#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Shurrikhan]

I can’t find much evidence of actual people asking for the post ShB changes (though I have seen many people who support anything just by nature of it being in the game) but that poster is 100% correct that a lot of the decisions we now realise were mistakes were borne from the devs taking suggestions too far from the HW and SB era

There were complaints about cleric stance and DPS complexity in HW and SB that led to the modern healers, there were complaints about buff alignment in ShB after they removed damage types that led to the two minute meta. People do complain when the jobs are unbalanced

Square has a horrible tendency to use a hammer for a job that requires a nail file but all of the changes that player listed were born from actual complaints, even misguided ones.

Or, yet more often, they prefer reductive solutions over additive ones. "Why teach players how to use X when you could just largely or wholly prune X, thereby reducing the difference?" so to speak.

And among the player base itself, even, there are oddities in comprehension. It shouldn't need to be stated, for instance, that if A player asks to nerf or deemphasize Leaden Fist while Monk as a whole is barely at (or even below) a fair balance point, they're not asking for a net nerf to Monk. It should be obvious when one asks for shorter durations on DoTs, they are not asking for their damage to fall below that of a spammable filler (with only mobility then being of any value) and thereby to further nerf healer DPS overall. Etc., etc. Yet, sometimes players here are just as (seemingly actively) neglectful of scope, context, and likely intent of a given suggestion/request as the devs.
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Ideally, a developer would look at, say, a complaint purely about the "clunkiness" of Cleric Stance, i.e....

• that the lack of queuing functionality on turning the skill off paired with queuing in turning it back on, along with the latency and packet loss more common further from the data centers' locations, causes frequent doubling,
• that it having a cooldown of 2 GCDs only if at no spell speed and causing drift or in effect a longer cooldown at more spell speed, and
• that it necessitates a primary stat loss for either Scholar or Summoner if playing both unless spending Grand Company consumables and reallocating level up attribute points every time you swap)

...and determine first which system issues are not unique to Cleric Stance, fix those, and, if deciding ultimately to remove Cleric Stance, roadmap replacements for its cognitive load in terms of weave space and its impact on uptime (as favored sub-GCD-cast-time spells, such as Regen or Cure II before toggling it on and DoTs before turning it off -- though the last was negligible in Japan), etc. But alas.

[Post]

I like to point out they tackle the same problem from multiple angles, also.

Game's too hard in Gordias? Simplify the job design AND loosen the damage tuning.

Positionals got melee players down? Remove em AND add True North. Make certain enemies all assflank. Make assflank a new temporary condition.

People can't bank enough gap closers cuz they deal damage? Add charges to em AND remove their damage components.

Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and

Enmity tools causing headaches for some players? Remove enmity tools, also make tanks generate shitloads of enmity. Also, make heals over time generate 0 enmity. Also, remove adds that have aggro tables from boss fights.

Ground targeted abilities harder to use than target-centered ones? Make it so double tapping the action executes it and limit your ground target cursor range to actual range of the spell. Also, remove most ground targeted abilities except for a few and make them humongous so it defeats the purpose of them being ground targeted.

I think this often results in them over-correcting the problems, sometimes removing a system entirely. It's like each individual solution is often enough, but they're bundled together so players never really have a chance to assess each fix individually, and they're always going to get pushback removing either because now players are acclimated to it no longer being a concern, especially ones that particularly didn't like whatever the removed issue was.

[IDontPetLalas]

I like to point out they tackle the same problem from multiple angles, also.

Game's too hard in Gordias? Simplify the job design AND loosen the damage tuning.

Positionals got melee players down? Remove em AND add True North. Make certain enemies all assflank. Make assflank a new temporary condition.

People can't bank enough gap closers cuz they deal damage? Add charges to em AND remove their damage components.

Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and

Enmity tools causing headaches for some players? Remove enmity tools, also make tanks generate shitloads of enmity. Also, make heals over time generate 0 enmity. Also, remove adds that have aggro tables from boss fights.

Ground targeted abilities harder to use than target-centered ones? Make it so double tapping the action executes it and limit your ground target cursor range to actual range of the spell. Also, remove most ground targeted abilities except for a few and make them humongous so it defeats the purpose of them being ground targeted.

I think this often results in them over-correcting the problems, sometimes removing a system entirely. It's like each individual solution is often enough, but they're bundled together so players never really have a chance to assess each fix individually, and they're always going to get pushback removing either because now players are acclimated to it no longer being a concern, especially ones that particularly didn't like whatever the removed issue was.

Not only that but in order to fix a problem you need to ensure that it is actually a problem. If I look at the first sentence in this paragraph "Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and"

My first reaction is "no, that's not a problem that I reported" that's actually a desired behaviour.

