A summary of healer issues

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

snip

---

I am now reminded of meet the medic after reading this. Given how bloodthirsty healers in this game can be that seems appropriate :p

Actually medic's level of awesome and skill curve should be a core concept of what goes into a healer. It needs to be cool enough to draw new healers in, simple and approachable for the newbies to help out and clear, but has enough depth and synergy that makes masters of medic, or in this case sage/scholar/astro/white mage a force to be reckoned with.

Where do I get my ideas about healers? By playing the goddamn game myself and not listening to a bunch of trolls and whiners on Internet forums. SCH was my main job but I swapped to SGE at lvl 70. I only even ran RDM through the SB MSQ and rarely play it in multiplayer. I have the tanks for when they are getting the Roulette bonuses.

Reddit sucks. It is the worst place for anonymous brigades of groupthink asshats that has ever existed in the history of the Internet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ChonkGoblinSuprem

Where do I get my ideas about healers? By playing the goddamn game myself and not listening to a bunch of trolls and whiners on Internet forums. SCH was my main job but I swapped to SGE at lvl 70. I only even ran RDM through the SB MSQ and rarely play it in multiplayer. I have the tanks for when they are getting the Roulette bonuses.

Reddit sucks. It is the worst place for anonymous brigades of groupthink asshats that has ever existed in the history of the Internet.

---

So if you play healer decent and don’t struggle you can not deny that it is ultra mega boring if the rest of the party is also decent. Like I myself don’t find it interesting too spam 1 button over and over and over again. And imagine you do that stuff since almost 3 years. I have more fun copy and paste stuff for work 300 times per day and press 1 after work also 150 times per day. Like I never watched how much I pressed 1 in week 1 fights back in shadowbringer but I assume it was atleast 300 times per 5 hours raiding we did.

Sorry for another tangent, but a little before the "If you want engaging healing content, go play Ultimates" line I asked about the current state of healers in the JP forums, and one of the responses mentioned YoshiP's said they're trying to avoid making healer dps from having much variance as that can greatly affect content completion.

I haven't looked hard enough to verify the source, but at the time I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now.

Like if we had some gauge that filled through executing a dps rotation, then we won't be able to fill it too well if the party's doing poorly and you'd do that much less damage. When the party's doing great you'd do that much more damage. This range gets even larger when ILs and level sync come into play.

It's far easier to measure how much damage a healer will output when it's largely just 2~4 moves that are disjoint from each other.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

This is an interesting aspect to consider. If we saw two SGEs in a trailer, one who's working overtime to heal people, and one who's using their nouliths in multiple ways, eg one is shooting enemies, one is drawing shields on someone as they charge in, and two are helping heal people in the back who are injured, multitasking all four at the same time... Which of the two SGEs is the 'better healer'? I'd argue it's the one that is keeping up with the healing, while also going on the offensive to prevent any more healing from being needed.

---

This is also a note that board brought up; the ones that actually do chase the funny number will be even more likely to force the other healer in the party do all the work, which I sure have been on the receiving end before with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

Sorry for another tangent, but a little before the "If you want engaging healing content, go play Ultimates" line I asked about the current state of healers in the JP forums, and one of the responses mentioned YoshiP's said they're trying to avoid making healer dps from having much variance as that can greatly affect content completion.

I haven't looked hard enough to verify the source, but at the time I thought he was .**snip*

---

If I can speak to this part "I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now.

Speaking to this "they're trying to avoid making healer dps from having much variance as that can greatly affect content completion"

I could understand that if the overall DPS contribution that was necessary from healers in order to beat enrage was capped at a specific percent. However that is independent of

"I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. " The reason being that DPS can be contributed via a number of ways, which does not necessitate the complexity of the DPS jobs -as a number of people have argued it could closer to that of the tank jobs.

Regarding the next part "Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now." Well, yes the amount of damage could hypothetically fluctuate, just as per any job. The "wildly" is a matter both of the individual skill, the design of the encounter, and the job design - for example, what if some healing skills also dealt damage (like macrocosmos).

Finally "it's far easier to measure how much damage a healer will output when it's largely just 2~4 moves that are disjoint from each other." I would substitute "lazy" for easy. Basically it's no one who is a healer designer, just whomever draws the short straw.

On the topic of more explosive animations, I don't necessarily want our basic attacks to be extremely flashy. I'd rather have a more simple basic attack and leave the powerful-feeling, flashy attacks to the nukes. I'm really not a fan of the Sage bugzapper simply for how rigid it looks in repetition when I'd like to have a more fluid looking offensive gameplay aesthetic, but I like that it's relatively tame in contrast to the more bombastic Phlegma.

When you have a really bombastic attack that you just use constantly, it looses its sheen very quickly because you become numb to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I could understand that if the overall DPS contribution that was necessary from healers in order to beat enrage was capped at a specific percent.

---

Not beating enrage may not be that much a concern but I also don't think they really want a good team to beat content far faster than what they expect. It could also lead to a larger chunk of the playerbase to complain they made things too easy.

Quote:

---

The reason being that DPS can be contributed via a number of ways, which does not necessitate the complexity of the DPS jobs -as a number of people have argued it could closer to that of the tank jobs.

---

I did say at the time, so I don't now. Don't quite understand what else you're trying to say here.

Quote:

---

The "wildly" is a matter both of the individual skill, the design of the encounter, and the job design - for example, what if some healing skills also dealt damage (like macrocosmos).

