#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Loggos]

WAR was able to self-heal since 2.0. A party with a WAR and three RDMs (who have limited heals) is naturally going to be able to manage okay without a healer, and it's been this way since RDMs first came out.

Healers are needed in roulettes because the system won't match a random party without one. Healers are needed by default.

It being like this a long time doesn't really make it better, though from what I have gathered it has become worse over time and in the past War used to be less invulnerable.
The problem is not that you can clear content with all kinds of exotic team compositions. Sure, you can also do an all healer clear of casual dungeons but it'll take a lot longer. It's that 1T3DPS can apparently be more feasible or at least just as feasible as 1T1H2DPS, making healers effectively redundant in the trinity. You say it yourself, healers are necessary because the duty finder demands they are there. That is an external requirement. It doesn't necessarily reflect the true balance (or lack thereof) of the trinity. If that external constraint wasn't there then perhaps healers would be less needed.

[EinherjarLucian]

It being like this a long time doesn't really make it better, though from what I have gathered it has become worse over time and in the past War used to be less invulnerable.
The problem is not that you can clear content with all kinds of exotic team compositions. Sure, you can also do an all healer clear of casual dungeons but it'll take a lot longer. It's that 1T3DPS can apparently be more feasible or at least just as feasible as 1T1H2DPS, making healers effectively redundant in the trinity. You say it yourself, healers are necessary because the duty finder demands they are there. That is an external requirement. It doesn't necessarily reflect the true balance (or lack thereof) of the trinity. If that external constraint wasn't there then perhaps healers would be less needed.

It was a members of a regular static that knew each other. A group of hardcore players who knew what they were doing went in and had some fun because they could.

Doing a ROULETTE with rando 1T3DPS is a recipe for disaster. Will the tank know how to use mitigation oGCDs? What if a new WAR forgets Berserk/Inner Release/etc.? What if the three DPS don't know how to stay out of the orange circle?

Healers will always be needed in roulettes because you never know if you're going to get a good tank and competent DPS, or complete garbage. Same can be said for other roles. Getting a crap healer is just as much a bad time as a healer getting a bad tank and DPS.

[Loggos]

It was a members of a regular static that knew each other. A group of hardcore players who knew what they were doing went in and had some fun because they could.

Doing a ROULETTE with rando 1T3DPS is a recipe for disaster. Will the tank know how to use mitigation oGCDs? What if a new WAR forgets Berserk/Inner Release/etc.? What if the three DPS don't know how to stay out of the orange circle?

Healers will always be needed in roulettes because you never know if you're going to get a good tank and competent DPS, or complete garbage. Same can be said for other roles. Getting a crap healer is just as much a bad time as a healer getting a bad tank and DPS.

(They got hit by all kinds of stuff and he even dragged one of his key skills onto his hotbar during a boss fight. Their run was quite chaotic.)

I don't deny that if players aren't as good or experience a healer is needed to correct their mistakes. And I'll gladly concede that in those instances healer is mad fun to me even in normal content. When you have new players that tackle something blind? Those are the best runs.
But the problem with that is that as soon as people become good this changes.

This means that healer is, as somebody else said, more or less a "prog job". It's a crutch as long as people make mistakes. But as soon as people stop making mistakes (because they know a piece of content well enough) their necessity decreases.

Personally I consider this an inherent design flaw because in a trinity system no job should only be needed conditionally or situationally.

In my opinion you shouldn't be able to do content (as efficiently, when we talk about normal mode) without everyone from the trinity present.
1T1H2DPS should always be the most optimal team comp to complete content as fast/successfully as possible, even when players are good and don't make mistakes.

Their necessity should be baked into their design/the encounter design.

A good dps for example will only become better the better the player themselves and everyone else becomes (if tanks and healers are better then this means less dying, ergo more time for a dps to do damage).

But from the perspective of a healer the better people become the less they'll have to do.

Healers are the only class that are the "inverse fun job" in that sense.

(And with that I'm bowing out of today's discussion since it's quite late.)

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

(They got hit by all kinds of stuff and he even dragged one of his key skills onto his hotbar during a boss fight. Their run was quite chaotic.)

I don't deny that if players aren't as good or experience a healer is needed to correct their mistakes. And I'll gladly concede that in those instances healer is mad fun to me even in normal content. When you have new players that tackle something blind? Those are the best runs.
But the problem with that is that as soon as people become good this changes.

This means that healer is, as somebody else said, more or less a "prog job". It's a crutch as long as people make mistakes. But as soon as people stop making mistakes (because they know a piece of content well enough) their necessity decreases.

Personally I consider this an inherent design flaw because in a trinity system no job should only be needed conditionally or situationally.

In my opinion you shouldn't be able to do content (as efficiently, when we talk about normal mode) without everyone from the trinity present.
1T1H2DPS should always be the most optimal team comp to complete content as fast/successfully as possible, even when players are good and don't make mistakes.

Their necessity should be baked into their design/the encounter design.

A good dps for example will only become better the better the player themselves and everyone else becomes (if tanks and healers are better then this means less dying, ergo more time for a dps to do damage).

But from the perspective of a healer the better people become the less they'll have to do.

Healers are the only class that are the "inverse fun job" in that sense.

Funnily enough, Criterions actually do just enough damage where having a dedicated healer is vastly safer if not mandatory, even with all the tools given to us. They should honestly take note of this and put about 60-80% of the damage in more standard content... bodychecks aside.

For those, what is simply lacking is either the need for upkeep healing (regens for example) or burning extra healing to eventually break them to use GCD heals, and naturally something to break the filler and DOT combo for damage... like a lv50-60 style damage kit.