Will Healers Still be Forced to DPS in 4.0 Due to Lax Content?

[VanilleFang]

On the other hand, I'm far from convinced that the playstyle we have now with interwoven healing and DPS is so terrible.

Yeah, it's not nearly perfect but I don't think it's horrible either. But all the people who complain that it's "such a bad system" can never seem to conjure up a reasonable alternative. They either say they want to heal more, or not be asked to DPS so much because they are a healer. Neither of those are solutions and they only lean towards possible healbot-ness, which I would personal despise.

[Jade3173]

sometimes a DPS knows they will not die to an AoE and so they eat it to maximize DPS uptime.

This, I do this probably a bit too often when I play Monk. Between Second Wind and Bloodbath I know I can eat an attack or two, heck I'll even pop Mantra in dungeons so that the Regen/Shield you give me is more worth it. While not as often, do it as BLM as well with Manaward/wall. As an AST main I don't mind if a DPS takes a hit so long as they do something to make up for it (if that boss has his health plummeting then I'm more fine with someone eating avoidable damage). That said if they're constantly just taking hits I get mad and let them know they need to MOVE. At that point though they've normally caused other problems and a Vote Kick appears suddenly.

As for the main topic, I'm fine with DPSing cause I'm capable of doing so and looking at the last given numbers for AST skills, it's only going to get easier for me to do so.

[Shurrikhan]

To piggyback you guys a bit: I, too, am not advocating a simple "shit hits harder" deal. I want to have to think about what I am casting, when I am casting, and on whom I am casting it.

As to whether or not it would be better or not for sub numbers? Clearly I can't answer that, none of us can, but I have always been of the mind that it is better to (potentially) overtune and have to come down a notch rather than not try at all.

Also: Gear acts as a natural nerf to content. For story dungeons low (no) difficulty is fine... but there could be actual expert dungeons (seperate from MSQ) that maybe not everyone is intended to do on day 1. Maybe they need to get some more gear to cover for any lack in skill.

I would have loved to make even leveling feel like progression *as an option*. Just imagine: content upscaled via the addition of stats AND mechanics to meet one's gear (and maybe even composition, where jobs include particular usable gimmicks, as per the jobs brought or merely available to the queuing players if swaps are permitted in-dungeon), for any dungeon, just through automatic scaling. Rewards proportionate. At level 64 at a random leveling dungeon you could have the fun of progression-difficulty content with a team of masochistic friends for a massive clear exp bonus upon getting through. As gear increases, it doesn't get easier, but the rewards do get bigger, just short of eclipsing the next dungeon's farm status (where that massive bonus is good enough reason to get it there). That's a salient hypothetical, but still... I would so love that. *Literally grinning over the very concept.*

It is more meant as a 'They have not a shred of a right to demand the Healer to dodge, heal AND dps.

You say that like these are three distinct responsibilities or paradigms. They're not. Act as to complete the task as quickly as possible. A.k.a. "Be efficient." That is the only responsibility. Everything else is a de-contextualized fragment thereof.

For those who cannot yet picture the factors involved in overall efficiency: make as full and appropriate use as you can of movement, your CDs, and your GCDs.

Your DPS failing to move appropriately does not excuse you from making efficient use of your GCDs. It merely changes, slightly, what's efficient.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

Likewise, I do see your side better. And while I don't necessarily disagree. I do have to posit the question of whether that should be the intent; if you aren't playing your job correctly you will eventually be unable to progress. Believe me when I say I know Kisa. Her obstinance would make even Gandhi want to smack her. But she's the perfect example of the game allowing bad players to progress. Granted, Antitower is what, a year old now? So perhaps it isn't the best example. That being said, I still feel the net positive outweighs the negative. Although some people would inevitably quit, it could also incentivize others to try healing whereas they once found it boring. People who have quit this game often cite how boring content is outside raids. While I do like a handful of dungeons, I can appreciate their arguments as to way given how straight forward everything is.

This is where we disagree though. When you can spend as much time as we do DPSing or standing around, I just can't say that's good design. Even in the video linked, they wiped because everyone didn't respond to mechanics. I know Pharos Sirius is brought up a lot, but people whined over Final Steps of Faith and Weeping yet this time the devs said no. They got over it. So it's not quite cut and dry how people would respond if the devs didn't nerf things.

[Fyce]

-Snipidisnip-

Well, I was just explaining the design choices from the point of view of SE. Yoshi-P will never say that it's actually tuned for "bad players", but it is. That's why he's forced to say that stuff like "healers DPS isn't mandatory". It's not mandatory, but the changes of Stormblood bloody well reinforce the idea that downtime should be filled with damage GCDs. Or else they wouldn't make that easier.

Personally? I think that we'd need another kind of content entirely. Currently, dungeons allow every role to be trash, not only healers. No tank buster will kill a tank even without cooldowns. No boss have enrage mechanics or DPS checks hard enough to force DPS jobs to do a proper rotation. I mean, you can still fail on some occasions, but eventually you'll clear it (38 minutes Antitower in mind).
So, if they were to raise the skill floor in dungeons, they'd have to do it for every job, not only healers. And that might be too much of a change.

Now that we know about the Stormblood cycle of 2 dungeons/1 dungeon+new content, I hope that this "new content" will be what we are looking for.

[Aramina]

Now that we know about the Stormblood cycle of 2 dungeons/1 dungeon+new content, I hope that this "new content" will be what we are looking for.

We can hope. If there ends up being Savage dungeons or something like that I will never again complain about the ease of the normal roulette dungeons.

[Novak_04]

Take a look at the Mistwalker Monk healer. Apart from one minor CD, Mana Tea, its mana recovery IS melee DPS.

Mistweaver...It's Mistweaver, not Mistwalker. This "Mana Tea" that you're talking about is actually a 50% mana reduction, as per their lvl 110 talents. It has nothing to do with damage. Spirit of the Crane is what you're referring to and that talent is there because of a specific niche that mistweavers have the option to play. This particular niche has very low healing output and not a single raider uses it. It's supposed to be used with Rising Thunder, another melee ability that interacts with Thunder Focus Tea. This is a dead spec for obvious reasons. Both talents on the same Tier as Spirit of the Crane are significantly better in any raiding scenario.

[Bdyer]

I would be totally fine if they had 2 classes of dungeons. Put all msq dungeons in one as current design and create option dungeons as difficult dungeons. You could even have 2 different roulettes for each class of dungeon.

[Ayer2015]

I really wanted a system similar to mythic+ dungeons for SB

[Aramina]

I really wanted a system similar to mythic+ dungeons for SB

Oh god, yes please. As many faults as I have found with WoW (and Blizzard in general) over the years, Mythic+ is pretty perfect for people looking for a challenge without needing to fully commit to a static.