Paired Threads: What would it take to make Heaker kits "complex/interesting"?

[Renathras]

No, no one suggested there shouldn't be downtime with nothing to heal. Downtime is a necessary component to making fights flexible and giving brevity to healers or else their MP bottoms out ASAP.

Actually, quite a few people in the survey results are making this argument - that healing should be continuous through the encounters with more unavoidable damage and more "mini-spot-tankbusters" striking non-tank party members. Quite a few people in the survey seem to want more healing requirements, and more consistent healing requirements, filling that "downtime" with healing.

Right now, we get LARGE spikes (often several in quick succession) of healing, then nothing for 30-60 seconds. The result is we use several oGCDs to deal with the spikes that come back to back, then a slow burn long solution (HoT ticks) so that everyone's restored by the next wave. This further results in us having the 111211111 rotation for 80% of the encounter time.

While the universally desired solution here on this forum is to fill that downtime with damage, the generally held solution per the survey respondents seems to be they want more sustained, unavoidable damage during that intervening time so they have reason to fill that time with GCD heals instead.

The problem is that downtime is too prevalent -- to the point where you can go upwards to over 80% or 90% casting your GCD damage skill.

Agreed.

In normal content,

The prevailing view seems to be that NORMAL content shouldn't really be touched, or if it should, it should be more healing, not more damage dealing. A lot of people seem to be complaining the issue is Tanks are too sustain heavy (especially WAR - you didn't mention which Tank you took, just curious, was it WAR?), and Tank sustain needs to be brought down.

especially when you compare healing to ARR dungeons where you definitely did need a healer to clear the fight.

It's so weird when I do a Leveling Roulette and get an ARR dungeon because I'm using GCD heals. It's almost like if we had no oGCD heals, healing would be more engaging...

And the problem with increasing the amount of healing was that... this was already suggested, and it backfired.

The respondents to the survey talk A LOT about this, too. The prevailing view is that the more healing was A GREAT IDEA, and THEY LIKED IT.

The problem, almost universally, is people saying that Healers had to rely on Tanks and DPSers to use mitigation, and if they didn't, it made the encounters murder on the Healers, who were also blamed for wipes. So the universal solution proposed is to keep the Abyssos damage, but shift most or all party mitigation tools to the Healers exclusively so the Healers are in full command of the damage profiles of the encounters. This seems to be by FAR the desired change to encounter design post-Abyssos.

In fact, it also dovetails with a LOT of Healers wanting more non-damage/non-healing support tools, and considering mitigation to be a some of what they want.

I haven't seen a single response yet saying they want to revert to pre-Abyssos levels of healing and get more damage buttons. Even the people wanting more damage buttons haven't been saying that. It seems the Abyssos healing requirement was actually a hit overall.

The universal opinion about MSQ is to make it accessible. Accessibility does not directly make one role feel unneeded... or only to be there "as an emergency". That's pretty much the problem with healers right now in normal content.

The problem I have with this argument is it's true of every role. You can do most dungeons with 1 Healer + 3 DPS. Or 1 Tank + 3 DPS. Or 2 Tanks + 2 Healers. Or 4 Healers. WAR can solo pretty much every modern level cap dungeon. It's not Healers aren't needed in normal content, it's that literally ANY role isn't needed if you have either a Tank or a Healer. DPS are the most superfluous, as you don't actually need them at all. DPS do nothing but speed up the time to clear the dungeon, but they aren't required. On the other hand, having 4 DPS might be difficult to clear encounters unless you have a RDM/SMN/DNC for healing the party and a RDM/SMN for reviving people. 4 Healers could clear all modern dungeons doing single pulls. Solo Tanks can do the same thing.

This suggests it's actually DPSers that are unnecessary in modern content, though you could clear with 4 DPSers if you had the right mix of healing and revival tools.

You offering me the chance to walk it back is truly touching. I am deeply humbled that you would offer me such charity out of the goodness of your heart. Honestly, I am undeserving of such grace.

Yeah, I thought so.

Three times. Now I'm just going to hang that over your head from now on. Good job, friend.
Naaah, I'm just going to ignore it for the most part, since it's par for the course. But it proves what I said once before: That you cannot admit when you're wrong.

