on every pull, with my threat reduction ability on cooldown and no way to drop threat, short of just stopping all actions.

 

I totally disagree on this one. At least for sub-50 levels. Yes, on hard mode fp-s dpg can out-threat the tank pretty much, and even trash mob can do serious damage to dps. But on sub-50 sm fp-s ... if dps is getting serious damage, then he is doing something he should not, like:

 

- pulling mob ahead of tank

- killing elite mob first (i like to watch dps die on this one) while there are weak alive

- using aoe on many strong

- just generally ignoring kill order

 

And yes, most sub-50 tanks are pretty newbies. Most of them wont do a good job tanking, so playing safe is good. 90% of sub-50 sm dps are _not_ killing weak to strong, and do stuff for fun that makes tank's job harder (like pushing mob around). So, my priority in sub-50 sm stays to keep aggro (and damage) from healer, that includes guarding the healer.

I've had healers demand guard ...

 

I wonder if these healers actually realize what Guard does.

 

Here is the tooltip text:

While active, the guarded player takes 5% less damage and generates 25% less threat. In addition, so long as you remain within 15 meters of the guarded player, 50% of all incoming damage from enemy players is transferred back to you.

Note the bolded/underlined part. I think many healers read that part and don't read the rest that says "from enemy players" and do not realize that the 50% damage reduction does not apply in Flashpoints. I think that confusion arrises because they participate in PvP where having Guard does effectively reduce the damage they take by 50% (because it is being coming "from enemy players") and they do not realize that that mechanic does not transfer over to Flashpoints.

 

They may also believe that the "25% less threat" they generate is more importante than it really is in a Flashpoint. Heals generate 50% threat already, so in actual fact they are only gaining a 12.5% reduction. Damage however has a 100% threat modifier. To use a rough exemple: a healer that heals for 1000 will only generate 500 threat, and if they have Guard it will generate 437,5 threat (a difference of 62,5 threat); a damage dealer that hits for 1000 will generate 1000 threat, but if they have Guard they will only generate 750 threat (a difference of 250 threat). As such a damage dealer benefits much more from Guard in a Flashpoint than a healer does.

 

Maybe this should be made clear to Healers who ask for Guard instead of just assuming that they are "weird" .

I've had healers demand guard then leave because I ignored their demands. It's quite amusing, especially when next to nothing is hitting them. Like they take two hits from weak mobs during a pull while I'm moving around grabbing everything and they freak out.

 

I also dislike queuing as one of my dps alts and having the tank guard the healer. Only to find myself pulling threat on every pull, with my threat reduction ability on cooldown and no way to drop threat, short of just stopping all actions.

 

I've noticed in most groups, if I'm healing or DPSing (sage/Scoundrel) that the tank doesn't usually guard someone. I don't have a tank so I don't know how guard works. Sometimes they guard the healer, and I'm thinking, "I've heard guard doesn't work on healers, but I don't know" and sometimes I've seen them never guard anyone once.

Edit: Reading the post above I see why guard doesn't work on healers. I never ask for it if I'm healing anyways, but it's still nice to know/

Edited December 11, 2013 by Tailsfortales

Then one of the Dps says "can you guys give me a minute? "Tank says "sure"

DPs: "I gotta go get butter"

Tank: "what?"

Me: "seriously?

The dps "it's right across the street"

Me: "dude can't the butter wait

"Dps: "I'll be right back, I swear"

Funniest post I have seen on the forums.

Edited December 11, 2013 by avatarearth

a healer that heals for 1000 will only generate 500 threat, and if they have Guard it will generate 437,5 threat (a difference of 62,5 threat)

 

You're halving threat one too many times. It's 375.

It's also threat that goes to all enemies currently engaged. Situationally,and depending on the tank's aoe threat generation capacity, I'd say guarding the healer is not as stupid as you say.

If nothing else, it's still 5% DR. If neither of the DPS is capable of pulling from the tank there's no reason not to guard the healer.

I've had healers demand guard then leave because I ignored their demands. It's quite amusing, especially when next to nothing is hitting them. Like they take two hits from weak mobs during a pull while I'm moving around grabbing everything and they freak out.

 

I also dislike queuing as one of my dps alts and having the tank guard the healer. Only to find myself pulling threat on every pull, with my threat reduction ability on cooldown and no way to drop threat, short of just stopping all actions.

