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

I find it amazing you die that fast playing a healer in wow. My Druid and Holy Pally healers hardly ever die in Battle Grounds. Arena is a different story but I still can survive with out needing a peel from my team.

If you really are dying that fast in wow where healing would be considered off the chart by this community you must be finding it practically impossible to play a healer here. I don't say that to downplay your ability as a healer but rather to point out how overly gimped they made healers in this game.

In wow my pally never runs out of mana but I do get an intelligent priest from time to time that sees this and begins to mana drain me. This causes me to have to change my tactics using more line of site. They could of done something similar with the trooper medic. By giving a class a counter that allowed them to drain resources from the troopers instead of nerfing their ammo it would have made game play more dynamic.

I'm sure not many of the DPS know this but troopers only have one effective instant heal so most of the time if they are out in the open by the time they could run to LOS they would be dead. This was a main reason you would see them stand in one place healing themselves when a dps was focusing them. This wasn't a big deal before 1.2 because with a dps focusing them they could only heal themselves if they wanted to survive. And with a good operative on them they usually died anyway. However now that their heal tree has been gimped into the ground the DPS trees are the only viable options for them.

Actually commandos needed to be able to tank themselves in PVP. They don't have the quick speed of a sage to move LOS quickly nor the utilities of a smuggler to escape. They were more like watered down versions of a wow paladin a good support class. Now they are pretty worthless as healers all around. Their only viable trees are dps which really sucks for the one in full BM medic gear.

Bio should give them all complementary BM DPS gear as a sorry we f--ked your class over gift so they don't have to completely start over after respecing DPS.

Med techs are pretty much still unkillable, I play mine on occasion. You just stun stun stun, run off and heal yourself and then run around and constantly move while stopping occasionally to stun and pop a heal off. No different then before 1.2 except I can actually be killed instead of lolhealing through 4 people dpsing me.

Which is good, It is not fair to the rest of the players to come across a person or class in a game that is "unkillable". if 2 classes are pited against each other all things equal, 1v1 they should be able to kill each other pretty evenly.

Before 1.2 Healers simply could not be killed, period. in huttball they could carry the ball from one end to the other and never go below half health with the entire opposing team wailing on them. THAT is unbalanced.

Post 1.2 a healer can be killed 1v1 if they are not careful and don't have the right rotation. THIS is balanced.

Your complaints are that a mara can kill you, they should be able to, they are a Glass cannon DPS. If a DPS which has one of the highest burst damages of all classes can't kill a healer 1v1 or even get close, there is something WRONG with the healer.

Healers are supposed to be protected, not be immortal and unkillable, they are supposed to have decent heals, enough to "heal" not stop a player being ravaged by multiple high DPSers from dieing. A healer is not supposed to be able to save someone from certain death, they are supposed to heal enough to give the player they are healing to give them an advantage and hopefully kill their opponent before they themselves die.

I was a pally healer in wow for 10 years. I know healing. and this game was broke before 1.2

Now it is "fair".

You do realize wow came out November 23, 2004 right? I can see why you thought healing was broke before 1.2.

By definition, healing and damage make up survivability. The expertise change caused everything.

Someone ask this guy how hard Drizzle hits him and ask him if he preferred me as a healer or dps. I'm sure you've run across me and my brother Forbes and been melted a number of times in the last week.

I respect your post ProfessorWalsh, despite disagreeing, and hope to respond to you in an adequate manner.

In a situation where there are multiple healers, I do not really find it plausible to use it as an example. If anything, Bioware should have implemented some form of cap on how many healers could be in a Warzone to remedy this situation. Healers will be overpowered if there are four of them. I've seen players saying the nerfs were warranted solely off of the basis that they've come up against teams with 2+ of them. That is not a healer, that is the group.

Turning the table, one could simply say their point of view for healers is for them to prevent death, as others have said in this topic. It's not fair for healers to be told they should not prevent death, but only delay it, when killers are supposed to absolutely be able to do their job because that's "the point". If you put that perspective into a PvE area, the content would never be completed.

Again, you say the point of DPS is to kill, therefore the opposite would naturally be to prevent that death, would it not? I am not suggesting healers should always be able to prevent it. It should depend entirely on the situation, and I am no longer seeing enough of that in 1.2 with the changes, especially considering the damage now present. With or without a guard, I am melting like a lit candle. I've not been able to heal a player being attacked by one DPS. Is that fair? A DPS has a fair chance of making a kill, whereas a healer no longer has a sure chance of making a difference with healing whatsoever?

Again, same response that I gave above. Entirely a matter of opinion.

I semi-agree with you here, but I am also a staunch supporter of skill. Indeed I was able to keep my entire team alive pre 1.2, however that was generally only against under-geared players or a badly coordinated team, whereas I was in a 4+ premade with voice chat and very obvious support. There are entirely too many variables not taken into account when players insist things should not be possible.

