Live Letter Response to Current Healer Accuracy Issues

[Ghishlain]

Live Letter Q&A can be found here. Healer Accuracy answer (quoted below) is the first question answered in the digest.

Q: Healers seem to miss their attacks quite frequently in dungeons released in Patch 3.2. Do you have plans to adjust healer accuracy?

A: When it comes to dungeons, our original plan was that healers should be be able to hit the monsters without worrying too much about accuracy, so we’ll make adjustment to this so you don’t need to worry as much about it.

As for raids, we don’t want to create instances where healers are forced to deal damage, but we understand some groups use this in their raid strategy and therefore have their members meld gear with accuracy.

We’re currently debating within the debating with the dv. team regarding accuracy, so please wait a bit longer. .

Hopefully we get more insight and specifics from the Dev team before 3.3 hits the table.

[EDIT]

Quote regarding healer accuracy from Live Letter digest posted April 12th, 2016.

Q: Healers seem to miss their attacks quite frequently in dungeons released in Patch 3.2. Do you have plans to adjust healer accuracy?
A: Dungeons were created with the idea that your attacks would land on monsters without having to worry about accuracy. However, the accuracy requirements for the dungeons added in Patch 3.2 were set somewhat high. We're planning to reduce these requirements in an upcoming patch. As I've mentioned in the past, our plan is to avoid adding accuracy on healer equipment wherever possible, but we're aware there are many healers who would like to do damage while playing. We'll keep this in mind as we discuss accuracy requirements in the future.

[Lastelli]

It'd be so easy to fix this issue that I really don't get why we're still discussing about it. Just add a little bit of accuracy to healer's gear, add accuracy bonus (around 5%) to cleric stance and that's it. Then, in order to consistently hit in savage content, have healers meld some accuracy. Problem solved. Do it already, SE.

[Ghishlain]

It'd be so easy to fix this issue that I really don't get why we're still discussing about it. Just add a little bit of accuracy to healer's gear, add accuracy bonus (around 5%) to cleric stance and that's it. Then, in order to consistently hit in savage content, have healers meld some accuracy. Problem solved. Do it already, SE.

I do agree that I feel like S-E is over complicating the issue in some aspects. Like, this is kinda how I see S-E looking at this (based on personal assumption - take with a large heaping of salt) :

1. Need to keep Accuracy relevant in FFXIV
2. Need to find a way to keep Healer's happy with their DPS in casual content
3. Need to make sure we don't give Healer's too much of an edge in "free Accuracy" or else all the DPS / Tanks will begin to complain

And they're trying to find that razor-thin balance between those three aspects.

If they're worried about giving Healer's too much free accuracy bonus will throw off their game balance then all they need to really do is just make the accuracy checks on casual content abysmally low. I'm pretty certain all tanks and DPS cap accuracy on all casual content without even trying due to the random accuracy they have on their pieces. Heck, Midas has a lower accuracy requirement than current EXDR which is amusingly funny and silly.

Doing that would pretty much answer the three points (assuming I'm correct) I pointed out above without too much overhaul to the existing system and still require a fairly substantial investment of Accuracy from healers to hit consistently in high tier content.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

I don't think it has to do with giving healers an "edge" and more so to do with trying not to encourage healer DPS being required.

With things the way they are now, very few statics are going to turn away healers for not having capped accuracy since they know the cost is quite high.

However, give healers free accuracy, and now statics will automatically expect you to do like 900 DPS or something.

This also causes DPS to become complacent, as if healers can bring 1000 DPS, that's 1000 less that they have to do. So a good healer can end up "carrying" some bad DPS.

[Lastelli]

Doing that would pretty much answer the three points (assuming I'm correct) I pointed out above without too much overhaul to the existing system and still require a fairly substantial investment of Accuracy from healers to hit consistently in high tier content.

I got the same idea about them wanting to keep accuracy relevant while not discriminating between the different roles. Still, if they limit themselves to occasional adjustments we'll be talking about healers accuracy in every patch. They must find a stable solution so that healer's accuracy scales with ilvl in order to accomodate accuracy caps for every tier of content. What we have now is not enough...what if the next alex savage requires 800+ accuracy? Healers will never reach those values, even with heavy melds. I don't think healers should get a free pass on accuracy, but forcing healers into melding accuracy in every slot just to be able to hit the target is not a great idea in my opinion.

[Myrhn]

I don't think it has to do with giving healers an "edge" and more so to do with trying not to encourage healer DPS being required.

With things the way they are now, very few statics are going to turn away healers for not having capped accuracy since they know the cost is quite high.

However, give healers free accuracy, and now statics will automatically expect you to do like 900 DPS or something.

This also causes DPS to become complacent, as if healers can bring 1000 DPS, that's 1000 less that they have to do. So a good healer can end up "carrying" some bad DPS.

This is what I fear. I don't mind dpsing as a healer when I have the time and leeway to do it in dungeons but in raids is another story. I won't dps if im learning the content since i want to see how far away can we get and all mechanics and the best way to do that is focusing on healing. And the way dps are, at least in Hyperion, there are some awfull ones that i dont know what they are doing that fight feels really long. SE design the raid w/o healer dps, let me say that again w/o healer dps in mind. So saying that you NEED the healer dps to beat is just plain wrong, DPS and tanks please dont be lazy and learn your stuff to uptimize dps and then ask for healers to dps.

[Ghishlain]

I don't think it has to do with giving healers an "edge" and more so to do with trying not to encourage healer DPS being required.

With things the way they are now, very few statics are going to turn away healers for not having capped accuracy since they know the cost is quite high.

However, give healers free accuracy, and now statics will automatically expect you to do like 900 DPS or something.