 

Usually i'll guard the highest dps toon (level or equipment) in the group or sometimes the healer, if i'm sure that there will be no threat issues with the dps at all or if there is a fight ahead, that might be dangerous for the healer that he could use lower threat and 5% damage reduction. If i never met the other players before, i guard no one at start and wait a while to see how the others play. For example i won't guard a dps who is constantly pulling instead of me or hitting wrong targets. If there is someone doing everything right and still getting hits from stronger enemies because i can't hold threat, he'll get guard of course, but sadly while leveling people who know what to hit is rarer than i would prefer.

 

I also had a lot of healers who demanded to be guarded and wouldn't do one step without guard. It didn't really help to explain them how guard works and that they don't need it in a group with a good tank and good dps who remember the kill order.

As long as there are no good dps who have to hold back because the healer being guarded instead of them, i often give in and guard the healer to avoid all these discussions around "guard me or i leave". I just want to play the flashpoint smoothly and not waste my time discussing with people who don't understand guard even if you quote the tooltip word by word.

 

I sometimes have the feeling that these healers know something like guard from other games, but there the mechanic is slightly different. If i remember correctly what someone told me, guard in Wow transferred some thread to the tank, so it would be best to guard the healer while fighting trash, because the tank would gain additional threat with all adds by that. But there are also a lot of those *i always have guard, don't know why, but i need it now too* guys around...

You're halving threat one too many times. It's 375.

Actually, I applied the 25% reduction to the 50% threat modifier on healing. Thanks for calling that out. I believe your method of applying the 25% reduction to the actual threat is probably more correct. It is still less than what a damage dealer gets out of it though . Remember, healing by default already generates 50% less threat than damage. Getting 25% less threat on top of that can be less important for a healer than reducing a damage dealers threat generation by 25% (since they have no built in threat reduction).

 

It's also threat that goes to all enemies currently engaged. Situationally,and depending on the tank's aoe threat generation capacity, I'd say guarding the healer is not as stupid as you say.

Sorry if you understood I thought it was stupid. I don't. There are times where you can (should?) Guard the healer, but there are other times where you are better off Guarding a damage dealer.

 

If nothing else, it's still 5% DR. If neither of the DPS is capable of pulling from the tank there's no reason not to guard the healer.

True. But again, it is situational. You have a melee damage dealer standing near the tank and the boss they are fighting has some AoE damage. The healer on the hand is standing 30m away. Who should get the Guard (and the 5% DR )?

 

Either way, I was just suggesting that some healers may not realize how Guard works in a non-PvP environment (especially if they PvP alot).

I will guard healers in some fights, like Grob. Because those adds will always target a healer and granted I am very good at wrangling them up every now and then one slips to a healer. Guess what both healers are guarded and take 5% less damage, which also applies to the AoE damage that Grob does allowing the healers to spend more time healing the MT.

 

Also as for threat gen, a plus of being a Sin Tank. I never gaurd in a flashpoint, only in Ops lol. Cause in a FP I have yet to have most PuGs pull off of me, but Sin threat Gen is stupidly high. It is actually a trick we do in Ops if the Jugg/PT I am with is going to tank the boss for most of the fight. I open on the boss, do a full rotation with my own taunt in there and he taunts off. Boosting his threat by a ridiculous amount, he never loses threat after this kind of an opening.

Edited December 11, 2013 by ZentheSecond

I'm used to dealing with WoW mechanics. So I have to ask, is the threat reduction from guard multiplicative or additive?

 

If it's multiplicative, wouldn't that also mean that it's less effective guarding a healer to the point of almost seeing it as a diminishing return because of their existing passive threat reduction vs guarding a dps which has no passive threat reduction?

I've actually found that this happens because there is a lot of tanks that tunnel vision one add and forget that they are supposed to take the aggro from all.

 

When this happens the healers ofc get in trouble. So bad tanks put a guard on them when the thing is that they are simply bad tanks.

 

Then crappy healers that don't know really what's happening start to demand guard on every fp they go.

 

Chaining bad to worse

 

Yeah, I tend to not notice who guard is on until I get pasted and the tank is like "**** u suck at healing" and I'm like... "uh... can't heal you when I'm dead dude"

 

As long as the tank knows what he's doing at doesn't let me get pasted (and I do use my aggro dump power when necessary) I've never had a problem with healing and I have like 4 healers total.

Edited December 11, 2013 by AbsolutGrndZero

Yeah, I tend to not notice who guard is on until I get pasted and the tank is like "**** u suck at healing" and I'm like... "uh... can't heal you when I'm dead dude"

 

As long as the tank knows what he's doing at doesn't let me get pasted (and I do use my aggro dump power when necessary) I've never had a problem with healing and I have like 4 healers total.

