#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Kohashi]

Also look at how prevalent that MTTT is starting to become. First we had M1S with raining cats and now we have the ice phase in ex3. Heck even the stack that tries to force the swap with the tethers can still easily be ignored with invulns and of course we have reject authority.

But how is that SE's fault? It's a solution the players found. What exactly do you want them to do? Apply a dot like p5s or p8s so you cannot simply take the same hit again. It is an EX fight only.
Every mechanic has several ways of being solved. It's absolutely normal for the players to find and use the brain-dead strategies that offer the most consistent results. You can solve every mechanic in the "intended way" and how you see fit if you wish.

[Absurdity]

But how is that SE's fault? It's a solution the players found. What exactly do you want them to do? Apply a dot like p5s or p8s so you cannot simply take the same hit again. It is an EX fight only.
Every mechanic has several ways of being solved. It's absolutely normal for the players to find and use the brain-dead strategies that offer the most consistent results. You can solve every mechanic in the "intended way" and how you see fit if you wish.

That's how it ideally should be.

Over the years however this has become increasingly sparse. We see it more and more in both mechanics and job design that the devs do not want player agency, they see it as a failure when we don't execute fights the "intended" way.
Damage downs on any hit that you were supposed to dodge, body check instant wipes, completely rigid rotations and mechanics dances, things like the ice phase tether in the current extreme are by far the minority.

[Kohashi]

That's how it ideally should be.

Over the years however this has become increasingly sparse. We see it more and more in both mechanics and job design that the devs do not want player agency, they see it as a failure when we don't play the game the "intended" way.
Damage downs on any hit that you were supposed to dodge, body check instant wipes, completely rigid rotations and execution of mechanics, things like the ice phase tether in the current extreme are by far the minority.

and it is. Join a blind pro group and find your own way to solve the same mechanic.

Just because people adopt Hector, Rinon, Kobe, or whatever other guide maker says, SE is not removing the player's agency. The only intended way SE wants you is to solve the mechanic and not stand in bad, the rest is up to you. It's absolutely normal for you to be penalized if you fail to resolve a mechanic.

In addition, every single game that I have played had this "rigid" (optimal) rotation that offered the biggest and most consistent damage or ways to solve mechanics. TERA, WOW, Dragon NEST, Blade and Soul, Guild Wars 2 (just to name only a few), hell even League of Legends which is a MOBA also has a very rigid way of handling lanes and farming as well as skirmish encounters.

I am not even sure what exactly people want at this point apart from complaining.

[Mortex]

But how is that SE's fault? It's a solution the players found. What exactly do you want them to do? Apply a dot like p5s or p8s so you cannot simply take the same hit again. It is an EX fight only.
Every mechanic has several ways of being solved. It's absolutely normal for the players to find and use the brain-dead strategies that offer the most consistent results. You can solve every mechanic in the "intended way" and how you see fit if you wish.

Like how they wanted in uwu for Garuda to be awoken in the bubble phase and people just taking 2 stack on a caster for the tether from the adds to do it almost at the end of the phase completely ignoring the “new mechanics”.

[Kohashi]

Like how they wanted in uwu for Garuda to be awoken in the bubble phase and people just taking 2 stack on a caster for the tether from the adds to do it almost at the end of the phase completely ignoring the “new mechanics”.

I have only seen Garuda's In/out mechanic a handful of times, I very rarely see Ifrit's dashes to the point I have no clue how to solve it now (lol). Ultima probably has less skip since it actually leaves the arena for a while.

[BunnyQueen]

They need to go back and adjust all dungeons level sync, hard sync all stats, boost standard damage, make more damage unavoidable. Boom both tank and healer are more engaging.

[AmiableApkallu]

They need to go back and adjust all dungeons level sync, hard sync all stats, boost standard damage, make more damage unavoidable. Boom both tank and healer are more engaging.

It's not only the quantity of damage that could do with some tweaking. It's also the pacing.

Predictable damage can provide only so much engagement. Predictable means it eventually becomes rote.

Crit autos need to make a come back. Random chip damage to random party members. Non-fatal mechanics where the likely outcome is that people avoid some but not all of the outgoing damage. Etc.

[KageTokage]

It's awkward that I felt more satisfied healing Byakko unreal then any of the current savage fights simply because you're actually allowed to cover for mistakes due to virtually none of the mechanics being immediately lethal and you can potentially survive things like the expanding AoEs overlapping, too few people in stack markers, or the add being too healthy by layering mitigation and timing heals.

Granted, the fight is easier as a consequence but it made me actually feel like I was playing my role better.

[Aravell]

The thing is, "balance so every job is viable" is a giant lie. The reason some jobs are not viable in certain fights in the first place is because of the move towards rigidity over flexibility.

Back in HW, if we had extended movement phases, BRD can choose to drop Minuet or spam Feint for less of a damage loss than simply not attacking. Even as recently as in EW, standard BLM rotation was said to be garbage for TOP p6, so BLM players worked around it with alternate lines.

The reason we have jobs that suck in certain fights rests squarely on the fact that the dev team forced every job into only one correct way of playing, there's no flexibility, there's no creativity, the job either sucks for that fight or it doesn't, so they try and "solve" this problem of their own creation by making the jobs that suck more like the jobs that don't suck.

[Supersnow845]

BLM especially is constantly getting hamstrung by the fact that the devs only design for hard mechanics these days is arena wide marathons and they really just don’t seem to know how to actually deal with casters

It’s like they design every mechanic for melee and tanks which instantly invalidates phys ranged advantage then tries (and often fails) to shove the casters into this design and it just doesn’t work a lot of the time