Healer Mechanics You Want to See Become Common

[Shurrikhan]

Traditional CC does not fit in this type of game, that's true. This is CC like what the Blue Mage has--optional effects that make up for the loss in damage you take in order to make an enemy less threatening (meaning you have to heal less), and/or speeding up the time needed to defeat that enemy by a greater amount of time than simply attacking the enemy. This wasn't always the case in older Final Fantasies which either had enemies that could be defeated very quickly (thus the benefits of your debuffs not being realized), or the accuracy on those debuff spells was too unreliable, and the loss of damage or healing you took from missing the debuff hurt you more than you stood to gain.

That said, if you have mechanics that demand specific CC, then you can fit that into a game like Final Fantasy XIV.

Seems the opposite to me. It just depends on how you make those CC. For instance, if you reduce an enemy's stat by X amount, the value is the same on a boss or on a mob. The % effect will vary hugely (perhaps halving a weak mob's damage while only taking 5% off a boss's damage) but the actual mitigation thereby provided would be equal. That can fit and offer choice because it can be easily balanced around: Do I want to sacrifice a GCD to reduce future healing by potentially 2 GCDs, or just more than deal with it via a hyperefficient GCD like Regen? The answer will typically depend on whether you needed the added maximum eHP on your tank.

On the other hand, if you have mechanics that can only be solved by a specific type of CC, there's little choice permitted. It's just a "Hit X to counter mechanic" timing check. The moment you have to change what different CCs do specifically for a fight, they've kind of failed as a system. You should just be outright able to Sleep, Shove, Silence, Stun, Snare, Slow, Heavy, etc., any and all non-bosses, albeit to varying (roughly equal real effect, so long as the mob is of relevant type, e.g. Heavy only making sense on a melee mob) and make due use of that. And those should be baked into job kits diversely, rather than just, say, one CC type per role.

[ty_taurus]

Seems the opposite to me. It just depends on how you make those CC. For instance, if you reduce an enemy's stat by X amount, the value is the same on a boss or on a mob. The % effect will vary hugely (perhaps halving a weak mob's damage while only taking 5% off a boss's damage) but the actual mitigation thereby provided would be equal. That can fit and offer choice because it can be easily balanced around: Do I want to sacrifice a GCD to reduce future healing by potentially 2 GCDs, or just more than deal with it via a hyperefficient GCD like Regen? The answer will typically depend on whether you needed the added maximum eHP on your tank.

On the other hand, if you have mechanics that can only be solved by a specific type of CC, there's little choice permitted. It's just a "Hit X to counter mechanic" timing check. The moment you have to change what different CCs do specifically for a fight, they've kind of failed as a system. You should just be outright able to Sleep, Shove, Silence, Stun, Snare, Slow, Heavy, etc., any and all non-bosses, albeit to varying (roughly equal real effect, so long as the mob is of relevant type, e.g. Heavy only making sense on a melee mob) and make due use of that. And those should be baked into job kits diversely, rather than just, say, one CC type per role.

That's fair, though when I was talking about traditional CC, I was thinking conditions like Blind and Paralysis rather than stat reductions which would be much harder, but you're exactly right about reduction CC.

As for the mechanics that only can be solved with CC, as I mentioned, if you make the interaction about what kind of CC you're going to use and how you want to approach who and with what by creating multiple methods with different strengths and weaknesses, a mechanic like that could allow for harder CC tools like sleep, blind, and knockback to find use in raiding content. We do already have Silences which allow you do interrupt specific actions that you can choose to eat (such as the adds in Puppet's Bunker paralyzing the entire raid. This won't kill you, but you can respond appropriately to make the task easier). That's a tank and DPS thing though, so I didn't bring it up earlier. We also used to have a few fights where heavy could be used, such as A3S with the adds. The problem is Square doesn't really commit to utilizing these tactics more than once or twice. Stuff like heavy, bind, sleep, silence, etc. are all great tools, but if you keep refusing to add anything to fights that actually demand these tools, then there's no point in having them in the first place.

Regarding CC per job vs per role, I do agree that it's nice to add specific CC to certain jobs for job diversity, but you start running into an issue if we actually do start making forms of CC mandatory in more fights (or if not mandatory, then highly preferred to avoid things like paralysis). Let's say Repose was still White Mage only and they added in an add to a fight that needs to be put to sleep and that's the only way to handle that add. Your fight now requires that a White Mage or Black Mage be present to clear. Now that's ideally not the kind of mechanic that we want to add. We've both talked about wanting more diversity rather than just demanding specifically 1 form of CC, but if it's preferred, having a role that can do that means you don't have to worry about not having that CC. How certain jobs have access to additional CC outside their role, though, works pretty well, like Black Mage having Sleep means they could potentially handle that mechanic if the healers were trying to revive party members whereas other DPS couldn't do that. If White Mage keeps Fluid Aura, that would give them the option to shove an enemy rather than sleep them if the tanks couldn't for one reason or another.

