Healing - the worst imbalance in PVP history, in it's current form

[RoadtoArkham]

TMTR

 

so here ya go

 

http://oi41.tinypic.com/euim81.jpg

 

The best part about that was the guy down at the bottom with 3 kills and 1 medal.

[Ethurian]

I can't disagree with this.

 

I can. An experienced player who understands their class, can DPS continuously too, from the same notion a healer can continue to heal. Obviously within reason for both of them. You seem to have zero experience healing in this game.

 

I think a lot of people are misconstruing my post to be an attack on healers when it is not. It is an attack on healing.

 

Yes my issue isn't DPSers, it the DPSing they do. How is there is a distinction between the two? A DPS class is defined by, guess? Damage. Healers are defined by? Yup you guessed it, their ability to heal. I'm not saying we should nerf DPSer classes, just completely nullify the damage they do!

 

I'm sorry you didn't want a trinity based game, but this is what TOR is.

 

I have no issues killing healers on my 50 Powertech. And likewise, people have no issues killing my Healing 50 Sorcerer. It's typical really. When an issue is present, instead of observing everything objectively, find the scape goat. "It isn't me, it's the game". The forums are infested with it. I see this thread is no different.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Ethurian

[SliggXx]

I think a lot of people are misconstruing my post to be an attack on healers when it is not. It is an attack on healing.

 

When I speak of a 1on1 dual it involves a healer of course; but this is just because I'm trying to boil down the example to as simple a form as possible.

 

The real argument I am making is about healing, not healers. A DPS, a tank, or a healer; they can all be healed to an unlimited health pool.

 

The following is a stupid scenario that wouldn't likely happen; however that doesn't mean it isn't possible. A team of 7 healers could heal one tank which the entire other team was trying to kill. This in essence would turn into a PvE style boss fight. One side pouring all their dps into one "boss" while the other side pours all their heals into one tank.

 

The point is not that this is a stupid scenario where the people should know better and switch their focus to the healers. The point is "why is this even allowable by the game rules?". Again, it is a PvE centric design. I think a better design is that the 1 guy receiving heals from 8 players doubles his health once and then falls over dead.

 

I'll ask this another way. I see healers who have complained about healing because they don't do any dps, or they don't get enough reward credits, or that their healing is underpowered compared to other healers.

Why is healing even a PvP goal at all? Isn't the most exciting and fun part of PvP actually fighting another player? Do you want to stand around healing someone? Can't you do that all you like in PvE instances? Why do you want to do it in a PvP scenario?

 

The way tanking works in PvE is NOT valid in PvP. No tank can expect to stand around absorbing damage for his team and keeping all attacks only focused on him. Instead tanks change their PvP role to that of interferring or guarding. They do not tank at all in PvP.

 

Yet healers still heal the same way they heal in PvE. It is a poor design. It would be far better if healing was limited and everyone's focus was on dealing death. Killing the other player will always be the true core of what PvP is about.

 

I think people are construing your post as being a train-wreck of hyperbole fueled by ignorance, inexperience and a complete absence of any big-picture, context-laden thought processes.

 

You are so wrong on pretty much everything you have posted I can't even begin to match your Wall of text with my wall of text correcting your blather. I would assume you were trolling because of the childlike immaturity of your reasoning, but your wall-of-text says otherwise.

 

So to sum up: You don't like healing in PvP because you think everyone should just DPS because you can't see how anyone would find healing fun.

 

I wish every single player I faced in PVP was exactly like you.

[Bnol]

I think people are construing your post as being a train-wreck of hyperbole fueled by ignorance, inexperience and a complete absence of any big-picture, context-laden thought processes.

 

You are so wrong on pretty much everything you have posted I can't even begin to match your Wall of text with my wall of text correcting your blather. I would assume you were trolling because of the childlike immaturity of your reasoning, but your wall-of-text says otherwise.

 

So to sum up: You don't like healing in PvP because you think everyone should just DPS because you can't see how anyone would find healing fun.

 

I wish every single player I faced in PVP was exactly like you.

