Sorc/Sage heals need to be returned to pre 1.2, other heals need buffs

[CoMaDarK]

Sorc/sage are balanced in healing it's surviability it's bad, i don't ask to BW to heal for 50k, i just ask to not die in 2 secs or a gcd.

Really a buff on static barrier or improve the dmg reduction in some talents will be the best choice.

[CJNJ]

The problem I feel with buffing the barrier is that how would you buff it? Turn it from a 3k instant heal into a 5k instant heal? Sorc/sages do need a buff but having a 5k heal on a 17sec lockout doesn't seem like it will help much

[CoMaDarK]

static barrier: reduce damage taken by 35% for 10 sec

 

IMHO

[fungihoujo]

He wouldn't and he isn't supposed to be able to.

 

He is also right. You don't know anything about playing a DPS and assume that it is simply faceroll easy. You have no idea how much skill it actually takes. I have played a Healer, I have played DPS and I can tell you there isn't much difference as far as skill requirements go. I found it easier to play Healer than DPS.

 

Yes, Healers have a survivability problem.

DPS also has a survivability problem.

 

So me adapting to "having to run the moment anyone actually attacks me" wasn't that hard. You for some reason want your healer to work like a Tank and that ain't happening.

 

Are you kidding me? I just spent yesterday topping the charts as a marauder- and today I went on my RECRUIT GEARED pyro powertech and got about 10% less overall damage than other DPS on my team.

 

It's easy to lay out damage, so much so that you can outperform a far better geared healer substantially. Even without the ease of marauder interrupts, my PT could shut down a healer and kill it with crits that went no higher than 4k on rail shot- on the mara shutting down healers was a joke, barely worth mentioning.

 

Also, before 1.2 I spent most of my time as a DPS sorc, not a healer.

 

Frankly, I don't see why I should listen to someone telling me I don't know how to DPS when he admits he cannot kill healers as a sentinel of all classes... who continually gets all class abilities wrong, including his own, and who's months behind on bugs and patch notes.

[Aehgo]

Sages need a big buff.I was on healer duty in ranked earlier and cutting down sorcs was too easy,even with a guard.

We only needed 2 dps to burn down a sorc,interrupting his big heals so he was just useless,didn't last long at all.

[fungihoujo]

There is no double standard.

 

You aren't looking at it correctly.

 

Each role has two primary "jobs" and/or capabilities in PVP. There are 5 capabilities in PVP.

 

1. Reduce/Negate damage done to a single team mate.

2. Reduce/Negate damage done to multiple team mates.

3. Deal damage to a single enemy.

4. Deal damage to multiple enemies.

5. Mitigate damage done to themselves.

 

Healer:

1. Reduce/Negate damage done to a single team mate.

2. Reduce/Negate damage done to multiple team mates.

 

Tank:

1. Mitigate damage done to themselves.

2. Reduce/Negate damage done to a single team mate.

 

DPS:

1. Deal Damage to a single enemy.

2. Mitigate damage done to themselves.

(Alternate) 2. Deal damage to multiple enemies.

 

Now yes... DPS classes are the only classes in the game right now that have an alternate secondary capability. There are also 8 out of 8 possible DPS advanced classes.

 

If you notice the classes that have personal survivability tend to only do single target damage or are specced to "bomb" multiple enemy targets. Some DPS have little to no ability to mitigate but can also do Single and/or Multiple target damage. You don't find DPS that can reliably do all three.

 

As a Healer you accept that you can Heal others, and you can Heal yourself. Your self-healing however is not the capability to mitigate damage done to you. That is a different ability than healing. That is what differentiates personal damage mitigation from negating/mitigating damage done to others.

 

Again, if you had personal survivability you are infringing on one of the traits possessed by Tanks and to a lesser extent DPS. There are also varying degrees of this.

 

Now I know some Marauder/Sentinel hater will go:

"BUT SENTINEL AND MARA CAN HEAL SELF AND TEAM!!!!!111"

 

And yes, one spec can do that, for a whole 2% (approximately 400 damage on someone with 20,000 health) per tick, depending on critical hits on burn attacks, which is far far weaker than the minimum group PVP heal.

