Why have the raid if there is no interest in doing it?

There is a vested interest in raid groups to "skip phases", correct? And this interest is very strong. It's so strong that if certain jobs do not facilitate skipping phases, they would be shunned. "Why should I invite X job when Z can do it better?" This quote should be familiar to Dragoon and Summoner mains during 2.4. Let's say a fight has four phases, A, B, C and D. No phase is weighted more heavily than any other in wanting to be skipped, correct? If a group could push out so much dps that by the time the tank finished his/her opening enmity combo, the mob would be in phase B, only group compositions that facilitated this would/should be created, right? The current meta is don't invite Paladins for Alexander savage. But phase B has as much interest in being skipped as A, and so on and so forth. So logically there is no interest in doing the raid. Just give raiders the gear.

Certain phases in raid battles are difficult and have a lot of damage going out, which tax the healers and allow for additional things to go wrong. If you have the ability to push a percentage based mechanic out and skip it entirely why would you not try? There will never be a perfect balance in jobs and this game is far more balanced than most MMOs I've played. In the next phase PLDs might be a must have and people will not want a dark knight or warrior, it's a constant juggling act for the devs to add challenging content and try to balance it for basically any legitimate setup to complete.

You are seeking to put those who excel at the game by diminishing what they've been able to do with semantics. I've seen this same argument since the early days of FFXI, nothing is every going to be perfect for every job but it doesn't mean you toss out the entire battle/raid/etc altogether. If you want to find something to complain about how about we address the overuse of DPS checks and push to have more mechanics based battles.

I remember 1.0 Garuda HM and skipping her phases.
Our tank had a literal measuring ruler taped to his monitor so he could accurately figure out the HP % in order for us to withhold and engage properly. It was actually a lot of fun.

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Originally Posted by Wobi

Certain phases in raid battles are difficult and have a lot of damage going out, which tax the healers and allow for additional things to go wrong. If you have the ability to push a percentage based mechanic out and skip it entirely why would you not try?

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I don't think healers should have the power to eschew people from playing certain jobs because they want their life easier. I would never tell anyone they could not come to Thordan Ex because of the job they played. Honestly, what's more of a problem, not being able to skip phases, or losing subscribers because the job they like and feel comfortable with is being shunned by a whole community?

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Originally Posted by Wobi

If you want to find something to complain about how about we address the overuse of DPS checks and push to have more mechanics based battles.

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Screw DPS checks. Can we have HEALER checks??? Most of a raid boss can be solo healed, and even the healer solo healing can DPS. Healing on this game is too easy. I want fights where healing is so intense DPS is rarely possible for either healer.

I'm not anti-healer DPS btw. I'd be bored out of my skull if I didn't DPS because healing in this game is too easy. SWTOR is a terrible game in many ways, but even dungeon healing there can be more intense than endgame raid healing here. :/

I understand where the OP is coming, I really do, but I completely disagree with him/her.
If you are going to be part of PROGRESSIVE raiding, you need to be flexible. Some jobs are bound to have advantages in some fights while in other they are complete garbage. If you raid seriously, you probably know how to play the other jobs in the same category as your main. For example, I main SMN, but I know how to play BLM just in case.

It's all about optimizing and sometimes being optimal is more important playing the job you want to play as

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Originally Posted by zcrash970

I understand where the OP is coming, I really do, but I completely disagree with him/her.
If you are going to be part of PROGRESSIVE raiding, you need to be flexible. Some jobs are bound to have advantages in some fights while in other they are complete garbage. If you raid seriously, you probably know how to play the other jobs in the same category as your main. For example, I main SMN, but I know how to play BLM just in case.

It's all about optimizing and sometimes being optimal is more important playing the job you want to play as

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Yea i honestly knew MNK was at a disadvantage in T9 and there asnt much i could do.

