A summary of healer issues

[Shurrikhan]

That would mostly depend on how you define that. For example, unifying the buffs does not favor the lowest denominator, since it favors groups that coordinate their buffs since them being ABLE to be aligned means doing so generates a huge boost in performance over those who do not. That very much does not favor "the lowest denominator".

Previously, you'd hold CDs variably and coordinate compositions. Now, if you open even just not-too-stupidly, your CDs are synced to raid buffs automatically, because everything shares the same timers.

That's... objectively simplified.

The design intent there is to give advantage to the harder thing over the easier thing. That also is not favoring "the lowest denominator", as if the intent was to favor "the lowest denominator", it would be the Ranged allowed to do more damage.

Not at all. If people were enjoyed added difficulty, itself (at least as importantly, including whatever extra they may saddle their party with in their shortfalls while learning) there would be no need to incentivize the jobs that are harder to learn with greater on-paper damage so that they have parity for the average player while content is still relevant.

Rewarding what's harder allows you to have even significantly easier jobs --for better or worse-- without reducing the breadth of job choice available to even less-skilled players (who would otherwise feel pushed only towards whatever's easiest -- say, MCH/BRD/EW SMN).

[Renathras]

This part isn't true at all. Groups that were capable of aligning buffs were already aligning it, with or without the change, they gain no net benefit from this change at all. Unifying timers just forces the regular players to align naturally by simply pressing on cooldown.

I didn't say the change was "for the highest common denominator", I said it wasn't for the lowest; even now, many players can't align party buffs. Run a 24 man and watch how many times players miss their 2 min buffs.

Something like 'they left NIN DRG BRD MCH as the absolutely best comp for way too long' in end of HW/part of SB, now that's something more like 'heels dug in'. They could have changed MNK to piercing type, to give at least a choice between a DRG and MNK for one of the slots, but nope

Fair enough. Though I was thinking they continued talking it up even during ShB where some Tanks seemed more inclined to one or the other (I think it was PLD that was supposedly a good wingman OT?, don't recall, though). But yeah, the point was, when they dig in their heels, it's not always "to make things easier for casuals". Sometimes it's pretty random stuff, or stuff that isn't really "for" anyone; they just decided on something they were going to do come hell or high water even if it made no sense and didn't help anyone and no one asked for it.

The changes to boss hitboxes eliminated that aspect of playing a melee dps entirely, so who was this change made for?

Honest answer?

I think the encounter design teams. They want to make more fights where players have to move all over and spread and such, and they want to keep the DPS checks relatively tight, which means they can't have Melee/Tanks stuck in Narnia spamming their ranged attacks for long periods of time. Same reason they made Healer effects bigger. It's not to help Healers, it's to allow the mass arena combat encounter designs to work.

The fact that melee dps still perform significantly better than ranged dps however is a case of them digging their heels in for no justifiable reason.

Agreed. Hell, they JUST managed to realize that MCH being a "selfish DPS" in a subrole that suffers a DPS penalty doesn't work. It only took a massive blacklisting for an entire tier to wake them up to this years-long truth enough for them to get a few minor buffs and RETURN TO THEM a utility button they used to have.

See also the "But Verraise" thread in the DPS section. RDM is being thrown to the wolves for utility Square has done its level best to make as irrelevant as possible, while also creating movement profiles that hate hardcasts with a passion. Monk has similar utility to RDM, and yet it gets to do way more damage. Because lolMeleewalker, all fight design absurdly caters to melee and Square gifts them huge damage bonuses they keep buffing more and more with each patch, for difficulty they keep stripping out more and more each patch.

Agreed with both of these posts (this one and the one above). SMN maybe debatable, but RDM does far too little damage, and it's patch 6.4 and BLM is JUST NOW getting buffed to be around where it should have been 4 patches ago.

Rewarding what's harder allows you to have even significantly easier jobs --for better or worse-- without reducing the breadth of job choice available to even less-skilled players (who would otherwise feel pushed only towards whatever's easiest -- say, MCH/BRD/EW SMN).

