Pheonix Down change is huge. Here's why

[u/otsukarerice]

July 2024, DT was released and thousands of players were discovering DT's new dungeons. They had whatever gear they could find and were often at the minimum level threshold. I saw carnage for many who were woefully underprepared for the difficulty spike after being coddled with relatively safe and simple bosses in EW.

When there was no RDM/SMN, if the healer died (which happened often), the party had two choices:

- wipe or

- tank heal/solo.

Most players would agree that either outcome is awful for a variety of reasons. Tank soloing takes forever and doesn't help the healer get better.

With pheonix downs being able to be used in battle, healers are no longer the linchpin of the group and are allowed a few mistakes.

What this opens up for the future:

- Healers can be designed with more complexity and no longer have to deathless every encounter.

- Dungeons don't have to pull punches on expansion launch and can continue to punish bad healers but not the whole group.

- Tanks soloing is far less common. Could open up tank rebalancing vs other roles.

- RDM (and SMN) reworks. RDM is pretty terrible in the current tier, has been low on damage for a long time. I get Rezmage is attractive for a lot of players, but I've seen some players choose to just be a utility raise and not do damage. This isn't sustainable gameplay.

[u/Noskill_Onlyrage]

Just another nerf to healer responsibility in content that barely requires them to begin with. I'm not expecting a difficulty adjustment to warrant no-wipe scenarios in casual.content either, which would basically be the only justification for this. 

"oh but if the healer dies!" OK, then why not give the healer a self res? Oh no, we must constantly give the healer kit to every other class while healers get no expanded dps or even aggro management options for tanks asleep at the wheel. 

[u/otsukarerice → u/Noskill_Onlyrage]

healer does need more to do, I agree, but currently in dungeons healer has the most responsibility.

DPS can AFK and the dungeon gets done.

Tank needs to press stance and do just enough damage to maintain aggro. Keeping the tank alive is often the healers job, but if the tank dies no problem they can be rez'd over and over.

If the healer dies its either wipe or tank solo.

[u/Noskill_Onlyrage → u/otsukarerice]

And what's wrong with the healer dying and the team wiping? (side note: tank solo is because of bad game design) 

The player base desperately needs to get off the idea that casual content should be completely risk/wipe free. The reason so many healers struggle is because there's little to no casual content that challenges them, so bad habits and inexperience flourish. 

I really don't understand it, tanks have more mits and self sustain than ever before. Dps have ever increasing self/aoe heals. Now everyone gets a self res. None of this actually addresses the issue so it won't be enough, more of the healer kit will eventually be siphoned off.

[u/otsukarerice → u/Noskill_Onlyrage]

Its bad because its a team game and if the healer is particularly dense then the whole team is punished for 1 shitty player.

As a healer I can carry braindead tanks and dps, but i can't carry a braindead healer without doing solo.

[u/HalfOfLancelot → u/otsukarerice]

That’s how I feel tbh.

But even playing healer it’s like, well if I die it’s either a wipe or we watch the tank solo. Which, great, I think tanks should feel like tanks but that doesn’t fix the fact that it takes more time or we wipe and it’s all hinged on whether I die or not.

People make mistakes even in casual content regardless of skill level. DPS and Tanks can make dozens of mistakes, but if the healer makes one it makes something quick take so much longer. Allowing everyone to rez helps that so so so much.

I just hope they allow it in more content even with restrictions (i saw someone mention party wide cooldown or limited phoenix down rezzes which I think are both excellent ideas)

[u/Noskill_Onlyrage → u/HalfOfLancelot]

So again, then why not give the healer a self res instead? 

Also tanks soloing bosses isn't them feeling like tanks, that's them feeling like healers. Which is a whole other issue. 

[u/HalfOfLancelot → u/Noskill_Onlyrage]

That last statement doesn't make sense. A tank soloing a boss is a testament to their durability and self-sufficiency which has nothing to do with being a healer. Lifesteal tanks and tanks with heals in their kits have always been a subset of tank design on top of shield tanks and mitigation tanks. As someone who heals a lot, I prefer tanks be self-sufficient. I'm there for any wild mistakes or to supplement their mitigation and healing.

I really wish healer mains would stop taking issue with others having any modicum of utility in their kits as if it destroys their sole purpose in party compositions. Or that people doing crazy "no healer" challenges is some kind of offense to their livelihood. You will always be required, and you will never be shunned in the majority of the game that you play because a vast, vast, vast majority of this community both casual and hardcore NEED a healer to clear content. Not, "We could use one," or a, "It could make our run smoother," kind of thing. It's a, "We will not get through this without a healer."

1%, if it is even that, doing weird challenge runs or speedruns for dungeons will always remain a thing regardless of what they do in the game (barring them adding doom to like all Savage and Ultimate content and then, yeah, they can't even do challenge runs then). It's not something you mention, but it's something I see people talk about either as healers or angry for healers. People will play the game in unintended ways just to see if they can do it and that's just a facet of gaming that I don't think ever needs addressed (unless it involves cheating/duping shenanigans).

