The new raiding meta is making me want to quit.

[Yukiko]

If the fights are designed to not require healer dps, while in reality they do require it, where is the lost dps?

First: Developers know what the Boss will do next and when! 10s CD to next attack, then 3 steps away to avoid, followed by a 5s CD moving to center, again 10s CD and so on...
Secund: Developers usually play with LAN speed and on Testservers (no PrimeTime Lags) where you can fill 3 Skills between globalCDs while with 100ms Lag you just can fill in 2 Skills and with 200ms just 1 Skill...
Third: Mathematically there is enough time on a Boss CD of 10s to use 3x3s Skills (for each player = 24 skills thrown at Boss), that makes the difference...
The Problem is if "real" players do not use 24 damage skills, but need 2 Buffs and 3 Heals -> DPS-race lost

Edit: The Fight lasts for about 10 Minutes, if you mess up rotations you can start anew, lets say your rotation is about 20s long (including avoiding) that means you have to play perfect and repeat everything 30 times

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

To all tanks and healers:

Once you've fulfilled your basic roles of keeping hate/surviving/keeping everyone alive, why would you not find other ways to contribute as much as you can to a party?

The current meta is nothing particularly new. In the binding coil DPS was what separated the good tanks and healers from the great ones. The difference is now is just that being "good" was enough to clear the binding coil, but isn't quite enough to clear savage. You shouldn't be criticizing the meta itself. Instead, you should criticize the degree of optimization this current raid tier requires

This

I actually like the way it is now. Outside of savage it is in no way required what so ever so if you aren't doing savage it should really be a non issue. But I support anything this game does to push players to better themselves and their teams.

And this.

....No, this isn't about what happens in end-game, it's about that meta being exported to other content. Your question is easy to answer, most decent healers and tanks will do a bit more when they can, but it's not an expectation anyone needs to make a mandatory requirement. Once you start demanding that type of performance from healers and tanks in non-raid content, you are placing an additional burden on them, that of doing sufficient damage, adding that load to healers and tanks relieves DPS players of their responsibilities, why is that OK?

An additional burden? Please tell me you are not talking about doing something in between casts every 10 or 15 seconds is a burden. (yes this assumes tanks know what a cool down is, and that dps know how to avoid an aoe) . Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect a healer to dish out 1500 dps either. The goal of a dungeon is to clear the dungeon. In order to do this, things must be killed. The killing of a boss is not just a DPS goal., it is the entire party’s goal. Every class has a primary role Tanks - hold aggro and live (cooldowns etc), Healers - heal, DPS – dps. All of these things are simply routes to a greater objective of clearing a dungeon. I believe too many have lost sight of what the party’s goal is, and are focused too narrowly on what their own goal is.

Could I, as a paladin, stack vit on every accessory , and use a combination of shield lob, flash and circle of scorn, along with defensive cool downs, to maintain hate and my survivability for an entire dungeon. You bet I could. Would this be fair or respectful to the other players in my party? Not in the least.

It is out of respect for my fellow gamer, and for myself that I push to improve my skill levels. I care about my performance as an individual, and more importantly, how it affects the party. If someone takes the effort to offer me advice, I listen, and will take the information into consideration. I encourage others to challenge themselves to do the same.

[Warlyx]

You don't suppose the Internal SE team that beat a4s did it with i210, including weapons instead of lower, maybe that's where they messed up?

i would like to see how SE does internal testing for raids .....full geared , best food , draconian HQ potions and best party (no pld sorry!) , and even then up the difficulty a bit just because "players would do something we dont even see...." (see A4s)

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

So, which seems more likely? They released the end boss of a tier without fully testing it or they tested the fight while using healer dps. The latter seems much more likely.

Just my opinion here, but A4S is a really bad example of having to need healer dps when 99.9% of clears on A4S aren't even doing the mechanics the way Square Enix intended. A4S is a massively different fight if you don't drop Nisi.

That being said, I personally don't mind if healers want to just heal in dungeons. But whenever I get one in roulette, I make sure they are put to work by riding the whole dungeon in deliverance till I see them actively dpsing, if they do.

[Archaell]

Savage aside, I wouldn't have problem with healers and tanks being required to dps if damage dealers were also required to dps... more.

Dpsing healer is something like damage dealer doing 90% of their possible output. But do most of the players reach this? I don't think so. Until they do, I see forcing tanks and healers to dps as unreasonable.

The main issue with this meta is made worse with lack of allowed parsing. It may sound ironic, but look at it like this: If you parse, you can see that damage dealers aren't doing enough, but you can't talk about it. What is your option then? If you want to pass the dps check you need to somehow get more dps. The best option is to say non-dpsing healer to do some, as it is quite easy to spot them and you don't risk getting ban.

You might think that SE fears parsing due to well being of the community... no way. They dislike the idea, because it shows their poor game design. Would paladin be benched without the parser data? Maybe, but it would have been harder to figure out. Parsing shows problems with balance between jobs.

