Mechanic's Recommendations going forward (Inspired by the healers)

[NoOneofConsequence]

Hello everyone.
With the Healer issues being on everyone's mind, I started brainstorming some mechanic ideas that could flesh out some of the encounters in the future.

Disclaimer, I actually find the healer kits are good, but the content doesn't require them to use them to their full potential.

This is meant to be more thought provoking than absolute, so I am going to discourage flat out "That can't be done" and more "How can this change so it can be done?"

With that being said, lets party. I will describe the mechanic and the idea behind the mechanic.

#1 - 60 second DOT on entire party. 5 Ticks will kill a player - The goal is to have healers weave between healing and DPSing appropriately.

#2 - Contagion DOT targeting one player - 4 Ticks will kill a player, with each tick transferring and refreshing the DOT on another player, while applying a debuff to make subsequent Applications of the DOT fatal. - Idea is to have party shuffle around to apply the DOT to each player until the Boss removes the DOT with an room wide or something

#3 - MP Damage via Green Stack Marker - Targets healer - Healers have to stack to reduce MP Damage to 5000MP Damage , otherwise it will completely reduce healer MP to zero - MP Management is a bit laxing, so make the boss reduce MP, and follow it up with a big attack so if the mechanic fails, it's more punishing

#4 Berserk Mode - You can apply this as a pseudo phase 2 for some dungeon bosses. Basically it increases Damage by 35% and Decrease Cast Time by 35%. You could apply this for like 3 attacks and have the boss just rhyme out 3 Partywides in short succession.

#5 Silence - We got the curative, so why not require its use - The Navigator randomly targetting a DPS mid fight and smacked em really hard. Why not randomly target a healer and shove silence on them.

#6 Silencing Tankbusters - The debuff I can't recall due to Deep Dungeons only having it, but essentially it silences melee and ranged DPS. The Tankbuster would apply this to the tank as a sort of pseudo-stagger adding the silence and a slow debuff, requiring Esuna to remove.

#7 More hazards in the middle of the Arena, not just the border. Requires some Tank responsibility and positioning for the Melees, and add mechanics to move them around. And I don't mean cliffs or death squares. I mean like Slow, Silence and Paralysis squares.

#8 Utilizing more debuffs around mechanics, requiring Esuna or Rescue.

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading, I love brainstorming, so I'd love to hear other mechanical ideas!

[Jeeqbit]

#1 is fine but I doubt SE would go for it, especially in dungeons.

#2 has actually been done occasionally, but players are often just avoidant of the mechanic which they don't understand. The closest version of this I remember in casual content is in the ivalice raids, but there are similar ones in Lost City of Amdapor and one which I don't think transfers but involves being distant in Sirensong Sea. However Savage has had transferable things like the preys in A10S and E1S.

#3 fine I guess.

#4 We sorta have this in some content like with the Dohn Mheg final boss, P10's HH and O12 after one of the two bosses dies. It doesn't increase the cast time or make the damage too high, but it does make the healer have to actually heal and in a case like O12 I have actually seen it wipe parties. And of course, this raid-wide spam is in the savage versions of many raids (usually at the end) and has definitely wiped a lot of parties a lot of times.

#5 As long as it's only on one healer in 8-person content, so that the other healer can Esuna.

#6 This could happen but they removed things like stuns, sleeps, silences and pacification for a reason. Because they just aren't fun in an MMORPG. To this day, if you do a guildhest, you get slapped with random sleeps, silences, stuns, pacifications and it's just annoying. It interrupts your combo flow, which is of course on a strict 60-120 cycle that you are trying to align it with and doesn't feel good. That isn't an issue in the old single player games because your recast times are much longer, so after waiting 6-10 seconds for the timer to regenerate and spending 10-20 seconds making a decision, it doesn't feel that bad for the character to be put to sleep or silenced for a bit.

#7 That would be great but y'know, they do the boss re-centering thing now. Which will still be in Dawntrail by the way. Frosty pointed this out as something SE hasn't reversed, at least in the normal raids, despite how it causes as many problems as it solves.

#8 There could be mechanics requiring rescue, but honestly, you can use this all the time if you keep it in your mind and have a mouseover macro. I have saved so many people, from so many mechanics, in so many dungeons. It's not as niche as some people believe, you just have to have the creativity to use it when someone needs saving or adjusting.

I'd personally like them to make bosses cast Counter Stance, which reflects all the damage dealt to the boss back at the people who dealt it, requiring heavy heals in order to damage the boss. It would also motive people to damage less when healers are overwhelmed. But I can't imagine them doing anything like this outside of maybe Ultimate, Criterion and hunts.

[TaleraRistain]

If they wanted to try to implement status effects to that degree, they'd have to finally give healers AoE Esuna (or in scholar's case give it back since Selene used to have it). I can't see having to manage Esuna on multiple people really working without something like that.

[Kaixern]

I'd personally like them to make bosses cast Counter Stance, which reflects all the damage dealt to the boss back at the people who dealt it, requiring heavy heals in order to damage the boss. It would also motive people to damage less when healers are overwhelmed. But I can't imagine them doing anything like this outside of maybe Ultimate, Criterion and hunts.

Also i feel that if players were asked to slow down their dps and think during certain boss mechanics that would be met with a bigger backlash (from a lot of them) that we ever saw to this day in this game
(not to say i woudn't like this kind of stuff, on the contrary, it seems really fun and if i recall we had something similar with bosses that could only be attacked from either front/side/behind)

I think that you would need to permanently kill the scions for the playerbase to get pissed in the same way.
(but as usual i hope i'm wrong)

[NoOneofConsequence]

I was thinking of a Spell reflect type thing as well. It would be cool.

