Please finally fix Tank, DPS and Healer roles SE

[BunnyQueen]

Healing just isn't fun, when I play healer I want to be healing on every pull, tanks shouldn't have to wall to wall for a healer to need to heal, this is bad design, you figure square enix could properly balance this so that the healer should be healing on every pull but nope they didn't. Instead the company is lazy and doesn't want to make healers and tanks jobs fun, they want them to be braindead and boring and decided that if we want fun we gotta wall to wall which that itself isn't great. Healers shouldn't have to be green DPS, healers are healers not bloody dps. I dropped healing because it just isn't fun to play the way it is, if I play a healer I want to bloody well play a HEALER!

[Sani2341]

I get that, but again: Having more on to do on Role A does not require removing tools from Role B and Role C. You can just deal with the bottleneck itself (raising the healing/mitigation required, by virtue of raising the base incoming damage).

As the only reason Role A has so little to do is their niche being spread out to role B and C in ever increasing amounts, yes that is absolutely necessary.

Esp. As we are already at a point where a bad Tank+Healer have a surprisingly high Chance to not clear normal content,
While a good Tank will be a bore for every moderatly skilled Healer even in your daily expert Roulette.

If you blindly increase the dmg to the point a good tank and good Healer are not bored in normal content, passable ones will struggle to clear and the bad ones might not even be able to finish the dungeon with Trusts.


Imagine how playing tank would feel if Aggromanagement could be done by DPS just pressing a shirk clone on cd, while all the mitigation could be solved by healers putting a shield or regen on you.

Sure average groups would still want a Tank just in case or because they could be queued with a random DPS unwilling to press the shirk button. But any decent group could eoptimize the Tank away for an extra dps to speed up their daily Roulette.

[GoatOfWar]

I'd say nerf it anyway. WARs are never going to have everything, and quite frankly, to hell with the fools who want it to. Drop those 400 potencies on Bloodwhetting and Nascent Flash to 300, make their heal procs be per weaponskill use and not per hit, and remove the HoT on Shake It Off. There, we've dragged WAR's healing back down to a manageable level.

Remove equilibrium.

[Shurrikhan]

As the only reason Role A has so little to do is their niche being spread out to role B and C in ever increasing amounts, yes that is absolutely necessary.

The cheapest meal for three costs $15. You have $12. Your friend, Dee-pee-ess, has $3. Your other friend, Taenhk, has $5.

For whatever reason, you each feel like you must spend all of your money.

Is the most obvious solution, then, (A) to instead go to a nicer joint, where the price is nearer your collective limit ($20) or (B) to demand your friends bring less money so that you can better use up all of yours?

Now, of course, in this case, you're also asking them to lose gameplay, too, all so that you don't feel like your own options are made as redundant when going for content tuned too cheaply/easily for you/your available output.

Imagine how playing tank would feel if Aggromanagement could be done by DPS just pressing a shirk clone on cd, while all the mitigation could be solved by healers putting a shield or regen on you.

Except, again, aggro is relational; the more damage DPS do, the more aggro tanks must generate/have transferred to them. It's also a non-mechanic (and never has been a mechanic in XIV beyond a brief game of "The Price is Right" in guessing how much Enmity your lead-Enmity DPS will produce over the fight to determine at which GCD in your opener you'll turn your tank stance off for the rest of the whole fight -- a period in which, btw, DPS had aggro management, as they had since the start of the game.)

Healing requirements, on the other hand, is not relational. They do not go up as DPSs'_damage/Tank_enmity_and/or_mitigation goes up. Healing requirements are finite. That's why your tools are becoming redundant in content you have far more than the necessary output for.

Which doesn't mean you need to strip away gameplay. It just means you need content options that actually use up all your collectively available resources so they aren't rendered redundant.

Note that every Role does damage. Yes, you could replace the majority of tank's kits instead with 0-MP-cost Flash spam and remove all attacks from healers so they wouldn't step on the toes of DPS, but would that improve DPS gameplay?

