[Discussion and Feedback] Incoming damage vs. Utility

[RitsukoSonoda]

I mentioned this in the 'boring dps rotations for healers' thread, but I wonder what it would be like if when a boss does an attack that also applies damage over time, that mitigation buffs/debuff no longer affect the damage over time component placing more responsibility on the healers. Overall I do think that mitigation buffs/debuffs are bit too strong/prevalent.

Cloud of Darkness actually applies a DoT to the tank with it's basic attacks. This seems to cause the majority of tank deaths I see during that fight since shield mitigation is limited at that lvl range and normal mitigation doesn't help with it. So if the healers lapse in paying attention the person tanking hits the floor due to being punched and DoT tic'ed at the same time.

[Jeeqbit]

Cloud of Darkness actually applies a DoT to the tank with it's basic attacks. This seems to cause the majority of tank deaths I see during that fight since shield mitigation is limited at that lvl range and normal mitigation doesn't help with it. So if the healers lapse in paying attention the person tanking hits the floor due to being punched and DoT tic'ed at the same time.

When I've done the alliance raid minimum item level, we actually had to do tank swaps for it. I vaguely remember this happening when I did it back in ARR or Heavensward too.

[RitsukoSonoda]

When I've done the alliance raid minimum item level, we actually had to do tank swaps for it. I vaguely remember this happening when I did it back in ARR or Heavensward too.

Swapping was one way to deal with it. Trials back then also created a necessity for tank swapping as well due to stacking debuffs generated by the boss.

[Zairava]

I mentioned this in the 'boring dps rotations for healers' thread, but I wonder what it would be like if when a boss does an attack that also applies damage over time, that mitigation buffs/debuff no longer affect the damage over time component placing more responsibility on the healers. Overall I do think that mitigation buffs/debuffs are bit too strong/prevalent.

This is also a good point, regarding bleeds (or DoT in general), more bosses could use that imo. Doing that while reducing how potent our party mit(or debuffs) could serve to make healers more engaged with healing GCDs..maybe. Depends on the tuning.


Regarding the topic of tank swaps, not to derail the subject of the OP, but I do wish we had to tank swap more in normal mode content..I have fond memories of learning to do that via Ex-death back in Deltascape as a New player.

[Absurdity]

Swapping was one way to deal with it. Trials back then also created a necessity for tank swapping as well due to stacking debuffs generated by the boss.

Not just trials back then. I remember tank swapping simply because my co-tank still had all their defensives, and I would've had to either swap to Defiance or pray, as late as Stormblood.

It was really only with Shadowbringers that this started to shift heavily. Bosses started doing so little tank damage and busters were so spaced out that the "main" tank could cover every attack with just their own cooldowns.
Which is why a lot of bosses nowadays either give a vuln up debuff to force a swap or put a buster on both tanks, because otherwise the "off" tank would just be sitting on their defensives the entire fight.

[Jeeqbit]

This is also a good point, regarding bleeds (or DoT in general), more bosses could use that imo. Doing that while reducing how potent our party mit(or debuffs) could serve to make healers more engaged with healing GCDs..maybe. Depends on the tuning.

They did do that with Abyssos Savage at least so there is some evidence of what happens there.

Regarding the topic of tank swaps, not to derail the subject of the OP, but I do wish we had to tank swap more in normal mode content..I have fond memories of learning to do that via Ex-death back in Deltascape as a New player.

That was never actually necessary, but a lot of tanks did it anyway. PLDs could simply use Cover to take one of them. Tanks were meant to stack together in Deltascape 1 as well, but nobody remembers that now.

It continued in Shadowbringers. E4 normal has a vulnerability that you get from the tank buster and at minimum item level it is rough, but overall, not impossible to survive if you don't swap. Same happens in E10 normal and people did try to swap there but it was not required on release if you were good at tanking.

We could go backwards instead and look at alex, which has A6 with the cuff mechanic, which was particularly rough if there weren't swaps either for the TBs or when vuln stacks got high which continued into the next boss, but I do remember finding ways to get through the fights if I used my cooldowns well and had good healers. There was also A7 where people used to swap because the vulns made it rough, but once again this wasn't absolutely essential. There was also A8, where you stack with the other tank for the double tank buster, but using the power of tank mitigation you can make up for the lack of a co-tank. Oh A5 also had that big boss attack that applies vulns then hits hard if you don't swap, but this one you could prepare for by combining lots of mits ahead of the stun. Overall this was the tier where it probably mattered most in normal content.

The point here is most of these normal mode swaps only slightly matter at minimum item level and at release people are not usually minimum item level anyway. But that takes us to the discussion of how story content is designed for a minimum item level that is far below what any active player that does more than just MSQ would have.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Not just trials back then. I remember tank swapping simply because my co-tank still had all their defensives, and I would've had to either swap to Defiance or pray, as late as Stormblood.

It was really only with Shadowbringers that this started to shift heavily. Bosses started doing so little tank damage and busters were so spaced out that the "main" tank could cover every attack with just their own cooldowns.
Which is why a lot of bosses nowadays either give a vuln up debuff to force a swap or put a buster on both tanks, because otherwise the "off" tank would just be sitting on their defensives the entire fight.

IMO the overall gameplay was far more engaging back then. Tank stance wasn't just an aggro on/off button, positioning mattered because various trash mobs and bosses had instant AoE or splash attacks, Knowing the proper time and place to use things like cleric stance or blood for blood (which many DRG never figured out hence the floor tank meme), Many bosses had more involved mechanics, some duties and boss fights had environmental mechanics, etc...

Duties weren't as much of a homogenized cookie cutter like they are now where every enemy and boss now declares and telegraphs it's special attacks 10 seconds before actually doing them.