It's a shame that Debuffs seem to be less fun, and I totally get the conflict with the 60 - 120 cycle. It's just a shame that all these things that existed earlier on, just get shelved instead of reworked to try and integrate it.

It really puts SE in a bit of a pinch for variety of mechanics, specifically on the midcore/lower end of the spectrum; Where it seems to be "Just do more damage" Which is not very satisfying for me at least, primarily due to how the content is paced.

Like as an example of what I mean by satisfying, I found the Arkas Dungeon boss in Aetherfont a satisfying boss for a 4 man dungeon. Not overly complicated in its design, but the boss moves around a lot and you can't really sleep at the wheel that much. So while the boss is not hard by any means, I find it satisfying to fight it.
I found that was the most satisfying part when I dipped into Savage for a bit, the need to move around more, and still execute your class to a higher degree.
Even if they reduced the telegraphs for the second half of dungeons fights, and progress mechanics in such a way to make players move a bit more. I don't know it's tricky and of course there is no universal fix to it.
I do enjoy thinking about it though.

Like mainly because we are at level 91+ Content, some expectations on the players should be there, regardless of 4 man / Alliance / Normal Raid and such.

[Andevom]

#1 - 60 second DOT on entire party. 5 Ticks will kill a player - The goal is to have healers weave between healing and DPSing appropriately.

If Abyssal Fracture EX's Void Bio is any indicator of how this would play out, the party is doomed.

[NoOneofConsequence]

If Abyssal Fracture EX's Void Bio is any indicator of how this would play out, the party is doomed.

Then we must be doomed until we learn not to be doomed!

[NoOneofConsequence]

If Abyssal Fracture EX's Void Bio is any indicator of how this would play out, the party is doomed.

In all seriousness though, I think if they added demands onto the healers more, Then there would be a lot of this primarily due to having to break bad habits.

It would be the rough bridge that needs to be crossed so to speak.
I don't think there is a solution where they could increase the healers demands and not have a lot of party breakdowns due to not being used to the changes. I speak of at all levels. Obviously the high end players are not going to be phased by much, but not everyone is a high end player, and the mid-core would likely go through some growing pain.

[Jeeqbit]

I was thinking of a Spell reflect type thing as well. It would be cool.

It does actually exist, on an S rank called Pale Rider. It reflected everyone's attacks back at them, wiping almost everyone at the S rank, even after the expansion was no longer current. It's now at a point where it dies too fast, sadly, but it was such fun to see it kill everyone and make the healers work harder than they do in almost any content.

I found the Arkas Dungeon boss in Aetherfont a satisfying boss for a 4 man dungeon. Not overly complicated in its design, but the boss moves around a lot and you can't really sleep at the wheel that much.

I like it when bosses jump around as well. That's why, despite being a tank, I would very much like fights being like Rathalos where they just run around not caring about the tank. The fights are just more real that way.

Like mainly because we are at level 91+ Content, some expectations on the players should be there, regardless of 4 man / Alliance / Normal Raid and such.

While that is a common belief and while there is technically an increase in difficulty compared to dungeons like Sastasha, SE believes that required MSQ content should overall remain easy because many players just join/return to the game to do the story and nothing else. I can confirm that's true in my experience as well. People just return, do the story, quit for 2 years.

However, I think SE is willing to make side content a bit harder such as sidequest dungeons, normal raids, alliance raids or field operations, since the more invested players are more likely to do all the side things too or it's usually easy for the 8+ people there to resurrect them.

I don't think there is a solution where they could increase the healers demands and not have a lot of party breakdowns due to not being used to the changes.

My personal belief is that it is alright if the content is hard enough to wipe a party one time. Everyone will go back, try again and probably beat it. If it makes them wipe more than 1-3 times on average, it's probably too much.

What I don't like is when it is designed to make it unlikely to wipe even 1 time, which feels like the aim in most dungeons. Yet, there are some exceptions where SE is willing to make them challenging:

• Aetherochemical Research Facility's new last boss.
• Ktisis Hyperboreia
• The Dead Ends first boss (actually seen people struggle in the second boss).

These aren't too difficult fights, but they are difficult enough that you will see wipes or get them in progress sometimes. That's all I personally want to see. So that sprouts can feel like bosses are genuinely a bit threatening like their portrayal in the story implies.

[NoOneofConsequence]

I would very much like fights being like Rathalos where they just run around not caring about the tank

Wasn't there another boss in ARR that had no Aggro system at all and was completely untelegraphed... Stone Vigil (Hard) Maybe? He was the manticore boss, and all his attacks were untelegraphed. It's a unique system that I hope to see more of.

My personal belief is that it is alright if the content is hard enough to wipe a party one time. Everyone will go back, try again and probably beat it. If it makes them wipe more than 1-3 times on average, it's probably too much.

What I don't like is when it is designed to make it unlikely to wipe even 1 time, which feels like the aim in most dungeons. Yet, there are some exceptions where SE is willing to make them challenging:

Aetherochemical Research Facility's new last boss.
Ktisis Hyperboreia
The Dead Ends first boss (actually seen people struggle in the second boss).

These aren't too difficult fights, but they are difficult enough that you will see wipes or get them in progress sometimes. That's all I personally want to see. So that sprouts can feel like bosses are genuinely a bit threatening like their portrayal in the story implies.

I personally find the Dead Ends kind of the sweet spot, where they should try and aim for with regards to damage output of bosses. Party-Wides do actual damage, failing mechanics does like 2/3 of HP for non-tanks. TBs do something. (Looking at you Beatrice).
Though I think that gets into how much Level Sync overcapping they should allow, which is a different problem all together.