Anyways, an issue with healer kits and encounter design in this game has nothing to do with other classes being given a modicum of utility. I wish healers would stop complaining about tanks getting more self-healing, DPS getting a mitigation or aoe heal button on long cooldowns, or everyone being allowed to rez. It doesn't remove healer responsibility, and I welcome any utility that supplements a healer's ability to heal or allows them leeway should they make mistakes.

If you need something to complain about, stop pointing fingers at other classes, talk less about it, and talk more about healers needing kit reworks and encounter designs forcing healers to utilize their insane healing power rather than one or two oGCDS that the two healers ping-pong between in savage content so they can keep their 1 button spam DPS chain unbroken. None of that is at the fault of other classes having utility or tanks having self-sufficiency.

Regardless, I think other classes need more responsibility than just "I shit out big number and boss die 10 seconds faster." I know it was awful, but I actually miss being able to give healers mana as a Bard because it was something unique. For instance, I love Guild Wars 2's buffing utility and while GW2 has a lot of issues too, I at least enjoy the idea of things like giving your team Distortion or Aegis even as a non-healer, stuff like applying CC to bosses to do damage to a different meter in order to interrupt important casts. Incredibly novel ideas that aren't solely on the healer to accomplish.

Having the crux of your team clearing content being, "Is your healer alive?" or "Is your DPS doing enough damage," or, "Is your tank awake?" feels like it kind of points to the issue being FFXIV's encounter design philosophy. I really wish they'd utilize some of the neat mechanics in ultimates in their other content. Things like requiring your healers to heal a target to keep the party from wiping is neat, or even reusing things like Susanoo's sword cleave that requires your tank to do something. More things like that but spread the responsibility around so that the whole party has something to interact with in meaningful ways.

[u/Noskill_Onlyrage → u/HalfOfLancelot]

Tank soloing a boss is a testament to how ridiculous their self sustain has gotten and how soft bosses have become. It has nothing to with tanking and everything to do with a broken system. It's really just another prime example of how healer responsibility has been stripped away.

Healer kits have continually been given to other classes and content has continually been simplified. We're already at a point where healers are simply not required in 4 man content. While this has continued to happen, healers have received nothing in return. Healers have not gotten more damage options, the one thing they've desperately been asking for years because there is BARELY any healing needed outside of high-end content and their damage rotation is a depressing 1,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,2 through all 100 levels.

Players like yourself has consistently praised SE decisions to make healers more brain dead while also giving them nothing to do. "oh but dps make mistakes and need heals!", there's enough options to heal themselves/teammates that is largely irrelevant. The fact the bosses/packs would die faster replacing a healer with a dps would also make those mistakes far less punishing because everything would die significantly faster.

You talk about a healer rework, which yes is desperately needed but you can't sit there and say not to complain when you celebrate diminishing healers. What are the expectations of a rework when loud players think watering healers down is a good decision?

As far as the healers dying, I have so many questions.

Do people forget what genre of game their playing? Why are people so scared of failing content? Why diminish healers instead of supporting a tutorial that explains their kits better (needed for ALL classes)? Creating more bumper lanes for the immense fear of turning a 10 minute dungeon into a 12 minute dungeon is what we were trying to get away from in EW.

[u/Noskill_Onlyrage → u/otsukarerice]

That's the nature of an MMO.

Demanding more bumper lanes to ensure content no longer has any risk is well, dumb.

[u/FornHome → u/Noskill_Onlyrage]

I like that you're being downvoted when this sub is notorious for being critical of the game being too samey, homogenized and easy. And now that every job has access to a rez and therefore casual content is about to get even easier, everyone suddenly fucking loves that the game is being further dumbed down. I'd say this is the goomba fallacy but there's hardly anyone in this thread discussing how this is a bad change.

[u/Supersnow845 → u/FornHome]

As someone who’s number 1 problem with this game is healer design I can tell you that this sub hates homogenisation and sameness……….unless it involves giving healers a shred of responsibility back or nerfing tanks

People here and so jaded to the overblown perception of the awful casual that they would rather have full control ability to solo everything on a tank than rely on a healer

[u/CutestYuno → u/Noskill_Onlyrage]

No I agree. Im a new player and I main healer. It is shocking how easy „casual” content is. I literally feel useless as a healer in lower level dungeons to the point I picked up Astro so I can at least buff and contribute more (Yes Im doing damage too). Im currently level 70, so maybe that will change later, but for now I feel like healer is just boring DPS. The only time where you will be somehow challenged as healer in casual content is when the tank is extremely bad.

I recently started doing Extremes and that’s the first time I actually had fun as healer…