Even if you hated healers before 1.2, the game is worse without our subs

[EsteRJ]

Hah, you know that was almost funny. Do you seriously believe you are revealing some divine strategy here by stating the obvious?

 

Nope, you don't. But since you are so damn sure of yourself, I challenge you to make a video of you kiting two DPS melee classes, surviving this and keeping the rest of your team healed with HoTs and shields. I believe that when I see it.

 

The reality looks probably more like this: You run from two melee attackers, which can chop you in pieces within seconds. You desparately try to kite and keep them at distance, while you shield, hot and healing trance youself, even using the dispell as heal, because guess what, they have just as many gap closers. On top of that you use up your one time use medpack as soon as one of the attackers got a free leap and crits you for 7k.

 

During this whole process you are running out of force, which in order to regen requires you to do something totally counter-productive when trying to survive, again while your attackers never have any issues with resource, because guess what, they can slowly gain resource by doing damage and therefore pressuring you, whereas you lose it by healing.

 

Meanwhile your team is being taken apart by the enemy team, while you hop around desparately and try to look useful by throwing them some shields. Note, I highly doubt you're actually able to do that while staying alive, kiting and slowing two attackers at once. But okay, you're great. So your team stays alive thanks to a few hots and bubbles which burst in one strike.

 

Seriously mate, I have seen a lot but this is just ridiculous. I'm sure if you are really that great you'll want to show it to these boards so people stop complaining.

 

Look, we can argue all day and this will lead to nothing. Do you really believe I would say things like I did if they weren't true (for me that is)? You think BW pays me to do so?

 

The scenario you describe smells like a vastly outmatched team of yours. In a standard scenario your team will NOT consist of brainless zombies and won't get slaughtered in seconds by tons of marauders while two of them are still chasing a healer. That doesn't even make sense.

 

Kiting two Sents is not easy. But we're not talking about a minute or something where my force power plays any role. I can't kite two Sents for minutes - hell, I wouldn't. If no one's there helping me or doing anything helpful in the meantime I'd just willingly let them slaughter me.

 

What I'm saying is, that my spec allows me to keep those guys at bay for quite some time. We're talking seconds here. Afterwards it comes down to various things:

 

- my team helps me or grabbed the objective/scored in HB/whatnot

- I'm anywhere near obstacles. The huts in NC, pillars in VS, ramps in CW and all the stuff in the Pitt help me out there. A well placed KB + 5s root (if they aren't dps'ed atm) + getting out of los is quite discouraging for melees. They don't want to spent too much time not dealing damage. Hence they mostly leave me alone after a couple seconds of being outrun / rooted / cc'ed. Now they switch targets and/or come back to me later.

 

As a hybrid Sorc I can dispel any slow (and also the dots of course), I can Force Speed every 20s, my bubble bursting blinds them if they are near me and I root them every time I hit them with my KB. I have Force Slow, too.

 

A Sent/Marauder charging you --> bubble burst blind --> few steps away when he can move again --> if he leaps you can KB, stun, Force Speed away + applying Force Slow. And you can do this for quite some time.

 

Today I was playing mostly PuGs and all the well-known melees on my server (who really hurt badly) tried to slaughter me as they are used to with healing Sorcs. Guess what, I got lots of tells that they hate me (in the good way) and that it's frustrating to catch me. (I seem to be the only one running the hybrid spec)

 

Since I'm playing a Marauder myself (close to Conqueror, just as my Sorc) I know how it feels to be treated by a good Sage/Sorc. You don't want to slowly run after a Sorc that can do all that kind of **** to you (slow, KB, FS away etc) for longer than a couple seconds. Best tactic is to immediately switch to an easier prey. Chances are, that I can't keep them alive as good as I can myself. I can't mind control them and teach them how to kite properly after all

 

I guess for me the problem is that I never signed up for a class that had to run away whenever they get attacked.

 

Nothing in Bioware's marketing of the sorc or our pre 1.2 experience prepared us for this fundamental change in play style. Had i known I would have went with a class that isn't forced to flee from combat even 1v1. Don't see how you can't empathize with that.

