Should healers now be allowed to play how they choose to play?

[aleph_null]

Saying that healers should DPS because it is most efficient means that encounters are not designed to be challenging for healers, because if healers can regularly afford to DPS, then there really isn't much healing for them to do in the first place, and Square should replace the healer role with a third DPS.

Make encounters require more healing, more debuffs that have to be removed, and up the DPS of DPS players instead.

This is impossible due to two reasons: player skills and overgearing. Exceptional players optimize every gcd and cd they have to reduce the strain on healing, and if you set the bar for minimum healing requirements that high, the contents will be impossible to clear for the large majority of players. As I've mentioned before in an earlier post, the performance gap between good and average players is just too big now. If you make the good players have to constantly heal, the average players will have no chance at all to clear the content. The other reason is self-explanatory. If you have to constantly heal at i270 then you won't be able to clear it at lower ilv. If the content is beatable at i250, the same people who beat the fight at i250 will inevitably have more downtime to weave in dps.

Have you ever watched vids of savage raid speedruns? If you watch them and check their fflogs you'll see the amount of optimization and coordination between healers and tanks is something out of reach for most average players.

[Lambdafish]

snip

I think SE missed the mark in 3.4 and 3.5 with its gear gating. Savage alex and zurvan especially were met with incredibly low gear checks, which is great for accessibility but horrible for progression and content longevity, and also led to some of the worst phase skipping and mechanic cheesing in the history of the game (on day one no less). I feel like all content needs a higher ilvl requirement so that when going into a patch you have the aim of going through dungeons to get gear, then alex normal, then the extreme primal, then savage raiding (or skip it all with crafted gear - i.e. the world first accessibility). This would mean that content lasts a lot longer and the game is more about progression than being entirely aimed at catchup.

SE, if you are listening: my direct feedback is please re-evaluate ilvl requirements, and initial content difficulty

[Feyona]

I think SE missed the mark in 3.4 and 3.5 with its gear gating. Savage alex and zurvan especially were met with incredibly low gear checks

SE, if you are listening: my direct feedback is please re-evaluate ilvl requirements, and initial content difficulty

Are you talking about the ver skilled players here which only really counts for quite a small proportion of the player base? I dont know when I see posts here its like, wow all this down time on alex etc and Ive hardly ever seen groups like that never mind be in one. Loads of people I know struggled with niddhog normal and arnt the very skilled getting their own special instances?

[Lambdafish]

Are you talking about the ver skilled players here which only really counts for quite a small proportion of the player base? I dont know when I see posts here its like, wow all this down time on alex etc and Ive hardly ever seen groups like that never mind be in one. Loads of people I know struggled with niddhog normal and arnt the very skilled getting their own special instances?

It counts for everyone. I'm talking about the ability and subsequent expectation to skip soar in Zurvan, the ability to phase skip in alex, and the overall chaos that is caused even on day one by people being overgeared. I should iterate that I'm not talking about overall difficulty, rather that there is an expectation to gather gear before attempting a fight if you are not one of these skilled players in order to compensate.

This is even more apparent when they practically hand out top level gear at the end of a gear cycle which is far better than a lot of the gear that you get in the next gear cycle, which is something that should be either be a reward for people who clear raids, or non existant and these top level pieces of gear should be the minimum requirement for even the most basic of content in the next patch. What this does is it makes collecting gear A) more rewarding as it actually feels important to get a higher ilvl, and B) adds more to do in the game, as collecting gear will become a more important task, and dungeon gear will become more valuable, and almost act like another stepping stone on the gearing process.

[Feyona]

It counts for everyone. I'm talking about the ability and subsequent expectation to skip soar in Zurvan, the ability to phase skip in alex, and the overall chaos that is caused even on day one by people being overgeared. I should iterate that I'm not talking about overall difficulty, rather that there is an expectation to gather gear before attempting a fight if you are not one of these skilled players in order to compensate.

while I see the point about handing out gear, and its always been like that for old content. I would say as an average player, with the very best gear I can get, and in an average skill level static, that it feels just the right difficulty, we can skip soar with my ast buff, but not always. I think the gear thing makes the old content accessable for all at the end of a cycle. I have always wondered about the animas though cos all that effort and work and its only just slightly better than whats available.

[Lambdafish]

its always been like that for old content.

in an average skill level static, that it feels just the right difficulty, we can skip soar with my ast buff, but not always.

It hasn't always been this bad, and there is always room to change the formula if it improves player experience. When to comes to difficulty and overgearing, Leviathan and Ifrit kill you if you don't kill them at the right speed. Melusine became impossibly hard if you skipped phases. I remember that 2.x was problematic for people who did overgear, and forced people to parse (or use the % meter when it came out in 2.35) in order to slow DPS to the point where it was safe to continue. Zurvan is the first primal that had a blatent skippable mechanic on day one and it became such a normal thing for parties to expect you to be overgeared enough to cheese the fight that it became a meme, and that is a big sign that something needs to change about ilvl of new content.

[Feyona]

It hasn't always been this bad, and there is always room to change the formula if it improves player experience. When to comes to difficulty and overgearing, Leviathan and Ifrit kill you if you don't kill them at the right speed. Melusine became impossibly hard if you skipped phases.

Yes I noticed that change, that only go in cleric on levi for the adds people still wipe if dps too high. I guess theres a point there concerning healer dps wasnt necessary on those fights really. Current formulas, are encouraging it more. I guess its a combination of both gear and healer dps maybe?

[Feyona]

Saying that healers should DPS because it is most efficient means that encounters are not designed to be challenging for healers, because if healers can regularly afford to DPS, then there really isn't much healing for them to do in the first place, and Square should replace the healer role with a third DPS.

Make encounters require more healing, more debuffs that have to be removed, and up the DPS of DPS players instead.

Or just give healers more buffing ability, to be engaging enough to be useful, as I think has already been suggested. To mke the requirement for their dps unnessesary, but there are still those that enjoy healer dps, so there needs to be an option for those people too. I would suggest a special class for that design

[Lambdafish]

Yes I noticed that change, that only go in cleric on levi for the adds people still wipe if dps too high. I guess theres a point there concerning healer dps wasnt necessary on those fights really. Current formulas, are encouraging it more. I guess its a combination of both gear and healer dps maybe?

Healer DPS has NOTHING to do with the current formula (please stop finding ways to make it a problem). While it is true that newer fights are more abusable, the reason for that is that there are larger gaps for healers to DPS, and less for them to do. Ultimately, I can prove that healer DPS isn't a problem here by simply stating that if the healing requirement for an ex primal is low enough, it will be solo healed and an extra DPS will be brought along. Ilvl of DPS though, that is the problem.

We need to find the sweet spot with ilvl that means that DPS aren't skipping mechanics, healers always have something to do, and tanks should be hit hard enough to warrent frequent use of cooldowns.

[Feyona]

Healer DPS has NOTHING to do with the current formula (please stop finding ways to make it a problem). While it is true that newer fights are more abusable, the reason for that is that there are larger gaps for healers to DPS, and less for them to do.

We need to find the sweet spot with ilvl that means that DPS aren't skipping mechanics, healers always have something to do, and tanks should be hit hard enough to warrent frequent use of cooldowns.

Oh I wasnt looking for a problem with it but going on your points that its just the gear that makes for skipping soar etc on day 1. I really believe you have to take other factors into consideration as well. To add to that people are complaining on one hand that content is too easy on the other hand trying to make healer dps essential. I think if you cut out healer dps the gear may be just right for dps, although yes I agree the gear makes the healing requirement lower.