My issues with PvP

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Originally Posted by Atrayl

Again, it is a fundamental design flaw and imbalance that an entire team, that cannot communicate, needs to be able to work together in perfect unison simply to be able to counter the effects of one player. Healers are too strong. Healers are too integral to a fight.

"Count healers, determine winner." It's broken and unfun.

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So healers need to be made useless because of a bad change decision in removing chat. Makes sense.

"Count MCH/BRD who know how to burst to determine winner" it's broken and unfun

Lets remove Black mages, summoners, and scholars while we are at it.

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

If you've never seen a healer die in the Feast I suggest you get an eye check or report someone using an invincibility hack. Unless the team is reasonably well coordinated & other players are protecting the healer they will, & do, die regularly. I simply cannot believe your claim that healers cannot be killed.

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good Healers can't be killed by subpar DPS, just asked the 3 I dragged away from our main group to allow my team to get free kills

To the TC: In case you did not know, a single healer can't heal a 8 v8 due to the amount of CC, soon that healer gets CCed the team with them is doomed. 2 is best and 3 or more lacks damage. It has nothing to do with "more healers = more chance to win" I have solo healed 8 people matches before from the other team was so poor and lack coordination (or in the case of front line, mainly from the other 2 teams going at it with each other). Maybe you are better off complaining about the no chat?

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

So healers need to be made useless.

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I will say straight up (and I've always been upfront about this) I personally think PVP would be better with no healing. However, if we absolutely must have healing in PVP, all I want is for a team with no healers to have just as much a chance to win as a team with healers. Now, as for how we can make that feasible, I don't know, I'm not a game designer and I don't claim to have all the answers. Nor do I think that removing healers would suddenly increase my win rate either, but I can say that I have been in plenty of situations (and I'm sure others have as well) where they only lost because the other team had healers when your's did not. If we suddenly removed healing, it would put everyone on equal footing and prevent anyone from having that advantage.

But...healers have no damage in PVP. If a team can survive without them, then there's no reason to have them at all. You're functionally suggesting the exact same thing as deleting them from the mode entirely.

It's cool if people want that, but be upfront about it like Zojha is doing. That said, all I foresee a "no heals" mode doing is just leading to teams of like 2 PLDs spamming Clemency on 6 Fell Cleaving WARs, so there's that. Tanks would become the new "broken" without a massive overhaul to the PVP system, including separate balancing for PVP and PVE (way more than what we have now).

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

But...healers have no damage in PVP. If a team can survive without them, then there's no reason to have them at all. You're functionally suggesting the exact same thing as deleting them from the mode entirely.

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I wouldn't say it would delete them from the mode entirely. If we must have healing, I've always been an advocate for the idea that healing should DELAY death rather than PREVENT it, there is a difference between those two concepts. I can elaborate on that point more if you want.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I wouldn't say it would delete them from the mode entirely. If we must have healing, I've always been an advocate for the idea that healing should DELAY death rather than PREVENT it, there is a difference between those two concepts. I can elaborate on that point more if you want.

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You can't prevent death when people go 100%-0% faster then a cast timer. Only way to prevent that is to have healing abilities ready while knowing it is coming so you can react. Again you need to be highly skilled and have so much foresight to heal in PvP in this game it is ridiculous. The server lag does not help matters.

You need to completely overhaul damage and rotations to even THINK of nerfing healing in anyway and SCH needs a buff regrdless. Clearly there is an issue here of a select few in this thread not knowing how fast jobs can deal damage in pvp, brd in particular, while actually playing healer.

Oh my friend reminded me of something, she picked off a summoner in shatter as a MCH when she saw that summoner's healer casting a DPS spell on the ice. The fact that was being done told her that summoner was free to take down from that and that is exactly what she did. The healer had no time to react and ended up fluid aura her then repose as some sort of healer revenge tactic, lol. (this is actually uploaded, neat vid btw :p) You need very high awareness to be successful as a healer. Cast times are simply too long to react heal, you need to be having foresight to heal it.

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Originally Posted by Atrayl

I know what my burst is. It's not good enough. In dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay, I have yet to see a healer die in the Feast. I rarely see anyone die, for that matter. Just people plunking away at one another, running back when they get to 5% health to be healed to 100% with a single spell. It's out of control.

