More Interesting Healing

[Satedbuffalo]

In my experience, healing TOR's PvE content is easy and repetitive. I'd like to see it improved.

 

Healing in nearly every operation and flashpoint is more or less the same. It's the same rotation and the same triage priority. Unique fights call for only slight modifications to natural healing rhythm: tank swaps, AoE effects, sustained movement. Good healers pick up the rhythm of fights quickly and triage well, bad healers fail to manage their resources. Excellent healers fall asleep.

 

I'd love to see the introduction of mechanics that pose unique problems for healers. We've seen additions to operations that are new and fun for tanks: tank swaps, kiting, damage-immunities, wild AoEs, positioning requirements--the list is easy to populate. There are also some nice pieces for DPSers: extreme burst phases, damage-immunities, reflected damage, positioning requirements. None of this really exists for healers, yet.

 

Some brief ideas for healer-specific mechanics:

 

 

Enemies that take significant damage from 'healing' (ala D&D undead?).

More complex positioning requirements (more than move under shields, etc. - puzzle solving would be awesome).

Mobs that cause constant raid-wide damage.

Mobs that target recently-healed players (i.e. healing causes threat on target).

Forced-solo healing (something like carbonizer probe in J+S, but for healers).

Platforming while healing.

Tactical use of cleanse (as opposed to current 'cleanse everything!' mechanics).

'Zones' that enhance healing while debuffing damage - combined with otherwise-impossible-to-deal-with damage output from mobs.

Environments that generate LOS problems for healers (patterned or randomly).

Debuffs to healing output.

Uncleasable operation-wide DoTs (like Lorrick?).

Healing NPCs (keep target X alive trials).

Debuffs that reduce healing effectiveness on certain targets.

Healing "lockout": healers cannot heal the same target twice for a period of time.

Huge waves of mobs--enough to overwhelm tanks.

Energy regeneration debuffs.

 

There are a bunch of other possibilities, I'm sure that I've haven't thought of. I wonder if others would enjoy the challenge of enhanced healer-specific content, or if I'm just a glutton for difficult mechanics.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Satedbuffalo

[mikebevo]

Sounds like fun to me. Although anything that reducing the healing abilities I have worked so hard getting worries me a little. I can see the bug now where the debuff does not get removed and I still have it after a HM FP for HM EC. So not sure I like that one.

[Skodan]

one that i can remember from lower flashpoints is in cademineu (sp?) where the boss has a big droid and it targets ppl, if it targets the healer then you got to run and heal, but other than that yea i cant recall any that are dynamic

[Exiled-Phoenix]

I was going to add individual replies to each idea, but i said **** and it and i'll say it with a simple 'no' to pretty much everything.

All i see is more random factors and more damage output.

 

Go heal Ops solo if you want a challenge.

[CitizenFry]

Take Bonethrasher, split him into two mobs that go after different targets, and make them stick on their targets for more than a single hit. That seems like it would be an interesting healer fight.

[Satedbuffalo]

Go heal Ops solo if you want a challenge.

 

That's sort of the opposite of what I had in mind, yeah. Would rather have to work with another healer in more complex ways than have more absolute damage to heal.

 

All i see is more random factors and more damage output.

 

I'm unclear about why introducing healer-focused mechanics is not good. Maybe your objection is just to my suggestions? Groovy: would love to hear some others. Those suggested already are pretty sweet.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Satedbuffalo

[Chaqen]

I would love to see debuffs that cause your heal to damage the tank (the debuff would have to clear hots, and may needed a good visual cue), would love to have a need to interrupt a heal for a cure.

 

Overall i like some of your mechanics, while others seem a bit redundant, but either way i would enjoy seeing some well thought of healing mechanics in the game (actually more role mechanics/scripts as well).

[minticedtea]

I second this decision to increase the mechanics for healers to encounter in operations. Simply making mechanics be 'oh just heal this target that is getting hit harder than normal' again and again make things just boring to be honest. I know that some healers probably aren't as geared/skilled as others, but can you give some more mechanics that make things better. I enjoy the proposed mechanics, because making things right now 'just do dps cause you're not healing at the moment' isn't captivating enough in my opinion.

[theblaznee]

I agree that the game could use a bit more interesting healing compared to the "wack a mole" style gameplay we have right now, but I don't like most of the OP's ideas..

 

My old MMO Age of Conans healing mechanic was basically.. Each of the 3 heal classes had an area blue and an area green HoT, besides that they had their "big heal" on a longer cooldown.

The specific areas were slightly different.. Like radiate out, cone in front etc.. Every raidmember could only ever have 1 green and 1 blue HoT on them, but they were infinitely refreshable.