 

Could not have said that any better. Although, I don't want to face people like him all the time as there would be no challenge.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Bnol

[pinkfreudHC]

Here is my take on healing in PVP:

 

Survivability is Mitigation + Healing. That's a given. In PVP a healer obviously should be tops in healing, but have barely any self-mitigation. Why? Because SWTOR has delightfully provided us with PVP Guard and Taunt mechanics. Healers lacking self-mitigation need to rely on Tank team-mates for survivability, thus creating balance. In games that have self-mitigated healers you inevitably find end-game healers who are essentially immortal due to scaling.

 

What this philosophy also allows is healing to be balanced around healing a mitigated target. A tank doesn't take massive hits because of mitigation, so massive heals become less necessary.

 

Balancing like this is ideal, as tanks get to be tanky, with self-mitigation and an outside healing source, at the sacrifice of DPS, and healers can self-heal and have mitigation from an outside source. Teamwork becomes essential. What this also means is that an unguarded healer becomes the squishiest target in the game. Effectively a DPSer does 50% damage to a tank, 100% damage to another DPSer and 150% damage to a healer (just using 50% increments because it's handy).

Edited February 14, 2012 by pinkfreudHC

[Reveillere]

Well written and thought through post, kudos

[Viree]

Pretty ludicrous. Try actually playing a healer before you start ranting about how OP they are. I have, and I can tell you the scenarios wherein either (A) I have unlimited force, or (B) I can actually out-heal a focused DPS on me, are all but non-existent. At least on a heal spec sorcerer.

[Ahhmyface]

Pretty ludicrous. Try actually playing a healer before you start ranting about how OP they are. I have, and I can tell you the scenarios wherein either (A) I have unlimited force, or (B) I can actually out-heal a focused DPS on me, are all but non-existent. At least on a heal spec sorcerer.

 

Except they aren't, as displayed by various healers I fight all the time. Healers are literally the hardest class for me to kill. Tanks have pathetic hp when compared to healers.

 

I don't think the game should be balanced around 1v1, but let's at least keep our facts straight.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Ahhmyface

[belialle]

I think people are construing your post as being a train-wreck of hyperbole fueled by ignorance, inexperience and a complete absence of any big-picture, context-laden thought processes.

 

You are so wrong on pretty much everything you have posted I can't even begin to match your Wall of text with my wall of text correcting your blather. I would assume you were trolling because of the childlike immaturity of your reasoning, but your wall-of-text says otherwise.

 

So to sum up: You don't like healing in PvP because you think everyone should just DPS because you can't see how anyone would find healing fun.

 

I wish every single player I faced in PVP was exactly like you.

 

I think the OP is a good example of someone who can produce a lot of words on a given topic without actually contributing anything of any real substance. The argument presented is so poorly reasoned that it's not even worth debating.

[Ahhmyface]

I think the OP is a good example of someone who can produce a lot of words on a given topic without actually contributing anything of any real substance. The argument presented is so poorly reasoned that it's not even worth debating.

 

I've yet to see you or anyone provide a counter-argument. Mostly just bad ad-hominems and strawmans. I'm sure this is because your precious time is valuable and NOT because you are incapable.

[Jarexx]

Maybe you should go blog about track and field because this post made no sense at all. Focus the healer end of story.

[belialle]

I've yet to see you or anyone provide a counter-argument. Mostly just bad ad-hominems and strawmans. I'm sure this is because your precious time is valuable and NOT because you are incapable.

 

Yes, my time is valuable. No, I don't want to spend it countering a bad argument. Good insight. :]

[LaManoNera]

What do you expect from the MMO developer dream team that brought us Warrior Priests?

[belialle]

I've yet to see you or anyone provide a counter-argument. Mostly just bad ad-hominems and strawmans. I'm sure this is because your precious time is valuable and NOT because you are incapable.

 

Oh, fine. I will spend 2 minutes on it.

 

The OP's base assumption is that no DPS can ever beat a healer. This is patently and emphatically false. The OP's proposed changes would make excellent healers a free kill against even the very worst DPSers. The argument presented is just ridiculous.

