Healers = Alpha Class

[bellok]

Oh I fully intend to investigate this. I'm on my 3rd level 50 right now but I haven't played a healer as yet. One Tank, One DPS/Off Tank, One full DPS.

 

I mean its not like I need to L2P, I just PvP'd all day, got my weekly WZ done, both dailies, swapped over to my 50 Juggernaut, MT'd EV Hard Mode then went back and PvPed a few more matches to buy a Chump bag from converted WZ tokens. I obviously know how to play...now, healers? I'm more than willing to admit that they are something of a mystery to me.

 

But then again anyone standing there with three people beating on them and not dying is pretty mysterious in general.

 

He's not taking a beating alone, I bet you there is another healer, or a tank gaurding, among others supporting him. Or the 3 people hitting him are just insanely bad.

[MonkeyManRaygun]

I agree as I just had a problem with this. I am a full Aturo form Jedi Sentinel and I recently went up to a healing Operative on Alderaan. The Operative then proceeded to heal and guard through about 9k damage over about 6 seconds. I also had the element of surprise. I felt a little defeated, as I have never had this problem with healers in other games. It seems like they don't have to make much of an effort to survive.

[Choppaman]

Funny that they do then... probably because they have shields, stuns, knockbacks, Mez'es, roots, better defensive CDs, better resource management, etc etc.

 

If you're just standing there spamming heals, ur bad.

 

stop talking about sages/sorcs. there are other healer classes. mercs and ops dont really have a lot of mobility. For 12 seconds every 2 minutes, mercs can become quite hard to kill.

 

However, this problem is easily remedied by grabbing up 3 dps and hopping on the choo choo train and piling on the stuns, interrupts, and 4k damage instant casts that every dps class has.

[Bar-None]

2/3 of the way to being equipped Champion pvp gear 50 sage. The only way I survive any amount of time is if I have a tank guarding me. I can dish 500-600k healing per warzone if someone guards me for ~90k damage. Otherwise? I'm lucky to pop out 260k and a single dps can sit on me until I'm dry on force. We're not game-breaking, you're just not as game-breaking as you think you are.

[Airoper]

I know what kills healers! Ven Zallow kills healers!

[jcyrus]

It would be interesting to see what BioWare's rock-paper-scissors version of the classes are, to see which of the classes they feel is designed to give healers a tough time.

 

As a Marauder, the only type of healer that gives me a tough time are heal-spec Commandos. They can last a pretty long time, but in order to survive they have to be spamming heals and trying to get away non-stop. Even then, unless they get help from their teammates they're going to die. If they try to fight back alone they go down pretty quickly.

 

If Marauders/Sentinels were designed to be the counter to Healers, that would make sense why healers seem too strong - because due to Marauders/Sentinels not being as popular of a class as, say... Sorcerers, the healers are rarely up against their counter class. And even when they are, not all those Marauders/Sentinels will be specced for dealing with healers.

[Ashes_Arizona]

2/3 of the way to being equipped Champion pvp gear 50 sage. The only way I survive any amount of time is if I have a tank guarding me. I can dish 500-600k healing per warzone if someone guards me for ~90k damage. Otherwise? I'm lucky to pop out 260k and a single dps can sit on me until I'm dry on force. We're not game-breaking, you're just not as game-breaking as you think you are.

 

Deal is, guard is easy to see. As a PT, even as a DPS spec'd PT I have guard, I know exactly what it looks like, its not hard to tell when someones guarded.

 

A lot of the healers I have problems with aren't guarded at the time.

 

Now healer stacks are pretty common but not always easy to see. Such as in Huttball when you have multiple levels of access to various areas healers can be somewhere you're not even looking but in range of/line of sight of a target they're healing, making that target seem harder to kill than necessary, I get that.

 

But then theres just flat out impossible to kill Sages and Sorcerors who are not guarded. And I'm not ignoring other healers here but just singling these out for the moment.

 

First off the bubble negate your first burst of DPS, now, you can't opt to shoot them with your blaster to get their bubble down, you HAVE to blow that front loaded DPS just to get the bubble down and start damaging them.

 

Okay bubble down, heavy hitters in CD 5/8/15 seconds, but I can work with my instant/GCD's and still do some fair damage, so I do some damage, interrupt a heal, do some more damage, get my heavy hitters off CD and get ready to load it on and whoops they've got full HP again, which I then blow back down to where we just came from previously.

 

Now, put me up against a Vanguard spec'd Commando (You know, the Trooper AC that doesn't have an I WIN button?) its an entirely different scene, its completely skill based, tactical and challenging. This is my mirror class, as effective as me in the same level gear and I can generally win against my mirror spec.

