PvP Healing, by far the worst experience I've ever had as a gamer

[raelimar]

Just roll operative or scoundrel, run around knifing, run away and heal when you get low, then come back and continue knifing. You can get 30 killing blows without dying once because of how much of a joke that spec is to play because nobody can outheal your damage and nobody can outdamage your healing (unless you're terrible).

 

Ah yes. That 62 point Concealment/Medic spec is pretty brutal from what I've heard.

[lokivoid]

I'm having a blast healing in PvP! You are comparing this game to WoW, which has op healing and horrible PvP.

 

Wile i will agree healers in wow are OP. The wow's pvp in general is near perfect compared to this game. Hell even warhammer had more fluidity in there combat mechanics than Swtor.

 

Problem overall has to do with the class designs and overall mechanics in general. a fue classes are completely lack luster with little coheasion of abilities. Wile others are just stright up overpowered in functionality. Movement and ability responsiveness is also a major issue.

 

In general the game feels like it rushed with no real polish to the overall mechanics. To much focus was placed on voice overs that no one will care about four months down the road.

[cardsinhand]

Usually the problem isn't the healing itself or survivability, it's having someone useful to heal.

 

I can either do 300k damage or 300k healing, but at least with damage I can make sure the healers are dying and not rely on bad pugs to do it. So of course I'm going to go with damage.

[Grimhand]

Honestly, it's not even fun.

 

I'm hardly bad or a beginner (2700 exp Resto Druid), but I can't even begin to describe how awful PvP healing is in this game. I won't even get into the raid frames and totally unresponsive targeting system. Right now my Operative is 44 so I have all my abilities and it's still crap. Every single random DPS baddie can easily knock off 30-50% of my health in a global so it's impossible to keep up and then you just get interrupted/cc'ed to hell. Juking the interrupt? Good luck figuring that out!

 

It's not a positioning issue. It's not a l2p issue either.

 

It's just not fun being completely helpless without serious peels and even then healing is totally underwhelming.

 

Rofl. That is like bragging about an A in a class with an average of 99%

[Rasstavad]

Maybe your right, maybe your wrong. But the Druid healer thing made me LOL. Resto druids were so OP, you can't even begin to compare that to SWTOR.

 

Resto Druids haven't been OP for the last couple of seasons, at least. In fact, I would even go so far as to state that a Resto Druid in 3's is a free fast kill for any melee cleave and especially anything with a DK on it. There are many issues causing this - mostly involving how many GCD's it takes to get a full rack of hots up after a hard switch (LB in particular). They also have the weakest "flash" heal of all the healers, no type of "aura mastery" and everything is tied into one school. There are other issues, but these are the most obvious ones. Hell, they even nerfed WG last patch. Most every druid has gone on to play alts or went feral.

[Evermint]

This is the trend in pvp for healers.

 

1) You are ecpected to follow everyone else and be there healbot

2) You are expected to heal everyone else and tank the other team

3) You are suppose to defend yourself while tanking 3+ players and healing your team

4) You are not expected to survive one vs one when all healers are focussed fired all the time.

 

This is the first MMO I've tried healing in. I have to say, I find this all rather exciting! I'm only a 37 sorc, but I've had some memorable and great PvP experiences so far - like this one time, surviving what felt like the entire enemy team in one mission with clever positioning, stuns, shields, HOTs, all my cool-downs, and force speed, while my team melted them all around me. I got 3 MVP votes that game.

 

Another time, 3 of my guild-mates and I went an entire (victorious!) PvP without a single death in our ranks. I felt that was a major personal achievement, and we were rather proud of ourselves.

 

I'm sure you have ~some~ DPS skills you can also use?

[PureLuckNoSkills]

The problem is not the raid frames or "clunky" mechanics. Heck as a sawbones scoundrel I can keep people alive FOREVER in PvE, it's easy and fun. In PvP it's a different story however (and no i don't want to keep everyone 100% hp all the time on pvp too). In PvP my damage numbers are almost same with my healing ones and sometimes they're even higher than healing. The problem is there is no reason for me to cast a heal, i can just join the zergtrain and help the burst. The best healing i can offer is to kill other team so everyone can pop their rest abilities.

