Please finally fix Tank, DPS and Healer roles SE

[Turtledeluxe]

"If tanks were OP everyone would play them"

That's just not true. Devs need to stop listening to people like this. There's only a certain type of player drawn to classes that are ez mode. Warrior is proof of that-- it's literally the ez mode class of the game but only people who really really love it stan the class. People don't flock to it. BLM has minimal utility, no healing and people still play BLM. The list goes on. Not everyone is a DPS nitpicker or wants to be invincible. That's a a tiny % of the playerbase.

Devs should stop listening to players who say "no one will play this class if", "my class isn't chosen for x", and start designing jobs how they want to. Every fight should be clearable with any class but the meta of the fight should depend on the fight, not the jobs imo.

Because that's how it is anyway-- we all know right now jobs are the same and balanced, yet there's still a meta for every prog and we know that. There's no fight where a RDM will outshine a SMN for example.

[lennit]

i started the game with white mage and stop because tank could self heal, everyone kept tell me to do dps all the time on my white mage . so i end up giving up on healer and just start playing monk

more they want to make tanks in to holy tanks , i will be there dps beside them

[Sani2341]

Is the most obvious solution, then, (A) to instead go to a nicer joint, where the price is nearer your collective limit ($20) or (B) to demand your friends bring less money so that you can better use up all of yours?

You really want to make everyone that currently already struggles leave the game huh?

Not only is your example fundamentaly flawed in that Tanks and DPS can already cover everything themselves without Healers if your execution is tight enough even in frikkin ultimates.
You also again completely ignore the worse than average players who could barely scrap by right now.

To stay with your example, if enough food to not starve is 15, just because jobs A B and C could scrape together 20 bucks between them, does not mean the average combo of A B and C manage more than 14.50.

[PyurBlue]

That all being said, I do think tanks should tend to have less flat sustain (and, especially, flat healing) than they currently do, not because 'healing should belong only to healers', but simply because flat healing is, in itself, a less interesting and less iconic form of sustain than the likes of percentile mitigation. We want tanks to be preemptive and to reward fight knowledge. Simply taking the hit and then healing up some time before the next would-be lethal blow is not that, and since we want to keep tanks roughly in balance with each other and on an even keel with the other roles, the more sustain that is managed through dull means means the duller the kit is likely to be.

Now, for a couple kits we might be able to introduce mechanically-involved job traits that can actually make that self-healing interesting, and that'd be neat to see where thematically appropriate. But that interest should be the point, too, alongside balance. The kit needs to not be absurdly easier to get its near-maximal value out of than others, and it needs to be fun.

We have slightly different views, but I think we're both looking in the same direction. I support a lot of what you're saying above.

No. It's irrelevant. Whether the tank takes 50k less damage or heals back 50k health, there's still 50k less healing for you to do.

The conflict between tank and healer that I was pointing out isn't a balancing or class engagement issue. You're right in that mitigation is just as bad as healing if it's too strong or incoming damage is too little. However if, just for example, only the healer can heal then that removes the risk of overhealing due to a lack of coordination because it removes the possibility of two players using a heal at once when one heal was all that was needed. The total amount of damage is a factor in this problem as more damage makes it less likely to happen, but it doesn't totally eliminate the issue. This is most obvious with WHM and Benediction. Bene is a full heal, so it should never be combined with other healing. If a tank has a very large heal, then they probably won't want to use that heal until their HP is low, which is exactly what the WHM with Bene will be thinking. As the tank takes damage and gets to 10% HP they'll use their heal, but so will the WHM, and you end up with wasted healing. If tanks only had mitigation, then the WHM is free to use Bene at 10% HP without worry. I prefer the latter situation. My solution isn't to strip tanks of all healing abilities, though, it's to lower their healing output relative to healers.