 

But a healer, I'm lucky if I can drop a healer to half their HP, period.

 

Had a situation on Alderaan today, grass side gun(west side), me and a Sith Sorcerer Healer vs a Smug Scoundrel and a JC Sage, it was ridiculous. I couldn't kill the Scoundrel cause the JC kept healing him, I couldn't kill the JC because the JC kept healing himself or the Scoundrel healed him. Neither me or the Sorcerer could focus fire on either of them in any meaningful manner to get either one down. It was a situation of near to complete futility . We literally went around that gun for five minutes and no amount of DPS output even mattered.

[AuraJurai]

yes image people using team work to keep etc other alive horrible thing we should probably have death matches in pvp with everyone for them self no empire, no republic then see the QQ really start

[Bnol]

I agree as I just had a problem with this. I am a full Aturo form Jedi Sentinel and I recently went up to a healing Operative on Alderaan. The Operative then proceeded to heal and guard through about 9k damage over about 6 seconds. I also had the element of surprise. I felt a little defeated, as I have never had this problem with healers in other games. It seems like they don't have to make much of an effort to survive.

 

I am curious how the Operative healed and guarded at the same time. If he had guard on him, that meant there was a tank around reducing damage by 5% and your damage was being split between the tank and the healer, that is how guard works. He also could have used the defensive CD Shield Probe (a 45 sec CD that absorbs "a moderate amount of damage"). 9k in 6 sec seconds is 4 GCDs or 2.25k per GCD, that isn't that much damage, especially if the Op was pre-hotted (which would be why you would have the element of suprise, since an Op not in combat would normally be stealthed).

Edited February 8, 2012 by Bnol

[bellok]

Deal is, guard is easy to see. As a PT, even as a DPS spec'd PT I have guard, I know exactly what it looks like, its not hard to tell when someones guarded.

 

A lot of the healers I have problems with aren't guarded at the time.

 

Now healer stacks are pretty common but not always easy to see. Such as in Huttball when you have multiple levels of access to various areas healers can be somewhere you're not even looking but in range of/line of sight of a target they're healing, making that target seem harder to kill than necessary, I get that.

 

But then theres just flat out impossible to kill Sages and Sorcerors who are not guarded. And I'm not ignoring other healers here but just singling these out for the moment.

 

First off the bubble negate your first burst of DPS, now, you can't opt to shoot them with your blaster to get their bubble down, you HAVE to blow that front loaded DPS just to get the bubble down and start damaging them.

 

Okay bubble down, heavy hitters in CD 5/8/15 seconds, but I can work with my instant/GCD's and still do some fair damage, so I do some damage, interrupt a heal, do some more damage, get my heavy hitters off CD and get ready to load it on and whoops they've got full HP again, which I then blow back down to where we just came from previously.

 

Now, put me up against a Vanguard spec'd Commando (You know, the Trooper AC that doesn't have an I WIN button?) its an entirely different scene, its completely skill based, tactical and challenging. This is my mirror class, as effective as me in the same level gear and I can generally win against my mirror spec.

 

But a healer, I'm lucky if I can drop a healer to half their HP, period.

 

Had a situation on Alderaan today, grass side gun(west side), me and a Sith Sorcerer Healer vs a Smug Scoundrel and a JC Sage, it was ridiculous. I couldn't kill the Scoundrel cause the JC kept healing him, I couldn't kill the JC because the JC kept healing himself or the Scoundrel healed him. Neither me or the Sorcerer could focus fire on either of them in any meaningful manner to get either one down. It was a situation of near to complete futility . We literally went around that gun for five minutes and no amount of DPS output even mattered.

 

What server are you on? This sounds very much like it was me who you are talking about...

[AetherMcLoud]

Had a situation on Alderaan today, grass side gun(west side), me and a Sith Sorcerer Healer vs a Smug Scoundrel and a JC Sage, it was ridiculous. I couldn't kill the Scoundrel cause the JC kept healing him, I couldn't kill the JC because the JC kept healing himself or the Scoundrel healed him. Neither me or the Sorcerer could focus fire on either of them in any meaningful manner to get either one down. It was a situation of near to complete futility . We literally went around that gun for five minutes and no amount of DPS output even mattered.

 

I don't like pulling that out, but this clearly is a learn2play issue. CC the scoundrel, kill the healer. CC the healer, kill the scoundrel. Problem solved. Of course you can't just burst them down like in Call of Duty. Would be very boring game if you could.