 

Since I've always played the mage/cloth wearing class, I'm fine with kiting. You shouldn't consider it running away. It's what you do. Once you get used to it, it's actually way more funny than melting faces with other classes. I can decide if I just escape and kill you after you lost interest or even kill you while you try to kill me (as a DPS Sorc that is). I really like that kind of control

 

 

But don't get me wrong. If we're talking vastly outmatched games mostly, then yes. You won't have fun. Focus fire kills you. Though that isn't exclusive to the Sage/sorcerer class. Especially as a healer you want a team of players who know what they are doing. PVP is a team game. You can't rambo the thing on yourself - ever. And I won't deny, that especially as a healer it's frustrating to be surrounded by tools.

 

I use matches like those for survival training. You have to make the best out of situations, right?

Edited May 15, 2012 by EsteRJ

[entropicdecay]

Healing is fine. Healers are insanely strong at high gear levels.

 

As people get more and more gear, healers are getting stronger and stronger. If they hadn't changed expertise with 1.2 then healers would be impossible to kill with current expertise levels.

[syntxerr]

Look, we can argue all day and this will lead to nothing. Do you really believe I would say things like I did if they weren't true (for me that is)? You think BW pays me to do so?

 

The scenario you describe smells like a vastly outmatched team of yours. In a standard scenario your team will NOT consist of brainless zombies and won't get slaughtered in seconds by tons of marauders while two of them are still chasing a healer. That doesn't even make sense.

 

Kiting two Sents is not easy. But we're not talking about a minute or something where my force power plays any role. I can't kite two Sents for minutes - hell, I wouldn't. If no one's there helping me or doing anything helpful in the meantime I'd just willingly let them slaughter me.

 

What I'm saying is, that my spec allows me to keep those guys at bay for quite some time. We're talking seconds here. Afterwards it comes down to various things:

 

- my team helps me or grabbed the objective/scored in HB/whatnot

- I'm anywhere near obstacles. The huts in NC, pillars in VS, ramps in CW and all the stuff in the Pitt help me out there. A well placed KB + 5s root (if they aren't dps'ed atm) + getting out of los is quite discouraging for melees. They don't want to spent too much time not dealing damage. Hence they mostly leave me alone after a couple seconds of being outrun / rooted / cc'ed. Now they switch targets and/or come back to me later.

 

As a hybrid Sorc I can dispel any slow (and also the dots of course), I can Force Speed every 20s, my bubble bursting blinds them if they are near me and I root them every time I hit them with my KB. I have Force Slow, too.

 

A Sent/Marauder charging you --> bubble burst blind --> few steps away when he can move again --> if he leaps you can KB, stun, Force Speed away + applying Force Slow. And you can do this for quite some time.

 

Today I was playing mostly PuGs and all the well-known melees on my server (who really hurt badly) tried to slaughter me as they are used to with healing Sorcs. Guess what, I got lots of tells that they hate me (in the good way) and that it's frustrating to catch me. (I seem to be the only one running the hybrid spec)

 

Since I'm playing a Marauder myself (close to Conqueror, just as my Sorc) I know how it feels to be treated by a good Sage/Sorc. You don't want to slowly run after a Sorc that can do all that kind of **** to you (slow, KB, FS away etc) for longer than a couple seconds. Best tactic is to immediately switch to an easier prey. Chances are, that I can't keep them alive as good as I can myself. I can't mind control them and teach them how to kite properly after all

 

Fair enough, then we are literally talking a few seconds here, counting on your team. A hybrid spec, especially for the root certainly helps with that. That's something pure healer's wouldn't have.

 

Let me ask you an honest question, assuming you have played 31 healing spec after 1.2: Can you outlive any skilled and geared melee Sent/Vanguard/Assasin longer than a few seconds and without having to run away across half of the warzone? And I am not implying facetanking those classes here.

 

Simply to make a point here, because if that's not the case, I really don't see why people are actually arguing Sage/Sorc healers are fine. There are many voices claiming that they are rendered useless completely by one DPS simply because they have to try to run and hopefully survive. And this experience can become extremely frustrating. Healers support their team most of the warzone. Healing, CCing, interrupting, seperating people, diversions, etc. We are not running around chopping people into pieces, and we don't want to. All we ask is that our class is not forced to flee like a chicken every time someone looks at us.