The problem is enrage timers. Honestly what is the purpose of these? Why should it matter how long it takes us to defeat the boss as long as our team manages to survive. It's the enrage timers that cause harsh dps checks. I can't tell you how many tomes I almost beat AS3 but wiped only because we hit enrage. Seriously; I think raiding would be a lot more enjoyable if we removed enrages.

BCoB turn 2 is the reason we have enrage timers and harsh dps checks every fight. Blame your fellow players for letting SE know that we will destroy a fight completely if it meant we can skip mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

The problem is enrage timers. Honestly what is the purpose of these? Why should it matter how long it takes us to defeat the boss as long as our team manages to survive. It's the enrage timers that cause harsh dps checks. I can't tell you how many tomes I almost beat AS3 but wiped only because we hit enrage. Seriously; I think raiding would be a lot more enjoyable if we removed enrages.

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DPS checks in next raid will be less pushy.
Yoshida already confirmed in the last live letter that they overdid the DPS checks in the current Alex S a bit.

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Originally Posted by Elim

Screw DPS checks. Can we have HEALER checks???

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Check out A4S before you wish too hard, no matter what strat you use the brunt is on the healers.

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Originally Posted by Jeykama

Check out A4S before you wish too hard, no matter what strat you use the brunt is on the healers.

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My raid groups causal (scrubs). We haven't downed AS4 yet but AS3 (and 1,2) healing is a joke.

^ A4S, you constantly deal with less than 5k MP in the last phases. Its tough.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

There is a vested interest in raid groups to "skip phases", correct? And this interest is very strong. It's so strong that if certain jobs do not facilitate skipping phases, they would be shunned. "Why should I invite X job when Z can do it better?" This quote should be familiar to Dragoon and Summoner mains during 2.4.

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PLD can do all kinds of things that the other tanks would struggle with. For example, IIRC it remains the only tank that can do all 3 Quarantines in a row in A4S, can single-handedly deal with 2 fat adds in A3S (Silence+Stun) and absorb damage in A2S like nobody's business. The DPS check in Alex Savage was brutal on PLD but the bigger problem was the fact the fight had so much magical damage that DRK was overwhelmingly favored. If it had just a bit more physical DMG (e.g. if perpetual was Physical) DRK won't be so desirable even though they technically do more damage.

Also the essence of a raid is problem solving.
You take a really really hard problem, you formulate a solution, you execute the solution, you revise effectiveness of solution.

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Originally Posted by CookieMonsta

For example, IIRC it remains the only tank that can do all 3 Quarantines in a row in A4S

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Sorry, but...all three tanks have the tools to do that. DRK probably has the hardest time (since Living Dead is terrible).

I used to have to tank all three when we had *really* slow kill times on the second quarantine, or when we had this one tank as a sub who would not let me switch with him (and occasionally still will if the swap is just bad thanks to lasers). I'm a Warrior, and I'd do all three in Deliverance.



But, yes, PLD is really good in A2S (know several groups who had their DRK switch just for it) and when a PLD is OT they do decent enough DPS (and with everyone being 205+ now, having a PLD is not the reason you're failing DPS checks). The extra stuns are nice in A3S if someone goofs, but if you have a DRG (2 stuns), MNK (AoE silence and 2 stuns) or MCH (stun and silence) you should be able to get them all no problem.

As for the OP...early progression you have to deal with these "bad" parts of the fight. Being able to skip is a sign of better gear (which early on comes from clearing) and/or getting better at the fight.

There are also certain parts that are there just to say "if you see this, your DPS isn't good enough to clear" and you need to take it as a sign that you need to get good.