 

You as a healer cannot get personal survivability without breaking the balance of the game. It cannot happen.

 

Maybe in the future BioWare will create a new class that can have personal survivability and the ability to heal single target only, but I doubt it. Such a thing would be a better tank than a tank. This is because the second of a Tank's abilities, the ability to guard, is more or less the same purpose as healing.

 

Edit:

For those of you who will try to argue semantics on that last point...

 

If I, as a DPS, take 2,000 damage from an enemy's hit, and you as a Healer heal me for 1,000 damage, as far as I am concerned I took 1,000 damage. When all is said and done the damage that remains after the heal is the damage that matters.

 

If I, as a DPS, take 2,000 damage from an enemy's hit, and you as a Tank have me on guard thus making it so I only took 1,000 damage then when all is said and done the damage that remains after the guard is the only damage that matters.

 

Effectively both abilities serve the same purpose.

 

You have yet to explain why DPS classes, like the marauder, have so many abilities that mitigation or negate damage... while a sorc has zero.

 

Marauders get it because they do single target? Really, well, in case you didn't notice, that's the exact same boat sorc healers are in, especially since every healer's a lightning hybrid since it's the only way to get one reliable CC ability. A sorc gets as a healer, five heals, cleanse and barrier.

 

Resurgence is a HoT that heals less than 5x what a mara dot does in damage- but that kind of scaling is of course fine. Also has a CD so you can't hot up your team

Revivification is a good AoE heal... and it's the one AoE heal, has a CD, cast time and small area of effect that puts your team in range for an 8k smash- btw, over eight seconds it won't even heal half of what that instant attack can do.

Innervate- good heal, with 1 or 2 crits you'll heal up to 5k in 3 seconds... can be interrupted easily, and has a CD

DI- best heal, such a long cast time you will only get it off when you are allowed to free cast

Dark Heal- a clutch heal that heals almost nothing... making it not really a clutch heal at all

Cleanse- the counter to debuffs/dots, pretty much only way to stop being snared/DoTed to death in seconds.... has a CD and uses the GCD despite DPS getting to interrupt and counter healing without needing the GCD

 

You have, as a healer, nowhere near the tools a DPS has, nothing when it comes to instants and mobility like DPS have, no way to shut down a DPS like a DPS has to shut you down, you rely on running as your only defense which takes you away from objectives and yet you can't heal while running, and in a premade or with a tank you get the choice of running, or guard- meaning you lose your only 'defensive'- being movement- in order to let someone else use guard- an ability which despite what you believe can be used on anyone.

 

Also- you have not explained why DPS get defensive CDs and healers don't. No- your 'oh healers get two roles, you can heal yourself... or other people wee!' That's just stupid and you should feel bad for even trying to use an excuse that lame. Healing the self and healing others are not two separate roles- it's one role, healing.

 

If survival is the role of tanks, then DPS should not have defensive CDs either, they should rely on a tank, or a healer to keep them alive- that's not the case though as a marauder can put out back to back to back defensives while laying out DPS which cannot be interrupted or removed. The only solution is to use CC- however, that's also the solution for getting a marauder off of you, and the solution for handling attacks like root ravage- ultimately, some classes are going to run out of instant CC... in most cases, after 2 CC.

 

And what about control? Mara get an aoe mez, a carnage mara can keep someone rooted for over half the time they fight them- even if that fight lasted half an hour- mobility with low CD gap closer and speed buffs which give more speed boosted throughout an entire battle than any other class can manage... by a long shot.

 

Ultimately- it's not that you think healers getting a bit of survivability will break the game- it's that you're worried you might have to learn to play, you might have to figure out how to use more abilities than the ones that do the most damage, you're worried you might have to focus a target every once in a while, you're worried you won't get to tunnel vision to free kills endlessly.

 

Nobody's said we want healers to be a tank- but the inability to keep yourself alive against a single DPS makes a healer useless- and I know this is hard for you to understand, but nobody rolled a healer because they wanted to kite- I didn't read 'Corruption [Kiting]' to be the role for it, and if kiting is supposed to be our defense mechanism- why do we have one of the only snares that is shorter than the CD time? Why do we have the only cast time mez? Why does our KB only go 8m and is the only one which has a delay and can be countered? Why do we have nothing else to help with kiting?

