This is my first venture into an MMO and I'm having trouble understanding the "code" when it comes to working in groups. I've been booted maybe 7 or 8 times without an explanation as to why I was booted. I'm not trying to post this in here to say that I'm being unfairly booted or anything like that because I'm sure there is a pretty good reason for me to get booted. My problem is that there isn't too many people around on the server that will explain what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. One of the times I got booted came after the first set of enemies that we encountered. The only advice I've received from anyone is to uncheck the "tank" role in the group finder, that's about it. So I pretty much gave up on doing any of the Flashpoints because of this. I know there are people out there that have played endless hours of these MMO's and understand just about everything about them. But do these people forget when they first started learning this stuff? I mean if they don't want to deal with any "new players" in their group, don't join the group finder, stay with your friend's or guild or whatever. I just wish they were more tolerant, or explain to the new person what they're doing wrong. They don't have to write a novel, just say "you were booted for..." It just sucks that I have to stay with my "class missions" because I know that's not what all of this is about.

If anyone could help me out here, I would greatly appreciate it.

This is my first venture into an MMO and I'm having trouble understanding the "code" when it comes to working in groups. I've been booted maybe 7 or 8 times without an explanation as to why I was booted. I'm not trying to post this in here to say that I'm being unfairly booted or anything like that because I'm sure there is a pretty good reason for me to get booted. My problem is that there isn't too many people around on the server that will explain what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. One of the times I got booted came after the first set of enemies that we encountered. The only advice I've received from anyone is to uncheck the "tank" role in the group finder, that's about it. So I pretty much gave up on doing any of the Flashpoints because of this. I know there are people out there that have played endless hours of these MMO's and understand just about everything about them. But do these people forget when they first started learning this stuff? I mean if they don't want to deal with any "new players" in their group, don't join the group finder, stay with your friend's or guild or whatever. I just wish they were more tolerant, or explain to the new person what they're doing wrong. They don't have to write a novel, just say "you were booted for..." It just sucks that I have to stay with my "class missions" because I know that's not what all of this is about.

 

If anyone could help me out here, I would greatly appreciate it.

We need more information if you really want help. What class are you? What do you know about gear? What do you know about class roles, such as healer, DPS, or tank. There are a lot of people in this game who are willing to help but we need more information if we are going to help you. Good websites that you can research are darthater.com, dulfy.net, or swtor-spy.com

Wow, that was a pretty quick reply.

RIght now I've got a Level 55 Juggernaut and a 55 Guardian. I figured they were the easiest to "start off with" and I did both of them without doing group stuff.

I feel like I've got a "basic understanding" of gear. I'm not equipping myself with Aim and cunning mods etc.. The way I understand it, you want to try and get your "two main attributes" as high as you can. So strength and endurance are what I need for my two characters right? I don't totally understand how surge, critical, and power levels work, and I don't really expect anyone to explain that to me on here.

As far as understanding roles? I went with the middle "damage" skill tree for both of them. And from what I could gather in the small amount of feedback that I have received, I was tanking when I should have been in a damage role. That was pretty much the last time I tried group finder, it was about a month ago. I just got tired of being booted.

Thank you for the web links.

This is my first venture into an MMO and I'm having trouble understanding the "code" when it comes to working in groups. I've been booted maybe 7 or 8 times without an explanation as to why I was booted. I'm not trying to post this in here to say that I'm being unfairly booted or anything like that because I'm sure there is a pretty good reason for me to get booted. My problem is that there isn't too many people around on the server that will explain what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. One of the times I got booted came after the first set of enemies that we encountered. The only advice I've received from anyone is to uncheck the "tank" role in the group finder, that's about it. So I pretty much gave up on doing any of the Flashpoints because of this. I know there are people out there that have played endless hours of these MMO's and understand just about everything about them. But do these people forget when they first started learning this stuff? I mean if they don't want to deal with any "new players" in their group, don't join the group finder, stay with your friend's or guild or whatever. I just wish they were more tolerant, or explain to the new person what they're doing wrong. They don't have to write a novel, just say "you were booted for..." It just sucks that I have to stay with my "class missions" because I know that's not what all of this is about.

