Would tanks be okay if SE swapped the damage between tank and healers?

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Originally Posted by All_Nonsense

Pay me billions of dollars like FF14 has made and I'll work it right up for you. It's not a problem we should have to solve or suffer for, it's the devs'. Why are we wasting our energy asking the dev's to make tanking unfun to play because healers don't like their roles anymore? Anyone remember the tanking shortage back in the day? It was so bad that there's achievements with MOUNTS attached to tanking high level duties. Far worse than any healer strike. Let's go back to that then. While we're at it, let's remove all utilities from all DPS jobs and make every single job in the game a boring husk so the healers can press cure 2 a couple extra times.

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People who think tanks being immortal gods is good for balance and completely hyperbolising what healers want to improve their role

Name a more iconic duo

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Name a more iconic duo

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Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch in all fairness. Next complaint.

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Originally Posted by Bobby66

So I was wondering would tanks be okay if say healers did more damage than tanks, and tanks did around the same damage healers do right now so healers are not sidelined in the speed running meta?

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Sure. But I don't think this changes anything. Tanks would still be necessary in hard content, but healers could still be sidelined by dps for faster clear times.

The way I see it healer players shouldn't worry about being sidelined as it isn't a real problem for 99% of all players. Hop onto party finder right now and you'll see the role most parties are waiting on are healers.

Healers are in high demand.

Healers being boring to play is the real problem that needs addressing IMO

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Originally Posted by Bobby66

So I was wondering would tanks be okay if say healers did more damage than tanks, and tanks did around the same damage healers do right now so healers are not sidelined in the speed running meta?

I ask because I said overall this would be a messed up nerf, but was wondering if others felt the same.

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NO

We almost had this scenario during 5.0 when WHM initially got lillies+afflatus misery. WHM's were doing as much dmg as most tanks except without a rotation and just glare spam.

That felt miserable for tank players. Healer DPS is BORING. That is the main issue, not how much damage they output. Balancing the game around speed running or non-standard comps is a terrible idea.

Now if you suggested giving healers an actual DPS rotation and bringing their damage up to the same tanks that would be a better suggestion imo. However this game does a horrible job teaching players (especially healer) to DPS. So it would only exasperate an issue that is already prevalent in most casual/midcore content which is healers that don't DPS or flat out refuse to do so.

You need to think about how these changes would affect the entirety of the game and not just in an endgame raid environment.

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Originally Posted by Venks

The way I see it healer players shouldn't worry about being sidelined as it isn't a real problem for 99% of all players. …

Healers being boring to play is the real problem that needs addressing IMO

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The thing is, one reason healers are boring to play is because they can spend much of a fight mashing one singular DPS spell instead of, well, healing.

That is the same reason why they can be sidelined — other jobs can take care of what relatively little healing there is to be done.

So while it's true that ye olde random PF healer doesn't need to worry about being locked out just yet, every healer-free clear highlights what's wrong with job vs. encounter design.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

The thing is, one reason healers are boring to play is because they can spend much of a fight mashing one singular DPS spell instead of, well, healing.

That is the same reason why they can be sidelined — other jobs can take care of what relatively little healing there is to be done.

So while it's true that ye olde random PF healer doesn't need to worry about being locked out just yet, every healer-free clear highlights what's wrong with job vs. encounter design.

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I agree. Currently how most encounters are designed healers are only necessary to cover low gear parties or parties that play sub-optimally. Almost all parties are suboptimal so that's why I don't think there's anything to fear about healers not being invited to do hard content. But as the weeks go on as people learn the fights and get better gear, that does make healing less enticing.

I'm personally a huge fan of the unique tank buster in Worqor, that's one that really feels like two tanks are necessary rather than something you can just press a Tank immune on. I'd like to see more encounters with thoughtful design like that which really highlights a role. Healers should have moments like that as well.

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Originally Posted by Venks

Sure. But I don't think this changes anything. Tanks would still be necessary in hard content, but healers could still be sidelined by dps for faster clear times.

The way I see it healer players shouldn't worry about being sidelined as it isn't a real problem for 99% of all players. Hop onto party finder right now and you'll see the role most parties are waiting on are healers.

