Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

[Firewind]

I think this has been bugging me for a while after having a WAR/NIN more or less leap down my throat about it: whose responsibility is it to actually count shadows?

I'm asking this because I was in a party a few weeks ago levelling my SCH sub when we had a NIN/WAR and WAR/NIN duo tanking (which is more or less essential in the Jungles due to MNK mandies and Double Attack spamming Gobbies eating Utsusemi: Ni almost instantly). I was getting a little worn out at having to cure bomb the NIN every 30 seconds or so because the shadows went down so quickly and our WHM kept pulling hate from them because of it. We both asked him to make a macro to say when shadows are down so we could prepare for the inevitable cure bomb and the WAR/NIN knew when to voke the mob off him.

This of course sent the NIN/WAR flying off the handle and yelling at both of us for "not curing enough" even though me and the WHM both more or less had hate more often than the two tanks. He basically started yelling at us and said that we should be counting the number of hits he was taking and get killed cure bombing him regardless.

This leads me to the question: is counting shadows the responsibility of the main/backup healers (and I may was well throw in backup tank) or the tank him/herself?

I understand where he is coming from as the healers are always watching the HP bars and checking battlespam for status effects but it is also VERY easy to lose track of everything in all of the battlespam and also given how often Double Attack goes off it is hard to get into a pattern of knowing when shadows are going to go down.

Or is it the responsibility of the person who is actually using the shadows to keep them up even though they have to rely on the healers behind them to be read to cure bomb them and a second voker to pull hate off them until they get shadows back up?

Of course if there is good in-party communication then problems like this never happen which is one reason why I'm trying to form up a static with some LS mates.

I'm not going to go off on the whole "I am the high and mighty healer and you can't live without me!" thing. I just thought it would make an interesting discussion. I'm mainly talking about Blink tank exp party setups here since different types of party need totally different types of strategy. Where does responsibility for counting shadows truly lie? Is it down to the tank? The second tank? The healers? Or is there some kind of joint responsibility as in the healers should know roughly when the NIN is going to start losing chunks of health but the NIN should also know when they are on their last shadow to quickly hit the Utsuemi macro?

Personally as a WHM I'm more inclined to say "RAWR NIN SHOULD COUNT ONRY!" but after speaking to some career NINs (and WAR/NINs) I do get where they are coming from when they say that the healers should be paying more attention too.

Anyway sorry about the wall of text post. I tried to space it out as much as I could. I was just curious as to what other WHMs (and any main healling class that happens to read this) think about this.

[Mhurron]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

They're casting it, they watch it.

[Taskmage]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

In your situation it doesn't sound like any amount of coordination would've helped your party. If the two tanks can't hold hate off the whm and somehow you're still "not curing enough" obviously somebody just fails too hard to be compensated for.

Most of the time it's sufficient to voke and cure when you see blood. If the ninja is so paranoid of getting hit that the voke must come instantly after the last shadow falls, first of all they need to grow some balls, second they're the ones with the icon on their screen and it's not that hard to make a macro that says "shadows down."

[Raydeus]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

I'd try to give my opinion on the subject, but unfortunately my advice would be along the lines of replacing the NIN with another DD and getting the WAR to change sub to MNK to tank.

[Temagori]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

I have to say from a 75WHM and 75SCH's point of view, it should be the NIN's responsibility to keep up with shadows, but it doesn't hurt to subconsciously take into consideration when you know they will be out of shadows so you can be prepared to cure them. (Mob TP moves, etc.)

I make it a point to set my chat filters so that all I see is the normal chat functions, (Say, Shout, Party, Linkshell, Tell) my parties actions, and the enemies actions. I turn everything else off. This is a personal preference, but it helps me keep focused on who is having what happen to them. I also turn off when party members hit, and when they miss/when mobs miss.

That filters out a lot of the "spam" so I tend to only see the important things. I do also occasionally turn off the actual damage done by my pt members which also alleviates some of the spam. Hope that helps you abit. It's my opinion/approach to the NIN.

[Ellipses]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

It may be handy for the healer to watch shadows for the sake of timing, but there really isn't much utility in it beyond that. What else is a healer going to do with that information that would make it their responsibility? The tank's HP drops, you cure.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

I have that shit filtered, yo. I don't need to see 15 fucking melees "1 of Dickwad's shadows absorb the damage and disappear." lines spammed on my screen when I'm in Dynamis. I don't even need to see it from 3 melees in my xp party. It's annoying for me to see because it bears no real relevance to what I'm doing. I can just as easily see when someone's getting hit without being told their shadows are being absorbed. The only person whose shadows I give a shit about are my own. To ask anyone to watch and count otherwise is incredibly demanding and borderline princess. I'd let him die. A lot.

