Feedback: It's dull when only the tank is still alive and they can't die

For context, my experience where this happens has been with non-Extreme Trials and non-Savage raids, with the occasional dungeon boss here and there.

I absolutely don't mind a tank having enough self-sustain to be able to hold out for the last 30 seconds of a fight after the rest of the party has died; having a single player be able to finish off that last bit of boss health is fine.

But when the rest of the party dies and the tank slowly solos the rest of the fight over the course of a few minutes? It's dull because I don't get to play the game. Especially if I was playing DPS and didn't miss any mechanics, but rather just died due to unavoidable damage that wasn't being healed or mitigated.

So that's the problem that I'm hoping devs can solve: to in some way adjust the game so that dead players aren't reduced to spectators for minutes at a time with no hope of ever being revived.

I can see two different ways to solve this problem:

1. Reduce tank self-sustain so that they are more reliant on healers in group content.
2. Give tanks a spell that can revive teammates.

Broadly speaking, if FF14 is supposed to be a "trinity game" — one that has parties of tanks, healers, and DPS — I would say that the balance of the game is off if one of those roles doesn't need help from even one of the other two. So my preference would be adjusting the game's balance such that one or two tanks can't survive for minutes at a time without the aid of healing party members.

But honestly, I don't need an ideal solution. So if the above is too much work, just give all tanks a rez. If the group isn't going to wipe anyway, then let other players start to trickle back into play. This would mean even if it's only the tank alive I never feel like I'm entirely out of the fight, and even if I'm one of the players who doesn't get revived before the fight ends, it would still be an improvement because those who were revived could contribute to DPS, which gets me back on my feet sooner by ending the fight sooner.

Anyway, thanks for considering my feedback.

boss Auto attack damage actually doing something would be a nice start

Aurum vale's more dangerous than expert dungeons. This fact alone says a lot about the state of FFXIV.

Not a solution but if the tank is the only one alive, the boss HP is effectively 5x as much (Light Party) or 10x as much (Full Party). Saying this in chat might help the tank realize that dying and restarting will be faster than soloing.

As for ways to keep the tank from living forever, the boss could change attacks depending on how many people are alive. So if only the tank is left, skip raidwides and TB more.

I also think reducing tank sustain would be beneficial. Healers are almost pointless now.

I've posted this before, but it would be hilarious if they changed it so tank healing scaled off tenacity instead of strength.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Aurum vale's more dangerous than expert dungeons. This fact alone says a lot about the state of FFXIV.

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It's only dangerous cause most can't run it right nor really do mechanics at all.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

when the rest of the party dies and the tank slowly solos the rest of the fight over the course of a few minutes? It's dull because I don't get to play the game.

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It's not dull for me (I'm usually the tank soloing). From my point of view, it's usually everyone else's fault for wiping. DPS not only can do mechanics, many of them can survive without a healer for an extended period with abilities like Second Wind, Bloodbath, Feint/Addle, Shade Shift/Manaward.

At level 80 and higher, provided DPS do the mechanics correctly, I actually keep them alive as a tank, even if the healer dies at the beginning of the fight, using abilities such as Nascent Flash/Intervention, Shake It Off/Divine Veil and Reprisal. PLD could even do this from level 58 due to Clemency and Divine Veil.

The balance I like is for it not to be easy for the tank to solo the boss, but for it not to be impossible either. Obviously, at level 90, it's ridiculously easy as a Warrior. Although I do still see some players that fail at it on a Warrior/Paladin who just didn't have the experience.

Soloing the last Malikah's Well boss was decently challenging as a Warrior in Shadowbringers. It was easy to die due to the autos, but if you knew how to Nascent Flash your strongest attacks at the right time and use mit at the right time, you could develop a perfect rotation to take damage from autos > heal while it's casting stuff > repeat. Now you just always get healed for a fixed amount and Shake It Off heals too.

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So that's the problem that I'm hoping devs can solve: to in some way adjust the game so that dead players aren't reduced to spectators for minutes at a time with no hope of ever being revived.

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Personally, I would rather this got solved for 8-person content such as Extreme and Savage. You can see half of an Extreme trial's mechanics on your own as a tank, or even get all the way to enrage, with your party as spectators. I remember doing it in Barbaricca and EX3.

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Reduce tank self-sustain so that they are more reliant on healers in group content.

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This should be the solution. In Heavensward and ARR, my sustain wasn't great and I accepted this was my role and that I needed to rely on the healer. Now I just... don't.

I liked having spells such as Cure, Stoneskin or Clemency in ARR and Heavensward. They did allow me to solo some things. But never 8-person content and only rarely dungeons if I could find a really good strategy. Of course Clemency even had a restriction where you could only use it twice before MP regen was needed and attacks interrupted it (not much of an issue since bosses cast stuff so much :D).

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So if the above is too much work, just give all tanks a rez.

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You know, tanks and healers have blurred eachother's lines so much that they may as well do just that. Tanks can now do single target heals and party regens, and healers can mitigate with shields and raid-wide mit. They are virtually the same role at this point.

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Originally Posted by Ravenblade1979

It's only dangerous cause most can't run it right nor really do mechanics at all.

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It's only dangerous because of these things that make it dangerous. XD

On topic, they just need to scale back the tank healing and this isn't a problem anymore.

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Originally Posted by Ravenblade1979

It's only dangerous cause most can't run it right nor really do mechanics at all.

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As far as tanks go everything in aurum vale's dangerous if their healer doesn't keep them alive. Can't say the same about expansions after A realm reborn, with a few excemptions.

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

Not a solution but if the tank is the only one alive, the boss HP is effectively 5x as much (Light Party) or 10x as much (Full Party). Saying this in chat might help the tank realize that dying and restarting will be faster than soloing.

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Or... I could still decide to solo it but take 5x longer than I currently do.

I think a better solution would be for the tank to gain Basic Instinct when they are alone, which doubles attacks power and defense so that they can kill the boss faster. This is already a mechanic on Coeurls and on Blue Mage.