Healers are in high demand.

Healers being boring to play is the real problem that needs addressing IMO

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There are multiple issues that are causing Healer to be bad and boring.

But for starters, one of them is that they've already been sidelined by the game's design as DRK is probably the main tank that still needs a Healer (so thanks to all the DRK players out there)...

And in a state of the game where Healers aren't needed to heal, what to do they do? They DPS, but they're the lowest DPS role in the entire game and their entire rotation is 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

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Originally Posted by Rayplicant

NO

We almost had this scenario during 5.0 when WHM initially got lillies+afflatus misery. WHM's were doing as much dmg as most tanks except without a rotation and just glare spam.

That felt miserable for tank players. Healer DPS is BORING. That is the main issue, not how much damage they output. Balancing the game around speed running or non-standard comps is a terrible idea.

Now if you suggested giving healers an actual DPS rotation and bringing their damage up to the same tanks that would be a better suggestion imo. However this game does a horrible job teaching players (especially healer) to DPS. So it would only exasperate an issue that is already prevalent in most casual/midcore content which is healers that don't DPS or flat out refuse to do so.

You need to think about how these changes would affect the entirety of the game and not just in an endgame raid environment.

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Given your last point, how is keeping tanks in their current state good for the overall game? As mentioned in the OP the posed question was framed this way because this was something people suggested and wanted to gauge how people thought about it. Even in their comments they stated it was just a bandaid fix. I think the point of the suggestion was to show that no matter what overall tank players refuse to take any shot at their own gameplay for the sake of healers, but at the core that is what needs to happen. Giving healers a more tools to engage with DPS does not solve the issue for those that wish to heal either. Tanks need to be nerfed for healers to get their gameplay improved. You can keep the tools but nerf the overall damage they take but I doubt tanks would be fine with that. Cause what I have seen tanks do not want their failure state to be dependent on healers.

Is it really balanced that tanks can sustain themselves even in dungeon content with a healer?

I mean, it is possible for healers to out damage a tank in dungeons already, the only thing they really lack compared to tanks is single target damage. But I wouldn't say they need to do more than tanks, because melees do tend to out damage casters in general.

I don't see a bump in ST damage for healers being much of an issue per se, I guess it just depends if they'd be happy merely doing more damage with the same 2 skills or not.

Another consideration, however, would be to add more damage support in to their kits. AST provides a decent amount of rDPS, for example. If instead of a direct damage buff they gained more support ability for increasing damage, maybe even a larger change that only healers have rDPS support function, it'd be easier to balance those outlying ranged phys and ensure healer viability at the same time.

I don't mind so much only having two attacks, I don't even mind all that much having lower damage output, not to say I'd complain if I were given a damage buff but as I've said pretty much everywhere else: I'm there to heal. My complaint is that as a healer, I'm not healing, WAR and PLD are healing. usually it's just themselves but with increasing frequency WARs are healing the rest of the party too. Like... Where does the healer role fit into this paradigm?

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Originally Posted by MikoRemi

Oh no, healing isn't fun. Let's make tanks less fun as well.
Nah. Good luck though.

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by this logic, healing would be more fun if it just got potency buffs.

I don't think that healers are having more fun now that number go bigger since last expansion....

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I mean, it is possible for healers to out damage a tank in dungeons already.

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If both the tank and healer are dealing their full damage potential, only WHM has any shot at that, iirc. Yes, tanks do less damage than indicated by their potency due to an output reduction embedded in their damage formula while healers do 30% more than their potencies indicate due to Maim and Mend, but even then the potency differences are enough to make up for that.

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I don't see a bump in ST damage for healers being much of an issue per se, I guess it just depends if they'd be happy merely doing more damage with the same 2 skills or not.

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They wouldn't. It'd simply reduce the rDPS reward for replacing the healer with a WAR/PLD, such that doing so would be for the fun of trying something nontraditional rather than because it's literally faster anyways.