[Pattotwo]

So many bads... /sigh

 

A good melee can make a healer quite ineffective for his team and/or kill the healer.

 

If you're in crappy gear, no skill, or aren't in a PvP spec you shouldn't complain.

 

A Shadow consular guildmate of mine can open up on me and take me to 25% health in under 10 seconds. He has a few pieces of BM gear. There's really no way I can recover from being at 25% health that fast. I pop my CDs, last a little bit longer, but he'll always kill me, as will a geared, skilled marauder.

 

Ever think that maybe your the bad healer.....

 

 

Nah I have no idea but you left yourself open there

[Dogdays]

Yes I'm BM ranked and I'm a bad.

 

I watched a IA Operative Healer literally walk a huttball from the ramp to the goal line, through a lit fire pit, being stunned and CC'd left and right (Which is why I couldn't grapple them down to the pit cause their resolve bar was full white constantly) with an entire team beating on it and it still scored the goal and had time to dance half a jig before dying.

 

You can't tell me thats right.

 

Pretty much lost all your cred right there - actually you lost it with your OP. You people really should make up your mind. The forums are filled with threads where

1)healers whine that they can't heal through a DPS

2)Tanks whining that they can't down a healer while cheesing medals left and right

3)DPS class A whining that class B is ezmoad+1 and gets 19medals every match while class A if played properly gets only 4. This coming from a v9000 BM so it has to be true.

4)Operatives saying that they don't have any tools to contribute to a Huttball match

5)RNG is Bad /RNG is nice/All should fight naked/I have skills but can't win, game broken, cancelled sub

6)Legitimate claims with some sort of proof to back it up. Stuff that really should be addressed but isn't because forums are swamped with utter garbage like yours.

 

.. also I'd like to have a chat with the IA healer who kited the whole opposing team with the ball through fire to the goalline. Either the enemy team were busy doing RP-emotes or you forgot to mention that the operative was actually supported by his own team and the enemy just didn't feel like shutting the healers down. What ever the case, props for him - he clearly found some utility for his class in Huttball

Edited February 8, 2012 by Dogdays

[Redmarx]

 

Had a situation on Alderaan today, grass side gun(west side), me and a Sith Sorcerer Healer vs a Smug Scoundrel and a JC Sage, it was ridiculous. I couldn't kill the Scoundrel cause the JC kept healing him, I couldn't kill the JC because the JC kept healing himself or the Scoundrel healed him. Neither me or the Sorcerer could focus fire on either of them in any meaningful manner to get either one down. It was a situation of near to complete futility . We literally went around that gun for five minutes and no amount of DPS output even mattered.

 

Between you and the sorc, you had more than enough CC and interrupts to lock down the sage completely - and your dps as a pyrotech PT is more than enough to kill the sage quickly.

 

PEBKAC

[Bnol]

Had a situation on Alderaan today, grass side gun(west side), me and a Sith Sorcerer Healer vs a Smug Scoundrel and a JC Sage, it was ridiculous. I couldn't kill the Scoundrel cause the JC kept healing him, I couldn't kill the JC because the JC kept healing himself or the Scoundrel healed him. Neither me or the Sorcerer could focus fire on either of them in any meaningful manner to get either one down. It was a situation of near to complete futility . We literally went around that gun for five minutes and no amount of DPS output even mattered.

 

So wait, you had a 2v2 stalemate. So they didn't kill you, and you didn't kill them for 5 minutes. That sounds balanced to me. They also had the advantage that they only had to stay alive.

[Ashes_Arizona]

yes image people using team work to keep etc other alive horrible thing we should probably have death matches in pvp with everyone for them self no empire, no republic then see the QQ really start

 

Team work is team work, chain healing frustration festivals aren't really my complaint, its just how things go when there are a lot of healers working together.

 

I cannot kill a healer 1 vs 1, it won't happen, they have too many tools at their disposal to either not die, avoid death, or run away from death in a manner where I can't stop them before they get another heal off.

 

Again I'm not saying a healer should be a speed bump, but a healer should not be able to ignore DPS spec'd classes and they all to often are able to. I've had Seer spec sages completely ignore me, on Voidstar to continue focusing on healing their teammates and they will only break away from that when I've interrupted enough of their heals for them to try to get away from me, and I'm still not getting my job done which is killing people.

 

I can't kill the people they're healing, I can't kill them. My class is neutered in its role because I spend my entire time trying to kill people who cannot be killed, whether its the healer, or the person they're healing.

