[Discussion and Feedback] Incoming damage vs. Utility

[Zairava]

Something that's come to mind the last few weeks is "Is it really the amount of incoming damage that's the issue, or is it that we have too much potent utility at our disposal?".

I feel like there's been a very obvious notable increase in how much party-wide damage mitigation and healing these past couple expansions. So much so that we're invalidating raid-wides even on content launch.

The problem here is, that the incoming damage has NOT been tuned to account for this in casual content, not even the end-game on patch content.

When not using these tools, things feel like they hit much harder..what I'd normally consider the "healthy amount". Not enough to kill, but enough for it to actually matter.

So that brought to my attention just how much party-wide mitigation and healing we actually have. It easily overwhelms the damage we would normally receive.

Now I'm not saying we should go and remove every single one that we have outside of healers, but something has to give. We can't just have the damage increased too high because then it's unhealable, but we already feel the affects of it being too low due to us being able to negate it near completely.

So my thoughts here are, a couple routes could be taken:

• Party/Raid-wide mits can be reduced in kits that aren't healers
• Potent aoes are dished out by bosses more often. Essentially creating heal checks that happen way more often.
• both of the above

What are your thoughts on this?

[RitsukoSonoda]

Something you don't really see much anymore that we had back in ARR was enemies and bosses that would target random non tank party members with instant special attacks that would either deal a chunk of damage, apply debuffs, or both. An example being the gargoyle enemies. People know them for their Desolation line AoE, However they used to randomly throw swords at ppl further down the enmity list as well.

[Jeeqbit]

Something that's come to mind the last few weeks is "Is it really the amount of incoming damage that's the issue, or is it that we have too much potent utility at our disposal?".

What I can tell you, for certain, is that Thordan Extreme was way harder in Heavensward in large part because a Warrior couldn't just press Shake It Off and do the healer's job for them. This was true for the unreal trials that came before it as well, such as Sophia and Ultima, which are way more difficult at level 60/50 because of how reliant tanks are on the healers at that level.

At level 90 you just press Bloodwhetting and Shake It Off and the healers don't even need to worry so much.

We also didn't have so frequent mitigation back then. A short cooldown such as Bloodwhetting is a big one as it is, but the cooldown time of Sentinel, Vengeance, Nebula and Shadow Wall was reduced as well and we didn't have Reprisal on all tanks (Paladins could reduce physical damage and Dark Knights could reduce magic damage). So you had to really time your cooldowns right for the upcoming add phase.

notable increase in how much party-wide damage mitigation and healing these past couple expansions. So much so that we're invalidating raid-wides even on content launch.

I don't think this is true in Extreme and Savage. In the first Pandaemonium tier, I saw the entire party coordinating Addles, Feints, Reprisals, tank and healer mit, just to prevent wipes to simple raid-wides which were common without doing this. I've still seen how vitally important that is, even in the latest extreme trial, where I have seen a simple raid-wide dot wipe the party or simple phase changes wipe the party, prompting me to adjust my tank cooldown usage to help the healers out. The last phase can especially overwhelm the party if nobody gets the mitigation right.

I had not particularly felt like this was so important in the past. Sure I used Reprisal on aoes, especially aoe bleeds and sure healers were usually expected to have a shield up, but coordinating the mit to this extent with addles, feints and reprisals to prevent wipes felt ramped up to me and I am happy with this.

The problem here is, that the incoming damage has NOT been tuned to account for this in casual content, not even the end-game on patch content.

Raid-wides in casual content have never felt very threatening to be honest. The most threatening I have seen it is probably in normal raids on release day, but as soon everyone increased their item level, they became trivial.

Party/Raid-wide mits can be reduced in kits that aren't healers

I disagree with this. The job of a tank is to protect the party. Tanks should have the responsibility for putting up barriers and mitigation. The entire concept of a barrier healer steps on tanks' toes, but the concept of tanks having regens on Shake It Off and Divine Veil steps on healers' toes.

[Nizzi]

I disagree with this. The job of a tank is to protect the party. Tanks should have the responsibility for putting up barriers and mitigation. The entire concept of a barrier healer steps on tanks' toes, but the concept of tanks having regens on Shake It Off and Divine Veil steps on healers' toes.