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Hold up. "Dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay" in feast? Since a game lasts all of 8 minutes I take it then you have several hundred matches under your belt? And people "rarely" die? Don't draws count towards the garo mount? I can't say I'm sure since I've only seen draws in feast a few times, in my own several hundreds of matches played.

Going to go out on a limb here, but sounds like you're tossing around hyperbole to support your arguements

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

But...healers have no damage in PVP. If a team can survive without them, then there's no reason to have them at all. You're functionally suggesting the exact same thing as deleting them from the mode entirely.

<snippety doo>

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A way to do it, if people genuinely don't want healing in the current format, is to reverse the current situation. By that I mean FORCE Cleric Stance to on. It nerfs healing significantly but allows healers to still take part as they're now mainly DPS. I bet that would have people *screaming* for the current situation when a WHM obliterates half a team using Holy.

SE can't win either way. We currently have the best of a poor choice that I personally think works quite well in a game designed for PvE.

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Originally Posted by Enlial

Hold up. "Dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay" in feast? Since a game lasts all of 8 minutes I take it then you have several hundred matches under your belt? And people "rarely" die? Don't draws count towards the garo mount? I can't say I'm sure since I've only seen draws in feast a few times, in my own several hundreds of matches played.

Going to go out on a limb here, but sounds like you're tossing around hyperbole to support your arguements

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I would agree in feeling that way. I do not think people can make claims like this without first spending several hundred hours on EACH JOB! I did not feel like calling them out since it would only cause them to get defensive replies but since you done so, i see no harm in saying I suspect such things as well, I hope he addresses my other post in full though.

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

I bet that would have people *screaming* for the current situation when a WHM obliterates half a team using Holy.

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Mhm...no. That would have people screaming to have Holy nerfed. You know it's true.

Atrayl, while you do make some valid points -- healers are a very centralising force in this game's pvp, no matter low or high level -- I would like to stress a few consequences that have to be taken into consideration. It is easy for non-healers to forget that playing a healer role in pvp gives you as such an extremely large responsibility to carry, while at the same time there are not many more things in this game more grueling than having to defend your team against a group of competent dps and tanks who are out to murder you. I heavily recommend you to try healing in pvp for yourself. Directly nerfing healing output in a way that you proposed would mean that the balance regarding "rewards vs. effort" of playing a healer in ffxiv pvp would risk being destroyed. It's currently a high effort/high reward thing.

Now, if you argue that the existence of such a centralising force is bad for game balance: as has been posted in this thread SE simply had to work with the current mmo trinity of dps/tank/healer as a base. Healers in pve are crucial as the sole members of their parties to compensate for outgoing raid damage. While again, I feel that directly nerfing healing output in pvp is a bad idea, it is through other ways than such a nerf impossible to change this pve importance being directly translated into pvp without overhauling the pvp battle system itself. And realistically that will never happen. Furthermore, one might even argue that the presence of such a major influencing factor can be beneficial as it adds an extra layer to dps strategy. The playing field is equal for both teams; if killing or locking down the enemy healer is hard yet important to win, so is it for the opposing team. You will see many varying opinions regarding this on the forums as well. I do not feel that it is simply a black or white, objectively good or bad issue.

I agree with you though that in random FLs (and I assume, 8v8 Feast) the average quality of dps is horrible. As a consequence, even a moderately skilled healer can exert an extremely high influence on the outcome of a match. The problem is that I do not feel all the negative side-effects are worth it just to change this. Honestly, the very high skill gap between Frontline randoms and experienced PvPers is more at fault here. In my opinion, a lot more effort from SE's part could go towards properly educating "the masses" so that they understand how using pve rotations and the like in pvp is equal to being dead weight. Dpsing /effectively/ in pvp has a very high skill ceiling. If played properly, the majority of dps classes can (yes even solo) exert very heavy pressure on a healer when they decide to. And some, if they use cc at key points, even kill off average healers themselves without party support. This however requires at least knowing the basics of working out and practicing an effective burst rotation, lining up cooldowns plus popping them at strategic opportunities, using your utility and cc in an effective way, etc. Hence why the vast majority of players fail in applying proper pressure.

In the end, some accessible resources to teach new players pvp (and not actual bollocks like "Stone Sky Sea" or "Hall of the Novice" which help NOTHING in learning new players what is expected of their roles and utility, maximum dps rotations and so on for endgame pve content worth anything) are what is needed. That would serve much better to give the dps more weight in low-level pvp without breaking any other kind of balance.