To all the people complaining about DPSing in an off role

[SargentToughie]

RELEVANT EDIT:

Thank you.

I feel like I made my point in the OP of this thread pretty poorly, and as such it exploded into the rage pit that you see before you today. Am I going to say that Tanks/Healers *must* DPS in the duty finder content like EXR? No, absolutely not. However, I've seen dozens upon dozens of posts over the last few weeks in here that legitimately just repeat over and over again that they hate DPSing healers and tanks, and they want this game to be changed to accommodate what they want. The only intent of my post was to go into detail about why this game is not designed for those types of players, and instead encourages those that DPS during their off roles.

Let it also be known that I've never once flamed a healer for not DPSing, or told a healer that they NEEDED to DPS. I'm just saying that if you want to play this game, and your role to the highest level, that's the only way to do it. It doesn't mean that you NEED to, it doesn't mean I'm going to bitch and moan at you in DF if you don't, it just means that you'll never play your job to it's max potential. This thread was never meant to defend the god awful current savage tuning, and it was never meant to blow up into... this. I guess it makes sense though, people have every right to be upset that the game isn't designed for them.

While I apologize for poor phrasing, I won't apologize for what was said, and I stand by my point.

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ORIGINAL POST

Did you ever stop to consider that maybe YOU are the one doing it wrong?

Let's talk a little bit about mastery, and what it means to be good at a video game. It should go without saying that any video game of any genre worth it's salt rewards players for being good at it. The earliest example I can cite is Metroid, which gave you special endings based off of how fast you could complete the game. Good game designers incentive people to invest time and energy into their games by making them feel rewarded for the time investment, like it *meant* something. Rather it's something as simple as a Sonic The Hedgehog style clock and grading system to motivate people to speed run stages, completion rewards for doing all the side stuff in an RPG, and special challenges that unlock bonus content. Mastery, time investment, is a massive part of any game and is pivotal to a good game's longevity.

The huge fuss I've been seeing on a lot of general forum discussions lately has to do with how FF14 rewards mastery. Specifically when it comes to Healers/Tanks. So many people on these threads are locked in the mindset that a masterful tank MUST ONLY mitigate all of the damage, and that a masterful healer MUST ONLY heal all of the HP... However, that's simply not how FF14 is built. Let's take a look at 'skillful' defensive abilities of all the tanks, for instance. Each tank has one reasonably low cooldown defensive move that they can time well to prevent huge amounts of damage. For PLD it's Shelltron, WAR has Inner Beast, and DRK has Dark Mind. Not only are Shelltron and Dark Mind exclusively locked to a certain type of damage, but the cooldown *is* significant enough that they can't be used consistently to great effect.

This type of thinking is flawed, in my opinion. After all, if a masterful tank is able to mitigate extreme amounts of damage and prevent all the harm, then where exactly is there room for a masterful healer? What's stopping a masterful healer from getting bored out of their skull because there's nothing to heal? We know from past experience, Pharos NM, Steps of Faith, Chrystalis, you name it, that this game's community doesn't have the skill level required to make an engaging experience for a full party of masterful party members.

Instead of that approach, in FF14, Yoshida and company made the decision that instead of excessive and superior mitigation and healing, that mastery is better displayed by allowing a Tank or a Healer who is skilled and comfortable in their role to pour their extra 'time' into dealing damage while performing their primary duties at the same time. To confirm this, we need look no further than the skills for each Tank/Healer job going into Heavensward

WAR got their whole Deliverance suite, with Fell Cleave and Decimate
PLD got Goring Blade and Royal Authority
SCH got Broil
WHM got Aero 3, Assize, and Stone 3

So clearly, even going forward into modern content, the dev team believes that giving tanks and healers the opportunity to deal damage to be the correct course of action. This resulted in a tun of people, myself included, trying a role that otherwise would have bored us or not kept our interest. I absolutely love being able to push enough damage on my WAR to keep up with the DPSes in my party, while still mitigating when it matters and keeping my healers comfortable. It certainly helps that not a single piece of content outside of Savage hits hard enough to require more than a Vengeance here, an Inner Beast/Equilibrium there, and a Raw Intuition just to be safe.

So many people are screaming, pleading from the high heavens that this isn't the way the game was meant to be... Why? If you look at any modern MMO, it's clear to see that the 'trinity' is an antiquated system that's on it's dying gasp. For all we know FF14 could very realistically be the last true trinity MMO ever made, why try to take a step backwards when the dev team is trying to take a step forwards instead?

