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

[Caeliux]

When a healer cannot keep a friendly DPS alive in a 2v1 scenario then the healer is not a threat. The enemy DPS will simply kill the friendly DPS and then kill the healer.

 

These changes have made it difficult (but not impossible) to keep a friendly alive in a 2v1 scenario. These changes have, however, made it impossible to keep a friendly alive in a 2v2 scenario. This means that the side with 2 DPS will always beat the side with 1 DPS and 1 Healer, regardless of the kill order. That means Healers are no longer a threat.

 

Sure, you are still going to get focused for a bit until people learn the new meta, but once they do you are quickly going to lose your spot on a premade.

 

Have fun getting stomped in your solo queue.

 

You are one amazing story teller let me tell you, but all the magic tricks you posted is not happening to me, and happening to good healers.

 

Have fun trying to beat a guarded healer with a pre-made that understands focus and objectives in Warzones.

 

Nothing has changed since 1.2 was launched, the bads stay bad, and the good players still make the bads cry.

 

But you go ahead and you keep believing that healers suck and isn't a threat there champ, while I keep my team alive and win Warzones I will do it in your name little buddy.

[KaoticEmbrace]

You are one amazing story teller let me tell you, but all the magic tricks you posted is not happening to me, and happening to good healers.

 

Have fun trying to beat a guarded healer with a pre-made that understands focus and objectives in Warzones.

 

Nothing has changed since 1.2 was launched, the bads stay bad, and the good players still make the bads cry.

 

But you go ahead and you keep believing that healers suck and isn't a threat there champ, while I keep my team alive and win Warzones I will do it in your name little buddy.

 

interesting..

[AmokBE]

I had no problem killing healers before the patch and now your tears will taste even sweeter

 

muhahahah (sith sin)

[HoosierDuke]

Okay I will add my 2 cents from a healer and DPS perspective as fairly as I can.

 

I'm so gonna steal your name ... love it!

[truchaos]

No, in PvP healing should not be about the ability to "negate damages done through (*gasp*) healing."

 

In PvP the point of healing is to keep DPS alive long enough to kill the other DPS. Everything else being equal between DPS the side with the healer, or better healer, should win. Even if the DPS ends with 1% health left.

 

Sorry, but I'm a tad confused on your statements here... if pvp healing shouldn't be about the ability to heal through the incoming damage done to a target, then how is the healer supposed to keep said dps 'alive'?

[Erasimus]

Okay I will add my 2 cents from a healer and DPS perspective as fairly as I can.

 

I play the game with my boyfriend. He is a DPS and I'm a healer. We queue all our warzones together and try to stay together the whole game so I can heal bot him and he can save me. We're still relatively new to PvP (read valor rank ~55, mostly Centurion gear still). I have a Smuggler healer and a BH healer. With 1.2 my BH healer overheats significantly faster than before 1.2. In 1v1 with a DPS I can count on it that if I cannot escape or do not get help from a team member, I will die.

My Smuggler does not feel as hard hit by 1.2 as my BH but it still feels harder to keep my team alive. My boyfriend was frustrated with me all night last night while we were playing as he felt that I was not doing my job. I tried to explain that with the healing changes I just cannot keep him and myself up anymore when most games I am focused and killed pretty quickly.

As someone else in a previous post said, it is frustrating that DPS do not feel the need to have team work to get something done. The idea of needing 2 DPS in a joint effort to kill a healer is just unthinkable but people expect healers to be totally okay being completely dependent on team members. I have a DPS character and I can say that it was basically impossible to solo kill a healer prior to 1.2 but I feel that now it is almost impossible for me to survive the solo DPS trying to burn me down while I try to keep my boyfriend healed also. I normally get an MVP vote or 2 for healing but last night I did PvP all night, healed my absolute best and got 3 MVP votes total for the entire afternoon and evening. That shows me that the lack of healing is apparent to my team and they no longer feel that healers are all that valuable to the team.

I heard a lot of complaining about how overpowered healers were pre 1.2 from my brothers who both play DPS and my boyfriend. They all pointed out (frequently) how healers are practically impossible to kill. I do feel that healing needed a little balancing but I feel that it got taken a bit far. To be completely fair, it is possible that once I finish gearing my healers I will feel differently and obviously the game is not balanced around undergeared players. I expect to be less effective than someone much better geared than myself but I also expect that when I'm playing a warzone doing my job the best I can that I can see (and my team can see) that I am actually contributing to the team and making some difference.

