What would prevent 0/1 Healer clears of content?

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Originally Posted by Keichi

What is the problem?

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The problem is, that this situation of healers being able to be optimized out of the trinity, in a trinity-based MMO, is growing out of control. While there is casual play available, where your party composition really doesn't matter so long as there's even the littlest bit of competence, much of the graduated or more "fun" (battle) content relies on and requires greater levels of competence, coordination, and optimization in order to be completed. When it so happens that 1/3rd of the trinity is left out due to optimization, and achievable due to coordination and competence, then it effectively means that 1/3rd of said trinity can be made obsolete. Yet, this does not happen with the other 2/3rds of the trinity.

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There was only one group who did it in one content.

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Supposedly the hardest content in the game, which should, by all rights, require all of the trinity in a trinity-based game system. Furthermore, this is not the only content where this has been done. I suggest you take time to research this further before forming your opinion on the response to a single piece of content, because the responses that are coming in, if you take the time to comprehend them, are coming with perspectives across a wide scope of content.

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Who even sacreficed the freedom of free class choice, for substituted the missing healer.

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It's more accurate to believe that this was done due to freedom of choice. In other words, because they desired to, they played without the healer role and succeeded.

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They even had healer in Form of 3 paladin.

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Actually, all of the jobs on the team had some form of ability to provide healing and/or support for the party, which is part of the issue regarding FFXIV's balance amongst the trinity. In my opinion this sort of balance could be a good thing if only it wasn't at the total exclusion and expense of 4 jobs/1 role.

Also, to be clear, it was 2 Paladins, 1 Warrior, 1 Monk, 1 Reaper, 1 Red Mage, 1 Dancer, and 1 Summoner. If you're trying to make an assessment of a situation, I suggest you start by keeping track of the situation's basic facts. Use references if needed.
Edit: Although, if there was yet another team that completed the content without healers, and it happened to have 3 paladins, then it would just further prove that this is not so impossible because there would be more groups achieving this.

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Yeah, maybe it can suck, if the healer isnt needed that much. But, that is nothing that can truly changed, without make it bad for other roles or the whole group.

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So basically: "it's ok if the healer role has a bad time, aren't fun, and can be ignored, because it makes my favored role more fun." :cool:

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"Let make the Boss more dmg" = can easly create frustration. Classes with weaker defense could easily be one shoted or two hitted with that.

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If you are unfamiliar, this has been the general strategy with a majority of content more advanced than the general MSQ: one-shot mechanics, high-damage abilities, or mechanics that cause certain death, which need to be avoided or be taken on the Tank (keeping 1/3rd of that trinity relevant for as long as they can). This strategy isn't usually employed in story dungeons beyond the Tank needing to keep enmity, so if that's your concern, you can be sure that we have years and expansions to prove that this can (and will) remain unchanged.

With regards to more difficult content, there is actually a lot of discussion that can be found in the Healer Role forum, among other places, where the conclusion has been made that simply increasing damage dealt would not be enough unless other changes were implemented at the same time. If you're really wanting to get into this conversation, I advise you to read up on this discussion by investigating other threads.

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Ok, this problem are reduced, once the player have the higher item lvl. But, the problem would be more, until the Player reached that point

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This is called progression. It's part of the game's design to work that way, and it is a good thing when implemented by the developers and utilized by the players correctly.
You do things, you get numbers, you get equipment that gets you bigger numbers, and those bigger numbers continue to get bigger. These numbers all factor into your spreadsheet, your character, and shows that you are progressing (and, if this is implemented well and utilized correctly, is an introductory glance of your potential competency and capabilities). Tackling challenges that are too great may mean that you need to return to that challenge in the future, when your numbers are bigger or additional practice and experience has been acquired.
It isn't usually an accurate measure of a player's total potential, but getting to those numbers usually means you have met the pre-requisites required to at least be numerically eligible to complete the content in question so long as you have the competency for it.

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It is not even the case, that they are not needed. In dungeon are they important for the mob, before you reach the Boss. And like i sayed a little above, are they needed yet for the New content (esspecial second raid).

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There is much footage out on youtube or other video sharing services that prove your statements to be wrong. Again, I advise you to research this topic more.

Healers are helpful for those cases where the players involved are lacking for skill or equipment, but a majority of the basic story dungeon content has been simplified and streamlined to accommodate for the lowest of skill levels, so that only extreme lack of one or the other or both would cause an actual need for healers' competency. As of Endwalker, at the very least, many of the mistakes you have witnessed (or will witness) regarding healers and their ability to utilize their healing properly, is generally going to be because they are not prepared for situations where their healing is truly necessary for survival/success. This runs especially true if the healer only plays through the story, as it is not designed to require healing as an absolute necessity if other tactics are employed.

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But, it is good, if they important is reduced.

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It would be good if it was because they were being brought in line with the importance of other jobs/roles in terms of importance, but that's not what's happening.
Because the level of importance can be diminished to the point of making them obsolete, this is a bad thing. It means that there is something wrong with the game's design, whether that be because of job balance, battle design, or encounter design, it is a failure of the game.

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It sucks, if the succes is based mostly about, if one or two Player (or 6 by the big raids) plays right.

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Yeah, it does suck. It's not fun when someone is more important, during play time with multiple people, than others.
But you say that, despising that healers could be that important, and then you say

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I can not count, how many times the healer died by the end dungeons of endwalker, last year. It happens so often, that my tank Partner and i maked allready fun about it. And whe was mostly only able to finish the fights, because the tank was a paladin, who healed me or protected me for the big dmg attacks.

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So why is it that the situation only sucks if the healer is important? Why is it that you don't believe the situation sucks when other jobs are the only ones that were necessary to succeed?

I know why, I'm sure others know why. I know Semirhage, among at least 7 other frequent posters, can come up with at least 7 different and amusing ways to describe it.
I recommend that you take a moment to reflect on your personal bias before that happens, if it does.

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One time when i played white mage

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So all of this to say that the healer role, and its players, should be allowed to be irrelevant to the game because you had an experience where you could not complete content as a healer, and also had other experiences where healers made mistakes (and you made fun of them for it, despite that you admitted that you were not able to do any better). You think it's unfair and unfun for the other party members, particularly the DD and your friend, the Tank, if the healer's capability needs to be factored into your team-based gameplay in order for you to succeed.
You're that kind of DPS player. Good to know.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Supposedly the hardest content in the game, which should, by all rights, require all of the trinity in a trinity-based game system.

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With a flaw though, and a flaw many games have: players can optimize certain requirements out of a game. Why bother taking a health stat in an single player RPG when you arent supposed to get hit? Its why games like dark souls exist, as they simply try to get players to never invest in stats you arent supposed to use.