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Another consideration, however, would be to add more damage support in to their kits. AST provides a decent amount of rDPS, for example. If instead of a direct damage buff they gained more support ability for increasing damage, maybe even a larger change that only healers have rDPS support function, it'd be easier to balance those outlying ranged phys and ensure healer viability at the same time.

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You don't have to remove Litany, Voice, Finale, Standard Finish, Technical Finish, Searing Light, Embolden, Brotherhood, and the rest just to allow AST more (or more interesting) rDPS. You need only give it and ensure the healers are still balanced well against each other and roughly against the other roles thereafter.

While I'd prefer a bit more variance in their effects and wouldn't even mind replacing LB and most offensive raidbuffs with a revised form of LB (where we maybe start with a bar's worth of Regiment Points or Technique Points or what have you and can spend it on the opener and roughly every 90-150 seconds at varying %effectiveness and/or duration), but I feel having raid buffs among more than just healers is better for the game than limiting them, and I see no reason more why non-ASTs should have raid buffs than a non-healer. Heck, the first raid buffer was solely Physical Ranged (now an Addle-variant, Second Wind, and rez away from being any other sort of Ranged).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

but I feel having raid buffs among more than just healers is better for the game than limiting them, and I see no reason more why non-ASTs should have raid buffs than a non-healer.

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It was more or less just a thought experiment I was pondering. There are plenty of complaints about the various capabilities between ranged jobs, and to a lesser extent some melees, which apparently make it difficult for SE to balance. Like, logically it makes sense for dps to provide dps buffs but I just wonder if, in the larger scheme of things, shifting those aspects to another role (I think tanks or healers could work in this regard) we would end up in a better place.

In the example I was thinking of, something in a 3 min window fits with the pace of 4 player instances, while in 8 mans the healers could (I would like to assume) take turns for each 2 min window. For a tank example, it would work similarly but probably require giving healers back the vast majority of responsibility for party mitigation. (which I suppose could be done anyways)

It's just more about the idea that if healers wanted to do more damage it doesn't necessarily need to be in the form of direct damage increases. That and if they're worried about being left out, or realistically on the verge of it, well then give them something that would result in the party being at a major disadvantage without them. The buff would have to be strong enough to dissuade bringing a dps instead of a healer, probably in combination with a base damage bump to healers to help meet that threshold.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

It's just more about the idea that if healers wanted to do more damage it doesn't necessarily need to be in the form of direct damage increases.

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That's fair, and is certainly. possible. I just don't really see offensive raidbuffs, specifically, as thematic for any but SCH and AST, is all -- not because I want raidbuffs constrained or anything else, but simply because it feels to me like giving WHM or especially SGE those buffs would make no more sense than giving them to SAM, VPR, or BLM.

If tanks did less damage than healers, we'd probably see lots of solo tank parties because thanks to aggro and TP being gone, MP being basically unlimited and Swiftcast being even shorter you can just invuln the first tank swap and sacc the next. Just rez the tank and let em pick up the boss while it probably stands there not auto attacking the entire time the tank was down.

Wouldn't even need to replace the offtank with a 3rd healer, just get another dps in there to really capitalize on the damage gain from dumping a tank. We used to do this even before tanks were unstoppable, lots of the old fights were easier with one tank due to the damage gain, the difference was then the unavoidable damage bosses dealt was higher and more constant, and non healers could heal less, so their extra security they provided was more meaningful.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That's fair, and is certainly. possible. I just don't really see offensive raidbuffs, specifically, as thematic for any but SCH and AST, is all -- not because I want raidbuffs constrained or anything else, but simply because it feels to me like giving WHM or especially SGE those buffs would make no more sense than giving them to SAM, VPR, or BLM.

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True enough. Nobody really likes it when they get stuff taken away, even if it ends up being a wash in the final results. Others have mentioned turning various things in to Role Actions to help alleviate balancing restrictions and that's not a bad idea either. Either way there's no 1-shot solution to all this, some combination is going to be required and hopefully we can throw enough stuff at the wall to end up with something decent.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

It's really funny that healers are meant to have exclusive gameplay elements like healing/regening the tank during big damage and generally healing the party. But because the job design team is so bad at their job this now doesn't exist anymore lmao

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I think everyone keeps clipping the most important point of that quote.

