what do you mean how you "designed your healing classes"? you mean how you specced them in game and such? or are you writing stuff for a game?
The thing about the trinity is that everyone had their place, and the group needed synergy to succeed in doing what the needed to do. with the way things are looking it seems like group play is heading toward what i call "grouped every man for himself" where the only kind of group play is calling out targets and focus firing
i agree.
aka zerg fest
I disagree.
Different roles. Different combat and team dynamics. Variety in different team setups.
As I said, lack of imagination and brain frozen into trinity mode for some.
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
Because instead of REACTIVE healing like in all the other bad games in like ever, healing will be PROACTIVE via such revolutionary mechanics as an aoe healing rain, and debuffs.... and, get this one, you'll never guess..... buffs that reduce incoming damage!
So, instead of the bulk of 'support' like healing being done IN combat--I mean since when was having to REACT to your situation in a game a bad thing?--'support' will be done when? Before combat? Or is there going to be 'oh crap' scenarios where your elementalist got agro and is getting beaten down, but thankfully a warrior and his armor buff saves the day!
And I'm not saying a not-direct-healing system couldn't work. I suppose it could... I'm saying it won't be more dynamic. Other games don't just have a tank that gets auto agro, and a healer that does nothing but direct heals. Other games have everything the GW2 devs are trumpetting, stuns, buffs, even reactive save-the-caster sort of abilities, and ALSO the ability to heal as well...
Seems to me they're taking away choices, not adding them. And in most games, even holy trinity games, the good players don't just stand around refusing to fill any role but the one that fits their archetype, don't just stand there waiting to hit the one heal button... instead their are a million and one decisions to be made as to when to heal, IF to heal, HOW to heal, whether to do something other than heal like kite or stun or switch tanks. The 'information' I'm reading from GW2 would have us believe that this didn't occur in any other game, so it's somehow special in their game. If it IS special, then give us information on HOW that possibly isn't head-scratchingly similar to the 'how' in just about every other game ever.
In conclusion... the game will be a chaotic zerg in general situations... and in skilled groups will be too easy. No, not just 'faster' as people will claim (though that too), but EASY. Yawn.
When have they ever said those things werent in other games, or anything along the lines of "OMG we're so awesome we invented this new concept called Crowd Control!"? They have said they are changing the focus of the group dynamics to things like crowd control, and removing the asggro/taunt/meathsield portion. They are reworking it and doing things slightly differently, not inventing an entirely new form of combat.
Theyve never said anything either about your support being done out of combat rather than in combat, only that instead of sitting there refilling HP bars constantly, your focus will be more on prevent the damage from occuring in the first place. Along with that, think about how healing typically works. Does it matter at all HOW the damage occured / what type of attack / spell is being used to cause it? For the most part no, all that matters is the numbers on the HP bar and how much of that bar your healing power can refill. With more of a focus on protection vs healing, the types of damage being caused will be very important.
Heres a little scenario: Elementalist starts hitting your team with fireballs, so your supporter throws up shields to prevent fire damage. The Elementalist realizes this, switches weapons and begins hitting you with ice attacks instead. In this situation, a healer would simply keep on healing with the same spells (since the type of damage is irrelevant to how much your spells can heal for), but a protection class would need to drop the fire shield for an ice shield to prevent damage.Its possible that in the example you used of a warrior saving an ele with an "armor" buff is not that simple. Will the game have simple physical damage or will there be varying types of physical damage such as piercing, blunt, slashing? If so, it will make a huge difference which "armor" buff the warrior uses.
We dont know ALL of the details on the types of skills, damage, etc that will be in place so youve got to remember that this is NOT WoW or whatever game you want to compare it to, and you cant simple take the mechanics they are taslking about and insert them into X game, and compare what the results would be in that game and say "well thats whats going to happen in GW2". This explains my point a bit (pay attention to the highlighted portion):
Q: You seem set on fundamentally changing a lot of the MMO established models, and in particular the “holy trinity.” Aren’t you afraid that there are too many innovations for GW2? How can you be sure that it’ll be fun for the GW1 players?
Jon: We are very set on changing established models that we think were not working in general or do not work for our game. Guild Wars 2 is its own game with its own rules, and we want to make sure that the experiences from playing it gel together. If we see something that is an established convention, we are just as unafraid to use it as we are to use something new. We have a lot of GW1 players here at the office, and they are our first line of defense to make sure we are doing the right things, but ultimately it comes down to making the right decisions to make Guild Wars 2 the best game it can be.
what do you mean how you "designed your healing classes"? you mean how you specced them in game and such? or are you writing stuff for a game?