Give me a reason to use my GCD for healing instead of damage. Right now using DPS and CC is more effective than a heal. Respeccing to scrapper is not an option because i'm having a blast in heroics and flashpoints they're all fun.

I'm not sure if i should be happy because i can whoop *** in pvp as a healer or feel bad because i'm not a good doctor and save people

 

I'm a 33 Sawbones Scoundrel (all points in Sawbones) while writing this and i played WoW,Rift,AoC,CoX,DCUO and TF2 as healers.

[Bakarn]

Again, I make the point. There are three archetypes in this game. Tank. Healer. DPS.

 

Healers will suffer until the community as a whole figures out that, shockingly, tanks are necessary to PvP. Which they are. All that "burst" you're complaining about means squat when even a DPS specced tank throws a Guard and AoE taunts everyone attacking you every 30s.

 

Just to put into perspective what that means, it means you're taking around 30% of the damage you usually do, unless they attack the tank. Tanks in this game can turn you into a tank. The 50% splash damage they take is then reduced by their armour and defensive utility. This means if you're talking about, say, a Guardian who wants to let you live through some burst, the pair of you are soaking up more than 70% of their damage.

 

People are still learning this. You cannot actually kill a Guarded healer as a DPS. It's impossible. In fact they will kill you outright, with ease. Once the PvP orientated tanks start to learn how to switch Guard depending on their situation people will feel much, much stronger than they do currently.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Bakarn

[jdi_knght]

Right now my Operative is 44 so I have all my abilities and it's still crap. Every single random DPS baddie can easily knock off 30-50% of my health in a global so it's impossible to keep up and then you just get interrupted/cc'ed to hell. Juking the interrupt? Good luck figuring that out!

 

It's not a positioning issue. It's not a l2p issue either.

 

It's just not fun being completely helpless without serious peels and even then healing is totally underwhelming.

 

Operative/Smugger healers probably still need buffs (they certainly needed them in beta, but haven't played one since launch so don't know 1st-hand if much has changed, though it's rare I see one perform as well as the other healers). They're easily the weakest of the 3 healing classes.

 

It's not a PvP healing issue as your thread title implies though (PvP healing on the whole is fine more-or-less), it's a class issue. And you'd be right to bring it up.

Edited December 24, 2011 by jdi_knght

[RepublicMaverick]

Our guild did some PvPing last night and we had 2 healers and 2 DPS. Went like a charm. sure we lost some games and sure we did die, but the healers also managed to keep us alive a lot of the times and visa versa. I am really enjoying the PVP except for the lvl difference but that is a different cup of tea.

[iluran]

The op has a point on one thing. PVP is imbalanced at the moment. Leaning towards dmg dealers.

As a healer you a have problem when you have a pure dmg dealer on you. In wow you could at least hold your own for a while. But here it's just you waiting to die when you have used your stuns and cd's. I am not saying that pvp healing needs to be the same as wow where certain healer just cannot be killed. But it would be good to see improvement in pvp output. At the moment the dmg classes can output in one GD, outweights your big heal by at least 40%. In pve I have no problem whatsoever keeping people alive.

 

Classes as the Si and BH are op at the moment and also ones that much liked and played. In the case of the SI the shield needs to be balanced. It is out of control at the moment.

 

If you are wondering I play a SI (25) and TCM (26) It could be I dont have all my spells yet but I see the difference in survivability in both.

 

The most frustrating thing is that game developers choose to do public beta's at a too late of a time and mostly involving stress test. Now the problems with pvp become apparent. The thing that frustrates me to most is that if you spam click your talents the GD starts again or your ability will not proc at all. Not to speek of the huge FPS drops in pvp at the moment.

[ursusarctus]

Daoc had the best pvp.

 

Healers were uber ... in their jobs which was to frekaing heal.

 

If a healer cant heal whats the point , it sure aint dishing damage either as heal spec in this game or anyother.

 

 

Healer should be able to outheal 1 dps pretty easy cause they have them selves and others to take care of.

 

 

This game is pure bs terms of that , even in lol you can find better heals.

