TOP cleared with no healers

[Zebraoracle]

Idk, isn't a TOP clear with no healers something really achievable by a tiny portion of the already small portion of groups who do Ultimates? If so, I don't think it should really be a design concern.

But if it really is an issue, then they'd have to change fundamental things about encounter design, such as damage profiles and healer playstyle, and that's unlikely (although I'd love to be wrong).

What you and a lot of people seem to miss is the TOP situation isn't THE problem, it's a SYMPTOM of the problem. Outside of gimmick combat formats, in a game that utilizes the trinity, no role should be unnecessary, ever. The TOP thing shouldn't have been remotely possible regardless of how skilled the players are.

Dungeons - after a certain point, healers are not necessary. Tanks aren't necessary either for that matter, unless you want to W2W pull.
Extremes - Solo tank/healer runs have been happening for a while, some of them can even go no healer.
Savages - Some savages are doable with solo/no healers and probably solo tank.
And now Ultimates, the penultimate combat content in this game, has been shown to not only be clearable with single healers, but with no healers.

[Deceptus]

Honestly at this point it doesn't seem like they're out of touch but more like they just flat out don't care.

IMHO they're out of ideas on what to do with healers and have no idea how to balance them.

They straight up said similar during the 6.0 release Live letter

"We didn't know what to do with (how to improve) Scholar anymore" (paraphrasing)

[Raikai]

What you and a lot of people seem to miss is the TOP situation isn't THE problem, it's a SYMPTOM of the problem. Outside of gimmick combat formats, in a game that utilizes the trinity, no role should be unnecessary, ever. The TOP thing shouldn't have been remotely possible regardless of how skilled the players are.

Dungeons - after a certain point, healers are not necessary. Tanks aren't necessary either for that matter, unless you want to W2W pull.
Extremes - Solo tank/healer runs have been happening for a while, some of them can even go no healer.
Savages - Some savages are doable with solo/no healers and probably solo tank.
And now Ultimates, the penultimate combat content in this game, has been shown to not only be clearable with single healers, but with no healers.

But my question is... how many are those people? A tiny fraction or more? I'm not saying that you're wrong, but this data should be taken into account, or else possible changes might impact negatively the more "unskilled" spectrum of the playerbase.

Maybe the healing model of XIV is just unsustainable the way it is? But what if you remove self heals and mitigators from non healers to push up the necessity of this role, as the game is nowadays, jobs would lose even more flavor.

[thevanguard]

Idk, isn't a TOP clear with no healers something really achievable by a tiny portion of the already small portion of groups who do Ultimates? If so, I don't think it should really be a design concern.

But if it really is an issue, then they'd have to change fundamental things about encounter design, such as damage profiles and healer playstyle, and that's unlikely (although I'd love to be wrong).

Cos it's a symptom of an issue.

It's like when people call attention to needles lying on some random street in San Fran. Are the needles the issue? No. It's a symptom of poverty and housing unaffordability (and others). The needles are just a good, memorable, and easy-to-understand example.

[Aravell]

A lot of people seem to be saying "Only a very skilled small portion of players is able to do this, so why does it matter?". Why does it matter? FFXIV is a trinity MMO. In a properly designed and balanced trinity game, you shouldn't be able to dump one role entirely.

Tanks are brought for their defensive stats and the ability to control mobs. Tanks are not obsolete in XIV because boss autoattacks are tuned so high that non-tanks die in 2-3 hits.

DPS are brought to deal damage. DPS are not obsolete in XIV because of the enrage timer on fights and the relatively lower damage output of tanks and healers.

Healers are brought to keep the party healthy and able to clear the fight. Healers can be made obsolete in XIV because tanks and DPS have so many tools at their disposal to cover the non-existent damage, they're trying so desperately to keep healers relevant by making invisible stack markers that always target both healers.

Why is only one role of the trinity in a trinity game being treated as expendable? The fact that it's only very skilled players that can pull this off is irrelevant, the problem is that it's even possible to drop one of the trinity in a trinity game, in the hardest content in the game too.

[Semirhage]

And now Ultimates, the penultimate combat content in this game

(tiiiiiiny grammatical correction: penultimate means "second to last".)