 

A good DPSer shouldn't have much trouble beating an equally geared healer. It just takes longer, which makes sense. If it didn't take a bit longer, the healer would never even be able to come close to winning. People need to learn how to time their bursts/interrupts/CCs to maximize their effectiveness. Knowing how to spec and gear for maximum PvP effectiveness is also useful.

 

Go play a healer and see the truth for yourself.

Edited February 15, 2012 by belialle

[DrekorSilverfang]

I feel dumber for having read that.

[Fancyhuh]

All it takes is one good dps to shut me down. Will I keep myself up 1v1? Yes, but thats what I expect in that situation. The problem is, it's very difficult to support my team when I'm being trained. If I'm Gaurded and get peeled of course I'll be hard to kill but that's when your team needs to adjust their play style. Nothing is wrong with healing, just depends who's playing on the other end of the monitor. I can carry team solo if my team is good and/or other team is bad. Once I face a decent team I can be shut down and need to put on my try face.

[Obbu]

DPS vs Healer. Healer has 15k health.

How does the DPS win? We all know. He must do enough damage, fast enough and counter the heals.

DPS does 14k worth of damage.

At this point 2 outcomes are possible.

1) The healer prevents his death and heals himself. Say he stuns the DPS and casts a 2k heal, then a 3k heal, then a couple 1k heals. At this point the DPS has lost the battle and can never recover. While his health continues to decline over time, the healers continues to increase over time. He can now never win.

2) The healer fails to overtake the DPS and eventually dies.

 

A better scenario is that at 14k worth of damage

1) the healer manages to prevent his death and heals himself up to his max potential health, giving himself a new 16k worth of life. That's the highest potential he can reach. Now the DPS must kill him all over again, but once he completes 16k worth of damage before his own death, he wins.

The healer can win, but so can the DPS.

2) The healer fails to overtake the DPS and dies at 15k health loss.

 

In the second scenario the healer has still prolonged his life. He has still healed, and healed for a lot. He has basically given himself a second life. The DPS cannot heal himself and has his same original health pool. You could argue over who has the advantage or disadvantage but the meaningful component to the balance of the equation is that the healers health pool is not potentially unlimited, it is instead very grounded and in sight of his enemy.

 

Your examples assume that the healer can:

 

• heal themselves effectively while being DPSed (they cannot)
  
• heal themselves at all while being interrupted (they cannot)
  
• DPS effectively while managing to heal themselves effectively (they cannot)
  

 

Not to mention that the situation assumes 1v1, greatly impacting the healer's chances of competing, and also assuming non-standard pvp gameplay in a team game.

 

Healing in pvp is already far more difficult than in most games.

[Fdzzaigl]

I'm pretty sure you never a faced healer in Rift or saw the TBC resto druids in WoW.

 

Yes, healers in this game are nearly impossible to kill solo, but in those games they were unkillable until you had about 3-4 DPS..

 

Healers being difficult to kill is fine, you can shut them down so they can't heal their party. I do think interrupts should be able to prevent all the heals a healer has for a short time, not just one.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Fdzzaigl

[FatedGlory]

As a Gunslinger who can dish out insane amounts of damage in a very short time, I can say I both agree and disagree with the original post. I agree that a smart healer can outheal even my damage output if they know what they are doing and/or are geared for it (for the time being). That comes mainly from the differences in how my abilities regenerate compared to theirs, whether they are squishy sorcs/operatives or heavily armored mercs. With the right ability rotations and a little bit of luck, I can sometimes win that war of attrition. Sometimes I can't, but that is the nature of the beast.

 

The important thing to remember is that they won't have the gear imbalance forever, as expertise will get nerfed eventually. I can kill a fresh 50 healer in 4 abilities most times. It seriously is unfair for them. But also, this is not a 1v1 PvP game. Not in this early stage of its life, and maybe not ever. So if I am focus firing a healer, and I can't out dps his heals, I am still helping my team win that fight because he is no longer helping his team in any meaningful way, whereas I am. It may not show up in the postgame stats, but its a small thing that leads to wins.

