What if, instead of busting the tank, bosses executed healers?

It would be the tank's job to fend and mitigate this attack, using themselves as a meat shield.

It seems like a more rational strategy for the bosses to use, and would make battles less contrived.

I mean I wouldn't mind a few attacks that target the healer primarily that require some fancy enmity work by the tank in order to keep the healer alive. Though I can't imagine it'd be in anything less than an Extreme mode because I don't really trust the average dungeon tank to pull it off, and no so much because it'd be hard so much as I don't trust anyone in dungeons these days.

I mean, wouldn't that technically be the same thing as a tankbuster because the tank is still taking the hit and if done improperly 1 or more people die?

There's a thread on the tank board tossing about the idea of making Cover a role ability instead of Paladin exclusive. I could see this sort of thing just becoming the "Remember Cover Exists" mechanic if that were the case.
But I do like the idea of having mechanics where the healer is specifically targeted and the party has to mitigate and/or heal them through it.

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Originally Posted by PondHollow

It would be the tank's job to fend and mitigate this attack, using themselves as a meat shield.

It seems like a more rational strategy for the bosses to use, and would make battles less contrived.

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This mechanic already exists in some fights, usually target random people with tethers or something similar. Then we have a lot of stack markers that exclusive target healers.

Healer buster, just take all their mana and add pacification on top of that (can't use abilities for the duration of the debuff). Then do something like titan stomps right after that, oh they'll feel it... :p

More seriously though, definitely should include other roles in fights when it feels cool- they do that already sometimes, I don't see why they wont do it some more in the future.

I wouldn't be against mechanics that require use of targeted party mitigation I suppose.

So....Spear of the Fury from Thordan Extreme? Mechanics like this would also assume that tanks are generally competent, and we all know that's false.

We already have tons of mechanics that target healers exclusively anyway. And there's been mechanics in the past where successful execution depended on your teammates and it was absolutely AWFUL.

I'm speaking about Phantom Train Savage's tether ghosts, of course. No greater feeling than having your stupid teammates drop the light at the back of the train when you're on melee/tank.

Yea, I'm not a fan. I'd rather my mistakes/deaths be my own fault. Not someone else's.

That idea has possibilities.
Like,
Boss could tether each healer to a tank. What happens to one happens to the other.
Then launches a buster.

Cool idea.

They technically have tried it already with Mr. Sloppy. But the closest I can think of how it being done is through the tether mechanic.

Every tank has something that can be used to protect a healer. Blackest Knight, Heart of Stone, Nascent Glint, Cover/Intervention. Giving mechanics to bosses that will bust healers, especially in dungeons, would give more of a use to those skills.

I feel like they came SO close to this in Aumorot, but then chickened out with those dark sprites that tether to the healers. They make the healer receive less healing... this would have made more sense to either be a tether that makes the healer output less healing so that the party would have to focus that enemy down, or should have tethered to the tank to either force greater mitigation or inexperienced tanks to pull smaller.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Every tank has something that can be used to protect a healer. Blackest Knight, Heart of Stone, Nascent Glint, Cover/Intervention. Giving mechanics to bosses that will bust healers, especially in dungeons, would give more of a use to those skills.

I feel like they came SO close to this in Aumorot, but then chickened out with those dark sprites that tether to the healers. They make the healer receive less healing... this would have made more sense to either be a tether that makes the healer output less healing so that the party would have to focus that enemy down, or should have tethered to the tank to either force greater mitigation or inexperienced tanks to pull smaller.

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TBN and Nascent Flash don't have enough use in dungeons already? Are we playing the same game?

It'd be cool, but it'd probably freak newbie healers out, especially if it required the boss to turn and move into melee range. Just imagine having your healer panic and run away, as so many people are wont to do when the boss moves towards them, heh.

If SE wanted to force healers to heal (which they hate, last time I heard) just make more use of that idea which was in Shinryu EX; add thing appears, heal it to full or it explodes or something.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

What about women who play tanks? Where is THEIR sympathy? :p I know you're a troll, but I mightaswell have fun with it.

