Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Year: 2013
Developer: Division 5, Square Enix
Something I think Final Fantasy 14 could do with a whole lot more of, is moments that really play into the power fantasy of its numerous jobs. There’s still sprinklings of it, of course—the Valigarmanda trial has an excellent moment where the party lines up behind a tank who takes an entire snake-bird beak flamethrower to the face, leaving a tiny sliver of arena safe as they dutifully protect their allies.
Much to my chagrin, I don’t play tank classes. Too much anxiety about keeping the party out of harm’s way. I’m a follower, not a leader, etcetera. I mostly play Dancer, the physical range DPS, which is pretty low down on the power fantasy scale. I press my buttons, do some damage, occasionally throw out a support ability when things are looking a tad dicey. I don’t really get the privilege of pressing the big buttons that melee jobs do, and I don’t possess a clutch resurrection spell that Red Mages and Summoners are blessed with.
Then there are the healers, who I do dabble in when I’m looking to be kept on my toes a little more. I’d argue that, for the most part, the power fantasy is a little lacking here too. Healers are frequently cited as being underutilised in a ton of dungeons and raids, with people going out of their way to do things healerless just to prove a point.
But there are moments. Beautiful moments, in fact, where I can really shine as a healer. When absolutely everything goes to shit, bodies are piling up, and my mana is low. The answer? Healer LB3, baby.
OK, OK, ‘What the hell is a healer LB3?’ I hear you grass-touching non-Final Fantasy gamers ask. Full parties—that’s eight players usually consisting of one to two tanks, two healers and four to five DPS—have a limit break bar that has three segments. The first segment is pretty weak, the second slightly stronger, with the third being the de facto ability. For tanks, it’s a huge 80% damage reduction. DPS get varying degrees of Big Damage—melees get single-target, casters a huge circular AOE and physical range a line AOE.
Healer’s LB3, though? That’s a full party rez, right there. Every downed member of the party gets back up with full HP, and without the weakness debuff that usually comes alongside your standard resurrection spell. It’s not totally perfect, of course—regular rezzes bring the downed party member to the healer’s side with a brief period where they can’t take any damage, whereas a healer LB3 brings people back in the spot they died with no invulnerability. That means if you went down inside a death zone, it’s gonna happen to you again, sorry.
There’s a real thrill in bringing a run back from the brink of a full party wipe, though. It can be helpful in different ways: It can help a party progress their learning in a raid a little further, letting people see mechanics they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. It can also save a run that would’ve ended up in resetting the fight back to the start, saving precious minutes of mine and my party’s valuable time. It’s a sort of smug satisfaction knowing that you’re the sole reason the party is where they are, and that they would have been much worse off without you.
It’s even more exciting when half the party is dead right before a huge wave of damage or before the limit break bar has fully filled. Having to carefully tackle the healing of yourself and other party members who are still alive, having enough knowledge of mechanics to know the best time to animation lock yourself into the limit break, as well as the best time to do it so that everyone is relatively safe when they do come back to life. There’s a real art to it—sure you can throw it out willy-nilly, but true masters of the art will know the optimal period to let ‘er rip.
It’s moments like these that keep me coming back to healer. Those jobs are at their most fun when everything is going wrong, allowing me to fully unleash my toolbox of heals, shields and regen spells to ensure everyone keeps on ticking. Whenever I do get to unleash the ultimate party rez, it’s rarely out of frustration. Instead, it’s the intoxicating delight of being the hero.