 

Again I usually lead ops groups I'm in, I mark every healer I see. I even mark grav round spammers to ensure people know to watch for them too. I call for focus fire on healers consistently, and I generally get it, pug WZ or not people generally will take logical guidance when it comes to trying to win them...and when you have to waste three - four people of your team to take down one person so you can have about a 5 - 15 second window where you can try to take down the other people being gigantic problems, then you have a serious operational deficit.

 

So et all, it goes back to my half *** equation, the side with the most healers wins. Because healers cannot be effectively killed without extreme focus fire, and the people the healers are healing cannot be killed because they're being healed.

 

And thats with a 30% reduction to healing capability in PvP. Thankfully someone in the beta at least had the foresight to institute that, cause if they hadn't, there wouldn't be a point to PvPing at all unless you were a healer. As of right now I just feel healers are coming out on top as the alpha class in PvP.

[vrok-]

And in counterpoint I generally ignore Force Lightning, I can't ignore Project or Telekinetic Throw at all. Force Lightning tickles, Project and Telekinetic throw are horrifyingly damaging in comparison.

This proves you don't know what you're talking about at all. Force lightning and telekinetic throw are the exact same spells. There was probably more stuff going on in your scenario that you had no clue about, like guard, a second healer, medpacs, etc. L2P and come back when you're capable of identifying a real problem instead of just raging because some guy wouldn't die.

[Venilator]

Uh. Okay so I need to allocate 1/3rd of my team for every healer on the enemy team? I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out of people to allocate to healers.

 

And I'm generally Ops Leader in 50 bracket matches, I mark healers I tell people to focus them, even focusing healers requires inordinate investments of time and DPS output to get one down and if theres a big cross healing ************ going on, you won't get any of them down.

 

 

 

Dude, welcome to MMO combat where you don't allocate a third of your players to kill one healer.. you allocate 75% of the team to kill that healer so to ensure he/she dies as fast as possible. Healers are the most important part of PvP because... they KEEP THE TEAM ALIVE.

 

 

So please QQ more about them just because you want to RAMBO your way through PvP and cannot bare the idea of needing help to kill a player. And if you cannot figure out why a healer can heal through the DPS of a player then you need help understanding RPG PvP mechanics.

[Leopoldo]

you cant double stun for a start and you cant "pop your bubble" when your stunned.

 

Unless someone was healing them whilst they were in the flames there is no way a Sage (Seer Specced) can survive being stunned in the flames and you cant ourheal the flames as your big heals cast times are too long. If you are stunned you cant heal anyway also.

 

your problem is not your healers its possibly you and your team not co-ordinating your attacks. Why would you attack BOTH the healer and the person being healed? You gank the healer, bring him down which you can do vey quickly with just 2 people and then you kill the person who was being healed. Also if the healer is healing someone else it should be pretty easy to kill the healer as they cant heal both themselves and that other person.

 

This is all about people wanting easy wins, they dont want to work at it, i cant kill everything i come across, it takes too long to kill people i just want to mow through them and get my daily/weekly wins so lets nerf healers.

 

I properly co-ordinated team can take just about any group apart. I played a game where i was completly shut down in huttball because the other team knew what it was doing.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Leopoldo

[Bnol]

Between you and the sorc, you had more than enough CC and interrupts to lock down the sage completely - and your dps as a pyrotech PT is more than enough to kill the sage quickly.

 

PEBKAC

 

He isn't a Pyrotech, he is Advanced Prototype because he thinks Pyrotech is OP and will get nerfed, so he is going to play a spec that is balanced.

[Ashes_Arizona]

So wait, you had a 2v2 stalemate. So they didn't kill you, and you didn't kill them for 5 minutes. That sounds balanced to me. They also had the advantage that they only had to stay alive.

 

No actually its not balanced and I'm not just saying that cause I think I should be able to kill everyone I see.

 

Proper class balance design requires each class to have points of failure.

 

I have points of failure. Eventually my CD's will be locked, my migitation CD's will have been used I'll have thrown down carbonite spray, electro-dart and put out every bit of DPS I've got and I've blown my hail mary heal pack and thats it, I'm going to die. Theres no avoiding it unless I get lucky and get to healing spawn....which any smart player won't let me do.

 

And thats 1 vs 1, it can happen, it has happened, sometimes on the winning side, sometimes I lose.

 

Now, take that 1 vs 1 situation and make the other person a healer. Their points of failure, while there are at a much higher eventual threshold than mine. Because simple facts are the more HP you can keep, the higher a chance you have to win the fight.

 

So you're basically saying a healer should be able to kill a DPS class, because the healer's HPS can completely negate the DPS of the DPS class, while pushing the DPS class past its point of failure threshold.