The thing about the trinity is that everyone had their place, and the group needed synergy to succeed in doing what the needed to do. with the way things are looking it seems like group play is heading toward what i call "grouped every man for himself" where the only kind of group play is calling out targets and focus firing
i agree.
aka zerg fest
I disagree.
Different roles. Different combat and team dynamics. Variety in different team setups.
As I said, lack of imagination and brain frozen into trinity mode for some.
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
Because instead of REACTIVE healing like in all the other bad games in like ever, healing will be PROACTIVE via such revolutionary mechanics as an aoe healing rain, and debuffs.... and, get this one, you'll never guess..... buffs that reduce incoming damage!
So, instead of the bulk of 'support' like healing being done IN combat--I mean since when was having to REACT to your situation in a game a bad thing?--'support' will be done when? Before combat? Or is there going to be 'oh crap' scenarios where your elementalist got agro and is getting beaten down, but thankfully a warrior and his armor buff saves the day!
And I'm not saying a not-direct-healing system couldn't work. I suppose it could... I'm saying it won't be more dynamic. Other games don't just have a tank that gets auto agro, and a healer that does nothing but direct heals. Other games have everything the GW2 devs are trumpetting, stuns, buffs, even reactive save-the-caster sort of abilities, and ALSO the ability to heal as well...
Seems to me they're taking away choices, not adding them. And in most games, even holy trinity games, the good players don't just stand around refusing to fill any role but the one that fits their archetype, don't just stand there waiting to hit the one heal button... instead their are a million and one decisions to be made as to when to heal, IF to heal, HOW to heal, whether to do something other than heal like kite or stun or switch tanks. The 'information' I'm reading from GW2 would have us believe that this didn't occur in any other game, so it's somehow special in their game. If it IS special, then give us information on HOW that possibly isn't head-scratchingly similar to the 'how' in just about every other game ever.
In conclusion... the game will be a chaotic zerg in general situations... and in skilled groups will be too easy. No, not just 'faster' as people will claim (though that too), but EASY. Yawn.
Clearly you have never played GW. All protting takes place in combat. it is not a bunch of buffs placed on before hand. Many of the buffs that last 20 second (not 10-60 min buffs you find in other games) on a fully prot specced character and many have CD's longer than their duration. In GW there is also a much smaller mana pool, even maxed out, than you will find in any other game. Therefore, protting takes a great deal of thought and tact. Sure you can cast Protective Spirit (http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Protective_Spirit) on the each member of your party, but only one member got attacked, the buff was wasted on the rest of your party, as was your mana. Your party loses. As I said in previous posts this works very similar to healing during battle in other games. They are not creating something brand new with this system, simply improving on a stagnant one. In addition you can only have 8 skills on your bar unlike other games where you have access to all skills at all times. If you approach protting in GW or GW2 as you are suggesting you would fail and wipe your party. You are trivializing something you really don't understand. The zerg approach you stated was epitomized by "spike" teams (a la the classic Blood Spike) in GW pvp. A team of all dps goes in, everyone targets the healer, hits them at the same time, healer down, target next weakest and kill, and so on. These groups quickly fell out of fashion because against any team that knows what they are doing, they fail. 1 intelligent Prot monk protting the spike target (a healing monk will often fail to stop a spike unless they are really good) stops a spike entirely (see the link to the skill above). Like I have stated earlier protting in GW is totally different from any other healing/buffing situation you have experienced in any other game. You are certainly entitled to your opinion though. You either get it or you don't, I'm certainly not going to convince you. If you want to check it out you can always go play GW or wait till GW2 comes out before leaping to assumptions about something you have yet to experience.
I don't really feel much like someone with a damage-style role. I prefer staying back and helping people stay on their feet.
I think Final Fantasy XIV is supposed to have healing classes though. I think that will be the next game I pick up. But I think I will leave the healing role there as well. I'm very interested in how these chef and blacksmith roles will play out, since you can base your entire gameplay role on making food for your group. It sounds very very interesting. I think I will try being a chef or a similar thing in FFXIV and see how it plays out. It sounds very fun and new.
i'd like to say that if you think Crowd control, protection spells, buffs and debuffs are a proactive solution, you're wrong. here is why:
Any sort of defensive spell is a reaction to what you see on the battle field. here are a couple of in game scenarios that might help prove this.
Situation 1: 4 dps classes starts attacking a squishy friendly, you cast a dmg prevention spell in on your ally in REACTION to the people attacking him.
Situation 2: a stealther pops on you you REACT to this by debuffing his outgoing damage then proceed to kite.