 

Sorry, I don't understand why people can't sympethise with this.

[syntxerr]

Healing is fine. Healers are insanely strong at high gear levels.

 

As people get more and more gear, healers are getting stronger and stronger. If they hadn't changed expertise with 1.2 then healers would be impossible to kill with current expertise levels.

 

Oh wait, you mean it would be impossible to kill them with one single DPS pressing three buttons, while the healer kites and LOSes? True.

[entropicdecay]

Oh wait, you mean it would be impossible to kill them with one single DPS pressing three buttons, while the healer kites and LOSes? True.

Hyperbole isn't helping your cause. If you think that healers are killed by 1 DPS currently AT HIGH GEAR LEVELS then you simply don't PvP.

[EsteRJ]

Fair enough, then we are literally talking a few seconds here, counting on your team. A hybrid spec, especially for the root certainly helps with that. That's something pure healer's wouldn't have.

 

Let me ask you an honest question, assuming you have played 31 healing spec after 1.2: Can you outlive any skilled and geared melee Sent/Vanguard/Assasin longer than a few seconds and without having to run away across half of the warzone? And I am not implying facetanking those classes here.

 

Simply to make a point here, because if that's not the case, I really don't see why people are actually arguing Sage/Sorc healers are fine. There are many voices claiming that they are rendered useless completely by one DPS simply because they have to try to run and hopefully survive. And this experience can become extremely frustrating. Healers support their team most of the warzone. Healing, CCing, interrupting, seperating people, diversions, etc. We are not running around chopping people into pieces, and we don't want to. All we ask is that our class is not forced to flee like a chicken every time someone looks at us.

 

Sorry, I don't understand why people can't sympethise with this.

 

That is a good question and a fair one even. I'm playing mostly with friends and one of them is a healing Sorc. Pure that is. She's doing very well but she dies more often. Especially to very good Marauders and PTs. We use TS3 so usually we coordinate properly and help her out immediately. We also bring a tank mostly who helps out with guard and taunts. But there are some players with maximized gear who just tear her a new one if we don't interfere immediately. When I'm DPS on my Sorc I mainly try to pull her away from the bad guys, giving her time to heal up etc. It's challenging but she rocks those numbers hard.

 

Of course we play objective oriented. So there are cases when we won't bother trying to keep everyone alive and just use the distraction to score/cap/etc.

 

But to answer your question from a different view, I'd like to comment on that topic from my Marauder's pov.

 

I agree with you, that lots of healers (still) have big problems kiting properly or really just adapting to the patch. Strong healers I used to respect (and to a degree still do) are being slaughtered by my Marauder. If they fail to line up their CC properly and I get to line up my heavy hitting stuff it's mostly GG for those poor guys. But it really depends on the individual's skill. There also are Operative healers I slaughter all by myself, while others need two of us to bring them down (and that's with VoIP interrupt/burst coordination).

 

And it's very often a team problem. I remember countless matches where I always engaged the same healer and no one bothered helping him. That just makes me sad.

On the other hand there are matches where you get jumped by 3 people the second you just dare to look in their healers direction. You get the picture.

 

Additionally, to me our most important feat as a healer is positioning and situational awareness. Even if I'm left alone I always make sure to stand at a place where I can run to safety effectively or am out of LOS to most ranged, etc.

 

€: Oh and what I wanted to add: I absolutely prefer the Hybrid variant. And I really don't see why this would be a bad thing. PVP should also be around creative specs. Yes, they will be know after a while but working on that spec of yours is always a good thing. And atm, the Hybrid is really shining.

Edited May 15, 2012 by EsteRJ

[NoTomorrow]

Dear Original Poster,

 

1. You are insulting all the DPS here by asserting that Healers pre1.2 were not OP.

2. You are trying to imply that the number of players that unsubbed from this game was somehow correlated to the 1.2 changes. (which by no means should be true)

3. You are trying to make your opinions sound like that of the majority, while in actuality, you and those who unsubbed are still the minority, there are more ppl playing the game than those that left.