---

That's why macrocosmos is just the same potency as malefic, and pneuma the same as dosis. They're barely different from just having yet another oGCD heal (outside them being a gain against large pulls).

To be clear I'm not saying it's okay that things are the way they are, but I sure would like to understand what their reasoning is if there are other things than just "they're lazy".

I'd say obstinated to be more accurrate than lazy tbh

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

I haven't looked hard enough to verify the source, but at the time I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now.

Like if we had some gauge that filled through executing a dps rotation, then we won't be able to fill it too well if the party's doing poorly and you'd do that much less damage. When the party's doing great you'd do that much more damage. This range gets even larger when ILs and level sync come into play.

---

So, these things can actually work completely the opposite to what you might imagine, depending on how the design is made. As an example, movement. If you have to move, as a WHM now, you have to sac 310 potency per GCD, because you cannot cast Glare while moving. Maybe you get lucky on some, and have a spare lily to burn on overhealing to stay damage neutral, Dia needs refreshing at that moment, you can blow Misery there if it's ready, or you can swiftcast if you really have to. But, there are some instances where you're just gonna have to suck up the damage loss. However, if the rotation was changed to how I'd personally like to see it, that is, Dia shortened to 12s (potency rebalanced to compensate) and a new 15s instantcast GCD added, then the issue of 'mobility' is actually easier to solve, not harder. You are more likely to have to refresh Dia at that point, because it's got a shorter duration, and the new move might be up. Even if it's not up, you could hold it to use it for mobility, at a damage loss in the moment yes, but as a damage gain because you filled a GCD that would otherwise be empty.

On which note, leading onto the other point: Damage gains of 'full rotation' do not need to be miles ahead of the current spells, contrary to what SE would have you believe with their Communios and their Double Downs. As an example again, I could (and did) suggest that the 15s CD's potency be 350, where Glare is currently 310, or probably 320 next expansion. So, ignoring that new spell completely, for an entire minute, would lose you 4 uses, a total of 160p (or 120 next expansion). About half a Glare per minute, or less. Optimizers don't always optimize because it's a massive gap in damage (see: Energy Drain), they do it because it's just simply 'more damage'. It could be a gain of 50 potency a minute instead of 160 and they'd do it. As long as potencies are balanced well enough, and the DPS check is balanced around 'the current kit' and not 'the extra 5-10% you can eke out by optimizing', then the 'enrage issue' isn't an issue. As long as the player uses something in that GCD, it wouldn't matter what, from a 'trying to clear the content' perspective. 'Doing it right' would just grant a little bit of leeway, not make-or-break the enrage check (ideally)

Also you're right on 'gauge that is filled through executing DPS rotation' to an extent, however A: the gauge I suggested is for a healing skill that is damage neutral (like how Lilies pay for themselves via Misery's refund), and is damage positive only by spending the refund skills in buffs ala Misery (since the refund is tied to casting Glare/Dia/the other one, this would mean using the gauge at X:58, else you'd have to AFK til the buffs go out), and B: I rewrote it to also include non Lily heals, such that if there's a hard HPS check (Harrowing Hell for example), the player can still build gauge, because it seemed silly to be locked out of building towards a healing tool because you were too busy healing. I wouldn't want to have a gauge spent entirely on 'damage positive skills' on a healer. Rather, I think the way to do it would be what I went for, a gauge that gives access to more healing or mitigation tools, that, if used well, can increase the player's DPS indirectly by removing more 'damage-loss GCD heals' like Medica 2. Well, at least for WHM

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

That's why macrocosmos is just the same potency as malefic, and pneuma the same as dosis. They're barely different from just having yet another oGCD heal

---

Pneuma's tagged as a spell (and therefore on the GCD) so it can benefit from Zoe, and probably also cos the devs wanted to give it a cast time so it could have a cool animation. IDK what Macro's deal is, but I sure would appreciate it if it were able to put up shields via Neutral Sect, if it's gonna remain on the GCD (that might be too op though)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

To be clear I'm not saying it's okay that things are the way they are, but I sure would like to understand what their reasoning is if there are other things than just "they're lazy".

---

I don't think they're lazy, I just think they're designing healers from the perspective of a DPS player. If you look at the changes made from the start of SB until now, you can see them very slowly removing anything that can distract us from healing while giving us more and more healing tools. There's no nice way to say it, they're designing heal bots, not an actual enjoyable role.

The cynical part of me had a thought, Mortal Flame on BLU might be a test to make healer DoTs into a permanent duration so it's just set and forget. This would further their mission of making healers as fail-proof as possible by making them always ready to heal and never having to delay heals by having to refresh a DoT.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

I just think they're designing healers from the perspective of a DPS player. If you look at the changes made from the start of SB until now, you can see them very slowly removing anything that can distract us from healing while giving us more and more healing tools. There's no nice way to say it, they're designing heal bots, not an actual enjoyable role.