[Rithy255]

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?

Barely any DPS Jobs (outside role actions) have "party mits" in the first place, I like party mits and utility personally not every DPS should offer them outside role actions, Tanks? It's already kind of their job to provide support and utility outside of taking hits, tanks are already "boring DPS" as it is, I think they need to actually focus more on tanks utility while also making their combat less stale.

Your second point here is the actual issue, Theirs not enough damage in fights in general, but more then that healers have too much OGCD's, both Healers for one shouldn't be able to keep 100% DPS uptime, The Trade off on DPS having utility advantages should be A: Makes the healers life easier B: can save healer GCD's for attacks, Obviously in current design Utility isn't that useful as it should be, but that's down to healer design, DPS higher actually doesn't matter as much as people make it out It only really matters in Speed clears of in situations where the DPS check is harsh, The problem is DPS wins by default with how little you really need utility currently. I'd argue making it so healers having to GCD heal also helps healers quite a lot gameplay wise, because it would be cool to actually fit in DPS while you have to make a choice when to heal and when to damage.

Even if you took all the "raid" wides out, Healers would have still way too much OGCD options. Personally I want to play a game where Jobs actually help each other... a team based game. But that can only really happen if we focus on fixing healers first, If almost every DPS became a selfish job then no DPS would be a selfish job which just sort of makes the game bland when we're already in a very bland state currently.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Barely any DPS Jobs (outside role actions) have "party mits" in the first place, I like party mits and utility personally not every DPS should offer them outside role actions, Tanks? It's already kind of their job to provide support and utility outside of taking hits, tanks are already "boring DPS" as it is, I think they need to actually focus more on tanks utility while also making their combat less stale.

Your second point here is the actual issue, Theirs not enough damage in fights in general, but more then that healers have too much OGCD's, both Healers for one shouldn't be able to keep 100% DPS uptime, The Trade off on DPS having utility advantages should be A: Makes the healers life easier B: can save healer GCD's for attacks, Obviously in current design Utility isn't that useful as it should be, but that's down to healer design, DPS higher actually doesn't matter as much as people make it out It only really matters in Speed clears of in situations where the DPS check is harsh, The problem is DPS wins by default with how little you really need utility currently. I'd argue making it so healers having to GCD heal also helps healers quite a lot gameplay wise, because it would be cool to actually fit in DPS while you have to make a choice when to heal and when to damage.

Even if you took all the "raid" wides out, Healers would have still way too much OGCD options. Personally I want to play a game where Jobs actually help each other... a team based game. But that can only really happen if we focus on fixing healers first, If almost every DPS became a selfish job then no DPS would be a selfish job which just sort of makes the game bland when we're already in a very bland state currently.

As I'd mentioned in other threads, the majority of issues with the healer role aren't from the jobs themselves and are more a compounded result of numerous changes they've done to the game claiming to make it more "accessible" paired with oversimplification done intentionally to make the role easier to play because they apparently thought at some point that people didn't play healer role jobs because it was hard. Almost like they never did any research into MMORPGs in general including the 2 other SE entries FFXI and DQX and realize that Tank and Healer jobs/classes are always minorities in the player base unless said job is found to be horrendously OP like the Accretian Mercenary in RF Online which upon kitting out top tier gear I could tank 400 players + a pile of support NPCs during their big 3 faction war events and not die once during the entire thing even when they dropped a tactical nuke on my head.

[Rithy255]

I think considering the 1 Tank, 1 Healer in dungeons, 2 DPS / 2 Tank / 2 Healer / 4 DPS raids shows that they're aware that DPS is just generally going to be more popular. I think it's a pretty fair spread for games, Ranged jobs are actually in a pretty similar boat to tanks/healers as they're more rare then melee, considering how much melee options we got (and we're getting more lol) It's no wonder why DPS is heavily favoured even though we got twice as much.

In DT If you combine tank and healer it's a ratio of 8 Support Jobs vs 13 Dps Jobs, So of course DPS is going to be played more theirs just more playstyles (literally aswell tanks/healers bassically have the same playstyle at this point), a lot of people want to level a Few DPS most likely even if you main tank/healer esp considering theirs three different DPS categories.

Honestly though this is a Lose/Lose situation, because if anything the current state of healers drives away more people then not, from other games I've seen tank is usually a even less popular role then healer but In ff14 it seems more common then healer, is that because tank is well designed? No It's because tank is semi tolerable but even tank has it's own issues.

Healer needs to appeal to healer players, Tank needs to appeal to Tank players at the of the day, The solution of making them "dps" doesn't fix that because DPS players want to play DPS not boring slow DPS, I'm obviously not saying healers/tank's shouldn't DPS (I actually like that they contribute a good amount of damage) but what makes doing DPS fun on tank/healer is that you're meant to be doing other things while also dpsing, with healers people can argue that you have to still heal sometimes, but throwing out a ogcd here and there isn't really cutting it for healer, what I'd find fun is having some DPS procs and extra skills but also having to actually make a choice between gcd healing or not, Tanks aggro management, stances can go, but the replacement being a even easier dps rotation? being super tanky and kitchen sinking all CDs on tank buster just isn't fun, I can only hope they give tanks more interactive abilities with the party, beyond just having different rotations to make that more fun.

This even effects DPS players, "phys ranged" on the job page says they're meant to provide support (when they don't really offer that much outside of raid buffs or one extra party mit), Beyond that they're so common that they have to switch to tank/healer a lot just so they dont have to wait 20 minutes for a single duty (I do this myself when I want to play something like BLM but it's just too much of a hassle to wait).