 

If anyone could help me out here, I would greatly appreciate it.

Unsure about why you were booted but when in a group most expect the following:

- You know how to play your class properly and effectively. Check the many guides online for your class if you're unsure.

- You have, at least, the minimum level of gear required for the flashpoint. This is especially true for level 55 hardmode flashpoints where you should have some pieces of basic gear purchasable via basic commendations.

- You know the tactics for the bosses in the flashpoint. Don't expect pick up groups (PuGs) to take the time to explain them to you. If you're unsure watch guides on youtube and/or check out dufly: http://dulfy.net/category/swtor/flashpoints/

- You're pleasant in the group, basic "hi''s" and "thanks for group" go a long way.

Hope this helps you in your future endeavors.

Wow, that was a pretty quick reply.

 

RIght now I've got a Level 55 Juggernaut and a 55 Guardian. I figured they were the easiest to "start off with" and I did both of them without doing group stuff.

 

I feel like I've got a "basic understanding" of gear. I'm not equipping myself with Aim and cunning mods etc.. The way I understand it, you want to try and get your "two main attributes" as high as you can. So strength and endurance are what I need for my two characters right? I don't totally understand how surge, critical, and power levels work, and I don't really expect anyone to explain that to me on here.

 

As far as understanding roles? I went with the middle "damage" skill tree for both of them. And from what I could gather in the small amount of feedback that I have received, I was tanking when I should have been in a damage role. That was pretty much the last time I tried group finder, it was about a month ago. I just got tired of being booted.

 

Thank you for the web links.

noxxic.com will help explain what statistics are good for whatever tree you are using. I am assuming that you are a DPS Guardian and Juggernaut so if you want to get back into group finder just make sure that you unclick tank from the option and only click dps. Also as a previous posters stated try to find a good social guild since running flashpoints with guild mates is more fun anyway

Wow, that was a pretty quick reply.

 

RIght now I've got a Level 55 Juggernaut and a 55 Guardian. I figured they were the easiest to "start off with" and I did both of them without doing group stuff.

 

I feel like I've got a "basic understanding" of gear. I'm not equipping myself with Aim and cunning mods etc.. The way I understand it, you want to try and get your "two main attributes" as high as you can. So strength and endurance are what I need for my two characters right? I don't totally understand how surge, critical, and power levels work, and I don't really expect anyone to explain that to me on here.

 

As far as understanding roles? I went with the middle "damage" skill tree for both of them. And from what I could gather in the small amount of feedback that I have received, I was tanking when I should have been in a damage role. That was pretty much the last time I tried group finder, it was about a month ago. I just got tired of being booted.

 

Thank you for the web links.

When you first join the group finder and you're playing a tanking capable class (like in your case) both checkboxes for dd (damage dealer) and tank will be checked per default. If you're dd-specced and don't intend to tank the flashpoint (plus do not even have tanking equip) then you have to uncheck the tank checkbox, otherwise you will be expected to be the tank in the group. Basically, if both options are checked (this really shouldn't be on per default imo) you're telling the group finder that you can assume both roles if required. There's always a lack of tanks, so the group likely expected you to tank the FP which you most likely didn't. That's why they've booted you, I presume, so that a real tank could join them.

This was my first MMO too, I have done hundreds of Flashpoints, HMFPs and Operations and until last night I have never been kicked. Even last night I really wasn’t kicked, had lag issues and didn’t want to be carried so I asked to be kicked and even then I had to beg a little because I have ran with 2 of them before and they were reluctant to kick, but I refuse to be carried.

My advice;

1. Be polite, say hello, goodbye and thank you.

2. Be fair, don’t roll need on stuff you do not need.

3. Be respectful, treat others how you want to be treated, don’t afk and do your role and allow others to do their roles. Don’t pull before tank, if you are there to heal, heal first, dps 2nd. If you want something for a companion, ask before rolling need. Someone makes an inadvertent pull, kill the stuff and don’t yell at them. You make an inadvertent pull, kill the stuff and then apologize to the group.