---

Ah, yeah I do see that a bit. Kinda reminds me of how a good handful of older Tales games don't actually make their healers nearly as fun to play as others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

the gauge I suggested is for a healing skill that is damage neutral (like how Lilies pay for themselves via Misery's refund), and is damage positive only by spending the refund skills in buffs ala Misery (since the refund is tied to casting Glare/Dia/the other one, this would mean using the gauge at X:58, else you'd have to AFK til the buffs go out), and B: I rewrote it to also include non Lily heals, such that if there's a hard HPS check (Harrowing Hell for example), the player can still build gauge, because it seemed silly to be locked out of building towards a healing tool because you were too busy healing. I wouldn't want to have a gauge spent entirely on 'damage positive skills' on a healer. Rather, I think the way to do it would be what I went for, a gauge that gives access to more healing or mitigation tools, that, if used well, can increase the player's DPS indirectly by removing more 'damage-loss GCD heals' like Medica 2. Well, at least for WHM

---

This is kind of the point I was wanting to get back to, circling back to my first post in this thread regarding SGE's Toxicon and GCD heals in general. I think we need more designs where different attacking and healing skills interact with each other so that they somehow lead to the healer being dps neutral to even positive on a personal level for the role to be fun to play in all ranges of content. And by that I mean not only have healing help your attacks, but have ways attacking can also help with healing (e.g. make Glare also have a chance of proccing Freecure)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

https://reddit.com/r/ffxiv/s/OuogcTQXoU

Just for a bit of fun here is mainsub discussing healers, the most GCBTW of the the major Internet communication sites for 14 and even they are 80/20 or so split on healers being trash

If you have lost mainsub wheye are you getting your ideas that anyone likes healers anymore

---

Uh...

...80/20 is literally what I use all the time to justify 1/4 or 1/5 healer Jobs being this way. 1/5 is 20%, and 1/4 is 25%, so close to 20% (closest to possible given a ratio with a denominator of 4). Indeed, if we added Diurnal/Nocturnal stances back, that effectively gives us 5 overall Healer Jobs, so 1/5 (as long as it wasn't both AST stances) under that would be 20%, or the 20 part of 80/20 that "likes healers".

Healers are awful to play during Solo content, I'm a rather casual player and the only cool moments in the story I enjoyed were the fights where I didnt play healer, solo content like Palace of the Dead and the brand new Eureka Orthos and mind numbing as a healer, I just want some more depth, even during Shadowbringers when I started the whole gcd cast time at least made weaving an interesting choice!

Sorry, I had to get this out of my chest.

It's been a long time since I queued into roulettes as a SCH, so today I queued into dungeons as one. My first dungeon pull I was ready to Bio and then spread it with Deployment Tactics... and then I remembered that was specifically for PvP now.
... So I applied the DoT to each mob and then spammed Art of War until everything died. I continued with the dungeon, only to realize I haven't casted a single heal for the entirety of the first boss until I stepped onto an orange aoe. Even then, it was when the boss was about to die, so the lustrate was pretty pointless. I was just throwing energy drains and whispering dawn was rarely used. We had a WAR and 2 DNC in the party.

By the end of the dungeon, I have used 1 lustrate + 1 indom + 4 whispering Dawns to actively heal. That was it.

It occurred to me that I was not actually having fun on SCH. I was not healing. I was actually spamming the same 2 to 3 button DPS. Sometimes changing Broil for Art of War. I didn't have as much fun as I did with PvP SCH that can spread DoTs. It felt so lackluster. I didn't enjoy the gameplay at all.

I think I actually hit the limit of how much I can tolerate healer gameplay. In the past I would still queue into dungeons while grumbling about the state of healer gameplay because I still have tomestones to farm and healer queues are instant, but I think I'm actually done... The current healing design for dungeons is no longer enjoyable for me in the slightest.

I'm too fed up with it all.

So many heal skills and yet we can not heal our own issues -- Poetic statement by me

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Sorry, I had to get this out of my chest.

---

I have to ask this question: Why is spreading DoTs fun as opposed to applying them individually?

How is spreading DoTs fun in a single target (boss) encounter that has no adds?

I was running a 4 man earlier as SCH and had to keep healing my Tank using a number of my GCDs, but the Tank was a DRK, not WAR, which probably makes a difference. I was using Soil, Whispering Dawn, and Excogitation every pull, and would pre-Adlo shield as they were running to the enemies. I used Biolysis on each enemy as the Tank was still running/gathering them all (if we just used it once then spread it, THEN it would be boring since I'd have literally nothing to press besides Ruin 2 until the Tank came to a stop). The Tank was taking enough damage I had to use other abilities like Aetherpact and Lustrate in a few cases.

I'm not sure what you describe is a healer problem so much as its a WAR problem, as I have done 4 mans with WAR where I pretty much never had to use any healing actions at all.

Though again, I have to ask about the DoTs. I'm curious how spreading a DoT then spamming Ruin 2 would be "fun", or the ability to spread a DoT in a single target fight would be fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

snip

---

I can’t speak for other Scholars, but personally I enjoy spreading the PvP DoT because of the additional effect.

8% damage down isn’t much, but it can still be enough to keep someone alive where they otherwise wouldn’t, especially with fixed attack potency. Contrast that with Adloquiums 8% damage buff which is mostly the same - doesn’t sound like much, but it can still assist with people getting kills where they otherwise might not have managed to get the enemy low enough before they spam Recuperate etc.

It creates an interesting situation where you have to decide whether you want to leverage the maximum damage potential of Biolysis, maximise uptime on the damage buff from Adloquium, or a balance the two. Or even things like, if there’s a bunch of battle highs slightly further from the alliance, do you Biolysis one of them to make them less lethal or target the main alliance for pressure/kills. The two charges on Deployment Tactics and being 15 second cool-down means you can ever either keep one going indefinitely by constantly reapplying or need to consider the situation when using the two.