That being said, I've been a healing job pretty much my whole life in this game, so I've grown used to watching HP bars, even if I can't do anything about them. I might notice if the main tank is getting assraped and voke off him, but no, I'm not going to count his fucking shadows for him. Hell, even Windower plugins don't let you be that lazy, as far as I know one of those that counts your whole party's shadows does not exist. (If it does, kill me now.)

So long story short, if your tank can't count to 3 (or 4), that's his problem. You're honestly better off leaving parties where people are being that stupid.

[Murphie]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Aksannyi makes me laff.

[Callisto]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Honestly the backup tank should be partly responsible as well, IMO. There's still a reaction time factor on the NIN's part where they'd have to hit the macro while trying to recast shadows, it's not that much to ask of the WAR to count 4-5 swings then Provoke. 'Co-tanking' implies that 2+ people are involved in it, and keeping an eye on your co-tank's status is part of the deal when you're one of them.

[Taskmage]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

It may be handy for the healer to watch shadows for the sake of timing, but there really isn't much utility in it beyond that. What else is a healer going to do with that information that would make it their responsibility? The tank's HP drops, you cure.

There's Flash. A really good whm will use it when Ni wears out so Ichi can go through uninterrupted. But since when do whms use Flash anyway, right Armando?

[Aksannyi]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

But since when do whms XP anyway, right Armando?

Fixed ... come on, I can't remember the last time I actually got an XP/meripo on WHM, even with my flag up. And I do honestly put it up, just to see if people will invite me. People who know me ask me to come RDM. :/

I should add, as a healer I don't mind getting hit once or twice while you put up your shadows, if I'm going to be cure bombing I probably put up SS beforehand anyway. But I'm not most mages, that's for sure.

[Lanih]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

It may be handy for the healer to watch shadows for the sake of timing, but there really isn't much utility in it beyond that. What else is a healer going to do with that information that would make it their responsibility? The tank's HP drops, you cure.

This is exactly what I had in mind to reply with.

As a healer, your responsibility is to try and keep the party alive. It's the ninja's job to keep his/her shadows up as much as possible. Though it helps to know when he/she is gonna start taking hits, like you could start casting regen on him/her a bit earlier...

37+ this doesn't apply though. Any good NIN will have their shadows up most of the time, so casting (at least the higher tier) regens on them is kind of a waste; it's easier to just throw a cure whenever something unexpected happens and they take a couple of hits. As long as you keep the NIN hasted, he/she shouldn't have any trouble keeping the shadows up in the first place. At least it's definitely not your fault if they do.

I also have pretty much everything filtered, except special moves from the enemy to stay on top of status curing and the damage people take, so it would just totally mess up my thing to watch the battle animations to count anyone's shadows. My eyes are on the chatlog and on the health bars 99% of the time.

[Ziero]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

The nin was a gimp and an idiot if he was really being hurt by mandys, even with Shadows down. I've solo tanked them easily on nin before and with Slow, Blind and Paralyze stuck to em Mandies are feable and weak and I had no problem recasting shadows between their attack rounds.

The war was gimp for not subbing /mnk and blood tanking them like he should have. War/Mnk with a Gaxe is a *monster* on mandies, especially if they open each fight with a WS, whether it be Shield Break to help everyone or Sturmwind just to punish the poor mob. And as a slower attacker it would cause Mandys to counter "less" while allowing the War to counter "more" due to the Mandys two hits. I've solo tanked on War in the jungles many times and many times I've had other Wars solo tank them as well.

Hell, of the six jobs I've taken through the jungles, I've main tanked mandys on each and every one. Some def gear and proper debuffs are all that's needed.

Regardless, it's the nin's job to count and keep up shadows, but it is the healer/supports job to help the nin keep them up (through debuffs if needed) while curing him when he does get hate. But it seems like you were doing that so in the end I still say the nin was a gimp.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

I was getting a little worn out at having to cure bomb the NIN every 30 seconds or so because the shadows went down so quickly and our WHM kept pulling hate from them because of it. We both asked him to make a macro to say when shadows are down so we could prepare for the inevitable cure bomb and the WAR/NIN knew when to voke the mob off him.

A macro is highly unnecessary. Blood spurting out of the other player should be enough indication to the NIN and the WAR that they should voke.

[Mog]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Simple answer, it is the tank's responsibility to look at shadows. If he gets smacked a few times, then the other backup tank should provoke. Simple as that. Some mobs it's futile having somebody else counting shadows on, such as mandies.

If he doesn't believe this, then he really shouldn't be leveling up a tank job and should level something else. I'm guessing this was in a lower level party?