Situation 3: you realize that the necro in the back is putting out high dps so you REACT by silencing him.
nothing going on here is proactive... the only proactive prevention is if you buff a target long term before the battle starts.
as for the Protection vs dps "zerg" that's nearly laughable. here's an idea, switch targets. a good high dps goup could switch targets and down another player before the monks cool down (isn't it like 5 seconds?) is up. this is especially true if you take away other forms of healing the monks might be using as the healing in GW2 will be dwindled. look at the melee dps trains you run into in warhammer. if they don't down something in 5 seconds they're on the the next. and if that switch catches the healer off gaurd by a half second that second person is going down. and there are combinations of both prevention AND healing in warhammer not just one or the other. (i've seen dps trains burn through Gromril plating like it was paper armor)
In GW1, proactive defense means also preventing warriors' adrenaline gain, mana burn of casters, harrassing with conditions, hexes and interrupts, kiting and positioning.
There's so much more to defense than healing.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
i'd like to say that if you think Crowd control, protection spells, buffs and debuffs are a proactive solution, you're wrong. here is why:
Any sort of defensive spell is a reaction to what you see on the battle field. here are a couple of in game scenarios that might help prove this.
Situation 1: 4 dps classes starts attacking a squishy friendly, you cast a dmg prevention spell in on your ally in REACTION to the people attacking him.
Situation 2: a stealther pops on you you REACT to this by debuffing his outgoing damage then proceed to kite.
Situation 3: you realize that the necro in the back is putting out high dps so you REACT by silencing him.
nothing going on here is proactive... the only proactive prevention is if you buff a target long term before the battle starts.
'proactive' as it is used here and if you read the article correctly means 'before the damage sets in and health bars gets lowered' where in the classic healing your job begins reactive, after health has been lost.
If you don't like that style of play and want a pure healing role, and if you don't believe in broader support roles being interesting, there's always other MMO's for you to play.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'm in a similar situation as OP. I don't really feel much like someone with a damage-style role. I prefer staying back and helping people stay on their feet.
I think Final Fantasy XIV is supposed to have healing classes though. I think that will be the next game I pick up. But I think I will leave the healing role there as well. I'm very interested in how these chef and blacksmith roles will play out, since you can base your entire gameplay role on making food for your group. It sounds very very interesting. I think I will try being a chef or a similar thing in FFXIV and see how it plays out. It sounds very fun and new.
XIV is a different take on the class systems you encounter in EQ/WoW, below is an example of how a balanced group would position for a battle.
now what conclusion do you draw? with only dps and tanks to draw from who wins? doesn't Dps have an advantage over tanks?
Completely depends on the importance of crowd control, mitigation, and other non-DPS aspects in relation to the difference in DPS between "pure" and "support" DPS classes.
Even in current MMORPGs, players choosing among DPS classes often choose a weaker DPS class in favor of one with more group utility. When players don't overgear an instance, this stuff matters and players aren't only concerned with a raw DPS measurement.
And that's with existing MMORPG mechanics. New games could certainly introdruce a lot of additional nuance which is required to beat a dungeon optimally.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
CoX (City of Heroes/Villains) already proved that good support teamplay needn't be all about reactive healing - the Defender and Controller classes were mostly about on-the-fly buffs, debuffs and control, and they worked excellently.
I think this thread shows that a developer would find equal success in either using classes with hybrid skills or classes with primary skills only. There are plenty of people supporting one way or the other. They just need to keep in mind how their game needs to be made to fit the classes they are making available.
well more and more reading of this... im thinking that gw2 will turn out to be like twelve sky and alot other mmorpgs without healing classes..
basicly its all about spam pot fest and yeah.. like some people said zergfest. you cant deny that anyhow. you might start babbling about *its about strategy and stuff you know dood* but still hey.. without healer the pvp especially will be like over 9000 people rush on one guy and kill him in few secs and then next target. the group with more dps will always win
if it goes like pot spamfest oh cmon. we have seen where that goes. player with most cash shop items/potions or money overall to get all those potions and got better gears will always win.
also there is plenty of games with good healing system already and in them yeah you can survive without healer but it will be easier with healer. also you wont have to use so much food/potions etc. will save money for whole team and ofcourse bosses hit hard so lets say winning without healer is 50%. then you add up healer and voila ur winning chance just gone up to 60-75%!
and if you moan about healers being overpowered.. in most games their heals are lame. seriously. in most mmorpgs lets say tank class has 40k+ hp yet the healer only heals like 1-5k each heal and usually it even has cooldown and heck. high level monsters tend to hit so hard that you cant keep up with healings unless you got 2 or more healers. tank has to pot anyways.
thats what i call balanced healing. not too powerful, but not too useless either. i think the healer class should be concentrated on supporting team with buffs. wards. what ever you name it and then ofcourse heals too. but not too powerful ones. oh yeah healers should have also abit somekind dps. like hex/curses or debuffs etc. leave nukeing to wizards.