 

You want us to be a kiting class, that can do nothing but run away most of the time, that has to be the only role that depends on another player not to win a fight, but to survive long enough to try to do our job.

 

 

And you forgot something when you went through the list. A DPS or tank can't be stopped for long from doing their primary role by a single player, maybe for a few seconds with a mez, before they can start doing what they do at full or near full potential. A healer can be shut down to 10-20% of their potential by a single player if forced to run, or, if interrupted constantly. When I can use all my heals while moving, or when interrupts become something hard to use/are put on a CD that actually means something- maybe your analogy would mean something.

 

But here's a more realistic look at the roles.

 

Tank

1 Survival (generally of others as their CDs are worse than a marauders, but they are better than most other DPS for this)

2 Control (generally they have a good selection of CC including pulls and leaps)

 

Healer

1 Healing when left alone to free cast

 

DPS

1 Survival (who knows why)

2 Damage dealing

3 Control

4 Shutting down healers

 

Seems like marauders need to lose some CC and defensive CDs- but no, I'm sure that a carnage mara being able to use the best CC in the game- roots which ignore resolve- on 3 low CD abilities that are 3 seconds each- in total getting 39 seconds/minute of roots is entirely reasonable- I'm sure after you do a 3 second leap root, 3 second rooted ravage, 3 second stun to waste a sorc's force speed, and 3 second deadly throw to ensure they don't get away you're more than happy to tell them they shouldn't facetank because they've just been stuck in place for 12 seconds against a class that can kill them in 6.

[fungihoujo]

Sages need a big buff.I was on healer duty in ranked earlier and cutting down sorcs was too easy,even with a guard.

We only needed 2 dps to burn down a sorc,interrupting his big heals so he was just useless,didn't last long at all.

 

That can't be possible, the professor clearly said that a tank and sorc will always beat 2 DPS. Were you focusing by attacking the same target or something? I think the prof would agree that having to focus one target is against everything he stands for as top pro DPS of his server...

 

What server's that anyway, one of those ones with 10 players left?

[fungihoujo]

The problem I feel with buffing the barrier is that how would you buff it? Turn it from a 3k instant heal into a 5k instant heal? Sorc/sages do need a buff but having a 5k heal on a 17sec lockout doesn't seem like it will help much

 

For one, you could make it and other heals scale like DPS abilities scale.

 

Try doing a rail shot or annihilate or ravage or smash while naked- then put on full WH gear- see the huge difference in numbers.

 

Now do the same with some healing, and be impressed by how little it does.

 

As gear gets better, DPS scales well, healing scales poorly.

 

Which means that as a healer, things are only going to get worse, and worse, and worse.

[BurnsTwoThree]

I believe we've stated multiple times throughout the thread that ProfessorWalsh doesn't have the in-game capabilities or the knowledge about the game at all to even begin discussing PvP mechanics. That being said just ignore his horribly misinformed posts about how he's bad at being a Sentinel and still has a hard time killing healers.

[spaace]

I'm lucky if my 2.3 sec heal crits for 5k.

 

a juggernaut can hit me for 3-5k every 1.5 seconds.

 

 

and that's just 1. in a good rated team.. 4 dps all at once.. dead in a global because we don't have anything to save our asses..

[dalin]

1.4 better bring some Sage/Sorc love. Warzones are becoming ridiculous. I'm watching health bars go from full, to 30%, to dead. All within 6 seconds. It's really becoming all about the DPS in this game. Especially Mara/Sent, Powertech/Vanguard.

[BurnsTwoThree]

First of all... Why should a Healer be better than a DPS? Why should we need 2 DPS to take one healer out of the picture?

1 Healer = 1 DPS

When 1 Healer = 2 DPS the game becomes all about the healers. There is no strategy other than "Stun as many enemy healers as you can and focus fire the remaining one down."

 

You think a healer shouldn't be able to stay alive to one DPS.

 

DPS also has a survivability problem.

 

So me adapting to "having to run the moment anyone actually attacks me" wasn't that hard. You for some reason want your healer to work like a Tank and that ain't happening.