At least we both know you realize you were wrong, you just can't actually bring yourself to admit it due to immaturity or...something. (If you DIDN'T realize it, you'd have contested the point, but even you know there's no grounds for you to defend yourself on the claim.)

You did exactly what I said you would.

I wished I was wrong about that...oh well.

[ty_taurus]

You did exactly what I said you would.

I wished I was wrong about that...oh well.

What did I say? I told you I was humbled by your good faith. Where's the issue?

[Renathras]

...

Just got done testing this. Latest dungeon, Lapis.

I love actual data/facts/testing, actually...a quick call on my (slightly crazy) CWLS that likes doing crazy things (our class only ZodEx one which has also done class only 24 man runs), then a trip to PF to pick up the rest, did the trick

4x Healers - Cleared EASY. Tankbusters we dealt with using mit and sometimes not even mit and just raw healing to top off the target before the strike then bring them back up after it. I don't think we had even a single death. We did full wall to wall pulls the whole way. Party was 2x WHM, SCH, SGE - I was SCH, found out after the run someone else could have run SCH and I could have run AST, but I think the result would be about the same, we'd just have had even MORE mitigation.

4x Tanks - Cleared easy. This was actually SLIGHTLY harder than the Healers. Full wall to wall pulls, had a death and close calls (one on the second boss and one super near-death on the final trash pack). Party was PLD, WAR, DRK, GNB - I was the GNB (seemed I was the only one that had it leveled)

4x DPS - We wiped on trash. Several times. We had to single pull the trash packs because otherwise damage was too high. The final trash packs we actually had to use Sleep since there was too much damage otherwise. The first boss we barely cleared on the first shot with the party barely alive. The second boss we wiped on twice before we could clear it. The final boss...was a beast. I think we had to do it 5-7 times. The all DPS run actually took the longest at around 55 mins to clear. The final boss was only possible - in fact, ALL the bosses were only possible - due to having a RDM in the party casting a ton of Vercures. (me being said RDM). The final boss, I think I only did 2 melee combos the whole time, via Manafication, since all my other GCDs were spent healing the "tank" or healing the party during the parts like the add phase where it hits 3 people with targeted markers then does a stack marker then does the phase transition big hit, then does another stack marker shortly after that. Tankbusters were fatal and required Rasing in all but the first boss fight. We actually had to use food buff to clear the final boss. It was pretty brutal. I cannot stress enough that without the RDM's HEALING, this would not have been possible. Any all DPS party that did not have a RDM likely could not clear the dungeon. Party was DRG, RPR, SMN, RDM - I was the RDM. (I started to go NIN but realized my gear was a bit dated; had I done so, we would not have been able to clear.)

For all the talk of Healers being unneeded, it seems that DPS are actually the role that's unneeded. You MUST have either a Healer or a Tank. So 1 Tank + 3 DPS could be substituted with 1 Healer + 3 DPS with likely the same result, just a bit slower. I didn't test that specific configuration, but considering I was able to shoe-horn healer the DPS party as a RDM with single target Vercure and Magick Barrier my only tools, I'm pretty sure literally ANY Healer would have made that a breeze instead since they'd have targeted mitigation and shielding for the tankbuster and a party mitigation plus easy access to AOE heals for the hard phases that gave me trouble on RDM. And it certainly would have made the trash packs easier.

I think DPS is actually the role that's unneeded in normal content, not Healers. When people say "1 Tank + 3 DPS" what they're really saying is "The party requires something that isn't a DPS otherwise the run won't work". If it wasn't that I formed a PF group specifically to do the three runs in a row, a normal dungeon run would probably have disbanded after that many wipes.

.

As to the more healing - the problem now is that Healers still have all that responsibility, they just have to HOPE other people hold up their end. If those people don't, though, the Healers are still the ones blamed for the failure. I think right now, Healers just want more agency, and that would give it.

What did I say? I told you I was humbled by your good faith. Where's the issue?

I'm tired of fighting with you over immature nonsense. You can be an adult or a child, but I don't care as long as you drop the nonsense.

