Originally Posted by
GraceHorizon
But the game doesn’t tell them that much of the time. Even in level 100 dungeons I’ve encountered plenty of tanks who needed healing to survive. And there are dungeons where the healer is required — Aetherochemical Research Facility comes to mind (see note). Dungeons, and normal difficulty content in general, are built with enough slack that any player is dispensable, not just the healer. That’s just how you make accessible content.
(A note on Aetherochemical Research Facility, because it demonstrates why healers being necessary is a bad thing. Unless the tank is a Paladin who’s on the ball with Clemency, in the second phase of the final boss the healer is necessary to keep the DPS alive, and if the DPS die before the DPS check the party wipes. Back when I was leveling Ninja I got this in roulettes with a Warrior — no party heals at 60 — and a first time healer who could not understand the Dualstar mechanic. We did our best to explain it but they kept dying and wiping the party again and again for half an hour, until I finally made a couple macros so I could give callouts in chat on the fly. It’s not good design for casual content when one struggling player can stop the entire party from clearing, and that’s what you get if any individual player is necessary, including the healer.)