However I would grant them the benefit of the doubt if they would at least provide some reasoning for the "fixes" that you listed, and explained the context, healer experience, etc. There's a lot of investigation that should have been done. maybe evening having a designer who really was invested in healer design.

[Isala]

I like to point out they tackle the same problem from multiple angles, also.

Game's too hard in Gordias? Simplify the job design AND loosen the damage tuning.

Positionals got melee players down? Remove em AND add True North. Make certain enemies all assflank. Make assflank a new temporary condition.

People can't bank enough gap closers cuz they deal damage? Add charges to em AND remove their damage components.

Healers are intimidated having to juggle GCDs between dealing and healing damage? Remove cleric stance, remove many damage GCDs, give many oGCD healing actions that are usable while moving. Also, remove boss auto attack damage, make every boss attack telegraphed, and remove healer mitigations and give them to the group, and give the tanks heals and and and

Enmity tools causing headaches for some players? Remove enmity tools, also make tanks generate shitloads of enmity. Also, make heals over time generate 0 enmity. Also, remove adds that have aggro tables from boss fights.

Ground targeted abilities harder to use than target-centered ones? Make it so double tapping the action executes it and limit your ground target cursor range to actual range of the spell. Also, remove most ground targeted abilities except for a few and make them humongous so it defeats the purpose of them being ground targeted.

I think this often results in them over-correcting the problems, sometimes removing a system entirely. It's like each individual solution is often enough, but they're bundled together so players never really have a chance to assess each fix individually, and they're always going to get pushback removing either because now players are acclimated to it no longer being a concern, especially ones that particularly didn't like whatever the removed issue was.

Worst part is, outside of the ground targetted AoEs being annoying, literally every single one of those complaints can be boiled down to "skill issue"... AoEs aren't because of the difference between M+KB and Controller. Having accessibility to deal with that is a GOOD thing, not removing skill from doing it.

[Ruruura]

Translation: "I like playing FF14 with cheat codes! Stop taking away my tank privilege!"

I should not have to, but i will explain myself because this type of argument is getting boring..

What is being said, is twofold:

1) The healing problem in FFXIV goes way beyond just tanks being able to heal themselves, and focusing exclusively on that like many posters here, is silly.

2) Like you said yourself at the moment we are little more than blue DPS with a lot of self-sustain, and that self-sustain is literally the only thing that makes us feel like the resilent chonkers we are supposed to be.

If that has to be removed for the sake of healers, then it is only fair that further tank oriented changes /redesigns happen so that tanks can recover our chonky resilient defensive class fantasy, and the FEAR is that they are going to do nothing of such.

We are not saying :

"screw the healers, leave us as is and healers be darned"

We are saying:

"If you guys are coming for our self healing this better come with something in exchange to make up for it and make tanks feel the way they should again"

And i do not think i can be blamed for being extremely worried about Squenix halfassing the solution because there are a lot of precedents of it.

And because this game is entirely based around DPS and not the defense that tanks are meant to represent, so i do not see them changing that anytime soon.

So what are we to do, just become pure and LITERAL blue DPS so healers have more fun? Is that what you want? I do not think that is fair either lmao.

[Shurrikhan]

Ruruura, you seem to be conflating gameplay and capacity here. Yes, having some control over one's healing input by being able to do some of that oneself can allow tanks to feel more like tanks since they then have more (types of) levers to pull in keeping themselves alive, but it is as every bit as arguable that tanks felt more like tanks when they had less total sustain (unwasted damage restored + damage nullified) precisely because good use of what resources and optimizations one did have mattered more as it is that tanks should be able to outlive everything easily and/or independently just because they're tanks.

The first is gameplay, the second capacity. Just as good gameplay can't make far inferior capacity competitive, neither can high capacity replace gameplay interest.

For my part, I tend to have the most fun on my tanks when it actually makes me fear for my life and use every trick at my disposal, such as per Protection Warrior in M+ for much of Shadowlands (lowest easily available general defense and greatest sustain cost for dealing decent damage). To that, the manner and degree of agency matters a ton while capacity actually best serves the experience when it is only barely enough (for playing as a group, moreover, not independent handling of group content). Having tons of chonkiness more than is necessary for performing one's role leaves redundant most of our optimizations and arguably therefore makes tanking feel worse.

Now, XIV dungeons (outside of Savage Criterion) are merely XIV dungeons and so a larger margin is fine, but its excesses should neither be a target nor considered thematic, especially so long as that excess renders another whole role redundant.