[Ethurian]

I've yet to see you or anyone provide a counter-argument. Mostly just bad ad-hominems and strawmans. I'm sure this is because your precious time is valuable and NOT because you are incapable.

 

Indeed, such as the suggestion that healers have an unlimited resource pool allowing them to, let me see if I can correctly quote: "[..] a healer can heal, literally, indefinitely."

 

Indefinitely.

 

For example, how about this little gem?

 

I think a lot of people are misconstruing my post to be an attack on healers when it is not. It is an attack on healing.

 

Obviously the oppression by the 'less intelligent' and the heated ad hominems are unjustified against such astonishing logic as written above? After-all there is no problem with healers, it's just a problem of healing. Makes perfect sense. Naturally it is easy to see how those two entities are completely separate and distinctive.

 

After all Healer != Healing, right?

 

--

 

I have a 50 healer, and a 50 traited-DPS Powertech. And my Powertech has very little trouble defeating them, of course if I handle them properly. Using my interrupt on the correct heal for example. On my Sorcerer I absolutely love when people use their interrupt on the "wrong" heal. Leaving my big heal completely free and ready for use.

 

But in the matter of any debate - nothing is ever a failure on the player's side, but rather, it's that all the elements beyond their control are imbalanced. If I lose a fight, it isn't because I did something incorrectly. It is because they used a cheap tactic, or use an overpowered build/class. If I lose a warzone, it isn't because of my own fault, it is because everyone else are scrubs, lowbees, ungeared or otherwise worthless human beings.

 

The forums are flooded with people who share that mindset. Whether you openly show it, or display it in a passive aggressive dance makes no difference to me. It is a flawed state of logic.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Ethurian

[Astarica]

If a healer consistently loses quickly in a 1on1 against a DPS, there would literally be no reason to ever play a healer. You'd always be better off replacing the healer with a DPS since a DPS can always beat a healer quickly.

 

Even against very good healers, if they do beat me 1on1 it usually takes them several minutes to pull it off. They can also lose after a long fight too (Sorcerer more likely to lose through attrition).

 

Since interrupts have nothing to do with skill or gear (gear/skill cannot prevent interrupts from happening to you)), even a tie is sometimes a loss for the healer. If my side put our worst DPS who is at least good enough to know what heals to interrupt against your best healer, he can neutralize the enemy's best healer for a pretty long time and we'd certainly have an advantage everywhere else if our worst DPS canceled out their best healer.

[Redmarx]

I'm sure this will cheese off a lot of people who play healing classes. I'm well aware of the arguments that healing classes are weak, easily killed or otherwise countered.

 

Hogwash.

 

There is one inarguable fact regarding pvp healing. That is maximum potential health.

 

When you boil down PvP it becomes, at it's core, an issue of scaling.

Who does more damage. Who does more damage in a shorter period of time. Who has better gear. Who has a better build. Who has more health.

I might be able to put out 20k damage in 5 seconds. You might be able to put out 22k. I might have 23k mitigated health. You might have 19k mitigated health.

So we evaluate our battles, you decide to trade some stat or build choice over another to achieve 23k worth of damage in order to beat me. I then change my decisions somehow.

 

DPS and health are very relative numbers. They live in the same realm. You might get 2k crits, you might get 4k crits. You might have 15k health, you might have 20k health.

 

Where does healing factor into all of this? It doesn't factor in any sensible way. The reason it doesn't is because heals can achieve numbers in the hundreds of thousands of health over time.

 

To illuminate this point, lets look at PvP another way. Imagine we are in a foot race to see who is faster. A very common and rudimentary bit of human competition.

I declare to you than I can run 30 yards faster than you can run 25 yards, because I am naturally faster. Or we make a straight up equal distance challenge.

Perhaps another competition might be that I can run a further distance than you in 1 minute, or 10 minutes.

We can all agree that these are reasonable challenges that can and are made in the normal course of life.