[LilimoLimomo]

Note that every Role does damage. Yes, you could replace the majority of tank's kits instead with 0-MP-cost Flash spam and remove all attacks from healers so they wouldn't step on the toes of DPS, but would that improve DPS gameplay?

I agree that this wouldn't improve DPS gameplay, but that's because the problem that damage output solves isn't remotely as ephemeral as the problem that healing solves. By definition of the way that FF14 works, until a fight is over there is DPS that needs to be done. The same is simply not true for healing. If everyone is topped off and has shields or whatever, there is no longer a benefit to doing healing stuff until the situation changes. That's why over-healing is a concept but in all my years of FF14 I've never once heard anyone talk about over-DPSing, because DPS is always needed.

When non-healers do the healing or mitigate, that leaves healers with less of a job to do. There are lots of ways to design content and classes so that this isn't a problem, but it's an important dynamic to be aware of.

[PyurBlue]

Now, of course, in this case, you're also asking them to lose gameplay, too, all so that you don't feel like your own options are made as redundant when going for content tuned too cheaply/easily for you/your available output.

I suppose, but I would not consider healer really a major component of tank gameplay. I really dislike WAR's ability to self heal. It's too high and while it may feel fine for them, it's terrible for healers. I wouldn't mind if tanks lost all self healing. To you're point though, tanks could keep the healing and other changes could be made to balance it out. Yet even in that case I don't see a situation where a tank like WAR should ever exist in dungeons. If healers aren't going to be the exclusive source of healing, they should at least excel at it far beyond other roles.

Yes, you could replace the majority of tank's kits instead with 0-MP-cost Flash spam and remove all attacks from healers so they wouldn't step on the toes of DPS, but would that improve DPS gameplay?

It might. If party DPS is so high that a DPS can't even start their rotations before things die, then yes, cutting tank and healer DPS would help. It would also definitely very clearly shift the responsibility for clear time, at least via damage, on to the DPS since no one else would be able to contribute.

Anyway a partial solution to the role dilemma that I like is designing combat with more optional damage in mind. What I mean by that is include more sources of avoidable damage, but let there be a tradeoff involving damage done (or maybe something else) that comes with the damage inflicted on party. As an example, imagine a boss that has an AoE attack that is either right or left, but which ever side the AoE is on also opens a weakspot. To hit the weakspot you need to be standing in the AoE, and will take damage because of this. The party could choose to take the risk of attacking the weakpoint, or the safety of avoiding the AoE and doing the usual amount of damage. Something like that would add increased healing challenge that rewards skilled healers while also leaving an option for less skilled healers.

One potential problem with this is the expectations of the current playerbase. Most players have become accustomed to avoiding all AoE's. I can pile on massive shields in dungeons that boss attack cannot break and even mention it to the party and most people will still try to avoid AoE's. There are also some players that expect nothing but optimal play from everyone. To avoid these issues, the optional damage idea could be added initially to a new kind of content, possibly some kind of midcore content that the game is currently lacking. Or when queueing, there could be a checkbox for "playstyle" allowing players to separate themselves into casual and optimal.

[Shurrikhan]

It [removing all-damage dealing from non-DPS] might [help DPS gameplay feel more engaging in itself]. If party DPS is so high that a DPS can't even start their rotations before things die, then yes, cutting tank and healer DPS would help.

...Or, again... just increase the mobs' damned health?

In what world is "Gut half of all players' gameplay" a decent solution to "Things die too quickly"?

[PyurBlue]

...Or, again... just increase the mobs' damned health?

In what world is "Gut half of all players' gameplay" a decent solution to "Things die too quickly"?