Tl;dr:
The core factor is your party's total sustain vs. the fight's total sustain required, and you can deal with the latter falling short a whole lot easier and with fewer ill effects on gameplay by just increasing those requirements than by chipping away at what gameplay may fall outside your arbitrary lines of what forms of sustain tanks should be allowed or what utility each role should be allowed.

I agree that balancing incoming damage against the party's ability to heal is a significant factor in making tanking and healing feel engaging, fun, and rewarding. The separation of skills between the classes is arbitrary in terms of balancing, but there are also subjective factors at play, like job identity, which may still
push for some kind of separation of skills. I think it's important for each role to have a specialization and unique feel to set themselves as part. This doesn't mean that there has to be a rigid separation of abilities, it's fine for tanks to have healing, but a role built around healing (healers) should have the most healing ability and influence total party healing more than other roles.

[Shurrikhan]

You really want to make everyone that currently already struggles leave the game huh?

Not only is your example fundamentaly flawed in that Tanks and DPS can already cover everything themselves without Healers if your execution is tight enough even in frikkin ultimates.
You also again completely ignore the worse than average players who could barely scrap by right now.

To stay with your example, if enough food to not starve is 15, just because jobs A B and C could scrape together 20 bucks between them, does not mean the average combo of A B and C manage more than 14.50.

In that example, though, the greatest chance of your starving is by concentrating ALL that resource into the one may-be-incapable player, instead of having any fallbacks.

What you'd be advocating for would also be what is most likely to cause the negative outcome you fear (and would use as a warrant to ax that portion of other roles' gameplay)...

[Shurrikhan]

We have slightly different views, but I think we're both looking in the same direction.

I suspect the same.

However if, just for example, only the healer can heal then that removes the risk of overhealing due to a lack of coordination because it removes the possibility of two players using a heal at once when one heal was all that was needed.

Is that conflict really a bad thing, though? When two healers get in a rhythm with one another as not to accidentally heal the same target at the same time, wasting one oGCD or the other, we tend to call that skill expression and meaningful coordination. Why would that not be the case just because one of those heals doesn't come from a green-border job?

Once you hit any serious content (outside of Criterion Savage), you still have the remaining 90% of those conflicts to deal with just from healing alongside another healer. It seems strange to me, then, to worry about the single burst heal per minute that still only 2 tanks have (Equilibrium, Abyssal Drain [only relevant in AoE]).

* The rest are effectively HoTs or are shields. You are far more likely to waste your tank's healing than they are to waste yours.

I agree that balancing incoming damage against the party's ability to heal is a significant factor in making tanking and healing feel engaging, fun, and rewarding. The separation of skills between the classes is arbitrary in terms of balancing, but there are also subjective factors at play, like job identity, which may still push for some kind of separation of skills.

Agreed, as long as enjoyment and job identity is still the big goal instead of just arbitrary categorization and a vaguer sense of role identity.

To give this some concrete examples...

• I don't like Nascent Flash. It's silly to me, it only scarcely fits the WAR identity, and gives up opportunity for better tapping into that WAR identity. It's also fundamentally overpowered because of it being basically straight 50% stronger than Bloodwhetting through the heal-duplication.
  
  
• I don't like the per-hit healing from Bloodwhetting/NF. It fits the "in the thick of it" aspect of the "thrill of battle" but sacrifices all else. Removing the damage-based healing in favor of per-hit healing has added a tiny use case in two-target (sacrificing damage for healing), but in all else it has reduced the engagement possible through that ability. That change not only made WAR too strong in dungeons but also made it less fun.
  
  
• On the other hand, I do think external support is thematic for Paladin, even if it comes at-cost. I like Clemency being there. It makes sense. It makes sense not for all tanks, but for Paladin specifically.
  
  
• That said, I don't like the per-action healing from any but prepped Holy Spirit casts on PLD. It just outright lacks control and removes much of the affordance you could otherwise situationally have from those actions being usable at range. The bankable small heal per 7 GCDs is nice, but for Req spam, it's basically just a un-time-able HoT. As a tank, that's just not very fun/appealing, because there's no agency there beyond, when incoming damage is low, "I sure hope my healer doesn't top me off before Req phase, wasting its sustain."

