New idea for healers :)

[Altheran]

Don't think healers are really meant to be soloable by one DPS player - more of a stalemate where the healer outheals incoming damage while dealing low amounts of damage themselves.

 

I personally think that it should be impossible to healers to survive one DPS without support.

Because if you don't do so, you can always end in a situation where many healers means "nobody dies in the team", and where no focus is able to overcome this.

 

Extreme and absurd exemple : 8 healers vs 8 DPS. If a healer is capable to outheal incoming damage while slowly dealing damage, like you said, then 8 healers can always overcome ennemies' damage, even if the 8 of them focus, because if the 8 healers focus heal, it will still outheal them. Typically no one in the healer team die. I didn't take into account the amount of "multi-target healing" which will make non-focus damage absolutely ineffective. However, as these healers can slowly deal damage, the DPS team will inevitably have to suffer deaths. The DPS team has no choice but to lose.

 

As long as a healers are made to be "not-soloable", this issue will be inevitable.

[Jarfunkz]

So my last post about healers seemed to be a flop, resulting in people making personal attacks on others and telling each other l2p, which was never my intention.

 

Moving on, on a very serious note, I've come up with another brainstormed idea for the balancing of healers in PvP environments.

 

As I studied all three healing classes, whether it be class mechanics or forums on each of them, I've noticed a few things and came up with this idea. (Please correct me on any information you see here that is false)

 

From what I can tell, it would appear that the three healers are defined as such:

 

1) Mercenaries/Commandos are terrible healers. We have no survivability and can barely hold our own against just ONE dps. (From what I've seen, I don't have a merc healer so I don't know personally.)

 

2) Sages/Sorcerors are fine. Once you pop their bubble and stay on them, they go down. But their heals are amazing if left alone, or has great kiting skills.

 

3) Scoundrels/Operatives need a nerf. Their abilities are mostly instant cast and their heals are off the charts. It takes several people to bring one down, and if he has another healer helping him, you can forget ever killing him.

 

Looking at this, I realized that there's one that needs a buff, one that's fine as is, and one that needs a nerf. So, what if say the Merc has a HPS of 2.0K, the Sorc has 2.5K, and the op has 3.0K. Would it be too far fetched to bump mercenary healing up to 2.5K and bring the Op's healing down to 2.5K? I mean, that way all three healers have the exact same healing output, are still killable, and also gives players an incentive to bring healers of all types with them to warzones.

 

Healing is OP right now, make taunts affect heals... problem solved.

[MotorCityMan]

Heals need to be nerfed 50 %. Also, the game needs to auto target Healers with a big red X upon entering a warzone. This will save dps from having to hold up on their smash long enough to identify a healer and mark them. They should also be fitted with bells for those with impaired vision. The warzone Ops leader should have a feature that when activated immediately switches all dps's targets to the healer. Dps will not be allowed to attack anything else as long as this feature is activated.

 

Healers should not be able to move in a warzone without first activating a back up alarm. The back up alarm will sound and big red X target marker will blink for 10 seconds before any movement is permitted, so dps will not be caught unawares of impending movement by the healer.

 

Same team players who are to receive healing, must first submit form SC-1069 in triplicate found under UI controls, for each heal before any healing can be dispensed. Healers are cautioned on using their aoe heals in this regard, as their cast ability will be suspended for 25 seconds if a player receives a heal without having first filled out the required form.

 

Players are reminded that peeling for a healer will cause them to become immobile but attackable for 30 seconds.

 

Lastly, should the above measures fail to result in the death of a healer, the game will automatically strike the healer dead every 2 minutes. This is to done to simulate the accumulated attacks of competent dps should an opposing team be devoid of same, and an even flow of warzone deaths.

Edited June 27, 2013 by MotorCityMan

[Shakhaar]

I personally think that it should be impossible to healers to survive one DPS without support.

Because if you don't do so, you can always end in a situation where many healers means "nobody dies in the team", and where no focus is able to overcome this.

 

Extreme and absurd exemple : 8 healers vs 8 DPS. If a healer is capable to outheal incoming damage while slowly dealing damage, like you said, then 8 healers can always overcome ennemies' damage, even if the 8 of them focus, because if the 8 healers focus heal, it will still outheal them. Typically no one in the healer team die. I didn't take into account the amount of "multi-target healing" which will make non-focus damage absolutely ineffective. However, as these healers can slowly deal damage, the DPS team will inevitably have to suffer deaths. The DPS team has no choice but to lose.

 

As long as a healers are made to be "not-soloable", this issue will be inevitable.

