Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[Acidblood]

Isn't that exactly what we have now? Or do you want back the 5-tanks 3-healers Extreme Primal prog meta we had when dps checks lightened?

DPS can still be important without hard enrages; and you can still have hard enrages, just set them at 15 minutes instead of 10 (assuming the fight is balanced around 10 minutes).

To do this though you need Healers to have finite MP, and have enough unavoidable outgoing damage from the boss that Healers will go OOM within 10 minutes... unless of course you use mitigation, and party MP regen abilities, and do mechanics well (death is a huge waste of MP), and debuff the boss, and kill the adds quickly, and etc.

This creates a much more even and natural balance between DPS and Survivability; i.e. if all you focus on is DPS then you had better do it damn well because you aren’t going survive for very long. If, however you focus on efficient survivability (and do it well) then DPS isn't so much of an issue because you can still beat the fight even if it takes you 14 minutes.

Note 1: This would probably require some adjustments to current Tank DPS (Healers should be too busy healing to do much), with Tanks having a greater focus on mitigation.

Note 2: This would require a redesign of Healers (which is probably needed anyway) as current Healer design is too focused on burst healing. Heals would need to be (generally) less powerful but more efficient, including via interactions (e.g. Medica II HoT increases Medica heals by 10%).

Note 3: Set DPS checks are still fine in small doses, so you could still build them in to prevent full Tank / Healer parties, just don’t make the entire fight a hard DPS check.

Note 4: Soft enrages could also be used, and start around the 10 minute mark, with each ‘rotation’ getting harder and harder to survive; this would create a ‘standard’ finishing point that you would want to aim for while still allowing variance in party composition and approach.


... Either that of SE needs to fully embrace the DPS nature of its designs and give Healers a decent damage / support kit.

[Shurrikhan]

DPS can still be important without hard enrages; and you can still have hard enrages, just set them at 15 minutes instead of 10 (assuming the fight is balanced around 10 minutes).

To do this though you need Healers to have finite MP, and have enough unavoidable outgoing damage from the boss that Healers will go OOM within 10 minutes... unless of course you use mitigation, and party MP regen abilities, and do mechanics well (death is a huge waste of MP), and debuff the boss, and kill the adds quickly, and etc.

This creates a much more even and natural balance between DPS and Survivability; i.e. if all you focus on is DPS then you had better do it damn well because you aren’t going survive for very long.

No, it doesn't. It would make no difference except that the dps check would now arrive anywhere between some 7 and 10 minutes based on how sparingly your healers used MP. Healers afking between damage intake would be not only viable but often required. (And I've no idea what to say to you if you could possibly think that a system which requires you to spend significant time doing nothing or almost only ever using the most modest and MP-efficient mini-heals is somehow a good thing.)

You'll have moved the enrage, in all likelihood, earlier, while demanding less activity or clarity of purpose from players. "Should I sacrifice uptime to further reduce damage taken from these flare mechanics?" "Well, how good are your healers and tanks, and did you forget to bring PLD-DRK and WHM-WHM to extend healer MP for as long as possible?" "I, uh, don't know, and we have AST-SCH." "Well, I guess enrage will be around 8 minutes if they're good?"

[Acidblood]

No, it doesn't. It would make no difference except that the dps check would now arrive anywhere between some 7 and 10 minutes based on how sparingly your healers used MP. Healers afking between damage intake would be not only viable but often required. (And I've no idea what to say to you if you could possibly think that a system which requires you to spend significant time doing nothing or almost only ever using the most modest and MP-efficient mini-heals is somehow a good thing.)

You'll have moved the enrage, in all likelihood, earlier, while demanding less activity or clarity of purpose from players. "Should I sacrifice uptime to further reduce damage taken from these flare mechanics?" "Well, how good are your healers and tanks, and did you forget to bring PLD-DRK and WHM-WHM to extend healer MP for as long as possible?" "I, uh, don't know, and we have AST-SCH." "Well, I guess enrage will be around 8 minutes if they're good?"

Who said healers would be AFKing? Damage spells don't have to cost MP, and as I noted it would require a change in Healer design and the rate of outgoing damage.

Also, players will always value damage, the game does not need to do that for them, what it does need to do is give them a reason to value other things like mitigation (beyond the binary 'will it kill us'), resource management / regen, non-damage buffs and debuffs (again beyond the binary), and damage applied at the right time.

As for your example, that is for individual groups to work out, and sure there may be a few wipes while they do, but how is that really any different to now... except of course if people’s expectations of 'high-end' content is to go in, place some markers, play to a script, roll on loot, gg. (which at this point it probably is).