What would prevent 0/1 Healer clears of content?

(Part3)

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Sparkthor

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Keichi

(text to long)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

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

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

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I'm with you until the last sentence.

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

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

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

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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