Why encounters with a difficulty slope are bad

[Ashkendor]

I just wish there were more encounters with things to do beside having to focus on your main party role. Healers heal and nothing else, DPS do DPS and nothing else and tanks are useless 50% of the time because most fights don't even need 2 beside the odd provoke in between to share some damage.

Uh. What? My static's healers DPS whenever they can. So do the tanks. In T10, depending on the tank swaps (or lack thereof, sometimes he never even touches the OT with heat lightning) one of our tanks may spend as much as 80% of the fight out of their tanking stance. Hell, that's half the reason I swapped to melded accessories, is to help push more damage when I'm not the target of the boss' affections. Our DPS are tasked with things like debuffing the mobs or buffing the tanks (our black mage throws Apocatastasis on me during T11 adds and helps Virus bennus in T12, for example). If everyone just puts in the minimum effort by sticking to their assigned role and nothing more, you're going to have an awfully hard time raiding. :|

T5 and T9 are pretty good fights with a good group. T5 in particular gets easier as the fight goes on. I see far fewer wipes in the last phase than I do to divebombs and snakes. If you make it past twisters/DK, you've got it unless someone really screws things up. I'd farm T9 all damn day because it feels like an epic fight to me. I actually enjoy the meteor/golem mechanics because they require a lot of situational awareness, something that a lot of players seem to lack. After Heavensfall, though... Nael is one vicious bitch. She looks freakin scary when she's hammering my face in with Bahamut's Claw, seriously. xD