Difficulty in this game is generaly dodging mechanics, and outside of that dealing as much damage as possible. It nearly always has been, healers were only required because most players simply arent good enough to not have one in the team.

The real issue isnt even that its possible. Hell, if people want to do that, go ahead and have fun. Its at the same level of using 4 blue mages in that things can change a lot when you are chaning the format. The issue is that its in theory more optimal to do, and therefor puts a focus onto optimizing healers out of the group. That is what makes it bad. This can only be resolved by making healers mandatory, either through matchmaking, or through mechanics. Mechanics on that have the issue of outgearing.

That it happens now... thats fine, they at least now know that in the future they realy need to focus more towards healers in balance. If it happens every time, then sadly no matter how difficult they call this content, its not as difficult as it could be, and therefor devalues the achievement.

Forcing healers into the party is needed because it has a desired side effect since any healer you optimize out of the team allows higher dps, and makes the challenge easier. So making the healer mandatory keeps the requirements strict. Even if the healer is pressing only 1, its reduced dps will still be noticed.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

This can only be resolved by making healers mandatory, either through matchmaking, or through mechanics.

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Healers are mandatory in DF. Its why FFXIV doesn't have the issue ESO has where dps can and DO replace healers (and even tanks).

Where ESO succeeds slightly and FFXIV is the last part of your sentance: ESO has heal checks made specifically for healers that fake healers who aren't properly built in stats can't achieve.

Maybe in dungeons, but not in raids. There's always one.

And no. Ultimate should not EVER be able to drop healers. Its the hardest content in the game. It should be testing all 3 roles. Period. Its the whole reason why the content exists.

Good news, Harrowing Hell hurts like, well, hell, in Week 1 gear. Bad news, getting BIS will likely make it way way less threatening. Also some groups are electing to just Tank LB it, and tbh, fair enough it's a valid approach (thankfully not ours because we ended up needing the healer LB right after). I maintain my original position, having progged as SCH, but clearing on WHM (a friend plays SGE and we went together): 'Heal checks' like this, where we have to mitigate a lot and spam heals, are only fun as the mit-focused healer. As SCH, I was having to consider that 'Expedient is 20s I can pop that right away. Soil is only 15 so I should hold it for a bit, else it'll fall off before the end of the phase. Also, Seraph, or Dissipation? I'll use every fairy skill, then Dissipate, as the potency gained from using more than 5 GCDs outweighs the potency of 2 Consolations'. For WHM, it was 'Press Temperance as castbar ends. Spam Lilies until out, then Cure3. Use Lilybell after 4 smashes.'

Once again, a 'heal check' that is actually just 'mit check', the check being 'did you press every mit across your entire team' this time. And yet at other parts of the fight, I found myself, as SCH, with Aetherflow ready and either 1 or 2 stacks left over unused from the previous set (no dissipation uses), meaning that while Harrowing is very healing intensive, there's spaces in the fight that just... aren't. Even in week 1 gear. It's very strange

I haven't touched Savage yet (disorganized static noises) but I'm already groaning and whipping out the old Bingo card at the guide videos. For this fight, you'll need clock positions, partner stacks, and light parties which go East and West. Drop the waymarks 1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D in a circle. The fight opens with a raidwide, so mitigate and heal. Then there's a tankbuster which requires a tank swap.

Quick, which fight did I describe? Eeeefffffff me I wish they shake this paint-by-numbers design up, the casualization of Savage is choking the life out of encounter design and the dogpoop job design isn't enough to make it entertaining by itself.

To be honest with the 1st question, nothing will prevent content to be cleared without heal, because no matter what they do, people will try and succeed into making run with 1 or no healer. DPS is always the role speed runner want the most, tanks are easily mandatory because all dps die in 2 auto from bosses and cannot stand TB, so 1 tank would lead into many inevitable deaths which are far worse than everything.

Healer on the downside double struggle with better ilvl, then people take less dommage and healer heal more. And nothing would change this.

If we can find root issue, it's FFXIV classic roles which tend to extend from their initial roles : DPS mitig and some bring some heal. Tank is heavy mitig and some heal. And healer is heal, mitig and dps. Role are less strict, But as healer are the only one who get heal on demand, they somehow act as safety net, as they are nearly the only who can save people then they do mistakes.

But i disagree when people say they are useless, it's not because some top crazy people can clear some hardest content without it means they are useless. Nearly all content could be cleared without DPS, what doesn't mean they are useless.

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Originally Posted by Sparkthor

To be honest with the 1st question, nothing will prevent content to be cleared without heal, because no matter what they do, people will try and succeed into making run with 1 or no healer. DPS is always the role speed runner want the most, tanks are easily mandatory because all dps die in 2 auto from bosses and cannot stand TB, so 1 tank would lead into many inevitable deaths which are far worse than everything.

Healer on the downside double struggle with better ilvl, then people take less dommage and healer heal more. And nothing would change this.

If we can find root issue, it's FFXIV classic roles which tend to extend from their initial roles : DPS mitig and some bring some heal. Tank is heavy mitig and some heal. And healer is heal, mitig and dps. Role are less strict, But as healer are the only one who get heal on demand, they somehow act as safety net, as they are nearly the only who can save people then they do mistakes.

But i disagree when people say they are useless, it's not because some top crazy people can clear some hardest content without it means they are useless. Nearly all content could be cleared without DPS, what doesn't mean they are useless.

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Let's just look at your last line. I would agree that there is *some* content that can be cleared without DPS, for example there have been all-tank Nier runs, there have been all healer-Nier clears. Any job can even solo some prior patch content. However can you point to some examples where parties would routinely form without a DPS ?

Also, I would add that I don't believe that anyone would see these as "crazy" people- rather they are people who first of all are among the best players but secondly are smart enough and skilled enough to take advantage both of this fight design and each job's skills. In a sense they should in no way be faulted as it was SE who designed both the fight and the jobs.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I haven't touched Savage yet (disorganized static noises) but I'm already groaning and whipping out the old Bingo card at the guide videos. For this fight, you'll need clock positions, partner stacks, and light parties which go East and West. Drop the waymarks 1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D in a circle. The fight opens with a raidwide, so mitigate and heal. Then there's a tankbuster which requires a tank swap.

Quick, which fight did I describe? Eeeefffffff me I wish they shake this paint-by-numbers design up, the casualization of Savage is choking the life out of encounter design and the dogpoop job design isn't enough to make it entertaining by itself.

