Rescue needs to go away.

[Packetdancer]

I would be in favor of this. It really does need to be fixed. When I say FIXED, Square if you are listening FIXED not REMOVED!

I mean, yes. If they were going to make the smallest possible change to Rescue, removing the breathtaking amount of sheer unadulterated jank inherent in the ability would be an excellent start. Because I suspect the level of dislike the ability receives would be at least marginally less if there were not like a 40% chance it just kills the player anyway mid-transit.

A teleport doesn't even have to be "go from point A to B without processing anything in between"; Shukuchi won't get you over danger bacon or death pits (press F to pay respects to the ninja I saw try it in Dohn Mheg in a roulette a couple of weeks ago... sorry, buddy, just because Thancred can pull it off in a Trust run doesn't mean the game will let you do it), but if the death pit isn't a death pit yet, the near-instantaneous "zip" from A to B is sure as heck a lot less likely to be fatal, compared to the likelihood of Rescue having the nascent death pit the player is being yoinked across become an actual death pit mid-transit.

There are entirely alternative designs for a tool to serve Rescue's purpose, of course. My example of "Salvation Offered" / "Unsaved" in this thread being one.

Another I've suggested in the past is that Rescue puts a 5s temporary buff on the targeted player. If something happens that would've killed them in that 5s, they are instead reduced to 1hp (a'la Holmgang) and given a 2s Transcendent buff (the buff that gives temporary invulnerability when you're rezzed) to keep them alive a moment longer, and slingshotted to where the healer was standing when they used the ability.

It wouldn't help for scenarios where it was like "you're about to wipe the group by being there, you need to be here" -- nor would it allow intentional and agreed-upon Rescue cheese strategies, which are a thing, albeit not a common one -- but it would at least still solve the common Crystal Tower and Dohn Mheg scenarios. (And the "my co-healer is stuck in animation lock due to having just gotten the party up by LB3, let me pull them to safety so they don't die to a one-shot" scenario, for that matter.)

I do suspect it would need a tradeoff -- like a temporary but painful Weakness, Vuln, or Damage Down of some form -- to avoid Large Cheese scenarios for one-shots in savage ("Hey, look, an extra tank invuln! For ANYONE!"), but it would mean a healer is not thus forced to use 2400 MP and 8s to correct your mistake, and would presumably do away with the feeling that choice was being taken away. Because by its nature, if the buff was triggered by otherwise-fatal damage and slingshotted you to a new spot, the alternative had it not done so would be "you are on the floor, and thus your choice as to what to do next is removed regardless because none of your buttons will work until you are rezzed."

And if you had a plan for getting out of the damage in the first place, and excecuted it? Hey, you didn't die during that 5s, so no slingshot and no debuff!

Plus, while it doesn't solve all the scenarios Rescue does, that design solves some that Rescue doesn't. One tank's down, the other one doesn't have invuln off cooldown, and there's a tank swap mechanic coming up? You might be able to save the living tank (albeit with a debuff) long enough for the other to be rezzed and healed up to provoke.

(Also, no lie, it would be kind of hilarious in Zurvan or Aglaia during certain mechanics to watch the floor vanish from under someone and drop them to their death or a mechanic yeet them into space... only to trigger the buff and have them come flying back up to the arena and join the healer like someone pressed rewind on their personal timeline. You can just imagine some adventurer, standing there wide-eyed and breathing hard, having just bungeed up from dropping partway into some unfathomable void and being like "I have stared death in the face. I need a drink.")

So, I mean, Rescue isn't the only possible solution to the "let me save you so I'm not spending the rez" scenario from a game design standpoint. It's just the only one we have. And since it is the only tool for that situation at present, if the options people argue for are "just take it away" (with no proposed alternative) or "just make it so useless no one uses it anyway" (again, with no proposed replacement), healers who do actually use it for those intended scenarios are probably going to continue to balk.

Because, I mean, let's be honest... there's enough threads in this forum that demonstrate no job is ever happy when things get taken away and not replaced with something better. (Heck, half the time, we as players aren't happy when something is taken away even if it it is replaced with something that, on paper, is theoretically better.)

My one bit of advice for folks who really dislike Rescue and want it gone: if you want healers on your side in the argument for removing Rescue, rather than having them vehemently object to losing the sole tool to handle a given situation? Instead of arguing as to why Rescue is broken, present an alternative and an argument as to why it's better.

Because I promise you, healers aren't super fond of Rescue either, given the sheer amount of jank it has; we only cling to it because there are no other options for a number of scenarios.