Why is only one role of the trinity in a trinity game being treated as expendable? The fact that it's only very skilled players that can pull this off is irrelevant, the problem is that it's even possible to drop one of the trinity in a trinity game, in the hardest content in the game too.

Oh that's easy. This game is designed by people who main DPS classes and it shows. There's an occasional tank voice in there, but otherwise the tank and healer legs of that trinity stool are seen as something that exists to prop up "my" fun, not something to be fun or useful by themselves.

[Zebraoracle]

But my question is... how many are those people? A tiny fraction or more? I'm not saying that you're wrong, but this data should be taken into account, or else possible changes might impact negatively the more "unskilled" spectrum of the playerbase.

Maybe the healing model of XIV is just unsustainable the way it is? But what if you remove self heals and mitigators from non healers to push up the necessity of this role, as the game is nowadays, jobs would lose even more flavor.

The number of people capable of actually doing these kinds of runs increases the lower in content tier you go. Back in ShB, I barely did any savage stuff but I was seeing plenty of solo healer/tank extreme farms. Dungeons can't be fairly assessed due to how most people just solo queue into roulettes so you can't really get a good idea of how many do it, but I can almost guarantee that if the roulette system allowed it to, Warrior/3 DPS expert roulettes would become meta for expert roulettes. As it stands, it's entirely too easy to barely heal at all in roulettes and still fly through (went in as SGE a few days ago, I healed the tank *once* and that was a prepull shield, he had my kardia but it absolutely was not needed. This is a PROBLEM).

I would absolutely be all for nerfing mits/heals from non-healers. A warrior shouldn't be able to run into a pack of dungeon mobs and just laugh them off with no hep from anyone else.

(tiiiiiiny grammatical correction: penultimate means "second to last".)

Wait really? Wow, I've misunderstood that word for my entire life then, lol thanks!

Why is only one role of the trinity in a trinity game being treated as expendable? The fact that it's only very skilled players that can pull this off is irrelevant, the problem is that it's even possible to drop one of the trinity in a trinity game, in the hardest content in the game too.

Heck, I wouldn't even say I'm great at this game and I was farming Emerald Weapon Ex back in ShB as solo healer. It's not even a "only skilled players can do it" issue.

[Gallywolf]

As it stands, it's entirely too easy to barely heal at all in roulettes and still fly through (went in as SGE a few days ago, I healed the tank *once* and that was a prepull shield, he had my kardia but it absolutely was not needed. This is a PROBLEM).

Sadly, I do need to agree but mainly with warriors. I find I don't even need to heal at all with them, maybe the odd one or two shield/regen but that's it.

That or I get clemency happy paladins which annoy me to no ends.

But hey, at least gnb and drk still need a healer on them. Or at least in my experience they do but most tanks I see these days are just warriors.

[PercibelTheren]

I would like to preface this by saying that I haven't done any Ultimate fights and I only have moderate Savage experionce, so take my claims with a massive bag of salt, however: I think the state of healers is inextricably linked to the state of tanks, the two minute meta and general fight design.

Firstly, the state of tanks: Everyone knows tanks have been getting more and more sustain to the point that you can basically ignore them 90% of the time unless your tank is DRK, in which case they need some healing very occasionally. They eat a tank buster? No problem, they can just heal themselves up, the healer doesn't even have to slap a regen on them anymore. The tanks can also heal each other to such a degree that healers barely have to touch them at all unless something is going extremely wrong.

The two minute meta means that you can't fix healers by just giving them more buffs or utility. Everything *must* align perfectly with burst windows and party buffs. Frankly, the entire concept needs to go.

And lastly, I think the current fight design is hurting healers a lot. Big AoE damage is, outside of specific exceptions, scripted in a way that one of the healers can just throw out an OGCD heal and forget about it, unless we are in the early weeks of the tier and everyone is rocking garbage gear. Everything is designed around the entire party pumping out as much damage as possible, so healers are actively discouraged from ever casting a GCD heal unless something is going horribly wrong. We keep getting all these new shiny healing tools but barely any incentives to ever use them.

[DixieBellOCE]

XIV Community: "The game shouldn't be balanced around raiders"

Also XIV Community: "OMG TOP CLEARED NO HEALERS, PLS FIX HEALERS"

Le Sigh.