 

Assassin's have a resist, they have a Damage reduction CD, they have a Vanish,

 

Marauders/Sentinels have Predation/Transcendence, Zen/Berserk, Rebuke/Cloak of Pain (potential for 30 seconds of 20% damage reduction, Force Camo, Saber Ward, Guarded by the Force, Obfuscate/Pacify (basically a defensive CD) 6 second AoE blind.

 

Trooper/BH Can get deflection, all have a 25% reduction to incoming damage

 

Op/Smugglers Vanish, not sure what else but it's nothing special other than their heals

 

Sorcs/Sage - Stun (HAHA! BUSINESS!)

 

DPS also has a survivability problem.

 

So me adapting to "having to run the moment anyone actually attacks me" wasn't that hard. You for some reason want your healer to work like a Tank and that ain't happening.

 

You're a DPS that runs away. I can already tell since you're a Sentinel/Marauder that you would not be near good enough to be on ANY team that I ever ran. You seriously run away as soon as someone else gets on you? What do you think you are a rogue from WoW? You have the MOST defensive ability while being the stronger DPS class out there and you actually run away from people. You just let the proof of your inferiority pile up don't you?

 

Also I'm still waiting for you to link a single post that says we should be the tanks of this game. You won't find one because no one is saying that.

 

You're saying that giving us defensive CDs is somehow gamebreaking and will destroy the balance.

 

WoW

 

Holy Paladin: Divine Protection (20% damage reduction, short CD also increases run speed), Freedom (removes movement impairing effects), Sacrifice (Places 20% damage reduction on a target friendly some damage is redirected to the caster) Two more CDs which increase healing output/cast speed+crit., Stun

 

Priest: Depends on the specs: Plenty of Damage reduction talents that proc off heals, Pain Suppression, Instant cast heal every 45 seconds, Large instant heal if spec'd into, AoE bubble, Fear

 

Druid: Bear Form, Frenzied Regen, Barkskin, Treeform, Nature's Grasp, Nature's Swiftness, Shapeshifting out of things. Cyclone

 

Shaman, Totems, Instant heal every 45 sec, Hex, Ghost Wolf

 

 

Are those gamebreaking?

 

Do healers with gear loathe it because they get 3 shotted?

 

Nope and Nope.

 

I also love how you made the argument that DPS have survivability problems and tried to support that argument with the fact that run away when your class has the MOST Defensive CDs in the GAME.

Edited July 2, 2012 by BurnsTwoThree

[CJNJ]

For one, you could make it and other heals scale like DPS abilities scale.

 

Try doing a rail shot or annihilate or ravage or smash while naked- then put on full WH gear- see the huge difference in numbers.

 

Now do the same with some healing, and be impressed by how little it does.

 

As gear gets better, DPS scales well, healing scales poorly.

 

Which means that as a healer, things are only going to get worse, and worse, and worse.

 

I completely understand what you are saying, but for 1 point of healing gets a better scale with gear, then ALL healers go up, so those op/scoundrel hots tick higher, the merc/commando gets a bigger medical probe, and we still get interrupted every time. Then if our bubble gets boosted then we get an instant big heal, which I would personally love but I doubt it would end well, with the dps sage/sorcs having access as well the crappy dps complaining till it gets nerfed back down.

 

I want sage/sorcs fixed, I just don't feel it will happen like that

[SuperSair]

The PvP experience has been trending downward for a while now. If I was playing this game exclusively for it's PvP, then IDK if I'd still be around.

[BurnsTwoThree]

The PvP experience has been trending downward for a while now. If I was playing this game exclusively for it's PvP, then IDK if I'd still be around.

 

Agreed. I am here exclusively here for PvP after I hit 50. I do enjoy leveling in this game more than I do in any others but it's coming down to the fact that they need to work harder on this aspect of the game.

 

You can't put in a large system such as Ranked Warzones without first maintaining a balance so that there aren't BS classes that can do damage that other classes cannot.

[ProfessorWalsh]

I believe we've stated multiple times throughout the thread that ProfessorWalsh doesn't have the in-game capabilities or the knowledge about the game at all to even begin discussing PvP mechanics. That being said just ignore his horribly misinformed posts about how he's bad at being a Sentinel and still has a hard time killing healers.

