A Healer's 1.2 Grievances: The story of why healers are upset

There has been a lot of good feedback, and I've summarized the issue in a more concise form. The original post follows below at "Introduction."

The main divide really boils down to what the death rate should be. Pre 1.2 the death rates were a lot lower, and healers could do more. The dynamics of warzones were heavy on logistics before. In war, lives are valuable and losing one was costly. You don't just throw endless numbers at stuff. Pre 1.2, transitioning from one objective target to a next was key, sending the right number of people to the right zone because you could get caught up in long fights. Knowing when and how to disengage was also important. No one told you to sit on a healer for a full game with the net result of not killing him. For healers, their effect on the battlefield was apparent and pronounced. You could heal people, they would live. Similarly, a dps who could interrupt lock down a healer was important, was threatening, and was the difference from being able to push through a defense line.

By changing how much heals could heal, some of that was lost. Timing and coordinating your cc's, kb's, and interrupts although important isn't vital post 1.2 because DPS can kill things with sheer burst rather than all that extra stuff that was critical before. Healers are marginalized, but can be important when the whole team pays attention and takes care of them. But, for pugs it's a lot of respawn and running back. But even for more organized teams, it's back to the common system of dispatching people back to respawn than dealing with disengaging and transitioning between objectives with more macro strategy. Show of force in power rather than in mind and coordination.

Both designs are valid. One favors the heals and the other favors the dps. Dps and heals will never agree on this point because their goals are different. A dps wants kills. A healer wants to keep people alive. Their desires are exclusive. There is no satisfaction in healing if your target dies. There is no satisfaction for dps if they can't kill.

But, the gameplay that favors the healer is not often seen because the healers are usually the minority population. The healer favored system still offers the dps the satisfaction of locking down a healer as a sense of accomplishment. But, it's not in the nature of most dpsers to have that team mentality. So once again it rests on the shoulders of healers to bear the burden that there is an upper limit on what skill can do for your class without the aid and support of the rest of the team. Namely, your healing role has less depth being a reactive sort of play style to begin with, handicapped by the fact that it is what other people do to protect you and don't do to you offensively that enables you to do anything.

I'd like to point out though that in the healer favor system, healers didn't stop you from doing damage. You just don't have the satisfaction of killing. In the dps favored system, dps stops the healers from doing their job completely. Not negating their healing, but taking another step further by eliminating their target, be it the healer itself or the healers target. This system favors people spending more time waiting for respawn rather than alive and doing stuff.

So the experience of healing from one system to the latter is extremely disheartening.

Introduction

There are a lot of threads arguing for and against the changes to healing. The healers are obviously up in arms and upset, where as the dps is cheering as they are draped in the blood of said healers. None of what I've seen so far really explains why healers are upset in a way that makes non-healers understand. This thread hopefully will shed more constructive light on that by a telling of a long story from a healer's perspective.

I encourage more healers to write about their gameplay experience as I am about to in this long thread.

"The nature of how pvp healing works has been changed. It's ruined," is something I've told people. The responses from healers were sympathy and consensus that this statement was true. Some DPS respond unfavorably with "You are exaggerating and over generalizing", "Get over it, you were imbalanced and now have to get used to how it should be", and "Healers shouldn't be able to be that unbeatable." But, the statement is true and this long story will explain why.

Starting Out as a Healer in TOR

So some background. I play a Republic Commando, level 50 obviously, in full Battlemaster Gear, valor rank 75. I slacked off after completing my gear. I did not warzone much until I hit level 50 so I had a long and terrible valor rank grind around the time when the Ilum fiasco reported by Kotaku occurred.

I enjoy healing, played as a healer for most of my long World of Warcraft career. But, what captivated me with The Old Republic was how the PvP was vastly different for healers. I went with very little and dated gear and stepped fresh into warzones and found out to my surprise that tanks can tank in PvP. It was like what?! Someone can actually guard and defend me? That's crazy. That's amazing. Someone's job is to be there for me, and watch my back. That was so refreshing that I immediately loved doing warzones. Healers felt appreciated. Tanks would ask at the start of warzones who was a heal so they could guard you. Someone actually cared.

Gone were the days (well mostly gone) were people would complain that there aren't any healers cause they are dying when you were in fact there healing your butt off. If your main is a healer, you know how disheartening it is for someone to make those complaints and not be recognized. In TOR, people noticed.