Tanks and Healers putting out damage is the way that the game is meant to be played at the highest level, it always has been, and I believe that it will be for as long as FF14 runs. If you cannot accept that fact, if you cannot live without your brick wall fantasy, perhaps you'd be better off finding another MMO to play instead, because I can't imagine that the dev team is going to back down or change their vision any time soon. Everybody keeps talking about the tank damage formula changes in 3.2 like it's going to completely gut DPS tanking... At most it's just going to give a greater incentive for Fending accessories, which will most likely STILL not end up being taken unless the changes are extremely significant, seeing as how Parry is a worthless stat which has been proven to have almost no value whatsoever.

TL;DR: Tanks and Healers who DPS are core to FF14, and are here to stay. There are many of us that like it this way, please stop complaining about it now?

[Astral145]

Say whaaa? If this was the case then we would have the ability to switch classes during combat and each class would have 2 roles attached to it... Like BLM and WHM, or SMN and SCH, PLD or Dual Blades (I wish we had a real dual blade dps class, ninja is different and you know it)......ect. My point is SE did not make FFXIV to be a dps meta game.

Anyway, WHM has dps skills so they can do solo content in the open world, seriously you think a WHM can just stand there and heal its self till the mob just drops dead from exhaustion? This mmo is not built for tanks and healers to throw down dps all the freaken time. Again if SE wanted this they would have given us dual classes... And I wish they did but they didn't but that is all I'm saying about that.

All I'm saying is that the devs don't create raids with healer or tank dps in mind. They want you to have fun with the game. Unless you are going for world first then its not necessary. Just simply gear up.

I'll leave this here for you to read https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/30faq2/does_se_build_raids_with_significant_healer_dps/

[SargentToughie]

doot doot

That's not true at all.

This game has practically zero solo content, and I could very well just turn the tables on you and mention that if you wanted to do solo content, you could just switch to a class capable of dealing damage. FF14 is one of THE ONLY games in my mind that's able to get away with a class that has zero offensive skills... And they actually got pretty close to that with AST. Also, SE has had a nearly impossible time balancing out SCH/SMN when both of those came out off of the same class in 2.0. As such, I don't think we're ever going to see multiple jobs coming off of the same class ever again.

I'll repeat myself, they wouldn't focus several slots, a MAJORITY of slots in WHM and WAR's case, to damage skills unless they intended for those skills to be used at the highest level. Saying that it's intended for the already trivial solo play in this game is scoffable at best. What is there to solo in this game?

[Lemuria]

Tanks and Healers who DPS are core to FF14, and are here to stay.

They are not the core of FF14. They are a benefit and an asset, but they are not the core. People are not complaining that we can DPS, they're complaining because the mindset exists so they're forced to DPS, whether they're capable or not.

It's that mindset which is toxic, and leads to healers letting people die because of DPS issues, or being downright insulted by lazy DPS who are looking for a scapegoat.

[SargentToughie]

They are not the core of FF14. They are a benefit and an asset, but they are not the core. People are not complaining that we can DPS, they're complaining because the mindset exists so they're forced to DPS, whether they're capable or not.

It's that mindset which is toxic, and leads to healers letting people die because of DPS issues, or being downright insulted by lazy DPS who are looking for a scapegoat.

You only need to take one look at League of Legends to realize that toxic, poor players will be toxic no matter what you do to try and hold them back. They'll just flame, argue, and belittle anybody regardless of rather or not you're doing your job properly. The way the game is played doesn't change that.

Trolls will be trolls, bads will be bads.

[Voltyblast]

You do know that in most MMORPGs, tanks and healers are capable of dpsing without losing any defense or healing power? I cannot speak for healers but, as a tank, this game completely "effs" you over in terms of proper building up your gear, to the point of being completely the opposite of what a normal tank or healer should be.

I'll be speaking from mostly a tanking point of view here by the way.

An example: in WoW (yes, the most hated mmorpg of all time), most tanks do high damage ALONGSIDE having high mitigation. Their dps isn't as high as a dps but their equipment, their stats and overall build is also made that they can damage while tanking (for example, in WoD, armor rating increases the tank's attack power). This makes sure that the dmg is high enough to meet the "meta" (even though the game never had many DPS race battles, unlike FFXIV which EVERY fight is a dps race), that tanks can quest better (it was nearly impossible to quest as a tank in the early versions of WoW), and that they can contribute to the raid/team with high damage, especially in trash. In other words, WoW tanks are better designed than FFXIV's. You can hate the game as much as you want, but you can't deny that the tanks there are overall MUCH more varied, designed and overall thought out better than than the ones we have here (although not balanced, that's for sure). That's probably me, but I don't need a "Dark Paladin" with a gimmicky mana drain mechanic when I can have a proper paladin without that gimmicky stuff.

