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

Not sure if they changed something this week or people have just altered their playstyle to be a bit more defensive but I specced back to healing and I found it to be quite enjoyable died a few times in each match once I got focussed, but generally still can through a combination of good situational and positional awareness and raw healing power keep any single dps at bay, till help arrives....... and I do get the feeling my heals make as much if not more of a difference to the outcome of the game than they did prior to the patch. All of this in solo queues.

For the first time ever I was in a match where having lost the first door inside a minute in voidstar managed to prevent the opposition from extending the bridge holding out for over 6 minutes with 3 healers in our side still keeping the whole team up.

Healing numbers don't seem massively down perhaps slightly but the games are a lot faster in general which seems a good thing.

Remark 1: I played a sage. Note: played.

I think what the majority of at least sage/sorc healers pre 1.2 can agree to is 1: we had ridiculously effective force regeneration and 2: many have reported the double-dip bug that allowed us to cast two 1,4-second Deliverance in a row with conveyance active, when conveyance was only supposed to allow one. No wonder we did outrageously good in healing. And sure, all sage healers I've talked to who did not agree to both of these things, were the sage healers that did 150k healing overall on the scoreboard, when the top healer did 600k. In other words, those who clearly had no clue how their class actually worked.

But very, very few of those I've encountered who heals fulltime in PvP and PvE have denied the fact that not only did sages/sorcs need toning down, but the troopers/BH needed to be toned down a bit as well. Just as the majority agreed that the poor scoundrels/agents needed a boost.

Coming from a healer who ranks among the top healers on my server (and still did after 1.2), I found the 1.2 changes absolutely horrible. Sure, I can still manage. Sure, I still end up with far higher numbers than anyone else. But I find myself scratching my head and wondering how on earth I managed to get 600k heal in an Alderaan Civil War, when it felt like all I was doing was pushing -any- available heal with no real pattern to it, and not seeing much change at all in someone's HP when I tried to pick it up a few percentages.

Healing isn't just redundant post-1.2, it's also extremely dumbed down. The synergy of a sage healer is completely ruined. I could have swallowed the Legacy nerf far better, if only bioware hadn't decided to more or less pick my class dynamics apart and take a piss on it. As an avid fan of the sage class, like so many others, I have several fully functional ideas on how they could have nerfed us without crushing the need for a healer completely.

That said, I have also dipped into a hybrid sage DPS, something that was surprisingly fun when I wanted to change it up, or there was far too many healers in the WZ's and too few DPS to make a progress on the objectives. And let it be said that the only healer I ever struggled taking down alone was the trooper/BH. Just as a good DPS could easily take me down with well timed interrupts and use of cooldowns, I could just as easily nuke down other sages and scoundrels/agents.

But as a player who has PvP as a game-focus, and more importantly, much prefer to play a healer, I don't want to be one of those succumbing to the wretched changes done to my class. I don't want to respec to be a full-time DPS so I can steamroll others. I want to play a healer. Subtly changing the layout of the game, feeling like I stand a chance with keeping others alive, as well as myself. But despite noticing that I can still keep someone alive (if I sacrifice my own life to heal THEM to 100% while I have people nuking me down, then run back in and rinse and repeat), it feels like a chore, and a very painful one at that. I'm not saying I demand the faceroll healing that was pre-1.2, even if healing then could also be a welcome challenge at times if we were set against a good enemy team. I'm saying that there's a vast difference between "faceroll" and "chore". "Challenge" is somewhere between the two, something that makes PvP the splendid fun it's supposed to be. As it is now, bioware can take their free 30 days and stuff it. I've no wish to play a DPS or a tank, and I've no wish or will to go into warzones as a healer anymore either, coping or not.

Legacy with its grind-mentality and PvE focus doesn't appeal to me as a PvP player, so I'd rather remember the days when healing was fun, instead of the days where I feel like screaming and cursing, cause healing is like willingly sprinting head-first into a brick wall.

Considering healing is reactive- having healing lower than damage output- and on top of that making healing very easy to interrupt/pressure unlike damage... basically means healing is completely useless.

It's not 'gone from unkillable to sometimes can die'- any marauder who doesn't suck can kill a healer in 6 seconds, even ones that are terrible can at least lock out a healer for the 15-20 seconds it takes to kill one.


DPS say 'well, we should be guaranteed to kill a healer 1v1', really? So you think people want to play a class where the entire purpose ofyour class is to help others before someone looks at you and you just die?

No- and that's why nobody heals anymore.

It's fine to say 'well get a tank, then you can heal fine', but heaven forbid someone tells you 'maybe you should focus the healer and learn to interrupt'.

No- the game should be about damage damage damage- well, you got what you wanted- a 2D game where no skill is needed, just marauders.

Welcome to BW's version of Quake.

Team Deathmatch.

Healing?

/rofl and /unsubscribed to the game.

Shadomen

You guys have to understand, there is no win for BW at this moment, here's a scenario before patch 1.2 that happened to my shadow.

Chilling on Ilum, gonna try to get my first kill, had a few pieces of centurion and champion gear equipped at the moment when I spotted a sage, light armor, no bubble shield. Of course we all know how sneaks are, kick you to the ground and burst damage, and if that doesn't work key up for burst again. Long story short I spent 20 seconds fighting this healer who had full BM gear and he didn't even sneeze, when he was caught off guard and I had him stunned for 6 seconds, the lowest his health went was to around 60%, then as soon as my stuns wore off, back to 100% health. Its depressing as a DPS knowing you cannot kill that squishy sonofa ***** right in front of you. What happened? He said "If you know what's best for you stop attacking me" and I proceeded to sneak off in shame...

Burst damage, you guys I don't think you get the full whim of my argument, after I key up my first burst most of my remaining hits for 10 seconds are critical hits, and I couldn't get this guy below 90% after 6 seconds. Guaranteed being an overpowered healer must feel like a god, being part tank I know what it can feel like while teaming up with a healer. Hell on the Alderaan war zone me and a sage healer teamed up against 6 of the enemy team, we couldn't die.

Bottom line is cut BW some slack. This is the 4th or 5th month the game is out, things take time to fix. People are whining about Op and Nerfs and lags and they have their hands full. You guys realize that BW is trying to do everything they can to make the game pleasing to everybody.

So 2 healers should be able to heal the entire team in a WZ and no one dies? Oh wait, that is what used to happen. Good riddance.

I could tell you now that against experienced pvpers, it probably would not.

People I pvp against everyday I pretty know what class they are by heart, what specs they are, and generally how they act in pvp. I will remember their names (and gear appearance) as they come in and change targets to them as soon as I see them.

They should've never use buff dps as a solution to the unkillable geared healer issue. Instead they should've introduced interrupts with shorter cooldowns, interrupts when specced has sliencing effect, or more attacks that have healing debuffs when specced etc (such as fire pulse in vanguard tree - besides not very impressive burst damage and low ammo cost it really has nothing much to offer. They should've chucked a healing debuff on it to make tactics more attractive as a utility spec).

If healers can fully protect themselves AND dps, they will win any match 1v1. This is not WoW. Healers are not invincible.

Healers are just OP vs bad players. The problem is there are lots of them. As sent I can Force Leap to block the first heal, kick to block the second, Choke to block the third, Then Awe to stop the 4th. That is a bad day for any healer. People need to learn their are more then just DPS buttons on their bars.

I actually feel bad for them

Good teams will always send everything they have at the healer all game. They need to be able to do more then get stunlocked and flop over dead.

2 words: Operative/Scoundrel healers.