Let us use phoenix downs in combat, give healers more damage buttons, and a bit else

[Valence]

I do mostly agree with the OP, to make it clear. I also feel that the reason we've been getting more and more bodychecks especially since SHB and EW is precisely because there is not much left to challenge groups beyond playing DDR and standing at the right spot or not for every mechanic. There is actually two main hurdle mechanics in savage currently:

- Individual deaths from failing a mechanic, which essentially means that too many and you risk hitting enrage. It is also one of the only ways to truly tax on healer MP just to keep raising people when they fail. This also puts the onus on healers not to die themselves, and one of the reasons those days in most statics i've been into, healers die the least and often do callouts, is because they have nothing else to do beyond babysitting the party and watching out for mechanics.
- Soft or hard body checks, where either someone failing a mechanic will snowball into a wipe (most notably with party stacks, partners, etc that are everywhere now), or just with someone failing a mechanic that will instantly wipe the raid. Those do not rely on healers and are precisely there to relieve some of the pressure off their shoulders. But at what cost? As you say, it's one of their wrong answers to a problem, and one of the worst one yet they had to make because bodychecks just swapped the pressure off the healer ("why is that healer constantly failing to raise/heal us we're stuck because of them") into the group individually ("why is this player constantly failing that mechanic, it's wiping the raid and I can't solve it for them").

What we have almost completely lost as a result of a combination of many things they axed out of the game:
- Scarcity based gameplay, resource management at the individual AND party level, groups slowly snowballing to wipes not because of failing mechanics individually, but because of mechanical strain providing too much pressure until the group collapses.

[Rebeccubus]

- As you say, it's one of their wrong answers to a problem, and one of the worst one yet they had to make because bodychecks just swapped the pressure off the healer ("why is that healer constantly failing to raise/heal us we're stuck because of them") into the group individually ("why is this player constantly failing that mechanic, it's wiping the raid and I can't solve it for them").

I honestly don't hate these existing (which probably isnt even what youre saying) but they started doing them WAY too often.

What we have almost completely lost as a result of a combination of many things they axed out of the game:
- Scarcity based gameplay, resource management at the individual AND party level, groups slowly snowballing to wipes not because of failing mechanics individually, but because of mechanical strain providing too much pressure until the group collapses.

Yknow when you put this into words, I realize that some of the most fun I have with hardcore raiding is that panic of trying to figure out what we need to do to recover for upcoming mechanics or if its too late. I get to feel some of it as a red mage where its like "Who do we need up and when can we get them? Do the healers need to worry about upcoming damage? Do they even have MP to spare for a raise? What mit did we lose for the upcoming damage and do I need to spend mine NOW instead of saving it for later? Can a tank invuln to cheese something so we can keep going (especially during prog)?". Honestly the idea I have for phoenix downs plays right into a resource management/scarcity gameplay. "Who can take the time to res and where? Can the healers cover the raise or are they too busy? Whose damage is least important to lose for the raise? Is there even time to get it out? How many do we need up for the mechanic?"

Another take of mine that wasn't relevant here is that I really wish we'd bring back unique and interesting utility on classes. Stuff like when casters could give MP to others so like if you raised a healer they could give them a boost to their MP. However Ether's also cover this issue of course like that other poster likes, but SIMILAR UTILITY would be nice. I think the only main balance issues being "does this class do personal damage or buff the party, do they have a raise, what heals or shields/mit do they provide" is very boring. Id rather all DPS do similar dps output (whether personally or buffs) and then you get a lot of unique utility to pick and choose. Resses are the one thing I think are powerful enough that I want them reworked a bit as I've mentioned.