Here, though, I'd likewise argue for content that can better leverage situational support and healer kits that can provide it alongside other forms of more engaging downtime options rather than the outright removal of tank flat sustain (potency or %HP heals or barriers), but that has more to do with issues of scaling across low-incoming-damage (which favors flat sustain) and high-incoming-damage (which favors scaled sustain) and differing means of agency rather than any assumption that we tanks need every possible pie short of (optimized) DPSs' damage output.

Tl;dr: Agreed that tanks shouldn't lose even more agency in their gameplay, but if you mean that instead in a sense of mere reduction to an already bloated degree of capacity, I could scarcely care less.

[Ramiee]

I said it many times before but CBU3 sees a problem and instead of fixing the problem they remove the system causing the problem.

Some people struggled with stance dancing as tank, could of been so many ways to fix this such as only having 1 or 2 tanks with this but no stances just generate Aggro.

Healers DPS is too hard for casual players, solution rework 1 or 2 healers to have simpler DPS or combined healing and DPS for accessibility, instead make DPS for healers across the board too brain dead.

The only time I have saw them rework something to try and actually fix it and keep at it was diadem. Besides that they always erase the system causing the problem, it's so reductive and a terrible design philosophy, at least try to fix something first without removing it.

[Punslinger]

1) The healing problem in FFXIV goes way beyond just tanks being able to heal themselves, and focusing exclusively on that like many posters here, is silly.

Except nobody is focusing exclusively on that at all. It is one of many problems, as many of us have repeatedly said. The fact that there are other problems that make healing boring does not mean that tank self-sustain in its current form is not also a problem.

2) Like you said yourself at the moment we are little more than blue DPS with a lot of self-sustain, and that self-sustain is literally the only thing that makes us feel like the resilent chonkers we are supposed to be.

How is the current absurd self-healing "literally the only thing that makes you feel like the resilient chonkers you are supposed to be?" I thought your higher defense stats and your defensive cooldowns took care of that. I mean, my secondary job is GNB, and I can safely say that I am not leaning on Aurora or the Heart of Corundum excog to feel like a "resilient chonker." Rampart and Grand Nebula do that job just fine.

If that has to be removed for the sake of healers, then it is only fair that further tank oriented changes /redesigns happen so that tanks can recover our chonky resilient defensive class fantasy, and the FEAR is that they are going to do nothing of such.

Why? Tanks were plenty resilient before they started taking over the healer role. Was GNB the squishiest squish that ever squished back in ShB, because it didn't have an excog stapled to Heart of Stone or a second charge of Aurora? Doubtful.

My point is that unlimited self-healing has never defined the tank role in this game. You aren't "losing" anything except being overpowered. You seemingly demand that you be made OP in some other way to compensate for no longer being able to solo current content. You should understand why this is unreasonable.

Tank self-sustain needs to be limited, not removed entirely. It should be able to make up for a blown heal, to buy time for maybe 30 seconds if a healer goes down. It should not be able to let a tank waste 15 minutes of the party's time by slowly soloing down a dungeon boss.

And in any case, You. Already. Have. Defensive. Cooldowns. To. Be. Tanky. You do not need infinite self-sustain in order to be tanky.

So what are we to do, just become pure and LITERAL blue DPS so healers have more fun? Is that what you want? I do not think that is fair either lmao.

That is what tanks already were prior to EW, so, uh, yes? The healer's primary job in every MMO has been to heal the tank, because the healer's job is to heal damage and the tank's job is to take damage. That is kind of how trinity MMOs work.

[Wildheaven182]

I think this is such a hot issue because it's the beginning of the end. People seeing this now either want to give feedback, or desperately attack those who want to help the game's shortcomings because they can't bear to believe there could possibly even be any.
The devs have forgotten the values they spoke of after the 1.0 flop, and in their arrogance, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Square Enix's finances are struggling, and their game design in all of their titles are falling short, failing to make back their costs. They're outsourcing to companies with political motives to cover their layoffs and lack of creative risk.
In 4-6 years, we'll be talking about how DT was the beginning of the downfall of FFXIV, like cataclysm for WoW. Squex's PR sweetheart Yoshida will apologize and step down eventually. There's always a turning point. And this is just the game sunsetting, only just barely the very beginning of that sunset.
There's only so many other FF games they can plagiarize and lift content directly out of for their lack of story writing ability.

[Gullis]

Idk, I had an AST save me after the WAR somehow died in Alexandria covering me with all their mitigation, Bole included, when I got targetted with a Tank buster as a DNC. While it's the rare 1 in a million scenario, it did make me appreciate the AST change, if only for the moment. Can't say a gap closer would've helped me much there lol

oh I def think ast is the better of the two, but I'm more refering to the fun aspect. Ast for me just isn't fun anymore in DT, as it feels so slow compared to what it was. Whm gapcloser is just fun to use, even tho it might not be the best in saving lives ^^