How can tanking and healing be made more broadly useful in more "role-specific" ways?

[Reynhart]

I'm not sure I understand the last bit of your post - if you aren't being killed by enrage and you aren't being killed by your healer running out of MP then what is supposed to be killing you?

The fact that the boss' DPS should be higher than your healers' max HPS.

And what adjustments, compensatory or improvements in their own right, should DPS feel in order to make that vision cohesive?

DPS should do much more damage, thus gain more enmity, to the point that enmity management is a real concern for the tank if DPS go full power. But, with a good tank, it would be very satisfying to unleash everything you can as a DPS. Like how tanks could manage Sneak Attack/Trick Attack or Ancient Magic Burst in FFXI.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I am on my phone for now, so I can't write much. I like this thread idea, though.

My biggest beef with healing, as a healer main, is that it's too much about memorizing raid damage patterns and not enough about adaptive healing. Having to adapt only happens when something unscripted happens though, so in order to increase this we would need:

**More randomized damage output by the boss.**

This can include:

a) Boss attacks that are actually hard to dodge (so that people actually get hit more often). RNG spawns help here.

b) Bosses are less scripted and instead roll on which move will be used next, out of a selection based on some structure.

c) More stuff that I can edit in when I am not on my phone.

[Derio]

I do think one of the major problems is that every fight follows a script.

So you know at certain parts of the fight the boss pattern changes. And as long as you know the pattern, nothing will require your role to really shine.

Even in situations where adds appear you know where they spawn, etc.

Bottom line they need to put RNG in the scripts to where some fights you cant predict the pattern. That would possibly open up more engaging fights rather than pattern memorization

[MoroMurasaki]

The fact that the boss' DPS should be higher than your healers' max HPS.

But when that happens you wipe. Like, that is the definition of a wipe - more damage dealt than can be healed through. I don't see how being able to heal through incoming damage is an issue. At best here you're describing a soft enrage, like in Lakshmi EX when if you get to that last Chanchala phase people don't have the vril to mitigate and therefor die.

[Reynhart]

But when that happens you wipe. Like, that is the definition of a wipe - more damage dealt than can be healed through.

Little math, then. If the boss deals 50 more DPS than your healer's max HPS and you have 50k HP, what time on average do you have before the boss kills you (and the rest of the team shortly after) ?

So you know at certain parts of the fight the boss pattern changes. And as long as you know the pattern, nothing will require your role to really shine.

Like just before the 1st Charybdis on O1S, where healers purposefuly let the whole group very low on HP after two big AoEs.

[Jandor]

That's a trick question because DPS are already the only truly "useful" role, because the win condition is entirely dependent on getting the enemy's HP to zero. Tanks and healers are not useful in their own right, they are artificially made useful (and mandatory) via un-avoidable damage. And because that damage is capped, being "useful" beyond that goes the way of DPS.

You're conflating damage and the DPS role. DPS is the least truly useful role because they bring nothing that the other roles don't already bring, Tanks and healers do damage as well.

You say tanks and healers are artificially made useful but that's true for the DPS role as well, 'do X amount of damage in X seconds or die' is just as artificial a game mechanic as unavoidable damage and it's the only reason DPS are required at all. Without enrage timers bringing any DPS jobs would ultimately be entirely optional.

[Xerek]

I think predictabilty is a big part of the problem. Everything follows a set pattern, so there are few surprises. As such, everyone can fall into pattern. There is no margin of error, no holding onto MP, or holding back just in case something unexpected hits. No frantically hawking an enemy cast bar dreading a sudden tankbuster. It's not so much reacting as it is playing through what is, in essense, one giant rotation.

That's what honestly turned me off from Savage. I finally got the courage to dip my toes in, clearing O1S and O2S. But...it wasn't fun. It was wall to wall patterns/mechanics. It didn't test my abilities as an astrologian, it tested my memorization. I was hoping for a tense, epic fight and instead got a glorified coriographed dance number. Death was not a result of bad healer play, but rather because someone missed a dance step. And in Savage, one missed step is death.