 

I mainly play healers and I've noticed the same, what with some Tanks getting tunnel vision and most DPS doing the ever annoying strong-to-weak kill order and leaving the healer to be swarmed by most of the mobs.

 

Not to bad mouth DPS, but since levelling a few tanks now the ' I'll just hit what the tank's hitting or the thing with a gold/silver star and ignore everything else ' strategy used by most of the DPS I see has meant my guard goes straight on the healer. Why? Because whoever is getting hit the most - aside from me - in mobs gets my guard, which is usually the poor healer. If the group all know what they're doing, I don't have to guard (I still might just to be safe though, especially with Guildies doing the "steal-the-aggro" challenge). Unfortunately, that rarely happens with PUGs, and I'm one of the freaks that enjoy a good PUG now and again.

 

And really, since I keep all my tanks' gear up to date even DPS 5 levels above me struggle to steal aggro, and the times they do I usually notice a taunt (and not my own) on the mob/boss... which leads to a polite-enough "cut it out buster" from me

 

 

On topic... had a Mado Raiders run with the DPS being an Assassin and a Sniper, both of who would use their knockbacks to scatter nearly every single mob when I had them nice and clusted around my Powertech. Didn't call them out until the end because I've run the damn thing probably two dozen times in the last ten days and it was good to have a bit of a challenge in keeping an eye of who had what aggro.

Ive had plenty of weird experiences in pug groups before, but the most recent one puzzled me.

After waiting over an hour and a half as a DPS for a 55HM, Cad finally pops with a PT,Mara,Sniper(me) and an Operative. We all enter. Everyone has pretty decent gear, so we say our greetings, Tank puts guard on me and we start heading towards the first batch of mobs. For some reason the Mara drops from the group before we even hit the first enemy.... I thought ok, thats fine its a Dps, will only take less than a minute to find one in group finder (The Tank promptly puts us in queue). But for some utterly odd reason the Healer (operative) starts having a fit, and I mean a total rage with caps! Something like "I dont have time for your Sh***", me and the tank were totally confused, saying to just wait for a few minutes because its easy to find dps. The operative is having none of it and proceeds to shout expletives at us and then exits area. Im just literally dumbfounded as I stare at my screen thinking "*** was his problem", so its just me and the tank left, we queue again but then the tank proceeds to say "This is why I dont like the Imp side" I enquire why and she says "The healers have fits when I don't guard them" I just shook my head and made excuses to leave.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Darth_Exar

The most annoying thing that happened with me many times over and over is the tank or healer are not doing their job! They are usually dps and they queue as tank/healers because it goes faster! NO! NO! JUST! NO!

I always check the group before I start the flashpoint and the sheer amount of people doesn't even know what they're doing is staggering.

But it gets even better!

 

Just yesterday I went into two FPs, as healer sage and guardian tank (athiss HM 55, athiss 21) (PUG both)

On Athis: Guardian Tank ... khm... DPS Shien form.... plus two dps sent and slinger. Now, I'll start checking them, usually it's quick I just take a look which stance the tank uses. And bam. Shien form. Ah, not again! Anyway I'm trying to warn the tank as politely as possible that he should switch to soresu. He says 'Oh it's fine I'm tank, I don't know what's your problem.' -Jesus man, you are in Shien form! You are not a tank!- 'But the role icon says I am. What's your problem?' -Ok, this is for the other two dps: we have two choices 1, we kick the guardian dps because he is clearly not a tank, or I leave and good luck tanking this. (It's important to know that the team were in 63-66 lvl mods, me in 66-69, so it would be tricky to dps through athiss without a proper tank)

Guess what happened? Yeap they kicked me! I laughed so hard.

 

Other FP (athiss 21) Same thing. But this time around I was the tank with my guardian. We got a Sage 'healer' who clearly wasn't a healer not one heal, not one during his brief time in the group. I'm trying to pickup aggro as much as I can with the guardian, it's tricky at lower levels so my health drops so fast I didn't understand it at first. Then at the next batch of foes I was watching our healer, well of course the guy was there swinging his lightsaber like caveman.

And nothing else! Double strike/saber strike all the way. Alright maybe he doesn't know that he is the healer and he supposed to do that.

