Clerics in MMO

dnadestinyx · April 2012

You guys might have noticed that a few games are taking the clerics away *cough* GW2!!*cough*. I mean, it's a good thing because you don't need to spend 2 hours waiting for a good cleric to do dungeon, but somehow it makes me feel sort of sad. I think clerics are a cool and important class, but now some games just let everyone heal themselves. What do you guys think about that?

Annwyn · April 2012

I hate it. Primarily because I enjoy playing the role of a support character. To allow all classes to be self-sufficient (to some extent) is removing my "purpose", source of enjoyement in those games. Hopefully it's not a trend that too many developers will follow, but given the nature of today's gamers...I wouldn't be surprised if we were to move towards making players increasingly more self-sufficient.

ElderRat · April 2012

I had some good times playing a cleric, usually it was the best class to play if you wanted to be in groups alot, though often you needed groups to play. In early LOTRO the Minstrel class was a healer and a good solo class but that was often not the case. Having everyone capable of healing themselves just makes grouping less desirable - in my opinion.

alkrmr · April 2012

with the current generation of gamers i wouldn't be surprised if all upcoming MMO's started you at level cap, fully geared, and all your actionbars are troll macro's instead of character skills

Darwa · April 2012

What other games are removing healers? Just so I know which to avoid...

ElderRat · April 2012

Originally posted by alkrmr
with the current generation of gamers i wouldn't be surprised if all upcoming MMO's started you at level cap, fully geared, and all your actionbars are troll macro's instead of character skills

I wanted to laugh, truly I did, and then I saw the truth in your post. Sadness enveloped me and I went back to my single payer games.

alkrmr · April 2012

Originally posted by ElderRat

Originally posted by alkrmr

with the current generation of gamers i wouldn't be surprised if all upcoming MMO's started you at level cap, fully geared, and all your actionbars are troll macro's instead of character skills

I wanted to laugh, truly I did, and then I saw the truth in your post. Sadness enveloped me and I went back to my single payer games.

it's a sad time in gaming, kids don't even wanna play FPS without modded controllers, because it's too hard for them to try and learn

st4t1ck · April 2012

Originally posted by dnadestinyx
You guys might have noticed that a few games are taking the clerics away *cough* GW2!!*cough*. I mean, it's a good thing because you don't need to spend 2 hours waiting for a good cleric to do dungeon, but somehow it makes me feel sort of sad. I think clerics are a cool and important class, but now some games just let everyone heal themselves. What do you guys think about that?

I also enjoy the cleric class very much, one of my fav classes. Thief/assassin type then cleric, but i also love what gw2 is doing and that trying something different is ok. i by no means want the cleric class to dissapear from mmo's entirely.

In gw2 being able to self heal by no means takes support out of the game, there are many different ways of supporting your teamates other then direct heals (Some smaller aoe heals still exist).

itgrowls · April 2012

Originally posted by dnadestinyx
You guys might have noticed that a few games are taking the clerics away *cough* GW2!!*cough*. I mean, it's a good thing because you don't need to spend 2 hours waiting for a good cleric to do dungeon, but somehow it makes me feel sort of sad. I think clerics are a cool and important class, but now some games just let everyone heal themselves. What do you guys think about that?

love that they are doing this because i can setup my engineer to spray throw AOE potions drop entire crates of bandages and pots in a support role. I like Clerics too, but clerics usually tend to be op and cause too many issues in pvp because they are usually balanced for pve content to be easier to solo.

If they did add a cleric to this game, they'd have fewer problems in pve because they separated thecode for pve and pvp skill behaviors however, they have pleanty of casters that can do the support role already so it would be moot at this point.

Kyleran · April 2012

OK, so one title decided to go the Action RPG route and remove dedicated healers, but the trinity is not dead by a long shot.

Still plenty of titles out there with our favorite class, Tera is about to launch and they've got a traditional Priest class and a hybrid healer/dd Mystic class. (I'll likely be playing one of these two)

I actually haven't found there to be shortage of healers in most recent titles (SWTOR, Rift) mostly because they make it just as easy to solo as a healer (if not more so) as any other class (wasn't at all true back in the classic MMO's)

The real shortage to me seems to be in finding good tanks, and I'm actually toying with the idea of taking the plunge and making a tank for Tera. (all depends how much tanking in Tera resembles Dancing with the Stars or not)

Castillle · April 2012

Originally posted by alkrmr
it's a sad time in gaming, kids don't even wanna play FPS without modded controllers, because it's too hard for them to try and learn

I find it sad that there are probably more people playing FPS games with controllers rather than a keyboard and mouse.

But umm..Im not sad at all. I never really liked healers and the healing dynamic that much. All I liked was the fact that people tend to worship you if youre a healer and theres a lack of healers on the server. People are nicer to healers too.

dubyahite · April 2012

This is honestly my biggest concern in GW 2. I enjoy playing healers.

I'm open to other support role designs in games, but I don't have a clear idea of how it will work in GW2. I'm Interested in the Engineer as well as the other support classes. I'll give it a shot and see how it plays, but I do like to play the dedicated healer. I'm hoping they will give me something I can enjoy.

If not I'll come to these boards and flame the game every day for months and months after I quit playing due to buyers remorse and an inflated sense of self-importance. That's how this place works right?

Xasapis · April 2012

Easier to find healers than tanks in most games. Harder to find healers that can support a worthless tank though, that's for sure.

Unknown · April 2012

Originally posted by dnadestinyx
You guys might have noticed that a few games are taking the clerics away *cough* GW2!!*cough*. I mean, it's a good thing because you don't need to spend 2 hours waiting for a good cleric to do dungeon, but somehow it makes me feel sort of sad. I think clerics are a cool and important class, but now some games just let everyone heal themselves. What do you guys think about that?

