A Change to Phoenix Downs

[SenorPatty]

One aspect about the ongoing healer debates is the need to keep the role easy and forgiving for casual and new players. In many ways, this need for easy-of-use has stifled the healers, but I believe there are ways that we can make healing more forgiving without needing to stifle their gameplay. In theory, creating more forgiveness elsewhere could help us push further back into healers having gameplay loops, essentially.

One thing unique to healers is that there's more pressure on them to understand mechanics and not die to them, as typically a healer dying can mean the party will eventually succumb to damage and fail. Recent tank changes have counteracted that by allowing the party to clear the fight without their healer more reliably, but I feel that's kind of an awful way to address that issue.

"If you fail, don't worry. The rest of the team will do the work for you and you can sit there and not play the game."

So I propose the following changes to Phoenix Downs:

1. Allow Phoenix Downs to be usable in combat with a cooldown of 180 seconds.
2. Allow players to carry multiple Phoenix Downs.
3. Award players Phoenix Downs for completing roulettes to ensure players always have at least a few off hand.
4. Add a new restriction to high-end duties that makes Phoenix Downs unusable and add this as a DF option alongside things like minimum ilvl and silence echo.

This change would relieve a lot of that pressure on healers, which in tern could hopefully placate some of this desire to handle healer players like infants from the game devs.

I actually like this a lot but I would make phoenix downs restricted to 1 per party member but refilled for each boss battle. In a four group party where only the healer dies constantly, that's 3 possible rezzes. Anymore than that now feels like a crutch, especially since 4 group content have always been designed to be cleared with relative ease.

In 8man normal content, same deal but no refills after a wipe

And lastly, 24man should be exempt. Even if all alliances have no smn/rdm, that's still six healers who can keep an eye on each other should one fall.

[Coletergeist]

So I ask: What do you lose from this change that makes you an opponent of it?

If everyone can raise even during combat with a Phoenix Down, with a CD of 180 seconds, that essentially makes it to where everyone can rezz - even with a CD of 180 seconds. Let's say in 8-man parties or alliance raids for example - everyone can essentially rezz; it's 8 people that have feathers, along with summoners and red mages. Healers rezzes will become redundant, because everyone will be able to just pop a feather on someone. What will healers do? Healing is already essentially not needed, especially with tanks being able to heal themselves as well.

What I lose is my feeling of being needed, which is already pretty bad as it is currently. Healers are already in a state of feeling like they are not needed in most content. This will just make it worse.

Also, in some parties there are more than one healer - there's already that comfort that if one healer dies, there's others that can help rezz them. If someone wants to help a healer in case they die, there's summoner and red mage that can rezz. Summoner even for lower end content since red mages can only rezz at a higher level.

[ValkyriaCrystalis]

I’m all for it, hands down.

[ty_taurus]

If everyone can raise even during combat with a Phoenix Down, with a CD of 180 seconds, that essentially makes it to where everyone can rezz - even with a CD of 180 seconds. Let's say in 8-man parties or alliance raids for example - everyone can essentially rezz; it's 8 people that have feathers, along with summoners and red mages. Healers rezzes will become redundant, because everyone will be able to just pop a feather on someone. What will healers do? Healing is already essentially not needed, especially with tanks being able to heal themselves as well.

What I lose is my feeling of being needed, which is already pretty bad as it is currently. Healers are already in a state of feeling like they are not needed in most content. This will just make it worse.

Also, in some parties there are more than one healer - there's already that comfort that if one healer dies, there's others that can help rezz them. If someone wants to help a healer in case they die, there's summoner and red mage that can rezz. Summoner even for lower end content since red mages can only rezz at a higher level.

Sounds like you rely pretty heavily on parties failing content in order to feel useful, which inandof itself is the problem. There are hills to die on for healing, many of which have already been destroyed, but this is not one of them. Healing should not exist for the sole purpose of being raisebots for when the rest of the party mess up. That's a terrible mentality.

Keep in mind using a Phoenix Down is still a GCD usage and a consumable, so it would still be seen as far better to leave raising to the healers and conserve Phoenix Downs for necessity, especially because it has a cooldown. Even if 3 minutes isn't that long, especially in a crumbling alliance raid, that does mean you have to go 3 more minutes without having that ability as a non-healer/SMN/RDM. What if you waste it on a RPR and then your AST dies?

