A summary of healer issues

[ty_taurus]

Yes, they made it to the last phase without healers. Sure looks like only magic number is preventing a no-healer clear.

Seems like you spoke seconds too soon if WaxSw is correct. Mind boggling. Go play Ultimate if you want to heal...

Actually here's the proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svhRFO34_F8

[ForteNightshade]

Seems like you spoke seconds too soon if WaxSw is correct. Mind boggling. Go play Ultimate if you want to heal...

Actually here's the proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svhRFO34_F8

Beat me to it!

To elaborate on this, Magic Numbers doesn't go through Cover. This allows them to keep the Summoner and Red Mage alive to chain raise. We don't have the full vod yet but supposedly the fifth DPS allows them to utterly annihilate DPS checks, making it theoretically possible to skip the tank busters at the end of P1, Monitors in P3 and a whole stack in p4. Which lets them abuse invulns, Cover and tank LB.

If we ever needed further proof Ultimate is more a mitigation check than a healing one, here you go.

[ForsakenRoe]

God I hope this comes up at fanfest because this is a pretty damning indictment of the design of the game as it stands

'Pure healer? Yeh sorry we don't need your pure healing or your regens, the WAR and PLD have it covered'
'Shield healer? Yeh sorry we don't need your shields or mitigations, the WAR and PLD have it covered'

Literally 'Cover'-d in the PLD's case, I suppose. Sorry, I have to make jokes about it because if I don't laugh at how ridiculous it all is, I'll probably fall to despair. And people defend this shoddy, dysfunctional design, I guess because they're the WAR who has 5 different ways to recover it's own HP so why would they care what the healers are complaining about now? Healers exist only to play second fiddle to the real heroes of the raid, after all

[Allegor]

To be entirely fair though, that just proves that the fight can be done without healers, not that just about anyone can do it without them - unless the lack of healers somewhat make the fight easier due to stronger party damage, then I take back my comment lol

[WaxSw]

To be entirely fair though, that just proves that the fight can be done without healers, not that just about anyone can do it without them - unless the lack of healers somewhat make the fight easier due to stronger party damage, then I take back my comment lol

The problem is that we have lost so much gameplay depth over the course of the years for a bloated kit that not even the hardest content of the game requires, the problem is that 0-1 clears in the patch that the content is released have become a question of "when it will happen" instead of "will it be possible" on any piece of content all while the devs justify their design with dismissive phrases like the "go play ultimate" and show little to no knowledge about how the role is played. The problem is not that someone was able to clear the ultimate without healers in vacuum, its just the cherry on TOP.

(Also kudos to the madlads who did it, what a masterful show of skill)

[AmiableApkallu]

To be entirely fair though, that just proves that the fight can be done without healers, not that just about anyone can do it without them - unless the lack of healers somewhat make the fight easier due to stronger party damage, then I take back my comment lol

Here's an explanation that was offered in another thread:

Funny enough, while I joked about them, it wasn't only their healing that made this possible. Their comp includes Summoner (Phoenix), Dancer (Curing Waltz), Red Mage (Vercure) and Monk (Mantra). Not to mention Clemency is a damage loss. The far bigger issue is TOP simply lacks enough outgoing party damage. They're not cheesing their way through phases with Bloodwhetting and Clemency but skipping whole mechanics (P1 tank busters/party cleaves, Monitors) due to the sheer amount of free extra they have with a fifth DPS. A third tank also means they can use invulns more. P2 only has two sets of double busters the whole phase while P3 and P4 have none. So they could completely ignore pretty much any tank damage for three whole phases either with invulns or freely being able to kitchen sink everything.

Don't get me wrong. The absurd healing tanks have no (except Dark Knight) is ridiculous. But that isn't the only thing at play here.

