Why do so many statics seem to be missing healers? What can be done to solve this?

[Tridus]

This will be a tangent but I think that is not possible. To do this, is to disappoint the people in the later group. They want unforgiving fights that will demonically punish them for their mistakes.

What we need is more things for the former group to do and somehow progress without taking away from the progress of the later group. Usually, that hole is filled with anima/relic weapon grinding, but we don't have that yet. There was also rumor of anima armor for this expansion.

Give these players things to do, and you will likely keep only the uber gamers that make no mistakes actually pushing to do Savage.

One of the issues is that the gap between normal and savage is a gaping chasm. Normal is *EXTREMELY* forgiving. Savage is... not. And as you say, there isn't relic weapons, deep dungeons, or other things to do right now. So you either decide you're content with the normals or you have to do savage to progress. That winds up going to just how hard should savage be, and how many players do they want doing that content? Then when you factor in that some jobs have it harder than others, what you get is something that isn't easy to get right.

Sometimes they try to address the healer end of it by making mechanics lethal, so DPS screwups aren't a healer responsibility (because there is nothing a healer can do about it), but IMO that takes away part of the fun of being a healer. My favorite moments in WoW raiding were the times when someone did something stupid and I pulled off a miraculous save. When everything is "dodge or die", that doesn't exist. But if you can save everything, then people dying becomes your fault even when it's not (see: people dying on Deltascape Normal).

I don't have a good answer, but I do admire the problem. If you're not going to try to train people up and expect them to already know what to do, you're competing with a LOT of other groups that all want the same thing. Expect that to be hard if your'e not top tier. (Angered posted recently looking for a healer, I don't expect they'll have a hard time.)

Anyway... I do tend to agree that when there's more alternate types of progression, some of this will level off. People will decide to go do that and that savage isn't for them, which is fine.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

One of the issues is that the gap between normal and savage is a gaping chasm. Normal is *EXTREMELY* forgiving. Savage is... not..

This my primary issue with how the devs have tuned content since Heavensward. Take the two recent primals. Honestly, both extremes should be normal mode. They are far too easy for players with even a remote grasp on how to play their job. Even casual groups posting their clears on youtube joke about they couldn't believe they one-shot either of them. Compare that to three three tiers of Titan and it's almost night and day. Titan Hard was a good blend of reasonably challenging but forgiving for players just looking to get their feet wet while Extreme smacked you around. Even the story mode could be a mild hurdle. I firmly believe this enormous gap contributes heavily to the skill differences and why players struggles attempting Savage. Unfortunately, the devs seemed convinced it was the UI and ability bloat hence the changes we saw in Stormblood.

[Tridus]

This my primary issue with how the devs have tuned content since Heavensward. Take the two recent primals. Honestly, both extremes should be normal mode. They are far too easy for players with even a remote grasp on how to play their job. Even casual groups posting their clears on youtube joke about they couldn't believe they one-shot either of them. Compare that to three three tiers of Titan and it's almost night and day. Titan Hard was a good blend of reasonably challenging but forgiving for players just looking to get their feet wet while Extreme smacked you around.

Oddly, I didn't find Susano Ex easy at all. It took an extremely long time to do it, because even once I had it more or less figured out it was hard to find a group that could do it. Lotta wipes, lotta time. Then one day a group one shotted it and made it look effortless. The difference was so wide that I didn't know what to make of it.