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

This is a good thread. There are several constructive posts here regarding healers. I too am a level 50 healer and agree pre 1.2 was certainly more entertaining than post 1.2. My sole role as a healer is to keep my team alive even if it means I am targeted by 3 opposing players constantly. I play for the enjoyment of being able to further my team during a wz however, post 1.2 my life span during a wz with newly minted 50s is short thus waiting in the "penalty box" (which is another problem -- the time) allows my team to die faster.

CrimsonFire we don't want the healing to be stronger then the damage, we want to be equal or at least close to it. We are reasonable people and we all know that every class has a role in this game, dps, healing and tanking are all important, but right now the damage is too stronger and we cant outheal it.
Everything matters and everything counts in PvP and in PvE - u are right on that.

If a healer can't keep himself up in a 1v1 situation against a dps, what good is he to the team? Why play a healer if all you need is 1 dps to take him out in 4 seconds?

I'm sure you're a dps, but you need to look at the big picture here.

Thanks for the write up... didnt really wade through 50 pages of this but it was very thoughtful...

I cannot say for healers as to be honest I haven't tried post patch healing as my guild has too many healers... but I do know that healers are having a hard time keeping up and I really appreciate their determination to carry on despite all the odds against them...

That said I'm glad rated WZs are held off until some good balance can be achieved, hopefully...

The whole problem with this debate is you get too many exaggerated posts like the one above which are complete BS just like the claims a marauder can kill a healer in 6 seconds. I play merc healer and there is absolutely no class that can kill me in less than 20 seconds if I have all my CDs up in most cases I would expect to last a good bit longer than 30. Looking at the strategy of the person above they wouldn't kill me all game without help from someone else.

The point that I feel is being missed is that the majority of people who PvP queue solo most of the time, their chance of winning should not hinge on whether the gods of fate have grouped them with a healer or not. Whatever you may argue this was exactly the case pre 1.2 if you got a team with zero healers vs a team of 2 it was an almost certain loss.

Hey guys,

My toon is a lvl50 BH healer too and since 1.2 I get only frustration and no fun at all playing it. Pre 1.2 I used to play a couple of WZs almost every day. Since 1.2 came out I've played exactly 8 and even though I had in mind to keep playing "to get used to the new system" I just somehow stopped. Totally lost motivation.

Earlier I could heal and sometimes even use some damaging skills, run around, throw a Death From Above or something - do some action PVP as a healer! Now all I can do is stay out of sight and do nothing, but spam my 3 healing buttons. Why? Because as soon as someone sees me I immediately die in a few seconds. Healing does not help me. Healing teammates being attacked by a DPS does not do anything either - they die and then I die (and we are 2 vs 1). Now I don't play anymore, because pushing 3 buttons for 15 mins and running from the penalty area to some other boring area where you cannot be seen is just no fun at all. If it wasn't for the Rakghoul event I would not even have logged in anymore.

To check my survivability we did some duels with a friend of mine who is a casual player (like myself) - a sorcerer DPS (not an OP class). We both have ~800 expertise. He killed me with no effort at all by standing on one place and not moving at all (only except when sometimes I hid behind obstacles to heal myself). Then he respecced with some random gear giving him <300 expertise. This time I managed with great effort to reduce his health to about 60%, but he killed me effortlessly several times again - by generally just standing on one place and not moving except to target me if necessary.

So..what's the point to go into warzones and be destroyed by everyone? Do I really want to do this? The number of PVP matches I've played recently answers this.

Any multiplayer game where the healers are powerful enough so that HPS > DPS, the healers are not capable to heal themselves for that very amount, or not even at all. This introduces a sort of tactics into game, when the healers tries to hide behind his patient, healing him, the patient tries to protect him while the DPS tries to kill the medic first. (the epitome of balance is Team Fortress 2 for example. Medics are very powerful in the game, yet their patients are not unkillable, while they themselves are vulnerable when alone, and cannot heal themselves (unable to do same healing output as for the patient))

SWTOR, and other MMOs are different from this concept because they allow the healer to heal themselves. This thing fundamentally imposes a huge design challenge.

Because healer can heal himself for the very same amount he can heal his patient (or even more because of all those skills that make him receive extra healing), he can seamlessly switch healing from itself to patient and vice versa, thus removing any sort of tactics on DPS part. I doesn't matter if you shoot the healer or its patient, they both just won't die.

By no logical, sane, reasoning I can accept that HPS > DPS in a game. Anyone who argues for this is a biased healer that doesn't care about game balance, it's dynamic aspect of control points passing from one team to another. Take any random sane gamer or game designer and ask him, who is intended to win a fight: a balanced team or one where half of them are healers?

So pls eat this bitter nerf and learn to live with it. You played a FOTM role in PvP pre-1.5, Sorcs also had been using the exploit to do some crazy healing while having virtually no resource management do care about. Now you are put back in your place where you belong.

We'll it's apparent to me that most people that were complaining about heals, dps and tanks before the patch must be new to mmo's or they came from other mmo's where they didn't know how to handle the class that gave them trouble.

If you really thought healing was in god mode before 1.2 I challenge you to play as a dps in WOW so you can see the difference. On my pally I can heal an entire pug match while 6 dps beat on me and not die. Put me in with a group of arena players and it become much more of a challenge (sometimes I lose sometimes I win but either way it is fun).

In contrast swtor dps have been given a iwin button that allows them to kill an enemy player within one stun. There is no strategy involved, no challenge just die revive and repeat. This leads to very boring game play for healing classes.

Bio you were on to something before 1.2 but totally lost sight of it with it's release.

Healers are leaving....

Happy now?

if you are leaving because your class went from OP to OK in PvP, than you are not a huge loss for the community. We need players that want to play balanced, fun game for everyone.