 

What you're implying is that the team with more healers wins by default, but this does not really apply. Sure, in a scenario where your team has 2 healers and the enemy has none, the enemy team is disadvantaged, but in scenarios where your team has 5 and more healers, at least in my experience, it is your team that tends to be disadvantaged.

 

Healer damage output is not that high, and while they can spam heal eachother, if the enemy DPS team focuses their damage on one target (and uses the occasional pushback), they shouldn't be able to outheal the damage, especially if you use AOE CCs. Plus, they won't be pressuring your team that much.

 

Warzones aren't just a series of 1v1 where each player has a certain value, a large part of Warzones is based on cooperation. The thing is, if healers were killable in a 1v1 scenario (talking Operatives, because Mercenaries are easily 1v1able), then healing would be obsolete. What's the point of being a healer when you'll be extremely easy to kill and most players who have at least a minimal idea of what's going on will target you. Even now as a healer you usually end up with 2-3 enemies on you - unless you are lucky and the enemy team is cluelessly ("doh I iz doing dps why hp no drop???") attacking random targets.

 

I suppose I would agree that the amount of communication needed to drop healers is somewhat high considering your average level of communication in a pug. And it is easier to heal than to chain CC/focus enemies as a team.

[Arox]

My opinion on the OP's thoughts.

 

I have to kinda agree, my mains a heal/dps spec, support role mostly. Op/Scoundrel healing is absolutely over the top at the moment.

 

I mean Sorcs can be great, and borderline unkillable given the right player, but Operatives have it much easier and its pretty frustrating.

 

Obviously im bias and would like to see my class doing better, but thats just life. Im just living with the fact that some classes are over powered at the moment. eg Mara/Sent, Snipers being the current fotm dps wise.

[Crixa]

I'm reluctant to say that Commando healers are underpowered by any stretch of the imagination. We have some amazing commando healers on my server who I'd take over any Op or Sorc in a heartbeat.

[SettGirkkurn]

I'm reluctant to say that Commando healers are underpowered by any stretch of the imagination. We have some amazing commando healers on my server who I'd take over any Op or Sorc in a heartbeat.

 

Pretty much this. I have both Merc and Op healers and I have to say that I love merc healing and its passive heals/buffs (kolto residue, shell, proactive medicine, jet boost healing, compressed gas...). You dont even have merc and yet you took right to say its "terrible"? No point arguing at all and no healer will survive when focused anyway, so those are not the droids you were looking for... move along.

Edited June 28, 2013 by SettGirkkurn

[Altheran]

What you're implying is that the team with more healers wins by default, but this does not really apply. Sure, in a scenario where your team has 2 healers and the enemy has none, the enemy team is disadvantaged, but in scenarios where your team has 5 and more healers, at least in my experience, it is your team that tends to be disadvantaged.

 

The disadvantage by having too much healers is only because too much healing is redundant, and so they lack fire power to capture things in WZ, only 2 people from the other team letting themselves chain killed, can delay capping endlessly, and once the opponents have more objetives, they can't do much. But if it's the healer team who capped things first, the same apply in the opposite direction. Why ? because when it will come to combat, the team with too few healers will not stand a chance, even if they have huge fire power.

 

Like you said, CC may lead the healer team to loose. But that would be only true if the healears can't heal for much than someone's DPS. I took your exemple of healers slightly overhealing when attacked solo but I assumed that it is their maximum healing output. But don't forget that if a healer does this output when attacked, their output when "untouched" is much higher.

Let's say a healer "hindered" have a HPS of around 1.1 or 1.2 times the average DPS ("average" not in the quality meaning, but "mathematical rounding" meaning). When "free" this healer will have a HPS of what... 1.6 times the average DPS (I try to not exagerate). Now let's imagine a team with 4 healer (we don't care what the remaining of the team is), and the other team with a regular composition (2 tanks, 4 DPS, 2 healers). The regular team try to focus one healer, and the other healers defend him. The focused healer with provide himself 1.1 of average DPS. The other 3 will provide 1.6 of average DPS. Add all of this, the focused healer will receive 5.9 times the amount of average DPS. So I ask you : where a 8-men team with 4 DPS can provide a DPS woth of more than 5.9 times the average DPS ? How can 4 DPS and 2 tanks provide the damage equivalent for 5.9 DPS. And guess what, I didn't take in account the fact the team could have tanks or DPS with taunts. You can do the maths with three healers and a tank (guard will act as damage diviser, or a heal multiplier depending how you see it), you'll see that such a group can take care of absolutely anything that could happen if healers are made so that even harassed they can heal more than average damage dealer DPS, and that's the problem because it makes a nearly flawless team, not because of the players' quality, but because of the characters themselves.