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Are you trying to imply that gamers should care about minorities!?

I mean, tanks have legit DPS rotations to keep them occupied at least. Healers are the ones always complaining they're bored and have nothing to do, so I'd say a mechanic that requires awareness from the healer would get the best reception.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

TBN and Nascent Flash don't have enough use in dungeons already? Are we playing the same game?

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I'm not saying they don't have a use. I said more use. You can use Heart of Stone in a dungeon as well. The only one that rarely gets any use in a dungeon are the paladin skills. My point is that this would make the usage of them more interesting since you're not just putting them on yourself.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

TBN and Nascent Flash don't have enough use in dungeons already? Are we playing the same game?

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They get used for self-mitigation/self-healing and not protection of others. If things were properly designed NF would be on cooldown, more often than not, because of Raw Intuition use rather than because a warrior wants self healing.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

It'd be cool, but it'd probably freak newbie healers out, especially if it required the boss to turn and move into melee range. Just imagine having your healer panic and run away, as so many people are wont to do when the boss moves towards them, heh.

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A vast number of tank busters are actually ranged and do not care about facing.

This should only be in content that is extreme+. Your common dungeon tank aren't capable of using interject or stun on one mob. Heck many of them don't even seem to know what a party mitigation is for making the healers job easier. Can't add any mechanics to dungeons since that would require people who mainly run dungeons to do more than exist.

Over the years I have seen multiple MMO developers asked this question of why does the boss go after the tank and not the healer and the answer has always been the same.

"Why do we have orcs and elves!??!? because we can. It would not be any fun if the boss was actually smart and just ignored the tanks the entire fight"

FF14 also has mechanics you do not even realize that very often target the healer. All those stack mechanics with big yellow arrows?? That stuff is Square trying to change up the same old formula.

Actually after being on these forums I would love for things to execute the healer player base.

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Originally Posted by BasicBlake

Actually after being on these forums I would love for things to execute the healer player base.

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Why? Honestly curious.

Busters are there to render your tank ineffective at soaking up more damage. They either put them in crit health, slap a vuln stack on them, or both; depends on the content. The healer buster would have to do something similar to a healer, and basically compromise their ability to heal. A great example of this was the Cleric Stance penalty of old. For those who weren't around, or can't recall; Cleric Stance used to greatly increase a healer's offense while handicapping their healing potency. Similar to engaging a tank stance now, if you turned on Cleric Stance, you could not turn it off for five seconds. So, if you turned it on right as the tank receives a big hit, or the party is taking damage; chances are someone's hitting the floor next. This is why it was basically a really good idea to have it on by default.

While this is interesting to have a boss do this to a healer in an 8-man, there are several issues with this: One is the game already compromises a healer's ability to heal in several ways; they just typically aren't mechanics that affect the healer directly like a tank buster does to a tank. The next is it forces a healer into a situation where all they can do is dodge and DPS, which is kind of already the situation for them.

An issue for healers is that it is typically the players that push their healing capability and not the content. It is quite the conundrum because it is that very same reason why SE has to be careful about how far they go to design content that intentionally stretches a healer's resources.

In short, the enemy is already trying to kill everyone, so a mechanic intended to take away a healer is basically what they deal with throughout the entire encounter. Especially fresh content where an AoE will usually one-shot them. Exploring and finding good mechanics for healers, will likely involve their kits. Those who currently enjoy a job like AST will likely feel like they have plenty to do to keep them busy, and feel it is rewarding. Whether or not you like the card mechanic, the point is giving healers interesting ways to build and use their resources. This is something the devs vastly need to improve on.

I think when bosses like Sturg try to out damage healing by spamming powerful AOEs back to back, this functions as a healer buster..

It would be nice to have more mechanics that target healers only. Just like how tank busters are meant for the 1st and 2nd person in enmity list which are usually the tanks.

