Would you rather healers get more complex healing kits or more complex DPS kits?

[Lailani_Fey]

For me personally damage kits do not need to be reworked at all. They are there to fill gaps in a fight which there should only be a few to "catch your breath".
But if role parity in the playerbase is what SE cared the most about I wouldn't even mind them introducing another healer job with Dawntrail and diversify playstyle among the jobs.

The thing that needs changing most is encounter design. The more tools you have in your bag the more and faster encounter mechanics would need to be in order for them to be useful.
This never happened however.
I suspect it is because of SE's push for "brainteaser" mechanics that take a lot of thinking to figure out and a lot of training to react in time to. All the while you do still have to press buttons, as healer especially. You don't want people to die, they need to learn mechanics and you as well. The solution to not overwhelm you is to make healing a 1-button endaevour.
This design naturally sucks most individuality of roles out of the game. With less individuality there is also less responsibility for each other and less power imbalance. I am not even sure which of them is cause or effect.
But I would really like to think the community is mature enough for this to not be a factor.

I do love the more tactical gameplay as it was peak in ARR.
If you take a look back, encounter design was the most diverse there ever was.
Here are a couple of examples of what exists:

• On Ifrit Ex you have got to deal with instant TBs that reduce Max Hp and continous raid wides. While also having to monitor youself for a debuff and leave party healing to the other healer when you have it.
• On Ramuh Ex it is instant TBs that get more frequent the further in the fight you are. The fight also features a kind of resource mechanic where your group balances mechanic safety versus increased incoming damage. Further it has a certain mechanic where using actions causes damage to yourself so you have to keep an eye out and cover for your coheal in case they get it.
• On Leviathan Ex any healing action executed on the tail tank gives a stacking debuff that reduces healing range. Dealing with this has the healers swap taking care of the tank while positioning in a way they will not accidently hit the tank with aoe heals.
• On T9 you have got Multihit TBs, raidwide damage while everyone being spread across the whole arena and the infamous last phase that is just unpredictable.
• On T13 there is more Multihit TBs and later Multihit Stack TBs that both healers need to heal into. It has spot healing on DPS players, followed by TBs and lots of raidwide damage.

[Sebazy]

There's a part of me that wants to go through each of these, Aravell's (for example, "What part of change basically EVERYTHING is 'healing requirements is the only possible solution', exactly?"), Sabezy's (a very simple one would be to ask "What do you think '...as well as its mechanics' means?"), Roe's ("Did you...read what I said LITERALLY right after that? My issue was more you saying I didn't agree with it when I...DID agree with it?"), etc, showing how you guys are wrong AND gaslighting AND lying. To defend myself from your grotesque and YET AGAIN uncalled for attacks as well as show you for the awful people you are AGAIN.

Hear me out for a second here... So much of the stuff you come out with is based on opinions right? You yourself have openly stated that you didn't raid coils when they were current and whilst I'm not sure if if you did Gordias Savage, my guess is that you also didn't. That's fine, that's absolutely not a problem. I'm not trying to bash you with that, I'm trying to understand your perspective of things. Am I correct with this assumption?

The problems arise when you swing your weight around in discussions with these in content that you never actually took part in at it's peak. It's like the Warhammer comment where you come out with a random comment that's demonstrably incorrect with a simple google search. It undermines your argument and when your post has a bunch of errors like this, you end up with people like me coming along and bonking it with the 'correction' sledgehammer.

Case in point, the reason why I asked if you thought high end healers were chain casting cures in Coil is because I don't think you understand how top healers optimised it back then, and honestly I don't blame you, it was a weird time, up there with day 1 dungeon strats tbh.

Let's go with a Mr Happy video:

https://youtu.be/H75f6SgM6Sg?si=-M9i1ONjZ4eDtF3K&t=67

I'm pretty sure his healer for that was called Miunih Evans, top notch healer. If you watch in the bottom right of the screen at 1:07-1:10. Watch Miunih's cure animation closely. Do you see what he's doing there? He does this a lot through the fight and it's unfortunate it's not his PoV but if you carefully track him throughout the video, you'll see the same thing repeatedly.

Basically, he was pre casting Cures even when they weren't needed. If it got to 50% and it didn't look like the cure was going to be needed, he canceled it and restarted the cast.

Why? Because MP was the great bottleneck early on in a coil tier. Incoming damage wasn't actually all that high, however it was so much erratic than what we see now, and those spikes could flatten a tank in the time it took your GCD to cast because as you point out, we didn't have the instants and oGCDs to react in the same way we do now. Letting those casts finish would cause problems with MP and enmity, so the MLG play was to start then casting but interrupt them halfway through if they weren't going to be needed.