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I await the day SE just becomes unhinged and opens the boss with the 10 hit Akh Morn that combos in a Double tank Buster midway thru

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

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1) Group:
I only saw a short part of the clip and didnt had big attention to the group. I have the opinion, that i saw 3 paladin and multiple summoner/red mages. But it is possible that i was wrong.
But, it didnt change the point, that they needed substitute for the healer. Healers would probally maked it easier. And, is it even knowed, what geard they have? Shouldnt it become much easier, if they had max lvl items and materia in there?
And what research? I dont watch, what other are doing. I see it the whole time in normal dungeons and the normal raids, that healer are needed. Player take all the time dmg from enemy. Tanks need the healer to make the big pulls in dungeon (i dont even are confident in doing big pulls as a tank, even, when i have a high item lvl and it is a early dungeon, and see it from time to time, how tanks simply pulled to much).

2) More dmg.
What you say are the avoidable dmg. Like aoe or the bots from Nier Raid, that the tank has to take. I know, that they are doing big dmg or instant deat allready.
I speaked from the unavoidable attacks. Like roars, waves (as aoe) or player targeted attacks (without sharing option). Like the spider net from the Pandaemonium raid.
Because, that are the only attacks, where the dev could increase the dmg (because, the avoidable are allready making nearly or mostly instant kills).

And, that would suck for classes with lower defense, because, they are allready hurted badly by the big aoe attacks. Some of them can even only survive, if they have 100% hp or barriers activ (what is not allways the case). By pandae 02 was it even impossible for me as Black mage to survive the unavoidable aoe attack, if i wasnt at 100% hp or was healed at the same time from the healer. And that even with the BLM barrier skill. Because, the boss simply used multiple roars in a short time, where the first roar was allready enough to break the barrier. I was mostly forced to play as a monk (my main meele at that time) by him. Until the black mage had the max item lvl of that time (and even than hurted it big).

The healer would have to do more healing, if the bosses simply make more dmg. Yes. But, at the cost that other classes (mostly Caster, i dont even know, how good whm would survive that) would "cry" at the same time.

(part 2)

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So basically: "it's ok if the healer role has a bad time, aren't fun, and can be ignored, because it makes my favored role more fun."

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I dont even understand this part. Why should the healer have bad times? Isnt it good, to make dmg to? Or have breaks from healing to recover your mp? I like it each time, if i have a break from he3aling and can attack in the time between the healings.
When shopuld healer ven do dmg (because some player want more attack option for healer) if they are the whole time busy with healing.

There is probally a big difference in the playstile of healer. Or, what they want (i like healers for beeing able to rescue or help other people, but, i like it to to make dmg)

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This runs especially true if the healer only plays through the story, as it is not designed to require healing as an absolute necessity if other tactics are employed.

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Esspecial in msq dungeoion are healer needed. Because the tank wouldnt survive the big/bigger pulls, without a healer. He is lesser needed by the boss thereself. But, the enemy between the bosses is, where the healer has to work (at last had i to work, when whe run the 80-89er ini).

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So why is it that the situation only sucks if the healer is important?

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Simply: That is not the case.
It didnt suck only, if the healer is important. But, because the healer is important did it suck the most, if he fails.
Tank and Dd`s can make mistakes and fails to, yes. But, it can be possible to recover from that situation without a wipe, if the healer is fast enough to ress. Or, if the survived member did fast enough the needed dmg (or the DD seperate the monster from the group, probally sacrefice himself but give the healer the time to heal the tank).

But: That is the rarest case, if the healer dies. Esspecial by bosses. And, because the role of the healer is mostly used by only one or 2 player, are they the one, who are noticed the most, if they die.

(Part3)

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You think it's unfair and unfun for the other party members, particularly the DD and your friend, the Tank, if the healer's capability needs to be factored into your team-based gameplay in order for you to succeed.
You're that kind of DPS player. Good to know.

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First: I dont make fun about the healer.
Second: I dont fully understand what you mean, but, i think. practicly: YES.

I dont care about the actually class. I simply dont like it, if the higher number of player have a bad time, only, because the lowered number of player make the run unbeatable, because they are making to much mistakes or are simply to weak.

In the situation of me as the whm in the 75er dungeon was it simply, that whe used up all the time (over 20 min), and wasnt able to finish it, only because of me. What maked it even more bad was, that i didnt maked any mistake (at last not any, that i knowed, maybe, i was simply all the time to close to him, the run after that had no problems anymore). The boss targeted allways me. Maked big dmg and after that came a second attack, faster, as i was able to heal myself and killed me (i had item lvl 400 at that time). And the others wiped than to, because they didnt obtained heal anymore.
It is logical, that people feels bad about that situation.

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Originally Posted by Sparkthor

But i disagree when people say they are useless, it's not because some top crazy people can clear some hardest content without it means they are useless. Nearly all content could be cleared without DPS, what doesn't mean they are useless.

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This comment is ignoring the most fundamental logic that applies to game design. Everything in a game is a tool for the player. Not all tools hold equal value. What defines value is how quickly, efficiently, and/or easily it helps the player win in the game. If we're talking about past final fantasy games for example, yes, a white mage or healer in general is one of the most important jobs to have as having a healer exponentially increases your party's ability to last longer in battle. Without a healer, HP bars are a timer that, when you run out, you lose. Giving the player considerably more time to win a fight contributes to the "easily" part of the quickly, efficiently, and/or easily pillars. But, if white mage is so useful, why wouldn't you want 4 white mages in FFIII or FFV, and why wouldn't you want 3 white mages in FFX-2?

Healing, as important as it often is, provides 0 vertical progression in gaming. Have you ever seen someone playing an RPG who gets stuck in a loop of only healing? That always ends in failure, because a boss will not go down if all you do is heal. No amount of healing actually does anything to build progress toward the completion of any given challenge, like a boss fight. All it does is stall your eventual defeat. Meanwhile, you know what does make vertical progress? Damage. The more damage you do and the faster you do it, the more quickly you can defeat your opponent and the less likely you are of losing to a mistake due to the fight lasting a shorter amount of time.

