#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Rosenoire]

On the subject of tanking, I remember when EW launched, I did the Warrior nonsense and solo'd Hermis from like 55%. It really irks people but hey, I was curious back then if I could legit pull it off--not yet realizing how hilariously easy it was. Heck, I've had healers whine a little (including friends) because "Warrior really don't need heals..." Maybe we've finally reached the point where even average players have noticed how irrelevant healers have become.

I keep seeing people say this, and then I look at my normal roulette run last night, on P5. I was WAR MT and my friend was DRK. Everything was going well until we hit Devour. Both healers and two of the DPS died with Carby at 25%. One DPS died soon after, leaving three of us. I went down first after burning through all my mits, including Holmgang and my self-heals. The other DPS died, and then it was down to my friend the DRK, who made a heroic effort but died before Undead Rebirth kicked in with Carby at 1%.

Yes, occasionally a WAR can solo a dungeon boss from around half health. But the idea that this means healers are obsolete doesn't track with my experience, especially as a DRK main. Currently I have three self-heals: Souleater, the third part of my single-target combo which I don't use onb wall-to-wall pulls because I'm doing my AoE rotation. Abyssal Drain, which is on a 60-second cooldown and shares a recast timer with Carve and Spit; if I use AD on a second w2w pull I won't have C&S for my opener against the next boss. Oh, and there's Living Dead, which is on a 5-minute cooldown and includes three different 10-second phases and most of the time I die anyway. I'm thrilled that Dawntrail includes another self-heal, not because I don't need a healer, but because it makes my favorite tank more viable.

I get that healing is in a bad state, and I think giving healers more of a DPS rotation and having more damage go out in general would be good things. I'd even agree that WAR is overtuned when it comes to self-heals in normal content, but for most tanks the solution isn't to take away our self-sustain abilities, it's to fix the problems with healers.

[Gemina]

I keep seeing people say this, and then I look at my normal roulette run last night, on P5. I was WAR MT and my friend was DRK. Everything was going well until we hit Devour. Both healers and two of the DPS died with Carby at 25%. One DPS died soon after, leaving three of us. I went down first after burning through all my mits, including Holmgang and my self-heals. The other DPS died, and then it was down to my friend the DRK, who made a heroic effort but died before Undead Rebirth kicked in with Carby at 1%.

Yes, occasionally a WAR can solo a dungeon boss from around half health. But the idea that this means healers are obsolete doesn't track with my experience, especially as a DRK main. Currently I have three self-heals: Souleater, the third part of my single-target combo which I don't use onb wall-to-wall pulls because I'm doing my AoE rotation. Abyssal Drain, which is on a 60-second cooldown and shares a recast timer with Carve and Spit; if I use AD on a second w2w pull I won't have C&S for my opener against the next boss. Oh, and there's Living Dead, which is on a 5-minute cooldown and includes three different 10-second phases and most of the time I die anyway. I'm thrilled that Dawntrail includes another self-heal, not because I don't need a healer, but because it makes my favorite tank more viable.

I get that healing is in a bad state, and I think giving healers more of a DPS rotation and having more damage go out in general would be good things. I'd even agree that WAR is overtuned when it comes to self-heals in normal content, but for most tanks the solution isn't to take away our self-sustain abilities, it's to fix the problems with healers.

I personally don't have an issue with self-heals on a tank. It's when they are so ridiculously powerful as to render the healer useless is where I take issue. The other problem is abilities like Bloodwhetting allow a WAR to heal themselves to full without having to tradeoff their DPS. It is so asinine to me that this even got green-lighted in the first place, and then they actually double-downed on their self-sustain. I'm still over here running my fingers through my hair, mystified.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't even know how someone can play such a busted-arse job with any kind of fulfillment of doing actual tanking.