 

I have both the in-game capabilities, the knowledge of the game, and the understanding of intelligent game design to discuss this. It would be the people who are screaming that Sorcs should have more survivability than Tanks and not need a Guard at all that don't understand this.

 

Game balance is a very delicate thing.

 

What worked in WoW wouldn't necessarily work in TOR. In WoW Tanks couldn't protect Healers, IE they couldn't Tank. Thus in that game Healers became Tanks. In TOR Healers are Healers... Not Tanks.

 

You are a support class. You are not the star. You are someone who helps the team win... Your help is invaluable but you are not an island unto yourself.

Edited July 2, 2012 by ProfessorWalsh

[BurnsTwoThree]

I have both the in-game capabilities, the knowledge of the game, and the understanding of intelligent game design to discuss this. It would be the people who are screaming that Sorcs should have more survivability than Tanks and not need a Guard at all that don't understand this.

.

 

I have asked you three times to show posts where we have asked for more survivability than tanks.

 

You shouldn't need a permanent guard to live through one person like you do now. Also the class that has more survivability than tanks is your own.

 

/thread

 

You're asking for a game which is largely viewed currently as broken by a few god classes. So no, you do not have the understanding of intelligent game design other than the fact that balance can be thrown off really easily. All they had to do was listing to awful DPS (to throw off balance) who could not kill healers when there were plenty of good players who could pre-1.2. Now we have two god classes that can train healers without any effort. You're constantly told-off as how you are wrong and come back with irrelevant and misinformed posts. You're not bringing anything to the discussion except an upset comment as to why you think you know what you are talking about. Yet you are consistently contradicting yourself and missing obvious facts of the mechanics of PvP currently. We see why you try to refute everything we say, and we know that when your class eventually gets nerfed you'll be nothing more than an average player (at best) with nothing else to look forward for except to being low rated in the Ranked brackets.

 

What actually needed to happen was for the other two healing classes to be viable as well as buffing some less popular DPS specs and PvP would have been fine. Granted there are a couple people screaming for the buffs, but the majority of players are giving reasons beyond substantial as to why our class needs to be fixed.

Edited July 2, 2012 by BurnsTwoThree

[Lovia]

I think the flaw of your argument is that you consider that somehow healing needs to be balanced with dps in terms of a healer beeing as good a team spot as a dps, this argument has a ton of implications that simply dont hold weight in the game.

 

The game tries to be balanced around the presence of an exact player ration, 2 tanks 4 dps 2 healers. Most forum discussion is done (incorrectly in the context of the game but i personally love this kind of discussions also ) assuming a simple field of battle were ppl fight over, the movement between objectives and the ratio of respwn to travel to fight time means nothing to most ppl. However back on balance, in order for the game to be balanced around the setup it needs to force the setup on you, so stacking anything extremely away from the indicated numbers needs to be detrimental (for example 6 dps 2 healers, or 4 healers 4 tanks) Thus we should analyse and perceive the team as two parts: offense (dps and to an extend tanks) and defence (healers and to an extend tanks) tanks contribute to both teams. Thus in order for a person to stay alive both a healer and a tank need to contribute, that would hold pretty much the same for damage as tends to be evident in the game, in order for 1 person to go down two need to contribute but this isnt so prevalent since the damage dealers are twice the number of the other archetypes.

 

Allthough i understand the above is a gross outline and doesnt begin to touch the reality of all the situation what needs to be said is THIS IS NOT WOW, here keeping ppl alive in PVP is not about the Healer its the combined effort of a TANK (yes because tanking exists in pvp!) and a healer.

 

If you take the recommended survivability increase the original poster asks for and add a tank in the mix you make for a pvp that nobody dies except from knockbacks and pits or stray small skirmish like 1v1 matches at wierd map positions (any1 who has played 1.1.5 pvp has a voidstar experience with less than 15 deaths in both teams).

 

People who actually appreciate swtor pvp, not because its perfect but because it has an additional tier of tactical and strategical complexity (that is the pvp tanking) dont wont it to return to the 1.2 state, no matter how frustrating it is for a solo healer.