I guess I shouldn't have cut my reply a little short. I understood the point you were trying to make and I'm not totally arguing against it, but I don't think removing things from players is always a bad thing. In the case of tanks, healing is, or should be a bonus. We have healers. If tanks can heal too much there is a problem. You want to fix this by increasing damage to party and that's as reasonable as cutting tank healing, but I think it has its own downsides (both options do). The downside to removing tank healing is that tanks that like their self heal lose out while the downside to just raising damage and letting tanks have as much healing as they want is that balancing can become really tight. The damage to party needs to be scaled such that the lowest healing combination of tank and healer can clear. So that makes having one tank with high healing a problem, you can't scale damage for that tank plus a healer because other combos would die and if you scale for the other combos, the healing tank is too strong. You can give all the tanks the same amount of self healing, but if it's large compared to what healers output, you're diminishing the healer's input one healing. That's can still work, but then why not just have everyone self heal and replace the healer with a self healing DPS? Also, this might just be a me problem, but tanks with high healing capability can end up being annoying to heal. Look at WAR again. Healers have a lot of big heals that work best the tank has taken a lot of damage, but WAR can 100% heal in a couple of GCD's. So the WAR is going to want to use its heals just when the healer is going to want to use their heals. Often, one gets wasted. If tanks only had mitigation, that problem goes away.

Focusing specifically on FF14, tanks can keep some form of healing but it really shouldn't come close to what healers can output. Let WAR keep its skills but reduce all the healing potency to 20% or something. Likewise in the DPS example cited, tanks and healers can keep dealing DPS, but they shouldn't be the main DPS source in the party. HP and mob health should be balanced around DPS and DPS gameplay first.

[Shurrikhan]

I guess I shouldn't have cut my reply a little short. I understood the point you were trying to make and I'm not totally arguing against it, but I don't think removing things from players is always a bad thing.

Forenote: I will here use "sustain" to mean anything that keeps you alive. All sustain increases your eHP. Not all sustain will increase your maximum eHP. Sustain can be time/context-sensitive, as per %mitigation or healing for a % of damage recently taken, or "flat" (timing-insensitive).

I would agree with that. I just think there are oceans of difference between maintaining relevance within one's core kit and responsibilities and attempting to allot who is allowed what gameplay, especially without compensation.

Even in regard to that compensation, moreover, such as by replacing DPS's sustain utility and personal defensives with yet more damage actions... those kit additions have diminishing returns within a given capacity. Adding another couple buttons of damage-dealing to DPS in exchange for their Riddle of Earth and Mantra is going to matter a ton less than the couple buttons previous -- or is likely even to negatively impact that kit through apparent bloat. (Most already suffer from lackluster abilities within their primary responsibility through their so making each other either redundant, overly bundled, or through clearly depleted creativity.) That compensation, then, is going to be inherently insufficient. Not only is it removing a whole type of awareness and coordination from their gameplay, but what they get instead is as likely to hurt as to help given the state of their surrounding tools of that same type.

That's my issue with approaching maintained relevance through strict exclusivity on types of gameplay. We're playing this to have fun.

Tanks having sustain is not what is ruining your healer-type fun; it's the lack of shit to heal, which does not require removing their sustain (which has valuable gameplay for them) but rather merely requires adding more to the total sustain required.

That all being said, I do think tanks should tend to have less flat sustain (and, especially, flat healing) than they currently do, not because 'healing should belong only to healers', but simply because flat healing is, in itself, a less interesting and less iconic form of sustain than the likes of percentile mitigation. We want tanks to be preemptive and to reward fight knowledge. Simply taking the hit and then healing up some time before the next would-be lethal blow is not that, and since we want to keep tanks roughly in balance with each other and on an even keel with the other roles, the more sustain that is managed through dull means means the duller the kit is likely to be.

Now, for a couple kits we might be able to introduce mechanically-involved job traits that can actually make that self-healing interesting, and that'd be neat to see where thematically appropriate. But that interest should be the point, too, alongside balance. The kit needs to not be absurdly easier to get its near-maximal value out of than others, and it needs to be fun.

So the WAR is going to want to use its heals just when the healer is going to want to use their heals. Often, one gets wasted. If tanks only had mitigation, that problem goes away.