As a commando healer, I soon also quickly found out that I was amazing even without gear. Sure, I was squishy but it felt like I could still do stuff. Right away, I had imperials recognizing that I was a great healer because I did a lot of things healers should do but neglect to. I would line of sight often, using hammer shot to heal when I moved, cc'd every cd on appropriate targets, help dps when I could, even knock back. Sweet baby jesus this is amazing. It's active and engaging with a lot of stuff to do and I excel at all of it.

Then my gear slowly, and I mean slowly improved. As I said, most MMO's don't show appreciation to their healers. So although the community was warm and welcoming to my heals, the game surely was not. Ilum and warzones did not originally give kill credit for healing. You had to stop and tag stuff for killing. On my server, there were a lot more imps than rep in Ilum the majority of the time so stopping to tag targets was an insane waste of time when so many people needed heals and they need it now. Stopping meant death against the Imp zerg.

Gearing from scratch, the medal and valor system was brutal on healers. I could earn very few medals. 2.5k heal that even a dps could earn. A killing blow if I was lucky. 75k healing sure. Anything past that not guaranteed. While other people earned 6 medals easy. But, the community appreciated healers. People would MVP vote healers and you'd feel the love.

The change in the medal system and giving healers kill credit through healing finally gave healers game recognition for their deeds. Game was now giving credit, and healer valor gain doubled, maybe even tripled, making it way easier for healers to gear when they used to gear half as fast with the old system. I was past that already, but I was happy for new healers who wouldn't have to go through the horrible grind I did.

Then Came 1.2

Then came 1.2. I heard rumors that it was going to suck. Brushed it off as over exaggeration and was excited about a lot of the other features. The commando nerfs looked harsh, but I was like I'm going to get through this. I didn't put points in med zone reactive shield and was unkillable as is so I'll be fine. Or so I thought.

The damage buffs on dps and the med pack nerf came as a tidal wave against us. Compounded from the fact that Imperial 4 man groups have a lot better gear on average versus my servers Rep groups. I'm not exaggerating on the gear difference. I recognize the same Imps and guilds and groups on my server. It's kind of nice having that tight community. But that's digressing. Another strange anomaly of our server is our side doesn't have a lot of great dpsers. Empire had the DPS, we had tons of tanks and heals. It is not abnormal on our server to have 4 healers in a warzone. I've seen a game with 6. This lead to disaster in 1.2 as heavy organized 4 man Imp groups decimated a weird dynamic that used to play out on our server of having long games where Rep side couldn't kill, but wouldn't die. Now it was Rep side just dies.

Weird composition of my server warzones aside. The amount of dps that geared marauders and powertechs were doing was crazy. People were falling over left and right, and heals meant nothing. It went from, "Yeah, I can save you" to give everything you got to delay death slightly. Against two geared dps going down on one person, person is just dead. Nothing you can do about it.

As a commando I didn't need a tank pre 1.2. I could tank it myself. Throw me a good, geared tank and we were a two man god team. Me and my tank against the world. Couldn't necessarily kill anything, but we wouldn't die. That was the thing though, we couldn't necessarily kill anything. People lived for a long time. To kill a healer required a lot of coordination and focus fire. 1v1 as a healer was easily a stalemate. A good dps could lock you down so outbound healing to other people was hard to do, but couldn't necessarily kill you. Your health might spike and stuff, but if you managed your CDs you knew you could make it out if you were good enough. Two dps should be able to kill me but a lot of dps don't interrupt. That was their biggest problem. They never interrupted the right thing or at all. Medical probe should've been their target, not advanced. That goes on cooldown anyways after using it unless I have supercharge up. Wait for reactive shield to pass, lock out medical probe after the adv probe I used to make it cheaper, then burst with your adrenals and relic. How do you think I'm keeping up with tanking a bunch of you, managing my wz expertise adrenal and relics carefully. Never had to juke heals much cause people just don't interrupt in the first place and there's so many stuns, kb etc, juking isn't always worth it.

But, then we were told it wasn't ever supposed to be that way. We weren't meant to be able to last that long. Granted some of commando nerfs I'm okay with. We didn't need to manage ammo, but since I played with a lot of movement and hammer shot to begin with, the ammo management change didn't phase me much at all. I'm glad that was added.

Survivability was killed though. Went from super hard to kill to yeah, they can kill me. Consequently, can't save other people because I have to worry a lot more about myself. It took myself and my sage friend to heal her to keep her alive from one marauder. That's two healers healing to stop one dps. My heart goes out to those sages. They can't take care of themselves as easily as before, and before there was a lot of "keep running, they gonna kill you!" Her deaths I would say doubled each warzone. She comes out of the spawn and gets sent quickly back.