 

 

I guess if i wanted to add a tl;dr is, if they buff the healers they need to remove pvp taunt and guard from the game in order for it to be playable, and that isnt the right thing to do, so please evolve, find ppl who want to do pvp tanking and learn to play with them, teach and learn from them.

[Oobob]

1.4 better bring some Sage/Sorc love. Warzones are becoming ridiculous. I'm watching health bars go from full, to 30%, to dead. All within 6 seconds. It's really becoming all about the DPS in this game. Especially Mara/Sent, Powertech/Vanguard.

 

there is one spec for a sorc healer. it is the stupid lightning/consumption hybrid. get ccs on your bubble and overload and then you sometimes - if you're lucky - have a chance of running away before getting hit for 5k repeatedly.

 

i dont even really heal, i just bubblebot so my dps teammates have cc. cause they pretty much carry the game. the dps and healing balance is so absurd that 17 points in the lightning tree is better than full healing because cc mitigates so much more incoming damage.

 

we're a glass cannon with terrible, immobile, and easily interruptable heals, weak burst dps, extremely poor resource management, and no defensive utilities. meanwhile the best dps in the game has everlasting stunlock, invincibility, a leap, a vanish and a ranged execute. they never run out of energy using these abilities while we have to sacrifice health when we get hit for 5k a pop.

 

i remember even in 1.2, where we could abuse the double tick, that some good players could really shut me down. not often, but it happened, even though i could heal 800k in some wzs. now i heal 500k on void star bubble botting and cleaning with the occasional innervate. my innervate for the entire 2-3 second cast time heals like half of a good pt/smash jugg/sniper/mara hit. lol.

 

this game is a meleefest. the classes with the most survivability are all melee, have the best dps, the most defensive abilities to avoid death, they have the most defensive abilities to escape (lol wut), and the most stuns. the only exception is the operative, which is outclassed by a mara in vanishing and cc in every single way.

 

either go bubblebot while you wait for them to fix it, if they fix it, reroll, or buy another game. i'm doing the first and third.

 

btw any dps but a sorc or merc who can't immediately murder a sorc/sage healer needs to quit in shame. i may have forgotten another class, but the list isn't wrong.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Oobob

[Elkirin]

There are some good posts in this thread, some rubbish, self serving posts as well.

 

IMHO,

If you make playing either a Tank or a healer less fun than playing a DPS, you will create a terminal shortage that infects both PvE and PvP. Either remove the holy trinity completely, or return the fun to playing as a Tank or Healer.

 

I have 8 chars, 3 in 50s pvp BM Gear or better and I personally only play my sorc when I want a challenge. For pure fun, I play one of my DPS.

 

For now I am staying with SWTOR but it is Likely I will leave if any other game offers up a fun PvP healing system.

[dufox]

a healer that is guarded and both the tank and healer work together.....

[Oobob]

a healer that is guarded and both the tank and healer work together.....

 

even at 30% dmg reduction you're still getting hit for 3-4k.

 

like no one teams healer and tank? like healers have trouble finding someone to guard them? do you even play heals or tank? (if yer op heals perhaps that's easier)

 

what happens is you get stunlocked, you get hit for 3-4k instead of 5-6k, you die one second later than you would have, and then the tank gets demolished.

 

there is no reason to spec full healing as sorc in pvp. cc is so much better cause incoming burst is so high and it's your only chance of surviving it, ignoring the fact that your team takes far less dmg from ccing high dps opponents than you healing that dmg.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Oobob

[BurnsTwoThree]

People who actually appreciate swtor pvp, not because its perfect but because it has an additional tier of tactical and strategical complexity (that is the pvp tanking) dont wont it to return to the 1.2 state, no matter how frustrating it is for a solo healer.

Strategical complexity? Are you seriously calling throwing guard on a healer and having the tank running around throwing taunts on people strategical complexity? There's nothing complex about it at all. The only complex thing is that a healer has to stay around the tank for a guard at all times just so he doesn't get 3-shot by any random average geared nobody who is getting free-kills because horrible players

 

 

I guess if i wanted to add a tl;dr is, if they buff the healers they need to remove pvp taunt and guard from the game in order for it to be playable, and that isnt the right thing to do, so please evolve, find ppl who want to do pvp tanking and learn to play with them, teach and learn from them.