When a tank is off-tanking....they are generally doing NOTHING in high end encounters except waiting for the tankbuster - I don't see healers solo-healing savages (yet); so generally higher tank damage allows off-tanks to contribute.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

When a tank is off-tanking....they are generally doing NOTHING in high end encounters except waiting for the tankbuster - I don't see healers solo-healing savages (yet); so generally higher tank damage allows off-tanks to contribute.

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I would be down for this, I'm pretty sure I've seen instances where raid bosses auto attack both tanks at the same time, P10 had twin tank towers, P11 had off-tank aoe buster which was neat. but yeah, it's be nice to see the off-tank have more engagement between busters/swaps than just being a backup healer. It doesn't even have to be direct tanking stuff, it could be switches or adds or something where you have to prevent the main boss gaining some kind of effect and soak damage in the process. Better yet, what if that mechanic had some kind of phase attached to it so you could adjust the fight by doing the off-tank mechanic or not?

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

I don't see healers solo-healing savages (yet); so generally higher tank damage allows off-tanks to contribute.

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It's cus they're getting replaced by PLDs looking at that week 2 M4S clear.

Damage is not really the issue with tanks/healers right now

I think the real solution here is to give healers Kaiten. Everyone lost it when that went away so just give it to healers instead and I think everyone will be able to move on.

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Originally Posted by All_Nonsense

I think the real solution here is to give healers Kaiten. Everyone lost it when that went away so just give it to healers instead and I think everyone will be able to move on.

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At least the user ID didn't go to waste.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

by this logic, healing would be more fun if it just got potency buffs.

I don't think that healers are having more fun now that number go bigger since last expansion....

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Potency buffs? nah
More attack skills and a basic rotation? Probably yeah

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I feed trolls

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I recently learned not to take anything here seriously because putting effort into a post does almost as much good as giving healers Kaiten. Wishing you well tho.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Potency buffs? nah
More attack skills and a basic rotation? Probably yeah

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Personally, I would rather have both. The only DPS loss Healer should come from doing their job, not from just being given too low potency.
But adding more attacks that do more damage than their current spam could fix that... And if SE is afraid of doing their job when it comes to designing the Jobs, then I would accept the potency increase as a minimum effort on their part.

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Originally Posted by MikoRemi

Oh no, healing isn't fun. Let's make tanks less fun as well.
Nah. Good luck though.

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These are the consequences of the current tank design though, they make tanks increasingly immortal.
Remember all the cries of ''no buff the other tanks don't nerf War wahh'' whenever people express concern for the powercreep that Warrior specifically was introducing? Well, this is what happens when you don't nerf things. This is not about fun, it's about balance. It should *never* be optimal to play without an entire role. But here we are. And it's becoming increasingly easy to do as well. First in just dungeons, then in trials, then in extremes and now people are starting to do it in savage. Hell, even ultimates. And as the powercreep continues it will become easier and easier. Previously, you had downsides that came with that sustain in the form of a deserved lower damage throughput. But even that was too much to ask.

Either tank sustain needs to nerfed or healers should be buffed as a proactive meassure to keep up with the powercreep.
Your damage number being lower than healers would not suddenly change your rotation in any way.
But since you're a War player, i think what you're really talking about is enjoying being overpowered instead.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Bobby made this thread based on a suggestion I made in the other thread

I suggested this as a bandaid fix to the problem of healerless clears being a damage gain because tanks do so much more damage than healers. Making healing “fun” would only solve this issue if “making healing fun” involved making it so under absolutely no circumstances can the tanks actually replace the healers healing

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This would work, in so far that current content always requires tanks due to the outgoing damage onto whoever is tanking being balanced against tank-only defenses.

Likewise, the HP of current content is balanced against the damage output of damage dealing jobs.

However, unlike the above two, the healing requirements of current content are not balanced for the extremely high possible healing output of the healing jobs (if they were to actually spend time on it) and instead balanced to be covered by groups with 0 healers, using DPS and in particular tanks to cover this, due to two of them having very high healing output.

