post 1.2 - you still planning on healing?

[Vindigore]

Been healing since day 1. Liked it and loved it because I could make a difference while not having to be a "pro" or one of the best players. I play to relax and not to feel pressured into optimal rotations/specs/min-maxed gear. SWTOR was friendly to my kind of people, the ones that don't give a rat's @ss for "real" challenge/accomplishment feelings/rewarding the hard effort etc because they know that digital achievements mean nothing at all.

 

Now they made the game harder to please the e-peen seeking audience. Grats to these people that wanted a mean to distinguish themselves from the "unskillful" masses - you managed to turn a casual friendly game into a hardcore only one (for one more time). Wonder if I ll ever find an MMO that cares about me without a group of people jump upon it and start screaming for it to be harder & more challenging - possibly never. So, since my 6 month sub ends up mid-July, I ll play the remaining 5 class stories and leave in search for such an MMO.

[Bluetickone]

this isn't meant to be a facetious post, but honest curiosity - because sometimes, the vocal minority skews reality.

 

having said that, I personally do not plan to heal anymore after 1.2, due to the changes to Bounty Hunter healing, which, in my opinion, makes the class un-interesting to play. Thus, I have made the necessarily adjustments to level and gear up a powertech tank to play.

 

do you plan to keep healing post 1.2? if so, what class, and why?

 

nope. done with SWTOR; simply cant believe they mindlessly borked commandos. There was little enough to do in the first place, but to play noticably weaker version of the toon I worked on for 4 months? no thanks.

[BlueSouthPike]

I have a Commando Healer (mid-level, around 27) and I still plan on healing. I did a quick test last night, and while I found out that I can't quite match my old numbers, I can still keep people up and fighting (in PvE, anyways, I'm not big on PvP). So, yeah, I still plan on Healing, even if I need to readjust my strategies to stay effective (and maybe get back in practice, I've spent a bit too much time on the Imp-side playing Sniper. I need to learn to get back in the healing mindset).

[RuQu]

I have a Commando Healer (mid-level, around 27) and I still plan on healing. I did a quick test last night, and while I found out that I can't quite match my old numbers, I can still keep people up and fighting (in PvE, anyways, I'm not big on PvP). So, yeah, I still plan on Healing, even if I need to readjust my strategies to stay effective (and maybe get back in practice, I've spent a bit too much time on the Imp-side playing Sniper. I need to learn to get back in the healing mindset).

 

No offense, but that's because you are level 27.

 

I'm assuming your skill build looks like either this or this.

 

You aren't seeing the full impact of the changes yet, because you don't have access to all of the changed abilities.

 

Perhaps you won't have the same negative reaction that the rest of us are having because you will never know what it was like to heal with the class before.

[Ranma-chan]

I have a Sith Inquisitor healer, an Imperial agent healer, and a trooper healer, and I plan to continue healing since I know how to adapt my play style for any nerf that may come my way.

[XtremJedi]

As I posted earlier in the thread, I had cancelled and was waiting to see how the patch actually worked out. I wasn't enjoying the game enough, for a variety of reasons, to justify continuing to pay to play, when the only characters that were keeping me in the game were having their game-play made plain dull. They'll heal stuff well enough I'm sure... just with pretty dull and uninteresting game-play.

 

Having played it, it's perhaps not quite as bad as I expected, but not by much. Apart from various healers, I also had started on a Guardian which I quite enjoyed in some ways - but has also taken a backward step, again in the name of homogenisation of the classes. It just seems like everything is being designed in a way that restricts game-play and reduces the differential that skill can bring to your play.

 

I've now suspended my account, which means I can't play any more but can keep the remaining days left on my subscription for if/when I decide to return to the game. I'll keep an eye on how things move forward and I can still test stuff at my mate's.

 

I'm off to GW2 and The Secret World, which both look to be shaping up as excellent MMOs.

