A Healer's 1.2 Grievances: The story of why healers are upset

[Vodrin]

I think the problem in 1.2 is how much damage is not being mitigated, much more so than healing being too weak. The fact that expertise now buffs damage about 4% more than mitigation has a pretty significant effect. Everyone I play with is commenting how much faster players die under focused or solo fire now. I think that probably needs to be evened out before we even begin to evaluate the healing changes in PvP.

[madtycoon]

Still, the easiest way to shake a marauder off your back is to lead him into your team. At that point HE will implode, not you.

 

Sure and you can do that with every class, but marauders/sentinels assasins/shadows can overextend with less consequence than any other class.

Edited April 24, 2012 by madtycoon

[Sofakingwhat]

I play a 87 Valor Sorc, specced healing. I almost exclusively queue with other high valor or just good players. I have played healers in MMOs for twelve years now, just a little background.

 

If you was a dps and could not kill me pre 1.2 then you were either undergeared or you are just wanting to smash buttons to kill me(AKA bad). Smart dps that knew how and what to interrupt, when to use stuns/snares, and when to use their CDs would kill me 99% of the time. If I asked those same players to just blow thier CDs and try to burn me down, I would (eventually) kill them 99% of the time.

 

Remember that was with equally geared players. So, if I out gear you I need nerfed? If you are just bad and don't know my/your class, I'm the one that needs nerfed?

 

Healers are instantly penalized with a 30% debuff to healing, a small difference between damage done and damage prevented by expertise, around 10% loss of healing compared to dps from expertise bonus, and one of the most played classes can put another 20% healing debuff on us!!!!!

 

Going to keep my subscription active for another month or two, but I have a good feeling this game is going to fail the same as the rest of the MMOs released in the past 8 years.

[Morthanos]

A lot of crazy assertions in this thread, too many to list. Here's what I think:

 

The goal in PvP is for skill to make the biggest difference. (Anybody disagree with that?) The second biggest factor should be gear. Somebody with much better gear should be able to hold their own or beat a better player with vastly inferior gear. A much better player should be able to beat somebody who is better geared, at least some of the time.

 

Assuming you don't disagree with the above:

 

1. Equally skilled, equally geared players should have an equal chance to win a 1 vs. 1 fight. It should NOT matter if they are Healers, DPS, or Tanks. A hard goal to achieve, but I think Bioware is trying.

 

2. 2 v 1 should greatly favor the 2.

 

3. DPS'ers opinion is they should be able to kill any non-dps'er 1 v1.

 

4. Healers opinion is they should not be able to be killed by less than 2 other people.

 

5. Tanks don't have opinions, they are just dumb meat shields (j/k).

 

My point is, pre 1.2 Sages/Sorcerers were VERY hard to kill 1 v 1 and even 2 v 1. It was, in my view, imbalanced. If Sages are usually losing 1 v 1 to DPS now, it is imbalanced the other way (I'm not saying that's the case). There are enough variables and strategy that two equally skilled/geared people fighting ten times can go 5-5. That's the ideal. That's balance. If one or the other wins 10 out of 10, that's a problem.

 

And for the record, I'm a Sage who spends most of his credits switching between DPS and Healing...

[Vetril]

Pretty much. If you come from the school of thought where you don't think there should be any healers in a warzone, I'm assuming you are as happy as a clam. For everyone else, this is a disaster.

 

I thought Warzones were supposed to be all about teamwork and coordination. That the team that works together the most, plans their attacks, cycles their CC/interrupts, and focus fire were the ones that triumph. Pre 1.2, that was absolutely the case. Healers were only immortal if you and anyone helping you had no idea what they were doing. Put one solid player on a healer and they are dead, if not useless to their team pre 1.2.

 

Some classes failed to have the burst to really threaten healers. But that has never been the fault of the healers. To illustrate my point, let's look at the difference between Commando and Vanguard burst while using the Assault Specialist tree (the shared class tree). Last weekend, a buddy of mine asked to duel me a few times to find some ways to kill me. He's a Commando. I gave him a few tips on when to CC me as an interrupt (Commando doesn't have an actual interrupt) and to use it in combination with peak burst (which but me down to about 30%). Despite all of that, I was able to survive all of his burst without burning emergency cooldowns. On top of that, I even had enough time to use Full Auto and Charged Bolts and actually defeated him.

