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

[Doragan]

I don't WANT to attack anyone. I WANT to have good faith discussions.

I would love to see that...and I would especially love to see the reaction from all the "a healer's job is to heal, not deal damage" people, because they're usually the first to fail any kind of actual heal check.

Lol, name checks out.

Please catch some sleep, take a breather, idk, but whatever is going for you right now, it's clearly not healthy for you.

Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean you get to be unpromptly rude for free. Heated discussions are a thing, we may or may not agree on a lot of things, but we are all human beings in this thread, so please respect that as well.

Moving on.

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

To be honest, if we had to take a hike in order to get a book every week, I can see how some people may not like it.

I'll say this though, I am a big fan of the add rooms in a4 and a12. That would be neat if we had that again, I think.

[Saraide]

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.

You are sort of describing criterion trash pulls and what I call the minibossification of trash pulls. You are putting so much effort into designing a trash pull you might aswell just make it a boss encounter.
Second trash pull in the latest criterion dungeon has 4 enemies, two with a vuln down buff (essentially immunity) and two with a damage up buff which swap everytime one is defeated and you need to kite the one you are fighting around so that you dont get caught by the patroling damage immune mobs in addition to a cleansable debuff, a stack marker, a baited aoe following it, a cast you have to interrupt and a bleed raid wide. The criterion trash pulls are by far more interesting than any regular dungeon trash pull currently in the game. I still think they are the weakest part of the experience.

[Mayhemmer]

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.

[Obligatory "But dungeons are meant to be mindless duty finder facerolls!!" here]

But seriously. I'd love if at least dungeons had the occasional interesting trash mechanics like this. So long as it's not just more trash that spams an AoE every few seconds, because I absolutely abhor that, I'm down for more trash that actually does things.

[KenZentra]

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.

I think, when done right, they add some depth to the area you are in, for instance when look at dungeons you dont just go from Boss arena, Boss Arena, Boss Arena. There is a path (though I'd be happy if you could choose a different path from time to time) to each boss with trash. Would it really feel like we were infiltrating and ascending up the Tower of Babil if it was just Boss, then Boss, then Boss? The 2 elevator rides might not really be all that much, but they do make you feel like you are actually there and you get to see more of that location and with trash in the dungeon, it doesnt feel empty and somewhat dangerous to be in (from a lore standpoint). Aside, from how it feels, the mechanics can make trash interesting which I SargeTheSeagull mentioned also.

That all being said, I don't mind Savage not having trash, but I think normals should. Since Savage is more about clearing the boss than experiencing the raid anyways.

Tying this back into healing, it would make trash pulls (when they have more than dodge AoE mechancis) in dungeons more interesting for heals than spamming the 1 AoE spell and throwing a single oGCD per Wall to Wall.

[Sebazy]

I kind of miss the pre boss trash in Coil and Alex tbh.

Some of the coil trash had some pretty neat mechanics such as forcing the raid to split into 2 groups with each path needing specific damage types.

Alex trash was mostly more simplistic but the spectacle was something else. It always felt like a visual and aural build up into the boss fight to me.

IMHO we don't have this any more for the same reason we went down to 1 dungeon per patch. It's just a huge amount of work and effort for something that people are going to zip through and pay little heed after the first week. As for if the game is less for it's loss, that's entirely a personal preference thing IMO.

[OgruMogru]

I kind of miss the pre boss trash in Coil and Alex tbh.

Some of the coil trash had some pretty neat mechanics such as forcing the raid to split into 2 groups with each path needing specific damage types.

Alex trash was mostly more simplistic but the spectacle was something else. It always felt like a visual and aural build up into the boss fight to me.

IMHO we don't have this any more for the same reason we went down to 1 dungeon per patch. It's just a huge amount of work and effort for something that people are going to zip through and pay little heed after the first week. As for if the game is less for it's loss, that's entirely a personal preference thing IMO.

T11 preamble was peak.

[SargeTheSeagull]

I kind of miss the pre boss trash in Coil and Alex tbh.

Some of the coil trash had some pretty neat mechanics such as forcing the raid to split into 2 groups with each path needing specific damage types.

Alex trash was mostly more simplistic but the spectacle was something else. It always felt like a visual and aural build up into the boss fight to me.

IMHO we don't have this any more for the same reason we went down to 1 dungeon per patch. It's just a huge amount of work and effort for something that people are going to zip through and pay little heed after the first week. As for if the game is less for it's loss, that's entirely a personal preference thing IMO.

You know how everyone complains about bosses tutorializing way too long? Like bosses do one simple mechanic at a time, taking forever to do so, showing all their mechanics before actually layering mechs and becoming fun? What if they brought back pre-boss trash and gave the trash some of the boss’s mechanics so the boss would be able to get to the fun part?

[KenZentra]

You know how everyone complains about bosses tutorializing way too long? Like bosses do one simple mechanic at a time, taking forever to do so, showing all their mechanics before actually layering mechs and becoming fun? What if they brought back pre-boss trash and gave the trash some of the boss’s mechanics so the boss would be able to get to the fun part?

Oh i like the sound of that! I know Faust was mostly just a gear check (i think?), but itd be awesome having little trash leading up to that dude or even with Faust, having them do some tutorial stuff, then the boss. But most importantly make it feel like we are moving through and seeing the place we are at. Pandemonium shouldve felt bigger than 7 rooms with how massive it looks.

[Saraide]

I think, when done right, they add some depth to the area you are in, for instance when look at dungeons you dont just go from Boss arena, Boss Arena, Boss Arena. There is a path (though I'd be happy if you could choose a different path from time to time) to each boss with trash. Would it really feel like we were infiltrating and ascending up the Tower of Babil if it was just Boss, then Boss, then Boss? The 2 elevator rides might not really be all that much, but they do make you feel like you are actually there and you get to see more of that location and with trash in the dungeon, it doesnt feel empty and somewhat dangerous to be in (from a lore standpoint). Aside, from how it feels, the mechanics can make trash interesting which I SargeTheSeagull mentioned also.

That all being said, I don't mind Savage not having trash, but I think normals should. Since Savage is more about clearing the boss than experiencing the raid anyways.

Tying this back into healing, it would make trash pulls (when they have more than dodge AoE mechancis) in dungeons more interesting for heals than spamming the 1 AoE spell and throwing a single oGCD per Wall to Wall.

Like the first trash pull in thaleia? I dont mind that in normal modes.

[Sebazy]

You know how everyone complains about bosses tutorializing way too long? Like bosses do one simple mechanic at a time, taking forever to do so, showing all their mechanics before actually layering mechs and becoming fun? What if they brought back pre-boss trash and gave the trash some of the boss’s mechanics so the boss would be able to get to the fun part?

I'm all for this++