4. Know you class, for HMFPs you don’t have to top TORParse leader board or even be great at you rotation, but you do need to generally know your rotation and know your abilities.

5. Personally I don’t care if you know the instance or not, but if you don’t please don’t pretend you do, tell the group you are new to the instance. Then pay attention to their instructions and then do what they tell you to do. If you want to know why you are doing something, well personally I wouldn’t ask, I would watch a youtube video afterward if I was really interested.

6. Be geared to the minimum level for the instances, at least.

7. Until you know the instances, keep up with the group. Don’t make them wait on you. Gathering crewskill sounds great, but don’t unless you know the instance and know you have time to do it. They all run ahead and then you take wrong turn and pull an avoidable mob, someone is probably going to kick you. I have seen people gathering during a HM Ops the first time they were there. Don’t do that.

8. Learn to use interrupts. Learn to use defensive cooldowns. Never, ever yell for a healer to heal you (at least don’t ask me, I will not let you die, but I will scare you to death if you do).

9. I don’t know if people still CC, but if the group does use CC’s, don’t break them until everything else is dead. Learn kill order, kill stunlockers and enemies that heal. Don’t have gold fever as dps. Get stuff off healer.

10. For new players only: Turn on your target of target. If you have a question about what to attack, hit on the other dps and see what they are attacking and kill it.

11. Have fun, don’t take everything so serious, if someone else makes a mistake, don’t belittle them (even if they did it to you), be the better person and after the instances /ignore them.

W The way I understand it, you want to try and get your "two main attributes" as high as you can. So strength and endurance are what I need for my two characters right?

Not really needed, but if you have the credits, augment with Strength augments, it will improve your dps and also improve what random strangers thing about your gear and it is a easy upgrade.

Basically don’t tick of the tank, because they have all the power (says the guy that has no toons that are tanks, but I do have 4 healer).

Hello and Welcome to SWTOR,

I will break down my tips by category since I do not know the specific cause for you getting booted multiple times. I will start off with Tips, Basic Tanking Abilities, Mechanics, and Gear Explanation. Everything will be pretty broad and use of the guardian abilities will be used (if I can remember the names).

Tips:

Location of your abilities on the quick bar

Knowing your Tank Rotation or DPS Rotation

Tank Taunt (threat gainer)-ability used to gain aggro whether over another player or to ensure mobs are attacking you.

Mobs-enemy npcs

Aggro- the amount of threat a player has

DPS/ Healer Threat drop- ability dps/healer players have to drop their threat

Paying Attention to the group- looking for dps users with threat and your healer (mobs attacking your healer can slow and interrupt them healing you.

Guard: ability tanks have to redirect damage to them from another player. (Guard healer unless you have a dps tanking an enormous amount of damage. Guarding a dps will ease the healing your healer has to do thus providing more heals to the group

Rolling Dps to learn mechanics of the fights- most fights require the dps moving out of the bad stuff usually indicated by a big red circle or ground effects. Meaning you have less responsibility in the group. (except doing damage of course) This can be beneficial for you to learn the fights, and watch another tank, and learn from what he/she does and also make improvements or tweak it to you style. Also it is easier to carry a DPS than it is to carry a tank.

Being friendly and announcing at the beginning of the FP you are new. (Generally this helps, because people will either tell you np and help you out or ask you to leave, better than getting the boot I say)

Running the lower lvl version of FPs to understand mechanics

Some of these tips will be mentioned throughout the rest of the reply. If you need help or explanation of anything not covered just shoot me a Private Message. Lets get started.

Basic Tanking Abilities:

Threat Gainer ( Taunts) (Locate in your Ability Bar under Guardian the AOE threat and single target threat abilities)

Explanation: the Tanks role is to take damage and keep aggro of the enemy/enemies targeted. Sometimes this wont happen with big groups. But activation your AOE threat and say Force Sweep (Jug its smash) doing high damage while in tank form will increase the threat and direct enemies to attack you.

