Dawntrail's mediatour dungeon was already cleared without healers.

[MagiusNecros]

You also forgot FFXI, which was SE's first foray into the MMO genre. It released between FFX and FFX-2.

That being said, FFXI WHM and really any other healer followed the same formula as FFXIV does. WHM for example has Dia and it's damage spell Banish, with Holy at lvl 50. What made FFXI unique in not pigeon-holing healers is the sub job system like they had in FFT. The SJ system was a trinity system killer in and of itself, as it allowed any job to become a healer, a tank or a dps.

Lets use WHM as an example. Sub BLM, and you get access to "most" of the black mage spell kit as well as some of it's traits. Sub NIN, and you become a shadow tank through the use of Utsusemi as well as various damage and enfeebling ninjutsu. Take this a bit further with some of the insane weapons they had in FFXI, the Kraken Club being a massive one. A low damage club at 11 damage with a special ability of "occasionally attacking 2-8 times" on each attack. Thing is, the club was absolutely insane with it's procs, and weaponskills in FFXI were ties to weapons and not the jobs itself. Weaponskills were used via TP, which was gained per weapon hit and weapon type. So you'd only get 6 TP with a single club hit, but the absolutely bonkers amount of hits you were performing made you a machine. So you'd have a WHM/NIN dual-wielding clubs, one of which is a kraken club, mass spamming weaponskills and utterly destroying mobs.

And ANY job could do the above with /nin. Go PLD/WHM for incredible heals with your tank, or /rdm to boost your already insane def and make you a cure machine. Go /dnc with any job and you had self heal, self haste, self damage with enfeebles and could solo pretty much anything out bosses. BLU and BST were so far out there in damage and utility that it's the main reason they are limited jobs in FFXIV and not main ones. If you think BLU is dungeon breaking in FFXIV, it was orders of magnitude stronger in FFXI.

The sub job system was an incredible system that warped the trinity but was incredibly successful both despite of and BECAUSE of it. It saddened me quite a bit when they got rid of it in ARR because it still had potential, in my own opinion. It also stopped what's currently happening in FFXIV from happening in FFXI, as it only promoted variety and ability coverage vs traditional trinity classes stagnant "you are this, and only this" mentality.

I miss FFXI.

I mean FFXI is superior. Both in Class design, Subjob system and in World building to where exploring the world is a atmospheric treat. Every log in felt like a new adventure.

SE has great MMOs in the vein of DQX and FFXI and Yoshi P just looks in WoW's direction. Pretty baffling to me. Especially since Yoshida was the Chief Planner for Dragon Quest X so he should know better.

[vetch]

I mean FFXI is superior. Both in Class design, Subjob system and in World building to where exploring the world is a atmospheric treat. Every log in felt like a new adventure.

SE has great MMOs in the vein of DQX and FFXI and Yoshi P just looks in WoW's direction. Pretty baffling to me. Especially since Yoshida was the Chief Planner for Dragon Quest X so he should know better.

I wish they would look in WoW's direction. WoW has great worldbuilding, sidequests, class gameplay, build diversity, toys, minigames, seasonal events, difficulty progression....

One of WoW's main characters betrayed everyone, died, and went to Hell. Imagine if Y'shtola did that.

[MagiusNecros]

I wish they would look in WoW's direction. WoW has great worldbuilding, sidequests, class gameplay, build diversity, toys, minigames, seasonal events, difficulty progression....

One of WoW's main characters betrayed everyone, died, and went to Hell. Imagine if Y'shtola did that.

To be fair early WoW success coasted off of preestablished lore of Warcraft 3. So a lot of it's big characters came from that but it is true the stories in WoW and the development of it's characters was a strong point and wanted you to know more about the characters and the world you played in.

FFXIV would be better IMO if like WoW it did it's own stuff instead of success coast off of previous FF entries.

XIV's issue is it only really has MSQ and nothing else in terms of quests that are interesting and that matter.