 

Evolve? There is no evolving. I can still outheal 90% of full War Hero Sorc/Sages in Ranked even with BM when my job isn't to be in the middle of everything. I know the in's and out's of my class. I also know that Ranked PvP will go nowhere and this game will continue to be on a down-slope if they do nothing to improve it. There's going to be 1 group comp for going to high-ratings with little/no variation. I've been superior to most Sorc/Sage healers since I hit level 20 on it back in January. So I'm tired of hearing the few people say "EVOLVE DERP", when our class is too basic mechanically to evolve at all. There's a point where you cannot do anything else because of how the class is and it needs to change.

 

Anyone who says healers who aren't OP/Smugglers are anywhere near a good place then they are

 

A. Terrible at this game

B. Couldn't kill healers before they were made too weak

C. Not playing their class correctly and still have a hard time with healers

 

Hell even OPS and Smugglers could use a little something.

 

1. Nerf Pyrotech/Vanguards and Marauders/Sentinels

2. Buff other uncommonly played DPS Spec/Classes, make them viable

3. Buff healers to that they do not have to get trained by terrible players button mashing just because they can

4. !?!?!?!?!?!?

5. Profit

Edited July 2, 2012 by BurnsTwoThree

[ProfessorWalsh]

I think the flaw of your argument is that you consider that somehow healing needs to be balanced with dps in terms of a healer beeing as good a team spot as a dps, this argument has a ton of implications that simply dont hold weight in the game.

 

The game tries to be balanced around the presence of an exact player ration, 2 tanks 4 dps 2 healers. Most forum discussion is done (incorrectly in the context of the game but i personally love this kind of discussions also ) assuming a simple field of battle were ppl fight over, the movement between objectives and the ratio of respwn to travel to fight time means nothing to most ppl. However back on balance, in order for the game to be balanced around the setup it needs to force the setup on you, so stacking anything extremely away from the indicated numbers needs to be detrimental (for example 6 dps 2 healers, or 4 healers 4 tanks) Thus we should analyse and perceive the team as two parts: offense (dps and to an extend tanks) and defence (healers and to an extend tanks) tanks contribute to both teams. Thus in order for a person to stay alive both a healer and a tank need to contribute, that would hold pretty much the same for damage as tends to be evident in the game, in order for 1 person to go down two need to contribute but this isnt so prevalent since the damage dealers are twice the number of the other archetypes.

 

Allthough i understand the above is a gross outline and doesnt begin to touch the reality of all the situation what needs to be said is THIS IS NOT WOW, here keeping ppl alive in PVP is not about the Healer its the combined effort of a TANK (yes because tanking exists in pvp!) and a healer.

 

If you take the recommended survivability increase the original poster asks for and add a tank in the mix you make for a pvp that nobody dies except from knockbacks and pits or stray small skirmish like 1v1 matches at wierd map positions (any1 who has played 1.1.5 pvp has a voidstar experience with less than 15 deaths in both teams).

 

People who actually appreciate swtor pvp, not because its perfect but because it has an additional tier of tactical and strategical complexity (that is the pvp tanking) dont wont it to return to the 1.2 state, no matter how frustrating it is for a solo healer.

 

 

I guess if i wanted to add a tl;dr is, if they buff the healers they need to remove pvp taunt and guard from the game in order for it to be playable, and that isnt the right thing to do, so please evolve, find ppl who want to do pvp tanking and learn to play with them, teach and learn from them.

 

Quite possibly one of the most correct and succinct posts in this thread.

 

I can't agree with you more:

"THIS GAME ISN'T WOW."

 

Tanks in this game share the burden with keeping people alive. In WoW that was the sole responsibility of the Healer.

 

If anything this game is more like DAoC than WoW in combat design. Healers in DAoC were toast unless a Tank was helping them... However once a Tank was thrown in... Things changed.

 

This happens here too.

 

Let us assume that DPS can output 150% more than a Healer can Heal.