'Pls heal' You are the healer' 'pls heal us' -- I get a short 'Ok' as a response which would indicate that he can speak basic english. We arrived at the first boss. Not a single heal again. I die (3rd time now), and he just continues swinging his saber. We kicked him, we got a brand new healer and finished the FP smoother than ever.

 

Ok so the Sage dps has one saving grace he was at the early stages of the game at lvl 20, still learning the game no big deal, even though telling him what to do and he still refuses to do so not qualifies as learning but I can look over that minor detail after and ignore of course.

 

But nothing on Earth can save the first guy! How can he strongly believe that he is a tank in shien form and be lvl 55??

That's what happens after double xp, a bunch of people level so fast they either don't learn how to play their class correctly or don't have the gear to do high level content or both.

I mainly play healers and I've noticed the same, what with some Tanks getting tunnel vision and most DPS doing the ever annoying strong-to-weak kill order and leaving the healer to be swarmed by most of the mobs.

 

I tend to type "kill order: weak to strong, pls" in party chat if I see the derps not killing the weakest mobs first. They listen. In most cases, anyway. The hardcore ones get the pleasure of tanking the champions while I do their job for them. They start behaving after a few deaths.

 

What I love most are the "you tank i kill" replies. They tell me what kind of player I'm dealing with and they're swiftly given a free membership on my ignore list. Same goes for healers that demand to be guarded and refuse to listen to reason.

We get queue pop for Mando 55 HM.. Me another dps , healer sitting there..Finally Tank zones in.

First thing out his mouth "50K each for this run or ill leave"

So we respond "are you serious?"

Tank "yes , you will wait for a long time to get a Tank"

Us " **** then" " leave then *****, lol" " dont forget to get rid of that alactrity enhancement once you get back to fleet *******"

.. So healer Operative, nicely geared with 72/78mix, pops Kaliyo out 39k health, we continue on and clear the FP..needless to say he was a dick.

We get queue pop for Mando 55 HM.. Me another dps , healer sitting there..Finally Tank zones in.

First thing out his mouth "50K each for this run or ill leave"

So we respond "are you serious?"

Tank "yes , you will wait for a long time to get a Tank"

Us " **** then" " leave then *****, lol" " dont forget to get rid of that alactrity enhancement once you get back to fleet *******"

.. So healer Operative, nicely geared with 72/78mix, pops Kaliyo out 39k health, we continue on and clear the FP..needless to say he was a dick.

 

DUDE. I just logged in to post about the same flashpoint. I never post in the forums but I just had to come and have a laugh about that douchetank. That was my Kaliyo who tanked it for us.

 

Who needs a tank when you have a psychotic girlfriend?

Wow I've never yet come across a tank which tried to demand money for a run. That's so low lol.

I'm used to dealing with WoW mechanics. So I have to ask, is the threat reduction from guard multiplicative or additive?

 

If it's multiplicative, wouldn't that also mean that it's less effective guarding a healer to the point of almost seeing it as a diminishing return because of their existing passive threat reduction vs guarding a dps which has no passive threat reduction?

 

I'm not sure if I'm understanding correctly, but if I remember guard from WoW the right way (only warriors have it, last I checked, and I never got into playing warrior much) - guard literally transfers threat form the target of the guard to the tank who used it. in SWTOR, it merely reduces how much threat you gain through your actions.

healing abilities gain less threat than dps ones (especially if you have the talent, which basically all healers do). moreover - ranged abilities cause less threat then melee ones.

 

last but not least, and this is why guarding a healer is usually unproductive. whenever healer casts a heal, they gain a small amount of threat, spread across every single mob you are currently engaging (unlike dps abilities that only generate threat from the target you are hitting). the amount is negligible as long as someone, ANYONE is hitting those mobs. even without guard.

 

the problem starts when mobs are not being hit by anyone. which basically means that the healer is the ONLY one that has any threat on them, and threat reduction from guard does absolutely nothing, becasue it doesn't matter if your threat is (hypothetically) 250 points or 200 points - when you are the only one with the threat, its 100% you either way.

 

this is why, unlike WoW - kill order is weak to strong and why dps essentially tank weak adds for a few seconds it takes to burn them down. and this is why you guard dps, becasue it does reduce their threat vs the tanks on the same target they are both hitting, making it easier for the tank to hold them.

 

unlike WoW, there are no classes that can transfer/build threat for you through class abilities (and believe me, I greatly miss my tricks of the trade and misdirect - some of the very few things I miss about WoW). the only threat redirecting abilities in SWTOR? are taunts.

Who needs a tank when you have a psychotic girlfriend?

 

My mom?