Enmity build up on untargetable bosses

[Eisenhower]

Enmity is a resource to be managed, just like health, mana, and GCD. The difference is that enmity for healers is a resource that mainly acts as (potential) punishment for bad play (compare to mana starvation and missing a heal timing) rather than a resource that regulates actions.

In encounter phases where a boss becomes invulnerable and the party needs to deal with encounter mechanics, it seems strange to me that healers should be exempt from having to deal with one type of resource management due to what seems to be a matter of convenience, laziness or in an effort to excuse bad play.

Unless these phases and the enmity generated by healers in these phases becomes a pervading element (through various different encounters) that results in player death and failure despite special concessions for the sake of enmity, then a change may become relevant. Until that point I firmly believe that it is up to the player to manage enmity.

One should first ask as a healer: Am I doing what I can to manage enmity? Am I overhealing? Am I using abilities properly? If the healer cannot resolve on their own, ask if the tank is doing their job properly. Is the tank mitigating and generating enmity as they should? If the tank is in DPS mode too much to meet checks, are the DPS jobs pulling their weight or should they step it up?

If every role is performing as they should, but enmity is still consistently a problem, then changes are in order. Otherwise, it is just as likely someone needs to (excuse the expression) 'git gud'.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

"Exempt of one management", you make it sound so fair while everyone every role is already exempted of this kind of management while the boss cannot be targeted or is invulnerable. I believe the complete opposite is in practice here: punishment

If healers outhate tanks while the tanks can actually do somethint about it, then yes, make use of those enmity modifiers. But with (extreme long) transitions good for 2-3 minutes and a good chunk of healing is required, it is starting to gravitate towards the unfair side. Or in your words: dps and tanks are exempted of enmity "management" while healers have to keep doing so on the boss.

[Werhusky]

Had in a Thordan as SCH to outheal a row of derps together with a WHM... WHM could simply pop Shroud at ultimate... I got 3 hits in my face ;_;
Thordan is actually the first content I have high emnity on my SCH (doesn't mean I don't DPS but crit ET succors...) and often have orange it is pretty scary for me but luckily he doesnt cleave right away after he gets targetable again ^^

[Eisenhower]

[...] dps and tanks are exempted of enmity "management" while healers have to keep doing so on the boss.

Tank and DPS roles are not exempted from resource management during boss invulnerability phases - they are unable to manage enmity (as they lose one out of their two main ways of interaction), which is significantly different. Healers maintain 2 out of 3 ways in interacting with the boss, why should they be granted extra advantages? Why should they be exempt of a cost for their actions? Especially so when 2/3 healers have tools to manipulate enmity against the boss despite their displaced state.

The difference between tank and healer enmity at the start of an invulnerability phase can be considered a exhaustible resource that has to last until the boss returns. It falls upon the players to use this resource properly with the tools at hand.

If a tank has to provoke and generate snap enmity upon the boss' return, why is that not considered a reasonable test of skill and co-ordination? If the healers have to shield themselves, be covered or otherwise prevent themselves from dying when the boss returns, why is that not considered a reasonable test of planning and problem solving?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Tank and DPS roles are not exempted from resource management during boss invulnerability phases - they are unable to manage enmity (as they lose one out of their two main ways of interaction), which is significantly different.

Exempted or "unable", why would or should healers be in a different position here as opposed to the situation the other roles are in? The point still remains that your idea of "enmity management" does not apply here for other roles simply because they can't do anything about it. Healers are the only exception here and there's no good reason why it should be a thing.

Healers maintain 2 out of 3 ways in interacting with the boss, why should they be granted extra advantages? Why should they be exempt of a cost for their actions? Especially so when 2/3 healers have tools to manipulate enmity against the boss despite their displaced state.

On the contrary, why would they be granted extra disadvantages? While tanks and DPS are unable to perform any action to generate any (real) enmity, why would healers be the only one at a disadvantage here? More importantly: Why would that one healer out of three have a bigger disadvantage compared to the other two who has no enmity tools at all. If we consider future healing jobs, it'll very likely be in a similar situation with the other three healers: Have some enmity dump, have some enmity prevention or no enmity tool at all.

The difference between tank and healer enmity at the start of an invulnerability phase can be considered a exhaustible resource that has to last until the boss returns. It falls upon the players to use this resource properly with the tools at hand.

This contradicts how DPS driven this game is:
If Healers DPS and heal, they'll generate additional enmity through damage alone. They can avoid DPSing completely, but why would this be a thing? Or rather, why would good players who can do both be punished for pushing the limits of their job?
Tanks will have to sacrifice some damage to gain more enmity as buffer to last through the abnormally long phase. It's also a thing to maintain just enough enmity to stay ahead of the group to squeeze out some extra damage. Why would tanks be punished for pushing their limits and easing the DPS check for the DPS roles?

Since you included DPS in the "enmity management" concept, this is hardly a thing. Building enough enmity for DPS roles hardly takes effort.

If a tank has to provoke and generate snap enmity upon the boss' return, why is that not considered a reasonable test of skill and co-ordination? If the healers have to shield themselves, be covered or otherwise prevent themselves from dying when the boss returns, why is that not considered a reasonable test of planning and problem solving?

