TOP cleared with no healers

[RyuDragnier]

Incoming damage needs to be randomized and not happen at specific times that can be memorized. Healers need to be kept on their toes throughout the fight, knowing that throwing out DPS can wipe the party due to sudden random damage.

In other words, we need more fights like Shiva EX where the mechanic changes on what she does, and it IS randomized. If she did nothing but swords, healers barely had to heal. But if she did nothing but staves...OH I HOPE YOUR HEALERS ARE GOOD.

[Nizzi]

There's no amount of random healing or increased GCD healing that will make the 1 DoT 1 filler "rotation" fun, sorry to say. Succor was my 2nd most casted ability in DSR, and Broil was my first. That didn't suddenly become fun because I had to use Succor and Adlo in DSR. So many people here are missing the forest for the trees.

[hynaku]

Must mean they're going to be some huge changes in healing for tank and dps after this. SE can't have it where healers aren't needed anymore.

[BaconBits]

Must mean they're going to be some huge changes in healing for tank and dps after this. SE can't have it where healers aren't needed anymore.

Nah, I fully expect SE to triple down on the direction they've chosen, no matter how out of touch it makes them seem.

[EstelleCere]

I'm gonna assume job balances or changes might happen sooner or later, I've never been part of the healer arguments but I feel like if this was possible then there is something off with healer changes.

[Jojoya]

However, if they scale up healing requirements, clear rates will drop like an anvil in a shallow lake.

If the group can handle the DPS check with 3 DPS or there's no mandatory need for a second tank, then those groups can bring a 3rd healer.

Most of the players are so brainwashed into 2/2/4 that they forget the comp can be anything they want if they pre-form their party.

Clear rates dropping isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if players feel like the content is impossible to clear and so there's no point in even trying.

[Renathras]

...

Main points to contest - because tit for tat isn't useful:

1) The change do. We know this because the community is kind of...stupid...about this sort of thing. "MCH can't get a day one clear of a Savage?! Blacklist it from my PF for normal mode Barbarecca!" The reason Cleric Stance was removed was because people in normal content were getting in fights over Healers not using it (or sometimes using it and people dying and getting blamed for them greeding in Cleric). If you, for example, gave Healers more DPS kit, there would absolutely be people in 4 man MSQ dungeon witching out Healers not using those extra buttons or badmouthing them in forums and "Tales from the Duty Finder" if they're worried about bans, neither of which is good for the community or the game. That's the very reason Cleric was removed in the first place.

4b) Specific to the case of Ex5, the 7 DPS couldn't have cleared it without their Healer. It's a pretty weird fight with a very weird damage profile of "none for 8 minutes, massive amounts all at once over a 45 second period". But the point was more to show that we don't get this argument Tanks are not needed when content can be cleared without them. 4 mans can be cleared without Tanks. A month or so ago I got a PF together and we did 3 runs of Lapis Manalis; all Tanks, all Healers, all DPSers. The all DPSers was actually the hardest (damage), but this will depend on the players you have and the Jobs (since some DPS Jobs have more mitigation/healing than others). Point is, people are fond of arguing 4 mans don't need Healers. 4 mans don't need ANYONE. You could probably solo them on Healers and Tanks (probably NOT on DPS, though). Come to think of it...I might have to try that later... Only thing I can think of that MIGHT prevent it is stack mechanics (Healers can ultra-shield themselves to survive 4 man tankbusters) and the ones with add phases/burn phases (which Troia has in the final part of the first boss/minion battle and Lapis Manalis has for the 4 totem things in the final boss battle). People try to counter this by insisting it's not as efficient, but that isn't the argument. The argument is if it's needed, and you don't need DPSers for anything that doesn't have a damage check, or Tanks for (apparently) some Extremes. So this is a problem that goes far beyond Healers, just Healers are the easiest to drop in more situations, not the only ones that can be dropped.

The lack of healing requirements isn't the fault of the Healer ROLE. Healing requirements are from encounter design, not Healer kit design. That's my point.

EDIT:

I'm gonna assume job balances or changes might happen sooner or later, I've never been part of the healer arguments but I feel like if this was possible then there is something off with healer changes.

More encounter design and non-Healer Jobs (considering the clear was without a single Healer Job, the problem isn't with the Healer Jobs, it's with the encounter design and the non-Healer Jobs). Basically, they abused PLD Cover (two of them) and then cascading Raises (from RDM and SMN) where players would get a Raise but not release until as a mechanic was resolving, then they might die but another would accept their Raise just in time, and they also abused the 5 sec invuln to cheese through some damage and then Raise people on the other side.