That is indeed a problem, and you're right in that swapping the damage would be an interesting bandaid fix. This would mean Tank+Damage compositions would lack the damage to kill the boss once they have enough tanks to heal the group. While a healer would provide both of those, and hence it'd be more optimal to bring one than not, while DPS and Tanks are still required anyways due to the rest of the fight balance.

Because punishing the successful to satiate others doesn't come across at all as the petty vengeance of the spiteful, no siree.

I am obliged by both self-interest and common conscience to reply with "unask the question," because the foundational premise is faulty. Trying to balance the entirety of the game around minoritarian content is what got us into this mess. Trying to balance the entirety of the game around minoritarian content is not going to now get us out of it. Increasingly pushing savage, and now Ultimate, raiding as "the done thing" has the same problem as the upward trend in map sizes not being matched by a similar trend in total content to do in those maps; eventually, the paper wears so thin it tears. Eventually, you have appealed to the savage and ultimate raiders as much as you possibly can, and left the rest to rot long enough they fall off, and then you have a problem of economic proportions.

More prudent to balance the minoritarian content with reference to the entirety of the game, and stop trying to continually escalate the scale and scope, and consequentially the scuff, of everything.

But this has been long ignored, and will likely continue to be so.

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Originally Posted by Erit

Because punishing the successful to satiate others doesn't come across at all as the petty vengeance of the spiteful, no siree.

I am obliged by both self-interest and common conscience to reply with "unask the question," because the foundational premise is faulty. Trying to balance the entirety of the game around minoritarian content is what got us into this mess. Trying to balance the entirety of the game around minoritarian content is not going to now get us out of it. Increasingly pushing savage, and now Ultimate, raiding as "the done thing" has the same problem as the upward trend in map sizes not being matched by a similar trend in total content to do in those maps; eventually, the paper wears so thin it tears. Eventually, you have appealed to the savage and ultimate raiders as much as you possibly can, and left the rest to rot long enough they fall off, and then you have a problem of economic proportions.

More prudent to balance the minoritarian content with reference to the entirety of the game, and stop trying to continually escalate the scale and scope, and consequentially the scuff, of everything.

But this has been long ignored, and will likely continue to be so.

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How can you argue to stop continuing to push scaling too far in scope when we are in this mess entirely because tanks scaling in literally every conceivable sense has been so dramatically scaled that it’s actually pushing out another role

Tanks aren’t “successful” as you put it, they are literally just being given the healer roles responsibilities with no strings attached, that sort of balancing doesn’t help anyone

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

How can you argue to stop continuing to push scaling too far in scope when we are in this mess entirely because tanks scaling in literally every conceivable sense has been so dramatically scaled that it’s actually pushing out another role

Tanks aren’t “successful” as you put it, they are literally just being given the healer roles responsibilities with no strings attached, that sort of balancing doesn’t help anyone

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Asking for any role to do less DPS will never be something people would embrace willingly. Also, would that not go against what Healers want, healing? I often read that Healers don't want to DPS, its why they play healer. Then why advocate for making Healer DPS even more mandatory than it already is?

Instead of forcing a higher/different DPS discrepancy, it would be better if the game actually brings in unique Healer mechanics that cannot be resolved by other roles. Make overhealing do something (like fill a boss debuff bar, that bursts into a short stun, idk) or bring in burst heal checks that require dedicated healer healspells.

And no, I have no idea what else those mechanics could be. I am not a Game Designer, after all. That would be something to figure out for Square Enix.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Asking for any role to do less DPS will never be something people would embrace willingly. Also, would that not go against what Healers want, healing? I often read that Healers don't want to DPS, its why they play healer. Then why advocate for making Healer DPS even more mandatory than it already is?

Instead of forcing a higher/different DPS discrepancy, it would be better if the game actually brings in unique Healer mechanics that cannot be resolved by other roles. Make overhealing do something (like fill a boss debuff bar, that bursts into a short stun, idk) or bring in burst heal checks that require dedicated healer healspells.

And no, I have no idea what else those mechanics could be. I am not a Game Designer, after all. That would be something to figure out for Square Enix.