The big heals put a debuff on the targets and were also "cone in front" shaped. So each target could only get 1 big heal from a specific class pr. debuff (30 secs I believe it was).. This meant that to be successfull on the very hardest raids you HAD to bring all 3 different kinds of healers. The tanks could call out for specific big heals as they followed their debuffs dropping off, and the healers had to pay attention to not blow their big heals on people not needing them with smart positioning. The spell itself was on a 10 second cooldown compared to the debuff of 30 seconds (I'm not sure I remember the timings correct any more), so rookie healers could essentially lockout the raid from recieving big heals for a decent amount of time.

Now the simplicity of this might sound boring, but what it also opened up for was that healers had to do decent dps as well to not hit certain mechanics in the fights.. So they had to manage their resources A LOT more than we have to in SWTOR, plus they had a big headache with regards to threat, as healing did a lot of aggro and they had to dps as well..

The end result was that the healing classes were awesome fun.

 

Would it work in SWTOR? Proooobably not, since we only have ops sizes of 8 or 16, and Conan were 24..

 

We could however get some more obvious mechanics to make it a bigger boon to bring different classes of healers, and that for the hardest content you HAD to have mixed healers.. 2 for 8 man, and all 3 for 16 man modes.. In Conan you simply couldn't heal the harder content if you only had 1 class present, no matter how many you brought with you.. 1 class = x amount of heal output, pretty much no matter how many you brought with you..

[Beyoncia]

I'm kinda agree with OP, healing in this game is too easy. Actually whole game is easy too, and gearing is too fast. I'm playing games for more then 15 years. Still playing and leading D&D pnp, raiding in eq2 from start. I went SWTOR with my hc guild-we got bored after 2 months. All is too easy, no point to redo zones because you get all items in a month, no real point to have special raid setup. All is doable with any classes combination, I (combat medic) solo healed some nightmare EV\KP 8 man encounters just for lol. EC was a bit better, but my guild went down from 16 man nightmare to 8 hm that time and disbanded soon after. TFB is even more easier then EV\KP were at start.

Don't get me wrong, i like this game, raids are very atmospheric,flashpoints are long and funny......etc etc. But all is a way too easy. I'm not sure how it can be fixed.,scripts, actualy, very nice. Prolly they need to change whole game mechanic, hard mode and nightmare raids should be not doable w/o proper classes combination, unless overgeared. Gearing should be slow and with rare drop items. And ofc healing should be fun and challenging.

[JacksonMo]

I'm kinda agree with OP, healing in this game is too easy. Actually whole game is easy too, and gearing is too fast. I'm playing games for more then 15 years. Still playing and leading D&D pnp, raiding in eq2 from start. I went SWTOR with my hc guild-we got bored after 2 months. All is too easy, no point to redo zones because you get all items in a month, no real point to have special raid setup. All is doable with any classes combination, I (combat medic) solo healed some nightmare EV\KP 8 man encounters just for lol. EC was a bit better, but my guild went down from 16 man nightmare to 8 hm that time and disbanded soon after. TFB is even more easier then EV\KP were at start.

Don't get me wrong, i like this game, raids are very atmospheric,flashpoints are long and funny......etc etc. But all is a way too easy. I'm not sure how it can be fixed.,scripts, actualy, very nice. Prolly they need to change whole game mechanic, hard mode and nightmare raids should be not doable w/o proper classes combination, unless overgeared. Gearing should be slow and with rare drop items. And ofc healing should be fun and challenging.

 

The problem with catering to Hard Core pre-made groups who hop from game to game is they..... well, they hop from game to game. </facepalm>

Just assuming you aren't completely full of bantha poo, what exactly is the benefit of making content that is a significant ongoing challenge for someone like that, and by definition, near unplayable to 90% of more casual gamers?

So they make it so guys like me can't play the game at all, you are happy for MAYBE two weeks and unsub.

So then your casual players unsub because everything is just a nightmare. You unsub because that's what hard core gamers do, and SWTOR is in chapter 11.

 

The only solution I see is to make a change to Nightmare modes. Set the game to detect the codec's of each group member and set the instance to the highest level.

Complete EV NM once? Get the codec level 1

If the game detects codec level 1, then all bosses are reset to level 2. More health, more damage, etc. More trash mobs in between.

Once you beat NM2, it does the same thing all over again. Level 3.

You can set it up to keep increasing the difficulty level until it is completely undoable by even professional gamers.

 

But you know what would happen? Yea, you guys would complain how bored you are and unsub...

[Kaonis]

I was going to add individual replies to each idea, but i said **** and it and i'll say it with a simple 'no' to pretty much everything.

All i see is more random factors and more damage output.

 

Go heal Ops solo if you want a challenge.

 

^ This.