 

A challenges which is never made however; is that I challenge that we see who can run farthest in a minute's time, with the exception that I am allowed to pause, reset or simply give myself more time on the clock than you have. So that when your minute is up, I can continue to keep running as I give myself extra seconds for however long as I wish, indefinitely.

 

While that competition would be ludicrous, it is exactly the competition that healing in PvP gives us. Now of course there are the responses such as: "this is what interrupts are for", "out-dps the healing", "focus down the healer", ect. Yes, or course these are valid tactics. These responses do not answer the real issue at all however, which is that healing is indefinite. It is like saying we will have our footrace where I can manipulate my clock, but you are allowed to try and steal my clock during the race. Sure that is a solution to the ridiculous nature of the race, but it still remains that I have the potential for unlimited time and can achieve it. Why even have such a rule in the first place?

 

To answer why is not difficult and goes to the history of the current MMO. The current MMO design of course stems from a PvE model. (Yes the early MMO's like UO had a far different design including pvp, swtor doesn't follow that model, it follows the PvE-centric model). In a PvE-centric MMO model, healing is used to keep tanks alive in boss fights. These fights last periods of time where the health of a tank is replaced numerous times by the healers. You can have a boss with hundreds of thousands of HP put out hundreds of thousands of damage. While a DPS'er might put out 200k in damage into a boss, a healer might put 200k of health into a tank. Healing generally has no limit over time and conceivably you could keep a tank alive indefinitely if it were not for things like enrage timers or regen limitations of energy. That is all well and good and easily understood by any MMO player.

 

Where things go incredibly awry however is when this design is then taken over into the PVP world. Players do not have the health of PVE bosses. The ability of a DPS'er to put out 200k of damage over time is meaningless when players only have 15k worth of health. This is our footrace of limited dimensions. Yet while a DPS's damage output ends when my healthbar reaches zero, a healers heal output is still unlimited, it never ends.

 

Yes, it can be countered. Yes, it can be balanced out with both sides healing. This isn't the point. The point is that you have one side of the equation which is unlimited.

 

To put the argument in another light. Take a great pvp game design like DOTA, HON or League or Legends. These games are actually quite similar to an MMO's pvp in that there are levels and gear for the players. Characters in these games can heal, but no character can heal for any length of time. In most cases, healing is limited to one, two or three heals during any fight. In other terms, any given character only has a potential of two to maybe three times his max health; and twice their health is a stretch. In SWTOR, if you heal someone for 100k and they never die, they are achieving 5-8 times their health.

 

So after all this analysis of the bad philosophy of the problem, what is my suggestion towards the solution?

The best way to balance any PvP system is to balance against maximum potential health. I.E. the limited footrace: we will only judge competition at a max distance of so many yards or so many minutes. The quite simple math to it would be that a character could only receive twice their max health in a 3 minute period. To even out the lower DPS potential that healers have, they might have that limitation reduced by their comparative healing or lack of dps. Hence a healer might be able to achieve 3 or 4 times their health in a 3 minute period.

 

This would mean that healing would still be able to save lives. It could still be just as powerful. But it would not be unlimited.

 

A very simple scenario to illustrate all of this is a duel. Yes, duel's are not entirely representative of group pvp. That argument is beside the point for this illustration of the philosophies involved.

 

DPS vs Healer. Healer has 15k health.

How does the DPS win? We all know. He must do enough damage, fast enough and counter the heals.

DPS does 14k worth of damage.

At this point 2 outcomes are possible.

1) The healer prevents his death and heals himself. Say he stuns the DPS and casts a 2k heal, then a 3k heal, then a couple 1k heals. At this point the DPS has lost the battle and can never recover. While his health continues to decline over time, the healers continues to increase over time. He can now never win.

2) The healer fails to overtake the DPS and eventually dies.

 

A better scenario is that at 14k worth of damage

1) the healer manages to prevent his death and heals himself up to his max potential health, giving himself a new 16k worth of life. That's the highest potential he can reach. Now the DPS must kill him all over again, but once he completes 16k worth of damage before his own death, he wins.