 

Thats not balance. Thats Healers > DPS classes. And > Tank classes as well. With a possible stalemate at Healer vs Healer, and perhaps having to run away, really fast with either force run or throwing down an 8 second flashbomb in the case of the scoundrel/IA and getting out of dodge, in the case of a surprise attack from a Concealment IA or Scrapper Smug.

 

One class > all other classes isn't balance.

[fungihoujo]

So wait, you had a 2v2 stalemate. So they didn't kill you, and you didn't kill them for 5 minutes. That sounds balanced to me. They also had the advantage that they only had to stay alive.

 

^ This right here. DPS just want healers to be paper because pvp has always been about dishing out big numbers and seeing people crumple in five seconds.

 

I for one appreciate that, other than mass gear imbalances and group focus fire- generally combat lasts a bit longer.

[Ronaya]

I have to say I disagree with this. I have a commando healer in champ gear and sometimes it seems like I'm unstoppable. The majority of the time I'm getting focus fired with no guard, no taunts, and no peeling/cc. All of those things are major damage mitigation. If they aren't killing ya, that means you've got more time to kill them. I might have a guard, but turns out he's on the other side of the map? I guess he forgot to read the ability description.

 

Its amazing and completely frustrating to come out, 5 guys jump me, cc me, and before I know it I'm dead. Meanwhile, my team is off fighting in hostile aoe and repeatedly dying, completely unaware that I might be able to heal them with a bit of help.

 

Another thing, most healers will make the other healer second priority (after themselves) because we know its rough being focused all the time. Don't let them get close, try to separate them, and use cc. Tweaking your gear/spec wouldn't hurt either. 1v1 I have no problem taking out a healer on my melee dps.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Ronaya

[Leopoldo]

Deal is, guard is easy to see. As a PT, even as a DPS spec'd PT I have guard, I know exactly what it looks like, its not hard to tell when someones guarded.

 

A lot of the healers I have problems with aren't guarded at the time.

 

Now healer stacks are pretty common but not always easy to see. Such as in Huttball when you have multiple levels of access to various areas healers can be somewhere you're not even looking but in range of/line of sight of a target they're healing, making that target seem harder to kill than necessary, I get that.

 

But then theres just flat out impossible to kill Sages and Sorcerors who are not guarded. And I'm not ignoring other healers here but just singling these out for the moment.

 

First off the bubble negate your first burst of DPS, now, you can't opt to shoot them with your blaster to get their bubble down, you HAVE to blow that front loaded DPS just to get the bubble down and start damaging them.

 

Okay bubble down, heavy hitters in CD 5/8/15 seconds, but I can work with my instant/GCD's and still do some fair damage, so I do some damage, interrupt a heal, do some more damage, get my heavy hitters off CD and get ready to load it on and whoops they've got full HP again, which I then blow back down to where we just came from previously.

 

Now, put me up against a Vanguard spec'd Commando (You know, the Trooper AC that doesn't have an I WIN button?) its an entirely different scene, its completely skill based, tactical and challenging. This is my mirror class, as effective as me in the same level gear and I can generally win against my mirror spec.

 

But a healer, I'm lucky if I can drop a healer to half their HP, period.

 

Had a situation on Alderaan today, grass side gun(west side), me and a Sith Sorcerer Healer vs a Smug Scoundrel and a JC Sage, it was ridiculous. I couldn't kill the Scoundrel cause the JC kept healing him, I couldn't kill the JC because the JC kept healing himself or the Scoundrel healed him. Neither me or the Sorcerer could focus fire on either of them in any meaningful manner to get either one down. It was a situation of near to complete futility . We literally went around that gun for five minutes and no amount of DPS output even mattered.

 

Can i ask how much they took your HPs down? i am betting none since they were likley healing themselves like mad that makes you OPed and you need a nerf.

[Wubsie]

Being a healer means, uhh, that you heal damage. You cannot out-heal a good spike by yourself, but you can, and should, be able to heal for a steady amount for a lengthy period of time. You say a healer is bad if they can't do a 2v1? I say a DPS is bad if they can't kill a healer 1v1, and especially more than that.

 

 

Some of the longest fights I've ever had in various MMOs have been while I was a healer or I was fighting one. That's how its always been and that's how it really should be.

 

Focus on someone that isn't a healer so they have to heal the other person. Use your interrupts, knockbacks and stuns. A Sorc/Sage has, iirc, one instant-cast heal, which is a measly HoT. Every class has a knockback of some kind, at least one stun, and an interrupt. Use them to your advantage and stop trying to nerf other classes because you find it difficult to kill a class meant to be your counter.