Remember, crits on tanks were a thing, most bosses (Maybe all?) had a mini tank buster that wasn't telegraphed and thanks to the lack of long cast times, many bosses did considerable auto attacks right the way through mechanics and tank busters. Twintainia was probably the pinnacle of this. Death Sentence in isolation wasn't the worst tank buster we've seen by far. It was the fact that it would be followed instantly by both a Plummet and an Auto Attack (which could crit). Because this is a sequence of hits, now factor in Parry/Block/Dodge odds and hopefully you start getting the picture.

The TLDR here: Healers weren't playing it super safe because healing requirements were so much higher in Coil because they honestly weren't, they were playing it safe because damage was spiky and inconsistent, resources were extremely tight, enmity was problematic. Some healers figured out that they could 'animation cancel' a cure to save MP if it wasn't going to be needed, some healers would just stand and wait.

Before you hype up coil as having these huge healing requirements, go watch a T1 prog pov, it's actually pretty grim viewing in hindsight. It's not until Caduceus suddenly strings together some crits and the tanks fail to parry/block them that things get spicy and faces get melted. Outside of those windows, it's really not the golden land even if my rose tinted glasses would like to think it is.

Compare the hood swings on Apache at 0:37 seconds vs 1:00

https://youtu.be/VZDTK1Q10GE?si=fi_6CNuLl9rYQ0Qc&t=34
https://youtu.be/VZDTK1Q10GE?si=fi_6CNuLl9rYQ0Qc&t=55

One sequence has the tank down to 30%ish HP, the other barely makes a dent taking the tank down to maybe 80%? Then you get a whole lot of not much until 1:17 when another connects and doesn't get blocked etc.

Hopefully that gives you some more insight.

[Saraide]

For me personally damage kits do not need to be reworked at all. They are there to fill gaps in a fight which there should only be a few to "catch your breath".
But if role parity in the playerbase is what SE cared the most about I wouldn't even mind them introducing another healer job with Dawntrail and diversify playstyle among the jobs.

The thing that needs changing most is encounter design. The more tools you have in your bag the more and faster encounter mechanics would need to be in order for them to be useful.

The healing tools provided are useful. I wouldnt want to do harrowing hell without lilybell, wings and cure 3. Encounter design sometimes runs into the issue where certain raidwides are obviously designed for exactly lilybell and panhaima with a similar raidwide coming up suspiciously 3 minutes later. But there's still gonna be downtime inbetween, there always will be. The devs are willing to make mechanics where you have to heal spam your way through but I dont think having that be a constant is realistic. Especially not in normal mode content.

One more thing I forgot to add. The absolute stress of healing in The Feast got so bad that the healer population tanked hard, healers were the bottleneck to getting a queue to pop. This caused SE to add medkits, which are meant to alleviate the healer stress somewhat, but what ended up happening was that people would either pop the medkit way too early or not use it at all and then blame the healer for not healing.

Having never played feast and not caring about pvp all that much this is very interesting the read in this context.

great fuckin' job guys, you derailed the thread by talking about healers. maybe the next one will pick the correct route for the good end.

Anyone who doesnt agree with me is derailing because I offer the only solution. /s

[Lailani_Fey]

The healing tools provided are useful. I wouldnt want to do harrowing hell without lilybell, wings and cure 3. Encounter design sometimes runs into the issue where certain raidwides are obviously designed for exactly lilybell and panhaima with a similar raidwide coming up suspiciously 3 minutes later. But there's still gonna be downtime inbetween, there always will be. The devs are willing to make mechanics where you have to heal spam your way through but I dont think having that be a constant is realistic. Especially not in normal mode content.

My thoughts on HH:

• It's way too late on the timeline. Any random group will just tank LB if possible depriving you of the only occasion your presence as PH in this raid tier may be required.
• You will never know how much mitigation is/was used during it and all you can do is spam Cure 3, weave oGCDs by eye-measure and pray.
• You will never know how much of your healing was actually required unless looking at logs.

Apart from that: Yay a healer mechanic!

[Lailani_Fey]

T1 stuff

Try it MINE with the current balancing. The fight will be over way very quickly due to party DPS inflation.
But: Healer balance remains similar. I can only recommend grabbing some PIE/SPS gear. It's a blast.

[KenZentra]

Why? Because MP was the great bottleneck early on in a coil tier. Incoming damage wasn't actually all that high, however it was so much erratic than what we see now, and those spikes could flatten a tank in the time it took your GCD to cast because as you point out, we didn't have the instants and oGCDs to react in the same way we do now. Letting those casts finish would cause problems with MP and enmity, so the MLG play was to start then casting but interrupt them halfway through if they weren't going to be needed.