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Healers doing DPS was kind of part of the role even all the way back in ARR. It's been part of the game's core design.
But it used to be a reward for playing well as you could replace unneeded heals with attacks... But they've slowly moved away from that and have been making DPS the primary job of Healers, without giving them DPS... Outside of raidwides and tankbusters, you only need to heal if someone stands in a completely avoidable AoE.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Asking for any role to do less DPS will never be something people would embrace willingly.

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I would, if its excess currently breaks the relative value of other roles and/or makes the game inadvertently easier than intended.

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Then why advocate for making Healer DPS even more mandatory than it already is?

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100% of GCDs spent towards contributing damage is already 100% of GCDs spent towards contributing damage. You literally can't go more dps-focused than is already the case among modern healers. It has also been a part and parcel of the healer role since 1.0. As it is in virtually every MMO that doesn't treat large swaths of idle time for fear of MP starvation as a fun and desirable mechanic.

If we want any less than 100% offensive uptime on healers, the relative incoming damage has to go up, which acts as a relative nerf to tanks, healer, and dps self-sustain.

And if we nerf all by increasing outgoing damage, unless that outgoing damage is primarily AoE, then the rDPS advantage of dropping healers just becomes all the more prominent... unless you increase healer damage to make up for the lost GCDs.

There was a way of mitigating these costs to simultaneous output to reduce the relative value of eking out every last offensive GCD possible that XIV launched with, oddly enough. At that time, 25% offensive uptime could still net healers some 40% of their damage and 90% damage could be achieved even with just some 75% of uptime. It functioned primarily off of, simple though it was... multiple DoTs. You know, from when we had several times more healing to do and yet also had at least as many rotational attacks.

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Instead of forcing a higher/different DPS discrepancy, it would be better if the game actually brings in unique Healer mechanics that cannot be resolved by other roles.

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Why would that necessarily be better, though? Would the game be better for only healers being able to resurrect others? Would the game be better if no non-tank could be shielded/DRed through a minor tether or charge mechanic?

I'm not saying it can't be, but... why is death by composition check necessarily better than there being multiple means to achieve a given end (be it eHP, damage, or whatever else)?

Perhaps I just need some other but still vivid examples from which to imagine what you want to go for here, since most important "healer-specific" mechanics are relegated to, say, an Esuna-able Doom, which is far from engaging, imo. The first hasn't made much sense to me, and the second seems simply a matter of degree rather than type.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Asking for any role to do less DPS will never be something people would embrace willingly. Also, would that not go against what Healers want, healing? I often read that Healers don't want to DPS, its why they play healer. Then why advocate for making Healer DPS even more mandatory than it already is?

Instead of forcing a higher/different DPS discrepancy, it would be better if the game actually brings in unique Healer mechanics that cannot be resolved by other roles. Make overhealing do something (like fill a boss debuff bar, that bursts into a short stun, idk) or bring in burst heal checks that require dedicated healer healspells.

And no, I have no idea what else those mechanics could be. I am not a Game Designer, after all. That would be something to figure out for Square Enix.

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We are at this point because square won’t implement these things, how long do you think healers have been begging for a semblance of gameplay

We have no damage rotation, we do the least damage WHILE also being the most punished for others mistakes (remember we when a flawless party could allow a healer to eek our more damage than the tanks. Now the tanks who couldn’t care less about anyone do more damage by built in potency), our healing is done by the other roles and our complaints are constantly ignored

If you think having your damage nerfed because tanks have no need to care about the party with respect with their DPS how do you think healers feel, we’ve been nerfed every single expansion since SB. We are players as well, when do our concerns get precedence over the people who want tanks to do the healers role for them

Something has to give somewhere and healers have nothing left to give. Does anyone consider the fact that healers never agreed to be nerfed relative to tanks in EW and DT

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Asking for any role to do less DPS will never be something people would embrace willingly. Also, would that not go against what Healers want, healing? I often read that Healers don't want to DPS, its why they play healer. Then why advocate for making Healer DPS even more mandatory than it already is?

