#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Amity_Roji]

Could you elaborate on that point? What are the mechanics in other games that lead to DPS being a threat to healers' safety? (It sounds interesting, I can't reallly picture/know any concrete mechanics like that.)

It's usually not a "concrete mechanic," but an event that can happen in encounters. Some that come off the top of my head:

• Abandoning DPS on the boss to CC/kill/otherwise deal with add(s) troubling the healer, separately from a designed mechanic to do so (i.e., boss goes invuln and adds spawn)
• Using a protective ability on a healer as they're too squishy to survive a mechanic
• Assisting a healer in escaping a positional threat
• Having a situation where you can eat a mechanic to keep it from hitting the healer, sacrificing yourself to keep them alive

[Rolder50]

It's usually not a "concrete mechanic," but an event that can happen in encounters. Some that come off the top of my head:

• Abandoning DPS on the boss to CC/kill/otherwise deal with add(s) troubling the healer, separately from a designed mechanic to do so (i.e., boss goes invuln and adds spawn)
• Using a protective ability on a healer as they're too squishy to survive a mechanic
• Assisting a healer in escaping a positional threat
• Having a situation where you can eat a mechanic to keep it from hitting the healer, sacrificing yourself to keep them alive

A few examples come to mind in WoW with their newer Evoker class. You can pick up and move someone ala Rescue but it moves both of you to a target destination. Sacrificing personal DPS to help because of course you can't be casting while doing that. Then you have a spell that allows you and a target to cast while moving for a short bit, and is often used on healers so they can move for mechanics while pumping heals.

[IDontPetLalas]

It's usually not a "concrete mechanic," but an event that can happen in encounters. Some that come off the top of my head:

• Abandoning DPS on the boss to CC/kill/otherwise deal with add(s) troubling the healer, separately from a designed mechanic to do so (i.e., boss goes invuln and adds spawn)
• Using a protective ability on a healer as they're too squishy to survive a mechanic
• Assisting a healer in escaping a positional threat
• Having a situation where you can eat a mechanic to keep it from hitting the healer, sacrificing yourself to keep them alive

How far back are you going? Because I've played in multiple games, if you're in a game where the healer is dedicated to healing, then if they sacrifice DPS, then they simply aren't so fragile. If anything, I was able to stand there and take quite a bit of damage, my gear had at least as much magic defense in one case but considerably higher physical defence, the casters took the most damage. If I was responsible to keep a party alive I had the tools to do so, I had more than enough "protective abilities" as long as the DPS were using their skills- and they didn't typically have much utility.

In more complex cases, we had multiple parties, each with a tank, healer and DPS to handle mini-bosses while raiding in at least one game but they weren't "troubling the healer", they didn't specifically target healers, if necessary I could even keep myself up. It would be more an issue of "save the DPS" - they would be more likely to have run to me with something chasing them.

[Amity_Roji]

How far back are you going? Because I've played in multiple games, if you're in a game where the healer is dedicated to healing, then if they sacrifice DPS, then they simply aren't so fragile. If anything, I was able to stand there and take quite a bit of damage, my gear had at least as much magic defense in one case but considerably higher physical defence, the casters took the most damage. If I was responsible to keep a party alive I had the tools to do so, I had more than enough "protective abilities" as long as the DPS were using their skills- and they didn't typically have much utility.

That's fair in a lot of cases. I think back to OG WoW raids like UBRS, where healing was so prioritized you'd have Paladins wearing cloth and people prioritizing their survival because if your healers went down you were completely screwed. Another example is the Logistics role in EVE Online, where in PvE content (such as Incursions) if a logi ship is aggro'd the entire group will immediately stop what they are doing and focus all attention on saving the logi as they're the only thing keeping their ships from returning to their natural state as minerals floating in space. Granted that's not a "traditional MMO" but the role and its place in the game still stands.

In more complex cases, we had multiple parties, each with a tank, healer and DPS to handle mini-bosses while raiding in at least one game but they weren't "troubling the healer", they didn't specifically target healers, if necessary I could even keep myself up. It would be more an issue of "save the DPS" - they would be more likely to have run to me with something chasing them.

I see what you're getting at here - and agree to a certain extent; shades of OG Illidan - but at the same time the fact that your sub-party required a healer to function autonomously means there was a priority placed on healing.