For me it’s not the DoT itself that’s interesting, it’s the ways in which it can be tactically applied based on the situation and the necessity of balancing uptime between Biolysis with Adloquium is what makes it enjoyable in the end. I also feel like, without some kind of additional effect on them that need for balance wouldn’t exist in normal PvE. If they just made Biolysis spread with Deployment as it is now, it wouldn’t really be much of a decision. Either Adloquium shielding would be so necessary you could never spread DoTs or Biolysis damage would be good you’d never spread Adloquium.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

I have to ask this question: Why is spreading DoTs fun as opposed to applying them individually?

How is spreading DoTs fun in a single target (boss) encounter that has no adds?

I was running a 4 man earlier as SCH and had to keep healing my Tank using a number of my GCDs, but the Tank was a DRK, not WAR, which probably makes a difference. I was using Soil, Whispering Dawn, and Excogitation every pull, and would pre-Adlo shield as they were running to the enemies. I used Biolysis on each enemy as the Tank was still running/gathering them all (if we just used it once then spread it, THEN it would be boring since I'd have literally nothing to press besides Ruin 2 until the Tank came to a stop). The Tank was taking enough damage I had to use other abilities like Aetherpact and Lustrate in a few cases.

---

Wait... why wouldn't you just be spamming Art of War during the gather if there are 4+ enemies in the pack? You're not a WHM; it's not like you have a cast-time on your AoE that you can't nullify. Just run right next to the tank.

That said, if your options truly were just between the likes of a 700p DoT and 220p Ruin II... that'd also be a reason not to spend an Aetherflow on spreading those DoTs unless an extra Lustrate would be unable to spare you a GCD heal anyways. Across the full gather, AoW's 165n ppgcd is likely to almost double the DoT's ppgcd and the couple earlier ticks on 1-3 mobs for some 280p max isn't going to reliably kill off the first half of mobs so much earlier as to save you a GCD heal you'd otherwise need to throw out towards the end.

If you could DoT-spread, you'd still save it for the the first moment you've reached the full gather, not the run-in, unless all mobs would die in less than the DoT's duration. Outside of a 2-minute burst, it's pretty rare that enemies get less than 30s TTK in a random party.

And if we wanted to actually balance Bane without again relying on absurd drop-off percentiles, it would probably follow something like the old HW suggestions of sharing, doubling, and then re-spreading the DoTs of all enemies in range, while causing enemies hit by Bane to also take on a debuff that causes them to detonate upon death (spreading their remaining durations split among onto enemies nearby -- stacking up to the original max duration -- or just bursting for a portion of the periodic damage stored.)


EDIT

To be more concise: What you're saying would be impacted by Bane almost certainly would not be because you wouldn't use Bane over that the gather (because it'd be a waste to put it on CD, let alone spend AF on it, before the full gather). Heck, Stormblood Bane came with massive damage-falloff (wasn't a damage gain over separate unnerfed DoTs until high enough target counts that you'd just use AoW instead during the gather). And even if Bane were returned, it would probably be in a slightly different form which could easily then actually provide more use of DoT GCDs than are presently optimal in dungeons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

I'm not sure what you describe is a healer problem so much as its a WAR problem, as I have done 4 mans with WAR where I pretty much never had to use any healing actions at all.

---

While WAR is certainly the easiest tank to faceroll through dungeons on - if I'm with 3 other DPS, even if they're not all fully geared, i can usually get by with *a single Bloodwhetting per mass-pull*, which yeah is it's own unique kind of stupid. But when on GNB, which has the second lowest sustain of the tanks, I can still get through an entire dungeon without any healers. I just have to remember to actually use all my defensive cooldowns instead (and this is also still not in the best gear possible, as I cannot be assed to do modern savage fights). It's not really unreasonable to assume that even in DF with an average party a healer isn't actually pushing very many healing buttons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

I have to ask this question: Why is spreading DoTs fun as opposed to applying them individually?

---

Can't talk for PvP, but as far as old SCH bane in dungeons or bosses with adds goes...

It was significantly more engaging than dotting mobs in a dungeon one by one. You had to think about which mob you were dotting to ensure your bane was going to reach everything whilst the pack was in motion. You had the potential to snapshot your dot spread off group buffs and debuffs. You had the potential to time your dot spread to land on adds right as they spawned to maximise uptime. It was also more interesting because of cast times on some dots making it more challenging to get a full stack going mid pull.

You could do a LOT with spread dots back in the day, it's how I did 1k dps in Nevereap at the start of HW, a figure that many other DPS jobs had a tough time matching. It's also how Scholars had crazy damage potential in fights like A2S.

As Connor says, the various spread mechanics have offered headroom for skill expression and optimisation. It's why Aero III is fondly remembered as well IMO, paying attention offered genuine benefits and improved performance. The same can't really be said for tabbing through a pack mashing a GCD dot that can be cast on the move.

I'll pretend to ignore your disingenuous question about spreading dots on a single target boss for the sake of keeping things civil.

I think it's even simpler than that, I think it's the feeling of there being cohesion within the kit, and of 'building up to a payoff' (with the payoff being 'everything is now fully DOT'd up')

Without things like being able to spread DOTs (or having DOTs plural, in fact), the cohesion is lost, and the DOTs are just 'damage buttons with a conditional'. It becomes like a self-fulfilling thing, where they get more and more simple/lose interactions, then eventually just get removed 'because they're boring anyway'. If Iron Jaws didn't exist, BRD's DOTs would have nothing going on. People complain that the Song Procs no longer work off of DOTs, because that makes the DOTs have less cohesion with the kit as a whole. They could have changed it from 'when DOTs crit' to '% chance when DOTs tick', but they went one step further, removed the DOTs from the equation entirely, and now the DOTs just kinda.. are there. Wouldn't be surprised if they just combine both of the DOTs on BRD into one so they can remove Iron Jaws and the second DOT as a keybind

You don't even need to combine the DoTs to remove Iron Jaws, the potency loss from not using it is infinitesimal.