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Yes, a far better solution would be, as I said in the previous post, to ensure that just like tanking and damage dealing, the encounter design (both in dungeons and in raids) ensures that the role of healing is required.

Because make no mistake: The raw potential healing output of healers is extremely high. If we actually spend GCDs on healing 100%, the output is a bit crazy. Far far far in excess of what tanks+DPS can provide. By an entire order of magnitude.

But this also hints at the problem: Fights deal an entire order of magnitude too little damage to both the group and the tank. This is why the healing healers could provide is so unnecessary, because no damage exists to use that healing on. I don't see SQEX changing their design approach sadly, but it would be the "correct" solution to just require more healing. Not something like "50% more raid damage" or even "double the damage to the tank". No, we're talking "every auto-attack also hit 2 random non-tank raid members for 30%-50% of their HP", "all raid fights now have a consistent 5% HP per 3s bleed on the entire raid", "apply a DoT to the tank that has to be Esuna'd every 9s seconds that lasts 60s and stacks", etc etc. Which would probably just annoy a lot of current players because of how disruptive a change it'd be. It would work, however. And be the "proper" solution to the dilemma.

Sadly, OP is also correct in stating that just swapping the damage output of tanks and healers - which btw makes no sense, both aren't DPS, so why isn't their damage roughly the same? - would be a workable bandaid solution. And knowing SQEX's approach to job design, it's rather likely that if they take this problem serious for 8.0, they'd do something like this.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Healers doing DPS was kind of part of the role even all the way back in ARR. It's been part of the game's core design.

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Yes, I know, I have been playing this game since 2.0, and my heart weeps every time I see how healer toolkits are gutted. Back then, it was much more fulfilling.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why would that necessarily be better, though?
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Perhaps I just need some other but still vivid examples from which to imagine what you want to go for here, since most important "healer-specific" mechanics are relegated to, say, an Esuna-able Doom, which is far from engaging, imo. The first hasn't made much sense to me, and the second seems simply a matter of degree rather than type.

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Better is always subjective, and in terms of healer engagement, there are many voices asking for many things. Supersnow84 has been asking for other ways one could implement other than to change how much DPS contribution each role does, and I have provided examples. Again, I am not a game designer however. This is a task that should be done by Square Enix. They make this game, they should have the expertise and the personnel to tackle this.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

We are at this point because square won’t implement these things, how long do you think healers have been begging for a semblance of gameplay

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Mate, I know. I have been following the healer threads, I am an advocate for the Healer strike, even if I mainly play tank/dps. I want every healer to have fun playing their class, to enjoy doing content and pressing their buttons. It sucks that so many of you are being kicked in the shins by Square Enix again and again.
You asked for examples of what one could do differently earlier, I have provided. The fact that Square Enix does not listen to this very valid feedback is not my fault, though. Personally, I think Square would do well to listen to actual healer players on the forum.

Regardless, I still believe that turning the DPS contribution on its head is not a solution, and would most likely be damaging in the long run.

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ETA: Part of what made me become a tank back in 2.x was because I noticed how I was more than a meat shield - how my performance positively contributed to clearing a fight in a noticeable way. The trinity was much more soft back then, and has mostly been changed to the detriment of Healers. Rather than taking that feeling away, Square Enix should work to instill the same feeling for healers.

Playing devils advocate here as this was originally my suggestion that was never designed to be taken ultra seriously

Question 1) why would it be such a detriment for tank and healer DPS to be flipped? Not saying I actually support this as a valid idea because like I said it was originally my brainfart but I have also not actually seen any actual refutation of it besides “just because healers are bad doesn’t mean you should make tanks bad as well” even though the root cause of healers being bad isn’t that they do less damage

Question 2) why is the question always “we need to think of other things to give the healers to make them feel like the tanks do.” And never “why are the tanks doing what the healers are supposed to do, why can’t we give healers back the healing and give tanks something interesting that isn’t the healers job?”