4. You don't believe that healers are doing fine in pvp post 1.2? Here have a look at this voidstar final score http://i47.tinypic.com/16l07xw.jpg. This sort of matches SHOULD NOT EXIST. LOOK AT THE FRICKING NUMBER OF DEATHS ON BOTH SIDES.

And before you comment anything: BOTH SIDES WERE FULL GUILD PREMADES, both communicating over team speak. Was the republic team better? Yes of course, but by no means should any premade team, regardless of skill be able to keep everyone alive so easily and effortlessly like that when our team tried to focus kill their cross healing healers.

 

So pls, if you find the cross-healing trolol BS fun, thank you for quitting SWTOR. We don't need you here. You can go and ruin D3 and GW2 with your views of game balance.

Edited May 15, 2012 by NoTomorrow

[fungihoujo]

healers are doing fine, i've seen 4 healers teams defending voidstar no problem.

What you fail to understand, is that healers, compared to dps ,need no coordination to focus healing, their skill is reactive, you just have to look on ops bar on who is hurt and suddenly all healers know who to heal.

 

It takes way more effort for dps to organize and focus fire. And its a dynamic thing, you cannot just throw arround target marks at the beginning of the game. So pls, stop begging for healer buffs. You dont need them.

 

Unsubbed because of sorc nerfs? lol.

 

Reactive takes less skill than not being reactive? Are you for real?

 

No- tunnel visioning is the lowest skill denominator- you don't have to pay attention to a thing but your target- and right now, that kind of awful play is being rewarded because in pug vs pug- it's the most effective way to win.

 

That dps, after so many years of MMOs- still do not know how to focus healers is just appalling- and for people to still be saying that 'oh but it's hard to attack the healers, you have to pay attention to more than one thing to realize someone is throwing heals on that guy I've been smacking for half a minute without killing'.

 

DPS has always, and will always be the easiest role in mmos- soon enough it'll be the only role because 90% of players are too bad to do anything else.

[entropicdecay]

Healers are better than fine. As people get into more and more war hero gear the power of healers is pulling even further ahead of dps. With more and more expertise damage increased and damage reduced continually cancels eachother out but +healing scales on forever. At least it's still scaling up fine with my 1250 expertise.

[NoTomorrow]

Reactive takes less skill than not being reactive? Are you for real?

 

No- tunnel visioning is the lowest skill denominator- you don't have to pay attention to a thing but your target- and right now, that kind of awful play is being rewarded because in pug vs pug- it's the most effective way to win.

 

That dps, after so many years of MMOs- still do not know how to focus healers is just appalling- and for people to still be saying that 'oh but it's hard to attack the healers, you have to pay attention to more than one thing to realize someone is throwing heals on that guy I've been smacking for half a minute without killing'.

 

DPS has always, and will always be the easiest role in mmos- soon enough it'll be the only role because 90% of players are too bad to do anything else.

 

Oh that argument again: "Shoot the medic first".

If the healer is not an idiot:

1. he will use LoS to his advantage.

2. he will be within range of his patient while staying out of range of the enemy that can focus him

3. is capable to transfer healing output from his patient to himself. (as if he ever had any restrictions to do that)

 

As for reactive vs active: the game fricking tells you who do you need to heal at any moment. You don't even need to look on your screen while DPS have to actively seek you hiding behind corners pumping out heals while your patient is on FULL DPS mode.

[noladev]

Dear Original Poster,

 

1. You are insulting all the DPS here by asserting that Healers pre1.2 were not OP.

2. You are trying to imply that the number of players that unsubbed from this game was somehow correlated to the 1.2 changes. (which by no means should be true)

3. You are trying to make your opinions sound like that of the majority, while in actuality, you and those who unsubbed are still the minority, there are more ppl playing the game than those that left.

4. You don't believe that healers are doing fine in pvp post 1.2? Here have a look at this voidstar final score http://i47.tinypic.com/16l07xw.jpg. This sort of matches SHOULD NOT EXIST. LOOK AT THE FRICKING NUMBER OF DEATHS ON BOTH SIDES.

And before you comment anything: BOTH SIDES WERE FULL GUILD PREMADES, both communicating over team speak. Was the republic team better? Yes of course, but by no means should any premade team, regardless of skill be able to keep everyone alive so easily and effortlessly like that when our team tried to focus kill their cross healing healers.