I am very good at adaptive play. It's why I normally play healer/support classes. I am also terrible at memorization and recitition. DPS rotations are poison to me. That's why I main AST, and choose DPS like RDM or MCH where there is a random element to adapt to. But this game follows predictable patterns far too often. Once learned, it allows tanks and healers to do their jobs with extreme ease, offering up a lot of downtime. The only thing that can be done in the downtime is DPS, leading to the current meta. The only way to push more tanking/healing is to take tanks/healers out of that comfort zone by removing the predictability.

[Fhaerron]

DPS should do much more damage, thus gain more enmity, to the point that enmity management is a real concern for the tank if DPS go full power. But, with a good tank, it would be very satisfying to unleash everything you can as a DPS. Like how tanks could manage Sneak Attack/Trick Attack or Ancient Magic Burst in FFXI.

This, The DPS in my group was so bad yesterday that I just did 1 rage of halone combo on boss in Shield Oath and then I did Sword oath the reminder of the fight.

And I already open the fight with DPS (Goring Blade) and well I do shield throw while running to boss but that alone is already enough to allow me to open with that DPS combo.

[KaldeaSahaline]

<I am not asking what the player can do in present design to increase the breadth and/or depth of nuance in their gameplay. I am asking what changes to design can improve on that breadth and/or depth.>

Let me preface this by begging that this not turn into another healer-dps or tank-dps thread. This will all work off the assumption that by common sense, one spends only as much time as is necessary on any task that does not directly contribute to completing the encounter: in XIV's case, all encounters are ended through damage, thus damage is primary, and mitigation and restoration derivative. It also works off the observation that by the game's design, this means that relatively little/few of either one's (1) considerations or (2) globals are optimally spent in derivative tasks, which can annoy at least a significant portion of players, who would rather be healing or "tanking" (there's a vague term for you) more often and/or more significantly.

How can we adjust the game design, without relying on gimmicks or absurd scaling, to allow for a greater sense of "healing" or "tanking" within those "roles"? And what adjustments, compensatory or improvements in their own right, should DPS feel in order to make that vision cohesive? To put it another way, how can we better mechanically embody the idea of support — be it defensive, restorative, or offensive — and lend interest and urgency to team gameplay through short-term goals outside of just our own rotational windows, without having to overtune damage taken or undertune healing doable? How can we generate greater and more interesting value from/in derivative tasks (whatever doesn't directly contribute to finishing the encounter)?

:: To be clear, let's consider new content types as being a last resort to be used to create that design, e.g. only when two design concepts, philosophies, or paradigms are incompatible.

Go as ham on this as you like; this is just food for thought. If you have to re-engineer enemy behavioral scripts from scratch, that's fine. If you have to introduce new systems entirely, that, too, is fine.

Related Food for Thought questions, by way of example:
- Should there be synergy between healer DPS and healing, e.g. White Mages building up Essence of Earth/Wind/Water, spendable for support, self-buffing, or burst offense or restoration?
- Should almost all attacks be interceptable, as per T10's charge and mechanics repeating on it?
- Should enmity have more influence and nuance than just a target-determining value?
- Should there be some value system other than merely enmity than tanks would tend to have high outputs of, such as damage-based-suppression?
- Etc., etc.
<What kinds of systems can make our derivative toolkits more interesting and more deeply integrated into gameplay?>

Excellent post - here are my ideas/opinions speaking strictly from a tanking POV.

Combat Revamp/More Organic gameplay

1) Get rid of tank stances completely.

2) Change combo structure. I.e. Not all combo's need to be 3 hits. I.e. Shift some of those buttons into oGCDs. I'd even take shorter GCD inside combos (i.e. Press Fast Blade -> incur 1.5s GCD -> Press Riot Blade -> Incur 1.5s GCD -> Press Royal Authority -> Incur 2.5s GCD. This makes a combo feel like an actual combo and not a super long sequence. It gives the crowd who wants more frequent presses some love, while still maintaining that long GCD between presses for those who like the existing playstyle. I think this is a fair compromise.