That is why DPS are not useless even though you can clear most content without them. If you can clear something without healers, you are shaving minutes off the time you need to win the battle. If you take only healers, you are padding out how much time it's going to take you to win a fight. You might not die, but why spend 20 minutes doing something when you can otherwise spend 10? Unless of course challenge is a valid factor. If a healerless run is so challenging to the point that you'd expect an average of 3-5 wipes, that potential 10 minute fight might realistically end up being a 30 minute experience, thus making the 20 minute composition more favorable, but that is no where near the case for this game.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

(text to long)

1) Group:
I only saw a short part of the clip and didnt had big attention to the group. I have the opinion, that i saw 3 paladin and multiple summoner/red mages. But it is possible that i was wrong.
But, it didnt change the point, that they needed substitute for the healer. Healers would probally maked it easier. And, is it even knowed, what geard they have? Shouldnt it become much easier, if they had max lvl items and materia in there?
And what research? I dont watch, what other are doing. I see it the whole time in normal dungeons and the normal raids, that healer are needed. Player take all the time dmg from enemy. Tanks need the healer to make the big pulls in dungeon (i dont even are confident in doing big pulls as a tank, even, when i have a high item lvl and it is a early dungeon, and see it from time to time, how tanks simply pulled to much).

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1- They have the gear that is the BiS of the moment which is the bare minimun to enter Ultimate, honestly if you don't even know that being BiS is basically a requirement to even enter the instance I don't think you're knowledgeable enough to have an informed opinion about the issue. You simply CAN'T outgear a ultimate in their release patch

2-The problem is not how easy a healer may have done that but that a 0 healer clear is even possible, we're talking about the hardest fights of the game and those should require all the resources a standard party has, let alone optimize one of the three pillars of the holy trinity out of the fight.

3-With research it means google how all the dungeons of the game can be done without healers so easily that the speedrun meta consist of 3 dps and 1 tank, at this point in the game the need of healer in normal dungeons is more symptom of skill issues rather than a neccesity of the content.

More dmg: He was talking about unavoidable damage, just this last savage tier we had a spike in hits that required mitigation to survive which caused troubles because all of the reasons MintnHoney said. Also the whole panda 2 is not true, not even savage on day 1 (and I know because I was there) required that much healing so either you lied on the damage or you were massively undergeared because I think you were talking about normal and normal mode could be done without any kind of shield on lv90 gear easily, only the stacks required a tiny bit of mitigation (10% or so) to be comfortable which is a given considering every shield healer has one readily available and that the damage overall was so low compared to the myriad of tools healers have that just a single healer could top the party to full before the next raidwide.

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I dont even understand this part. Why should the healer have bad times? Isnt it good, to make dmg to? Or have breaks from healing to recover your mp? I like it each time, if i have a break from he3aling and can attack in the time between the healings.

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The problem is that dealing damage is all what we do with a 2 button rotation because the game barely requires any healing, the cast of any half decent healer have over 80% of their GCD (and over 50% of their total acions) presses being the exact same button. Since you're a blm imagine that your whole rotation were just spamming blizzard 1 over and over and keeping thunder, that would suck right? that's the issue with healers.

Honestly I suggest you to go read around the forum as your comments tell me you're really disinformed about the healer gameplay, its problems and complaints, because things like the whole idea of healers being needed to clear dungeons have been proven wrong long time ago (with multiple proof in fact, all dungeons can be cleared without healer, especially past lv 56) and there are other things you don't seem to undertand (like the whole stuff around what 1-0 ultimate clear means, the gameplay gutting etc...)

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I haven't touched Savage yet (disorganized static noises) but I'm already groaning and whipping out the old Bingo card at the guide videos. For this fight, you'll need clock positions, partner stacks, and light parties which go East and West. Drop the waymarks 1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D in a circle. The fight opens with a raidwide, so mitigate and heal. Then there's a tankbuster which requires a tank swap.

Quick, which fight did I describe? Eeeefffffff me I wish they shake this paint-by-numbers design up, the casualization of Savage is choking the life out of encounter design and the dogpoop job design isn't enough to make it entertaining by itself.

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I'm with you until the last sentence.

It's not "casualization", it's lack of immagination. They have a system they think they can use for tightly tuned fights. And they're right. Unfortunately, it's also BORING. It's like the argument that an MMO can have innovative, interesting, and highly varied class design and mechanics OR can have balance. WoW has struggled with this for nearly 20 years and not managed to solve that yet. Some "flash in the pan" MMOs seem to fix it during their very short lives, but that's because they do the FFXIV approach and simply die off and shut down before people realize it.

Has nothing to do with "casuals" or whatever scapegoat you want to throw it. It's everything to do with FFXIV's devs deciding balance >>> all. So much so, if a Job is off by 1% or so, both the community and devs tend to lose their minds...with the odd exception of a few specific Jobs (MCH, quite often, and always RDM due to how much the devs value combat Raises).

The alternative would be WoW, where there are often specs simply left out of content for entire patches or expansions. I remember back in the OG three expansions (Vanilla, BC, and Wrath) that the general refrain was "as long as one spec is raid viable for a class, it's okay", since often one or even two specs would simply not be viable for raids, but since the planer didn't have to level an alt, this was seen as acceptable, especially for Pures since they didn't have to swap role.

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EDIT:

To be clear, me personally, I prefer more diversity and distinction (my 4 Healers premise is entirely based on that), but I also understand that modern gamer communities are hyper stick-up-butt over balance and quick to kick to the curb/blacklist any perceived distinction that's too great.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

As I pointed out earlier, Coil Turn 1 took nearly 2 years after it's release before it was cleared without healers.

Now it's routine to see this happen in the highest levels of content within the same patch.

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To be fair, as you and others are fond of pointing out - we gamers were, as a FFXIV community collectively, really bad/much worse back then

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It's everything to do with FFXIV's devs deciding balance >>> all. So much so, if a Job is off by 1% or so, both the community and devs tend to lose their minds...with the odd exception of a few specific Jobs (MCH, quite often, and always RDM due to how much the devs value combat Raises).

...To be clear, me personally, I prefer more diversity and distinction (my 4 Healers premise is entirely based on that), but I also understand that modern gamer communities are hyper stick-up-butt over balance and quick to kick to the curb/blacklist any perceived distinction that's too great.

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What on earth does balance obsession have to do with boring paint-by-numbers encounter design?

...oh wait I get it, it's how you can blame homogenization on raiders while also sidestepping the fact that healers are designed like garbage, because "Glarespammers are super fun, it's only encounter design and homogenization that's the problem" is the axiom you will bend over backward to justify. Current healers are designed terribly. In this context and any other. Their kits have practically zero depth, and they reward skill with tedium. That's absolutely encounter design agnostic.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

To be fair, as you and others are fond of pointing out - we gamers were, as a FFXIV community collectively, really bad/much worse back then

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Indeed, but is that really relevant here or are you just trying to downplay the point? There's not really anything to optimise with a bunch of Tanks flailing on a pair of bosses, the barrier was having enough HP to survive some hood swings and enough DPS to kill them before their damage really ramped up. Could they have killed T1 like this sooner with more optimisation? Likely not a full tier sooner.