This also causes DPS to become complacent, as if healers can bring 1000 DPS, that's 1000 less that they have to do. So a good healer can end up "carrying" some bad DPS.

I agree with this assessment and the fact that the Dev team doesn't encourage healer DPS but do want to keep the choice open as a play style choice for healer's who wish to add more value to their groups.

I do believe healer's need "something" to combat the accuracy requirement trend but only for casual content. I'm personally not to perturbed about the accuracy requirements in current EXDR but am concerned about how that translates to the future casual content. I'm less worried about how it is in high tier content (EX Trials + Savage Alex) because that content is designed to be tough and the players will need to work that optimization.

I do see where you're getting at in the end but if you have DPS who are going to be "complacent", those are probably people you don't want in your statics anyway. You want people who want to see the content finished and will to play hard to get to that point regardless of the performance of others.

Of course that's a whole different matter when you start to get low-skill players in Alex (normal) / VA content who have that complacency but I guess that's a much easier carry, heh >>;

I got the same idea about them wanting to keep accuracy relevant while not discriminating between the different roles. Still, if they limit themselves to occasional adjustments we'll be talking about healers accuracy in every patch. They must find a stable solution so that healer's accuracy scales with ilvl in order to accomodate accuracy caps for every tier of content. What we have now is not enough...what if the next alex savage requires 800+ accuracy? Healers will never reach those values, even with heavy melds. I don't think healers should get a free pass on accuracy, but forcing healers into melding accuracy in every slot just to be able to hit the target is not a great idea in my opinion.

I'll just touch specifically on the Alex bit you included because I agree with you on the rest of your post and I hope I can dispel your concern about accuracy requirements for the future Alexander (assuming I am correct in my thought process - who's to say until we actually see it).

If Coil accuracy caps are to be believed, accuracy rises with a gradual incline. From T5 to T9 caster's required an additional 38 accuracy. From T9 to T13 they required an additional 45 accuracy. Not really a large slope.

If we take a similar trend for A4 to A8 (based on these few reddit posts and comments), we jump from 540 to 605 for caster accuracy (a jump of 65). If we extrapolate that out based on a similar trend for coil we're looking at needing an additional 77 accuracy, thus making M12 caster accuracy require 682. This is not to say the Dev team won't change the curve but I don't think we'll see anything past 700, maybe 715, accuracy requirement. This can be achieved with full T5 Accuracy melds on guaranteed slots and good Accuracy food and most likely 3 crafted i250 accessories over melded with T4 accuracy. It's an investment, yes, but at least not completely unattainable and we don't have to destroy our MND stat like we did back in the Coil days to achieve that cap.

Hopefully this helps ease your concerns regarding accuracy in the future for raid tier content! Also, don't mind me, I just like... typing a lot... >>; lol

[Vulcwen]

SE designs encounters specifically to allow healers and tanks to "carry" bad DPS by adding more themselves. The ability to carry is conceptually not bad up to some point, performing above average should be able to compensate for someone performing below (of course that average is set higher in more difficult content). It's only a problem when your ability to carry is so much you can completely take over the task, in addition to performing your own, as that makes the other player essentially obsolete.
If you dps as a healer, you give the DPS more room to focus on doing mechanics right, similar to holding back dps gives you more room to do deal with mechanics.

But this is essentially not related to the accuracy issue.. missing a lot is just plain annoying, it's like losing a loot rolls several times in a row, especially if you're missing utility, as that can have a larger impact that simply that skill missing. If a WHM misses a holy, mobs don't get stunned, so the tank takes more damage, meaning they need to stop DPSing earlier.. so they miss out on more than 1 GCD of dps.

As the accuracy cap in the new dungeons is around 450.. I think it'd be decent for healers to reach around those levels of accuracy without needing to meld.. for Savage you need 600, so it still takes some melds (if you don't have tier V materia, it can still be almost every piece) to get at that point, but not as much as with just the 354 base accuracy.

[MXMoondoggie]

It'd be so easy to fix this issue that I really don't get why we're still discussing about it. Just add a little bit of accuracy to healer's gear, add accuracy bonus (around 5%) to cleric stance and that's it. Then, in order to consistently hit in savage content, have healers meld some accuracy. Problem solved. Do it already, SE.

Adding an accuracy boost would be the simplest solution though the easiest solution would have been to not remove accuracy from Healer gear in the first place so yes I agree why can't they just add accuracy back to Healer gear? What exactly was the problem before? They didn't want good Healers doing a lot of DPS?

I think they already added enough to the top tier fights to make it harder for Healers to constantly DPS the debate they are having is to make Healers miserable or not lol. Though they hate WHM's so if they raise the accuracy back in some way they'll probably nerf holy again.

[HPDelron]

It'd be so easy to fix this issue that I really don't get why we're still discussing about it. Just add a little bit of accuracy to healer's gear, add accuracy bonus (around 5%) to cleric stance and that's it. Then, in order to consistently hit in savage content, have healers meld some accuracy. Problem solved. Do it already, SE.

As general rule of thumb if a team of professionals see something as problem and have dedicated a meaningful amount of the time to it as a team and aren't quite happy with any of the solutions they've found, the chances of it being "Just so simple" or "Really that easy" are on the low side. If you "don't get" why they're still discussing it you probably don't have a comprehensive enough view of the situation.

They've probably considered a solution like this and maybe it's even a candidate for release or maybe they've rejected it. They've got to take a bigger view of these design issues maybe even including things that factor in content we've simply not seen yet. They've got lots of data and view point of 4.0 and beyond and need to do things that grok with all that. It's not that you've put forward a bad idea it's just not particularly respectful or fair to pretend like there is some super simple problem that any armchair designer can solve that they're just stubbornly refusing to see.