LOL
you cannot be serious, you have to be trolling

[Zairava]

I don't think this is true in Extreme and Savage. In the first Pandaemonium tier, I saw the entire party coordinating Addles, Feints, Reprisals, tank and healer mit, just to prevent wipes to simple raid-wides which were common without doing this. I've still seen how vitally important that is, even in the latest extreme trial, where I have seen a simple raid-wide dot wipe the party or simple phase changes wipe the party, prompting me to adjust my tank cooldown usage to help the healers out. The last phase can especially overwhelm the party if nobody gets the mitigation right.

I had not particularly felt like this was so important in the past. Sure I used Reprisal on aoes, especially aoe bleeds and sure healers were usually expected to have a shield up, but coordinating the mit to this extent with addles, feints and reprisals to prevent wipes felt ramped up to me and I am happy with this.

I didn't put this in the OP, but I am talking about normal mode content.

Raid-wides in casual content have never felt very threatening to be honest. The most threatening I have seen it is probably in normal raids on release day, but as soon everyone increased their item level, they became trivial.

It doesn't need to be, it just has to be threatening enough. A single raid-wide isn't a whole lot with just flat damage and no bleeds, but needing to keep the party up for 2-4 raid-wides that will kill without healers healing through it would be nice. I still think Zeromus handled it quite well in terms of single raid-wide damage with that one cast I forget the name of in phase 1

I disagree with this. The job of a tank is to protect the party. Tanks should have the responsibility for putting up barriers and mitigation. The entire concept of a barrier healer steps on tanks' toes, but the concept of tanks having regens on Shake It Off and Divine Veil steps on healers' toes.

..huh? Is this serious?

I didn't say they had to be removed, but how potent they are could be reduced.

I think the healing on Shake it Off and Divine Veil should go, yes...but tanks giving party-wide mitigation is not a mandatory feature. Party support of that nature should be on healers first and foremost lol.

[Jeeqbit]

tanks giving party-wide mitigation is not a mandatory feature. Party support of that nature should be on healers first and foremost lol.

It shouldn't, because as I said, the job of a tank is to protect the party. This is achieved primarily by drawing the attention of enemies, but also by reducing the incoming damage to the party, such as by using tank limit break, applying a single-target support buff to party members or to the party, or reducing the outgoing damage of the boss with something like Reprisal.

Meanwhile, a healer's job is to... heal.

[Zairava]

It shouldn't, because as I said, the job of a tank is to protect the party. This is achieved primarily by drawing the attention of enemies, but also by reducing the incoming damage to the party, such as by using tank limit break, applying a single-target support buff to party members or to the party, or reducing the outgoing damage of the boss with something like Reprisal.

Meanwhile, a healer's job is to... heal.

That is...incredibly one-noted. Different styles of healers have already existed for near a couple decades now. Pure Healer, Shield Healer, etc. Even in basic RPG's healers generally have spells for protection (such as protect and shell, for example). If there was only one style the population of healers would already be much, MUCH smaller than it already is.

Tanks are already protecting the party by being the ones taking the brunt of the damage and have cooldowns to soften the blows, healers are already supporting the party to keep them alive it just makes more sense for them to be able to give party/raid-wide mitigation as well.

[Jeeqbit]

That is...incredibly one-noted. Different styles of healers have already existed for near a couple decades now. Pure Healer, Shield Healer, etc. Even in basic RPG's healers generally have spells for protection (such as protect and shell, for example). If there was only one style the population of healers would already be much, MUCH smaller than it already is.

It's not too much of a problem that healers can cast barriers because it's a team effort, but ultimately, a big part of what I enjoy about tanking is reducing the incoming damage to the party. I could not count the amount of times I have saved party members or entire parties from dying due to timely Reprisals and tank mitigations, which reduced the damage just enough to save them because they had vuln stacks or weren't topped off.

What makes it a problem is when a tank blames the healer for not mitigating always. In parties today that is common thing I see and yet I am thinking, you know, tanks play a big role in this too...

The tank mitigation was never an issue either, because we even had Divine Veil in Heavensward. The issue was in Endwalker when they added a regen effect to it, because now I randomly decide to do a healer's job for them and heal the whole party.

[Zairava]

It's not too much of a problem that healers can cast barriers because it's a team effort, but ultimately, a big part of what I enjoy about tanking is reducing the incoming damage to the party. I could not count the amount of times I have saved party members or entire parties from dying due to timely Reprisals and tank mitigations, which reduced the damage just enough to save them because they had vuln stacks or weren't topped off.

