Current State of Tank+Healer Synergy

[SherlockMihan]

Right now, 3 of the 4 tanks are effectively healers. They each have, every 25s, one button that is a really good heal for either themselves or another party member. WAR effectively have 4 benedictions every 25s. GNB have excogitation every 25s (actual Excogitation is a 45s CD). PLD have a really solid regen every 5s at best, but in practice I would not be surprised if it came out to be every 25s-ish. In practice, this creates a really bad situation where 90% of each healer's kit is redundant or useless every 25s for 3 of the 4 tanks.

While the memes are fun, the reality is not. I had a run of the 83 dungeon where I, as a Sage, died at the beginning of the fight. The GNB was able to continue the fight using nothing but their kit to heal the party while I watched from the sidelines. In the moment, was pretty awesome to see, but this is possible in any dungeon (possibly even the new raids), with any of the tanks except DRK. Right now, healers have a high chance of not having a job to do because 3/4 tanks can heal themselves and others just as well as an actual healer.

As a player, I should not bemoan seeing a DRK in a duty. I should not feel bad just for leveling a DRK simply because it has not self heals. It's okay that tanks can heal themselves, but the amount of healing they offer not only to themselves but also to others is simply ridiculous.

And if the amount of damage in certain duties is so high that it needs those self heals, then the problem isn't the strength of the tanks' kits, but the weakness of the healers'.

IMO, the heals on WAR, PLD, and GNB should be nerfed, and healers should get some buffs to their oGCDs to compensate.

[Aluja89]

No.

Healers need an overhaul to fit the mold.

[Kolsykol]

I've been seeing WAR no Healer Expert parties in Party Finder.

That says it all lol.

[Atreides]

I've been seeing WAR no Healer Expert parties in Party Finder.

That says it all lol.

PLD no healer expert have done it too.

[Abomination713]

WAR needs nerfed hard. PLD is fine since they are suppose to be half WHM (if you were around when you had to level two classes in order to unlock the job, PLD was level 30 GLA/15 WHM). They are suppose to have good healing magic.

What bothers me right now is that WAR is starting to heal others and that should not be possible in any way. Why does their group protect healer others? It's clear that someone at SE can't stand the PLD having something that the WAR doesn't.

[Ashua]

Agree. Damage needs to go up so we can get back to primarily healing with some dps thrown in

[Gemina]

In practice, this creates a really bad situation where 90% of each healer's kit is redundant or useless every 25s for 3 of the 4 tanks.

This isn't anything new. It has literally been this way for years. And it's not every 25s. It is the entire fight.

Despite the amount of sustainability most tanks have on their own, they are not invincible and can be killed. 25s might seem like a very short duration between strong self-sustain abilities, but that window is more than sufficient for things to go wrong and end up in a reset.

While I am not a tank main, as a healer main I can tell you that I don't have an issue with the amount of sustainability a tank has. That is not what makes me feel invalid as a healer. What accomplishes that is encounter design. Encounter design is the reason why a boss can't kill a tank to force a reset, and alleviate the rest of the group from their unconscious prison instead of watching a tank dance with the boss. Encounter design is what leads to healers being reduced to spamming one button while playing whack-a-mole with their oGCD heals. It's things like that, that will invalidate not only a healer's kit, but the healer themselves.

Unfortunately, I don't think the issue is fixed by nerfing tank sustainability, and/or increasing potency on healer oGCDs; or doing so will just create another issue in its place, and it could be a less favorable one to boot. Healer and tank synergy is in a bit of limbo, and I feel it is because of how DPS focused encounter design is. I think the only way to get them out, is to take encounter design in an entirely different direction, and much like the metaphor suggests, that would be like turning the cruise ship around.

[eagledorf]

The problem isn't just that tanks self-heal too much right now (especially WAR), it's also that healers and tanks are fundamentally no longer designed to actually work together at all.

As the poster above mentioned, healers do so much of their healing with instant abilities or passively that it's very difficult to impossible for a tank to be aware of what a healer has up at a given time beyond Benediction (two sentinels per Bene, at least that's easy). The only thing a tank can really know is if their healer feels comfortable enough to be casting DPS spells, and even those have been pared down so hard you have SCH sitting there with 3 of their 4 DPS abilities instant cast, or if they're chain-casting their most expensive spell in a panic. Usually I'm just like "Ok, I push DPS button 1-2 1-2 and turn to the left sometimes put up a defensive cooldown sometimes." Clemency is effectively useless, 99% of the time you're going to get a Tetragammaton or something when you're wasting time casting it and you've pissed off the WHM. How exactly are you supposed to know that's coming? Even Equilibrium, I find I overheal a lot of the time because there's just enough lag between when I use it and my HP pops up that the healer has used one of their abilities on me too.

The same is true to a slightly lesser degree with the tank skills. Like WAR's utility used to be Mantra, which worked in synergy with healers and stacked with Convalescence, on PLD I used to Stoneskin the party top down while WHM did bottom up before a raid ultimate AoE or time a cast to land when I would get a Disease debuff. Now it's just "push button, shield party."

Plus hate has been buffed so much, it's basically impossible for a healer to rip from a tank now. It used to be a PLD had to juggle keeping Blind up from Flash as long as possible and managing hate from the WHM or AoE damage, now you just 1-2, 1-2 and Requiescat sometimes (actually, I start with my caster phase in dungeons so it's more like 1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2)

The only things really left for tanks and healers to coordinate are alternating protective buffs on AoE damage, which is unnecessary for 90+% of content, and holding off big defensive cooldowns while stun is up from Holy if you're running a dungeon with WHM.

[Vortuna]

Stop forcing me to use gcd heals.

[Awful]

While the memes are fun, the reality is not. I had a run of the 83 dungeon where I, as a Sage, died at the beginning of the fight. The GNB was able to continue the fight using nothing but their kit to heal the party while I watched from the sidelines. In the moment, was pretty awesome to see, but this is possible in any dungeon (possibly even the new raids), with any of the tanks except DRK. Right now, healers have a high chance of not having a job to do because 3/4 tanks can heal themselves and others just as well as an actual healer.

I do this in experts on my WAR too if you can't live longer than 30 seconds then I don't need you sorry if you died but if we can't rez you then I'm just gonna continue, that's not my ego going through or anything that's just on the healer/you if you die right as the fight begins. Same thing in the Dead Ends 1st and 2nd boss if the healer dies and I can salvage the group then I'm gonna do it the best way I can if you have to sit on the sidelines then I'd say you need to practice and learn the mechanics rather then eat vulns and die.