Whether you think bane was a deep interesting mechanic or a messy pile of garbage at least it was a level of interaction the modern DOT’s don’t have

If you replaced the modern healer DOT’s with a single target instacast nuke of the DOT’s current potency on a 30 second CD then literally nothing about healers would change in a meaningful sense, the current Dots are just a vague flavour design

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

It becomes like a self-fulfilling thing, where they get more and more simple/lose interactions, then eventually just get removed 'because they're boring anyway'.

---

Aye. A masterclass in subtle sapping, honestly.

Quote:

---

If Iron Jaws didn't exist, BRD's DOTs would have nothing going on.

---

To be fair, they have even less going on precisely because of Iron Jaws. The skill hasn't made sense since multi-DoTing was largely obligatory for sustained AoE (e.g., due to the TP costs of longer-term Quick Nock spam, even if discounting the lost Rain of Death frequency from multi-DoTing and the waste of QN before the full gather). Since then, it's existed only for button-bloat and to increase the portion of filler casts per minute.

Quote:

---

Wouldn't be surprised if they just combine both of the DOTs on BRD into one so they can remove Iron Jaws and the second DOT as a keybind

---

But yeah. That'd be pretty likely. Especially since that's what's already the case anyways after the first 2 GCDs per ST fight.

Sabezy: That's kind of what I mean, though. I don't think just being able to spread a DoT really does that. It needs to be...something else.

Surrikhan: Why call me out for a thing the poster above said they do? You know how I say all the time you guys give other people a pass on stuff but hold me to a higher standard? This is the kinda stuff I'm talking about. In answer to your question: Because Tanks have gap closers. Meaning even if I'm running with the Tank, they tend to LEAP 20 yards ahead. Art of War's radius is not 20 yards. So I DoT while catching up to the pack as well as throwing out any oGCDs I feel are useful. Should I just spam Art hitting no enemies? Is that some kind of giga-brain move?

Icecylee: I think it depends on the players. I tried doing a run with no healers and no WAR and it went sideways. Fast. The RDM was having to be a shoehorned healer spamming Vercure. I think this very much depends on players, the specific Jobs, and how over-geared they are vs the dungeon. You don't need Savage fights for that, just the next tier's tome gear. Do Manalis in ilevel 590 and it makes quite a difference vs doing it in 640. And keep in mind, 640 is just tome gear. 625 is Aetherfont drop gear. 620 was LAST patch tome gear. 605 was the gear that dropped in Manalis. 590 was the tome and 24 man gear from before then.

And it's not that WAR is easy, it's that WAR has a Benediction every 25 seconds and a Cure 1 on self every 4.5 (Storm's Path), which is normalized as roughly the amount of healing over time that Kardia does (about Cure 1 every 3 Dosis casts). WAR basically has a self-Kardia on at all times and a pocket Benediction every less-than-thirty seconds when in trash packs (AOE for multiple targets). Not always, but almost always, the "I didn't have to heal anything in a 4 man" stories are people in max gear (at least current tome) and with a WAR Tank. Maybe my luck sucks (or is great, depending on how you look at it), but I consistently get DRK tanks, and have to actually heal them. While I can do it entirely with oGCDs (or if WHM, oGCDs + Lilies; no cast time GCDs nor Regen), it definitely isn't just "I didn't even press an oGCD heal the entire run". If I legitimately did not heal them, they legitimately would die, so it's not "unnecessary overhealing/they don't have to be at 100%". I usually start healing when they get down around 30-40%, and that's with me already using mitigation like Soil.

I've done dungeons just fine without a healer on pld and gnb, these without heal jobs usually. (War just makes it super easy requiring less kiting if doing full pulls)
I have not had the opportunity to do dungeons on DK without a healer [Just has never happened, healerless runs happen by happenstance, usually the healer disconnecting from the beginning] (I still think it's possible for a dk to mitigate it and use their one heal button in between but that requires more exact timing. And since the cd is so long, precise timing on LD as well, the longer you can drag it out while only attacking/healing near the end of LD, the longer the invuln. The rest you can handle by kiting probably and whenever you can TBN)

That actually sounds fun, I am open to do a run for just trying that lel.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

Meaning even if I'm running with the Tank, they tend to LEAP 20 yards ahead.

---

If the tank's griefing the party by sprinting ahead far in advance AND using a gapcloser on the initial pull to ensure melee and healers are hamstrung during the gather, then sure, use Biolysis spam. But unless you're massively unlucky, that's far from the norm. Such isn't an inevitability or a norm. It's a fall-back. Against 4+ targets, you should be using AoW.

Quote:

---

Why call me out for a thing the poster above said they do?

---

They didn't. They just said they were ready to Bio-Deploy, only to be reminded that they can't do that in PvE.
Such =/= "I Bio spammed when I could and should have been using Art of War II."

There's no context by which to say that is the(ir) norm for AoE pulls, only the closest thing that can happen to having Bane / Bio-Deploy.