 

X

Edited April 13, 2012 by XtremJedi

[WarBagel]

I played CM in beta and it has been my favorite healing class of any game I have played. I wanted a slight buff to my AOE heals or a slight change in Ammo regen to take it to the "perfect" level of fun for me. Instead, the recent nerf has truly made the class unenjoyable to play as a healer. Regardless of statistical analysis by developers, ease of content for other players, or other reasons for the change; I enjoyed playing my healer before and do not enjoy it now. I am rerolling. I am not unsubbing at this time.

 

I expect many of the changes to CM/BH to be removed in the near future. However, until that time, I am going to play a different class. I have no desire to reroll another healer to repeat this experience. If BW can figure things out, I will return to healing. If not, we will see how long I stay interested in playing an MMO where I don't heal.

Edited April 13, 2012 by WarBagel

[BlueSouthPike]

No offense, but that's because you are level 27.

 

I'm assuming your skill build looks like either this or this.

 

You aren't seeing the full impact of the changes yet, because you don't have access to all of the changed abilities.

 

Perhaps you won't have the same negative reaction that the rest of us are having because you will never know what it was like to heal with the class before.

 

No offence taken. I think you may be right, perhaps I am a bit skewed in my opinion, but I don't view this as a bad thing. So long as I continue to find things enjoyable, I'll keep up the healing.

[RuQu]

No offence taken. I think you may be right, perhaps I am a bit skewed in my opinion, but I don't view this as a bad thing. So long as I continue to find things enjoyable, I'll keep up the healing.

 

And that's a perfectly reasonable and appropriate way to view it. Perhaps as you get higher you will find it less enjoyable. Perhaps not. Perhaps our view is highly skewed by the fact that we enjoyed it before and enjoy it less now.

 

My #1 reason for stopping healing is that one of my guild's tanks got a new job that keeps him from running Ops regularly, and I had a tank alt that could fill in with a guild Sage replacing me. Personally I find tanking in this game to be just as simplistic as the healing. Hopefully they will put some effort into mechanics at some point before my sub runs out in July...until then I'll run whatever alt helps the guild progress best while leveling up all the class stories.

[Obtena]

Absolutely ... the fact that damage is favoured will only mean that good healers will be more critical to turning the tide of the fight more than pre 1.2

[Ewert]

Absolutely ... the fact that damage is favoured will only mean that good healers will be more critical to turning the tide of the fight more than pre 1.2

Honestly, if a good healer can't outlive a good dps 1v1 indefinitely, having a healer is a netloss vs good teams (= focus fire). It's quite simple. For the record, I'm not a bad healer. I've tanked, healed and dps'd for nearly two decades in MMOs, most of that healed.

 

DPS = preventive healing, as in killing their dps faster

 

thus

 

if Healing approx = DPS, or worse slightly < DPS, then since DPS = preventive healing, it means that an extra DPS is better (with focus fire naturally, not spread all over the place for sorc AoE to heal).

 

Healing HAS to be favored over DPS, they can't be 1:1 in PvP.

[Crooching]

I have not had a chance to play 1.2 yet, and I wont until Sunday when I get home, but from what i hear, it seems scoundrels might very well be the better class to heal with now, which as a reluctant sawbones (After taking all I could take as a scrapper) doesn't tick me off too much.

 

By just looking over the forums, it seems they have all turned into a replica of what the scoundrel/op forums have been looking like for months.

 

At least BW proved us wrong.

Before 1.2 it was 'BW doesn't care about scoundrels because noone plays them, they would never nerf another class like this'

Now it seems 'BW just doesn't care'

[Syylara]

I'll start by saying that my primary activity in MMOs is RP. Beyond they, for gameplay purposes my favorite role is generally "group support" in the sense of a DPS class that has strong buff/debuff roles when available. With no such role available in TOR (very strict trinity model), I tried out healing and found it quite enjoyable. I also have never been much for PvP, being a SEAK gamer (socializer-explorer-achiever-killer, order denotes preference), however I found the PvP in the game accessible and entertaining enough to pass the time with, even with the occasional bad run of pugs.