If they had todays kits or the fight did modern levels of tank damage.. Whole different story.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Healing, as important as it often is, provides 0 vertical progression in gaming. Have you ever seen someone playing an RPG who gets stuck in a loop of only healing? That always ends in failure, because a boss will not go down if all you do is heal. No amount of healing actually does anything to build progress toward the completion of any given challenge, like a boss fight. All it does is stall your eventual defeat. Meanwhile, you know what does make vertical progress? Damage. The more damage you do and the faster you do it, the more quickly you can defeat your opponent and the less likely you are of losing to a mistake due to the fight lasting a shorter amount of time.

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I could respond what most of the time healer are the only role which can catch back mistakes. To me, bring a dps against a healer is going quicker but more vulnerable to mistakes. On a side note, on every game we tend to minimize the healing action as it's mostly a "wasted" action toward the completion of the game, and i'm pretty happy when games give me the possibility to do something else with my dedicated healer from time to time.
However, my remark was mostly against the usual shortcut : "if it's not mendatory it's useless".

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

That is why DPS are not useless even though you can clear most content without them. If you can clear something without healers, you are shaving minutes off the time you need to win the battle. If you take only healers, you are padding out how much time it's going to take you to win a fight. You might not die, but why spend 20 minutes doing something when you can otherwise spend 10? Unless of course challenge is a valid factor. If a healerless run is so challenging to the point that you'd expect an average of 3-5 wipes, that potential 10 minute fight might realistically end up being a 30 minute experience, thus making the 20 minute composition more favorable, but that is no where near the case for this game.

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I really can't agree on this one, and also it's not something new. And the mentality of the game is thinking otherwise. Let me explain.
Going with fewer heal is not something new. I can't remember having 2 heal on Zurvan Ex back in time is most PF for it, most PF were also one tank. Same goes for Bismark. And here we are talking about casual PF for ex trials, not top players who challenge themselves with additionnals rules, contrary to tank stance that in pf and even in progress were ignored and considered as trap action. Sure there is also theses kind of PF now, but i saw less of them on actual content.

Also if we considerer healer to do half a dps in term of dps, bring one dps over one healer is about a 8% dommage increase against a standard raid composition, what is not this hudge.


But to answer better the initial question : to prevent content do be cleared with few healers :
-force 2 healers in composition, that is already something we can as more party stack are targeted on healers, but it's more an RNG check if we got one (and I also think tank are 2nd targeted by theses kind of share.
-Drastically increase the pressure on tanks by boss auto. This is also something noticable on savage. Tier one boss auto was laughable against tier 2 boss autos and TB. But as people already mentionned, OS raid wide are more mitig checks than heal checks.
-go back on FFXIV job design. Base on trinity, today roles are less boxed are everyone contribute to DPS, mitig and heal, and I can't think of this as a bad think, and I think most people feel the same as i've seen many nostalgic of SB era and all theses party utility (regen TP and MP and so one).

Lastly, I will add my feeling on something : it's not what there is nothing to heal today, but as everyone got some tools to do so and healers getting a bunch of ability to do so, ability becamed efficient enough to heal without gcd heal.

Did you know that if you forego a healer in Alzadaal's Legacy for a 3rd DPS, not only is the run generally quicker, but you also can skip the last boss' second spinning phase--the one that lasts like 30 seconds and is the most boring and arbitrary segment of the entire dungeon? Even if you pump out every ounce of damage that you can as a healer, you cannot burn the boss down quickly enough to skip that phase. Meanwhile, the outgoing damage is very mediocre, and having farmed that forsaken dungeon for months to get that stupid triple triad card, I can confidently say that probably 70-80% of all roulette groups wouldn't have an issue surviving without a healer, and of the groups that would, probably half of them would've cleared each boss with a death or two. It certainly does shrink your group's room for error quite a bit, but the fight does not pose enough of a challenge to where that seems likely to result in wipes consistently.

I don't want dungeons to feel punishingly cruel, but there needs to be a better balance that makes the value a healer brings feel like a worthwhile exchange for the damage you lose by taking one. Healing shouldn't feel required simply by the virtue of needing to satisfy the Duty Finder, or arbitrary fight mechanics that try to force a double healer comp not by doing a lot of damage, but by having at least 1 light party stack phase that will otherwise target a player at random if there aren't two healers.

……so I’m curious on what the true MMO experience ppl want to see without conflicting one another.

What I've said before and I stand by is just treating the healers the same way as the tanks as far as their gameplay is concerned--having around the same balance between offensive and defensive hotbar actions--one with a little less like WAR and one with a little more like GNB.

The concern is a chunk of players are bored playing as healers because there isn't enough to heal and next to nothing to do during the gameplay deserts between instances of necessary and/or emergency healing. Every effort to increase the necessary amount of healing makes the role less and less accessible to the novice and intermediate players as any lapse in their ability to meet the healing requirements can result in party death. That's not to say healing requirements cannot increase at all, but there is a limit to how much is realistic, and that limit will not resolve the issue of healer boredom alone.

Everything shy of Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate is not subjected to enrage timers. I don't care what anyone says, what SE thinks, or what some forum white knight will scream is "elitist" if it means someone cannot parse 99% by turning on their turbo controller, there is no necessary DPS performance bar for healers to clear anything that matters to anyone who otherwise could not keep up with whatever mild DPS tools the healers could have if they were treated equally to the tanks. It creates gameplay that the player is allowed to approach at whatever pace they are comfortable with at no consequence of that player's ability to progress any storyline, whether the MSQ or a secondary storyline like the Pandemonium story, their ability to do their daily roulettes, or their ability to engage with alternative content like Eureka, Bozja, Deep Dungeons, or Variant Dungeons. And in fact, in regards to Extreme and beyond, it actually reduces how much damage you lose per GCD healing you rely on because less potency is baked into every individual cast of your filler spell.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

What on earth does...

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Good holy GOD if you would stop putting words in my mouth for one single second you might actually be able to get a productive discussion going. I wasn't strictly even talking about HEALERS since this is a problem of all roles in the game right now.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Indeed, but is that really relevant here or are you just trying to downplay the point?

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It's relevant as it points out that this is nothing new in this game, and the only reason it took so long then was likely a lower level of player skill, not that it wasn't possible at the time or that the design of the game/Healers has devolved since then. And people WEREN'T complaining about it back then.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It's relevant as it points out that this is nothing new in this game, and the only reason it took so long then was likely a lower level of player skill, not that it wasn't possible at the time or that the design of the game/Healers has devolved since then. And people WEREN'T complaining about it back then.

