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

[Occultsaga]

im sure that in a 2x2 situation, where one team is a healer-tank, or healer-dps, and the other team ia a tank-dps or dps-dps, the team with the healer will usually win, unless your partner or you sucks a lot.

[EchoTwoOmega]

After spending about 8 hours in WZ's yesterday here is what I see:

 

Healers standing still. They are so used to standing there and healing themself and others that they dont move.

 

Healers not using their knockbacks, stuns, slows, CC's, shields, expertise/healing consumables etc.

 

Healers have PLENTY of tools in order to survive they just need to use them now.

[Khoraji]

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.

 

If this is true it is very odd. Maybe only on your server? As a merc healer myself I was doing fine yesterday, and my bubble def worked...saved my life a few times. Glad it is working better for you now.

[Siega]

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.

 

I do think one of the BH problems is not being able to run much around to do any healing at all? But sure, a healer is better running around than stopping up to heal now and then, I am sure.

 

BH cure is instant, could go spam that, I guess, so I can run up and down and all around. Worth a test run in the next wz.

[Caeliux]

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 have no idea how right you are about that. ^

 

There is a mass majority of healers that think tank and spank should happen in PvP.

 

There is some people that are good healers that understand LOS + KITING.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Caeliux

[Masturomenos]

Until a healer can kill a dps then a dps should not kill a healer. It should take 2 or 3 people to kill a healer since all they can do is heal.

 

Look at the forum posts. Whats the complaints? People die to fast. Well guess what if heals were good then no one would be complaining.

 

If healers were still useful then we would have only people cryng about 1v1 aganst a healer and no game balances around 1v1. Right now the game is purely 1v1 balanced.

 

No one has fun dying ain wz. Dying means no medals, dying means no use of full cycle of cds, dying means rezong and runnig, dying means ur not helping ur team.

 

Ive said it over and over its more fun to have a 8v8 where 1 or 2 deaths are what changes the outcome or a 1 to 1 hutball match. No one has fun being rolled and dying 20 times and losing 6 to 0.

 

The only way u can have epic battles and feel like ur contributing is by staying alive. When u cant or no one can keep u alive the game bcomes annoying.

 

Heals should always be OP the issue is BW cant mke it based on skill but rather nerf it to be harder and weaker. The whole point is a healer hould keep up multiple people but hve multple spells that work off each other. Right now healers have a couple spells and even played perfectly cant keep resources up or healing up. The games being dumbed down because the developes are lazy.

 

Look at wow healers have multple spells and abilities that work together. Withoug things like cleansing being important or intrupting being importan or no dispelling all we hve is heas so either heals need to be OP or we need methods to keep people up without heals and negate damage. I dont care if its cds or mass dispel or heal that heal both people same time whatever. We cant not have anything but heals and then the heals we have be short lived due to resources and weak due to scaling coefficients.

 

Healers need a buff a big one. Period. For the sake of everyones fun.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Masturomenos

[Dietra]

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 agree with most of what you say up here... but...

 

The post 1.2 Warzones are not about gear anymore.... or skill for that matter....

 

The expertise in warzones favors the dps now. And the healing % is a lot lower than the dps %... Even if healers have the skill... their heals are a certain % less effective than the dps % output... Which makes the healing vs dps not equal!

In fact... it's not ballance.... in as simple as numbers it's not equal... it was... but isn't anymore...

 

And that blows half your argument out of the water as far as I can tell...

[Ashlian]

Here is what I noticed last night as an Operative healer.

 

-- Operative healing output is about the same.

-- Energy seems to deplete faster or regenerate slower.

-- Burst damage on several DPS classes has increased.

-- Players have less health.

-- Stealth is even easier to see through.

-- World PvE is a lot more tedious due to lower Operative damage.

 

I can deal with all that.

 

What I'm having a hard time dealing with is that, in Warzones, I now have to play the Medals game rather than playing the Warzone itself. If you are losing, the game is no longer about how to turn it around, it's about how to get enough medals so that the game is not a total waste.

 

In Alderaan you stop fighting and sit on one point to get objective medals, or you put on DPS gear and try to get a Hidden Strike Crit or maybe even the first damage medal all while not healing your team. It's sick and sad, and I hate it.