Quote:

---

Maybe my luck sucks (or is great, depending on how you look at it), but I consistently get DRK tanks, and have to actually heal them. While I can do it entirely with oGCDs (or if WHM, oGCDs + Lilies; no cast time GCDs nor Regen), it definitely isn't just "I didn't even press an oGCD heal the entire run". If I legitimately did not heal them, they legitimately would die, so it's not "unnecessary overhealing/they don't have to be at 100%". I usually start healing when they get down around 30-40%, and that's with me already using mitigation like Soil.

---

Same. I've tanked dungeons at basically minimum ilvl (when coming back from a break from XIV or having only tanked on another character) and not needed any GCD healing... but that's only really nearly guaranteed if the party DPS is quite high (and it helps to have a potion in my pocket, just in case) such that most mobs are dead by the time I'm ever out of CDs. And when I'm the healer, it's not terribly uncommon that I'd even have to use Solace during the pulls, instead of between them.

Usually, I at least do have to make pretty full use of my oGCDs. It's just rare I'd have to take any potency loss outside of Solaces being used during some pulls instead solely of between them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Katish

(I still think it's possible for a dk to mitigate it and use their one heal button in between but that requires more exact timing. And since the cd is so long, precise timing on LD as well, the longer you can drag it out while only attacking/healing near the end of LD, the longer the invuln. The rest you can handle by kiting probably and whenever you can TBN)

That actually sounds fun, I am open to do a run for just trying that lel.

---

This is what exactly happened to one of my roulette run a few days ago in Amdapor Keep (50).

Two of which pulls a healer friend died by accident & we killed the pull just fine. So long the enmity built up on the mobs are high enough (which is so easy with tank stance), hitting LD then just stand still for 9s buys ample time for the dpses to clean up the trash mobs just fine. It's basically "Bloodwhetting but 5m cooldown". The last long pull at the end before last boss, one of the DPS even wrote "You're gonna die man." and chooses to not attack anything out of fear of dying themselves. Shortly after I stop at the boss entrance, my healer friend steps on bad then died so no healing help from them. I hit LD and just sit there for 9s > Hit AoE then kitchen sink cooldowns + Potion + Kiting = Clear.

In 90s it would be miles easier with other tools like TBN & Abyssal Drain. Just have to be extra calculative. Dead Ends would probably be the hardest to pull this off. I personally find it harder to pull it off with GNB but that's probably my skill issue with the job itself lmao.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If the tank's griefing the party by sprinting ahead far in advance AND using a gapcloser

---

I...don't think we have the same definition of the word griefing.

I usually have JUST enough time to DoT all 4(ish) of the mobs of the initial pack and MAYBE have time to DoT one of the mobs from the second pack as I catch up. So it's not like the party is losing out on some incredible amount of damage this way. And since it allows the Tanks to more quickly gather all the mobs into one spot for stationary AOEs to be placed, I don't see that as griefing at all. Most would call it efficient, and the time difference between that and them letting the healer run with them to do tick AOE damage (which WHM can't even do and AST is limited by Lightspeed once per every other pack) would hardly be anything. Even if you're right that it's a smidge more potency damage, the difference MIGHT be 3-5 seconds or one GCD faster. "griefing" that isn't.

Moreover, this happens with almost every run I do. "massively unlucky"? It seems to be the norm.

And this kind of comment, btw, is the min-maxy BS that ruins games. "You're losing 70 potency once every AOE pack that might be HALF a GCD slower killing the pack! That's griefing/bad gameplay!!" Really? I...don't think it is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

They didn't. They just said they were ready to Bio-Deploy, only to be reminded that they can't do that in PvE.
Such =/= "I Bio spammed when I could and should have been using Art of War II."

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

... So I applied the DoT to each mob and then spammed Art of War until everything died.

---

...so he literally said he did the same thing I did. Applied to the DoT to each mob (while catching up to the Tank, presumably), then spammed Art until everything died once caught up. That's LITERALLY the same thing I said. Either you don't/didn't read it, or as I accuse, you want to find things to attack me for while you give a pass to people who aren't me for saying/doing the same thing.

.

As for all the talk of god DRK's using perfectly timed LDs:

You guys don't run random ques solo much, do you? Because that isn't the common experience as far as I can tell.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

I...don't think we have the same definition of the word griefing.

---

Sabotaging, often with the purpose of demeaning or infuriating others. If the tank is purposely preventing others uptime by playing keep-away with the mobs over the whole course of the gather... that description doesn't sound far off.

Yes, losing those 10-20 seconds of Melee/Ranger/SGE/SCH/AST damage on the initial pack by keeping out of their reach over the gather only gets the final pack into place at most a second or two earlier, but there's no one in place to make use of that so only the tank's damage on the final pack is starting any sooner, and less resource has been generated in advance for that full gather. All in all, it's just an annoyance and a way to slow down one's party. Much like pulling a raid boss with Plunge, it's not generally a good idea.

Quote:

---

And this kind of comment, btw, is the min-maxy BS that ruins games. "You're losing 70 potency once every AOE pack that might be HALF a GCD slower killing the pack! That's griefing/bad gameplay!!" Really? I...don't think it is.

---

Are you the tank in that example? I wasn't aware any tank had access to Biolysis and Art of War.

I only pointed out the math behind why adding Bane or the ability to Deploy one's DoTs would not simplify gameplay in the context you claimed it would. The only 'griefing' I pointed out would be tank behaviors that would prevent you from using Art of War.

Quote:

---

That's LITERALLY the same thing I said.