 

Right now heals a re a joke , the only semi worth healer is sorc - sage and the other 2 classes are a joke.

 

 

Healer is , for the most part and consider by most , the most boring yet responsible class to play having not the tools just makes them gimped .

Edited December 24, 2011 by ursusarctus

[minoshka]

I agree, pvp healing is broken. If you cant survive long enought to heal someone , whats the point. Im not saying you need to be inmortal, but atleast survive long enought to heal others.Dying because everyone out damage your heal isnt normal for any mmo.

[bobuffet]

I am actually having a lot of fun healing warzones as a healer in this game. My only gripes are:

 

Raid Frames are total garbage. They need to be fixed ASAP. They dont update and with everyone having titles and legacies and being bunched up I have no idea who is who half the time. It takes me half a warzone to remember that Cypher Agent so and so wasnt a player named Cypheer Legacy name. I had a few warzones that the raid frames were completely missing 1 or 2 people as well. I really hope they fix this NOW.

 

I think there is just way too much CC, knockbacks, etc. This stuff needs to be on a real long CD or they need to cut back how many each class has. Or this resolve bar should actually allow you to totally resist a knockback.

[Vandal_Heart]

One thing I cannot believe hasn't come up so far is the expertise stat.

 

At level 50 people will start gathering expertise gear, expertise currently increases damage done and reduces damage taken. So assuming 2 opponents with equal expertise, this will cancel out.

 

However, expertise also increases healing done, which means that as a healer, you'll have a damage reduction and a healing increase to go against your opponents damage increase.

 

Of course, this just assumes that the people posting in this thread aren't all running around at level 50 with full pvp gear. Having not been in the beta (/wrists) I am unable to say what effect this actually has on endgame pvp, however, maybe someone who has some experience, or has reached level 50 and gathered some pvp gear can post regarding the changes this makes?

 

On topic (by which I mean opinion stated as fact) I enjoyed my brief time healing in pvp as an inquisitor, so it is therefore fine.

[DarthNiktu]

Ok guys. You must ask yourself:

 

In PvP, am I unable to heal my TEAM MATES getting attacked?

Impossible to keep your tank up, impossible to help out your melee dps buddy?

If you cant heal others then you have a problem, then you are broken.

 

To me its about teamplay.

 

And unguarded healer should go down like a sack of ****. A healer left alone to his business should be the pivotal element helping his team win.

 

In your PvE raids, what happens when the healer gets aggro. Everybody tries to save him, otherwise the team gets wiped.

 

In bad PvP:

What happens when the healer gets aggro? No one cares - you die

 

In good PvP:

Tank puts guard on you (just like in PvE !!). Tank also throws taunts. (shadow/assasin also have this). No, a human player isnt forced to attack tank like a stupid NPC, but he will do less dmg on you (its in the taunt mechanic).

 

Team up with good ppl, eh?

 

Healers must be squishy and die if they are attacked. Otherwise you will loose a serious depth of teamplay. My advice: play with friends. When I do PvP (I play shadow) I try to guard the healers (if we have any, but thats rare). My second priority is targetting their healers/casters.

 

Many times I'm just amazed how enemy teams healers are just left out there on their own. You do not have an imba class. You are just a victim of bad teamplay.

Edited December 24, 2011 by DarthNiktu

[DwaneDibbley]

Wait for lvl50 and expertise gear. It gives 3 things, increases pvp dmg, reduces pvp dmg taken and increases pvp healing. So while first 2 will be canceled by each other (comparing same gear), heling will be boosted.

[Tellenn]

This is my view from an experienced pvp healer, in a pvp orientated guild with 5 years playing pvp aimed games.

 

So far its clear the pvp in this game is aimed at casual players. Healing is much lower than any mmo I've played. The problem with this is the main skill needed in organised pvp is missing. Focus.

 

These games should always be about focus. The team with the best organized focus should always win and that needs to start with focusing healers. A healer should always be able to heal through 2 dps hitting them. That way teamwork and focused dps will come out on top.

 

I feel healing will become secondary to dps as wiping them quickly then using regen will be much more popular. Also without in fight res abilities healer are not a must have here.