 

Exactly what you said. It's very frustrating to watch the team simply give up when everyone knows there will be no win and you have five or six people sitting guarding your one turret so they get at least SOME points out of the match when you're overwhelmingly outclassed in a warzone. Hard to blame people since no one wants to spend time and get nothing out of it, but it essentially defeats the entire purpose of all their changes to warzones to begin with, which were to encourage participation in objectives. That's pretty much totally backfired in any match where one side knows it has no chance of winning, given the penalties for a seriously one-sided loss. You might as well have spent your time doing something else ingame....and that's the conclusion most of us who had been waiting for a more even playing field with ranked warzones have come to in my guild.

 

Half of the problems addressed by posters in this thread or the "just get better" responses to them would have been solved to a great extent if they'd managed to get ranked warzones off the ground, as we'd have been playing finally with players of equal skill level. The opportunity to learn to play better in pvp decreases dramatically when you die within 30 seconds of your respawn. And as that was what I spent an entire Novare Coast match doing last night, the 25 commendations I got are really not enough incentive to continue pvp as a marginally (recruit with a few centurion) geared new 50 pvp player. In the matches I played against someone other than the Beautiful People (full-time pvp players), the new gear made a pretty big difference and the warzones were working as intended....like skill/gear against like skill/gear. When it's the steamroller vs the steamrolled, repeatedly throwing yourself to your doom becomes old pretty damn quickly. And I've never, ever liked playing the medals game. How boring.

[Astarica]

After spending about 8 hours in WZ's yesterday here is what I see:

 

Healers standing still. They are so used to standing there and healing themself and others that they dont move.

 

Healers not using their knockbacks, stuns, slows, CC's, shields, expertise/healing consumables etc.

 

Healers have PLENTY of tools in order to survive they just need to use them now.

 

Pretty much, though unless you were a Merc you still died if you really did stand still against good DPS.

 

The good healers are still running away like crazy because not getting hit is the best form of protection.

 

The CCs aren't actually hard to deal with. The best defensive cooldown a healer has is run around some kind of obstruction/elevation while the pursuer is snared. It even gets rid of normally hard-to-shake classes.

[MightyRoy]

Everyone likes to complain about class changes when the reality is this:

 

The best players will be at the top of the server. Player skill difference has (and always will) be the deciding factor in a warzone.

 

the classes are not so unbalanced that this is the case.

 

Am i the only one that thinks people just use the nerf excuse to validate the fact the they are not good enough to adapt their play style.

 

I play a commando healer and instead of whining, im learning to play differently and im enjoying it just as much as i did before.

 

Im not saying class imbalances dont need to be fixed, im just saying that its not the result of "he midden hitting the windmill" that everyone says it is.

 

That is all.

[Dartagon]

im sure that in a 2x2 situation, where one team is a healer-tank, or healer-dps, and the other team ia a tank-dps or dps-dps, the team with the healer will usually win, unless your partner or you sucks a lot.

 

No two dps will win that battle hands down.

[Khoraji]

keep popping out your fail dps Screen shots and i just may have to..

 

Umm. voidstar there were 5 people over 300k, 4 on the other team.

 

Huttball SS: 6mins 30 seconds left so of course numbers are down.

 

 

Lets see your terrible screenshots of you getting owned. And if you aren't getting owned, stop crying.

[swtorEleani]

After spending about 8 hours in WZ's yesterday here is what I see:

 

Healers standing still. They are so used to standing there and healing themself and others that they dont move.

 

Healers not using their knockbacks, stuns, slows, CC's, shields, expertise/healing consumables etc.

 

Healers have PLENTY of tools in order to survive they just need to use them now.

 

 

Have you tried healing while on the move as a sage/sorc or even better all the times you're being stunned despite the fact, that your resolve bar is filled to the max?

[SWImara]

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.

The instant heal is indeed an excellent panic button, but I don't believe that the panic button is worth 31 talent points. The extra heals, extra armor etc. that one can pick up throughout the tree have mostly been cut at least in half and though certainly they remain useful I don't feel that it is worthwhile buying them instead of buying more efficient talents from the other trees.