Remember, crits on tanks were a thing, most bosses (Maybe all?) had a mini tank buster that wasn't telegraphed and thanks to the lack of long cast times, many bosses did considerable auto attacks right the way through mechanics and tank busters. Twintainia was probably the pinnacle of this. Death Sentence in isolation wasn't the worst tank buster we've seen by far. It was the fact that it would be followed instantly by both a Plummet and an Auto Attack (which could crit). Because this is a sequence of hits, now factor in Parry/Block/Dodge odds and hopefully you start getting the picture.

Sounds awesome, actually. In encounters like this the boss is also a threat outside of casting "Big Damage AoE Attack" or "This starts a dance of mechanics". Right now, most bosses reposition themselves into the center of a square or circle arena for mechanics, and all of their damage is pretty much predetermined. In most cases currently, the least important thing in an encounter is the boss itself. You dont necessarily have to worry where the boss is positioned, or you dont have to worry about their autoattacks.

Maybe thats not what the game should be about anymore, but sudden spikes of damage need to be reacted to which will always keep healers on their toes, especially with crits as that isnt something that can be put onto a timeline.

Not that this has to deal with Healers, but I really hate how 90% of boss arenas as circles and squares. Caduceus' arena is so unique as you need to worry about if you can easily move up and down on sections of the arena, they should do more stuff like that. The shape of the arena can influence an encounter so much, but its almost always circles and squares, I assume because its easier to plan out a fight.

And isnt that a whole thing too? Making things easier for the devs? No trash in raids cause its easier for the devs just to make the arena. 12 bosses in Pandemonium, and we only see 7 places in it (since I wouldnt count P3, P9-12). An entire giant facility full of horrid creatures and abominations created by the ancients boiled down to 7 rooms completely divorced from each other, and all circles and squares aside from P2(sorta) and P10(though the main area is also just a square).
SCH dps kit simplified because it would be easier to balance as a healer. AST cards boiled down to boring damage up cards because its easier to balance(lol) the utility of the old cards. Cross-Class stuff simplified into selectable Role-Actions and then removed aside from what was deemed mandatory and packaged into your role as your level up. Healers and tanks homogenized. Enmity management mostly removed (aside from tanks swapping). And of course, the tons of utility that wasnt just "Damage Up" or "Reduce Damage".

Sorry, kinda just a little rant that kinda ties in a bit to issues surrounding healers, but mostly just the game in general.

[Hyperia]

Not that this has to deal with Healers, but I really hate how 90% of boss arenas as circles and squares. Caduceus' arena is so unique as you need to worry about if you can easily move up and down on sections of the arena, they should do more stuff like that. The shape of the arena can influence an encounter so much, but its almost always circles and squares, I assume because it’s easier to plan out a fight.

This is because back in ARR / Coil raids, people used the geometry of the rooms to cheese mechanics and the devs really didn’t like that. I personally thought it was a great use of in game mechanics but the devs saw it as an exploit. Thus, we live in circles and squares that can’t be exploited.

Designing an encounter to use something other than a circle or square is too hard I suppose.

[Saraide]

Snip

I dont miss trash encounters before raid bosses at all. Criterion has only served to reinforce my opinion on that. I dont think they were removed because it was easier on the devs, i think they were removed because many players just didnt like them.

[OgruMogru]

This is because back in ARR / Coil raids, people used the geometry of the rooms to cheese mechanics and the devs really didn’t like that. I personally thought it was a great use of in game mechanics but the devs saw it as an exploit. Thus, we live in circles and squares that can’t be exploited.

Designing an encounter to use something other than a circle or square is too hard I suppose.

they weren't even expecting people to use tank LB for Harrowing Hell...

[SargeTheSeagull]

I dont miss trash encounters before raid bosses at all. Criterion has only served to reinforce my opinion on that. I dont think they were removed because it was easier on the devs, i think they were removed because many players just didnt like them.

Trash can be very fun if done well. It's just very poorly done in 14. The only bit of trash in the game I can think of that was interesting was the first or second pull of Amaurot where the bomb would tether the healer and would only chase and damage them until killed. Other than that, every mob in the game is just "avoid ground aoe". I don't get why the dev's don't do something like this: There are three mobs in this pack. One of them does a mini TB every eight seconds. One of them has an interruptable/stunnable spell that puts a vuln stack/defense down on the tank which it will cast every twelve seconds. The third add tethers to a DPS or healer and continuously dot's them. When any of the add's is defeated, it will spawn a tower on its body. Throw in the occasional point blank AoE or frontal cone. That's nothing cutting edge but IMO that's way more interesting than "pull eleven enemies and avoid their random vomit of ground AoE's while mindlessly burning them down.