Output wise, I can get the same numbers. I can still push past 300k healing in a warzone. Think I did 500k one warzone tonight. But, a lot more people die cause the damage is insane. My tanks die. I can't save them if they guard me like I used to because taking care of myself takes so much more, can't heal other people as well. Sometimes I'm left to free heal and still can't save people. It didn't make things harder. It just made things more depressing. Pre 1.2, it was hard to keep everyone up alive. But, by jolly, it could be done!

Pre 1.2 healers felt like they had a huge impact. They did. They could do so much. People would rage about focus firing healers. People made a fit about marking healers. Healers would point out in their ops that they must be marked cause they are being focus fired hard and dying now as a badge of honor and frustration at the same time. Some void stars never got passed the first door both rounds. A healer was important. Vastly important. You want to kill someone, you can't ignore that healer. Someone has to lock it down or you all have to go and kill it.

Post 1.2 dealing with the healer is optional. Can just bypass the healer, kill the guy directly. Or just outright dispatch the healer like it was nothing.

That's why healing has fundamentally changed. That's why healers are all upset. Feels like a bait and switch. From a game where we were super important, then changed to a minor nuisance that is optional to deal with. We lost our independence, our time in the lime light. Back to other MMO styles where we require other people to hold our hands, peel things off of us constantly.

Sure, might make DPS a lot happier. Sure, it might be in line with intended balance. But, it doesn't feel good to be reliant and dependent again. Doesn't feel good to not be the center of attention in warzone dynamics. Doesn't feel good to be treated same way other MMO's have treated us.

The proof of the change is a new trend I've noticed in mvp votes. Gone is the emphasis to give healers votes instead of the person with the most medals. Votes are now given to the person with that crazy damage doing 600k a warzone. DPS is the one that is important. People don't remember you helping them as much cause they are dying which was a huge change from holy heals batman, I didn't die that whole warzone. That's amazing, Mr. Healer. No more Healer is immortal. That was an amazing day when I got immortal as a commando healer. I was so happy. Now I'll be happy to get unbeatable.

Like every other MMO

I was losing a lot of games. Then I found a 600k damage person to carry me. I could heal again while he did his thing and killed people. People would focus fire on him to kill that crazy Vanguard dpsing hard. I wouldn't be able to save him even though I could free heal, and spent the time reminiscing about the days I used to be that guy that people focus fired, I used to matter.

Healers hoped that it wasn't a flavor of a month sort of deal. We'll all get used to the change back to mainstream style of DPS being king, but a long time ago, in a patch far far away, there was an MMO were healers were appreciated, a promise land of you being a key piece that others were dependent on and not the other way around. The Old Republic wanted to make players feel more heroic. You made healers feel heroic till you changed your minds about it. What other MMO let a healer heal himself and take care of 7 other people like a baus. It didn't have to be unintentional. It could have been a game design decision, and it's depressing that it was never intended. BW could have stood by that stance. Healers were OP. Now DPS is OP. Why do healers have to work for it now, and certain DPS classes don't have to work for it? Nothing's ever completely balanced.

I put those points into med zone to give me that extra 20% healing to myself I didn't have before. Tanked two dps at once as I watched people die around me and noticed that these bad dps didn't interrupt as usual. Yeah, I'm living again, but it's not me. They are just bad. It's not me being awesome. They are just bad. Awesome was the low death rate of warzones of old. *sigh*

You already added the protest remarks: "You are exaggerating" etc. So I will try to refrain from using those.

But. I think the healing role has changed. Yes. THe fact that healers stop healing will only make life harder for your faction / team. You say Tank/healer combio is still strong, you cant kill anything, but you wont die either. Well. I dont see the problem with that.

As a dps player, it is frustrating that you cant defeat a healer. In my opinion, a dps vs healer fight should come down to skill, all things equal.

It used to be impossible for a dps to defeat a healer. Who would be able to heal himself and others a little bit while doing so. You still can. I saw it happen yesterday. THe difference is this: If you heal others while trying to stay alive, you will be eaten by someone who tries hard, and is skilled at, killing you.

Imagine the frustration for dpsers pre 1.2 - Youd need at least two good dpsers to take down a healer. And it wouldnt necessarily happen in 10 seconds.

Many classes die in ten seconds if focused by 2-3 people.

healers should be protected by tanks and their team. In my opinion, people need to look at healers value more strongly after this and not just mark enemy healers for quick zerg kills, but protect their own.

