ELI5: How are the current dungeons hard?

[TDawnstar]

YOu think healing is fun when a Raidboss aoe does 10% damage to the party? or a tank buster barely scratches a tank? that is plain boring.

I agree with you about the tank buster part, but the raidboss AOEs now do quite a bit more than 10% damage ^^
But on a more grand scheme of thing, healing model in FFXIV is busted, because it's basically tuned for only using OGCDs XD

[Arohk]

But on a more grand scheme of thing, healing model in FFXIV is busted, because it's basically tuned for only using OGCDs XD

No it is not, go do savage and you will see.

[jdtuggey]

My second comment is about the probability of seeing criticism in FF14 groups, which will hopefully address your main point. For any player to see criticism occur in their group, they must be in a group where two events simultaneously occur:
- Event A: there is a player who is willing to criticize an unskilled player
- Event B: there is an unskilled player

The probability of two events occurring simultaneously is:

(Probability of Event A) x (Probability of Event B)

Note that both of these probabilities are less than or equal to 100%, meaning that in most cases when multiplied they result in an even smaller probability. This is why the probability of any event happening will always be greater than the probability of that same event occurring alongside another event (provided that the "another event" has a probability other than 100%).

So if you're a skilled player, the probability that you see a player be criticized is:

(Probability of Event A) x (Probability of Event B)

But if you're an unskilled player, the probability that you see a player be criticized is:

(Probability of Event A)

Why? Because as an unskilled player, the likelihood of your being in a group with an unskilled player is 100%, allowing us to simplify the equation.

"If it stinks everywhere you go, you should probably check your shoes"

[TDawnstar]

No it is not, go do savage and you will see.

Yes, of course. I was talking about "normal" content.

[Arohk]

Yes, of course. I was talking about "normal" content.

And that is why normal content is already very easy, you don't even need your entire toolkit to get through.

If you are curious: here this is how i heal in a dungeon, i barely even need to heal, all i do is spam holy and use some OGCD on the tank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w98G8BAPZIE

[Jinglypockets]

But on a more grand scheme of thing, healing model in FFXIV is busted, because it's basically tuned for only using OGCDs XD

Agree.

Most of my healing experience comes from WoW, which uses a *wildly* different model in four key ways:
1. They don't have oGCDs (at least not in the way we think about it in FFXIV)
2. Encounter design involves a lot more unavoidable individual (as opposed to raidwide) damage to party members other than the tank.
3. There are very few healing abilities that can heal an entire raid simultaneously.
4. A lot more variety in playstyle between healing specs

Number 1 is a lot less impactful than people think. I think 2-4 contribute a lot more to the problems with healers in FFXIV.
Number 2 and 3 mean you have to do a lot more reactive healing, which means you can't just plan out everything ahead of time and mash Broil. Even if someone has a cooldown assigned to a big raidwide, the other healers are going to have to jump in and fill in the gaps.

Number 4 feels weird to say because the four healing jobs have pretty different feels when I play them, so I should explain what I mean. In WoW, Preservation Evokers are based heavily around using several 30s-1m cooldowns to do the majority of their effective healing. When they don't have those, the tools they have to fall back on feel awkward and inefficient to use.

This should sound familiar to anyone who's healed in FFXIV, because I just described all four healing jobs.

In WoW, Preservation Evoker and Holy Paladin are pretty much the only specs that feels this way. They cycle through their cooldowns, and once they're out of cooldowns they start to feel pretty bad to play.
Contrast with Restoration Shaman and Holy Priest which rely heavily on no-cooldown spammable heals. They have cooldowns too, but they're sending out their healing on a much more continuous, moment-to-moment basis.
Restoration Druid and Discipline Priest heavily emphasize ramping up ahead of time before big damage goes out -- similar to Astro Earthly Star or Spreadlo, but with a lot more active effort going into preparing for those big damage moments.
Mistweaver Monk, Holy Paladin, and Discipline Priest do most of their healing by dealing damage -- similar to Kardia, but at a bigger scale and, in the case of Disc Priest, with a lot more active effort to make it happen.
Mistweaver and Holy Paladin are also melee classes who can't heal effectively if they're not in melee range. Preservation Evoker has half of other caster classes' range and is heavily dependent on positioning to heal effectively.

Long story short, the actual mechanics of healing are much more involved, the damage profiles are much more varied, and there's a lot more variety in how the various healing specs play. I have fun with the DPS and tanking mechanics in FFXIV, but the healing just makes me feel sad because this is a place where WoW just flat-out does it better.

[Jinglypockets]

No it is not, go do savage and you will see.

The only Savage fights I've done are P5S through P8S. I did them as White Mage/Astro.

A specific moment in P8S Phase 2 was the first time I ever felt like healing took active effort in this entire game (assuming proper execution -- healing people when they're messing up mechanics can be very demanding).

[jdtuggey]

I agree with you about the tank buster part, but the raidboss AOEs now do quite a bit more than 10% damage ^^

If you're talking about AoE telegraphs that are avoidable, yes, they hurt a lot more. Dawntrail feels like it makes you more responsible for your mistakes.
All classes have tools to pad mistakes like that. You see the debuff on you, you pop bloodbath, you're gucci!

If you're talking about general AoE's that hit the party no matter what, they hit about as hard as dungeons ? But you have two healers, often shields up before they hit, etc..
In the end, I feel like I take less damage from these raidwides than in dungeons.

[TDawnstar]

If you are curious: here this is how i heal in a dungeon, i barely even need to heal, all i do is spam holy and use some OGCD on the tank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w98G8BAPZIE

Yes, I pretty much do something like that as WHM. The problem with Alexandria is the speed of some mechanics, not the healing toolkit.

[TDawnstar]

Most of my healing experience comes from WoW, which uses a *wildly* different model in four key ways:

Having spent 14 years in WoW (and like 13 of them as holy pally), I agree completely.

1. They don't have oGCDs (at least not in the way we think about it in FFXIV)
2. Encounter design involves a lot more unavoidable individual (as opposed to raidwide) damage to party members other than the tank.
3. There are very few healing abilities that can heal an entire raid simultaneously.
4. A lot more variety in playstyle between healing specs

And 5) in FFXIV the raid can simply bunch up in one clump and be healed by something like Cure III (except the times when mechanics need to be resolved, of course). In WoW, there are fights where you need to be spread out most of the time (at least you used to have, no idea about now).
And 6) (or should I say 0): the ratio of healer to DPS in WoW allows the encounter to be tuned for a very limited healer DPS, unlike FFXIV where everyone is basically a DPS, otherwise it doesn't compute.
And 7) Mana is basically inexistent for all classes in FFXIV, including healers.

And yes, I think the point 2 is the most important one, but I don't know why it's so hard to throw more damage at the expense of running to resolve mechs.

I have fun with the DPS and tanking mechanics in FFXIV, but the healing just makes me feel sad because this is a place where WoW just flat-out does it better.

Yes, same here