My solution isn't to strip tanks of all healing abilities, though, it's to lower their healing output relative to healers.

That I am fine with.

I'd just recommend starting from a tank perspective rather than worrying first and foremost about (typal) output. Trim the things that --by taking up X% of the tank's sustain while being, themselves, uninteresting or carrying less agency / skill expression-- make tanking on those jobs that much less fun.

Thereafter, just make sure that their kits both seem worthwhile and competitive in situations both with low and high damage intake.

Once that's done, if tank sustain still seems excessive, don't specifically target any particular type of sustain for reduction (flat or percentile, preemptive or reactive), but just rein things back bit by bit as a whole -- thereby still keeping that kit's parts in balance against each other.

Too much of that sustain coming from percentile tools makes the kit lack apparently relevance when incoming damage is low. Too much coming from flat tools makes it feel less relevant when damage is high. Let the fun of the kit and basic parity/functionality determine the proportions of those tools in the tank's kit, and then just roll the excess back together.

This doesn't mean that there has to be a rigid separation of abilities, it's fine for tanks to have healing, but a role built around healing (healers) should have the most healing ability and influence total party healing more than other roles.

I'm wondering what you think is a good ratio there, then.

At present, even if we specifically seek out, say, a P10S top rank parse with a WAR, PLD, SMN, and DNC, less than 14% of total sustain comes from non-healer healing. Even that best-in-role-in-direct-healing lineup of tanks produce under a fifth the healing of what SGE+AST produce. Iirc, we've actually had higher ratios in earlier expansions, even, without issue.

* (And if we back up to Abyssos, we'll often see healer healing dwarf non-healer HPS even further, even among speedrun parties where both healers are 'grey' and both tanks 'pink' in their HPS.)

Again, I'm fine with reining back tanks' healing a bit where given in a way that may actually degrade the enjoyment of their kits (and for that reason), but... I'm not seeing anything in the numbers themselves to suggest that this is an issue beyond (A) the quality of tank kits and (B) the total amount of sustain required.

[PyurBlue]

Is that conflict really a bad thing, though? When two healers get in a rhythm with one another as not to accidentally heal the same target at the same time, wasting one oGCD or the other, we tend to call that skill expression and meaningful coordination. Why would that not be the case just because one of those heals doesn't come from a green-border job?

Once you hit any serious content (outside of Criterion Savage), you still have the remaining 90% of those conflicts to deal with just from healing alongside another healer. It seems strange to me, then, to worry about the single burst heal per minute that still only 2 tanks have (Equilibrium, Abyssal Drain [only relevant in AoE]).

* The rest are effectively HoTs or are shields. You are far more likely to waste your tank's healing than they are to waste yours.

It's not necessarily a negative no, and it can be fixed with more/better player coordination. I was thinking in more general situations than focusing on Savage and up though. Savage makes it less of an issue just because players will tend to cooperate and plan more and on top of that damage is dealt in a way that's different from large pulls in dungeons where the healing conflict is more likely (but also less serious).

I'd just recommend starting from a tank perspective rather than worrying first and foremost about (typal) output. Trim the things that --by taking up X% of the tank's sustain while being, themselves, uninteresting or carrying less agency / skill expression-- make tanking on those jobs that much less fun.

Thereafter, just make sure that their kits both seem worthwhile and competitive in situations both with low and high damage intake.

Once that's done, if tank sustain still seems excessive, don't specifically target any particular type of sustain for reduction (flat or percentile, preemptive or reactive), but just rein things back bit by bit as a whole -- thereby still keeping that kit's parts in balance against each other.

Too much of that sustain coming from percentile tools makes the kit lack apparently relevance when incoming damage is low. Too much coming from flat tools makes it feel less relevant when damage is high. Let the fun of the kit and basic parity/functionality determine the proportions of those tools in the tank's kit, and then just roll the excess back together.

