Healer & Tank DPS (WoW vs FFXIV)

[CosmicKirby]

It's been said time and again, confirmed by the devs themselves, that dps check design doesn't take tank and healer dps into account. Stop blaming the tank and healers for your own inability to learn your job.

To be entirely fair, this was initially stated back in Gordias, where it was a flat out lie.

[Shurrikhan]

In WoW raids are more about outlasting the boss; in XIV, it's more about dancing the mechs while optimizing so you don't hit enrage.

This really is the best summary available.

[Sylvina]

Could you elaborate on why you believe that DPS classes having X amount more DPS potential than tanks or healers (past Y point) messes up game balance?

Because like it or not MMOs are about more than only group content with balanced parties, and when the dps of the dps classes begins to exceed 3 times that of the healers and tanks, in order to continue to make content interesting for the dps, enemies start to need a LOT of HP, which eventually becomes too much for the tanks and healers to burn through solo without it becoming either impossible or a huge slog.

When this happens even LESS people play tanks and healers, and you can enjoy your 10 hour dps queues. this is regardless of whether or not tanks can still hold aggro above the overpowered dps at this point.

In order to avoid this, DPS must remain at a certain ratio between tanks, dps, and healers, with dps of COURSE doing the most but not way too much more.

[Nezia]

The number of fuck ups you are allowed to make in a fight and still get a kill is directly proportional to the amount of damage the group is causing. That's one of the reasons why healers and tanks are very frequently asked to help on dps, since it is very unrealistic and maybe even idiotic to expect people in a pug group or in a learning static group to perform optimally so any extra dps maybe the difference bettewen a kill and a wipe.

[KisaiTenshi]

Like it or not, but the tank and healer kits are designed to be able to do solo content without having to beg people to join their party. You know, like in other games that enforce the tank/healer/dps/support designs, but have enormous skill creep, and need people to power-level/carry them through all content because their class is super-weak.

Some parts of your kit are not useful in party content, and further, some parts of that kit are detrimental to DPS throughput if used. For example, the healer should be the the only one casting heal spells, the tanks should not be using their healing spells, they should trust that their healer is competent and knows what they are doing. Likewise, the healer should not be using their single target DPS casts in party content, because they should be casting their single target heals and not relying on HoT's or the fairy to do all the healing. This in turn means the DPS roles should be single targeting only the Tanks target, to avoid the tank losing aggro, or using AOE's with lower enmity costs per mob.

But in practice, players are picking up bad habits from other games or POTD or maybe just bad raiders, or bad guide/wiki info, or maybe some parser-measuring contest. This results in play style meta's that are not how the developers designed the content to be completed, which in turn results in gear creep and bad advice going from being laughed at to being religiously adhered to or be kicked from all parties.

[zipzo]

Because like it or not MMOs are about more than only group content with balanced parties, and when the dps of the dps classes begins to exceed 3 times that of the healers and tanks, in order to continue to make content interesting for the dps, enemies start to need a LOT of HP, which eventually becomes too much for the tanks and healers to burn through solo without it becoming either impossible or a huge slog.

Isn't WoW an example of how this isn't necessarily true? DPS do massive orders of damage more than tank classes in optimal settings even for the tank, but soloing as a tank in WoW is not considered to be a slog, in fact many think being a tank out in the world is basically god mode (massive AOE damage because of tanking tools, and high survivability).

[Hunky]

I'm speaking from my experience as a white mage player. I've never been in a situation where I thought doing nothing would be more helpful than dpsing.

And that's because healers, at least white mages, get plenty of tools to help us out in that regard.

For most normal content, keeping up regen and asylum on the tank is enough, with an occasional cure thrown out. For group wide damage, a single medica 2 is enough to get everyone fully healed up.

There are instant reactionary heals meant for when tanks take a sudden burst of damage, and these usually do not cost any mp, such as benediction and tetragrammaton. And they're also extremely potent.

As far as mp regeneration goes, white mages have access to assize, lucid dreaming, and thin air (which reduces the mp cost of your spells to zero for a time).

You also have access to other helpful spells such as divine benison (shield), largesse (increases healing potency), and swiftcast (makes your next spell instant).

All these incredibly helpful and powerful spells, combined with the fact that damage in this game is scripted, telegraphed, and bursty, means that healers have a lot of downtime.

At lower levels, it's even less healing intensive.

Run a dungeon and you'll see. Healers end up having a lot of time in which they don't need to heal. This is why it is considered optimal and efficient to dps as a healer in this game. Not only that, but healer dps does help out a lot. It can help make dungeons noticeably faster.

There's even a video out there of a party running a dungeon in which the healer only heals. It was meant to show players just how much downtime the healer had. They were able to spam dance emotes and all. I don't have the link though.

EDIT: SaitoHikari provides an eloquent and thorough explanation on the bottom of page 4. Thank you for such a great post! You put it better than I could.

[Saix027]

Mechanics skipping mostly. The harder you smash a fight, the less bananas you have to deal with

Also, tanks and healers put out up to two thirds of a dps' damage, which is nothing to scoff at

I believe Ifrit, Leviathan and Ramuh would like to have a word with you. *coughs* mechanic skip causing wipe *coughs*

[Duelle]

Mainly, I don't like seeing a healer standing around for extended amounts of time doing nothing when they could be safely dealing damage and pushing the fight along. It feels very lazy to me.

This is only because MP conservation is not a thing for healers. If healer MP regen was so low that they eventually hit a point where they go OOM regardless of what you do, the focus changes to smart use of MP and the tanks/DPS not taking more damage than needed. Another poster also once pointed out that heals themselves are very powerful, so constant healing (which also plays into MP conservation and eventually going OOM under the right conditions) is not really needed.

At that point you are excused to stand around while trying to regen a bit of mana between casts via MP5 (you got a tick of mana back every 5 seconds), or had the Vanilla-Wrath GCD fillers where Priests and Mages could use magic wands (of the Harry Potter variety) to deal piddly damage and restore a bit of their own MP.

Sorry, but I can't agree. If these raids being cleared "ahead" is not intended, then why are they implemented before it is "intended" for them to be clearable?! It's simple. They are there as a challenge, to say that "If you think you can squeeze every last bit from your job, go ahead and kill it early.". If you don't want to take it, then wait till better gear is available.

What he means is that a raid is likely expected to run the same turn for several weeks to gear up people.

An extreme example would be a raid entering O1S in Omega Story gear and a couple of pieces of tomestone gear, then grind O1S for several weeks until all 8 members are decked out in O1S accessories before even thinking about tackling O2S. Repeat for each turn. This is staggered progression, which makes sense in a raid with 12 bosses, but not when your tier is composed of only 4 bosses.

Since their main job is healing, the DPS on healers is somewhat simple, as in, you will deal large part of your potential DPS even if you push one button over and over. For DPS jobs, you may very well stay behind if you are not particularly skilled. A bad player DPS'ing as a healer is likely to deal more damage than a bad player DPS'ing as a DPS class, as illogical as that sounds.

An argument can be made for the idea that DPS players are fighting their own class mechanics in addition to the boss'. In essence, you're right because tossing a Stone/Malefic/Broil in between heals is a simple affair that counts as a positive when all things are considered.

[Vanitas]

Why the emphasis? People looooooove to show off their numerical epeen on fflogs. If anyone says there's another reason they're probably lying to you and themselves.