I can completely agree we need to do away with hard DPS checks or at least ease up on them. I would much rather see we failed due to people not moving out of the difficult pattern of AOE's and such vs cus the Blackmage accidentally fumbled his rotation and we didn't hit the mark before enrage. Speaking of which, honestly just makes me think of this.

http://vgmemes.net/_nw/4/55780874.jpg

Which I honestly never understood in any game, your almost dead and now your throwing all kinds of "what the hells" which would have been acceptable when you were at full strength.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

The problem is enrage timers. Honestly what is the purpose of these? Why should it matter how long it takes us to defeat the boss as long as our team manages to survive. It's the enrage timers that cause harsh dps checks. I can't tell you how many tomes I almost beat AS3 but wiped only because we hit enrage. Seriously; I think raiding would be a lot more enjoyable if we removed enrages.

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If there's no enrage timers, what's to stop us from just taking six tanks and two healers to cheese everything else?

With that said, I think the DPS check in the current raid tier is a bit steep and that's being changed in Midas.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

The problem is enrage timers. Honestly what is the purpose of these? Why should it matter how long it takes us to defeat the boss as long as our team manages to survive. It's the enrage timers that cause harsh dps checks. I can't tell you how many tomes I almost beat AS3 but wiped only because we hit enrage. Seriously; I think raiding would be a lot more enjoyable if we removed enrages.

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Enrage timers are a bandaid fix to ensure people go into fights with at least 4 dps.

If there was no enrage then people would just go in with 7 scholars and let the faeries cover everything.

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Originally Posted by Elim

My raid groups causal (scrubs). We haven't downed AS4 yet but AS3 (and 1,2) healing is a joke.

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In current gear yes, but if you were progressing in A1 at release the healing was nothing to scoff at.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

The current meta is don't invite Paladins for Alexander savage.

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The reason for this is:With PLD its a little bit harder to get the DPS to beat it (A3, A4) at all.

For Alex Savage, I don't remember ways to skip phases. The fights are fully scripted. In A1 and A3 everything is on a fixed timer. In A2 the phase changes when you have beaten the current wave. In A4 the phase switches with every leg.

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Originally Posted by PArcher

MCH (stun and silence).

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You mean stun or silence. They share the cooldown timer ;)

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Originally Posted by Elim

My raid groups causal (scrubs). We haven't downed AS4 yet but AS3 (and 1,2) healing is a joke.

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when you try healing A4S come back to me

and say it was easy

as for A3S its easy to heal looking at how last phase force you to not DPS

and tanks go full DPS stance at final phase to regain the DPS lost from healers unable to DPS

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

You mean stun or silence. They share the cooldown timer ;)

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You can see which job I have no interest in playing lol

(yeah, my bad. Can't stand leveling the job but since we have a sometimes-mch I did learn they have both in a4s)

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

Which I honestly never understood in any game, your almost dead and now your throwing all kinds of "what the hells" which would have been acceptable when you were at full strength.

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Well... on one hand, I get what you mean. If it technically should be lying in a heap and bleeding out and twitch a little, it seems a bit weird. But on the other hand, I see it as that stage being when you get it down to 0 hp. When it's /almost/ dead, that's when the adrenaline rush hits, together with the desperate "Hell no, I'm not gonna die before they do!" where it throws out those really risky suicide attacks cos it has no other choice -- if it doesn't use those "common side effects include death or long-term invalidity" attacks, it's gonna die anyway. ;p

There was a parody on the classic fantasy novel format that I read once. Basically brought in all the cliches and told the story through basically the trope names/descriptions. Don't remember exactly how it went, but ends with something like the Nameless Hero going 39 rounds with the Evil Overlord, but of course the Evil Overlord cheats and hides metal junk in his boxing gloves. Then in the last round, the Nameless Hero's down for the count, when the Princess blows him a kiss, someone gives him an overdose of holy water, and the Cryptic Old Man tells him a final secret. Just before the count is up, the Nameless Hero gets to his feet, dusts himself off and goes, "Dude, you forgot to tie your shoelaces." And when the Evil Overlord looks, the Nameless Hero knocks him out and wins the fight. (And for some reason, this does not count as cheating.)
That was a total side-note, but the point of it was that the same thing happens to heroes in most novels/anime, as well as some games, and ever since I read that parody, I've referred to it as the hero getting an overdose of holy water xD