Another small example from WoW: disc priest are dps healers. How? Thanks to their passive Atonement, which allows them to heal while inflicting damage to the enemy and their damage isn't also that bad either, albeit much lower than before (I remember being able to heal without using a single spell, except holy fire and smite). That healer is built in a way that dpsing is encouraged, and it WORKS alongside their healing build, not against it. On top of that healers in that game do stats correctly: they only need 1 stat for healing and damaging, which is intellect, and thanks to that they don't need any real "stance dancing" like in this game. That WAS the case years ago but surprise surprise, they realised that making healing power and magic power into spell power was the best way to improve both their self sustain (who remembers how tough it was to quest as a healer?) and their overall healing capabilities, something that this game should PROBABLY try to do. Stance dancing all night it's not really hard: it's gimmicky for the sake of being gimmicky.

In FFXIV however, this is not the case: as a tank you have to play totally different if you're planning to "play properly", to the point that mitigation, defenses and overall "tankiness" are thrown out of the window. An example? The usual BiS for tanks are crafted equipment. Why? Because you can put both strength and vitality. What about tanking stats on the accessories? Not as important as damage. Why can't normal tanking gear have both on those slots? "Because it would be overpowered". Fair enough, but you still need that damage, even more than mitigation. Uh-oh what do you do? You have to play "in contrast" to your normal way: you have to build yourself as a heavy dps, and lose all of your tanking capabilities to some degree and gather strength accessories whenever you overshoot your hp threshold (which is easier as a warrior, but much more difficult as a DRK or a PLD).

The complains are pretty real because the tanks, as they are now, are not built to do dps, yet the game requires high dps meta that requires you to build in total contrast. I can't speak from a healing perspective, but stacking tanking stats are worthless in this game: parry is bad, determination is a dps stat, defense is barely noticeable (and only reduces about 40% incoming damage) and vitality only increases the health pool, which is only needed for tank busters and....tank busters.
For healers, I assume the issue is similar, with the additional issue of requiring accuracy (or was it fixed? again, I cannot speak for healers), and considering the fact that most tanks are built to do dps, it can also get harder to heal tanks. It's a bad cycle unfortunately, and the fault is...well who else but the devs? I mean, they made the tanks these way didn't they xD

TL;DR: tanks and healers are meant to dps, but the way they're supposed to be built don't allow a proper dps boost. Hence making people complaining.

[Ultima]

They are not the core of FF14. They are a benefit and an asset, but they are not the core. People are not complaining that we can DPS, they're complaining because the mindset exists so they're forced to DPS, whether they're capable or not.

It's that mindset which is toxic, and leads to healers letting people die because of DPS issues, or being downright insulted by lazy DPS who are looking for a scapegoat.

And if they can't DPS while also healing in this game, I don't know what to tell them. Maybe they're just awful? White Mage can AFK after applying Regen, Asylum, Medica 2 if needed and just DPS for like half a minute before being assed to switch back to healing unless it's the hardest content in the game that nobody plays.

[Moonleg]

This game has practically zero solo content

Leveling says hi. Daily quests say hi. Quests in general say hi! All of Gold Saucer says hi.

[SargentToughie]

Leveling says hi. Daily quests say hi. Quests in general say hi! All of Gold Saucer says hi.

... The gold saucer?

Anyway, that doesn't change the fact that the entire endgame of FF14 is group content. Wanna get your relic? Queue in the Duty Finder for Ifrit. Wanna get better gear? Queue in Duty finder for -RAID HERE-. Wanna experience the hardest series of fights in the entire game? Get with a static and queue for Savage. The game, and all of the skills in it, are balanced around full parties. Otherwise AST wouldn't have the ability to switch sects so that it could pretend to be either a WHM or a SCH

If it was just for questing and dailies, stone 1 would be just fine. Even leveling is done mostly through 4 man dungeons.

[Moonleg]

Okay, maybe you should change your post to saying that this ENDGAME has next to zero solo content, if that's what you actually mean. Endgame is not all of the game.