In a game design space where DPS >>>> all, you CANNOT have Jobs overly distinguished (within a role) by damage, otherwise one will always be brought over the others. ShB SMN was a good example, as it was arguably harder than BLM, but did slightly less damage. The reason this worked out is that it also brought utility in the form of a Raise and a party buff. It didn't just do more damage, otherwise BLM would have been irrelevant.

The ideal is to have Jobs doing similar damage and people play harder ones because they like the gameplay of them. If people don't like the gameplay, then it's a bad Job design, and trying to lure people to it with the promise of bigger numbers is just trying to paper over it being a bad Job design. On the other hand, if it's a good design, people will want to play it, no matter the damage. Many times we see people playing Jobs that do less damage and are harder because they simply enjoy them. They're being punished for doing a thing they enjoy, which is bad design.

It isn't nonsensical, even discounting the lack of an uptime struggle, there's still half of the dps jobs being melee,

This is irrelevant, and I say so just about every time I see this argument.

Imagine if they didn't add RPR and SAM. There'd be less Melee than Ranged Jobs. But suppose there were more Melee PLAYERS than Ranged players. Should there still be more dedicated Melee slots or less?

The number of Jobs in a role isn't relevant. It should be more based on the amount of players, paying attention to the fact that the "standard party" already has likely impacted that number from what it naturally would have been. Back when 2 Casters or 2 Ranged was considered more viable, this argument didn't hold any water, either.

There are 4 DPS slots. Not 2 Melee, 1 Ranged, 1 Caster. They're all DPS. You want one of each for the % bonus, then one wildcard slot. That slot shouldn't be reserved for Melees.

What's next, there are only 4 Tanks and there are 6 Melees, so the 8 man party composition should be reduced to 1 Tank to make another Melee slot? It's just not a good argument.

[Aravell]

I didn't say the change was "for the highest common denominator", I said it wasn't for the lowest; even now, many players can't align party buffs. Run a 24 man and watch how many times players miss their 2 min buffs.

You said "it favours groups that coordinate their buffs", I'm saying that groups that coordinate their buffs already do so without the changes, so how does it favour them? What net benefit do they gain? If you're talking about people in alliance raids, those are on the lower end of the level, so your argument that it's not for the lowest isn't exactly correct either.

[tearagion]

This is irrelevant, and I say so just about every time I see this argument.

Imagine if they didn't add RPR and SAM. There'd be less Melee than Ranged Jobs. But suppose there were more Melee PLAYERS than Ranged players. Should there still be more dedicated Melee slots or less?

The number of Jobs in a role isn't relevant. It should be more based on the amount of players, paying attention to the fact that the "standard party" already has likely impacted that number from what it naturally would have been. Back when 2 Casters or 2 Ranged was considered more viable, this argument didn't hold any water, either.

There are 4 DPS slots. Not 2 Melee, 1 Ranged, 1 Caster. They're all DPS. You want one of each for the % bonus, then one wildcard slot. That slot shouldn't be reserved for Melees.

What's next, there are only 4 Tanks and there are 6 Melees, so the 8 man party composition should be reduced to 1 Tank to make another Melee slot? It's just not a good argument.

I didn't say it was a good argument, I am merely stipulating a sensible line of logic for a balance team to consider when balancing for an individual patch. Can you imagine the groaning if parties start demanding SMN and RDM consistently, because they've been buffed to do the same damage as melees? I can, and I imagine someone in charge of balancing the game would want to avoid it. I don't like how the game is presently balanced please stop trying to argue with me, I don't want to.

[Renathras]

You said "it favours groups that coordinate their buffs", I'm saying that groups that coordinate their buffs already do so without the changes, so how does it favour them? What net benefit do they gain? If you're talking about people in alliance raids, those are on the lower end of the level, so your argument that it's not for the lowest isn't exactly correct either.

People who use their buffs together actively do more DPS. I...would think that obvious, but that's what I mean by favors.

That change, btw, seemed targeted at the midcore. The "lowest common denominator" players don't line buffs up even now. What it did was make the midcore more capable of consistent buff alignment, and made it easier for the hardcore to to line up buffs - contrary to your statement, they weren't all coordinated in ShB simply because there were so many different CDs - 45 sec, 90 sec, 60 sec, etc - that there was just no way to get them to play nice together. High end players either picked all Jobs that had compatible CDs, or they just picked which were most beneficial to line up. The EW change streamlined this for those players, thus making things easier for them. Note that this is another definition of "favors/benefits".