Moreover, Phoenix Downs have a cast time while you're using them which cannot be swiftcasted. It's faster than 8 seconds, but Raise still has its clear advantage.

So yeah, I veto that loss feeling.

[Coletergeist]

Healing should not exist for the sole purpose of being raisebots for when the rest of the party mess up. That's a terrible mentality.

Yeah no, don't get me wrong, I completely agree with this. It sucks a lot.

Edit: SE needs to implement healers in a way that makes them useful in other ways, somehow. But I feel that until that happens, making it to where other people can rezz isn't the solution, is all I'm saying here.

[Yeastyloins]

Sure but DPS can die 1000 times and not throw the fight in casual content. Healers typically cannot die even once unless you have a RDM or SMN (or you now have a WAR and they just carry on without you).

Sure....in normal content and alliance raids. Extreme maybe you can kinda get away with that with gear but that doesn't fly for Savage or Ultimate. The issue is that people are supposed to learn and refine how they play the game in that content and completing mechanics in a clean manner is a part of that. Adding something like this would invalidate the need for mechanical play and thus further the gulf between Normal and Extreme, let alone Savage and Ultimate. You're not cultivating good habits.

Mind you, this is a small portion of the player base that this would functionally be an issue for, but we don't need to increase the difficulty spike between casual content and hard content. The game should not be solely designed for people who cannot understand basic pattern recognition and understand moving away from the fire while casting spells. There are enough concessions in gameplay in normal content for players to be able to see the story.

[ty_taurus]

Sure....in normal content and alliance raids. Extreme maybe you can kinda get away with that with gear but that doesn't fly for Savage or Ultimate. The issue is that people are supposed to learn and refine how they play the game in that content and completing mechanics in a clean manner is a part of that. Adding something like this would invalidate the need for mechanical play and thus further the gulf between Normal and Extreme, let alone Savage and Ultimate. You're not cultivating good habits.

Mind you, this is a small portion of the player base that this would functionally be an issue for, but we don't need to increase the difficulty spike between casual content and hard content. The game should not be solely designed for people who cannot understand basic pattern recognition and understand moving away from the fire while casting spells. There are enough concessions in gameplay in normal content for players to be able to see the story.

Damn, if only I said something like "4. Add a new restriction to high-end duties that makes Phoenix Downs unusable and add this as a DF option alongside things like minimum ilvl and silence echo." in my initial post.

[Eorzean_username]

Adding something like this would invalidate the need for mechanical play and thus further the gulf between Normal and Extreme, let alone Savage and Ultimate.

I'm not sure about this assertion, but I'm also not sure if I understand which point you're trying to assert, so I'd like to clarify those details before writing an actual response.

Are you asserting that 'Normal'-tier content won't properly prepare players for entering Extreme+ if everyone in a randomly-matched Duty Finder party can Raise?

Or are you asserting that having more distributed Raising capability inside an Extreme+ environment would damage the sense of accomplishment in Savage/Ultimate by removing what you're terming 'mechanical play'?

[Yeastyloins]

Damn, if only I said something like "4. Add a new restriction to high-end duties that makes Phoenix Downs unusable and add this as a DF option alongside things like minimum ilvl and silence echo." in my initial post.

Damn, if only you understood that I was talking about having Phoenix Downs in Casual content (I.E normal raids, trials, and dungeons including roulettes) would lead to bad habits within the playerbase.

[Imora]

There is an inherent pressure on healers to get mechanics down correctly, because if they die, it typically means the party is forced to wipe because no one can revive you. If you are at least a decently good player at FFXIV, then you likely don't feel this level of pressure because it doesn't happen to you often. But there are many players who are not at that skill level and will not only make mistakes, but will make the same mistakes over and over. These players likely have some amount of fear while playing as healers because they don't want to be the sole reason why their party wipes. SE has made it clear that they want players of this skill level to be capable of clearing content.

By making these Phoenix Down changes, it can relieve that pressure from new or low-skill healers which in term could theoretically allow more breathing room for them to add more engagement to healer gameplay.

Everyone should be avoiding mechanics. The healer isn't there to "heal stupid".