Guarding the Healers

As someone who spends 90% of the time tanking, I agree with you in general. The only ones who occasionally pull from me in guild ops will be our full Dread Guard Marauders. Even then it is not that often. When I do a HM FP pug and some ranged DPS thinks they are so awesome and demand the guard I find it funny. More often than not, they pull aggro simply due to the fact that they start the pull before I do. I find that 80% of aggro issues are poorly behaved DPS. Pulling first and not burning the weak and the adds first so they end up mobbing the healer.

I tend to be dynamic about who i guard, Start with it on melee DPS. DPS that pulls before me gets no guard and it goes on healer since I can see that this is going to be a problem group. You have to guage the group and see where it will do the most good.

yes but im betting u are better geared then most tanks. i know when i dps if don't have a guard i pull the boss alot even when i drop aggro correctly and thats where i want the guard so i normally ask for guard on weaker tanks long before any boss. i never seen a fresh tionese tank hold aggro aganst me without guarding me and sometimes even then i have to really turn down the dps to give the tank a chance to hold aggro. yes i play the good dps and wait for tanks unless they take a long time(ie me sitting for 4minutes or more wait on the tank) or its clear they don't know how to tank and most mobs at not a big deal.

when i play on alts that are not as geared i do often see the right dps not get guard(ie sent/mara pulling aggro like crazy on the boss while the healer is guard who has 16k). i do see that guarding a heal is ok sometimes but its more of a buffer for the tank to help manage aggro and usally not needed unless there a good size difference in gear and imo something is better then nothing.

i do note that all tank should have target of target up. if u lose aggro it show to who so u know who u need to guard if u are not guarding already just to give u that extra buffer in threat when the boss fight comes.

So i do pretty much all PUG FPs because our guild is new and nobody wants to do them. If im understanding it correctly, the shield adds a damage red./ pretection. Im a sage and the Pug tanks r always shielding me( great ill take it lol). But theres so many MDPS that think there Bruce Lee they get melted faster than i can heal(is that my inexperience or theres?).
On the main point here, if those Bruce Lees get the shield it prob help them and keep me from having to heal so fast as to get the aggro?

there is only 2 reasons to garding healers , 1 being pvp the 2nd 1 , is if you are doing 16 man tfb hard mode , there threat is 100% when you go in to him , and they can pull of tanks if they are spam healing at the start , if they are unlcuky and doing loads of healing "" but this is only in 16 man for some reason never seen in 8 man rest of time best dps , gets it inless you want to kill them ....

In Operations, I put my guard on a DPS. Inspiration + Adrenal at the start of the fight could cost me a taunt, and I don't like to waste them.
In FP's, I guard the healer. Just to prevent problems with adds, if the group isn't really good.

This is, it doesn't prevent problems, because the adds always go for the healer, unless attacked or taunted. This happens regardless of the healer having guard or not.

The only thing you could say in favor if that stategy is "the healer will have 5% additional damage reduction", but even so I bet melee DPS would probably need it more than the healer.

guard the dps anyways even if dps do not kill adds. If dps dont go kill adds you need to pick them up and the dps will have to tank the elites. Dont worry about them dying just be ready to taunt when the elite go for healer. If the healer is smart he wont heal the "tanking" dps and the elite will run to you and you wont even have to taunt. Keep dooing this untill dps learns the killorder or leaves because of "bad healing" or "bad tanking"

As a healer if i get the guard i usually dont say anything unless there´s a OP dps in the group. Then i´ll suggest to give guard to the high dps. Sometimes the tank asks why and you´ll have to explain. If the guard dont shift then i dont care much. An OP dps that pulls agro is easy to heal if he just follows killorder.

I find the most infuriating thing at the moment is the tanks that die instantly and blame the healers and u can't explain that they're in the wrong combat stance etc. Last guy was like 'yeh it's better to do some dps on the side'....eh no ur a tank.......tank

In Reality the guard should be dependent on what fight you are going into.

I have played healing/tanking/dps in the operations and in some situations the healer should have the guard.

Why? even thought the dps might pull from the mob that they are attacking, its not as important as a healer that might pull multiple ranged mobs at once and its more important to keep the healer from not dying from that (EC comes to mind)

During mob fights I guard the healer

In many boss fights i guard a melee dps, but there are some fights where the dps is not attacking the boss (adds, mind traps, other bosses) and I will guard the healer.

As a healer there have been times I have pulled because I am going all out (all cooldowns i can at the time) to keep people alive and pull because the dps are preoccupied during the fight. Healers have less defensive cooldowns then most dps and if your healer dies, it can usually wipe a group.

In Kephess Undying I'll put my guard the highest dps for the first part and then change it to a healer after a little bit, just like in pvp.

Theres no set rule, think.

Edit: Also I play a scoundrel scrapper, who will sometimes pull at the beginning of a fight EVEN with a guard. What I do now is use half my opening burst moves, threat drop, use the rest. Threat drop moves are instant off the GCD so I can use it in the middle of my rotation, problem is usually solved.

@CJAShadow, Tell me something.

When I'm healing HM EC and HM TfB on my sage, why is it that I rarely (if ever) pull aggro on trash?

I may occasionally pull one mob that no one has gotten around to. I hit my stun (or maybe just self-bubble) and shortly thereafter someone takes him back and I can continue healing unmolested.

All this without ever. being. guarded.

Could it be (perish the thought) that the tanks and dps in my raid group know what they're doing and so don't have to guard me to cover some other failing in CCs, kill order, or threat mechanics?

Hmmmm.