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

[akaneakki]

After dying half a dozen times in the 24 player raid due to healers doing dps over healing the MT (me) I would like to propose a health based dps buff / debuff for healer dps. How it works is that if everybody in the group is 90% or higher they get a +20% dps buff, if their at 80 then 10%, 70/0, 60 / -10%, 50 / -20%, 40 / -30% ... etc. This way it encourages healers to keep their group healed so people don’t die, aka, do their primary job first. If somebody is dead, their dps takes the max penalty, aka, hardly any dps output till the group is back up.

This is such a bad idea. It really easy. First of all, you have no idea how many times dps get away with being bad, because good/great healers do somewhat of their job as well, same with tanks really. Imagine if there was enrage in 24 man, there is no way you would get it done with and we all know why.

[Rhais]

Arbitrary penalties and debuffs to force players into a rigid role fulfillment is a terrible idea.

[Hyperia]

Arbitrary penalties and debuffs to force players into a rigid role fulfillment is a terrible idea.

Hardly a terrible idea, I'm just asking people to do what they signed up to do first, then DPS after the fact. If I have to rain on a healer's DPS parade so they can keep everybody alive and not wipe a raid, I'm perfectly ok with that. As to how to deal with bad DPS, I dunno, that's something we really cant touch because parsers are forbidden and thus, we cant shine a spotlight on underperformers. It's really sad if you think about it... healers and tanks being forced to do more and more DPS just so bad DPS can carry on. Something is wrong here... but I digress. My original proposal still stands, I want healers to heal first, then DPS if everything else is ok. My idea rewards healers who want to DPS by doing their job and punishing those who want to DPS at the detriment of others.

[MoroMurasaki]

snip

So a trolling DPS can die to things and essentially wipe not only his DPS from the party but also the healer's.

Or someone can be lagging and die to things only to have the same thing happen.

I'm sorry, I've seen a lot of poor ideas, but unless we are going to somehow impliment a penalty system on the DPS players (how about you only get full exp for completing an instance if your DPS is above a certain number?) for doing stupid things this is totally unfair.

Also it implies that healing or raising a player should always be my top priority as a healer which is just untrue. Hell, several times in Shinryu EX now I've left someone dead because Swiftcast was on cooldown and the heart needed to die so I didn't have time to hardcast a raise. I help with the DPS because it is the logical priority (alive heart means a wipe) and with your suggestion any of those situations would have wiped my party.

This is just plain bad, I'm sorry.

Edit: Also just thought of O1S - the accepted strategy there is to let the party eat tge Roars before a Chrybdis because whether everyone is full or low Chrybdis is going to bring them to single digit. This is great time to DPS as a healer because there is literally no point to heal unless someone is going to die before Chrybdis casts.

It would also invalidate the Assize I usually use there, depending on how tight the group stacks I follow up my precasted Cure III/Medica II with Assize but it wouldn't really damage the boss because everyone would still be at lowish health.

The more I think about your suggestion the more I wonder if you've ever healed any "endgame" content. Everyone is free to theorycraft but you defend your stance like someone who knows what they're talking about and I don't think you do. I'm by no means any better than maybe the lowest midcore player and even I understand how bad this is.

[Shurrikhan]

Hardly a terrible idea, I'm just asking people to do what they signed up to do first, then DPS after the fact. If I have to rain on a healer's DPS parade so they can keep everybody alive and not wipe a raid, I'm perfectly ok with that. As to how to deal with bad DPS, I dunno, that's something we really cant touch because parsers are forbidden and thus, we cant shine a spotlight on underperformers. It's really sad if you think about it... healers and tanks being forced to do more and more DPS just so bad DPS can carry on. Something is wrong here... but I digress. My original proposal still stands, I want healers to heal first, then DPS if everything else is ok. My idea rewards healers who want to DPS by doing their job and punishing those who want to DPS at the detriment of others.

Take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, as it boils down primarily to pedantics.

That part wouldn't actually change except insofar as you have to recalculate the point at which your throughput efficiency outweighs the modifiers placed your party members' throughput. You'd spend more globals essentially buffing others, but that's no more a healer's primary "job" -- even if eHP restoration is attached to that function -- than direct damage-dealing. Any healing this would add would already be after "everything else is ok", where there is no survival detriment. It'd doubtless create more globals of healing, but it wouldn't create any higher a focus on keeping people alive.

[Reynhart]

Alternatively, would simply reducing the passive mitigation and HP bonuses of being a tank, regardless of stance, have a similar effect, such that tanks are more reliant on active and stance-based mitigation?