Tank Form:

For guardians it is Sorensu Form, Juggs I dont know but read the ability on your Guardian since they are mirror classes it wont be too hard to find.

Hit Mobs (groups of enemies) first (even bosses): Majority of dps players do not care about this so you need to focus on keeping the pace. If you had played MMOs back in the day (lol) there was a respect for tanks and heals since no one wanted to play them and finding a skilled one was rare.

Tanks set the pace. You need to establish this from the very beginning by attacking the first mob (that needs to be attacked) first. Also learn to judge healers if you are attacking say 4 mobs and not losing an ounce of life. Pull more. Quicker is better.

Back to Abilities: Know your defense CDs, the shield that reflects damage, and more but read your spec and abilities to learn what these are. (cds are cooldowns ex. (making this up idk if this is what it says in game) Undying Rush: 99% damage reduction for 30s in small letters 2 min can be seen) This means you can use that ability every 2 mins. Leading me to my next advice.

Press esc/ Go to Main menu in game, click preferences, User Interface, scroll down until you see Cooldown Texts. Turn that on. What style and size you want displayed is up to you. But for your rotation this is beautiful, it will let you know by the tenths of a second when an ability is able to be used again.

Rotation: Learn your rotation, General for tanks it is always your threat grabber first, been awhile since I tanked but for Guardian I would say charge (group of mobs) aoe taunt ,smash, single taunt any enemy outside of the aoe taunt. force slash or w/e group should be dead. Your taunt should always be in your rotation. Personally I dont care if I still have threat unless it is a boss that drops all threat at some point (after an attack or randomly jumps to another player) I am continously taunting. Some dps will not use there aggro dropper. *Tip* if you see an idiot dps Set Focus to him (UI Editor find the box titled focus target enable it). Do the same for target of target. If you get really comfortable you can set up a modifier to target the target of target and use single taunt. Advanced for a beginner but so you can remember down the road.

Mechanics:

Fights have mechanics which are predetermined abilities and actions that will happen during an encounter. Learn these. Know these. And figure out when to use your defense CDs to counter to the best of you ability. This can separate a crappy tank from a good tank. Best way to learn mechanics in my opinion is rolling dps and watching the fight unfold. It is a lot easier to notice something when you are not the one doing it lol.

Gear and Stats Explanation:

As stated previously it has been awhile since I PvE tanked in this game. So you will need to figure out the current stat priority Guardian Ex. (do not follow this just an example using guardian stats) Ex. Strength/Endurance/Absorption/Defense/Crit etc.

As for advice from either a guardian/jugg tank in game by /general looking for a geared skilled tank to ask a couple of questions. You should get some response. Do not run with one persons advice. Take into account the advice of say 3 people and see what matches up. Generally geared tanks will know what they are talking about but make sure they are geared. Preferably BiS (might jus want to type that)

See if they will meet you in game as well look at their gear find out what armorings/mods/enhancements they switched. Augments they use. Look at their stats if you can. This is where you want to get to so knowing this will help you in the long run. Plus ask them what to focus on first. Either Defense or Strength, Absorption or Endurance etc.

Summary:

Learn you role, know what a tank/dps/healers purpose is

Learn your abilities read them and understand them in accordance with your talent tree.

Develop a rotation

Pay attention to the Flashpoint/Operation

Roll DPS/ or learn mechanics of the fights via Youtube/SWTOR Spy/ etc or running low-level fps that you can solo

Be Polite and notify group you are new

Most Importantly HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope this helps and if you have any questions reply or send a PM