Sounds like the problem is a combination of encounter design (too little healing up to that point), Tank/DPS mitigation and healing (able to heal themselves up to that point), and then encounters allowing staggered Raises and ignoring mechanics with Res invuln + PLD Cover to cheese their way through.

The one thing that wasn't even part of the equation there was Healer Jobs/changes. Though I suspect they will make encounters - at least the Ultimates - do more unavoidable damage going forward and/or make invulns not work the same through it.

[Sebazy]

The reason Cleric Stance was removed was because people in normal content were getting in fights over Healers not using it (or sometimes using it and people dying and getting blamed for them greeding in Cleric). If you, for example, gave Healers more DPS kit, there would absolutely be people in 4 man MSQ dungeon witching out Healers not using those extra buttons or badmouthing them in forums and "Tales from the Duty Finder" if they're worried about bans, neither of which is good for the community or the game. That's the very reason Cleric was removed in the first place.

I disagree. That's baseless speculation and paranoia. You can test this right now if you're so inclined. If not, it's all good because I already have. Remember when I did that Lapis dungeon spam with no oGCDs and still nearly parsed orange? I also dabbled around with completely excluding bits of my kit. Single button DPSing ignoring my dots, assize etc. I still parsed high green/low blue and more importantly. At no point did anyone bat an eyelid. No one mentioned it, I got a few comms, people said gg.

No one cared because no one died.

Cleric Stance was a very special case, basically split healers right down the middle and those that weren't making effective use of it functionally did zero DPS. You couldn't ignore it and still get a good log, your DPS literally fell clean off a cliff and straight down into the burning pits. But more importantly, misuse of Cleric Stance combined with many level cap dungeons being notably more dangerous in early ARR had the very real risk of either getting stuck in Cleric and being unable to toggle it off in time or even simply failing to realise it was on and having your group slowly die around you whilst your healing did little to nothing.

Remember, Cleric Stance wasn't a buff, it was a punishment mechanic. A price healers had to pay to deal DPS. If it was a buff, you'd have been able to click it off in a pinch. Thus it was a massively contentious ability because of how it could cause wipes in the hands of someone who wasn't ontop of their game.

I truely don't think you are stupid enough to believe that adding some proc, rotation or other complexity fluff to healer DPS is going to somehow cause wipes to anything like the same degree as Cleric Stance did. Having a feathers style proc on a healer isn't going to cause your heals to land for 0. It's not going to cause little Timmy to flail around mindlessly like Cleric routinely could. It's just going to be yet another part of the kit that some people choose to ignore and overlook which frankly is nothing new in casual end game content these days. How is this going to be a problem when it really isn't already?

More encounter design and non-Healer Jobs (considering the clear was without a single Healer Job, the problem isn't with the Healer Jobs, it's with the encounter design and the non-Healer Jobs).

Lets try putting this in a different way so maybe you can understand.

FFXIV healer design is here *

Meanwhile FFXIV content design has wandered off down into the edit box

Neither of these things are intrinsically wrong in isolation. If FFXIV raids were dishing damage out like King Tormax, I suspect we wouldn't be having this discussion. So it's a content problem right?

But then, if ARR had have launched with healers playing akin to early BnS Summoner, aka a fully fleshed out DPS job with a finite amount of healing CDs. It would also likely be a very different landscape now.

Trying to suggest that one facet of the issue is entirely responsible is just plain false. The problem is that these two pillars of game design are wildly misaligned. So much so at this stage that expecting to entirely solve the problem by simply shifting one of the pillars isn't going to work in the long term. Both sides need to be adjusted to find a compromise in the middle IMO.

Having every fight be a clone of BarbEX and TitanEX going forward isn't a viable solution. This game needs encounter diversity and healers need some adjustment to make fights like E8S and RubiEX non soul destroying.

[Jeeqbit]

Basically my thoughts. Throughout MMO history, situations such as this that make what shouldn't be possible, possible. It takes exceptionally skilled and coordinated players to pull off.

I do always like that something is possible to pull off if you try hard enough. I don't like arbitrary rules that just say no it's not possible. But it shouldn't necessarily be easy to. We meme about tanks healing dungeons, and many of them they can, but some of them take good knowledge of your class to get through the boss without a healer, especially when they have a tight item level sync.

I think that is the main reason people would claim to miss things like elemental materia or unrestricted accessories and other useless things from Heavensward. It gave you options to work around the system and do something you're not supposed to, if you went through an effort that most people wouldn't.

As it is now, this is one of the only ways people can still work around the system and do things they are not supposed to.

[Nanne]

Isn't this more of an issue with the battle design than healer design? You could have a healer job with 1 button that was Cure I and you could still design a fight that would require that one button to clear