[DarthNiktu]

A healer should always be able to heal through 2 dps hitting them..

 

Excuse me? TWO DPS. Ohh not even as modest as ONE DPS.

Lets all be healers then. Great game

 

You didnt read my post, did you?

 

A healer without backup should DIE.

 

A team that knows how to guard their support WINS.

 

Compare to PvE, all ppl seem to understand that protectiong healer is key to success. All other strategies is a team wipe. Why should the rules be different in PvP?

[Repefe]

I agree, pvp healing is broken. If you cant survive long enought to heal someone , whats the point. Im not saying you need to be inmortal, but atleast survive long enought to heal others.Dying because everyone out damage your heal isnt normal for any oldschool mmo.

 

There, fixed. Games change. MMOs are trying to break the rigid dps-tank-heal old school trinity model. Try to keep an open mind.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Repefe

[oflow]

I agree the raid frames and targetting are very bad. There are also LoS issues with the environment where small dips in the ground or slopes like by the flag in the middle gun battery block LoS.

 

 

That said, there are ways to juke CCs and use the crappy LoS to your advantage. Once I understood how resolve works it made a big difference when you combine with with knowing what CCs the enemies will use. You can trick people into blowing their good CCs and then have free action with a full resolve bar.

 

The playstyle isnt really like WoW in this game even though it looks similar, that was one of my issues too til I understood it. The combat in this game is really slow and diliberate in comparison. Primary issue being you cant just healbot in this game you will just get trained quick, you have to mix up your damage and healing so ppl just dont tunnel vision you.

[SpinelessNJ]

Honestly, it's not even fun.

 

I'm hardly bad or a beginner (2700 exp Resto Druid), but I can't even begin to describe how awful PvP healing is in this game. I won't even get into the raid frames and totally unresponsive targeting system. Right now my Operative is 44 so I have all my abilities and it's still crap. Every single random DPS baddie can easily knock off 30-50% of my health in a global so it's impossible to keep up and then you just get interrupted/cc'ed to hell. Juking the interrupt? Good luck figuring that out!

 

It's not a positioning issue. It's not a l2p issue either.

 

It's just not fun being completely helpless without serious peels and even then healing is totally underwhelming.

 

It all changes with you have a tank guarding you. You have to play with friends and be in voice period. If you dont meet either of those reqs dont bother Qing up for pvp unless you dont mind the mindless WOWbie population that dont think past going after squishy or low hp players. Being guarded is a must for healers. Having backup makes you 20x more deadly.

[Hypernetic]

My experience has been the opposite. I have had healers keep me up (PVP assassin tank) through 5-6 people wailing on me.

 

I see people pop up from the brink of death to 75% hp all day. The burst healing in this game is insane.

 

Shields are also stupidly OP.

 

 

This isn't WoW, you have to adjust your play style. You aren't going to jump around doing flips and occasionally casting a HoT like you did on your druid and do well here.

[CHRISGG]

It all changes with you have a tank guarding you. You have to play with friends and be in voice period. If you dont meet either of those reqs dont bother Qing up for pvp unless you dont mind the mindless WOWbie population that dont think past going after squishy or low hp players. Being guarded is a must for healers. Having backup makes you 20x more deadly.

 

Posts like this are pmuch a joke. Staying alive as a healer is not a problem in the slightest. It's very easy to kite/cc the people on you and live for extended periods of time.

 

The problem is that people are going to switch off you the second they realize they can't kill you. They're then going to attack your teammates. You're then going to try to heal your teammates through the damage, except your 2 second cast heals hit for 1500 and your other heals hit for similary low amounts.

 

I hope this clears things up for the people spouting "Learn 2 play" or "Get a guard!!!"

 

Neither of these drastically change things. Your heals are still pathetically low.

[CHRISGG]

Really you'd think after 50 thousand MMORPG releases where "attack the healer!!!" is rarely, if ever, the best strategy, players would stop saying otherwise.

 

But nope. People still love to post as if all you need to do to be a successful healer is stay alive, completely ignoring everything else.

Edited December 24, 2011 by CHRISGG