Veteran Tanking

Rampeal

This has happened to me in many Vet dungeons and I was just wondering if this is common.

So I will be tanking just fine and when I get to a boss the healer just stops healing and dpsing, which is fine because most bosses I can self heal. We get to more complex bosses where you have to follow the mechanics to the letter and the healer does not heal me. Of course I die and soon many are to follow. I ask why no heals and am immediately told that they will help out a bit, but I should be self healing.

Don't get me wrong I have plenty of shields and heals it is just I spend all my stamina and magicka to self sustain and when in comes time of a huge hit I have nothing left to block with. While the healer is off healing the dps and dpsing. Is this the way it is?

VaranisArano

Did you mean to double post?

Sometimes your random healer may not know the fight very well or may be distracted keeping the DDs alive, particularly if the mechanics are intensive.

However, if you don't have the stamina to block the Boss's big attacks, you should probably re-evaluate your build and/or your combat strategy for resource management. It's really important to have the resources you need to to follow mechanics, block, bash, and so on, along with self heals. Some of those resources can come from your healer, so make sure you synergize their orbs/shards. Its not a bad thing to run more "selfish" builds that give you the resources and healing you need, especially in random groups. If you are running low and struggling because of it, that's something you can fix.

I also find that if the boss does a big attack and we all take damage, that's the moment when I need to self heal and hunker down because often the healer is spamming a heal on the DD who's about to keel over, and the healer will get to me in a second. That may not be the best strategy for the healer, but that's how it works in most random groups I end up with.

Random groups are a grab bag, and not every healer pays close attention to the tank, especially if you've been doing fine up til that fight or if there's a DD who needs extra healing.

In short, I'd say that if this is something that's happening to you a lot AND you want to keep running with random groups, you could look at using a more selfish tanking build that focuses on boosting your resources, sustain and/or self-healing.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

just sounds like bad healers to me.

Rampeal

No I didn't mean to double post. And as far as not having resources I was spending them all staying alive while the healer was dpsing.

aetherial_heavenn

There are as many fake healers out there as there are fake tanks. Spamming vigour or throwing on mutagen or springs every few secs is not sufficient for a lot of vet healing. Unfortunately this game makes that sufficient for most older and normal content because dps burns can bypass mechanics that made healing necessary. Then the fakers go into group content designed to need all 3 roles, like recent vet DLC stuff and blame the tank for dying.

The number of times I have heard from wanna be eltists...'just spam springs' as if that is all there is to being a useful support.

True Healers do a lot more...provide resources, heal dps and tank simultaneously, debuff the boss, shield squishy glass cannons, provide interrupt s and dps in between. Then the deeps get to post huge numbers from that ele drain/combat prayer/no vigour, pure dps rotation uptime.

There are some amazing self sufficient tanks with perfect builds and rotations who may not need a healer even in vet hard mode but they are extremely rare. Even good tanks need support. In this case, as a healer, I would agree,,,sounds like a bad healer.

VaranisArano

Rampeal wrote: »

No I didn't mean to double post. And as far as not having resources I was spending them all staying alive while the healer was dpsing.

So if resources aren't normally a problem in vet dungeons when you have a decent healer, I wouldn't worry about changing your build, unless you want to be more self-sufficient in the event of getting a not-decent random healer.

Its up to you whether you have this problem enough to warrant a change, or whether it might be easier to queue up with a healer you know and trust.

Suddwrath

For some reason, for reasons which I do not understand, I have come across several healers who flat out refused to heal players if that player was not playing exactly how that healer wanted them to.
Not tanking the boss at the exact pixel that the healer wanted them in while not facing perfectly NW? No heals for you.
As a dps, you accidentally ran through a red circle. No heals for you.
And when the person asked why they weren't receiving heals, the healer basically answered along the lines of "I'm not going to heal you if you aren't going to [insert their preference]".

So it sounds like you probably just ended up with either bad or fake healers. As a tank you should be able to self sustain, but it shouldn't be an excuse for the healer to not heal you at all.

Vermethys

SaltySudd wrote: »

For some reason, for reasons which I do not understand, I have come across several healers who flat out refused to heal players if that player was not playing exactly how that healer wanted them to.
Not tanking the boss at the exact pixel that the healer wanted them in while not facing perfectly NW? No heals for you.
As a dps, you accidentally ran through a red circle. No heals for you.
And when the person asked why they weren't receiving heals, the healer basically answered along the lines of "I'm not going to heal you if you aren't going to [insert their preference]".

So it sounds like you probably just ended up with either bad or fake healers. As a tank you should be able to self sustain, but it shouldn't be an excuse for the healer to not heal you at all.

I remember once pugging vSpindle2 for a pledge and got a healer who refused to heal or do anything because I was on my Sorcerer tank then. My Sorc tank is in meta/BiS gear mind you, but the healer stood at the far back during each fight, being carried until the rest of us decided to kick him. We carried on like no one was missing.

To OP, for starters I recommend building your tank to be able to self-sustain and self-heal completely up to non-DLC vet dungeon standards (while using group support sets of course). As in you'd be able to do every base game dungeon with 3DDs no problem. As for DLC dungeons, always select your group members instead of pugging.

Iskiab

SaltySudd wrote: »

For some reason, for reasons which I do not understand, I have come across several healers who flat out refused to heal players if that player was not playing exactly how that healer wanted them to.

And when the person asked why they weren't receiving heals, the healer basically answered along the lines of "I'm not going to heal you if you aren't going to [insert their preference]".

I don’t know the specifics of the situation, but some healing abilities are directional.

I’ve done some DLC vets where dps were running around like chickens with their head’s cut off. In a mechanic heavy encounter, if dps run around they can make it hard to heal them. Without good positioning you can’t afford to be turn around to heal people, a hot at best is what they’ll get.

FrancisCrawford

Iskiab wrote: »

SaltySudd wrote: »

For some reason, for reasons which I do not understand, I have come across several healers who flat out refused to heal players if that player was not playing exactly how that healer wanted them to.

And when the person asked why they weren't receiving heals, the healer basically answered along the lines of "I'm not going to heal you if you aren't going to [insert their preference]".

I don’t know the specifics of the situation, but some healing abilities are directional.

I’ve done some DLC vets where dps were running around like chickens with their head’s cut off. In a mechanic heavy encounter, if dps run around they can make it hard to heal them. Without good positioning you can’t afford to be turn around to heal people, a hot at best is what they’ll get.

When healing a PUG dungeon, the first skill I hit when I see significant health bar movement is almost always Ward Ally. Then I figure out what to do next. Facing the wrong way is no excuse for missing a heal.

Llaren_Uvayn

I come across loads of fake healers who mainly just dps and occasionally cast mutagen. Fortunately, Polar Winds is a pretty strong heal but it bothers me when the tank has to keep the party alive.