 

I'm officially putting my bodyguard and combat medic characters on the shelf for the time being. Time-to-live in WZs is not suiting me at all and I've gone from feeling I put forth a major contribution to now feeling like my very presence is a hindrance. I think the pinnacle of performance I've achieved since 1.2 went live was one instance where I ran straight through the center turret area in Civil War and got half the enemy team to chase me around the corner allowing my teammates to cap. So basically the best I can hope for now is to be an enticing decoy/distraction for a few seconds.

 

About the time I realized that about half of my 2nd heals on a teammate weren't even landing before they died, I decided I was done with it.

 

I used to enjoy finding a way to cast a few clutch heals at the right time to allow a score in Huttball or help a teammate make it that last few steps into firing range to stop a cap in Voidstar, pillar humping with a sliver of health until a teammate could peel for me. That has now turned into being in the respawn box before the ball carrier has even reached the first pair of burners, watching teammates die before my casts even finish and being dead before I even reach the first corner of said pillar.

 

Despite not being a healer or PvPer by nature, I was actually enjoying those aspects of the game. Bioware was doing something right. Now, they've instituted the gameplay model that were a big part of the reason I basically avoided them in previous titles.

[-Reedyn]

Definitely going to keep on healing, patch didn't change anything for the worse for me. Actually with the UI changes and Class changes I can't see how people can think it got worse.

[Janewayfan]

Don't get me wrong, i'm pissed, but I will continue healing.

 

It's all about blending in now. If I can blend in (i'm a sorc) I can break 300k heals in one WZ...but the minute someone puts a target over my head it's game over.

 

Ah well, D3 is coming out soon, I don't mind a little PvP on here until then. I also rerolled a smuggler for when i'm way too upset to even look at my sorc

[-Reedyn]

Don't get me wrong, i'm pissed, but I will continue healing.

 

It's all about blending in now. If I can blend in (i'm a sorc) I can break 300k heals in one WZ...but the minute someone puts a target over my head it's game over.

 

Ah well, D3 is coming out soon, I don't mind a little PvP on here until then. I also rerolled a smuggler for when i'm way too upset to even look at my sorc

 

From what I've seen from the few logs I've seen Sorcerer/Sage still seem to be the strongest healer in Operations, so I don't see the reason for all the complaints that they are "broken"

 

Sure there are some things that are weird, such as sacrificing and reducing ones own helath in order to heal. Goes against everything a healer should think. But I wouldn't say it breaks the entire Class because of it

Edited April 14, 2012 by -Reedyn

[Raani]

Of course I'll continue healing. Just not in this game. It was a nice distraction while WoW offered no new content and I can't say I didn't enjoy the first couple of months. However, what I enjoyed was the novelty - the new content and quests, figuring out new classes, etc.

 

I've been rather bored since February, but kept subbing because my partner wanted to play and because I hoped things would be tweaked for the better. I leveled another 2 healers, leveled every profession, and made a lot of credits by playing the GTN.

 

In the end, what bothers me so much is not just the nerfs, but the fact that the devs have a poor understanding of what makes healing challenging and the fact that they refuse to listen to the community. Ruqu and others have done good testing and number-crunching, and the fact that they went ignored is infuriating.

 

Having to obsessively manage a resource bar via unimaginative mechanics like hammershot and struggling with an inadequate healing interface don't make healing hard. They make it boring and unfun. Complexity comes from spell interactions and having a good number of utility tools which allow for damage reduction or prevention if used at the right time and on the right person.

 

The bottom line is that I don't have unlimited time to play, and I'd rather fill the time until MoP comes out with some single-player games. If between now and MoP they do something extremely cool, I'll certainly resub.

 

Obviously, I'm speaking just for myself. I don't expect others to share my views and I won't criticize anyone who still enjoys the game.