 

Now, that might sound OP to you. But here's the context. Take a Vanguard, same spec, and put them on me. What happens? My emergency cooldowns are popped the second my armor goes up in flames. If I stop healing myself at all, I'm dead, so dealing damage in such a situation is never an option. 9 times out of 10, if I cannot LOS/CC them, I'm going to die without a teammate to bail me out.

 

What exactly causes this differential? Why is that I can pretty much ignore a Commando, but at the same time need all my cooldowns against a Vanguard (the same is true for the mirrors obviously). Because there are design inconsistencies between the two that makes one - Commando - have a severe burst deficit that the other - Vanguard - is not affected by! The healer has nothing to do with it. If healers were OP, I'd be able to ignore the Vanguard too - but I can't. I need help from teammates to stand a chance in that kind of situation. And guess what? I'm fine with that. It's a team game.

 

But then there's 1.2. It may have only been live for 24 hours, but the question I must ask is already clear: why is teamwork no longer necessary? With so much damage flying around, focused fire (teamwork) is no longer necessary to kill someone. For healers, healing is pretty much a waste of time. If you waste all of your resoruces to save a life, you're most likely rewarded with your teammate dying anyway and the DPS turning their bloodthirsty sights on you. The extra damage and reduced damage resistance makes tanks more squishy increasing their dependence on survival cooldowns and their trusty healers. Guarding someone is a sure fire way of melting away now.

 

I think the part of the community celebrating these nerfs either are trolls, willfully ignorant, or apathetic to anyone but themselves. This update is not conductive for teamwork! How much effort do DPS have to put in to be rewarded with a kill now? Compare that to amount of effort a healer needs to put in to save a life (and be rewarded with that ally dying anyway). Or to the efforts of a tank to protect their teammates using guard and taunts, only to die sooner due to the weakness of healers combined with the increase in damage?

 

I hate to rant about something as simple as a game, but man. If this is the direction Bioware wants their PvP to go, I am personally happy that my subscription is almost over. I have zero intentions on spending $15 a month to be **** on by DPS every time I enter a warzone. I fell in love with healing in this game because it had purpose; tanking was a close second because it was so seemlessly dynamic with healing. You could control the match if you had a loyal tank to watch out for you and DPS to focus down your main threats. But in 1.2, all you need is uncoordinated damage and win.

 

I do sincerely hope Bioware that your reason for not implementing ranked warzones in this patch is because of this glaring flaw in your balancing logic. You are seriously teetering on the edge here. You have a game with three archtypes: healers, tanks, and DPS. In PvP, two have them have just been handicapped. If healers and tanks have no place in your vision of PvP, so be it. But if you have any intentions of keeping all three of your roles viable, you better start thinking with your head and not those metrics.

 

You're missing the point. You die faster, but your enemies die faster too. If you buy 3 seconds for a team mate, chances are he removes a enemy from the fight, leaving you with a short window of numerical advantage. You don't win a fight healing, hammer it in your head. You win a fight killing.

 

People say a healer vs a DPS should be a stale mate. Not really, they should kill each other roughly the same amount of times - and I underline that it should always end up with someone dead. But if you as a healer choose to never attack who's killing you, it's not anyone's problem but yours. Be proactive and start slapping people around while you slow down their DPS race. If you kill the enemies and you have 100% HP left, 50%, or 10%, it's all the same.

[Alric_Annondu]

Well constructed arguments, all of them.

[johannmoore]

I have 3 lvl 50 healers, Sage, Scoundrel and Trooper....yes i am a healer junkie!

 

Pre 1.2 i have to say my scoudrel had the best survivabilty in a WZ. My Sage was awesome in huttball I looked forward to playing that WZ when Ii was working her. My trooper well, of all the 3 healing classes I really felt she needed a boost more than my Scoundrel/Sage especially from a pve standpoint as her Aoe heals couldnt compete in a raid, nor could she battlerez. So I was happy so see the small changes they made to the Trooper class yesterday.

 

However after spending 5 hours in WZ's on my healers yesterday, I gave up sadly and went to finish lvl'ing my lvl 49 Sorc healer.

 

I couldn't keep anyone up in a WZ yesterday despite my best efforts, I was usally one of the top 3 medal achievers, now I am hard pressed to get my 4 medals.

 

I agree with previous posts that a good healer was next to impossible to take down pre 1.2 in a 1v1. However an equally good dps who knew how to interupt and cc at just the right time, could eventually cause my death or have me running for aid of another player.

 

Last night that all changed. I havn't spent so much time in the respawn cage since I dinged my healers 50 with zero expertise gear in WZ as I did yesterday. I found that i was healing myself and no one else, which totally defeats the purpose of having a healer in a WZ in the first place.

