I keep seeing "LF healer for xxxxx" in chat so there must be a shortage of healer in this game. What is wrong with healing in this game?

That's a pretty wild conclusion. The healers are out power leveling because they're OP. And the person doing 'LFG spam' doesn't know how to use the Who list.

I keep seeing "LF healer for xxxxx" in chat

 

And you're going to keep seing that. Not only in SWTOR, but in every other MMO.

 

There is nothing wrong with healing. People just don't like to heal as much as they do DPS.

 

<-- Medicine-specced Operative

Edited December 24, 2011 by Leadlian

Every MMO is like this. Healing tends to not appeal to a lot of people.

 

Personally I always play a healer type. And the only major issue IMO is the UI. Life would be easier if I could move the group frame to a better visual location. But the rest is doable.

You won't see more healers until TOR gets mouse over macros or addons. It's doable now, but its too damn clunky and not as fun.

I play a heal spec sorcerer. It's not bad at all. Pretty OP to do 4 player heroics with just a marauder buddy.

It has to do with (1) healing being pretty much always a less popular playstyle than either DPS (most popular) or tanking (second most popular) and, in this game that's exacerbated by (2) the UI being inflexible and there being no mods to assist with that -- making it technically more tedious/irritating to heal than is the case in other MMOs. I expect that until the UI is opened up a bit, you'll continue to see this lack of healers being even worse than in other games.

Shoot I love it, haven't enjoyed healing this much since early TBC in WoW.

I won't ever heal until there are mouseover macros. Period.

No, it isn't. Ignore the naysayers.

 

I've been playing a healer since beta (Smuggler Scoundrel back then, Trooper Combat Medic now) and am doing great in both solo content/questing, PvP and flashpoints. I think most people just are either doing it wrong or.. are doing it wrong.

 

I have absolutely no issues keeping my party up in flashpoints, fending off and mostly defeating 1v1, or 1v2 situations in PvP and can be especially important in keeping people like the Huttball carriers alive and am cutting through mobs during questing as quickly as most DPS are (And I'm mostly even using a healer companion who doesn't do anything at all just for story purposes).

 

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As for the "LF Healer" deal in chat. Get used to it, this will always happen in MMOs. Most of the time there's hardly any tanks and healers around (Admittedly tanks don't seem as rare from what I've seen so far)

 

It's all about the deeepeeeeessssss

Edited December 24, 2011 by Haasth

The problem isn't that playing a healer is bad (I enjoy playing one), the problem is that everyone wants to be a jedi knight because they have shiny lightsabers that make cool noises.

 

I imagine this is a largely self rectifying problem though. As people start rolling alts we should see more diversity in character class.

Edited December 24, 2011 by CmdrAwesome

I play a heal spec sorcerer. It's not bad at all. Pretty OP to do 4 player heroics with just a marauder buddy.

 

This. I agree. A sniper and my heal specced sorc can tear it up. I just wish they would bring some of the other healers up to the sorcerer's level of healing before endgame. Absorbtion shield + 1 min CC + awesome tank companion = ezmode.

I won't ever heal until there are mouseover macros. Period.

 

then you suck, period. Click Player, use heal ability, you're telling me that's clunky or hard to do ?

then you suck, period. Click Player, use heal ability, you're telling me that's clunky or hard to do ?

 

Click? Use the F2-F4 buttons. Takes some getting used to the order (on the sidebar, they're displayed top-to-bottom in the order F4, F3, F2), but it really is much faster.

To be a Jedi/Sith healer you have to opt out of a double-bladed lightsaber, I think.

 

Everybody used the double-bladed in KOTOR (you basically HAD too), and most people picking Jedi probably like the idea of cool lightsabers, so...less healers.

Healing's pretty fun in this game actually...I like the idea of energy based healing. Problem is very few people have the patience to level as healer. I lasted till 25 then I respecced for dps until 50. Taking 30 sec for a pull when it could be dead in 10 isn't worth it to just to get a faster group for flashpoints. Therefore there will always be a healer shortage while leveling. Dual spec would fix this...but such is life.

I love to heal. In groups. For soloing I prefer DPS because I do not enjoy healing there because a) it is very easy and b) it is compared to dps still slower.

 

However, by now (lvl 32) it costs me 100k just to switch to a healing spec and back, so I won't heal anymore till they fixed that by introducing dual spec or reduced the rediculous respec costs.

You can assign targeting to a key, so I'm not sure why mouse over healing is such a fuss.... I press two keys (less than a second), no mouse movements at all... and I start healing a target. Maybe I'm just not used to mouse over healing, but two clicks seems to be pretty easy for me.

There will be more healers once Dual Spec is released. As it stands, I've had no trouble healing myself, or being healed by others--no complaints that it's overly difficult, clunky, or HP bars update too slowly. You've got focus targeting, you've got F1-F4, you can see all the HP bars to begin with..

 

It will get better eventually, but as it stands right now, it's not "broken" or "terrible". Try harder.

 

I'd rather not see a SWTOR version of Decursive 2.0 reduce healing to "press this macro button that runs ten million checks a second to automatically target the best person to heal and cast the most efficient heal for this particular instant"--or the snoozefest that was WotLK healing.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Gorgewall

When soloing I use focus target on my companion so I can always shoot/knife the mob when I'm not healing. I hold down a key and click on the heal and it heals my companion then I can release the key and continue to attack until the companion needs healing again.

 

In a group you can do the same thing if you have a tank that keeps aggro.

 

Otherwise you can just press the appropriate F key and hit the quickslot key you have the heal ability placed in.

 

In an operation I suppose it gets a little tougher, but how difficult is it to click on the player and hit a quickslot key?

Shoot I love it, haven't enjoyed healing this much since early TBC in WoW.

 

Healing is a lot like TBC healing. I love it as well, but the lack of mouseover healing is a problem. I'm fairly sure it will be fixed in the future, and as a result it doesn't bother me that much.

Every MMO is like this. Healing tends to not appeal to a lot of people.

 

Personally I always play a healer type. And the only major issue IMO is the UI. Life would be easier if I could move the group frame to a better visual location. But the rest is doable.

 

Blind post to this comment, so I don't know if it was already answered.

You CAN move it. That was my beef at first; however, if you change it to operation style raid bars, you have the freedom to change it's size, shape and location.

I think that Bioware mannaged to make healing a really different deal than wow (and other mmos i´ve played) Im playing as a IA operative specced in medicine and its both fine for leveling and for flashpoints obviously. Having to mannage your energi tightly and not getting panicked is important because if you dont, you die So imo healing is both fun and really viable

People have been spoiled by all the "idiot proof" addons in other mmo's it seems. There is nothing wrong with healing in this game, in fact I'd call it near awesome! Excellent healing and still able to solo very well without the need of dualspec! So far I consider healing in this game much better than it is in World of Warcraft. Too many just have gotten used to those damn addons.

 

However I have always been the kind of healer that never used any healing addon for longer than a day other than the old decursive addon in wow. I just don't like making an easy job so easy it becomes boring.

 

My main is a sawbone scoundrel healer and I love it.

Gotta say that i do love the healing in this game and you do actually feel accomplisment in some bosses .

 

Havent feelt this way since vanilla /Tbc been talking with some other healers aswell in guild and in the game and none have anything bad too say about it instead you hear the words that it feels fresh and fun .