 

Purely hypotetically speaking, if you want to forbid a healer team from being immortal, you have to forbid them to have a single target healing output superior to the single target output of DPS, in all situations. Don't worry I'm aware that it would be hardly viable, they can hardly make a group survive with only group/area-wise heals unless they have lots of them (but that's technically possible, it's just that it would be hard in a 8-man WZ configuration, especially PuGs where the number of DPS tend to be higher than normal).

 

But if you want healers to be viable, have a substantial meaning in the fight even in PuG, and so that 2 of them in a team is balanced, their "free of casting" single target healing output must not exceed something around 1.25 times a DPS single target output, and if they're hindered, it should be lower than 1 time a DPS output like 0.75 time. (keep in mind that in their single target output, are some group/area abilities that will heal surronding mates)

The reason is that with such outputs, two healers and a tank just throwing a guard, are already able to negate a 4 DPS focus (assuming they focus someone else, so 4vs4) which is approximately the maximum you can expect from a team that is not supposed to have more than 4 DPS in it. A team can occasionally do a better focus, but that's extremly rare. Okay the DPS can CC some people to ease the kill, but the opposite team can CC as well to survive.

The two healers and the tank, if one healer is focused shouldn't be able to able to withstand the focus from 4 DPS (or only barely able to make it), because you know, it's 4vs3. So if we consider the healing output to be 1.25 times if free to cast and only 0.75 if attacked, the trio would still be even with the 4-DPS focus, or they would at least last a long time. If they want to get rid for sure of these 4 DPS, they have to call a fourth player.

What would happen in a PuG fight where the healer is harassed by one DPS? Will he die pointlessly ? No. Think at how long a DPS duel last... it will last 30s or more. So, a healer able to take care of 75% of the damage the harasser do, he will die eventually, but it would need 2min. That's plenty of time to be given support. Usually, he should get some coincidental healing from the other healer from when he do some group/area-wise healing, which should be enough to make him survive, so he really don't need to be able to withstand it by himself. Even if the healer has been left dying, as long as he can do a substantial amount of group/area heals such as kolto missiles (just an example), his presence will be preferable to a DPS.

 

These numbers doesn't solve the problem of the third healer transforming fights into stalemates, because the 1.25 Heal/DPS "free to cast" ratio is high enough so that with a tank they can take care of anything that could occur in the WZ, but they show how important it is that a healer shouldn't be able to outheal a DPS on him unless it's due to playing quality.

 

To balance things properly, it is in fact much more complicated because you have to aim for a gaming mechanic where the single-target "free to cast" healing output is approximately equivalent to a DPS single-target output, but you have to make sure that he has a sufficient amount of sustainable group/area wise healing, and that when he is harassed this coponent do not drop too drastically.

 

Basically, in my opinion, a healer output should be comparable to a Sorcerer DPS (or Assault Commando) output. Left alone, it doesn't exceed average in single target, and put some good pressure group/area-wise, if hindered, the output drop a bit but it still have it's components that cannot be hindered, and that's a good part.

But let's be frank, I also think that a more friendly resurrection mechanic (like 30s CD, the rezzed guy cannot be rezzed during the next 1min - may depend on spec) is needed, so that death is less harsh and may become something "affordable" so that people stop stack 3+ healers because not dying is so important.

I hope it would also give back interest to sturdy/resilient DPS specs. At the moment, sturdiness is not wanted because you don't care about it, healers (and tank) will make you immortal whatever your spec is... which is in my opinion another problem with actual mechanisms and overtuned healers, PvP has become a binary deal'n'heal like in PvE (For me PvP is deal, heal, and survive). So people only aim for specs that have AoE pressure, or burst. But if healing becomes less brutal and rez becomes a battle tactic, having "sturdies" becomes interessant because if you only have "squishies", they'll tend to all die at the same time, you won't be able to rez them, that will be a group wipe. If you have "sturdies", you can try to manage a rez rotation, because they'll still be alive and fighting while you're rezzing the squishiests.

 

I won't start about the "Tank > DPS > Healer > Tank equation" or the fact that stealther have been partly stripped from their healer chaser role of healer's performances, because I've been off-topic enough with my original (mathematical) standpoint. But I think there are enough reasons to justify that a healer shouldn't be able to outheal a DPS attacking him without external support.