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That's not really a valid assumption.

My Titan tanking on WHM was literally years before then, a JP group pulled the same thing off around the same time as me as well. Double WHM WP farms were a known thing within 2.0 and tanking Ramuh with Titan Egi was a thing in 2.3, again well before the all warrior T1.

The time it took had nothing to do with player skill. People were trying far zanier stuff well before that point. The limit was simply having enough HP and doing enough damage. T1 wasn't a complex fight in the slightest. It just started hitting really really hard as the fight progressed on. That was the barrier.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

1- They have the gear that is the BiS of the moment which is the bare minimun to enter Ultimate,

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Isnt Bis a mix of the End Item lvl and some items before that (like, 630/610 for 6.3) to reach more liked numbers in certain area? So, it should be possible to make it with a higher item level.
And i practicly dont know anything about Ultimate. I didnt even knowed, that this existed , before 6.2 (or so), when that with the church came. You dont need max item lvl for savage. SO, i simply think, that you dont need max item level for Ultimate to.

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2-The problem is not how easy a healer may have done that but that a 0 healer clear is even possible, we're talking about the hardest fights of the game and those should require all the resources a standard party has, let alone optimize one of the three pillars of the holy trinity out of the fight.

3-With research it means google how all the dungeons of the game can be done without healers so easily that the speedrun meta consist of 3 dps and 1 tank, at this point in the game the need of healer in normal dungeons is more symptom of skill issues rather than a neccesity of the content.

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Yeah, it is questionable how they manage it.
But, It was only one group (or maybe yet a few groups) out of many.
The reason why i even sayed something was simply, because i dont see, why people are "crying" yet, because of it. It looks like, that they simply overreact for it.

Yes, it is the hardest content, where you should need all 3 classes (you allready need them in every content on every level from my experience, the tank will take to much dmg from the mobs, except, if he really take eachg group alone)

Yes, it is the hardest content and probally miles away from my league (i dont even do savage, it is to much of a pain for me^^). But, the dev need to make it so, that even that isnt to hard. So, that a higher numbers of groups can finish it. That can give room for some "maniacs"to even exceeded this challenge level with a "higher challenge level". And make things happen like this.

And even so, one group managed it. Why are know people "crying", that healers arent needed anymore in the game, when practicly everyone need them for every content? It isnt like in wow, where people searched for party member but say: "No clkass ..., they are to weak".
That is simply, what i dont understand.

And i even see it as a good case, that the important of healers are reduced. Simply for the fact, that it come allways bad, if a whole group fails, because of the failure of one/a few players (what is in most cases the position of the healer, because his heals are needed in most cases)

That is simply, what i asked.
Not truly, the details itself, of this one group or content.
It is the concept of this "problem" that i dont understand.

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More dmg: Also the whole panda 2 is not true,

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It was at the start of endwalker, where most people weared a mix of the class equipment, the unlimited stone equipment, the limited stone equipment and the raid equipment, where the multiple aoe attacks was at last sometimes to much to survive, if i wasnt at 100% as a BLM. And, whe had even 1 or 2 runs, where it wasnt possible to finish it, because the healer had to low equipment and wasnt able to heal us up.
And like you say: Shield healer. It come often enough, that you will onlöy have whm in your group, who dont have so many shields. And there weakness is, that the targets must be able to survive the dmg first, for beeing healed than. But, itz is not possible/hard, if the class has a weak defense. Shield healer are the opppsite, who increase the defense of the target and than heal them.

But, the same situation is more or less by spider Pandaemonium.
The phase, where he press his head again the arena is so dmg heavy, that i practicly can not survive it as a blm, if the healers arent healing constantly and fast at that time. Even with barrier, was i under my last 1/4 of hp constantly (maybe even only around 5/10%), while the healers healed constantly.
It is only a few seconds. But, the wish to give the healer more healing work to do, would mean (at last for my understanding) that this kind of situation would come much more. And that could mean, that classes like the blm (who haqs weak defense) would probally suffer more from that. And that is simply, what i want to think about it to.

A compromise would be, if it is more like in the third stormblood raid, where the boss reduce the hp of everyone and the healer need to heal this all up very fast. Or it would come to death. It hit all classes more or less equally (where only the classes without selfheal have a harder time).

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The problem is that dealing damage is all what we do with a 2 button rotation because the game barely requires any healing, the cast of any half decent healer have over 80% of their GCD (and over 50% of their total acions) presses being the exact same button.

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Yeah, ok, the 1/2 buttom thing can/is a little boring. But, the devs need to keep track of the numbers of buttons, that are used up (one reason, why some skills are cutted, when new ones comes).
And, a attack rotation could distracts from healing, what is the main job.
Maybe, they could realy cut some of the healing options, to give some one time extra attacks (like make the lily attack easier to use, or skills like flare and so on).
I mean, there are some healing skills, that are rarely used (at last i think so). As scholar, im i failing most of the time to see, when i even should use the seraphim. The normal heal spell or fairy skill is in most cases enough.
I even failed to understand for a year or longer, how to use this one skill, that make your barrier heal to a stronger normal heal (i allways thinked, it would heal myself, if i give the barrier to someone, what maked it useless, i only understand it with lvl 80 or in endwalker, that it healed my target more).

But, most of the healing/support spells now have some purpose. It could become hard to see, wich skills could be removed or merged, so, that the healers can have room for more attack spells.

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Since you're a blm imagine that your whole rotation were just spamming blizzard 1 over and over and keeping thunder, that would suck right? that's the issue with healers.

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Ähm, BLM. All whe are practicly doing is, shooting fire 4/1 over and over and keep thunder (with some short breaks to reg mp or keep the fire stacks^^, but even that is something, where i sometimes think, that the ice phase could be simply removed, and let us become whole fire mages^^). So, it is not so far away of healers (ok, whe have the void spells and flare speels in between^^).

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Originally Posted by Keichi

[...]Yeah, ok, the 1/2 buttom thing can/is a little boring. But, the devs need to keep track of the numbers of buttons, that are used up (one reason, why some skills are cutted, when new ones comes).
And, a attack rotation could distracts from healing, what is the main job.
Maybe, they could realy cut some of the healing options, to give some one time extra attacks (like make the lily attack easier to use, or skills like flare and so on). [...]

[...]But, most of the healing/support spells now have some purpose. It could become hard to see, wich skills could be removed or merged, so, that the healers can have room for more attack spells.[...]

