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

[Enla]

Just thought of one that would change healing significantly. No more in combat rezing.

I had a full body shudder thinking of all the 'it's my sub' DPS that I now can't raise because they thought the AOE looked tasty enough to eat. Please no.

[Ayer2015]

I had a full body shudder thinking of all the 'it's my sub' DPS that I now can't raise because they thought the AOE looked tasty enough to eat. Please no.

I'm sure it would end the 'healers must dps' threads

[Enla]

I'm sure it would end the 'healers must dps' threads

It definitely wouldn't, because good healers can handle both and I say that as someone who doesn't care if a healer prefers to healer exclusively. Most of the times someone has died in my parties it's literally been because they skipped mechanics, and if too many of them are brain dead it can be disastrous. Taking this out would change a salvageable situation and turn it into a wipe instead, causing more frustration and toxicity.

[Ayer2015]

I prefer bad groups.... makes healing more fun

[Enla]

I prefer bad groups.... makes healing more fun

It definitely does, but that doesn't change the fact that taking away combat rezz's will completely take the toxicity that surrounds healing to a whole new level.

[Ayer2015]

It definitely does, but that doesn't change the fact that taking away combat rezz's will completely take the toxicity that surrounds healing to a whole new level.

DPS will just have to get good then

[Sebazy]

I'm actually surprised I've not dug into this thread sooner tbh, it's a pretty important topic all told.

It could definitely (and probably already has) be argued that part of the blame of this lies in the combo of heals being incredibly potent and non tanks being incredibly squishy vs boss attacks. However, I wonder if this could be mitigated if SE were willing to shake up their encounter design somewhat.

To simplify what we have now, your typical garden variety FFXIV boss will usually consistently autoattack whilst following a scripted sequence of special abilities with little variance. Key points of damage are usually rather predictable leaving healers and tanks free to stretch themselves thin in safety whilst spamming DPS to fill in the very large gaps.

IMHO this often leads to rather tedious encounters if the designer doesn't force a bunch of movement in with the scripted abilities (Compare A9S with A10S for example) and I also feel that plain jane auto attacks are also a bit of a wasted opportunity as well. Having auto attacks proc additional cleaves and aoes would do wonders for preventing us from simply throwing a medica II up and ignoring the fact that the raid as at 20% for the next 20 seconds as is frequently the case now.

It doesn't even have to end there. Everquest had a rampage mechanic where the boss would have a secondary target and randomly pummel them as well as the MT. FFXI had a wonderful gimmick where large 4 legged mobs and bosses were able to attack with any limb without the need to spin on the spot. Dragons didn't visibly spin around when someone pulled agro, they simply and subtly kicked away at them. Given that SE had that 10 years ago, it has me wondering why we don't have Dragon's hacking and kicking away at the raid around them in 2017?

There's so much potential to make bosses both mechanically and visually more exciting that's wasted every time we get some goliath thing that simply sits there firing laser beams and parping a rocket out every 30 seconds (</3 A4S).

[Cakekizyy]

I thought in rampage in EQ was when they hit everyone in front of them.

[Reynhart]

So first twinbolt how do you do that one?

I use Rampart+Dark Mind as soon as finish my enmity combo, which allows me to drop the stance.

To be clear, I'm not talking about how you should, right now, stay in your tank stance. I'm advocating how "staying in your stance" should give a significant benefit. If this "overkilling mitigation" would allow the healer to compensate for the DPS I lose, it could be a tactical option. For now, even if I don't like it, I do it, because it's clearly the best way to go.

[Sebazy]

I thought in rampage in EQ was when they hit everyone in front of them.

Some later bosses could aoe rampage if I remember rightly?