I think it would do the game well if we did have someone like Arthas or Sylvanas Windrunner where you had an ally that turned to evil.

It would be interesting if Y'shtola in her pursuit of knowledge did succeed in figuring out how to travel between reflections but accidentally killed Runar and his Village in the process starting her dark path to power and insanity and she would have to stopped. As an example.

But I don't think FFXIV is that kind of game. Y'shtola is usually the face they use for their marketing and they won't kill off their Waifu.

And Urianger is the guy they use for too many fake betrayals so it's comical at this point.

The most interesting events that happen in XIV ironically is Hildibrand Quests.

[Taliriah]

I wish they would look in WoW's direction. WoW has great worldbuilding, sidequests, class gameplay, build diversity, toys, minigames, seasonal events, difficulty progression....

One of WoW's main characters betrayed everyone, died, and went to Hell. Imagine if Y'shtola did that.

The only good thing wow does better is pvp, the (technical existence of) open world pvp, and stealth. The world building, writing, characterization, voice acting and story telling are so incredibly bad that whenever I tried to give it a chance I ended up angrily skipping every cutscene because the sheer disparity between the budget they obviously spent on those and the god awful result was downright irritating.

FFXIV manages to do more with less when it comes to storytelling because good writing doesn't need "spectacular" cutscenes every 5 minutes

[Edmund_Blackadder]

The only good thing wow does better is pvp, the (technical existence of) open world pvp, and stealth. The world building, writing, characterization, voice acting and story telling are so incredibly bad that whenever I tried to give it a chance I ended up angrily skipping every cutscene because the sheer disparity between the budget they obviously spent on those and the god awful result was downright irritating.

FFXIV manages to do more with less when it comes to storytelling because good writing doesn't need "spectacular" cutscenes every 5 minutes

I don't know, I mean most competitive PVP in WOW is either a mixture of TSG, Turbo Cleave or Harry Potter cleave.

[Taliriah]

I don't know, I mean most competitive PVP in WOW is either a mixture of TSG, Turbo Cleave or Harry Potter cleave.

competitive pvp is always bad, but that's a you problem. do pvp for the fun, not the competition

[Edmund_Blackadder]

competitive pvp is always bad, but that's a you problem. do pvp for the fun, not the competition

Kind of defeats the objective of the game. The whole point of progression in PVP is to compete to unlock achievements and better gear. If you have low MMR and therefore low winrates in WOW you are stuck engaged in PVP with non conquest gear which frankly has low versa - versa as a stat is King in PVP. When you refer to PVP in warcraft are you commenting on the state of Battlegrounds or Arenas? Because this is an important point.

Battlegrounds are dominated by two main types of communities: Russian Pre-mades on comms which ruin the fun for average players queuing using random Battleground finder:

Visual Aid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwe17yftdRo

Or the second type which are HK farming bots which are fully automated and don't do anything...
Visual Aid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxJTUFBvxas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a06U0fREDXM

When it comes to competitive PVP such as Rated Battlegrounds and Arena's, 2's don't matter in WOW, you mainly find guild's and comp's focused on running 3's. 2's in Area are mainly for the lols:

Visual Aid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWM8PUGxHuw&t=29s

3's are dominated by Turbo cleaves so much so that it became a meme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWfII3096ss

And who can forget HarryPotter Cleave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLGH9XJmABk

[Taliriah]

Kind of defeats the objective of the game. The whole point of progression in PVP is to compete to unlock achievements and better gear.

When I comment about pvp I comment about non rated, non-epic battlegrounds (epic battleground are bad in the same way that ffxiv frontlines are bad: they are zergfests) and world pvp.
I also have nothing but contempt for people who equate "players with cyrillic names" with "russian premades", as well as the belief that you can't win against a premade. (it's usually a self fulfilling prophecy where people just stop trying because they have decided they can't win).

Anyway, I'm not saying wow does pvp very well, I'm only saying that it does it far better than whatever ffxiv pvp is.