[Shurrikhan]

That's fair, though when I was talking about traditional CC, I was thinking conditions like Blind and Paralysis rather than stat reductions which would be much harder, but you're exactly right about reduction CC.

Blind is already a(n Accuracy) stat reduction, iirc, while Paralysis can likewise scale its frequency and duration of mini-stuns based on enemy stats, making it scale just like any other stat reduction. In fact, every form of CC can.

As for the mechanics that only can be solved with CC, as I mentioned, if you make the interaction about what kind of CC you're going to use and how you want to approach who and with what by creating multiple methods with different strengths and weaknesses, a mechanic like that could allow for harder CC tools like sleep, blind, and knockback to find use in raiding content.

I'm all for that, for the most part. I just don't want to see each CC category relegated to a direct counter-mechanic, or a choice therein between 2-4 CCs that are useless outside those crafted events. Or, as you said:

The problem is Square doesn't really commit to utilizing these tactics more than once or twice.

I feel they need to be ubiquitously applicable, to balanced degree and with only the narrowest exceptions (i.e. Bosses not able to be slept).

We've both talked about wanting more diversity rather than just demanding specifically 1 form of CC, but if it's preferred, having a role that can do that means you don't have to worry about not having that CC.

And again, my preferred solution would be to have multiple avenues of approach.

There's nothing a Sleep, for instance, can do that chained Silence/Pacify casts, Provoke, Heavy, and kiting cannot. The Sleep might do so more easily, but it would also have a lower efficiency ceiling than being allowed to cleave or maintain DoTs on the additional target.

Similarly, a strong Slow and a Paralysis might reduce damage taken just enough to get your less CD-laden tank through the focused add before making do off a shield and immediate swap after the next couple busters until a further CD is readied.

So long as each job has a couple means of CC, and each sees reasonable usability, you don't need to homogenize them by Role.

[ty_taurus]

No, blind and paralysis are not stat reductions. You're referring to the consequences of hard CC, which isn't the same. If I use Addle as a caster, I'm directly reducing the stats of the target so they deal less magic damage. Blind has no affect on the actual stats of the boss, it just creates an RNG scenario where attacks will either hit at 100% or miss and do 0%. Paralysis randomly interrupts a target's ability to move or act and interrupts their casts. Technically every form of damage against an enemy is also doing damage reduction because you're shortening the duration that the target will be present and thus lowering the amount of damage your party will receive before the fight is won, but using that logic is moot in conversations like this.

I believe existing conditions already are ubiquitously applicable with the exception of bosses, and no one uses them because they're not worth it. Why put an enemy to sleep if you can just kill that enemy? No more than ever is AoE DPS accessible at most stages of play, so Sleeping regular enemies is useless. I don't know what boss fight adds, if any, can be put to sleep, but even if they could, there's no reason to leave them be when you can just kill them now. You'll need to do it eventually. In order to make hard CC viable, you need to have enemies where it's the only option or it's the most optimal option. Perhaps, if you'd prefer, we can have those corrupted aether enemies not be immune to damage, but rather have a significant defense buff while still being on a timer. You could DPS them down, but it will take way too long and it will make the DPS check significantly harder to meet if you do that each time they're summoned, though still possible to achieve. You would still want to CC them by sleeping them, knocking them back, blinding them with a 100% blind, or something else perhaps, but you theoretically can DPS them down.

[Shurrikhan]

Blind has no affect on the actual stats of the boss, it just creates an RNG scenario where attacks will either hit at 100% or miss and do 0%.

Accuracy is a stat, albeit now hidden, and Blind would previously affect bosses accordingly, albeit less noticeably than on mobs.

Paralysis randomly interrupts a target's ability to move or act and interrupts their casts.

I never said Paralysis was a stat reduction. I quite literally said it "can likewise scale its frequency and duration of mini-stuns based on enemy stats, making it scale just like any other stat reduction." That is to say you can give it inherent balance, rather than making it useless on weak mobs and obligatory on the highest strength mobs on which it is not automatically resisted.

Technically every form of damage against an enemy is also doing damage reduction because you're shortening the duration that the target will be present and thus lowering the amount of damage your party will receive before the fight is won, but using that logic is moot in conversations like this.