---

The difference is in the context. When you're claiming that Bane would be bad because it could only ever reduce the amount of cast-variety in AoE, that's not a one-time off-the-cuff example within a larger story about how little healing is required; it would have to be the norm/sole possibility among AoE pulls.

I don't get what the whole big deal about a sprinting tank is. If you see the tank is sprinting ahead to the next pack, you react by using your own sprint and keeping up. Or are we no longer watching ally buff bars to see what they're doing (eg how much/little mit the tank is using, so you know to use more heal/mit to counteract)?

'Reacting to buff/debuff on ally' seems like the exact 'healer gameplay' that people want more of (eg when they ask for 'more things to use Esuna on'), so why is it so difficult to react to 'oh the tank used sprint here'?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I don't get what the whole big deal about a sprinting tank is. If you see the tank is sprinting ahead to the next pack, you react by using your own sprint and keeping up. Or are we no longer watching ally buff bars to see what they're doing (eg how much/little mit the tank is using, so you know to use more heal/mit to counteract)?

'Reacting to buff/debuff on ally' seems like the exact 'healer gameplay' that people want more of (eg when they ask for 'more things to use Esuna on'), so why is it so difficult to react to 'oh the tank used sprint here'?

---

Generally, I'll be stacked on or ahead of the tank by the end of each fight just to ensure my hitting Sprint the very moment after they do will keep me in range. And when tanking, I generally see the same from my non-WHM healers. (The WHM healers who attempt to Swiftcast Holy mid-gather, now that there's so no GCD healing to be done later anyways, slow and annoy the party more often than not.)

But, if keeping up as to AoE during the gather were truly impossible or out of one's hands, as per the discourse earlier, that'd be a matter of the tank sprinting ahead AND using a gap-closer on the first pack AND purposely continuing to keep all mobs out of reach of their party, and the healer not having Icarus at the ready (for instance, due to not being a Sage). So... the tank being new and on an excess of energy drinks, or subtly griefing.

Which can happen. But rarely will. Which makes it seem an oddly cherrypicked example from which to say that Bane would necessarily reduce/simplify DoT gameplay in dungeons...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I don't get what the whole big deal about a sprinting tank is.

---

I was thinking the same tbh...

I'm usually aiming to run a 3 legged race with the tank to the next pack out of habit, that way if I do accidentally pull agro (More of an issue in the past than it is now granted), it's not going to negatively affect anything, if anything I get to put my HP to use as a shield for the tank.

Even if they use plunge etc, the only time I can say I've had trouble keeping up is when I've been asleep at the wheel or too busy slurping the coffee.

I'll also repeat the 'Match your sprint with the Tanks' tip. That's super important and makes it much easier to not fall behind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Sabotaging, often with the purpose of demeaning or infuriating others.

---

....

Wow.

There just aren't other words.

Apparently, "Tanks gathering mobs" is now "sabotaging, often with the purpose of demeaning or infuriating others" and "preventing others uptime by playing keep-away". /facepalm

No one is losing 10-20 seconds of damage, and even if they were, [u]10 seconds[/i] is demeaning and infuriating? Good god...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Are you the tank in that example? I wasn't aware any tank had access to Biolysis and Art of War.

---

What? o.O

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The difference is in the context.

---

NO!

Stop it and just apologize. I'm tired of this nonsense. YOUR EXACT WORDS ABOVE were not "they didn't same the same thing 'in context'".

Ren: Why call me out for a thing the poster above said they do?
Shurri: They didn't. They just said they were ready to Bio-Deploy, only to be reminded that they can't do that in PvE. Such =/= "I Bio spammed when I could and should have been using Art of War II.

THEY DID. They 100% SAID THE SAME THING. The only difference in context was that they WANTED to Deploy them but couldn't, so they DID THE EXACT SAME THING I DO AND SAID THEY DID THE EXACT SAME THING I DO AND SAID IT FIRST. I only said LATER that I did the same thing they did.

There's no "context" that changes the FACT that they said the same thing.

No "context" changes you lied when you said they didn't say it. There's no context that makes what THEY SAID THEY DID any different than what I said I do because it's literally the same thing. You weren't getting onto me for not wanting to spread Bio, you were getting onto me for applying it to each target instead of Arting them all, while giving a pass to someone else, before me, saying they did the same thing.

The CONTEXT doesn't change that.

I didn't "claim Bane would be bad", either. QUOTE ME saying Bane would be "bad". FIND THE QUOTE, damnit. Or apologize, because we both know there isn't one and I didn't say it. I caught you in a mistake and instead of just admitting to it, you're trying to avoid it and turn it around on me, including by making up something I didn't say.

There is no "context" argument here, and it's absurd to try that goalpost shift now.

.

Sorry if I'm coming off a little heated, I'm just sick and tired of this thing where people do something, I point out it's incorrect, then instead of a mere and simple "Oh, my bad", which isn't even a loss of face, people try to twist it and move goalposts to not only say they're somehow right anyway, but also attack me in the process by making up words to stick in my mouth that I never said.

I never said Bane "would be bad". I said I don't see how it's an improvement in general, and it doesn't change anything in single-target. I think stuff like that is overrated. Bad, on the other hand, is negative or actively detrimental.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

...

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

...

---

Are you guys replying to me or Shurrikhan?

I never said anyting about falling behind or having trouble keeping up OR not using Sprint.