I can agree with that.

I'm wondering what you think is a good ratio there, then.

I don't have an exact answer, and again I wasn't focused specifically on Savage. In 8 player content, healer since the tank isn't the only one taking damage, healing from healers doesn't suffer as much. If I'm understanding your numbers, the % is just coming from the total healing in the entire fight, so AoE healing is being reflected in that. It's one area where healers do outperform tanks (and DPS) and it feels relatively good. If we limit the measured healing to that aimed at the tank, the % should change. Likewise since dungeon pulls are purely about healing the tank, that is where overpowered tank healing is more noticeable.

[Shurrikhan]

If I'm understanding your numbers, the % is just coming from the total healing in the entire fight, so AoE healing is being reflected in that.

Yes, but so is the tanks', which is the majority of the healing of the most healing-heavy tanks.

And if the problem is with tanks self-healing specifically... again, the healing forums have had an answer to that for years: just increase the damage dealt to tanks, or remove the awkward bloat that is Tank Mastery and nerf only the most lethal of tankbusters in compensation (not the white damage).

8-man content is... 8-man content. Yes, tanks should probably see warrant for at least a couple GCD heals per minute from their actual healers, but healers have to heal everyone while not every tank even can heal others (can provide sustain, but not actual healing), so what I've given is already the most apples-to-apples comparison possible. Looking only at the portion of tank damage taken restored through healing... would be far less so (and would vary wildly between healers, as some are more mitigation-heavy instead).

Likewise since dungeon pulls are purely about healing the tank, that is where overpowered tank healing is more noticeable.

I'll agree, but at the same... dungeons are scarcely even designed as combat content, so I don't recommend trying to design a many-tiers-of-difficulty game off of just that single lowest possible difficulty.

Now, if you wanted to up the ante on endgame dungeons so that there was more constant healing to be done while still being manageable to Cammy Casual off just GCD heals and 25% of time spent idle (i.e., making them at least nearly as threatening as leveling dungeons), capping their gear ceilings at barely over the ilvl they drop, and/or by making MinILvl runs proportionately more rewarding and doable through matchmaking, I'd be totally there for that. Heck yes. I would love for endgame dungeons not to be a pathetic joke.

I see no reason why bosses need to barely tickle tanks nor that every full pull should be easily doable; it'd be fine if single pulls were the norm and dungeons just gave that much more tomes for their time, keeping their reward efficiency equal (or heck, nerfing its efficiency and that of Hunts so that people go to more than just those two places for tomes).

But, risking gameplay degradation over an explicitly bottom-rung content experience... does not seem a good bet.

[PyurBlue]

Now, if you wanted to up the ante on endgame dungeons

Definitely. The dungeon problem is much more than class skills, they're way undertuned.

[Shurrikhan]

Definitely. The dungeon problem is much more than class skills, they're way undertuned.

Aye.

Tentative list of suggested changes then:

1. Reduce the maximum item level of endgame content to a little over the item levels they grant but increase the %chance of each drop (including, therefore, a chance at bonus drops) based on the expected time increase due to stat loss.

   For instance, if your party averages i650 but has been synced down to i600 (5 over the reward ilvl) for Endsinger Extreme where they are doing mount farms, you'd have 1/(1-X)%, where X% is the difference in total stat value without counting Materia.
   
   Let's say the product of that equation is 1.5, for example's sake. You'd therefore have a 50% chance twice over at an extra chest (2*1.5), a 50% chance that everyone gets an extra totem, and any 1% drop rate mounts, minions, etc. would become a 1.5% drop rate.

   And, of course, if they wanted to use the Minimum Item Level option to make it even harder on themselves, it'd have that much more impact. Syncing down from 650 to 580 instead of just 600 would mean even more of a bonus to drop rates.
   