 

The ideas you have I think would ruin healing and honestly would make me respec my healers to DPS if they used them. The problem with healing isn't so much the content, so much as it's the classes. Right now all healers can do is heal, heal, and heal. They are a support class yet they have no support skills. I'm used to playing healers who had buffs they had to manage, both long term and short term. But as it stands BW's idea of a healer is someone spamming heals on a tank who is getting nearly 1 shotted by some bosses and then calls it a day and wonders why healing is boring. It's the most terribly boring healing I've done because I literally can only heal and do nothing else in intense fights. If they added buffs/debuffs I could toss out in a fight it would make things infinitely more interesting.

[Darth_Dreselus]

Kel'sara's Force Leech is already kinda going that way. It is so hard to resist that low HP bar.

[CaptainApop]

Kel'sara's Force Leech is already kinda going that way. It is so hard to resist that low HP bar.

 

Kel'saras force leech is basically the only healer specific mechanic in that entire instance, and it's only in TfB hm :l

 

And to the poster on the front page. Solo-healing is not more challenging. It doesn't mix anything up. You do the exact same thing you normally would just less time spent outputing (bad) dps and more time actually healing. It calls sometimes for different raid positioning so people are actually in range but that's not on the healer at all.

 

It doesn't make it more interesting or dynamic.

Edited October 29, 2012 by CaptainApop

[ErosGyne]

Do you guys ever did TFB HM, in all the bosses the healers do more that simple heal,

1st boss - The Writhing Horror - we send sometimes the healer for the red circles

2st boss - doom can "hit" anyone, even healer; Ciphas strangle random raid members( even Healer);Kel’sara casts Force Leech ( this is a pure in the hands of the healer, if you do you job you kill the tank);Heirad Begins to channel Lighting Field( this is for every one, healer too);Death mark- the boss can target the healer

3ª boss - Operator IX - is the healer that click on the console; Color spheres (healer has to kill one); Disinfection, can one shot anyone even the healer; Color Deletion Protocol healer has to help, if not 2dead

4º boss - Kephess - Focused Laser Blast can be a healer that get it; Corrupted Nanites again healer can get then; Energy Distortions bad position and the healer get then; Radioactive Barrage again can go on any one(healers too);

Fury of the Masters &Volatile Emission, stand still and you dont last 3s

Last boss - The Terror from Beyond - Acid Spit( position); Hypergate Beacon in my raids, goes always for the healer

This is all i can remember, and if you see, this "abilities" has nothing do to with healing but involves the participation of the healers.

[CaptainApop]

Do you guys ever did TFB HM, in all the bosses the healers do more that simple heal,

1st boss - The Writhing Horror - we send sometimes the healer for the red circles

2st boss - doom can "hit" anyone, even healer; Ciphas strangle random raid members( even Healer);Kel’sara casts Force Leech ( this is a pure in the hands of the healer, if you do you job you kill the tank);Heirad Begins to channel Lighting Field( this is for every one, healer too);Death mark- the boss can target the healer

3ª boss - Operator IX - is the healer that click on the console; Color spheres (healer has to kill one); Disinfection, can one shot anyone even the healer; Color Deletion Protocol healer has to help, if not 2dead

4º boss - Kephess - Focused Laser Blast can be a healer that get it; Corrupted Nanites again healer can get then; Energy Distortions bad position and the healer get then; Radioactive Barrage again can go on any one(healers too);

Fury of the Masters &Volatile Emission, stand still and you dont last 3s

Last boss - The Terror from Beyond - Acid Spit( position); Hypergate Beacon in my raids, goes always for the healer

This is all i can remember, and if you see, this "abilities" has nothing do to with healing but involves the participation of the healers.

 

Stuff that the healer can do or that anyone in the raid needs to do are great and all but they don't address the problem. Tanks/dps have to do the same but also have to deal with their own mechanics that aren't muscle memorized into them. (debuff clearing on kephess/terror, sweeping up circles on kephess, bursting, taunt juggling etc etc ad nauseum)

And of those voluntary mechanics you mentioned, most are better suited to dps.

Eg Red circles - The dps assigned can take the responsibility for killing the adds (a healer couldn't). That's one less player moving about/re-targetting so less damage/healing output lost.

 

Operator IX is a joke of a fight from the healers perspective. 90% of the fight there is no damage done worth speaking of, the only time there is any taxing damage (and also the only reason anyone can justify two/four healers) is if or when you double up on regulators during yellow and orange phases. Being the ideal choice to stand still holding a button down kind of proves the point.

 

 

Addressing BW and the OP. I would rather have more healer specific mechanics or indeed support capabilities than be stuck in this dumb hybrid healer/bad dps role that we are all in currently.

Edited October 29, 2012 by CaptainApop