I can assure you, there are many who are taking me out that quickly. I am well-geared, I know how to play my class.

You are assuming players actually do their jobs, though. Bioware cannot make changes solely on the basis that they think it will promote more teamwork and coordination. It will not. I have seen both good and bad players completely ignore their job in favor of more medals or DPS numbers. Even the worst players hate looking bad on the scoreboards. Bioware cannot and should not assume that players will always have the means to be with someone who will do the correct kind of support.

Once again, I reiterate that this should not be the case when there are various DPS attacking that healer. My plight and that of every other healer in this topic is that it has become a real chore to survive in general. With a guard, without one. I've seen some of the worst players in my server steamroll me without so much as one interrupt. I find it disgusting that damage output overrules skill now.

I disagree with this. In several of my previous games, the first rule for a healer was that a dead healer cannot heal. In Shaiya, if you were not a full Reaction (Defense stat) Priest, you were not considered a capable or smart Priest. That is not to say those without could not make it work, but it was not a common sight in PvP. First rule to taking out an enemy or enemies is to focus fire the healer. I do not understand the reason why a healer should not be made to survive in a situation where they are supposed to be the main target in order to finish the rest of the job.

- In Shaiya, Priests could tank an entire party of players while waiting for a summons or for a full-up potion to finish its CD. <--That is what I truly call overpowered, and I have not seen that be possible in this game yet.
- In Aion & Fiesta, healers wore Shields and again, stacked defense as a secondary stat.

I have limited experience with other games, however in all of those I have participated in, creating a healer that could take a beating was not looked down upon nor considered overpowered. And the sacrifice for better survival was lesser healing output, but more life to do it.

At this point, after grudgingly adjusting my playstyle in order to remain a full Seer Sage, I can live with the loss of Resplendence and the near-loss of the use of Deliverance in PvP. But I do not feel the change in Expertise to healing or the rather crazy amount of DPS and dying I'm seeing these days are good things to leave as is.

healers were greatly overpowered pre 1.2

no wonder you enjoyed it. Now admittedly they are overnerfed.

Somewhere in between would have been a better solution.

I've said this a couple of pages back, or probably in a different thread altogether, kinda forgot, but my main point is that PvP and PvE is different. In PvE content, your objective is to go through the whole run/mission/dungeon without getting a wipe, on easier dungeons a single or a few death is generally okay and won't affect much, but usually you need to keep basically everyone alive at all time throughout the whole ordeal. The same cannot be said for PvP, especially when the mechanics are respawning (instead of e.g. round based where people die once per round, or stuff), in which dying IS the point of the mechanic of respawns. You can't expect the team healer to be able to keep everyone alive everytime, and things would become ridiculous if the other team plans to do the same thing.

And no, I've been running with a healer friend of mine, and I'm not seeing cases where people died without getting on a single heal if possible. That people died in a single GCD is an over-exaggeration.

Neither Tech-based healer (or any of them, really) has this bottomless supply of CCs you allude to.

If 4 players could not kill a healer prior to 1.2, they were demonstrating a massive failure to coordinate or utilize their full range of abilities. It generally takes more than just "HULK SMASH" level thinking to play an MMO.

Again, this is an entirely DPS-centric mindset being displayed here. "When two players face off, one should end up dead" is not the only definition of balance. You can neutralize the benefits I am providing to my team by putting pressure on me. If the rest of your team is superior, they will wipe out the DPS on my team and then I'll be standing there in the midst of red names and be joining my teammates in the respawn box shortly after. If my team is better, they will wipe out your team and/or peel you off of me.

8 players can't kill 1 healer who is also moving at the same time?

You really have taken hyperbole to a new level.

A healer could be killed prior to 1.2 by a single DPS who knew what they were doing or if they made a mistake. A healer could be neutralized or at least heavily pressured by a single DPS in most cases, it was already balanced. The problem is the very people now screaming "learn to adapt and play better" chose not to do so and instead flocked to the forums.

A glass cannon with some of the most powerful survival abilities and talents in the game. If a mara/sent "couldn't get close" to killing a healer prior to 1.2, that player was in serious need of a better strategy. Nothing was wrong with the healer or the game balance. This would be filed as a PEBKAC issue.

So in order to be effective, a healer needs a 2nd player. If you truly want balance, then a healer should technically be able to keep that other player up against 2 enemies if they are not being pressured.. If balance is really good, then pushbacks, CCs, interrupts and other pressure make it so that they can only hold themselves up against one.

So you demand that a healer have a backup to survive, yet find it unacceptable that you need backup to take down someone supported by a healer. Nice double standard.

WoW hasn't been out for 10 years. Your repeated need to exaggerate everything just makes your point weaker.