 

So pls, if you find the cross-healing trolol BS fun, thank you for quitting SWTOR. We don't need you here. You can go and ruin D3 and GW2 with your views of game balance.

 

I don't really find raw end game stats to mean very much and if BW is balancing based on those sort of metrics it explains a lot.

As for the subs..the game has 2.4 million sales and 1.3 million subs reported. Whats funny about what you said here is that this 1.3 million includes people like myself man. I have a sub active for about 90 more days so I am living proof that you are going by some very inflated numbers in your assessment. Protip: The quarterly report did not deduct folks with active accounts who have unsubbed their accounts. You have not even begun to see how many people are leaving.

And this is all BEFORE the major competition arrived: Diablo 3, Tera, Guild Wars 2.

 

As for 1.2's impact? I don't think it is the only reason people unsubbed but it certainly played a part. Unless Bioware releases its "unsub surveys" (the ones you fill out when you cancel your account) we really won't have anything to go on other than the people who stick around to post and share their reasons (like me).

 

You are right about one thing though: Those in favor of the patch 1.2 balance changes are the majority. DPS are always the majority in every mmo. Thing is though, majority only matters if you are willing to lose the folks who strongly disagree. Compromise and incremental change is all I have called for here.

 

Bottom line: After 1.2 was released 25% of the playerbase up and left. Why? Your opinion is as good as mine but Im voting for correlation and possibly causation.

[Herboss]

I played many games yesterday that actually made me think I'd be much happier if both teams didn't have any healers at all as in one game, even though myself and a few others were doing over 200k damage I led with only 5 kills :/

[entropicdecay]

Bottom line: After 1.2 was released 25% of the playerbase up and left. Why? Your opinion is as good as mine but Im voting for correlation and possibly causation.

So you think that 25% of the population quit because operative healers and marauders got buffed while sorcerers and mercenaries got nerfed?

[ACTroyan]

1) I didn't spam my cute little healer probe in that picture as I did not manage my energy worth a crap in the match (less than 24 hours of healing experience). This means that healing is a result of me casting single targets and burst healing.

 

2) I don't understand your argument or as to how this is an argument in the first place? Are heal-over-time abilities somehow NOT helping your teammates survive when they take damage? Why do people say this? Honestly. Do you think that having your whole team covered with HoT's and burst healing the low health players is "totally not 1337 mmo skillllll" ?? 435,000 health healed is 435,000 health healed is 435,000 health that your team had healed. Explain your argument and to why it means anything other than you don't know a response.

 

Expertise buffs dps more than heals so being a recruit healer just means u die faster ur server dps blows i see pt's and marauders consistantly hit 5-700k so all ur screenshot shows is your opponents suck too much to attack you and u mistakenly think u are good.

[TalkingDinosaur]

healers are doing fine, i've seen 4 healers teams defending voidstar no problem.

What you fail to understand, is that healers, compared to dps ,need no coordination to focus healing, their skill is reactive, you just have to look on ops bar on who is hurt and suddenly all healers know who to heal.

 

It takes way more effort for dps to organize and focus fire. And its a dynamic thing, you cannot just throw arround target marks at the beginning of the game. So pls, stop begging for healer buffs. You dont need them.

 

Unsubbed because of sorc nerfs? lol.

Pre Sorc nurfs my DPS was 9001

Post Sorc nurfs my DPS is now 9000

/unsub GG biowae

[noladev]

So you think that 25% of the population quit because operative healers and marauders got buffed while sorcerers and mercenaries got nerfed?

 

My post clearly stated that I do not believe all the numbers are attributable to the balance changes. Please read the posts before replying. thx

[MrXen]

Healing is over powered, deal with it. I play operative and merc healers, and assassin tank as well as marauder. Healing in pvp is completely broken STILL, its unchallenged, and easy to be both more useful to your team and allows you to throw in low dps in between self heals to kill any class 1v1.

