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Originally Posted by
Quor
Here's the truth; this game is made, by the devs, to encourage as much dps as possible. This is largely as a result of enrage timers and other dps checks. If you don't meet the dps check, you wipe, simple as that.
I disagree. The game has become all about DPS because things like actual tanking, mitigation, maintaining aggro, and healing are extremely trivialized compared to other games except for some of the most difficult content in the game (i.e., Ultimate Savage). After establishing a solid lead in enmity on a particular boss, aside from mitigating certain attacks (usually tankbusters), what else is there to do? Contribute to party DPS. After making sure the party and tank are topped up, have shields, or have HoTs ticking, what else is there to do? Contribute to party DPS.
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And since we're not all uber gosu top .2% players of our classes, it means everyone has to pull their weight and a bit more. Every GCD not spent optimizing damage is a GCD that could mean Exdeath Meteor's your group instead of transitioning to Neo. So I say, let's get rid of enrage timers.
What’s wrong with everyone having to pull their weight? DPS are expected to spend all their GCDs dealing damage, but this game does not require tanks to spend every GCD mitigating damage/increasing enmity (since SB, maintaining aggro has become trivialized and is ridiculously easy, in tank stance and out of it; it’s made even more easy when you have healers and DPS that watch their own enmity and use quellers/dumps as needed). Nor does it require healers to spend every GCD healing (in a lot of the more casual content, healers tend to spend 20~30% of their GCDs healing, so what are they do to with the other 70~80%). A PLD that stands there only hitting Flash, or using their RoH combo every minute or so isn’t acceptable in higher-end content, nor is a healer standing there casting a GCD every 20~30 seconds acceptable (and such performance is completely inexcusable at an Extreme trial/Savage raid/Ultimate level).
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Why do we even have them any more?
Because then a party can bring 6 tanks and 2 healers and spend 30 minutes to an hour wailing on a boss until it finally dies. They aren’t going to be punished for failing mechanics frequently (i.e., they aren’t punished for dying and receiving damage penalties from Weakness or Brink of Death), and they won’t be punished for “running out of time”—be it by a hard enrage or soft enrage—so why bother bringing actual damage dealers?
I see you later mention Zurvan and why people were doing solo-tank strats with it—well, the OT spot was trivialized if your MT knew what they were doing, and your healers kept the MT healed up and alive. There was no need for a tank swap, and Provoke-Shirk did not exist at the time (which only makes maintaining highest enmity even more cheesable, mind you). Why bring a second tank? They were there purely to deal damage (since there was no need to tank swap, and adds could easily be picked up by the one MT), so why not just bring a DPS, who deals damage “better” than a tank? Sure, I suppose you could have kept the second tank as a “back-up”, but they would still be fulfilling this “DPS meta” you’re going on about. It wouldn’t have been acceptable for them to /sit on the edge of the arena and wait for their “chance” to do something; they would have been at Zurvan wailing on him.
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Every single encounter in this game is already gated behind either a player level or an item level. Barring certain exceptional circumstances, if you don't have the ilvl or character level to enter a certain duty, then you just can't enter it. So if a person has the ability to enter an duty, why further restrict their ability to complete said duty by imposing another arbitrary hurdle to overcome?
Just because a player has the ability to enter a duty (by meeting minimum item level or level requirement) doesn’t mean they have the ability to complete it. That’s what difficulty scaling and enrage timers are there for: to encourage a person to develop the skills needed to get better if they want to clear the content. Plus, I don’t think the developers wanted Extremes/Savages/Ultimate to be content where people could go in for 60~120 minutes, and spend the entire 60~120 minutes on a single pull.
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Think about it. How great would it be for a close-knit group of average players, none of them top tier at their class, but all of them competent, to marathon their way through an encounter together. Maybe it takes them 60 minutes of straight fighting to clear OS4, but if they can do the mechanics then why impose the arbitrary hurdle of an enrage timer?
If this “group of average players” can safely perform the mechanics, what is stopping them from performing their jobs at a level to beat the content with the enrage timer present?
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By removing enrage timers, you can let tanks tank, healers heal, and dps can dps.
This is incorrect. With no enrage timers, why even bring DPS in the first place? The additional damage isn’t needed. If there was no hard enrage in Neo, you don’t need that minimum 24,000 rDPS to beat the fight in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. That “group of average players” are able to spend 60 minutes wailing on Neo-Exdeath without such a restriction. They don’t need DPS jobs to speed things up if they want to take their time with the content. Bring a RDM to chain-rez tanks if they go down, or a healer if they go down, maybe a BRD/MCH to provide MP/TP if needed (because you know resources are going to be stretched thin if you take 60 minutes for one pull), but other than that, the rest can just be tanks or healers.
Removing an enrage timer wouldn’t really encourage tanks to “tank” more, nor for healers to “heal” more. If the developers want to encourage that, then tanks should have more worries when it comes to mitigation/aggro. Make tank stances actually matter. Right now, outside of large dungeon pulls where the damage mitigation (or healing bonus, with regards to Defiance since it doesn’t offer mitigation), tank stances are more or less arbitrary. Establish hate in a couple of GCDs, and then switch to DPS stance. If the developers want healers to heal more, then harder content should have more outgoing damage. I feel like V4S was a step in the right direction, what with heavy-hitting party damage like Almagest, and any healer that tries to get away with not healing in Ultimate are in for a rude awakening; but there is still plenty of time (in V4S, anyways...less so in Ultimate, but the time is still there) spent not healing.
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But for people who don't want to (or can't) do that, it would be another path to success that doesn't focus on insane dps optimization.
You don’t need “insane dps optimization” to clear Neo; you don’t need to be some “uber gosu top .2% players of our classes” to clear. It can be cleared without the meta-comp, which is meta because of the synergy and optimization the jobs in the meta give, not because it is required to clear content—the meta is only needed if individuals are interested in top-tier optimization, and that only works if they actually understand how to optimize. You don’t need that optimization to clear Neo.
This statement here, to me, seems like just another way to promote laziness—players don’t actually need to learn how to play their jobs or anything, if enrage timers aren’t present. And I’m not even talking at some “uber optimized” level either, but even at a basic level.
Very few fights outside of Extremes, Savage, and Ultimate even have enrage timers (some 24-man bosses have them, but if you’re struggling with a 24-man, probably a good idea to not try your hand at any higher-end content until you can comfortablely get through Rabanastre). To a casual player that is not interested in those three types of content, removing the enrage timers doesn’t affect them. If players are interested in that type of content, well, it’s designed to be more difficult than 24-mans or “expert” roulette for a reason. Learn to play at the level needed for the content rather than asking for a pass not to.
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Remove the enrage timers and you remove a large part of the impetus behind everyone trying to push out as much dps as possible. Right now, there is no choice; you either dps hard enough to avoid enrage/clear the check or you wipe. If SE is serious about not wanting the dps speed/efficiency meta to reign supreme, then they need to remove dps checks and enrage timers and let players choose whether they want to run a sprint or a marathon.
I’m just going to repeat my last statement: If players are interested in that type of content (Extremes, Savage, or Ultimate), well, it’s designed to be more difficult than 24-mans or “expert” roulette for a reason. Learn to play at the level needed for the content rather than asking for a pass not to.