I would say you are wrong.

GW2 Guardian is much more authentic in relation to the original D&D cleric than say a WoW priest.

In D&D:

-you could not and would not heal every round due to spell limits.

- the protective and buffing spells of clerics were easily just as important as any heal, possibly more so

- a cleric wore ALOT of armor, full plate and used a shield

- clerics were the second best fighters, better than both theives and magic-users.

All 4 of those are completely in line with the GW2 Guardian and completely out of line with the WoW priest.

In point of fact many previous MMOs took the cleric out of MMORPGs a long time ago and turned it into some bastardized shallow healbot.

Kyleran · April 2012

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by dnadestinyx

You guys might have noticed that a few games are taking the clerics away *cough* GW2!!*cough*. I mean, it's a good thing because you don't need to spend 2 hours waiting for a good cleric to do dungeon, but somehow it makes me feel sort of sad. I think clerics are a cool and important class, but now some games just let everyone heal themselves. What do you guys think about that?

I would say you are wrong.

GW2 Guardian is much more authentic in relation to the original D&D cleric than say a WoW priest.

In D&D:

      -you could not and would not heal every round due to spell limits.

     - the protective and buffing spells of clerics were easily just as important as any heal, possibly more so

      - a cleric wore ALOT of armor, full plate and used a shield

     - clerics were the second best fighters, better than both theives and magic-users.

All 4 of those are completely in line with the GW2 Guardian and completely out of line with the WoW priest.

In point of fact many previous MMOs took the cleric out of MMORPGs a long time ago and turned it into some bastardized shallow healbot.

No, they modeled their Clerics along the lines of RPG titles such as Might and Magic, or Wizardry, the character you describe above is more like a WOW Paladin, which also is a deriviate class from early single player RPG's.

DDO was the first model, but not the only nor best way to define classes and their roles.

And if you ever played a healer in a proper MMORPG like DAOC you'd know they were anything but heal bots.

Unknown · April 2012

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by dnadestinyx

You guys might have noticed that a few games are taking the clerics away *cough* GW2!!*cough*. I mean, it's a good thing because you don't need to spend 2 hours waiting for a good cleric to do dungeon, but somehow it makes me feel sort of sad. I think clerics are a cool and important class, but now some games just let everyone heal themselves. What do you guys think about that?

I would say you are wrong.

GW2 Guardian is much more authentic in relation to the original D&D cleric than say a WoW priest.

In D&D:

      -you could not and would not heal every round due to spell limits.

     - the protective and buffing spells of clerics were easily just as important as any heal, possibly more so

      - a cleric wore ALOT of armor, full plate and used a shield

     - clerics were the second best fighters, better than both theives and magic-users.

All 4 of those are completely in line with the GW2 Guardian and completely out of line with the WoW priest.

In point of fact many previous MMOs took the cleric out of MMORPGs a long time ago and turned it into some bastardized shallow healbot.

No, they modeled their Clerics along the lines of RPG titles such as Might and Magic, or Wizardry, the character you describe above is more like a WOW Paladin, which also is a deriviate class from early single player RPG's.

DDO was the first model, but not the only nor best way to define classes and their roles.

And if you ever played a healer in a proper MMORPG like DAOC you'd know they were anything but heal bots.

I didn't say DAOC. Nor would I say Asheron's Call was this way at all (even though they had no classes).

In many MMO games chain healing the tank is a standard mechanic often having multiple healers chain heal the tank just in case he gets hit.

Even still Might and Magic and Wizardry clerics still were not healbots that spammed heals every round. We will ignore Bard's Tale since the magic users were the healers and there were no clerics.

In Might and Magic the cleric also wore plate and shield. They had good but not the best attacks. They had did a significant amount of healing but once again but once again the cures and protections were some of the most important aspects of the class. Heals were for maintenance and for "Oh shit" and certain large "oh shit" heals had serious long term consequences. Divine intervention typically aged you 10 years in Might and Magic games.

Chain healing in both Might and Magic and Wizardry was not a feasible strategy in a dungeon. You would run out of SP. SP management across the entire was very important in those games and only DDO stays true to that in anyway in MMOs. And in DDO people still expect the Cleric to become a healbot by taking wands to circumvent in the innate design the was meant to prevent heal botting.

Games like MM/Wizardry/Bard's Tale relied upon a complex support equation of:

-Status Ailments and cures

-proective, enahcning or useful buffs

- And heals as a combination of Oh shit and maintenance

This is basically the same system GW2 is using. GW2 is getting back to the original. When you look at the importance of support enhancments and control/debuff ailments and their cures. You see all the various things you saw in old games that made you think "Ah crap we are screwed without a Cleric or Druid or Magician" things like Diseased and poisoned and weakness and monsters that were gonna give it to you. That they had serious effects and you needed that cleric to either prevent them or cure them. Or you were going up against a dragon and you needed that large Fire resistance buff for when he breathed on everyone. Or not having Heroism was losing a large amount of damage.

Somewhere along the line the idea of support became the idea of healing as the one dimensional way of staying alive.

There are a number of games where this is not true. City of Heroes never had this be true. Yet they still stuffer from the "healer" syndrome. Do you know how angry being called a healer makes the "defender" forum? Very. How dumb they think you are if you insist real defense is healing? Very dumb.

Boatsmate · April 2012

Being a primary Healer is like ,"Calvanism",it is either in you or not. Some Gamers (Me) look for that class first,while others like to swing an axe instead of "The Light". It can be very fun and challenging; it seems that Tanks have switched with Healers as the hard part of a group to find. I have come to really like Healers that aren't helpless, the kind that can also kick some butt if needed. I wish more games would make use of the,"Monk" type class.

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Clerics in MMO

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Clerics in MMO

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV