Would you rather healers get more complex healing kits or more complex DPS kits?

[Aravell]

You know how everyone complains about bosses tutorializing way too long? Like bosses do one simple mechanic at a time, taking forever to do so, showing all their mechanics before actually layering mechs and becoming fun? What if they brought back pre-boss trash and gave the trash some of the boss’s mechanics so the boss would be able to get to the fun part?

If you want a tutorial before the boss so the boss can get into the action immediately, why not just make the doorboss a tutorial rather than an unrelated fight? O4S did a fantastic job of this, Exdeath introduced you to basic stuff like Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, Holy and Flare. Neo Exdeath spawns in and immediately hits you with Delta Attack as his first mechanic, which combines what you know from the doorboss, Flare and Holy also make a return in his Grand Cross mechanics.

[Shurrikhan]

If you want a tutorial before the boss so the boss can get into the action immediately, why not just make the doorboss a tutorial rather than an unrelated fight? O4S did a fantastic job of this, Exdeath introduced you to basic stuff like Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, Holy and Flare. Neo Exdeath spawns in and immediately hits you with Delta Attack as his first mechanic, which combines what you know from the doorboss, Flare and Holy also make a return in his Grand Cross mechanics.

Isn't that effectively during-the-boss tutorial still, just with a checkpoint? I'm cool with either, but if the point was something that can let the actual start of the fight begin at full bore (and perhaps make for a more immersive raid environment to boot), a door-boss doesn't seem that, especially if literally just a P1 (rather than being split like a Faust-type).

[SargeTheSeagull]

If you want a tutorial before the boss so the boss can get into the action immediately, why not just make the doorboss a tutorial rather than an unrelated fight? O4S did a fantastic job of this, Exdeath introduced you to basic stuff like Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, Holy and Flare. Neo Exdeath spawns in and immediately hits you with Delta Attack as his first mechanic, which combines what you know from the doorboss, Flare and Holy also make a return in his Grand Cross mechanics.

Exdeath is by FAR my favorite door boss. I hate fights with checkpoints 8 minutes in. If every door boss were like Exdeath I’d be all for it

[Shurrikhan]

Is it insane of me to want the occasional timed defense or timed gauntlet run as a raid "floor", instead of just another level to stop at to cast some new lighting on the tier's rectangular/circular elevator?

[Aravell]

Isn't that effectively during-the-boss tutorial still, just with a checkpoint? I'm cool with either, but if the point was something that can let the actual start of the fight begin at full bore (and perhaps make for a more immersive raid environment to boot), a door-boss doesn't seem that, especially if literally just a P1 (rather than being split like a Faust-type).

My thinking is more like: Why put in tutorial adds into raids when you already have a doorboss to use? We could be using the doorboss as a tutorial before the checkpoint so the actual boss can start at full speed rather than what we have now, where the doorboss and the actual boss both have different mechanics with little to no overlap.

Honestly, Stormblood design was better for this. Fights back then started at full without the tutorial phases and they loop halfway through so you can never skip anything of substance. I think that was better for speed of the fight and also you can't actually skip the hard stuff unless you can somehow kill the boss within the first half of the fight duration.

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly, Stormblood design was better for this. Fights back then started at full without the tutorial phases and they loop halfway through so you can never skip anything of substance. I think that was better for speed of the fight and also you can't actually skip the hard stuff unless you can somehow kill the boss within the first half of the fight duration.

It's kind of 'on us as the players' for that one though, I recall people complaining that the fight 'was over at 40%' and that the post-climactic ultimate sequence timeline was boring cos 'its just the same stuff again'. Getting past Hello World 2 meant you'd hit enrage, guaranteed (or clear), for example. I do think it was better with Kefka, and a lot better with Exdeath, where they didn't just 'loop' per se, but used stuff you'd seen already, albeit in a different order from 'pre GrandCrossOmega/pre Forsaken3'. But we can all agree that it went too far in the opposite direction as early as SHB. A good example is Shadowkeeper from E10, where the best mechanic, the one that makes you go 'oh that's a cool way to solve it', Voidgate 2 (everyone uses each other's clone to take the 2man towers), just gets skipped because 'we have damage'. Or more recently, Curtain Call got heavily skipped, reducing the healing required (wow, now the point is related to the thread topic). Dominion and it's double damage buff is a bit better, since it is a very 'simple' by comparison phase, so it's more like 'you cleared High Concept 2, getting to enrage is kinda free', like SB raids. And for P12S, the Hello World 2 of that fight is probably Pangenesis

