Body checks have always existed in FFXIV but recently...It started to become a problem to many players, mostly raiders as of late as the obsessive use of the mechanic started to become very common.

First we need to talk about why body checks exist. It has to do with the fact the player characters have very powerful skills from being invulnerable to damage by tanks to healing a player character HP(Hit points) to full in a instant. But the biggest reason is the combat raise that 5 jobs in the game can do. That being the obviously healers to the more questionable summoner and red mage.

Body checks exist manly because how accessible battle raising is. 6 jobs can raise in a battle with no drawbacks to using it.... except obviously dps losing dps and mp (mana points) but regardless of that. The jobs can use battle raise freely and repeatedly to the point you can keep fighting as long as you're able to raise. This is a good.

Why you ask might this be a good thing? Well let's look at some reasons as to why that might be.

The first reason is players are able to see more of the fight they're progressing on as they can bring back the tank or other party members that died to keep fighting. This helps players learn upcoming mechanics which obviously helps them learn the fight at a faster rate than most games. This also in turn makes raiding more accessable to many players.

There are many more reasons but this is what I have on the top of my head.

But as with all good things, it has to come with some bad. SE realizes that combat raise is way too powerful as this can make fights clearable way easier than they intended.

This coupled with many players (Mostly NA/EU) saying fights are too easy now. So CBU3 Had to make more use of the thing now called (Body checks meta)

Body check is a mechanic in many fights (Usually Raids) That does damage depending how many members are alive and more often than not you need all 8 members alive or it's a wipe. This could be from 8 man tower spreads to just a simple raid wide AOE that's used as a body check or needing Every person alive to solve the mechanic. There many other examples of body checks.

Now as to why this might be a bad thing after reading that? Well let's take a look.

It makes battle more punishing/unforgiving

P10s was the hardest second stage fight we had for many players because the many uses of body checks and making players have a very hard time clearing it in party finder. P10 is one of the reasons people started questioning the use of body checks and now dubing it "body checks meta" (I really hate the way this community calls everything meta).

But the punishment of people dying is too much for random groups of people.

A lot of people see body checks as artificial difficulty because it's making the fight harder due to another member mistakes and inconsistentcy.

All this will make you wonder why don't they remove body checks? Well I'll tell you why they don't.

Removing body checks from encounters will make the battles extremely cheeseable... What I mean is people will come up with (sac strats) where a party members will kill themselves just to get a raise to avoid a difficult mechanic or hold onto their raise buff to let the mechanic blow over then accept the raise. We seen what a no body check battle looks like. Look how further than zeromus. Now dubbed as the easiest extreme battle of all time. At least in modern FFXIV standards.

One of the most popular strategies is to sac yourself if you can't do a certain mechanic correctly so you don't wipe the raid. Since the battle has no body checks it's perfectly ok to do this strategy.

So as you can see now. This is why body checks are necessary to the combat of FFXIV. Without, cheese strats will develop due to how powerful and limitless combat raise is in FFXIV combat. Now...how would we go about fixing it?

Well a few ideas would be to limit it to only healers. Now this won't stop issues with no body checks cheese strats but this will limit the availability of combat raises in the game. Another and imo the best course of action is to put raise on a CD with a stack of 2 while also only limiting it to healers on (remove combat raise from casters) This will make it so you can't just chain raise the entire party.

I'm sure there are better ideas but overall. As long as battle raise exist as it is now. Body checks will exist to balance it. I'm personally not against body checks in battles but I know many people are and I don't think people realize what would happen if they removed it without adjusting why it exist in the first place.

Combat raises are simply too powerful and need to be adjusted if we want to see change. If CBU3 just simply left it as is and just removed body checks many MANY fights will become easier as a result or they would have to make unfair or extremely punishing mechs to make up for no body checks. Which I suppose some people might prefer?

But overall. Body checks exist because the powerful abilities and most importantly, the unlimited use of combat raises.

Edit: Removed the example of top because people are misunderstanding what I mean and going on a tangent and not discussing my main point.