Quote Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi View Post
This is contradictory. It either is or it isn't. There's no middle ground here.
You're missing a fairly big part of the picture I think? =(

Progression teams that start raid content on the first day it's released will generally be quite significantly under geared vs the ilvl the content is tuned to. Thus the frequent requirement in the past to load up on VIT to survive aoes as well as of course, the absolute need for healer DPS to get a clear in this situation (as well as often quite significant tank optimisation as well).

A more casual group that starts further down the line is going to have a bunch of tome and perhaps even 24 man gear bumping their ilvl up to and above the tipping point. Thus they likely won't need healer DPS to get the kill (although in many cases, it can make it significantly easier, A12S is the perfect example of this).

Try to remember that going in with an extra 30 iLvls over the day one progression teams amounts to around 30% more DPS, and that's before we start taking more optimised strats and of course echo into consideration. As Yoshida stated, the healers and tanks end have to pick up some of that slack.

TLDR: Going into savage on day 1? Your healers are going to have to DPS. Going in a few months after it's release? It's not absolutely required.

Elysium's world first A3S kill is a great example of how tightly tuned savage can be at release.

Lastly, please also appreciate that A9S-A12S are collectively the easiest and most forgiving end game tier we've yet seen in FFXIV.