 

On the point of ammo you are wholly right, but basically Commando heal/dps hybrids now function well enough to keep teammates up for a bit while DPSing enemies down for a short while. This is basically the opposite of before when they would stop healing long enough to DPS some, in a few weeks I might find that my opinion is changed but atm time seems better spent contributing to killing than contributing to keeping teammates up. I'm still working at finding out what the value of the new version of Super Charged Cell is, previously it was a building block of Commando/Mercenary heals. Now its function appears mostly to be trying to keep ammo afloat.

 

As for Grav Round, yes it got a nerf but curtain of fire keeps full auto wholly functional functioning overall at about the same level of damage as before. The only thing you're missing is the expensive (high ammo) burst from Demolition. I suppose its a "your mileage may vary" issue but I currently think a hybrid Commando brings more to a team than one expecting only to heal. Even accounting for a dedicated tank and a competent team.

 

TLDR: Healing works in 1.2 your time would just be better spent DPSing.

[Khoraji]

Everyone likes to complain about class changes when the reality is this:

 

The best players will be at the top of the server. Player skill difference has (and always will) be the deciding factor in a warzone.

 

the classes are not so unbalanced that this is the case.

 

Am i the only one that thinks people just use the nerf excuse to validate the fact the they are not good enough to adapt their play style.

 

I play a commando healer and instead of whining, im learning to play differently and im enjoying it just as much as i did before.

 

Im not saying class imbalances dont need to be fixed, im just saying that its not the result of "he midden hitting the windmill" that everyone says it is.

 

That is all.

 

This..

[Phuzz]

It used to be impossible for a dps to defeat a healer. Who would be able to heal himself and others a little bit while doing so. You still can. I saw it happen yesterday. THe difference is this: If you heal others while trying to stay alive, you will be eaten by someone who tries hard, and is skilled at, killing you.

 

Imagine the frustration for dpsers pre 1.2 - Youd need at least two good dpsers to take down a healer. And it wouldnt necessarily happen in 10 seconds.

 

Total rubbish. Never been true.

 

I know for a fact that Inf specced Shadows and Correctly specced scoundrels could take down ANY healer 1v1 on most (not all) occasions.

 

I know because I did it, a lot. Thats what those classes were designed to do.

 

Ranged DPS are always going to struggle with doing that, because it isnt what they were made for primarily (and its usually easier to LoS them, for example). And if you played Tanksin or other fotm specs for classes then you struggled too, in addition to bad players not being able to drop a healer.

 

On the rare occasion you couldnt drop a really good healer, he would generally be spam healing himself and wouldnt be able to do ANYTHING else.

 

That to me seems very balanced. It should be a stalemate when a good DPS meets a good Healer. It shouldnt be a case of a DPS always being able to kill everything.

[Caeliux]

Everyone likes to complain about class changes when the reality is this:

 

The best players will be at the top of the server. Player skill difference has (and always will) be the deciding factor in a warzone.

 

the classes are not so unbalanced that this is the case.

 

Am i the only one that thinks people just use the nerf excuse to validate the fact the they are not good enough to adapt their play style.

 

I play a commando healer and instead of whining, im learning to play differently and im enjoying it just as much as i did before.

 

Im not saying class imbalances dont need to be fixed, im just saying that its not the result of "he midden hitting the windmill" that everyone says it is.

 

That is all.

 

^ This guy gets it

 

+1

[amnie]

After spending about 8 hours in WZ's yesterday here is what I see:

 

Healers standing still. They are so used to standing there and healing themself and others that they dont move.

 

Healers not using their knockbacks, stuns, slows, CC's, shields, expertise/healing consumables etc.

 

Healers have PLENTY of tools in order to survive they just need to use them now.

 

 

that still doesn't change the fact that in a 'quick game' (aka coming in really late, or a game 3 vs 8) the healer is the one most likely not getting the 3 medals needed to at least get .some. commendations.

 

I can deal with not getting as many commendations as everyone else, but a dps class definitely has it easier to get the 3 'starter medals' pretty quickly. since I no longer get 2 medals right away for healing for 5k (2.5k crit medal and 5k crit medal)... yeah... no chance.

 

that is .my. only problem with the new system. I actually agree that I shouldn't be able to survive against 2 people on my own. I am one of those that want to have playing be a challenge. but as it is right now, I will no longer join warzones unless I am in a full group. which is kinda bad since in the mornings there are not exactly all too many lvl 50s online to begin with, and that's where I often play. I guess I will use that time to play my sith alts or do dailies... but I'd rather play what I feel like, and not be forced to a certain play style.