Or, let's use an example from FFXIV to illustrate a difference - the Althyk/Nymeia fight in Euphosyne, one of the few fights in FFXIV where legitimate off-tanking is required. In many other MMOs that off-tank would need a dedicated healer to keep them up. In terms of encounter design this wasn't done to give that healer a super-engaging thing to do - they're only keeping one guy up after all - but to remove one healer from the healing pool for the rest of the raid. The off-tank healer would have to heal enough damage (or carefully manage their resources) to keep that guy up, and as a result they would rarely if ever be able to assist the rest of the raid who now has one fewer healer to keep everyone else alive. This is what made these kinds of fights entertaining - everyone had a dedicated purpose that required their full attention and if people failed at their jobs you weren't successful.

In FFXIV? Maybe you toss a regen on the off-tank. Often your AoE healing for the rest of the raid is enough to keep the off-tank up. Commonly they're able to keep themselves up and require no attention at all.

[BunnyQueen]

That's fair in a lot of cases. I think back to OG WoW raids like UBRS, where healing was so prioritized you'd have Paladins wearing cloth and people prioritizing their survival because if your healers went down you were completely screwed. Another example is the Logistics role in EVE Online, where in PvE content (such as Incursions) if a logi ship is aggro'd the entire group will immediately stop what they are doing and focus all attention on saving the logi as they're the only thing keeping their ships from returning to their natural state as minerals floating in space. Granted that's not a "traditional MMO" but the role and its place in the game still stands.


I see what you're getting at here - and agree to a certain extent; shades of OG Illidan - but at the same time the fact that your sub-party required a healer to function autonomously means there was a priority placed on healing.

Or, let's use an example from FFXIV to illustrate a difference - the Althyk/Nymeia fight in Euphosyne, one of the few fights in FFXIV where legitimate off-tanking is required. In many other MMOs that off-tank would need a dedicated healer to keep them up. In terms of encounter design this wasn't done to give that healer a super-engaging thing to do - they're only keeping one guy up after all - but to remove one healer from the healing pool for the rest of the raid. The off-tank healer would have to heal enough damage (or carefully manage their resources) to keep that guy up, and as a result they would rarely if ever be able to assist the rest of the raid who now has one fewer healer to keep everyone else alive. This is what made these kinds of fights entertaining - everyone had a dedicated purpose that required their full attention and if people failed at their jobs you weren't successful.

In FFXIV? Maybe you toss a regen on the off-tank. Often your AoE healing for the rest of the raid is enough to keep the off-tank up. Commonly they're able to keep themselves up and require no attention at all.

This is the one thing I feel that is stopping FFXIV from being the best it can be, the fact that healers don't have to do these kinds of things.

[IDontPetLalas]

That's fair in a lot of cases. I think back to OG WoW raids like UBRS, where healing was so prioritized you'd have Paladins wearing cloth and people prioritizing their survival because if your healers went down you were completely screwed. Another example is the Logistics role in EVE Online, where in PvE content (such as Incursions) if a logi ship is aggro'd the entire group will immediately stop what they are doing and focus all attention on saving the logi as they're the only thing keeping their ships from returning to their natural state as minerals floating in space. Granted that's not a "traditional MMO" but the role and its place in the game still stands.


I see what you're getting at here - and agree to a certain extent; shades of OG Illidan - but at the same time the fact that your sub-party required a healer to function autonomously means there was a priority placed on healing.

Or, let's use an example from FFXIV to illustrate a difference - the Althyk/Nymeia fight in Euphosyne, one of the few fights in FFXIV where legitimate off-tanking is required. In many other MMOs that off-tank would need a dedicated healer to keep them up. In terms of encounter design this wasn't done to give that healer a super-engaging thing to do - they're only keeping one guy up after all - but to remove one healer from the healing pool for the rest of the raid. The off-tank healer would have to heal enough damage (or carefully manage their resources) to keep that guy up, and as a result they would rarely if ever be able to assist the rest of the raid who now has one fewer healer to keep everyone else alive. This is what made these kinds of fights entertaining - everyone had a dedicated purpose that required their full attention and if people failed at their jobs you weren't successful.

In FFXIV? Maybe you toss a regen on the off-tank. Often your AoE healing for the rest of the raid is enough to keep the off-tank up. Commonly they're able to keep themselves up and require no attention at all.

Hi yes, I never played WOW, nor Eve, although I'm familiar with both games, however I think you've captured what was significant there anyways. Each of the roles played a significant part in those encounters, as you say, and each was reliant upon the other. Each role had a very interesting part to play.

Now I'm not going into detail, if I was going to talk about healers, I could say that their role varied, dependant upon the circumstances in one game- from solely focussed on healing, to healing with some DPS, or being DPS equivalent to a summoner with a raise. It made for a very fun healer because it allowed for the best skills according to the type of content and/or party.