Blinking Constantly As A Tank

[Eddie]

They need to add a way so the target stays is all. I hate targeting stuff and right when I gear swap I lose it. One of the little things I wish they would fix for once.

[dendryte]

As people enter and leave the alliance, the on-screen order of people changes over time; the two allied parties can even switch positions on screen. Kinda makes <px>/<ax> not so great.

[Miji]

It's hard to tell for me for some reason, but are the posts about people using an entire palette for each cure tier serious?

[Ichthyos]

Maybe they made windower binds.

[Ryko]

I refuse to switch visible gear for shadow tanking :/ better safe than sorry, and you can have as high as 316 shield skill without having to do so.

[aurik]

/ma "Curesomething" <targetname> works. Just modify your scripts for the tank set you have onhand for the day.

[Allundaria]

Having a short and easily typed name has saved our tanks on numerous occassions

[Vail]

They need to add a way so the target stays is all. I hate targeting stuff and right when I gear swap I lose it. One of the little things I wish they would fix for once.

[kisada]

I refuse to switch visible gear for shadow tanking :/ better safe than sorry, and you can have as high as 316 shield skill without having to do so.

i agree.

forcing all my mages out of their comfort zone and making them clear out all their regular macros seems pretty excessive for marginal benefits.

i just don't think it's worth the hassle if i already get the job done properly (and well).

however, if there was an extreme difference in benefits, then i'd be much more inclined.

[Septimus]

Having a short and easily typed name has saved our tanks on numerous occassions

If only more people knew that when they started the game. When you have a long name, you just shouldn't tank. For example:

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 200 points of damage.

WHM: Oh no! Tonko is at 75% HP, I better cure him.

/ma "Cure V" Tonkounafrjuid

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 250 points of damage.

WHM: I must type his name faster...

nmviotrnuifdjhibsiobnuinuiremgiofnmoifd

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 200 points of damage.

WHM: For the love of all things bright and beautiful! I'm not Evelyn Woods here!

vnfklvnkjfgnkjfgvnopgfnkjfnipgfnvgnopihfuierhfuivn jkfgn

WHM: Hang in there Tonko, I'll finish typing your name in 30 seconds!

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 250 points of damage.

iofgvnuipovtr9utjrv89ngr9bfruiobrg4jg0tjb9uinmegtn[ury

WHM: I'm not going to make it!!!!!

bmlgpfbmokfnmbofdn*ofgdnofgmbgrpmdgi

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 300 points of damage.

Tonko was defeated by the Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness.

nuivbuivtn980ubv3ui0nui054nu893vny8954tvy78r3bkjl5 <Enter>

WHM: So close!

I kid, I kid.

[DreizehnOfSiren]

lol my name is pretty short.. but people can't spell it, even in normal chat. :/

i'd really like a way to target players even if they swap gear, i've had some of my <st> macros get f'd up because i run over the melees that are meleeing and they swap gears on me while i pass over them.

[Kazen]

Having a short and easily typed name has saved our tanks on numerous occassions

If only more people knew that when they started the game. When you have a long name, you just shouldn't tank. For example:

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 200 points of damage.

WHM: Oh no! Tonko is at 75% HP, I better cure him.

/ma "Cure V" Tonkounafrjuid

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 250 points of damage.

WHM: I must type his name faster...

nmviotrnuifdjhibsiobnuinuiremgiofnmoifd

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 200 points of damage.

WHM: For the love of all things bright and beautiful! I'm not Evelyn Woods here!

vnfklvnkjfgnkjfgvnopgfnkjfnipgfnvgnopihfuierhfuivn jkfgn

WHM: Hang in there Tonko, I'll finish typing your name in 30 seconds!

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 250 points of damage.

iofgvnuipovtr9utjrv89ngr9bfruiobrg4jg0tjb9uinmegtn[ury

WHM: I'm not going to make it!!!!!

bmlgpfbmokfnmbofdn*ofgdnofgmbgrpmdgi

The Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness hits Tonko for 300 points of damage.

Tonko was defeated by the Angry Crab of Infinite Emptiness.

nuivbuivtn980ubv3ui0nui054nu893vny8954tvy78r3bkjl5 <Enter>

WHM: So close!

I kid, I kid.

Which is why I like my name

[Fng]

Mine is good, but I don't tank!

[Eddie]

lol my name is pretty short.. but people can't spell it, even in normal chat. :/

i'd really like a way to target players even if they swap gear, i've had some of my <st> macros get f'd up because i run over the melees that are meleeing and they swap gears on me while i pass over them.

Did ya not read my post?

[Sylphet]

Blinking is the worst god damned thing in this game. Ok maybe not the worst but it's up there.