 

 

I reserve the right to change my opinion as I spend more time playing 1.2.

 

A very reasonable post. However, I would suggest you swap out all of the Cent gear for the Recruit PvP gear. With the changes to expertise the Recruit gear is much better than Cent. Keeping a few pieces of Champ gear is fine, but lose the Cent gear.

[cedarghost]

"Against two geared dps going down on one person, person is just dead. Nothing you can do about it."

Not understanding what is wrong with that....

I know it is not always the case. 2v1, you can't win them all. If I kill one of them, I did my job. If I kill one and get away, even better. If I die, well it WAS 2v1. If there is a class that can consistently win when they are outnumbered 2 to 1, what is it so I can roll one?

Now, do you die as well after the tank? I'm just trying to wrap my head around this because that's the point of focus-firing in pvp. You focus-fire so the damage is unhealable, then move to someone else when that person dies. As they should.

As for the rest of your post, I can see your logic in it.

Edited April 13, 2012 by cedarghost

[KaoticEmbrace]

Sorry, but I'm a tad confused on your statements here... if pvp healing shouldn't be about the ability to heal through the incoming damage done to a target, then how is the healer supposed to keep said dps 'alive'?

 

 

i agree of course

[Dayin]

I heal on a scorc and I actually appriciate some of the changes that have been made. I like that now scorcs have to manage thier force and there will be a deferience between a good Scorc healer and a bad one that just button smashes. I do not like every change that was made this patch either but I feel some of the OPS posts are really, just QQ. 1. as a scorc I can still survive through 1-2 hitting on me and 2-3 hitting on my GOOD tank no problem. I think these changes needed to be in place before ranked wzs happened so that skill WILL trump an ublanance and personally I think they did a decent job balancing us with other healers, although im annoyed that merc healers can still just live through just about anything still and do the same numbers in terms of healing out put. And I think thats the true unbalance.

 

Like with any mmo the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And people were constantly complaining scorcs were op. And maybe we were, or maybe everyone not playing a scorc is just bad? SO bioware looked into the issue saw an imbalance and has attempted to rectify the QQ. Personally I think its the combination of a Sith *** gaurding thier Sith healer that was OP, and people were just to silly to notice there was 2 at work here and jst complained about the healer they couldnt kill because of a gaurd and a good tank friend. And as I said before this still works, with a good tank, gone are the days of surviving the two of us with 6-7 people on us, but maybe that was OP?

 

Anyways the tank I normally run with is one of those that gets called a cheater constantly. And we are not cheaters. We play for hours every day together, he watches my healthbar if we are far apart and I watch his. There is no cheating, from us. People are just bad they dont inturrupt or cc me to kill him, and they cannot kill me first because I will knock them back run, bubble myself heal myself and he will pull them off. Now they have a chance to kill us if they actually group up, and its given it a new challange. Since Bioware cannot make every player a good one they made it easier for baddies who can at least co-ordinate.

[BigRedBaron]

MY 2 CENTS.

 

The 1v1 healer debate has long since been hashed and rehashed. Balance is focused on group pvp and not 1v1 anywho but I think this nerf came down to the fact that 2/3 and now 3/4 of the pvp maps can be COMPLETELY dominated by a good healer with a decent team. If you had 2 or more healers the balance became even more ridiculous. The amount of time a good healer or mutliple healers can stay alive was ABSURD.

 

It seemed like the pvp in this game got to the point where dps and tank roles did not have ANYWHERE near the impact of a good healer. It's like taking the quarterback role out of the superbowl and just putting in anyone else and tell them to get the ball down the field..

<<THE ROLE OF HEALER BECAME TOO MUCH OF AN IMPACT ON WARZONE OUTCOME>>

 

POINT BLANK this is a nerf to the end result of whoever has the better healers or any healers almost ALWAYS won...

[pathiss]

Reality check since I play a operative healer, a merc healer, and a sorc healer.

 

I feel the changes for my merc were pretty decent and even handed. I never had the raw healing output of a sorcerer, but the fact that I could heal far better under fire and was vastly more tanky more than made up for it. The changes alone, sans the expertise change, would have been pretty fair.