 

 

Don't bs a bs'er. I play the overpowered role: healer. It needs nerfed STILL in pvp. And the game didn't lose subs because "healers" were "picked" on.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Aurrelio

[noladev]

Healing is over powered, deal with it. I play operative and merc healers, and assassin tank as well as marauder. Healing in pvp is completely broken STILL, its unchallenged, and easy to be both more useful to your team and allows you to throw in low dps in between self heals to kill any class 1v1.

 

 

Don't bs a bs'er. I play the overpowered role: healer. It needs nerfed STILL in pvp. And the game didn't lose subs because "healers" were "picked" on.

 

I have dealt with it. Read my sig.

And I'm not alone.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Aurrelio

[entropicdecay]

Expertise buffs dps more than heals so being a recruit healer just means u die faster

I don't know why people believe this. Expertise doesn't buff dps at all if everyone is equally equipped. The damage increase and damage reduce cancel each-other out.

The healing continually scales up though, making healers get stronger and stronger than DPS as people reach higher gear levels.

[entropicdecay]

I have dealt with it. Read my sig.

And I'm not alone.

Quite funny. I rerolled to Sage from Scoundrel after 1.2. Quit a class that got buffed to play a class that got nerfed, and I'm loving it.

Sage healers were OP prior to 1.2. Everyone knew it. Some people are spitting the dummy as a result of the rebalancing. I guess some people can't handle an even playing field.

[noladev]

Quite funny. I rerolled to Sage from Scoundrel after 1.2. Quit a class that got buffed to play a class that got nerfed, and I'm loving it.

Sage healers were OP prior to 1.2. Everyone knew it. Some people are spitting the dummy as a result of the rebalancing. I guess some people can't handle an even playing field.

 

My Op concedes that healers needed a tweak. I take exception with fundamental changes to the basic playstyle of the class/role and the EXTENT to which the nerfs were administered. You might want to try reading.

Thanks

[entropicdecay]

My Op concedes that healers needed a tweak. I take exception with fundamental changes to the basic playstyle of the class/role and the EXTENT to which the nerfs were administered. You might want to try reading.

Thanks

If your operative is a healer and thinks healers need any kind of buffing then he must be an exceptionally poor player. They are right at the top of the food chain at the momoent.

[tynt]

I agree, "adjusted" and "gutted" are not the same thing.

 

Healers were adjusted.

 

The guy posting above me is right, playing against a BH healer who can sit there and face tank 3 melee while not moving AND healing his buddies at the same time wasn't very fun.

 

This

 

We dont hate healers we just don't think they should be in god mode solo. They can still be insane once geared and guarded by a tank using taunts, push/knock backs, and cc.

 

They just require a tank now to become god mode where as before they could go solo god mode.

 

TL DR - healers are more than fine

[noladev]

If your operative is a healer and thinks healers need any kind of buffing then he must be an exceptionally poor player. They are right at the top of the food chain at the momoent.

 

My apologies. "Op" in this case meant original post. I realize the acronym shouldve read: OP.

 

And yea, to be honest I don't know a lot about Operative healing. My Operative healer is only level 30 but I had no problems with him even before the patch.. /shrug..

[falcon_Xtreme]

Healing is fine.

 

The good ones are still getting it done, as I see them consistently putting up big numbers in PvP. I'm sorry, but healing was overpowered prior to 1.2. Players want to kill each other in PvP, not have to burn through 50k HP because a target is constantly being healed.

 

What the healing changes have effectively done is make the healing support class.... a support class! working when there is a team based effort. I raged sooo hard with 1.2 killing my god mode. but last few weeks if i get couple peeps who actualy help me.(ya know that teamwork thing...) then im good to go..

 

a tank or dps who guards me. who fights for me, who taunts for me, who cc's or slows or destroys the attackers trying to turn me into a corpse. enables me to heal my *** off. If other tanks and dps do their jobs entirely healers (again a support class) can do everything they NEED to.

 

I did a voidstar the other day where a pug assasin called furynz (respect) allowed me to do my job by doing his. he gave me 130k protection, and dps'd protected like a mofo. we juuuussst lost the wz. but I finished top healing overall, and it was fricken fun. (yes its possible to have fun healing after 1.2)

 

this flames gna hurt.....but I think its a teamwork l2p issue.

Edited May 15, 2012 by falcon_Xtreme