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Frankly if said healer is still letting people die, it doesn't matter whether they get 1 button spam attack or 5197840-button rotation; they shouldn't even think about their damage buttons too rigorously and focus on getting good with their main task. These two are fundamentally different actions, they do not affect the beginner healer's ability to spam Medica II/Succor/Benefic II/Diagnosis if they want or need to. Should we make the tank i.e. a GNB get the same 1 button spam attack because their optimum rotation will distract them from pressing their Heart of Corundum/Heart of Light/other mits within their 30s/60s (mini)bursts? I know GNB mains (or any tank mains, really) will come at me with their pitchforks if I suggests this lmfao.

I'm definitely down to see a couple of healing tools being culled to make room for more damage actions though.

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[...]Ähm, BLM. All whe are practicly doing is, shooting fire 4/1 over and over and keep thunder (with some short breaks to reg mp or keep the fire stacks^^, but even that is something, where i sometimes think, that the ice phase could be simply removed, and let us become whole fire mages^^). So, it is not so far away of healers (ok, whe have the void spells and flare speels in between^^).

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BLM just have so many to watch when compared to healers, it's almost insulting to the former to even try compare imho.

• Majority of their casts are GCD-long, or longer, making it more imperative for them to preplan a route should they need to move for upcoming mechanics. Aetherial Manipulation exists to help with movement but it has its own nuances that needs to be recognized to be utilized properly.
• Instants are there but has to be planned accordingly (Sharpcast, Swift, Triple, Thundercloud, Firestarter, Xenoglossy). Coupled with the previous point, this translates to BLM having pretty limited room to weave their tools.
• They have a DoT, means another timer to watch that also comes with a proc rate (Thunder III & Thundercloud again).
• They also have to dedicate 30s to stay where they are every 2 minutes because Leyline, something that no other spellcasters in the game need to worry about.
• In some rarer cases, entering a shorter Astral Fire Phase being more beneficial than attempting a full phase, which means another layer of consideration to be made (Correct me if I'm wrong here, I could be misremembering something).

Pretty much the only thing that would require a healer:

Multiple Doom mechanics that are required to be Esuna'd at once (to prevent a bard from cleansing a single one)

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Pretty much the only thing that would require a healer:

Multiple Doom mechanics that are required to be Esuna'd at once (to prevent a bard from cleansing a single one)

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Unless the entire party gets Doom on the same timer, you can still cheese that.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Isnt Bis a mix of the End Item lvl and some items before that (like, 630/610 for 6.3) to reach more liked numbers in certain area? So, it should be possible to make it with a higher item level.
And i practicly dont know anything about Ultimate. I didnt even knowed, that this existed , before 6.2 (or so), when that with the church came. You dont need max item lvl for savage. SO, i simply think, that you dont need max item level for Ultimate to.

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Then my advice would be to get more information, because talking about things you don't know only leads to conclussions that are not happening and provide nothing to the conversation, for example the whole assumption of getting higher level doesn't happen because ultimates are level synced content to the max ilv of the time they were released so you can't do them with higher item level (only change of expansion powercreep makes them easier), also its not content made to be cleared by the majority of players.

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The reason why i even sayed something was simply, because i dont see, why people are "crying" yet, because of it. It looks like, that they simply overreact for it.

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Because healers have barely anything to heal yet we've seen our kits being gutted for healing tools that are not needed and when we asked the devs why, we got told "go play ultimate", to then find out that every ultimate has been cleared with 1-0 healers meaning that the excuse of the devs to gut our kits is not there as not even the hardest content of the game require the full potential of healers (while it demands that potential from tanks and dps).

The problem is not that "just" one group did a no healer run of it, its that it happened when it never should have.

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And even so, one group managed it. Why are know people "crying", that healers arent needed anymore in the game, when practicly everyone need them for every content?

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BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT, all the normal content of the game and most of the extremes have been done without healers and healing requirements overall are not even at 1/10th of what a healer can pull (i,e dungeons barely ask for more than 2-3k hps when a single healer can go above 20k hps), unless a savage mechanic demands 2 healers as target all the fights have been cleared with 1-0 healers and every ultimate has seen 1-0 healer clears. Healers are not a necessity, they are just a safety net.

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And i even see it as a good case, that the important of healers are reduced. Simply for the fact, that it come allways bad, if a whole group fails, because of the failure of one/a few players (what is in most cases the position of the healer, because his heals are needed in most cases)

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Once again, the heals are not needed and in most of the content healer deaths don't really mean much, there are casters that can raise and the self sustain of tanks is so high they can solo almost all the content, besides if you are going to design the healer kit in a way that 80% of the buttons are heal related having fights that barely ask for their use is simply bad design.

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Panda 2

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No its not, unless you eat vuln ups/people missed the stack, with the BLM shield, the stacks could be survived without issue and if you ate vuln ups or people miss the stack then is not the healer's fault.

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But, the same situation is more or less by spider Pandaemonium.
The phase, where he press his head again the arena is so dmg heavy, that i practicly can not survive it as a blm, if the healers arent healing constantly and fast at that time. Even with barrier, was i under my last 1/4 of hp constantly (maybe even only around 5/10%), while the healers healed constantly.

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That's what a heal check is, if they were survivable without healers it woudn't be a check, it would a pityful joke, besides its only one mechanic, in the entirety of the fight and funnily enough it doesn't even hit that hard, is just that people frontload the mit/don't use it at all so that misses the last hits which are the truly damaging ones

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It is only a few seconds. But, the wish to give the healer more healing work to do, would mean (at last for my understanding) that this kind of situation would come much more. And that could mean, that classes like the blm (who haqs weak defense) would probally suffer more from that. And that is simply, what i want to think about it to.

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That is never gonna happen because healers have the same survivability as those clases so if they try to guarantee their survivability by healing, those lower defense/hp classes will survive too, besides, most of the mitigation is not on healer's hands so if they get one shotted it woudn't even be healers fault for the most part but also tank and dps fault (which, once again I repeat, we complained about that in the past tier where we had an increase in massive hits that could one shot lower sustain classes and inexperienced players were blaming healers when in reality it was a mit check so its not entirely on healer's hands)

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Yeah, ok, the 1/2 buttom thing can/is a little boring. But, the devs need to keep track of the numbers of buttons, that are used up (one reason, why some skills are cutted, when new ones comes).
And, a attack rotation could distracts from healing, what is the main job.

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Our "main" job is what we do the least, less than 30-20% of the total actions (gcds and ogcds) that we use are heal related ones and we do the most is dps, which is also part of our job too as dps checks can't be cleared without healer dps. Not only that but in the past healers had far more involved rotations and we healed just fine so that rotation doesn't have to get in the way of healing.