[ForteNightshade]

Here's an explanation that was offered in another thread:

Now that we have the actual clear vod, I'll make some corrections. They don't skip any mechanics, which is what I initially thought given the extra damage, they do cheese them with Cover and invulns though

The real stand out here is the downtime between each outgoing bits of damage. Phase 2 illustrates the problem, perfectly. At the start, only the tanks take damage via two busters. Except one tank can aggro both bosses and invuln, completely nullifying any healing requirements. It isn't until the conclusion of Party Synergy anyone else takes damage. They then have a full 50 seconds of zero party damage. Which is ample time for Phoenix, Curing Waltz and Shake to all help top the party up in between Clemency/Bloodwhetting. Tanks are also free to kitchen sink autos and the busters as they'll have everything available for P3. There's two hits roughly ten seconds apart (Flare/Stack and Cosmos Memory) and that ends the phase.

So in a slightly over two minute duration, there's only three instances of the party taking damage, and one of them is extremely generous in the timeline. Between Passage, Shake, Veil, Samba, Arcane Crest and Magick Barrier they have more than enough to trivialize the damage. Not to mention, their Warrior can buff Shake since they don't have to MT phase 3.

That's only one example but it illustrates part of the problem. While yes, tanks having so much sustain and healing allows this, there simply isn't enough damage going out. Healers already barely touch their GCDs even in Ultimate (and don't elsewhere). So it's no real surprise you can get away with simply piling mitigation together.

Just to make it clear, this is a very comp specific accomplishment made by exceptionally skilled players. No one is going to suddenly recruit five DPS for their 6.4 static. It simply highlights TOP, specifically, being poorly optimized and the fundamental flaw with giving so much healing to other roles while simultaneously refusing to increase the damage enough to make it necessary.

[Xelanar]

It simply highlights TOP, specifically, being poorly optimized and the fundamental flaw with giving so much healing to other roles while simultaneously refusing to increase the damage enough to make it necessary.

This pretty much sums it up.

On top of it all, there is no real reason for downtime between healing phases to be as high as it is. At least in savage and ultimate modes, forcing healers to spam their GCD heals should be nothing to be afraid of.
If developers are ok with having me spam Malefic over and over, they should also be ok with having me spam Benefic II non-stop. On paper I'm still just spaming one button, but at least that button does what my job is supposed to do.

[BRVV]

If developers are ok with having me spam Malefic over and over, they should also be ok with having me spam Benefic II non-stop.

AMEN sister!

[ForsakenRoe]

Problem is, if you're bad at spamming Malefic all that happens is that the party does less damage, maybe you see enrage, but also other players can make up for part of that lost damage by being good at their own class. If you're bad at spamming Benefic 2 and the content is actually demanding you're good at Benefic 2, then you cause a wipe. Because of this, SE is super hesitant to ever put actual healing requirements in things, and this tier when they actually did, people didn't react well to it, having gotten accustomed to the 'usual' damage profile of raids. Also doesn't help it was, once again, more focused on 'use more mit' instead of 'heal more'.

All of which is to say, asking for 'can we be forced to heal more' is probably never going to work out, SE's too worried about losing their bottom line because the Limsa AFK squad would have to demonstrate a modicum of skill in their roulettes

Just to make it clear, this is a very comp specific accomplishment made by exceptionally skilled players. No one is going to suddenly recruit five DPS for their 6.4 static. It simply highlights TOP, specifically, being poorly optimized and the fundamental flaw with giving so much healing to other roles while simultaneously refusing to increase the damage enough to make it necessary.

Right, but at the same time, we said similar things when DSR got solo healed. At what point do we see all these 'hardest content in the game' fights being cleared with 50% (or in this case, 0%) of the recommended number of healers and say 'actually you know what, this is messed up, this shouldn't be possible and the fact it IS possible is shameful design'? IIRC there was also a solo heal TEA run back when that was current. So that's three times this has happened (clearing an ultimate with less than 2 healers), and they say 'twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern'. So is SE going to just sit back and let the pattern continue? We're a far cry from the ARR days, when the Ramuh Titan-Egi-Tank strat was fixed super fast. An entire role being made redundant? Can't have that, hotfix it immediately! Now 8-9 years on, and we're here. An entire role being made redundant, and nope, doesn't matter, 'go play ultimate' blah blah