To return to the topic of phase skipping in raids (and primals and other stuff), I actually like it that they've made some fights impossible if the wrong phase is skipped or if too many phases get skipped. Say Ifrit, for example -- get his HP too low too quickly, and he'll place his nails and then jump just a few seconds later before you've even had a chance to take the nails out. Or like Canadane said about 1.x Garuda, with holding back and rushing dps (which is so much easier now when they've enabled us to see actual percentage of mob hp). Sure, when you're at that point, the raid/primal is already a cakewalk, but it also adds a different difficulty to it, with knowing when to hold back and not.

I'm definitely not a progression raid player -- started way too late due to gathering up a like-minded static, and while we did our best to catch up, we unlocked FCoB mere days after they added Echo =/ It'd have been fun to try it before that. But despite that, and despite my previous paragraph, I don't agree that wanting to skip phases means wanting to skip the entire fight and just getting the loot. It's a bit like saying, "Well, my goal is to ace all the tests, so why not just skip all the tests and just give me the damn diploma already." It might be part of the goal to get so good (or geared) that you'll skip the phases that otherwise might trip you up, but that's not the entire goal. It's more like... the proof of you having gotten that good.

Yes, I'm aware it's not the best analogy, and that the counter-argument would be more like "My goal is to ace all tests, and I'll cheat if I have to, so since we know I'm going to ace them, just gimme the diploma." And you could see getting to the phase-skipping via overgearing as cheating. But most progression raiders don't need the gear to beat it, so by the time they're overgearing it, they're just in it for loot or fun (depending on the fight/raid) and not to beat it. And for non-progression raiders... I'm totally generalizing here, but mostly we're not progression raiders due to lacking either skill or interest, so... I see overgearing a little bit more like someone with a disability (say dyslexia) getting the aids needed to get to the same 'level' as others (getting oral examinations instead of text-based, for example).

Err... I'm going to stop here, and I'm sure there are plenty of holes in my reasoning ^^; C'alogic doesn't always make sense to others.

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Originally Posted by Hellboy-sa

as for A3S its easy to heal looking at how last phase force you to not DPS
S

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Not really. I can still DPS when I don't have the DPS debuff. There are short breaks/moments between mechanics where I can quickly switch to cleric stance and put up a couple dots and/or put up shadow flare. I can even DPS during the "mini phase", as my group calls it, where the hand takes a healer. Even if I'm picked I cleric stance swiftcast+put shadow flare up before the hand takes me so that both the boss and the hand at least takes a tiny bit of damage from me.

I wasn't going to say anything about AS4 because that's just one fight where it's hard. That doesn't disprove the lack of healer checks in the game as a whole. I'd like to not be a DPS/healer hybrid in every fight in the game (except one) because healing is too easy. What I want, to be clear, is a whole raid where both healers need to heal 99% of the time. In fact I'd like it to become something normal in future content, instead of something rare.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

In current gear yes, but if you were progressing in A1 at release the healing was nothing to scoff at.

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I did progress during release and cleared it shortly after. My current group will never be first at anything, and we have to take breaks from raiding due to irl responsibilities, but we try to dive into raids as soon as possible. A1 is coil level healing and there were many times to throw up dots. Even during progression our WHM solo healed at the start so we could push DPS. Everyone knows that SCH do a lot of damage in raids, that's a big reason why we are desired in the current meta. I'd rather they bring us for mainly healing. Again I'm not anti-healer DPS. I try my best to push out as much DPS as possible. But I rather have to push out as much healing as possible.

As I said screw DPS checks give us healer checks.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

In current gear yes, but if you were progressing in A1 at release the healing was nothing to scoff at.

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We started at release.

What we figured out very fast: I could solo heal the whole part till the split and most parts after split.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

We started at release.

What we figured out very fast: I could solo heal the whole part till the split and most parts after split.

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^ the tl;dr to my point