 

My sorcerer before the changes was a puggers worst nightmare because I could dish out serious healing numbers and most puggers had no clue how shut me down. Against competent players though in competitive matches, outside of huttball my sorc was a completely and total liability because of how much of a draw on guard he was and due to the fact that he was stupid easy to shut down with interrupts. Post 1.2, there is no reason to continue playing my sorcerer. The sorc changes to 'viable' healing output were grossly heavy handed. I say viable healing output because sorcs lost the ability to cast their biggest heal quickly. Rather than simply fix the bug allowing it to be double cast quickly and see how it played out, the end result was making the class unplayable (as a healer) against anyone even remotely competitive. You literally need a guard chained to your hip following you around to survive, and even then you can still be shut down easily via interrupts.

 

My operative healer was completely viable before the patch both pugging and in competitive matches, and I would even go so far as to say was probably the best healer in competitive games. Sure bad players had issues healing with this class, but a good player was really able to excel with it in competitive play. Post patch, I must admit it is pretty stupid. I played 10 matches last night pugging, seldom had guard, and died once... and that death was my own fault. I feel borderline OP.

 

Post 1.2 conclusion:

 

Sorcs Healers - Completely and totally unviable

Merc Healers - Fairly ok

Operative Healers - Borderline OP

[Caeliux]

Sure bad players had issues healing with this class, but a good player was really able to excel with it in competitive play.

 

There is so much truth in that right there. ^

 

+1

 

 

Sorcs Healers - Completely and totally unviable

 

Disagree, they are fine in the hands of a good player.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Caeliux

[pathiss]

POINT BLANK this is a nerf to the end result of whoever has the better healers or any healers almost ALWAYS won...

 

That's silly and shortsighted for several reasons. Competent DPS that know how to interrupts and assist targets down > healing can ever be.

[Teaxe]

Great Post.

 

I lived with the lack of movement as my commando/healer as a trade off to our survivability. Couldnt kill many people but I was able to survive, IF it meant healing up another teammate and I died.. fine. It was worth the sacrifice.

 

Now my heals really don't do anything. The heals are most affective on the periphery. Healing players who aren't the focus of the opposing DPS. If you're the getting targetted by DPS then you're pretty much dead now, unless I empty all of my energy and then.. you're still probably dead.

 

Would being in a pre-made make a difference, absolutely. But that's what was so nice about PVP before. You didnt 'have to be'. Healing now requires a focus'd attack. I'm not sure if it will work but in theory, if you're healers all act in together, you may keep someone alive. That's the only thing I can see happening now.

 

I'm still trying to feel my way through all of this.. it's quite a challenge.

 

I dislike having my playstyle changed SO drastically. Tweaks/nerfs here and there, I'm fine with but this.. so far, has been HUGE. I can understand why people are unsubbing, when the character you love the most has been so drastically changed? I'm not condoning it but I can understand why.

 

I dont mind not being in the spotlight anymore, it's nice. But we've not just been placed in the back seat, we've been placed in the trunk.

'

note ,,,,,,,healing now requres a focused attack.im not sure if it will work in thereory........... nuf said . like in rift you were given a free passs///// there are classes for a reasonL) tanks like longer<exspesaily eith right suport> healers live longer with right suport..........dps kills...what DPS kills how shocking.go back to team L) magibe the frustratin when a highr geared beter skilled dps cant kill a sampper healer or enterylvl tank solo............classes ar for a re4ason .specialisation. this wholw every class should do everythinbg crap defeats the porpose of classes

[Ovanmaru]

You don't want 1 dps to be able to stop a healer...but you want 1 healer to keep an entire team alive? Lol get out of here.

[pathiss]

You don't want 1 dps to be able to stop a healer...but you want 1 healer to keep an entire team alive? Lol get out of here.

 

Who said that? I missed it.

[KaoticEmbrace]

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the trolls and dps whores when it comes to healing. They love to criticize your justified complaints and say "Well you need good team work now to survive, blah blah blah."

 

But if you tell them that the other side needs good team work to bring down a good healer they just whine and say you needed to be nerfed. It's never on them. If they can't kill a healer fast enough they pour through these forums crying for healer nerfs. Typical dps whores who just want fat numbers and want to 1-2 shot healers so they can feel manly.