DPS/ Healer Threat drop- ability dps/healer players have to drop their threat

4 healers here, geared to the teeth on my sawbones and I can say without a doubt I am not going to pull threat from tank or dps for my healing. I can also say, threat dump or reduction is not going to help me except in a few situations in ops that have aggro dumps. I was told to use them on NiM TWH for some reason, mine is not to question, mine is just to heal as the group says. Otherwise the my aggro dump is only good for a 1/2 amusing animation. It will not get rid of those attacking me if they have not been taunted or attacked by dps and/or tank. It is just a useless as someone guarding me for aggro reason. Any unattacked/untaunted mob is going to go after the healer. It does not matter if I have 100% present threat or .00000001% threat, if they are untaunted and unattacked by everyone else, then .00000001 is still more than 0.000000000, so reducing it means nothing. More important is for dps/tanks to know kill order and their role. Now I can use disapearing act to drop combat, but the moment I unstealth and pop a heal they are back on me.

Gold Fever a killer of Healers.

As to threat droup by dps, yes that should be part of the roation in group play, especially during/after opening.

Any unattacked/untaunted mob is going to go after the healer. It does not matter if I have 100% present threat or .00000001% threat, if they are untaunted and unattacked by everyone else, then .00000001 is still more than 0.000000000, so reducing it means nothing. More important is for dps/tanks to know kill order and their role. Now I can use disapearing act to drop combat, but the moment I unstealth and pop a heal they are back on me.

 

Gold Fever a killer of Healers.

 

As to threat droup by dps, yes that should be part of the roation in group play, especially during/after opening.

As someone who primarily tanks, this above everything else except do not pull before the tank. Since you are doing DPS (and should stick with that until you are comfortable with the game), 97% of the time your first targets should be the weakest enemies while the tank holds aggro on the strongest and as many of weaker as possible.

If you focus on the weak enemies first and quickly switch to mobs attacking a healer, the tank and heal will love having you and you will (almost) never get kicked. Always will be a few jerks out there.

4 healers here, geared to the teeth on my sawbones and I can say without a doubt I am not going to pull threat from tank or dps for my healing. I can also say, threat dump or reduction is not going to help me except in a few situations in ops that have aggro dumps. I was told to use them on NiM TWH for some reason, mine is not to question, mine is just to heal as the group says. Otherwise the my aggro dump is only good for a 1/2 amusing animation. It will not get rid of those attacking me if they have not been taunted or attacked by dps and/or tank. It is just a useless as someone guarding me for aggro reason. Any unattacked/untaunted mob is going to go after the healer. It does not matter if I have 100% present threat or .00000001% threat, if they are untaunted and unattacked by everyone else, then .00000001 is still more than 0.000000000, so reducing it means nothing. More important is for dps/tanks to know kill order and their role. Now I can use disapearing act to drop combat, but the moment I unstealth and pop a heal they are back on me.

 

Gold Fever a killer of Healers.

 

As to threat droup by dps, yes that should be part of the roation in group play, especially during/after opening.

I cannot speak on healer aggro the last Op I healed was HM EC when NiM was not even available. Aggro was never a problem. The healer threat drop was in reference to him being new to MMOs. I tried to make the information as broad (both game and class) as possible. Just in case he decides to try other MMOs. ToR doesnt even have a displayable threat meter so really it is kinda just there lol. When I tanked on my vanguard I rarely had trouble holding aggro if it was established. Nor pulling a target off of a healer and keeping it.

Thank you everyone for your input and advice, I really appreciate it. Now I just have to get over my developed "fear of using group finder" to put it into good use. Thank you for the help everyone.

While I never have really been kicked I will admit at one time I was the worse healer ever in any MMO. First time I did HM D7 I could not get the group past the final boss. I almost not only quit grouping, I also almost quit TOR. Instead I took time to learn my abilities and learn how to heal and gear before getting into another group. The rest is history, I have been back to HM D7 many times since and have never failed at completing any HM FP I have attempted since, well expect for last night when I quit because of my lag.

If you want to get use to group content before tackling HM 55 Flastpoints, do the HM 50 Flashpoints and the SM 55 Flashpoints, even soloing the Heroic 2+ 55 CSI quest will help increase your rotation and awarness.

Welcome DoctorWild!