Few mechanics come to mind:
- Healer cage in Alexander 7 (Savage)
- Healer portal in Alexander 12 (Savage)

I think there are few more but you get the idea :)

We have some mechanics that target the furthest player which is usually the physical ranged job to take care of. But there are hardly any mechanics that mainly target healers.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

We have some mechanics that target the furthest player which is usually the physical ranged job to take care of. But there are hardly any mechanics that mainly target healers.

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There are plenty of mechanics that exclusively target healers: Geols, Nisi, Prey, tethers, anything that needs to be cleansed (particularly paralyze and doom); most tank invul abilities require healer support, among others.

I am really not sure where this is coming from. Healers are most certainly not exempt from mechanics.

At the very least we can go back to Ifrit Ex for something directly aimed at healers. Levi Ex had something as well, so it's not as if there weren't things even back then aimed at healers.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

They get used for self-mitigation/self-healing and not protection of others. If things were properly designed NF would be on cooldown, more often than not, because of Raw Intuition use rather than because a warrior wants self healing.

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Things are properly designed currently, and Nascent Flash is used over Raw Intuition in almost all situations because it's simply the superior mitigation skill. But yes, let's just take away WAR's self-healing and turn Nascent into a purely party-regulated cooldown. Because it's not like WAR didn't already lose its place as the high-damage tank with ShB, why not take its other gimmick away too.

An experiment: queue for A4 normal. Watch Nisi go out. Watch both healers and several dps die, without fail. (And the run succeed anyway.)

... no, mechanics like that shouldn't be in anything in DF.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

Things are properly designed currently, and Nascent Flash is used over Raw Intuition in almost all situations because it's simply the superior mitigation skill.

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Which is why it is not properly designed. When the self-heal half (i.e. Nascent Flash) of the shared cooldown is being used for tank busters more than the mitigation half (Raw Intuition) something is wrong.

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But yes, let's just take away WAR's self-healing and turn Nascent into a purely party-regulated cooldown. Because it's not like WAR didn't already lose its place as the high-damage tank with ShB, why not take its other gimmick away too.

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Self-healing is fine to include. In fact, I would like to see Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone split away from Fell Cleave/Decimate, have their self-healing effects restored and then have Nascent Flash partially mirror the heals from Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone on it's target.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Which is why it is not properly designed. When the self-heal half (i.e. Nascent Flash) of the shared cooldown is being used for tank busters more than the mitigation half (Raw Intuition) something is wrong.

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Not really. WAR's thing has always been healing, Nascent Flash is just the most current iteration of that. If anything Raw Intuition should be the party-mitigation skill that we can cast on party members or ourselves, and leave Nascent as our personal mitigation ability.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

Not really. WAR's thing has always been healing, Nascent Flash is just the most current iteration of that. If anything Raw Intuition should be the party-mitigation skill that we can cast on party members or ourselves, and leave Nascent as our personal mitigation ability.

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Raw Intuition is the older ability and was their HW mitigation skill. I know you want Bloodbath back but it and Nascent Flash are to good as costless self-heals when combined with the Fell Cleave/Inner Chaos damage bursts.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Raw Intuition is the older ability and was their HW mitigation skill. I know you want Bloodbath back but it and Nascent Flash are to good as costless self-heals when combined with the Fell Cleave/Inner Chaos.

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So then by that same logic we should be nerfing TBN as well, since it's a costless mitigation skill comparable to NF due to it granting a Dark Arts proc? Of course we shouldn't be nerfing TBN. Is it extremely powerful? Yes. Should it be nerfed? Not necessarily. The same train of thought applies here to Nascent Flash. As for Bloodbath, quite frankly I prefer NF over it. I like the big burst of healing more, and I also think that Nascent Flash healing is more balanced than Bloodbath healing for WAR was.

didnt o7s have something like this and people just made paladin cover it

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Originally Posted by Duskane

didnt o7s have something like this and people just made paladin cover it

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To me that’s a perfectly acceptable treatment, infrequent and meager as it may be. I guess I’m mainly annoyed by how contrived ‘enmity’ as a concept is, especially now that healers and DPS cannot pull it off the tank. It would feel more heroic for the boss to constantly, actually trying to defeat you - by picking off healers, the people with the lowest HP, and the people with the highest DPS. That is, the same way we approach heterogeneous additional targets in groups.