   * Might actually remove the effect on rare drops except via the Minimum Item Level option, since it could otherwise encourage saving all farming of rare drops for end of expansion.
   
   At any rate, with that, content wouldn't be so trivialized with time that latecomers can hardly even experience the fights without having 7 friends willing to "waste" time with them on a Min Item Level, and catch-up potential would naturally increase over time for those who join late but want to actually some collect things before the expansion is over.
   
   
2. Allow Minimum Item Level runs to be queued for with matchmaking, instead of only with premades. Once the option is selected within the additional options menu, a second column of check boxes will appear, allowing you to queue separately but simultaneously for Regular, Minimum Item Level, or both versions of any given piece of content or of a single Roulette.
   

   Now those who want an extra challenge in dungeons can actually get a bit more, all before even needing the development cost of dungeon rebalancing or providing a new difficulty tier therein.

3. Slightly retweak tanks' sustain profiles, by trading out less controllable / flexibly timeable elements of sustain that offer comparatively low skill expression for more controllable/timeable forms that offer more skill expression and would fit more iconically with the given job.
   

   For instance... Bloodwhetting would go back to being based on %HP, Shake it Off would heal for considerably less, and Equilibrium would gain a second charge instead of gaining a HoT. Aurora would have a chance to consume an extra tick (3s duration) for further healing each tick based on the recipient's %HP at the time of that tick and would gain its second charge much sooner but the Excog effect on Heart of Corundom would be replaced with something more timing-sensitive. Instead of (lv82+) Intervention and Holy Shelltron being largely the same skill, PLD would have to more strictly choose between flat and percentile sustain via, say, Inspirit vs. Aegis Boon, and your spells would no longer provide bonus healing to self except under Divine Might. Etc., etc.

4. Slightly reshape dungeons' damage and HP profiles. Reduce trash mob HP slightly, but create about a dozen additional attacks with little or no prior indication that trash mobs and bosses can throw out (though by different names) in order to add some random damage (i.e., not on just the tank) and additional tank pressure both.
   

   These can be the likes of tethers, baitables (melee should play the edge of the AoE stack once focused, dropping the AOE far enough out not to cost their co-melee uptime before swapping to the other side and maintaining their radial AoEs / ranged should aim linear AoEs out, away from others, or take proximity-damage radial AoEs completely out / etc.), quick conal or linear cleaves (to encourage tanks' being mindful of others' positioning), or cast-timed busters without AoE indicators nonetheless worth stunning to avoid their burst damage or afflictions, etc.
   
   These can even be the occasional bit of CC that'd cause one to want to cleave their Stupor-ed ally, the occasional bit of forced aggro loss, fixate mechanics, etc. Just whatever helps shake things up and adds a bit more tank pressure and random damage, both.

5. Do similar to the above for trial and raid boss fights, too. Sprinkle some additional mechanics here and there for minor random damage and some slightly chaotic extra pressure.

• As a bit of added QoL (via simplifying calculation bloat) and to further offer a bit more pressure between set/scripted attacks, remove the Tank Mastery (-20% Damage Taken) and Maim and Mend (+30% Damage/Healing) traits from Tanks and Healers, respectively, but, to also reshape relative healing requirements, do not compensate these fully.
  

  Reduce only the damage of lethal tankbusters (those that would kill if not for mitigation) and slightly reduce those just below them in damage dealt, squishing that higher end down / effectively raising previously less significant damage up. Additionally, decrease the damage only of the most bursty of raid-wides and random-target attacks (ones that would need stacked GCD and oGCD healing to be dealt with), effectively raising the relative healing requirements of all else.

• Finally, reduce all enemy damage and player HP, both, while decreasing healing potencies, all by the same portion, so that we don't have these oddities of 300 potency spammable attacks but 800 potency spammable heals.
  

  This just keeps things altogether simpler and seemingly in balance (and would future-proof new types of buffs or customizations if we so pleased).

Would those kinds of things appeal to you, Pyur?