 

My heals in general were much lower in the WZ as I found myself not bothering to heal anymore and just dps'ing for lack of being able to keep people up against the crazy maurador dps, not being able to interupt or stun that main move has taken my survivabilty now to zero if I am attacked by that class.

 

So the long and short of it, I will keep playing my healers in WZ's and Raids but the enjoyment and feeling of accomplishment in keeping people alive a little longer has gone.

 

Hoping that Bioware is able to gather enough data quick enough to make healing more enjoyable in the future.......

[Dartagon]

You're missing the point. You die faster, but your enemies die faster too. If you buy 3 seconds for a team mate, chances are he removes a enemy from the fight, leaving you with a short window of numerical advantage. You don't win a fight healing, hammer it in your head. You win a fight killing.

 

People say a healer vs a DPS should be a stale mate. Not really, they should kill each other roughly the same amount of times - and I underline that it should always end up with someone dead. But if you as a healer choose to never attack who's killing you, it's not anyone's problem but yours. Be proactive and start slapping people around while you slow down their DPS race. If you kill the enemies and you have 100% HP left, 50%, or 10%, it's all the same.

 

The problem right now, is healers can't keep up w/ the amount of DPS that is being dished out. How do I hit him back, when I die in a few rotations and have nothing in my arsenal to threaten him back with? He knows I'm a healer and he's focusing me for that specific reason. There's no threat that I can punish him back with. I just have to sit there eating his dps, until I die, or a team mate comes by, gets eaten by the dps and then proceeds to eat me.

 

[Assaultrooper]

Maybe you wont read this OP, but here goes anyways,

 

I believe what you are noticing is not so much the "nerf", but the "nerf" + new patch phenomena. You urself said it your against premades all the time now give it a week or two and ull be mostly back to the PuG vs PuG long battles

[Mackeyla]

Perhaps they could do something simple like adjust the bonus healing percentage up a bit? That would be an easy fix.

 

I think part of the reason some people are really feeling the burn is that their classes were adjusted ON TOP of the expertise bonus healing gimp/bonus damage pimp.

 

I honestly didn't concern myself with any of the 1.2 changes prior to its release because I like my class and I'm going to keep being a healing scoundrel no matter how much they may screw me over in the future, guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.

 

 

~Mackayla 50 Operative~

~Mackenzi 50 Scoundrel~

[Fifthorizor]

Healing post 1.2 is pretty painful. Players hit way harder, and now your 2.2 heal is just plain garbage. BM armor mods are a joke to what your class actually needs. Healing now is more of a frustration rather than fun.

[EbonFade]

The real problem, was that a bunch of terrible players who don't know how healers worked, complained very loudly about the state of the game.

 

It seemed to them that a good healer could tank 3 or 4 of them at once, and of course it must be overpowered.

 

What they didn't know, was that a good dps duo working together could easily neutralize even the best healers on the server, it just required knowing how healers function (typical example, people stupidly filling a smugglers resolve bar before he hits 30% health)

 

Bioware listened, and the result is the terrible state of affairs that is 1.2 (where if anything, the required skill level has dropped to an alltime low).

 

Its pathetic really, but rest assured it won't last when it becomes apparent to the terribads that the better teams on the server can now drop their entire group in like 10 seconds (you think I am exagerating.. I am not).

[Doomsdaycomes]

If this was the goal they did just as poor of a job of it as they did with rebalancing Grav round. The high level Commando healing talents just aren't worth it, abilities like Trauma Probe and Field Aid cost too much to bother with most of the time in a way making hybrid specs actually more desirable. On a certain level I have a hard time justifying buying much past Kolto Bomb (Tier 3) as a Commando atm, which was definitely not the case pre 1.2 basically it just means Commando hybrids should spec more into damage.

 

A merc/commando's instant heal is one of their best panic buttons, and though the other skills aren't that great, much of the bonus things (Extra heals, axtra armor buff, etc...) are well worth it. More importantly, ammo management took a hit, and now it is not practical for a Dps/Heal commando do to both, as they'll run out of ammo much faster and be standing around twiddling their thumbs. More importlantly, Dps on grav round got a nerf. Commando hybrids that spec into more damage won't be called hybrids any more, they'll be called dps.

[alanisUDL]

A lot of crazy assertions in this thread, too many to list. Here's what I think:

 

The goal in PvP is for skill to make the biggest difference. (Anybody disagree with that?) The second biggest factor should be gear. Somebody with much better gear should be able to hold their own or beat a better player with vastly inferior gear. A much better player should be able to beat somebody who is better geared, at least some of the time.