 

So 1 v 1 a Healer will die to a DPS class. (There were a few tricks pre-1.3 that allowed Healers to over heal DPS but it was something that apparently many of the opposing voices in this thread were unable to do. I have been told by a Healer a run with who could manage that that it required Warzone adrenals at key moments something which no longer works.)

 

Now, let us put 2 DPS against 1 Healer and 1 Tank.

 

300% more than the Healer can possibly heal.

 

Now.. Reduce that to 150% due to Guard.

Then, due to a Tank's CC's he can keep one of the DPS unable to attack 30% of the time. Reducing the overall contribution of that DPS by 30%

 

(For those keeping score that number is now 128.5% of a Healer's total healing capability due to the fact that each DPS contributes 150% of a Healer's possible Healing ratio, so one of them is reduced by approximately 43% due to losing 30% of their ability to deal damage. This means it is not 150% + 107% or 257% base, then the Guard is applied reducing that by 50% leaving 128.5% remaining.)

 

For the one he is not locking down through CC he taunts, reducing their damage further by 30% this is specifically targeting the one he isn't CC'ing to increase the overall impact.

 

(More math goes here: We now have to recalculate the numerical data. We still have the CC'ed one having a base of 107%, the other one now has a base reduced by 30% (30% of 150% is a reduction of around 43%) leaving that person at 107% the new base is calculated at 214% reducing the incoming damage due to guard to 107%)

 

That allows the healer to survive the assault by 2 DPS for almost 30% longer than they could survive an assault by 1... This allows the Healer enough time to stun the DPS not being CC'ed which, even if it only reduces the incoming damage by 5% of that person's total DPS still is enough to (as 5% of 150% is 7.5%) to reduce the 2 DPS down to below what the Healer can heal. Granted, this does mean that 2 DPS focus firing a Healer who is Guarded by a Tank shut the Healer down, the Healer isn't dying.

 

1 DPS, at this point, attacking the healer has their 150% or so, which does seem to be what the numbers are showing us. According to most Healers their crit heals are reaching the 5,000 range while the hardest melee hits are reaching the 7,500 range, reduced by 80% (through Taunt and Guard) making their damage contribution against the Healer to be a whopping 30% of the Healer's heal output.

 

The problem they are seeing however is that Healers without Tank (or Healer support) are dying very fast. In fact 2 DPS classes will destroy one without them having a chance, one DPS (even me since the change and my Combat spec is weak against Healers) will destroy them in approximately 6-10 seconds. If, however, that wasn't the case the numbers would break the second you start calculating any Tank involvement on behalf of the Healer.

 

To put it more simply:

 

This game was balanced with the assumption that there would be group tactics in play. This game was balanced under the assumption that a Healer will have a Tank who is Taunting and protecting for them. Trying to balance for Healers who are unable to get a Tank breaks the game for any Healer who does have a Tank.

 

This game is much more tactical than WoW. The tactics of WoW don't work here. If your argument begins with, "When I played a Healer in WoW" then it instantly fails as that is an apples to oranges comparison.

[ProfessorWalsh]

even at 30% dmg reduction you're still getting hit for 3-4k.

 

like no one teams healer and tank? like healers have trouble finding someone to guard them? do you even play heals or tank? (if yer op heals perhaps that's easier)

 

what happens is you get stunlocked, you get hit for 3-4k instead of 5-6k, you die one second later than you would have, and then the tank gets demolished.

 

there is no reason to spec full healing as sorc in pvp. cc is so much better cause incoming burst is so high and it's your only chance of surviving it, ignoring the fact that your team takes far less dmg from ccing high dps opponents than you healing that dmg.

 

Actually you don't.

 

Guard reduces the incoming damage to the Sorcerer by 50% that is on top of the 30% that can be mitigated through the use of the Tank's taunt.

 

So let us assume a 5,000 damage strike as in your outline above.

 

Reduce that by 30%

 

30% of 5,000 is 1,500 thus the damage is reduced to 3,500 damage. Then apply Guard.

 

That damage is further mitigated by 50%

 

50% of 3,500 is 1,750 damage.

 

So instead of getting hit for 5,000 damage you are in fact being hit for 1,750 damage, which is far more manageable.