No. It's irrelevant. Whether the tank takes 50k less damage or heals back 50k health, there's still 50k less healing for you to do.

At most, by replacing flat sustain with contextual/timing-sensitive sustain, you just make it so healing requirements vary less with content, because contextual sustain will produce more sustain when incoming damage is high and less when damage incoming is low. There are some subtle advantages to that, in that you'd have maybe a GCD of healing to finally do during dungeon boss fights, but you'd have even less tank healing to do in Savage.

Unless, of course, you mean "just greatly reduce tank's personal sustain", in which case, again, you'd have the same difference from just increasing the healing required.

Again, I would like less of tank sustain to come from HoTs and per-hit actions, but let's not kid ourselves: the vast majority of tank's sustain still comes from mitigation.

• Less than 10% (~6% in top ranks) of DRK's self-sustain in Savage content comes from Souleater.
• The actual mitigation component of Shake It Off almost triples the maximum mitigation provided by the over-time healing, and is greater than the healing of Equilibrium, Equilibrium over time, Nascent Flash, and Bloodwhetting combined.
• Stem the Flow (%mitigation) does more than Stem the Tide (the flat shield).
• Reprisal produces more sustain than all of Paladin's healing per-action put together, and 50% more than the HoT attached to Holy Shelltron/Intervention.
• And, among DPS... the likes of Shield Samba is going to be more impactful than any 6 party members being healed by each use [self and [partner's] of Curing Waltz, and Waltz being used on CD. At 5 per hit, Dismantle can often outperform Curing Waltz.

If you shift things further towards that mitigation, you are only going to get even less to heal in serious content, not more, all while using defensive abilities feels even less relevant in casual content. If you want that, sure advocate for it, but... I'm not seeing the big fix there.

Tl;dr:
The core factor is your party's total sustain vs. the fight's total sustain required, and you can deal with the latter falling short a whole lot easier and with fewer ill effects on gameplay by just increasing those requirements than by chipping away at what gameplay may fall outside your arbitrary lines of what forms of sustain tanks should be allowed or what utility each role should be allowed.

[Palladiamors]

Time for the old man to talk about ye olden times.

Way back in the dark ages of MMOs I played a holy paladin in WoW. Now back then each of the healers had niches and holy paladins niche was single target healing. We achieved that by being extremely mana efficient, we had our flash of light that didn't heal much but didn't cost much, we had holy light which healed for a good amount but was costly, a cleanse, an instant use low healing ability, and a super long oh crud button in lay on hands and that was it. No HoTs, no party healing, no shields.

It was the most fun I've ever had as a healer. It was fast, it was frantic, it was HIGHLY dependent on your team not futzing up, and the only time you ever spent attacking was hitting the enemy with Judgement of Light/Wisdom because the entire kit revolved around flash of lights mana efficiency.

But more to the point, back in ye olden days each class had a niche. Druids were the masters of HoTs, Priests pure healing and shields, and shaman were a little bit of everything while having nice support in totems. A skilled player could make any healer work in any situation, I used to surprise people all the time because as the single target holy paladin I was still good at keeping groups alive.

I'm going a couple of places here. The first is that I feel like XIVs healers have an identity crisis. Their specialties are boiled down to shield and Regen and they have some fluff on the side. I'm not knocking the design team for that, healer homogenization started over a decade ago. I just wish each job felt more distinct but I know it can't because of my next point...

The players. Or rather, the player desire to min/max the snot out of everything. So developers are left in this zone where every healer has to be able to do everything otherwise the player base just won't take jobs that don't.

Healing design isn't great either but a lot of that boils down to the nature of the game. Outside of tank busters and party wide AoE most damage comes from completely avoidable mechanics which leaves healers in a feast or famine situation: either things have gone wrong and it's triage mode or you're just waiting on the next tank buster.

Unfortunately I don't think it's a simple fix. Redesigning encounters to have a better mix of unavoidable damage and mechanics would throw off a large portion of the player base.

I kinda think they've designed themselves into a corner.