This circles back to an old point that I tend to bring up in most rank and healer forums, people seem adamant they don’t want tanks nerfed to to fix healers but nobody can ever provide a way to actually fix healers without nerfing the tanks that doesn’t amount to “make the healers do something completely different that isn’t healing so the tanks can continue to heal”

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Playing devils advocate here as this was originally my suggestion that was never designed to be taken ultra seriously
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Now we are getting somewhere else.

To Question 1: See my ETA in post above, which should give a good answer I think.

To Question 2: I do agree that the amount of Healing tanks can do is obscene compared to the amount of incoming damage. I would really be in favor of tanks ability to heal others to be greatly reduced. Additionally, I have plain out said that I want the Healing healers do to matter, like making Overheal a mechanic or changing how heals have to be cast in a way that does not allow other roles to step on the healers turf. No more "tanks can replace a healer".

With the way things exist now, in dungeons at least, punishing overheal with some kind of stun/damage/other thing is only going to punish the healers who actually try to do their job. I do understand why tanks, WAR in particular, don't want to lose their ability to do the healer's job, after all, when an MMO dev makes you effectively the protagonist of a single player game why would you ever give that up?

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

How can you argue to stop continuing to push scaling too far in scope when we are in this mess entirely because tanks scaling in literally every conceivable sense has been so dramatically scaled that it’s actually pushing out another role

Tanks aren’t “successful” as you put it, they are literally just being given the healer roles responsibilities with no strings attached, that sort of balancing doesn’t help anyone

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I too can present incoherent arguments resulting from a deliberate disuse of reading comprehension, but I'll spare you the example.

The problem of tanks having enough in-house healing to obviate the role of healer is not solved by turning tanks into healers and healers into DPS with party support. That is so bewilderingly ass-backwards it makes me wonder if you're only defending the notion as a gimmick.

The solution, one that I'd be in favor of if we assume a frictionless spherical cow, as it were, is for the tank jobs to not have as much in-house healing. In fact, I for one would approve of a return to the older style where the big challenge of tanking was managing aggro, and then every expansion would give more tools for that rather than a continual escalation of our damage rotation. But it's unlikely I'll live to see that world, because for that to work and be financially successful CBU3 would have to abandon the increasingly tattered pretense that they don't want there to be a "correct" way to play a given job and actually have content sit people down and say plainly "cook or get out of the kitchen." Which they're already kind of doing with the newer jobs, but that internal contradiction still makes me laugh when I think on it.

The reason tanks have so much healing and support kit is because it turns out a lot of "healer mains" are dullards who can't even press Cure II correctly while a lot of tanks are tryhards. If everyone who wanted to heal was forced to demonstrate they are not in fact a dullard—a threshold that is better determined by people smarter than I—before being allowed to inflict themselves on the duty finder, such that tanks no longer could set their watches by how often they've had to save a run with their own healing kit, chances are good we'd be in a much more interesting timeline. Do the same for every role while you're at it, hell every job if budget allows. It doesn't have to turn everybody into a tryhard, but everyone should have at least been made to go through the motions at least once and grasp the theory on how to do things properly.

This is a dichotomy failure birthed from the death of trust. DPS only fixes the issue if you deal so much damage that the enemy dies immediately after their first auto-attack, if not before. That is not going to happen, so something else needs to be done to solve this.

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Originally Posted by Erit

I too can present incoherent arguments resulting from a deliberate disuse of reading comprehension, but I'll spare you the example.

The problem of tanks having enough in-house healing to obviate the role of healer is not solved by turning tanks into healers and healers into DPS with party support. That is so bewilderingly ass-backwards it makes me wonder if you're only defending the notion as a gimmick.

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Didn't you just say you'd spare the thread intentional disuse of reading comprehension?

No one suggested turning tanks into healers. The person you have quoted merely pointed out how they ALREADY frequently replace healers (because it's an rDPS gain at little to no added risk).

No, giving the role whose damage is actually hurt by doing their role a duly higher damage ceiling so that parties aren't so rewarded for replacing them would not make healers more interesting, but the OP didn't ask anything about that. It was instead, though more nicely worded, whether most tanks' egos would be too fragile to put the game's broader health ahead of feeding their own main character syndrome.

...I suspect we have the answer now.