So it was made for the midcore, and it helped the midcore and the hardcore. Casual/"lowest common denominator" players weren't then, and still aren't now, lining up buffs and keeping buff uptime, etc, so the change wasn't made for them, didn't help them, and if anything, has made their performance worse by relative comparison since everyone else is now doing it, and doing it better, than they were before, growing the gap.

I didn't say it was a good argument, I am merely stipulating a sensible line of logic for a balance team to consider when balancing for an individual patch. Can you imagine the groaning if parties start demanding SMN and RDM consistently, because they've been buffed to do the same damage as melees? I can, and I imagine someone in charge of balancing the game would want to avoid it. I don't like how the game is presently balanced please stop trying to argue with me, I don't want to.

Maybe, I just don't think it's really valid.

I think the system is what it always has been - one of each and one wildcard slot to fill as the party sees fit.

.

EDIT: Bah, daily limit. Well, will just have to make due with this.

Close, it was a change aimed at the casual (helping them to align buffs easier), had zero impact on anyone with a modicum of skill at the game (who can already line up their buffs/delay when it's called for), and as you say, STILL doesn't actually get the casuals to align their buffs every time. Thus, the change was 'good intentions, bad execution/implementation', because all it's done is remove an aspect of optimization from the high end, without doing much to raise the low end. People can still drift DragonSight or Battle Voice so hard Vin Diesel would be impressed, and that's if they even use them at all

No, it's what I said - for the midcore. Casuals weren't anywhere close to doing it, while midcore players were trying but failing. The change was made for the latter, not the former, and benefited the latter, along with the hardcores by making the square peg they were trying to fit into a round hole into a round peg so it actually fit.

But I do agree it was bad execution, and it was apparent almost immediately it wasn't working as intended, yet they stuck with it anyway, even though it clearly didn't help the casual low end, annoyed the high end, and while it helped the midcore "feel better", since encounters were then balanced around the expectation of that level of damage, things didn't really change for them - before they weren't aligning buffs and were clearing content with difficulty, now they're aligning buffs and clearing content with difficulty.

So it was a failure all around and......and deja vu. Hm. I feel like we've had this conversation before. And I don't mean this topic. I mean, that I've typed that EXACT conversation before. Weird.

[ForsakenRoe]

So it was made for the midcore, and it helped the midcore and the hardcore. Casual/"lowest common denominator" players weren't then, and still aren't now, lining up buffs and keeping buff uptime, etc, so the change wasn't made for them, didn't help them, and if anything, has made their performance worse by relative comparison since everyone else is now doing it, and doing it better, than they were before, growing the gap.

Close, it was a change aimed at the casual (helping them to align buffs easier), had zero impact on anyone with a modicum of skill at the game (who can already line up their buffs/delay when it's called for), and as you say, STILL doesn't actually get the casuals to align their buffs every time. Thus, the change was 'good intentions, bad execution/implementation', because all it's done is remove an aspect of optimization from the high end, without doing much to raise the low end. People can still drift DragonSight or Battle Voice so hard Vin Diesel would be impressed, and that's if they even use them at all

[Aravell]

That change, btw, seemed targeted at the midcore. The "lowest common denominator" players don't line buffs up even now. What it did was make the midcore more capable of consistent buff alignment, and made it easier for the hardcore to to line up buffs - contrary to your statement, they weren't all coordinated in ShB simply because there were so many different CDs - 45 sec, 90 sec, 60 sec, etc - that there was just no way to get them to play nice together. High end players either picked all Jobs that had compatible CDs, or they just picked which were most beneficial to line up. The EW change streamlined this for those players, thus making things easier for them. Note that this is another definition of "favors/benefits".

