Preprot

From Guild Wars Wiki

Preprotting is the act of applying prot before a spike or damage occurs. Reactively protting a target means that initial damage packets slip through and need to be healed, but by watching the battlefield a competent player can predict enemy movements and prot a target before the damage occurs. Perfect preprotting involves protting a target at exactly the moment damage falls when the opponent is already committed such that damage, time and energy/adrenaline is wasted.

This is often achieved by watching the position of any melee targets who can only attack adjacent foes or by watching the direction of facing for ranged spikes and predicting a likely target and protting it just before the damage lands.

Perfect timing is important in preprotting. Protting too late means that some damage packets slip through and require healing, protting too early means that a new target may be selected effectively wasting the prot or in some cases the prot may be removed during a spike before it can prevent any damage resulting in wasted energy and possibly a dead ally.

Preprotting in PvE usually consists of casting defensive enchantments on one person before they run in to aggro a group. Protective Spirit would be the most important example of this, especially in hard mode.