I feel your pain, but I think skilled healers will still be invaluable after this. Personally, I am even more determined to level my own healer fast so I can start healing in this game. I was fulltime healer in WoW, and I miss it.

/Mallo

But that's the thing. It was a different play style. You needed two good dps to work together. That's a team effort. People tell the healers that, "Oh pvp is a team effort. You are supposed to need people to help you."

That IS my point. When it was a team effort for dps to do their jobs, "NOT WORKING AS INTENDED. IT'S FRUSTRATING." For the DPS, instead of the healers. That was the big difference with this MMO. The healers were given more independence.

1 v 1 if a healer can stalemate and a dps can't kill them. How is that unfair? That sounds balanced. I can't kill you and you can't kill me until I screw up judgement on how to manage my cooldowns so something is up when your cooldowns are up.

It also means I can heal other people well if I can stalemate a dps and two good dps are required to kill me. There was a lot of coordination in killing healers. Felt like strategy and logistical management of the battlefield.

It's frustrating being given a role and not being able to do it. But, as a dps you didn't need someone to hold your hand to kill another dps 1 v 1 did you? You're asking healers to need other people to do their main function. Heal other people. It's frustrating to die over and over again because you can't heal yourself when you're supposed to be able to heal.

It's frustrating to be a tank to guard someone who needs you and can't necessarily keep you alive reliably. Why tank for someone like that? Why tank at all, just go dps. That's what one of my friends wants to do. He wants to be a fancy dps, but since he has BM tank gear and does same amount of damage as his offset DPS gear, he stays tanking and is bitter that BW doesn't let him trade for DPS.

Its unfair because healers shouldn't be able to tank a dps for half a game.Dps should be heavier then heals because it got to the stage ((Pre 1.2)) when you would be able to kill a fully geared tank solo in half the time it takes to kill a healer.Healing just takes more skill now and less 3 button spam.

Oh that paragraph was about pre 1.2. That paragraph was under the "Then Came 1.2" heading so skimming can see it being misleading. The tank dies now. In fact if the tank is too close, one marauder can end up killing one of us cause taking some extra aoe damage. That's kind of the tank heal combo fault I suppose if they are too close like that but you need a 15m distance between and tanks are melee classes.

meh.. healing doesnt seem too bad to me. Still tanking damage and healing way more than top DPS. Did we get a nerf? Yes, but we needed it.

I as a full Cent geared Scoundrel pre 1.2 sometimes could barely dent some healers,they would just laugth it off,hell i recall one it took three of us (All DPS) to bring him down and it was far longer than 10 seconds too,healing was getting way over the the top to the point Voidstars were nothing but who could get past just the first door,if that.

So can you explain to me what is the point of healing if you do more damage as a dps spec, and would anyways be teared to pieces by a single DpS? Wouldnt it then be better teamwise if all healers specced DpS?

Any competent team would just instantly focus down the healers, and since healingoutput is less than damageoutput they would win the match. Future of SWTOR for y'all. One of the worst MMO PvP experiences I have ever had tbh.

I've read a lot of people who claim that one dps should take down a healer, but the fact is that one dps and one healer should essentially negate each other. If a dps should always be able to take out a healer then what is the point of a healer? Wouldn't it be better to bring in another burst dps who can also kill? DPS has become vastly more important than healing (whereas previously the game was weighted too far in the other direction).

Healers definitely needed some tuning, but there were so many big changes that this has gone beyond tuning and completely marginalized healers. I am a combat medic in full BM (minus one relic) and I drop stupidly fast. I can't effectively heal anyone, including myself. I pillar hump, cc, kb, and try anything I can to LOS, but I don't really have any escape mechanics or mobility. The second I stop to heal it's, hello marauder/powertech in my face and then I'm in the respawn trying to stack my supercharge cells.

Remember way back in 1.0 land when Scoundrel/Operatives were absolutely blowing people up in the space of a stun? Remember how terribly unbalanced that was? Well now it's like there are 4 or 5 1.0 operatives in every warzone, only now some of them have lightsabers, and others have blasters.

I've heard from a guildie that scoundrel/operative healing isn't quite as bad because he is more mobile and none of his core abilities were changed very much. I can see how that might be the case, and how in that situation the changes to expertise actually come into a little bit of focus. But for a class that has absolutely no mobility (commando/mercenary) the changes are disastrous. From what I understand, sage/sorc healing is suffering as well, though for slightly different (but related) reasons.

tl;dr: Healing needed to be tuned, but they have turned the knob too far in the opposite direction.

You must be an imp player.