 

Agreed

[Sinvx]

I am a Sage healer, and I think the healing nerf was needed. The only thing I hate is the nerf to presence of mind. Gimps Sage/Sorc dps by a lot.

[KaoticEmbrace]

You don't want 1 dps to be able to stop a healer...but you want 1 healer to keep an entire team alive? Lol get out of here.

 

 

 

thats not what anyone said

[Ovanmaru]

But you do need good teamwork to survive....lol you must not of played WoW. Silences in that game lock out entire schools of spells. Here you can just cast another spell (and its not like you have a lot of those to worry about anyway). Healing is EASY in this game, stop complaining.

 

You want difficult? Go play warhammer, healers get lol1shot by any dps if your team stops paying attention to you for a split second.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Ovanmaru

[KaoticEmbrace]

i'll never understand why a healer would actually say they needed a nerf haha

[Erasimus]

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the trolls and dps whores when it comes to healing. They love to criticize your justified complaints and say "Well you need good team work now to survive, blah blah blah."

 

But if you tell them that the other side needs good team work to bring down a good healer they just whine and say you needed to be nerfed. It's never on them. If they can't kill a healer fast enough they pour through these forums crying for healer nerfs. Typical dps whores who just want fat numbers and want to 1-2 shot healers so they can feel manly.

 

You won't 1-2 shot an equally geared healer. I've played a lot of WZs in the last two days, PvP is about all I do, on 3 different 50s and haven't see this happen yet.

 

As for the teamwork statement.

 

1. It should not take "teamwork" to take down a single unsupported healer and it did prior to 1.2.

 

2. It still takes teamwork in 1.2 to take down a supported healer, and if there are two people focused on the healer and your DPS can't kill one or both of them then:

a. The healer is really under-geared and died too fast

b. Your DPS is under-geared, not paying attention, or just bad

[SWImara]

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the trolls and dps whores when it comes to healing. They love to criticize your justified complaints and say "Well you need good team work now to survive, blah blah blah."

Been going on since WoW, same time as all of the "Pure DPS" complaining about queues and demands to do more damage than any "Hybrid Classes". Essentially the argument is that games should be fast paced and brutal, people should be dying quickly and that healers/tanks should have a purely support role. These support roles exist to work on a team while DPS specs are meant to be functional alone or in groups.

 

Really how is the number of survivability tools available to DPS builds (compared with Tanks for example) justifiable atm in SWTOR? What role is supposed to be the theoretical rock to DPSers scissor and how is it that L2P or L2CC are valid arguments now when L2P/L2CC/L2Interrupt wasn't a valid argument a few days ago?

[Caeliux]

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the trolls and dps whores when it comes to healing. They love to criticize your justified complaints and say "Well you need good team work now to survive, blah blah blah."

 

But if you tell them that the other side needs good team work to bring down a good healer they just whine and say you needed to be nerfed. It's never on them. If they can't kill a healer fast enough they pour through these forums crying for healer nerfs. Typical dps whores who just want fat numbers and want to 1-2 shot healers so they can feel manly.

 

^ Amen

 

+1

[madtycoon]

If u can't beat down a healer or the ppl he is healing pre 1.2 it's probably cause:

- nobody around you has a MS

- nobody around you including you knows how to kick/interupt a cast

- a good healer will fake cast and you will fell for it

- nobody around you including you knows how to chain controls (or stop DD on a flashbang).

- nobody around you knows to fake focus.

 

Remember it was the same in wow. Chaman/pal just COULD'NT be killed in duel. Even 2V1.

BE smart. Control/snare the healer while he is out of LOS from his DD/tank. Kick/interupt the hell of out him. CC again. Bring the DD out of LOS behind a pillar/obstacle. Keep the heal as far as possible from his target. If you can't, dot the healer and focus his DD. If you hurt him bad enough (in a, let's say, 2V2 format) the healer will have to full cast. As soon as the healer drops below 60%, change focus with relic+exp boost pack. If both of you do so its free win.

 

Skill is not only the way you spam you shortcuts like a *******. In pvp skill = motion and team play (assist).

 

You're talking to the deaf right here.

 

90% of these boards/playerbase don't have the awareness or general experience to approach pvp encounters with this kind of thinking.

 

It's not their fault, the game just isn't evolved yet and doesn't reward a better level of skill.