Then there is also the issue with gearing up. Do you think that overpowered gear makes it easier for less skilled players to complete content? Of course it does. But what does the gear do to skilled players and on top of that when they usualy have the best gear? It makes them even stronger. That itself isn't bad until you start comparing your observed data. If one run takes 15 minutes and another one 30 minutes, which one would you want? The quicker one and so the standard increases. It's only logical. If the content is so easy, you start looking at clear times (no matter if time dissappears the second you kill the last boss). This creates again problems for the healers. If you don't parse and your quicker run had a dpsing healer, you might think that it is healer's fault - even though healer's dps isn't that big to make the run twice as fast.

The player base should step up their game and at least learn basic rotations, then we can require tanks and healers to dps.

As it is now I am getting sick of this healer/tank abuse. It is great when other players tell you: "oh healer, you are so awesome, the last healer was total sh*t", but when I realise that they were responsible for the last healers failure and pain due to their crappy performance... I want to punch them in the face.

[MrCookTM]

Dpsing healer is something like damage dealer doing 90% of their possible output. But do most of the players reach this? I don't think so. Until they do, I see forcing tanks and healers to dps as unreasonable.

Lol no! The reason healers were not required to dps prior to savage was because there have been close to zero hard dps checks, so dps players slacking wasn't an issue as well as healers slacking at doing their job properly, aka dps'ing when there's nothing to heal.

Let me be very, very straight here: every fight/mechanic has a fixed amount of healing required, after that there's nothing to do. If you are able to mitigate/heal a certain mechanic in any sufficient manner, what are you going to do until there's something to heal again, twiddling thumbs? Stoneskinning people for no reason whatsoever? That's what people did in coil and it was bad, healers who think that way are bad and lazy. More healing doesn't make fights faster and easier, that's called overhealing and is not a good thing. More dps certainly does make fights faster and easier. A dps playing to 90% of his potential is doing 90% of his possible dps, and a healer playing to 90% of his full potential is doing 90% of his possible dps while still being 90% perfect and efficient with his healing. A healer that is 100% efficient with healing but doing zero dps is not even close to reaching 90% of his potential, because his efficient healing would make him twiddling thumbs even more where he could just switch on that sexy cleric stance and be good.

tl;dr, People just need to get out of that "healer dps" mindset. If your spell does damage to the enemy instead of healing your tank/party doesn't matter, this game is all about numbers and gcd efficiency. If there's nothing to heal, do a dps spell with that free gcd, it helps your raid when a healing spell would not. Just doing nothing because your job has a green icon and there's nothing to heal is shortsighted and lazy.


Btw I'm exluding tanks in my argument on purpose because there's no such thing as "tank dps", a tank is dps'ing automatically while tanking the mob and learning their optimal rotation will make them good at dps'ing automatically. If anything, learning how to switch off tank stance when there's no big damage incoming for a while will make their numbers go up, but the proper rotation will make them do good dps in the first place, which is something every player of every job should do anyway.

[Archaell]

...

Lol I said "savage aside", there are no dps checks that require healer's dps before that, and you also totally missed my point.

I am not arguing that healers shouldn't dps, I am saying that damage dealers should dps first and then we can require healers to dps. It is quite simple - the better your damage dealers are the easier it is for the healer to dps.

Also don't ignore my point about overpowered gear. It is way harder to dps as the healer at entry ilevel than when you and your tank are made awesome by your garb.

[MrCookTM]

Yeah I missed that "savage aside" part, still that doesn't change any of my points. And no, it should not be dps do dps first, then healers, healers should dps whenever they have the opportunity to do so. Of course healers will have more leeway to do dps when content is overgeared, that's a given. But that doesn't mean that they should stand around catching a breath when there's a free gcd, just because content is "still hard".

[Archaell]

Yeah I missed that "savage aside" part, still that doesn't change any of my points. And no, it should not be dps do dps first, then healers, healers should dps whenever they have the opportunity to do so. Of course healers will have more leeway to do dps when content is overgeared, that's a given. But that doesn't mean that they should stand around catching a breath when there's a free gcd, just because content is "still hard".

You can hardly turn cleric stance on and off again during a free gcd...

Also you might laugh, but healer "catching a breath" is a real condition. I have experienced it myself when I was collecting Law gear and few tanks decided to do uber pulls in Fractal.

[Valor]

Returnee and have not done Savage, but I've noted in terms of meta as a healer there is a disconnect in terms of responsibility.

I don't mind DPSing while on a healer class (leveling them all) HOWEVER
If the DPS don't know mechanics I can't DPS.
If the Tanks don't know mechanics I can't DPS.
If the DPS don't do enough DPS, Tank and I can't DPS.

The difference between good DPS players and bad is like night and day.

There is no crime for not knowing content but people should know their classes and DF and PF have too many DPS that just want to be carried. I'll honestly be shocked if my feelings change at all after doing Alex. But this is the prime 'meta' issue I've run into. If DPS aren't held accountable for their fair share, the situation will continue to spiral.

TLDR; nothing is more annoying than being nagged about my DPS as a healer when the DPS aren't holding their weight so I can do that.

P.S. I may have no idea what I'm talking about. But that's how I feel.