Instead they take bait. That makes the boss borderline irrational.

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

So then by that same logic we should be nerfing TBN as well, since it's a costless mitigation skill comparable to NF due to it granting a Dark Arts proc? Of course we shouldn't be nerfing TBN. Is it extremely powerful? Yes. Should it be nerfed? Not necessarily. The same train of thought applies here to Nascent Flash. As for Bloodbath, quite frankly I prefer NF over it. I like the big burst of healing more, and I also think that Nascent Flash healing is more balanced than Bloodbath healing for WAR was.

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TBN, Sheltron, HoS and Raw Intuition are all in effect 20% mitigation cooldowns. TBN's 25% max hp shield is slightly better when facing less that 100% max hp tank busters due to mitigating a flat amount rather than a % percentage, equivalent when facing a 100% max hp buster and weaker when facing an over 100% max hp buster. So it is balanced with the other mitigation tools of it's tier.

Nascent Flash on the other hand turns Fellcleave and Inner Chaos into 590(1032+)/1610+ potency self heals every 25 secs at no cost in damage. Compare that to Aurora's total 1200 potency over 18s every 60s, Clemency's 1200(1800) potency at the cost of a 525 damage potency, and Abyssal Drain's 200 potency per target every 60s, and the Warrior's own self-heals Equilibrium (1200 potency every 60s) and Thrill of Battle (20% max hp every 90s). It is massively superior to every other tank self-heal.

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Originally Posted by PondHollow

To me that’s a perfectly acceptable treatment, infrequent and meager as it may be. I guess I’m mainly annoyed by how contrived ‘enmity’ as a concept is, especially now that healers and DPS cannot pull it off the tank. It would feel more heroic for the boss to constantly, actually trying to defeat you - by picking off healers, the people with the lowest HP, and the people with the highest DPS. That is, the same way we approach heterogeneous additional targets in groups.

Instead they take bait. That makes the boss borderline irrational.

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I do think you could do some neat things with that concept. Tank Earth Anguish from E4S which will always target either of the two top enmity players. Make it instead target a DPS or healer which must be shared with a tank for that player to survive. That would play more into the tank fantasy of saving your allies.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

TBN, Sheltron, HoS and Raw Intuition are all in effect 20% mitigation cooldowns. TBN's 25% max hp shield is slightly better when facing less that 100% max hp tank busters due to mitigating a flat amount rather than a % percentage, equivalent when facing a 100% max hp buster and weaker when facing an over 100% max hp buster. So it is balanced with the other mitigation tools of it's tier.

Nascent Flash on the other hand turns Fellcleave and Inner Chaos into 590(1032+)/1610+ potency self heals every 25 secs at no cost in damage. Compare that to Aurora's total 1200 potency over 18s every 60s, Clemency's 1200(1800) potency at the cost of a 525 damage potency, and Abyssal Drain's 200 potency per target every 60s, and the Warrior's own self-heals Equilibrium (1200 potency every 60s) and Thrill of Battle (20% max hp every 90s). It is massively superior to every other tank self-heal.

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Nascent Flash absolutely has a cost to damage, because if you use your Infuriate charges and gauge for optimal amount of healing you will lose out on DPS by losing uses of those abilities during raid buffs such as Trick Attack. Now, WAR doesn't lose on on DPS like PLD does in order to use Clemency, sure. But you either use your cooldowns for optimal healing output which costs some DPS due to losing ability uses under raid buffs, or you prioritize damage and don't get as much healing. Another point to keep a note of is that even though WAR is capable of pumping out 4.5-5k HPS, Shake it Off also counts towards your healing total, and it typically counts for around 1.2k of the WAR's HPS on average. That puts WAR's own personal healing output very close in line with how much DRK mitigates over the course of a fight with TBN (which is around 2.8-3.2k 'HPS' on average).