Solutions:

1: Name macros:
The most direct solution to this is to just write the name of the Player you want to cure into the macro. Problem solved right!? Well no, not really. Since when does a healer only cure one person? You're assisting in one person's survival but kind of screwing over anyone who doesn't. Also, this can work oooook for a single tank situation but what about when you have 2-3 tanks? WHMs should rearrange their macro pallet so that they have 3 Cure III spells, 3 Cure V spells etc? No matter how you slice it or dice it, it takes longer to manually type out /ma "Cure V" playername than it does to hit a macro, and damn it sucks when you mistype something.

There are 2 instances when I actually will use a named macro:
A) when there is an event where one WHM is assigned to a DD/tank: e.g. TP burn Kirin, or Souleater Kraken DRK
B) Powerleveling. I make Haste, Cure III and Cure V (IV for RDM PL) macros for all the DD in the party I'm PLing.

Way back when, I was an out pt WHM (nobody used in pt WHMs) and I would make /ta macros for the tanks. However nobody really blinked very much back then anyway so I would just cycle the /ta to see how everyone was doing. Then I learned how to /assist the mob so that I could figure out who was target, but that can leave some people with lower HP than you realize if there's AOE damage involved. Then times changed... tanks evolved! The tank party evolved! The glory of elemental resistance and the Cleric's Pantaloons was revealed. WHMs were no longer relegated to out-party-i-have-to-beg-to-be-let-in-party-to-get-title-for-nm-i've-helped-kill-countless-times world. And the MFing tanks keep blinking, however it is easier when they're actually in party to keep an eye on their HP as well as target them. Make the named macros if you feel like it. They don't hurt, but most WHMs hate having to constantly re-make their macro pallets.

2: Tanks don't blink!
Wow I was amazed to see a couple tanks in this post actually say that they actively try not to blink when shadows are down. That makes me want to give you big WHM hugs and kisses. However, I feel that this is a much more feasable option for PLDs as opposed to NINs. NINs as a whole have to blink a lot more due to stupid SE requiring they have 500 gear sets to do their job properly.

3: Get used to the timing, pay attention to what the mob is doing, have fast fingers.
Honestly, this is what I do. Learn the moves that clear shadows. Know when your tank is going to blink. It does help if the tank can inform mages when timers are down so we can be aware that massive gear swaps will ensue. Paying attention to what's going on in the fight and knowing what prompts your tank to change gear helps tremenously in terms of being able to not get your cures either not going off or worse, bounced back on you. If it's a single tank situation you can even go so far as to count shadows however that gets rather impossible if you have a 2-3 tank situation or even an event with multiple people as most WHMs I know including myself don't put on many filters because we like to see what's happening to everyone. The spam just gets overwhelming.

I have 0 faith that SE will ever do anything about blinking. Just have to deal with it in the best ways we can.

[DreizehnOfSiren]

lol my name is pretty short.. but people can't spell it, even in normal chat. :/

i'd really like a way to target players even if they swap gear, i've had some of my <st> macros get f'd up because i run over the melees that are meleeing and they swap gears on me while i pass over them.

Did ya not read my post?

i was agreeing with you <.<

[Stellar]

I rarely switch visible gear tanking either... It's easy to say, "well your mages should type out names or use some other method of curing" but you can never really force your way of playing on everyone else. There are a few times when I will switch visible gear as ninja.. Tiamat air -> ground -> air in and out of barfire set. Fafnir during terror will switch to full -phys dmg including terra's staff if i feel it necessary. I hear praise from some of our whm's about how easy it is to keep my target..

I use controller and <st> for pld cure macroes and <t> for rdm macroes.. I like to cure people outside of my alliance when they need it and usually it's not too much of a problem retargetting someone. Typing names would be way too time consuming for me and i'm a pretty fast typer.. some names are just way too long .-.

[Dusky]

For the typing name thing (and I'm pretty sure I learned this here somewhere, can't remember the thread...) if the person is in your alliance or party, you can type /ma "Cure X" Tonk <tab>" and the rest of the name will be filled in. If you're not in alliance or party with them, send them a tell, and their name will also be able to be auto-completed the same way.

I'm not sure how long the name stays in the memory after sending a tell, because I rarely type out names, but it's come in handy once or twice. ^^

[Popeh]

If you expect mages to make macro's for seperate tanks every event and fight then your off your head! >.>

If you have a mage dedicated to healing in the party, it's generally safe to gear swop, but if you die then it's your fault. You obviously felt the need that an EVA or DEF boost was going to do more good than a fast casted cure.

If you don'd have a mage in your party, then have mages assigned to you. I generally type the command in while resting and use / scroll up for direct person target, which is why i'm generally silent during events.

If your loosely getting healed (no dedicated alliance/outside healer), than you should avoid gear changes until your safe to do so.

Just my thoughts. To be honest, your LS mages should decide how they prefer for you since most mages work differently.

[Eddie]

I never had problems with anyone "blinking". Maybe because of my 'fast fingers', for more details on those bad boys, as Popeh!