 

Assuming you don't disagree with the above:

 

1. Equally skilled, equally geared players should have an equal chance to win a 1 vs. 1 fight. It should NOT matter if they are Healers, DPS, or Tanks. A hard goal to achieve, but I think Bioware is trying.

 

2. 2 v 1 should greatly favor the 2.

 

3. DPS'ers opinion is they should be able to kill any non-dps'er 1 v1.

 

4. Healers opinion is they should not be able to be killed by less than 2 other people.

 

5. Tanks don't have opinions, they are just dumb meat shields (j/k).

 

My point is, pre 1.2 Sages/Sorcerers were VERY hard to kill 1 v 1 and even 2 v 1. It was, in my view, imbalanced. If Sages are usually losing 1 v 1 to DPS now, it is imbalanced the other way (I'm not saying that's the case). There are enough variables and strategy that two equally skilled/geared people fighting ten times can go 5-5. That's the ideal. That's balance. If one or the other wins 10 out of 10, that's a problem.

 

And for the record, I'm a Sage who spends most of his credits switching between DPS and Healing...

 

I agreed with all of your points except the highlighted part. Sages were not difficult at all to kill pre-1.2 by anyone of equal skill/gear. I say this from someone that had BM Sorc and Operatives, both healing and damage, both BM prior to the ez-mode valor patch.

[Xellahmai]

I don't play a healer but after a night of playing last night I don't see an issue with healing.

 

We have some very good healers on our server on both factions and they were still doing very well last night. When I zone into a WZ solo queued, as an annihilation marauder, I always pick a good healer that I know and stick with them. They have no problem at all keeping me alive since I split my time between killing the other team's healers and defending my healer (this is the key BTW...don't just expect them to heal you -- protect them!). I was able to go over half a game without dying many times while taking on multiple enemy players at once, again because healing and being healed takes teamwork.

 

I did however notice that bad healers are still bad. I think if anything that the forgiving grey area where meh healers could get away with being meh prior to 1.2 is now gone. I don't consider this to be an issue in any way.

[Dartagon]

The real problem, was that a bunch of terrible players who don't know how healers worked, complained very loudly about the state of the game.

 

It seemed to them that a good healer could tank 3 or 4 of them at once, and of course it must be overpowered.

 

What they didn't know, was that a good dps duo working together could easily neutralize even the best healers on the server, it just required knowing how healers function (typical example, people stupidly filling a smugglers resolve bar before he hits 30% health)

 

Bioware listened, and the result is the terrible state of affairs that is 1.2 (where if anything, the required skill level has dropped to an alltime low).

 

Its pathetic really, but rest assured it won't last when it becomes apparent to the terribads that the better teams on the server can now drop their entire group in like 10 seconds (you think I am exagerating.. I am not).

 

Seen it happen yesterday.

 

2-3 warriors make people explode in a second. Basically you get lept to and your dead.

[Doomsdaycomes]

You're missing the point. You die faster, but your enemies die faster too. If you buy 3 seconds for a team mate, chances are he removes a enemy from the fight, leaving you with a short window of numerical advantage. You don't win a fight healing, hammer it in your head. You win a fight killing.

 

People say a healer vs a DPS should be a stale mate. Not really, they should kill each other roughly the same amount of times - and I underline that it should always end up with someone dead. But if you as a healer choose to never attack who's killing you, it's not anyone's problem but yours. Be proactive and start slapping people around while you slow down their DPS race. If you kill the enemies and you have 100% HP left, 50%, or 10%, it's all the same.

 

+1 to this guy, he get's it.

[Caeliux]

You know whats funny all these people are complaining about dieing as a healer now, and yet good players are making it work.

 

Here next few weeks another patch to upgrade healers will happen because of all the QQ, and then when that happens dps will come on here talking about healers are too OP again.

 

I seriously laugh at all the BS in these threads daily, thank you so much for amusing me.

[Cailen]

I would love to watch fraps or live stream of some of these healers that complain so I can see if they are just plain bad.

 

I have images in my head of people not using purge, cc's or line of sight and just standing still out in the open allowing everyone to beat on them and not running around.

[swtorEleani]

Just a addition to my previous post:

 

I am not complaining about the nerf to force reg, it was ridiculous the way it was. But there would have been so many better ways to adress that issues. A lot of very good suggestions had been made in the PTR-forum - like an internal CD on the free consumption, etc...