 

apart from that I .enjoy. playing PUG warzones every once in a while. it's a great way to make new friends or even recruit people to my guild. there are actually a few people on my server that are really good who only solo or duo queue. I'd be sad if I didn't see them around anymore...

[Dartagon]

Everyone likes to complain about class changes when the reality is this:

 

The best players will be at the top of the server. Player skill difference has (and always will) be the deciding factor in a warzone.

 

the classes are not so unbalanced that this is the case.

 

Am i the only one that thinks people just use the nerf excuse to validate the fact the they are not good enough to adapt their play style.

 

I play a commando healer and instead of whining, im learning to play differently and im enjoying it just as much as i did before.

 

Im not saying class imbalances dont need to be fixed, im just saying that its not the result of "he midden hitting the windmill" that everyone says it is.

 

That is all.

 

This isn't a case of being the top healer in a pile of crappy healers. Worst cooks in america anyone?

 

I out heal a lot of people. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much healing you are doing, the target you are healing still dies anyways, or you die. Yes, I run, cc, hide, it doesn't matter.

 

Again, I think we may be worrying about nothing since, this mornings patch resolved what I was experiencing yesterday. It may have just been a bug w/ my pre 1.2 BM gear. Who knows.

[Aaoogaa]

Played a warzone...myself and my sentinel friend. We were attacked by 2 warriors and a marauder. It used to be we could through the use of CC and solid team play extend the fight versus 3 and even win. Force choke cc break / force choke dead. TTK has never been 5 seconds...it is now. I don't mind getting killed by 3 people, I do mind being useless.

[Quynhdolin]

i think all this makes for a more exciting fast paced pvp environment. people die more often, the tide of the games change more. i'm a healer and i'm doing just fine. just gotta play smart. i played about 15 games yesterday and had over 6 games with 0 deaths and the rest only 1-3. just know who to group with and make sure you guys coordinate well.

 

btw, i grouped with an operative dps yesterday and we took on teams of 2-4 people (every combination) just fine. i was able to keep him up without dying and if i was ever stunned or couldn't get a heal off, he knows when to medpac. then he logged on his tank and we continued to winwinwin

Edited April 13, 2012 by Quynhdolin

[Vetril]

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.

 

They lose cause they just heal and don't try to weave damage into their rotation. If you just keep stalling and stalling you're gonna be burned down eventually.

[Mahrdol]

I played my War hero sorc healer and I thought the games were much better with the excepton of a huttball game we won 6-0 that I recieved no valor of coms for. We won in 4-5 mins. The games were faster and I enjoyed them more.

[iceperson]

They lose cause they just heal and don't try to weave damage into their rotation. If you just keep stalling and stalling you're gonna be burned down eventually.

 

rofl. that's funny

[Happy-Killer]

First off, I am a DPS player so I have a different point of view. Now I do agree with you that having actual tanking and heals together in pvp is a great thing, but it does present a problem. If WZ's in this game were striaght up team death match no1 would be complaining, i.e. "QQ healer are OP! yada yada." But TOR doesn't work like that. These are all OBJECTIVE BASED games. Here's a quote from your post:

 

" As a commando I didn't need a tank pre 1.2. I could tank it myself. Throw me a good, geared tank and we were a two man god team. Me and my tank against the world. Couldn't necessarily kill anything, but we wouldn't die. "

 

I bolded the important part. So in these objective based games you have to control points, and the only way to capture a point is to kill the people guarding it. How is the match supposed to be competitive if 2 or 3 people simply cannot be killed? The game does not work, and it becomes "which ever team has more tank/healer combos" wins... regardless of gear, skill, or teamwork.

 

Take civil war for example. If there is a shadow, sorc healer, and a tank, the shadow can force speed and cap the node, and the 3of them can defend that node all match long. The other team doesn't stand a chance, simply because healer/healer/tank combos are unbeatable.

 

I think the buffs warrior/knights received was too much and it is going to make them even better at shutting down healers.

 

 

*I wanted to add that Im not saying post 1.2 healing is the way it should be. Heals may very well have been nerfed too much. All im saying is, in objective based games, having players that cannot be killed completely defeats the purpose.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Happy-Killer