If tank damage is now based on VIT, why do healers still have Cleric Stance?

[Kitano123]

Oh there are. Tanks just use moves which prevent them from dying to... prevent them from dying. If these skills didn't exist (e.g. Holmgang still had the same effect as 2.0 Holmgang) you can bet people will be wearing VIT to survive attacks.

No there isnt. Obviously I was including CD's in that statement.

[Kitano123]

I seriously doubt that SE designed cleric stance to enable 'stance dancing' in dungeon instances.

You, the healer, need to advance through the MSQ and FATEs just like everyone else in order to level. You are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to dealing damage, since you've been putting your points into a non-combat attribute. To accommodate the leveling experience, you can run around in the world without a damage penalty by using cleric stance.

Paladins also suffer a damage penalty. It is mitigated by the fact that they can outlast an enemy they are fighting because of their vitality and armor.

If it wasnt intended they would have disabled it by now. Do you honestly think they wouldnt have been aware of it?

[Ultimatecalibur]

If it wasnt intended they would have disabled it by now. Do you honestly think they wouldnt have been aware of it?

Unintended does not mean unacceptable. Good game designers accept most emergent player strategies and only nerf them when they start causing serious imbalances in content. Bad game designers disable/ban/nerf anything that goes against their "vision" of how the game should be.

[SpookyGhost]

I don't think the is final coil level damage in the last 2 floors of savage right now... Are you serious? Even in Thordan we have way more than final coil level damage.

Manipulator and Living Liquid both auto for as much as Bahamut does. There's a reason people are sitting out of tank stance 99% of those fights. If you think that player skill has gone up so high that we've reached the point where despite damage being exceptionally high (apparently) we can spend near entire Savage fights out of tank stance in near full STR accessories... I don't know what to tell you.

[CorbinDallas]

Manipulator and Living Liquid both auto for as much as Bahamut does. There's a reason people are sitting out of tank stance 99% of those fights. If you think that player skill has gone up so high that we've reached the point where despite damage being exceptionally high (apparently) we can spend near entire Savage fights out of tank stance in near full STR accessories... I don't know what to tell you.

Funny, because Liquid crits like a mofo on his autoattacks

[SpookyGhost]

Funny, because Liquid crits like a mofo on his autoattacks

So does Bahamut! Also Liquid gives you resistance down stacks, which increases his overall damage. But that's what tank swaps are for~~

[RiceisNice]

Boss auto attacks in a raiding environment has always been an utter joke. It becomes less of a consistent damage and more oriented to predictable, damage spikes because most of it comes from their weaponskill/ability hits like fluid swing, flare breath or achalaons might.

[SpookyGhost]

Boss auto attacks in a raiding environment has always been an utter joke. It becomes less of a consistent damage and more oriented to predictable, damage spikes because most of it comes from their weaponskill/ability hits like fluid swing, flare breath or achalaons might.

Correct! However, relative to our health, Bahamut's hit harder and Bahamut (unlike Liquid and Manipulator) required 100% tank stance uptime, especially during progression. So, what does this mean? Could it be, perhaps, maybe - just maybe - that bosses aren't actually hitting very hard? Could the fact that we're using STR accessories and near full DPS stance uptime mean that we're actually not taking a lot of damage? Could it be that we're getting away with this while, at times, both healers are DPSing because Med2 + Regen + Fairy heals cover all the pitiful auto attack damage?

Nah. Clearly... uh... players got... super good... and uh... I mean... they just like... overcame... all the difficulty... of... uh... um

Basically, things were pretty bad before - there were a lot of times to stance dance in a lot of fights (especially early ones) and there was a lot of healer DPSing (mainly SCH). But things have got massively out of control, and it's largely because the bosses aren't actually doing more... damage. Jobs had massive upward growth but it wasn't counter balanced by more incoming damage, except in the 4th leg and final phase of A4S if you actually do it the correct way.

[RiceisNice]

The fact that bahamut is hitting relatively harder (compared to a dungeon that's supposed to be tuned harder) than 3s shows how terrible or misplaced their design intent is. If healers don't need to heal their tanks, they aren't performing their role of healing; they're dpsing.

All of what you said is discouraging tanks from striving to do their role of being more durable ( not that the game allows it because there's almost no mitigation stats) and I don't nessescarly agree with that approach. All it does is emphasize more on dps and naturally shift their attention to tanks/healers when more dos is needed... Rather than the dps roles whom are most likely performing at their peak.

[SpookyGhost]

Ideally bosses do enough damage (relative to the tanks health) at low gear levels that both healers need to heal as often as possible (outside of their openers, akin to Final Coil progression) and then with more gear they can start stance dancing more and all that stuff. Meanwhile the DPS focus on DPSing their hearts out. Obviously tanks can still maximize DPS, but do so in a way that isn't so... ridiculous. Basically, Final Coil was pretty great in terms of tank/healer/DPS balance and I'd like to return to that. I miss Inner Beasting cleaves instead of just rolling CDs and Fell Cleaving 24/7 - maybe that's just me though.