It's not much of a "test" if the result would be instant death upon the boss's return: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neT3uh0CRwU from the opening post. In this particular situation there is no time to provoke or perform any other form of enmity generation on the boss. Yes, the white mage forgot to use Shroud. So that's a thing. But if forgetting shroud once causes this problem, there's no way using LA up to two times will prevent enough enmity to avoid these kind of scenario's. Old content aside, if future content would have these kind of gimmicks, it'll make other healing jobs not viable simply due to the amount of enmity they generate. Unless bringing a very specific group composition that excludes paladins and includes ninja's.

[Eisenhower]

[...] Healers are the only exception here and there's no good reason why it should be a thing.
[...] why would they be granted extra disadvantages?

First of all, I do not consider paying normal costs for performing role actions a disadvantage. Healers are not in any way an exception as they continue to perform their role - healing - despite the boss being removed. That ASTs can perform similarly to a WHM but have a a greater difficulty to manage enmity is a problem inherent to AST design, not encounter design.

This contradicts how DPS driven this game is [...]

The quote you highlighted has nothing to do with the DPS focus the game has at the moment, or healer DPS. I simply mentioned buffered enmity as a resource to manage. It is the choice of the player as a tank to determine how much enmity to generate for each specific encounter. The tank should generate enough enmity to keep the boss throughout the encounter, not only from the DPS roles but also the healer. If a tank foregoes enmity to deal more damage ("pushing the limits", "being a good player" - whatever one would want to call it) and subsequently gets the healer killed despite commendable effort on the healer's part to avoid this, it is the tank that has failed to balance the aspects of the tank role.

It's not much of a "test" if the result would be instant death upon the boss's return [...]

No it would not. That would be just terrible. I have never stated that "Sephiroth Dives" are desired.

But currently (as far as I can remember at least) only one encounter has this element. Just as it is possible that a future encounter may include such an element again, it is equally if not more likely that such an element won't be present considering what we've come across in the game so far. I personally can't advocate change based on such conjecture. The picture you paint regarding healers getting destroyed the moment a boss returns to fight is in my opinion misleading.

[technole]

It's not much of a "test" if the result would be instant death upon the boss's return: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neT3uh0CRwU from the opening post. In this particular situation there is no time to provoke or perform any other form of enmity generation on the boss. Yes, the white mage forgot to use Shroud. So that's a thing. But if forgetting shroud once causes this problem, there's no way using LA up to two times will prevent enough enmity to avoid these kind of scenario's. Old content aside, if future content would have these kind of gimmicks, it'll make other healing jobs not viable simply due to the amount of enmity they generate. Unless bringing a very specific group composition that excludes paladins and includes ninja's.

Instant Death because the White Mage wasn't watching their threat, AND adjusting to the situation even if they forgot shroud or it was too late.

The way to deal with that even in relevant times during T9 is whoever had aggro on Nael should stand with the main tank. That will prevent the party death dive and allow snap aggro. It's not that heavy where the MT can get it back quickly. Ideally the person with the MT should be shielded. I've still had aggro build-up solo healing as AST sometimes. I found it was best to use LA before golems dropped, should keep Nael in the yellow/orange range. Still regardless, it's a healer's job to watch their aggro on the boss and adjust the strategy as appropriate.

[Dante_V]

It's "extreme" content for a reason. I think it's fine as it is. Our main healer is an astro and our MT is a Pally and we've literally had no issue with this at all. I think asking the developers to nerf the game because you cannot manage aggro is a little pretentious, but good luck with your endeavor. lol

[Dante_V]

Instant Death because the White Mage wasn't watching their threat, AND adjusting to the situation even if they forgot shroud or it was too late.

The way to deal with that even in relevant times during T9 is whoever had aggro on Nael should stand with the main tank. That will prevent the party death dive and allow snap aggro. It's not that heavy where the MT can get it back quickly. Ideally the person with the MT should be shielded. I've still had aggro build-up solo healing as AST sometimes. I found it was best to use LA before golems dropped, should keep Nael in the yellow/orange range. Still regardless, it's a healer's job to watch their aggro on the boss and adjust the strategy as appropriate.

Agree with this 100%

[Tranquil]

Seriously, we're not spamming Rage of Halone all day anymore, which is why even if this wasn't a big thing back in the T9 days, it could be a big thing now to have healers build up enmity unnecessarily in invulnerability phases. Unless they dial back down the DPS requirements of cutting edge encounters - making do by creating a ridiculously high aggro ceiling whilst sacrificing tank DPS doesn't really seem to be the best way to go at it (or losing healer DPS).

The problem is mainly with how LA is weak compared to Shroud - WHMs have laughably low aggro after 2 Shrouds. SCH aggro could be a thing, if not for the fact they heal less and have the fairy be a big part of their HPS and thus enmity, which is why in non-solohealing situations SCHs usually stay in the green for good. So all in all, unless they feel like changing up LA, they might as well remove enmity buildup during invulnerability phases. Yes, you can work around it by creating a higher aggro ceiling or altering healer gameplay with that in mind, but should it really be a thing?