The healer can win, but so can the DPS.

2) The healer fails to overtake the DPS and dies at 15k health loss.

 

In the second scenario the healer has still prolonged his life. He has still healed, and healed for a lot. He has basically given himself a second life. The DPS cannot heal himself and has his same original health pool. You could argue over who has the advantage or disadvantage but the meaningful component to the balance of the equation is that the healers health pool is not potentially unlimited, it is instead very grounded and in sight of his enemy.

 

 

I read this, fully and carefully.

 

A few points.

 

In order for DPS to follow the model you say healers should have, namely that their healing becomes LIMITED so they can only heal a couple of multiples of 1 person's health bar - DPS needs to have all their damage abilities locked after doing say 100k damage. After all, DPS should only be able do a certain multiple of 1 person's health bar in damage, right? You see why your suggestion is ridiculous.

 

I had more points, but frankly your post is quite idiotic and meaningless. It's nothing but a rant because you're a bad player who doesn't understand that in a team PVP game with full healing specialisations, healers play a support role that enhances the entire group, and that is the point of them.

 

If you think there should be no healers at all, and there are MMOs that can be designed from the ground up that way, then fine. SWTOR is not like that, healing in PVP is absolutely fine and if anything might need a bit of a buff to counter the burst damage organised teams can put out (which is largely unhealable).

 

In the end, you're just another disorganised PUG DPS who runs around trying to kill stuff, who hasn't found the /assist function and doesn't know how to deal with teamplayers who have DPS, tanking and healing arranged in order to kill in an organised and coordinated manner.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Redmarx

[lollermittens]

Your examples assume that the healer can:

 

• heal themselves effectively while being DPSed (they cannot)
  
• heal themselves at all while being interrupted (they cannot)
  
• DPS effectively while managing to heal themselves effectively (they cannot)
  

 

Not to mention that the situation assumes 1v1, greatly impacting the healer's chances of competing, and also assuming non-standard pvp gameplay in a team game.

 

Healing in pvp is already far more difficult than in most games.

 

Playing whack-a-mole with your party/operations frames is a difficult job now? Lawl.

 

The only thing that makes healing a pain in PvP is when you're trying to heal someone and he/she gets out of your LOS.

 

The OP makes a valid point but he's targetting the wrong audience. People on these forums don't appreciate arguing basic class mechanics.

 

To the OP: you're stuck with this system since BW has decided to design this game around the MMO "triangle" (Tank<->Healer<->DPS). You should wait for Blade and Soul or GW2 which removes the healer mechanic.

[lollermittens]

I read this, fully and carefully.

 

A few points.

 

In order for DPS to follow the model you say healers should have, namely that their healing becomes LIMITED so they can only heal a couple of multiples of 1 person's health bar - DPS needs to have all their damage abilities locked after doing say 100k damage. After all, DPS should only be able do a certain multiple of 1 person's health bar in damage, right? You see why your suggestion is ridiculous.

 

I had more points, but frankly your post is quite idiotic and meaningless. It's nothing but a rant because you're a bad player who doesn't understand that in a team PVP game with full healing specialisations, healers play a support role that enhances the entire group, and that is the point of them.

 

If you think there should be no healers at all, and there are MMOs that can be designed from the ground up that way, then fine. SWTOR is not like that, healing in PVP is absolutely fine and if anything might need a bit of a buff to counter the burst damage organised teams can put out (which is largely unhealable).

 

In the end, you're just another disorganised PUG DPS who runs around trying to kill stuff, who hasn't found the /assist function and doesn't know how to deal with teamplayers who have DPS, tanking and healing arranged in order to kill in an organised and coordinated manner.

 

So your read his entire thread just to insult him? And then base your anecdotal experiences on you getting your butt kicked in a pug vs. a premade?

 

Wow, just wow. These forums never cease to amaze me. It's like, infinite, free, entertainment.

[minervasunrider]

Damage dealing should not be allowed in PvP, since damage dealt is potentially infinite whereas the health pool is finite.