On the off chance you somehow read all 5 of my last posts and SOMEHOW didn't get it such that you're asking this question in good faith:

You said I oppose change for the sake of it and that I think Healers are just fine and need no changes.

Lest you think (or want to throw out there as a last ditch defense) I'm misquoting you, here are your exact quotes:

You think that jobs are fine as-is because most people are content with them, and change is not required.

Otherwise you just seem like someone who hates change for the sake of hating change.

I'm sure you'll try to 13th hour "what I ACTUALLY meant was..." them, but in those quotes, plain text, you're saying that I think Jobs are fine because people are content and no change is required, and that I seem to hate change for the sake of hating change.

The second can't be a thing I seem because I've outright proposed and supported changes.

The first I've said about literally ONE Job, SMN. Even WHM I've said needs additional party mitigation abilities, and that's the Healer I'd change THE LEAST.

Those are two points I don't even hold, and you know I don't because every single discussion just about, I've said that encounter design needs changing and at THE VERY LEAST SCH and AST need adjustments, and even my own proposals for "leave 1/2 alone" include making some minor changes like making Toxicon damage neutral and giving WHM a second/third party mitigation per two minutes (something on a 60 sec CD).

As those are, by definition, changes - it's clear I'm not opposed to any and all change for the sake of it, and it's also clear that I haven't said no changes at all are needed for Healers. YOU DISAGREE WITH THE CHANGES I HAVE PROPOSED, but that isn't me making no proposals or opposing all change and/or insisting none was needed.

Aside from that, you also can't admit you were wrong about me being the only person who holds my views and that literally everyone else on this forum (which you included the DPS forum) disagrees with me after I cited specific other people agreeing with me ON THESE FORUMS. And looking at the wider audience, it appears many other people agree with my position to, to the point it may be a plurality or even majority position (results still pending)

If you AREN'T asking in good faith, and are just trying to string me along while avoiding ever admitting error on your part, then I don't care to indulge you further. Especially since I've done/am doing what you asked with the survey, and the result of THAT is going to be you saying "Well, no, THAT was my argument all along..." even though many of you are only at odds with me because it ISN'T your argument. If it was, we'd never be fighting here, since my own seems to be matching up well with the survey results thus far.

[AnotherPerson]

The prevailing view seems to be that NORMAL content shouldn't really be touched, or if it should, it should be more healing, not more damage dealing. A lot of people seem to be complaining the issue is Tanks are too sustain heavy (especially WAR - you didn't mention which Tank you took, just curious, was it WAR?), and Tank sustain needs to be brought down.

This topic was actually in another thread about the difficulty of dungeon content more recently. It originally started about finding fun dungeons and how the dungeon content was too easy, then there were comparisons drawn saying the difficulty gotten harder vs much easier. At some point people also brought up content was finally clearable with 1 tank + 3 DPS when it wasn't that case before as healers were one point required in synced content (You wouldn't be able to clear Aurum Vale or Stone Vigil without a healer, for example). Then people started setting up a challenge to see if it's doable with a healer that doesn't heal in the traditional party settings to truly see if the difficulty has gone down from ARR/HW and SB/ShB/EW. Other people got interested to whether it was doable or not after it kept on getting talked about, but the original people who set the challenge couldn't do it due to being on different DCs.

I was curious to see if it was actually doable as well so I tried PLD, WAR, and DRK and made a post about my findings. I was really skeptical at first to be honest. I knew 1 WAR + 3 DPS can do it. I didn't think DRK can clear the bosses without a healer healing because they just had no self-sustain other than their personal shield, but I was proven wrong. When the amount of actual healing needed is so low in the traditional party setting with 1 tank, 1 healer, and 2 DPS that the healer doesn't need to do their main role at all, it starts setting off alarm bells to me.


I wouldn't be against healing more to be honest. I'm just aware how easily it can backfire after Abysseos happened. Moving all the mitigations to healers might work better, but it also means a higher responsibility /penalty (in the event a healer dies, no more mitigation for the party). We'll have to see if that's better or worse in gameplay afterwards because I can see that being much worse for people who aren't as good in healing due to the higher skill floor requirement which goes against their accessibility design.