3) More oGCDs with actual effects. These should be your more situational presses and not pressed mindlessly on cooldown for DPS.

I.e. Shield Swipe should be more than just damage. Maybe on successful block Shield Swipe becomes active and can be used within say 10s that can be activated to deal damage knocking an enemy off balance triggering additional enmity gain and letting you cast a combo ender instantly. Different combo enders could give threat/DPS/mitigation.

Another example could be having an oGCD that transforms threat to DPS/mitigation. Circle of Scorn costs reduces current threat by x% and deal AOE damage/DoT. While inside the Circle of Scorn area you take y% less damage.

4) Tune damage to be more frequent, but less dangerous. Ideally I envision a paradigm where an encounter is a moderate bleed that the healer massages. When the bleed ramps up (via someone taking avoidable damage, tankbuster, or failing a mechanic induces raid damage, etc.) healers have cooldowns to recover. If those cooldowns aren't available there is still room for them to ramp up and recover, but it won't be free or easy. I don't want huge big staggering hits, and I don't want inconsequential hits. It needs to add up and increase based on mechanics/enemies, etc.

5) Mitigation and Threat and DPS are driven by what choices you make in combo's and oGCDs. Have much less "big cooldowns", but the few that are left cut the cooldowns so they can be used more frequently. The idea would be that you threat would be organic over the fight. You always need to be #1 as the tank, but you don't need enormous threat, sometimes you will need DPS and sometimes you'll need more mitigation. The idea would be that you need mitigation up more often (i.e. using combos/oGCD's to keep a buff up or to raise defense etc.) if the healers are struggling to massage the bleeding I mentioned above. I.e. if you're consistently at 50%HP, and a big hit is coming soon, focus on mitigation effects/combos to allow the healer some time to catch up, and then supplement with a cooldown.

5) Encounter design needs to bring back CC. Not like mass sleeping enemies, but enemies need to cast things that are dangerous and should be CC'd/interrupted. Make that a tanks responsibility and a mDPS responsibility. I wouldn't be opposed to random threat drops on mobs/bosses (since they don't 1 shot) requiring quick threat gain, etc.

It also needs to utilize space control better and less hard pass/fail mechanics. Failing a DPS check or mechanic shouldn't restart the fight. Maybe it ramps up the outgoing damage, or a part of the area becomes a void zone, spawns an add, etc.

It also needs to utilize add phases that aren't intermissions. Have jobs have actual AOE abilities and adds that need to be tanked during a boss fight, not an intermission. Have DPS make decisions between 2 target, 3 target or full AOE kind of ability usage (wow does a good job at this).

Tank swaps need to be more organic. I.e. swap out when hp is getting too low and damage is too high etc or out of coodowns. I'm really tired of taunt at X or for Y tankbuster.

I'll leave these notes here. I have probably a dozen more, but I want people to read it and not TLDR. OBVIOUSLY these paradigms would never work with existing systems design, please keep that in mind when responding. Try to envision the statements and how you would feel playing.

[Shurrikhan]

Little math, then. If the boss deals 50 more DPS than your healer's max HPS and you have 50k HP, what time on average do you have before the boss kills you (and the rest of the team shortly after)?

Not to disrupt the theoretical, but I doubt you'd run into a healer who'd find that slow descent satisfying, nor any tank who'd enjoy needing to gradually lose enmity to their dps, and each dps to each other in turn, each just before dying.

But from the same theoretical, following the pretext that your healers have to put out their fixed maximal output (and mana is a non-concern), I'm wondering how this differs in any way from a typical enrage timer, except that the impact of individual mistakes must somehow be softened for this to work. In either case, damage is your primary form of survival, all else just multipliers (derivatives) thereon, by extending the maximal encounter time. I guess I, too, am just missing the point, still.