Indeed. Which is why I've never stated nor implied it.

I believe existing conditions already are ubiquitously applicable with the exception of bosses, and no one uses them because they're not worth it.

Blinds are literally gone from the game. Melee now have access only to a single shared stun where previously they originally had access to 3+ CC each. Pacify is now entirely gone from the game. Silences are now limited to Tanks and Ranged. Heavy and Bind is now limited to Ranged. Slow is now limited solely to Tanks. Sleep is now limited to what few healers or BLMs have yet to take it off their bars.

What remains, apart from Heavy, Sleep, and Bind, is still used. It's just that the vast majority no longer exist, largely because the situations in which they could be used were intentionally gutted due to tuning meant to pander to those who wanted dungeons to be as short and easy an experience as possible.

Yes, even before the devs specifically made most dungeon mobs immune to most forms of CC or made wall-to-wall pulls so safe as to be standard practice, CC was niche, but that is in turn because the devs never bothered to balance them (or, indeed, AoE). Instead, they were a free compositional bonus of middling value in the same vein as Dragon Kick but further curtailed by diminishing returns outside of persistent ground effects (e.g. Shadowflare, though it ended up with a mere 5% slow). The last time they saw real relevance, therefore, was in predominantly melee comps when Amdapor Keep was new. But, that's not because of any fundamental issue with CC, only a matter of skill-gap, tactical variance, and how much of either the devs were willing to provide room for (in this case, very little).

[Recon1o6]

No Role Actions; everything job-specific

There's nothing controversial about wanting unique things in each job, especially when they function the same. It helps differentiate

Its when the unique aspects clearly outshines the other jobs ability to make up for them, this is why all healers should have a utility or niche equally valuable to the others

[LariaKirin]

I'm not interested in CC unless they make it necessary across the board (in raids or in some sort of Mythic+ dungeon system). CC'ing in our completely trivial dungeons does not justify the button bloat.

I'd like some more trade-offs in the kits. I've been trying AST recently and it's a little off-putting how almost everything is completely free. Contrast that with SCH, where you trade some healing for DPS (Energy Drain) or where you trade some DPS for weave slots (Ruin II). In a playstyle where DPS is the most important thing, I think trade-offs have a very engaging role to play.

For encounters, some sort of "more damage" - but it's not that simple. The difference in healing between minimum item level and best in slot is massive. Ignoring every other benefit of best in slot, the approximately 20% HP increase alone is 2 mitigation abilities you don't have to care about. Gear scaling is way too strong, but FFXIV players don't like nerfs - so how do you keep fights at least somewhat relevant when people significantly overgear the fight? I don't konw. For example, I'd at least like to see some more %hp based mechanics and mechanics that punish death more harshly (e.g. some sort of boss buff on death: damage up, regen?).

[Shurrikhan]

There's nothing controversial about wanting unique things in each job, especially when they function the same. It helps differentiate

Its when the unique aspects clearly outshines the other jobs ability to make up for them, this is why all healers should have a utility or niche equally valuable to the others

It just gets real annoying when certain players will white knight the lack of something as a job's unique identity (e.g. a lack of utility, even if in a totally different form, on WHM prior to Temperance)...

Personally, I'd just give all three deep, self-synergetic, and meaningful utility, albeit with an eye on whatever the fourth will be.

[elioaiko]

To me CC can either be fun or a chore. SE doesn't really seem the type to make it fun. If they design it into the fights say Savage, then it becomes a game of who's gonna take the fall for using CC to prevent us from dying? This is if said CC would he GCD based. oGCD CC is meh because we already have some like that (Addle, Low Blow, Feint). It's one and done and has to weaved in and I really imagine any of the healers wanting something else to weave with their already lack of weaving space.

But another point I wanted to make is that SE probably is avoiding the potential backlash of CC being too powerful in that it can cause trolling and griefing. For example, BLU being able to insta-kill some of the bosses or essentially make them a joke with chain stunning has been a topic of discussion since they re-released the Yo-Kai event.

If they made Mythic+ dungeons a thing, then I could see it but we already know their stance on that.

[Semirhage]

BLU being able to insta-kill some of the bosses or essentially make them a joke with chain stunning has been a topic of discussion since they re-released the Yo-Kai event.

Off-topic, but god this community can be its own worst enemy sometimes. Noooooo, anything but cheesing FATEs! Not this horrible content we b**** about constantly! Wait your turn and make it the tedious grind it's supposed to be! Wait, why does Squeenix think we like doing FATEs the way they designed them? It's a mystery.