I think it's not enough by itself. For me, the problem with stances is that the damage difference between tank stance and DPS stance is too low. If you increase damage regardless of stances, this difference would stay the same and once people are accustomed with the higher damage, they'll go back to DPS stance...unless the increased damage is so high that they can't do it anymore.

Sure, a mandatory tank stance would indeed put more emphasis on tanking, but it would piss off the whole population that loves agressive tanking. For me the sweet spot would be that damage are high enough so that a healer paired with a DPS-stance tank would had to focus more heavily on healing, and the mitigation on tank stance would be high enough so that a healer who likes to DPS could do that a lot more when paired with a turtle tank.

So no types of tanks and healers would be left behind.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it's not enough by itself. For me, the problem with stances is that the damage difference between tank stance and DPS stance is too low. If you increase damage regardless of stances, this difference would stay the same and once people are accustomed with the higher damage, they'll go back to DPS stance...unless the increased damage is so high that they can't do it anymore.

Fair enough, but let's consider: An increased penalty on "DPS stance" functions identically to reduced passive mitigation and a tank stance strengthened to its previous eHP levels. Moreover, no matter how great the gap is increased, there will undoubtedly be a point at which it's worth and a point at which it is not. At present, gear tends to favors avoiding tank stance, as it receives no benefits that DPS stance does not capitalize upon further (if tank stance eHP was sufficient at lower gear, then it will be excessive with additional gear), but at any given point as DPS gradually and increasingly outscales percentile mitigation (since encounter damage does not increase with your gear, and therefore neither can percentile mitigation) that decision is straightforward, and probably ought to be. Making one stance intentionally punishing won't change that; it just bloats the ability and introduces counter-intuitiveness.

Sure, a mandatory tank stance would indeed put more emphasis on tanking, but it would piss off the whole population that loves agressive tanking. For me the sweet spot would be that damage are high enough so that a healer paired with a DPS-stance tank would had to focus more heavily on healing, and the mitigation on tank stance would be high enough so that a healer who likes to DPS could do that a lot more when paired with a turtle tank.

So no types of tanks and healers would be left behind.

I've never recommended a mandatory tank stance. If it's mandatory, it's not a stance, but rather just bloat (in all but maybe solo play or in the destruction of defenseless objects). I'm just saying that the more something appears to be made effectively mandatory (optimal by a notable margin) not because of universally applicable scalars but through appended punishments, the worse it feels.

And note the situation your broaching is in every way a compromise. There's no point at which no one is "not left behind" unless you consider the most marginal presence or satisfaction as complete inclusion.

[Reynhart]

Moreover, no matter how great the gap is increased, there will undoubtedly be a point at which it's worth and a point at which it is not.

It sure will, but at that point, the requirement for DPS stance is also reduced. When a savage content is just released, the gap in tank DPS could make the difference between winning and hitting enrage. Once you have 30 or 40 more ilvl, chances are your DPS will be enough even if you sit in tank stance 24/7.

And note the situation your broaching is in every way a compromise. There's no point at which no one is "not left behind" unless you consider the most marginal presence or satisfaction as complete inclusion.

Sure, it doesn't leave anyone behind if the damage is increased reasonably. But it won't change the dynamic of tank stance vs DPS stance either, and only lower healer's DPS by increasing the base healing requirement.

[Shurrikhan]

It sure will, but at that point, the requirement for DPS stance is also reduced. When a savage content is just released, the gap in tank DPS could make the difference between winning and hitting enrage. Once you have 30 or 40 more ilvl, chances are your DPS will be enough even if you sit in tank stance 24/7.

Sure, it doesn't leave anyone behind if the damage is increased reasonably. But it won't change the dynamic of tank stance vs DPS stance either, and only lower healer's DPS by increasing the base healing requirement.

Now I really don't understand what you're suggesting.

[Reynhart]

Now I really don't understand what you're suggesting.

Let's imagine that ShO and Grit reduces damage by 50% instead of 20%. Suddently, the healing requirement between "tank stance" and "DPS stance" is very different. If we increase the overall damage a tank suffers, a healer will have less room to DPS than it has now when paired with a DPS-stance tank. But, if paired with a "turtle" tank, he can much more damage since the tank will take significantly less damage.

The idea is that, "what DPS the tanks loses by sitting in tank stance is covered by what DPS the healer gains", so that, in the end, "DPS stance" and "tank stance" are more personal preference and compromise with what type of healer player you have in your party.

My last try on O1S, even if not a significant sample, shown that by sitting in tank stance for all the fight, I lost 500 DPS while my healer only gained 100. If he would have gained 500 DPS, then my stance wouldn't have mattered on the overall raid DPS.