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Ähm, BLM. All whe are practicly doing is, shooting fire 4/1 over and over and keep thunder

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BLM has far more in the way they manage their gauge (mp), cast times, mobility tools, procs, non standard lines, etc. Its a job with so much depth that there are dozens of pages of lines talking about how to improve it, they are worlds apart from healers but let me show you something funny.

https://i.gyazo.com/c2641e4fc9222070...d8cb1b4433.png

This is what a semi optimized blm did in week 1 of savage, do you see how fire 4+paradox aren't even 40% of their total actions?

https://i.gyazo.com/5b739efabf554351...f96954bc27.png

This is what a healer rotation looks like, dosis alone has a higher percentage of the total actions than fire 4+paradox+thunder while having much less implications because its cast doesn't limit its usage (like fire 4), doesn't interact with the job gauges or times (like paradox) nor has any kind of proc poperty (like thunder). Blm its worlds apart from healers.

:D I wish I had more than one upvote for your post WaxSw, well said

Following on from Wax's banger post, here's what my week 1 clear of P11S looks like:

https://i.gyazo.com/ef6d7e7273420275...870f50df15.png

https://i.gyazo.com/a5a584b1659bc15d...4aca344669.png

Anyone ever tells me I'm 'not really a healer, but a support player' after I use 31 Succors for safety is gonna find my ilvl 645 book going where the sun don't shine (also god bless expedient in that fight). Point is though, even with this maximum safety gameplay, and this very high amount of incoming damage on certain phases eg the stack markers, I'm still at 45% of my casts being Broil. And as we get gear and get better at the fight, that will only go up. There were several raidwide damages I used nothing but succor for, and it turns out we'd have lived through without the shield (pair/lightparty after Burnt Strikes), but I used the Succor there anyway, because believe it or not, in week 1 healers do put safety first while progging

Kinda curious, your WHM did only half your damage, were they using a lot more heals and less attacks?

And you were playing the worst nukespammer of the Healers.

The only one who consistently tells you you're "not really a healer" is you. And I only do it [EDIT: say I think you'd prefer a true Support Job] when you wrongly call me a Sylphie despite the majority of my casts in fights being damage spells [EDIT: And/or when you say things about how you much prefer Support type gameplay options]. :)

That said, I do agree that's a lot of casting of a single spell. You actually got a lot of use out of Ruin 2, looks like, as well?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Kinda curious, your WHM did only half your damage, were they using a lot more heals and less attacks?

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The first graph is HPS, not DPS. It's showing that the WHM not only had a higher overheal percentage but also 60% of the healing throughput of ForsakenRoe.

The WHM actually did more DPS, with 57% of their casts being Glare, and another 6% being Dia.

All I’m seeing is that adding a few more things to do instead of cast Broil IV is not only entirely manageable in a sloppy savage fight, but may actually help the healers overall DPS when they’re forced to GCD heal. If you take power out of broil and put it into new attack spells, you’ve lost less DPS per heal since broil is less potency per cast.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

The first graph is HPS, not DPS. It's showing that the WHM not only had a higher overheal percentage but also 60% of the healing throughput of ForsakenRoe.

The WHM actually did more DPS, with 57% of their casts being Glare, and another 6% being Dia.

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Now, to be fair, I WAS spamming a lot of probably unneeded Succors, just to be safe on things. If the multi hit stack buster's hits were meant to do 30% of our HP per hit (and it adds hits per cast, so the first is only 5, but the last is like 10, fun), but I knocked that down to 20% with a shield, and further reduced it by healing the previous hit's damage (so the effective loss is 10% per blast), it stands to reason that the WHM would have a lot of overheal, because the WHM kit IS overheal, as a design choice. If anything, they carried me via their additional damage, I got a lowly 8% or so for damage (the joys of safetyshielding). Ruin2 was because there is a fair amount of movement and I didn't feel comfortable slidecasting to greed Broils in a PF.

Point is not 'look how much HPS I have' or 'Look how bad my cohealer was (they were great)', no, my point is 'look at this absolutely garbage, super safety mode first clear, and look at how almost half of my damage GCDs are one specific skill spammed over and over, why can't we change it so it's not that'. As an example, if we had multiple DOTs with instantcasts (so, bring Miasma back but make it instacast, bring Shadowflare back, make it 'drop on enemy location' like Salted Earth does to the DRK, and instantcast), wow suddenly instead of using Ruin2 for movement I could instead use those DOTs to move. Tying so much potency into the nuke (250/295/310/330 across the healers) means that losing a cast feels a lot worse compared to older incarnations. Remember when we dug up ARR potencies with WaybackMachine, and it turned out Ruin 1 was like 90 potency in ARR? If we had several DOTs we could afford to take some of the potency budget out of the nuke skill and redistribute it. Also, having so much potency tied to the ONE DOT we have now means that it's extra punishing to forget about it. It seems the numbers for HW were like 'Broil is 170p. You have four DOTs, Bio is 240p, Bio 2 is 350p, Miasma is 300p, Shadowflare is 250p', now it's 'you have one DOT, it is 700p and your nuke is 295p', over double the potency of the nuke. And those numbers don't have to be that way either, they can be even closer to the Nuke's potency, eg Broil 4 is 300, Bio is 320, Bio2 is 350, Miasma is 350 (300 but 50 comes from the application). Shadowflare could return as it's HW form (100% uptime but weaker) or SB (basically a damage OGCD), if it's HW mode it can be like 325-375 and if it's SB style it can be whatever tf the devs want, cos it's OGCD so it isnt competing with Broil for the GCD space

Actually, if SF were to come back as HW mode, we could kinda combine it with Miasma2. Make it a ranged, centered-on-target, AOE skill ala Gravity, which does 100p damage, and leaves a puddle for 15s that deals 50p per tick to all enemies inside it. Ok, so now the enemy takes 350 total, if left alone for 15s. But if you spam it, they're basically gonna take 100p over and over, maybe 150 cos a tick goes off. And if we look at Art of War, it's 170, or 340 on two targets. So the 'optimal AOE rotation' would actually be to press Shadowflare once, then AOW till the puddle finishes it's damage. And if someone wants to stand out of the way for whatever reason, idk maybe there's a lot of orange on the floor and it's scary, then spamming Shadowflare would be a loss, yes, but not that big a loss compared to 'you literally cannot do damage', as you would with eg WHM being unable to get in to Holy. So there you go an idea of something to mix up the AOE rotation and it was a tangent from a completely separate rant about our old DOTs and relative potencies of things, yo SE this idea's free if you want to steal it

Oh, I wasn't critiquing, just was curious.