I guess P12S is a good example of the better way to do it, actually. After Pangenesis (the big spectacle mechanic for twitch viewers to go 'wtf is this' at), it has remixes of the previous mechanics, 'Classical Concepts but it spins', 'Caloric but it's easy' and UAV 2. But yes, would be nice if the doorboss was used as a tutorial of sorts for the 'main boss' (and ideally was not the same duration AS the main boss). Again, P12S actually has this, kind of. the black/white towers of P1 are used again in Pangenesis. The sad part is that they're ONLY used in Pangenesis. Wouldn't it have been cool if, instead of just 'stack for this fire thing', the 2man stacks in Caloric, were black/white towers again? Or, what if there was a UAV phase that split you into 2 groups of 4, and when a player drops a tower position (like in P1), it appears on the other team's arena side to resolve?

[Aravell]

It's kind of 'on us as the players' for that one though, I recall people complaining that the fight 'was over at 40%' and that the post-climactic ultimate sequence timeline was boring cos 'its just the same stuff again'. Getting past Hello World 2 meant you'd hit enrage, guaranteed (or clear), for example. I do think it was better with Kefka, and a lot better with Exdeath, where they didn't just 'loop' per se, but used stuff you'd seen already, albeit in a different order from 'pre GrandCrossOmega/pre Forsaken3'. But we can all agree that it went too far in the opposite direction as early as SHB. A good example is Shadowkeeper from E10, where the best mechanic, the one that makes you go 'oh that's a cool way to solve it', Voidgate 2 (everyone uses each other's clone to take the 2man towers), just gets skipped because 'we have damage'. Or more recently, Curtain Call got heavily skipped, reducing the healing required (wow, now the point is related to the thread topic). Dominion and it's double damage buff is a bit better, since it is a very 'simple' by comparison phase, so it's more like 'you cleared High Concept 2, getting to enrage is kinda free', like SB raids.

Honestly, I would rather have fights that ramped up fast and then looped over fights that ramp up slow (or basically never ramp up until the very end like P7S). As for mechanics that are interesting that were easily skipped, it's been happening since the first tier of Eden (Cycles from E2S, Black Smokers from E3S and the entire double Titan phase in E4S). As for mechanics like Curtain Call where you have to actually heal that are now skipped, it has already been happening ever since ShB (Notable examples include Wyrm's Lament 2 in E8S, Cycles from E11S, Terminal Relativity in E12S). That's also why I'd rather see looping fights again, can't skip Hello World 2 on content, so you have to be good enough to heal it.

I guess P12S is a good example of the better way to do it, actually.

P12S might be a better way of executing, but I'd still really like to see a shorter P1 like Exdeath was. Exdeath was the perfect length for a doorboss, not long enough to overstay his welcome and not short enough to be too simple, yet long enough to function as a tutorial. P12S P1 is 7:30 and P2 is 8:50, combined it's 16:20, that's 1 minute off TEA and 3 minutes off DSR, that's way too long for a savage fight in my opinion.

My honest opinion though, is that savage should ramp up fast from the start with normal mode being the tutorial.

[ForsakenRoe]

P12S might be a better way of executing, but I'd still really like to see a shorter P1 like Exdeath was. Exdeath was the perfect length for a doorboss, not long enough to overstay his welcome and not short enough to be too simple, yet long enough to function as a tutorial. P12S P1 is 7:30 and P2 is 8:50, combined it's 16:20, that's 1 minute off TEA and 3 minutes off DSR, that's way too long for a savage fight in my opinion.

My honest opinion though, is that savage should ramp up fast from the start with normal mode being the tutorial.

Oh for sure on the durations, it's kinda wild that the phase 1 is often a whole separate fight worth of duration, with no loot beyond 'you can do the real fight' to show for it. Like, we're at the point where we could, eg for P12S, add one more Superchain Theory to P1, add one more rendition of Caloric Theory to P2 (to bulk both fights out by another 90-120s duration) and just have 5 'full' fights in the tier, with this new '4th fight' dropping, idk a second copy of the upgrade materials probably (twine/shine/the other one for weapons). Maybe a second tomestone so another DPS can go for a tome weapon week 1 for the push

Also ty for reminding me, I've never seen a mechanic get murdered in cold blood by gear scaling harder than E11S Cycles was, seeing what it was like week 1, and what it was like a few months later with BIS, absolute tragedy

[Saraide]

I have a question for y'all. Which healer do you think should have the most complex dps rotation? Should it be white mage because white mage's healing is the most simple? Should it be sage because sage was advertised for that?

[Sebazy]

IMHO Sadge just makes the most sense, it's what the job was marketed as.