I was where you are now a year ago. Brand new to MMO's and scared to death to try Group Finder. Trick is to read as many forums and blogs as possible before wading in. Dulfy.net was my favorite but that's probably because I'm a Sorcerer Healer and so is she! The advice here is excellent and the only other thing I recommend is to check out another thread in this forum titled "The Weird People You Meet in Group Finder."

Not only is it hilarious at times (e.g "afk butter".....you'll see), but it is chock full of stories about people doing the wrong thing in Flashpoints and making other people hate/ignore them! You will learn fast what NOT to do.

May The Force Be With you.

PS - If you're on Harbinger I'd love to team up and heal for ya on the Flashpoints. (T-Durden)

Dear OP,

What are your characters' advanced class?

PS - If you're on Harbinger I'd love to team up and heal for ya on the Flashpoints. (T-Durden)

I'm on the Shadowlands which kinda sucks because I know a few people on The Harbringer, I didn't know that at the time I started my account. But at this point I'm a Legacy level 18, so I can't really justify packing up and starting over on another server, but that's neither here nor there in this discussion. But I appreciate everyone's support.

I'm going read up on all of the website links everyone posted and hopefully I'll start getting a better understanding of the inter workings that are behind all of this. Honestly, with this being my first venture into MMO's, I'm completely amazed by the math and science behind all of this, it's pretty incredible. But after reading everyone's suggestions, it seems that my main problem has been my lack of understanding of combat roles and group chat lingo.

To mikebevo and DarthChosen in particular, thank you for taking the time to provide a thorough explanation of things. Hopefully this will help other people as well. Maybe someday I can help return the favor to somebody else.

I haven't read all the post's so this might be repetitive.

It's important to understand the TRINITY SYSTEM.

this is how the Flash Point groups are created. Their are 2 DPS, 1 Tank, 1 healer and each person has a specific role.

Tanks - They have huge amounts of Hit Points and heavy defensive armor (Defense rating, absorption, ect, ect) and have alot of defensive CD's. they grab the big guys attention while the DPS's kill the lower lvl enemies and work their way up to the big guy.

DPS- these guys KILL THINGS AND THEY KILL THEM FAST. They cause huge amounts of dmg. quickly because all their armor, weapons and CoolDowns are geared towards KILLING THINGS. While the Tank preoccupies the big guy, the DPS's kill everything from least strongest to most while the healer makes sure everybody is staying alive.

Healers- They keep you alive by healing you. It's pretty self explanatory. Tank or DPS starts losing alot of health Healer cast healing spells on the person in need. THE HEALER MUST BE KEPT ALIVE AT ALL COST (this is debatable).

It sounds like you were opting for the Tank position in Groupfinder when you are probably speced or classed for another type of role.

Thats what it sounds like at least.

This is my first venture into an MMO and I'm having trouble understanding the "code" when it comes to working in groups. I've been booted maybe 7 or 8 times without an explanation as to why I was booted. I'm not trying to post this in here to say that I'm being unfairly booted or anything like that because I'm sure there is a pretty good reason for me to get booted. My problem is that there isn't too many people around on the server that will explain what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. One of the times I got booted came after the first set of enemies that we encountered. The only advice I've received from anyone is to uncheck the "tank" role in the group finder, that's about it. So I pretty much gave up on doing any of the Flashpoints because of this. I know there are people out there that have played endless hours of these MMO's and understand just about everything about them. But do these people forget when they first started learning this stuff? I mean if they don't want to deal with any "new players" in their group, don't join the group finder, stay with your friend's or guild or whatever. I just wish they were more tolerant, or explain to the new person what they're doing wrong. They don't have to write a novel, just say "you were booted for..." It just sucks that I have to stay with my "class missions" because I know that's not what all of this is about.

 

If anyone could help me out here, I would greatly appreciate it.

Dnt forget the links that someone else allready gave it to to you but since this is your 1st MMO i would also like to suggest going to http://www.noxxic.com and when you feel confortable enough for a bit more advanced explanations on theorycrafting go to http://www.mmo-mechanics.com.