What makes it a problem is when a tank blames the healer for not mitigating always. In parties today that is common thing I see and yet I am thinking, you know, tanks play a big role in this too...

The tank mitigation was never an issue either, because we even had Divine Veil in Heavensward. The issue was in Endwalker when they added a regen effect to it, because now I randomly decide to do a healer's job for them and heal the whole party.

Like I said before, I don't think party mit needs to be necessarily removed from the tanks. I just think that the party mitigation as a whole needs to be dialed back a notch, because the only other solution to balance out normal mode content is to just make things hit harder to account for it, but that would mean balancing the damage to that extreme if we are to keep every ability that does it.

Now personally, I would like if they were to balance out to that extreme, but this is normal mode we're talking about.

I mean lets take a brief review of what we got this expansion(minus healers).

• Feint and Addle effect both types of damage, which means both can be applied for every aoe now. ([Physical/Magical:] 10%/5% and 5/10%, respectively)
• RDM got Magick Barrier (reduces damage by 10%, increases incoming healing by 5%)
• Warrior got Shake it Off buffed not once, but TWICE. (got healing, and then Regen on top of that)
• Paladin got a heal on top of Divine Veil

There's also (added before Endwalker but still exist today)

• Reprisal (10% mit)
• (PLD) Passage of Arms (15% mit), though this is a case by case basis if you aren't trying to snapshot
• Dark Missionary/Heart of Light (DRK/GNB| 10% Magic mit)

It's absolutely ridiculous how much we actually have at our disposal, what I listed doesn't even include what healers have at their disposal. While yes..it can indeed prevent players from dying if they have vuln stacks, the other end of "But if players don't have stacks" needs to be considered, because if you don't, even if you aren't geared it will barely even put a scratch on you, and with how infrequent raid-wides or heal checks happen just means player's will likely already have tools available for the next one.

[Jeeqbit]

I just think that the party mitigation as a whole needs to be dialed back a notch

I disagree. If the damage is being reduced due to everyone using their mitigations, then that is because everyone is doing their job.

But I doubt it is really that everyone is doing their job in casual content, because usually people in casual content are not very good at playing their job, so the problem is more likely that the outgoing damage is too low, especially when you are even slightly above the minimum item level.

Feint and Addle effect both types of damage, which means both can be applied for every aoe now. ([Physical/Magical:] 10%/5% and 5/10%, respectively)

I don't feel like DPS used to use these as much. It was only when it was more important for clearing high-end duties in Endwalker and they were made to mitigate both types of damage that the prevalence of using them increased a lot.

RDM got Magick Barrier (reduces damage by 10%, increases incoming healing by 5%)

Alright, but many DPS have this. Bard, Machinist, Dancers and Monks have some of these effects.

I agree that the ranged physical mitigation steps on the toes of tanks a bit as well, but it is also usually just 10% mitigation so it's only significant mitigation if everyone uses it ie. 2 tanks use theirs, 2 healers use theirs, a RDM uses it and a ranged physical uses it. And this is contingent on them all being skilled and competent enough to do so, which many players are not, so we don't exactly have that 6x 10% mitigation + Reprisal + Addle + Feint in most parties, especially in casual content.

Warrior got Shake it Off buffed not once, but TWICE. (got healing, and then Regen on top of that)
Paladin got a heal on top of Divine Veil

These are the biggest issues, in my opinion. The ones that actually make content easier than it was in ARR and Heavensward.

But there are some other abilities that affect how easy the content is compared to then - such as Bloodwhetting, Blackest Night, Holy Sheltron, PLD spell heals and healers having an abundance of off-global heals so they don't have to cast heals anymore (to be fair, players pressured SE into this direction by always wanting to DPS and trying to heal with only abilities and pets where possible even in Heavensward).

(PLD) Passage of Arms (15% mit)

Since keeping this up long-term involves DPS loss, I think that it's fine. For example, when Ahk Morn was used in EX1, I used it briefly but I let it go the whole way through if a party member was dead and accepted the DPS loss, because this sustained 15% mit made up for the lost party member and allowed us to survive.

Reprisal (10% mit)
Dark Missionary/Heart of Light (DRK/GNB| 10% Magic mit)

No issue with these again. It's a tank's job and we've had things like this since the game began (PLD had STR down, DRK had INT down). It was never an issue until Endwalker.