She said I should be casting Art of War and not DoTs when the Tank is gathering enemies, and I pointed out if the Tank sprints and then gapcloses to the first pack, AOEs to agro them, continues running and then gapcloses to the second pack, I'm not in Art of War range unless I was far ahead of them (basically agroing the first pack before they get to it). But I'm well within range of both the Tank (for healing) and the enemies (for DoTing/Ruin 2 if I somehow DoT them all before the Tank is stopped by the wall, but that never happens because the GCD isn't that short).

Once the Tank gets to the second pack, I'm usually on the GCD from having DoTed the 4th enemy from the first group (there are usually four) and get to the pack by the time that GCD is finishing to start Artspamming.

I'm not sure where this "fall behind" or "not using sprint" is coming from. I use Sprint when the Tank does, DoT the first pack as the Tank moves to the second, get to the second about when my GCD from the last DoT is up, and shift over into AOEing. I'm not sure why this is some grotesque issue, nor why the Tank is griefing by doing this. I've literally never seen ANYONE complain about this before - not even here on this forum or in Tales from the Duty Finder. This seems the most extreme min-max BS complaint I've ever seen related to this game, especially since we're talking about the most casual of combat content possible, 4 man dungeon roulette.

EDIT:

Seriously, if we posted this topic literally anywhere else they talk about this game, I bet the majority would be saying it's not griefing, not bad play, and most would probably be saying something to the effect of "Are you serious right now?"

Not only that, a number of packs ARE only 3 enemies (or 4 spaced far enough Art won't hit them all), in which case DoTs ARE the DPS gain anyway. And as discussed, WHM can't (or shouldn't) be using Holy there anyway in the specific case of WHM. It's not "Dia does initial damage" that's the issue there, it's Holy's stun and cast time.

This is so stupid...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

Wow.

There just aren't other words.

---

You asked how I define griefing and why I would consider purposely keeping others away from uptime to be griefing. I defined it and pointed out why those behaviors would serve no other purpose. But do go on, I guess?

Quote:

---

There's no "context" that

---

A: So, this funny thing happened to me the other day, where I ended up doing X.
B: X is the only thing that could be done, and that's why you all don't/shouldn't really want this tool you say you want.

No part of A claimed that that is the only optional available. To say that we should NEVER get Bane because of a finding from that rare situation, though, would require that it is the norm.
Again:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

They didn't. They just said they were ready to Bio-Deploy, only to be reminded that they can't do that in PvE.
Such =/= "I Bio spammed when I could and should have been using Art of War II."

There's no context by which to say that is the(ir) norm for AoE pulls, only the closest thing that can happen to having Bane / Bio-Deploy.

---

It's like pointing at someone laughing about how he somehow had a wipe in Aetherfront to say that Endgame dungeons are plenty difficult and should never get a lower ilvl ceiling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

Are you guys replying to me or Shurrikhan?

I never said anyting about falling behind or having trouble keeping up OR not using Sprint.

---

It was in reference to this tangent in general, untwist your knickers sir. As I made it clear the first time, in my personal experience, the only issues I've had with this have been entirely self made. That includes back when we were baning dot with a cast time as well as getting Aero III off consistently mid pull as well.

Quote:

---

This is so stupid...

---

Keep it civil sir.

Funny that everyone acts like Bane is an absolute necessity for DoTs yet Bard has managed just fine without it this entire time…

Even more hilarious is that everyone constantly shits on Ren for whatever he posts, then give his posts literally more traffic than they ever would have by constantly quoting them just to say how wrong they are. If you really despise someone so much shouldn’t you just ignore them? Or report them or something? I don’t see what the benefit of this circumlocution is.

Ren writes a super long post that doesn’t come across properly, Shurrikhan/Sebazy/ForsakenRoe/Whoever aggressively ‘debunk’ everything he says, Ren gets annoyed and makes a super long post dramatically: you guys have literally taken over every single healer thread and frankly I’m a little sick of the healer forums literally just being a bunch of conversations that become ‘Ren VS Whoever it is this time’.

Again if you really hate someone’s take so much why keep giving it airtime…

Forums are literally for people to converse. That includes both agreement and disagreement. Ren has interesting ideas occasionally but even if they never ever had a good take the answer would not be to let them fill the entire forum with their sole voice. Silence is tacit agreement and definitely does more harm than good in most scenarios. I actually like that Ren creates more traffic on the forum and opens up avenues to hear opinions from people I really enjoy. I literally learned how to play this game from tips on the forums and I would hate to see that kind of discourse be lost because everyone chooses to ostracize and alienate one person with radio silence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Forums are literally for people to converse

---

From my understanding the FFXIV forums were supposed to be for leaving feedback about the game.

Saying silence is tacit agreement seems a little dangerous lol. Nobody ever replies to my posts about how we should all have gcd buffs and debuffs and that dps abilities and DoTs are purely ancillary, but that doesn’t meant they agree in any way, shape or form. More likely they just read my post and (reasonably) concluded it was a bad idea because it doesn’t work in ffxiv like, at all.

People giving their opinions and agreement/disagreement isn’t really the issue here, it’s that they’ve become so circular that every thread devolves into the same thing (Two or more people arguing over who is more right) and not actual opinions or discussions about the game itself.

Personally I just don’t see the point of making a protracted rebuttal to someone’s opinion purely because you don’t like it. That doesn’t mean ostracising or ‘silencing’ anyone, it just means not engaging with them when it comes a point that they’re being ‘unreasonable’. If they reevaluate and come back more willing to actually discuss, then of course they shouldn’t still be ignored