Noxxic is pretty much user friendly guide for talent trees, skill rotations and how to use them, bursts, procs, and stats just read it properlly.

4 healers here, geared to the teeth on my sawbones and I can say without a doubt I am not going to pull threat from tank or dps for my healing. I can also say, threat dump or reduction is not going to help me except in a few situations in ops that have aggro dumps. I was told to use them on NiM TWH for some reason, mine is not to question, mine is just to heal as the group says. Otherwise the my aggro dump is only good for a 1/2 amusing animation. It will not get rid of those attacking me if they have not been taunted or attacked by dps and/or tank. It is just a useless as someone guarding me for aggro reason. Any unattacked/untaunted mob is going to go after the healer. It does not matter if I have 100% present threat or .00000001% threat, if they are untaunted and unattacked by everyone else, then .00000001 is still more than 0.000000000, so reducing it means nothing. More important is for dps/tanks to know kill order and their role. Now I can use disapearing act to drop combat, but the moment I unstealth and pop a heal they are back on me.

 

Gold Fever a killer of Healers.

 

As to threat droup by dps, yes that should be part of the roation in group play, especially during/after opening.

There's absolutely no reason that you shouldn't be using your threat drop. It's free, and it isn't on the GCD. In FPs, pulls are typically with multiple mobs. Many times, threat is generated on mobs at the beginning of the fight, and as the fight progresses, your healing aggro surpasses that initial aggro. Your threat drop will either delay that or prevent it altogether. And if it does happen, then it makes it easier for the tank or a dps to get the mob off of you.

There are zero drawbacks to it, and there are benefits (no matter how marginal you think they are). Therefore, you certainly should use your threat drop.

On a similar note, it's not "useless" for a tank to guard you for aggro reasons. It simply is more useful for it to be on a DPS.

There are zero drawbacks to it, and there are benefits (no matter how marginal you think they are). Therefore, you certainly should use your threat drop.

On a similar note, it's not "useless" for a tank to guard you for aggro reasons. It simply is more useful for it to be on a DPS.

It can also depend on the healer. If the healer is new to endgame and not over geared for the instances yet, give them the guard. Still is fairly useless, but it may give them the illusion of feeling safer.

All I can say about my aggro dump, it is great animation on a smuggler. If I feel like I am really in danger, I run to the smashers with gold fever, use disappearing act, wait for the mobs to start hitting the smashers and then start healing again. That works where the aggro dump doesn't because the smashers will hit everything near them.

ITHE HEALER MUST BE KEPT ALIVE AT ALL COST (this is debatable).

When I first started playing the advice I was given was to heal the tank. Then hit dps with heals as needed and lastly heal myself, but I should never need to heal myself so don't worry about it. This did not work, healer dies the raid dies in content you are not outleveling/outgearing. It was told to me by a tank.

Later I was told healing in progression content is about prioritizing your heals. Knowing who to heal and how much to heal them at any given time. This helps when you have voice, but it is always important to know other classes abilities. It is also easier when you play with a certain players over and over because you learn their play styles and when they use defensive cooldowns and medpacs. The normal priority I use is 1. Tanks, the one on the boss get priority. 2. Other healer, 3 highest output dps, 4 Me, 5 rest of dps, in a pug that will be dps following directions, 6. dps not following directions standing in lava the entire fight. Knowing the highest output dps is difficult at times in a pug, so then I just heal all dps following directions equally. I will not kill my energy management healing the dps standing in lava. I will heal them, but if they are going to cause a wipe by killing my energy, they die.

While healing is my first priority, my second priority is to limit the damage I take. So I move out of AoE and stay away from hit zones.

The last thing I do is dps, I use attacks that don't eat any energy or take very little energy. DPS hard and then the tank takes spike damage and dies because I am out of energy can't happen. Helping with dps is no excuse for letting someone die. Healers job is to keep everyone alive, everyone makes it to enrage on their feet the entire fight, then the wipe isn't the healers fault, they did their job.