Edited April 13, 2012 by swtorEleani

[Laparkapk]

To make 1 thing clear i am a Sith Sorc healing spec and healing gear... Even B4 1.2 facing off against ANY class of DPS 1V1 i could keep myself alive but i would ALWAYS die by the end eventually. if they where mirrored in gear to me i could NOT Dps them and i WOULD die cuz i would run out of Force power.... unless they where also healing spec or maybe a tank spec...cuz are DPS is completely useless, in almost full BM gear and i went a round for fun Full DPS no heals... i hit about 105K dam

 

We and Sages have Light armor ....that makes us get hit harder then the other healing class's.

 

we normally have less hp and only 1 instant heal witch is a DoT (Ooo 1K per cast) and Shield, if any smart DPS Interrupts and stuns BAM its over for us. There's a Jedi Sentinel on my Server i dual him for fun sometimes... i'v faced him at 100% hp when he was down to 20% hp B4 1.2 ...... when i died in about 6-7 seconds he finished with 27% hp. And your telling me we where Immortal?!!? lol learn your class's and what they have for move/spells ...know what and when to interrupt and you can down any sage/sorc (heals)

 

2v1 and yea it could take a while but i would STILL DIE... i'v seen troopers and Mercs with there heavy armor almost UN-touchable.

 

could you tweak and make us heal for less yes...that would of been fair but at this point like others have said your better off with 8 DPS and 6DPS and 2 Healers.

 

I agree with the Initial post on this topic 100%. ( Just had to put my point of view from a Light armor healer and my expirience)

[Karandor]

Good healers are even more important now than they were before 1.2 as the skill gap has been widened a lot.

 

 

This patch has made the PvP much less forgiving and you have to be on your game to do well.

 

The difference between a good player and a bad player has simply been amplified by the changes to healing. Before the patch even a mediocre to bad healer was generally worth having on a team because they were pretty easy to play and needed 0 resource management skills. Now a bad healer is just as bad to have on your team as a bad DPS.

 

 

The skilled healers that I've played with are still awesome, some healers that I had thought were good are now failing terribly.

 

I think healing may have been nerfed a little bit too much but as people are still adjusting to major changes in playstyle it's better to wait than freak out after less than a day of playing 1.2.

[Dartagon]

I would love to watch fraps or live stream of some of these healers that complain so I can see if they are just plain bad.

 

I have images in my head of people not using purge, cc's or line of sight and just standing still out in the open allowing everyone to beat on them and not running around.

 

You can come and watch me play any time. I can't stream. I don't care what anyone says, its really not a L2 Play, either there is a bug with gear or they overtuned the damage. In either case, this morning, whatever the scenario was it was fixed.

 

Yesterday my energy shield 25% mitigation wasn't doing squat. Today, this morning it was working.

[EbonFade]

I did however notice that bad healers are still bad. I think if anything that the forgiving grey area where meh healers could get away with being meh prior to 1.2 is now gone. I don't consider this to be an issue in any way.

 

So, it has nothing to do with healers and everything to do with the dps on your team. If your team can drop their team fast, your healers don't really have much work to do.

 

I've been in several wzs now, where almost no one on my team died, yet my total healing done was like 200k tops.

 

The problem arises when the other team has decent dps, and it has nothing to do with raw healing numbers (i've hit 680k healing several times yesterday), but rather the inability to heal through focus fire burst.

 

In that voidstar where I hit that number, I think half my team ate 6 or 7 deaths each. I simply couldn't keep them up. The tanks that were helping guard me were dying way too fast, and so forth.

 

Anyway, atm classes with cooldowns (eg Marauders) are kings, simply b/c they can prolong their life considerably longer than other dps classes can without needing a healer.

[Siega]

People say a healer vs a DPS should be a stale mate. Not really, they should kill each other roughly the same amount of times - and I underline that it should always end up with someone dead. But if you as a healer choose to never attack who's killing you, it's not anyone's problem but yours. Be proactive and start slapping people around while you slow down their DPS race. If you kill the enemies and you have 100% HP left, 50%, or 10%, it's all the same.

 

So you are say a healer should be able to - against a dps in same quality gear and skill - to heal through the burst damage the dps during stuns/interrupts and on top of that do enough white damage to outdo the white damage of the dps? Just trying to clarify what you mean.

 

I'll be alright with that, can we get that buff in 1.3, pretty please? I am sorry, I fear the bad dps will complain too much and get healers nerfed again.