You seem to have a severe misunderstanding of the hardcore, not a single higher end player actually picked jobs based on raid buff timers, jobs were picked based on what they brought to the table and who can maximise the use of those buffs. In regards to the timers, you are also wrong there, you just have to add it up, 45s will naturally align with 90s and also with 180s, 30s and 60s will naturally align with 120s, and every single buff aligns at 360s, if a fight doesn't last for 12 mins, everyone just delayed 120s to align at 9 mins. I say again, what did the higher end players gain from the EW change? I'll admit that the midcore maybe could benefit from it, but you're adamant that the hardcore also benefit from this, what did they gain?

[ForsakenRoe]

if a fight doesn't last for 12 mins, everyone just delayed 120s to align at 9 mins.

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised SE hasn't reduced the potion CD to 4min for HQ, instead of 4.30, since that way they'd line up at... 4 minute burst window, rather than 'oops the burst window was like 25s ago, guess we're holding the second potion until 6mins'. Not that I want em to make that change, it's the one remnant we have of 'ok delay pot/buff for better fight mechanic alignment', like doorboss this tier, potting on CD puts it in the middle of LC where... you can't hit the boss. Potting when the boss comes back isn't in a raidbuff window, but people will have their 1min buffs I guess. So you hold it till the next 2min window, and that's fine because A: it's between two Superchain sections and B: Fight's 7:40, so you were only ever gonna get 2 potions regardless

Calling it now, 7.0 will introduce a new variety of potion, going from potions, to infusions, to tinctures, we're gonna get 'Grade 1 Concoction of Mind' and it'll be a 4min CD in either quality (NQ/HQ changes the amount of bonus stat it grants). Also while I'm ranting, can they make potions (and sprint) buffer properly like OGCDs do so we can use them without it feeling all janky clippy

[Aravell]

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised SE hasn't reduced the potion CD to 4min for HQ, instead of 4.30, since that way they'd line up at... 4 minute burst window, rather than 'oops the burst window was like 25s ago, guess we're holding the second potion until 6mins'. Not that I want em to make that change, it's the one remnant we have of 'ok delay pot/buff for better fight mechanic alignment', like doorboss this tier, potting on CD puts it in the middle of LC where... you can't hit the boss. Potting when the boss comes back isn't in a raidbuff window, but people will have their 1min buffs I guess. So you hold it till the next 2min window, and that's fine because A: it's between two Superchain sections and B: Fight's 7:40, so you were only ever gonna get 2 potions regardless

Calling it now, 7.0 will introduce a new variety of potion, going from potions, to infusions, to tinctures, we're gonna get 'Grade 1 Concoction of Mind' and it'll be a 4min CD in either quality (NQ/HQ changes the amount of bonus stat it grants). Also while I'm ranting, can they make potions (and sprint) buffer properly like OGCDs do so we can use them without it feeling all janky clippy

I miss the days when potting on cd used to be worth it, but with the full alignment every 2 mins design they wrought, it's no longer worth using pots at any moment outside of burst. Wouldn't surprise me if they did make the new pot align perfectly though.

[Sebazy]

Honest answer?

I think the encounter design teams. They want to make more fights where players have to move all over and spread and such, and they want to keep the DPS checks relatively tight, which means they can't have Melee/Tanks stuck in Narnia spamming their ranged attacks for long periods of time. Same reason they made Healer effects bigger. It's not to help Healers, it's to allow the mass arena combat encounter designs to work.

I think you're close but not quite there on that one.

We've had large scale fights that forced people to spread out around an significant arena literally right from 2.0. BCOB T5's original arena is literally the palm of a hand and you had to make use of almost all of it when placing puddles, dodging twisters or avoiding snowballing from a Dreadknight. There's lots more examples over the years as well. Go watch a video of A6S or A7S.

However I do agree, I think this change is for the design team and fits into the overall trend of the game neatly. IMO I think it's to allow easier tuning of fights around the assumption of a given level of DPS from a raid team. Getting good uptime on a melee was historically the hardest part of getting your DPS from 'good' to 'top tier' back in the day and on Coil/Alex, you'd see a pretty significant swing between a decent and outstanding melee's damage depending on if the fight was more of a static target dummy or something that forced a lot of movement and disconnects. Making the hitboxes super large pretty much deletes that variable bringing a good player closer to the top tier in the same way that removing Cleric Stance narrowed the gap for healers as well.

It all comes back to SE's quest to get the skill ceiling down to floor level.