but true there is some of those mmorpgs with healer class being overpowered. 1 heal > full hp. thats lame. id say 1 heal should heal max like 25-75%hp but if its *mega heal* 75% heal it should have *high cooldown* then there should be spammable minor heal which heals like lets say 2-5% hp and or *medium heal* with like 10-20% healing each time.
ofcourse it can be more depending what class you heal but just said examples because cant say *healing numbers* because hard to know max hp and so on. or then just make healing %. not solid healing. that works too. that wont make healing overpowered. yet then again it would make healing more useless on mage classes.
that way the healer isnt crucial for the group but as always *support class* is useful, but not needed.
like in GW1 you can survive without healer but if you add healer. it changes the gameplay and the strategy also. enemy has to think more who to attack and when. if there isnt healer then again. diffirent plan and so on. its just another twist for fight if they manage to make *healer* class that is balanced. not overpowered.
its like lets say other team only has CC dps/tanks. you could basicly kite them to death as ranged, but if they have even 1 support class you cant just kite them since it wouldnt be so good. you would have to teamwork more like lets say simple way which everyone understands.
kite cc dps to get his attention > he starts to follow and support heals him etc.
ur teamie sneaks up on healer when ur kiter friend got their dps attention.> kill support > 2vs1 > win/profit > ???
without stuff like that you might lose if you cant take their cc dps down before it kills you or your groupie if you attack it head on. ofcourse it could end up you 2 owning him even with supports help but lets say without support it would take 30sec to take him down but with supports help he can last that extra 15secs. that 15sec can be crucial to kill you or ur teamie. then after it is 2vs1. ur pretty much done for.
with no support class the team with more kiters or better gears / more dps wins mostlikely always no matter what tactic. just generic play spam buffs / debuffs etc etc and dps dps dps dps dps.
instead of that sneakup killing healer it would go like. kite kite kite kite the their CC dps is low hp. ur teamies CC dps 1hits him and its 2vs1 again. alone you wont stand a chance against 2 anyways without healings if they just kite / debuff spam.
also you cant say that isnt true. ive seen many fights without monks etc(supports). really its all about which team got better gears / more dps / debuffs / better kiters. ofcourse you need strategy and so on for that cant deny that as most of you will moan about that but hey even with supports you need strategy also healers arent needed. they just change the tactics and makes enemies switch their strategy too and play more as team.
but yeah mmorpg without healer / support class will mostlikely turn out as spampot / zergfest with tactics such as *lets gang that one and then that one because that one is weaker than those 2 lets kill him last. his dps sucks. my pots/buffs heal me more/faster than he cant hit me*
its really all about how balanced the support class is. no overpower healings. some debuff/curses etc DOT skills mostlikely... no huge nukes leave that to wizzies etc. good buffs. avg dps. yeah thats the real support class and alot games have it like that.
Comments
Bioware isn't trying too hard to change anything. Another WoW clone, yaaaaaay
When have they ever said those things werent in other games, or anything along the lines of "OMG we're so awesome we invented this new concept called Crowd Control!"? They have said they are changing the focus of the group dynamics to things like crowd control, and removing the asggro/taunt/meathsield portion. They are reworking it and doing things slightly differently, not inventing an entirely new form of combat.
Theyve never said anything either about your support being done out of combat rather than in combat, only that instead of sitting there refilling HP bars constantly, your focus will be more on prevent the damage from occuring in the first place. Along with that, think about how healing typically works. Does it matter at all HOW the damage occured / what type of attack / spell is being used to cause it? For the most part no, all that matters is the numbers on the HP bar and how much of that bar your healing power can refill. With more of a focus on protection vs healing, the types of damage being caused will be very important.
Heres a little scenario: Elementalist starts hitting your team with fireballs, so your supporter throws up shields to prevent fire damage. The Elementalist realizes this, switches weapons and begins hitting you with ice attacks instead. In this situation, a healer would simply keep on healing with the same spells (since the type of damage is irrelevant to how much your spells can heal for), but a protection class would need to drop the fire shield for an ice shield to prevent damage.Its possible that in the example you used of a warrior saving an ele with an "armor" buff is not that simple. Will the game have simple physical damage or will there be varying types of physical damage such as piercing, blunt, slashing? If so, it will make a huge difference which "armor" buff the warrior uses.
We dont know ALL of the details on the types of skills, damage, etc that will be in place so youve got to remember that this is NOT WoW or whatever game you want to compare it to, and you cant simple take the mechanics they are taslking about and insert them into X game, and compare what the results would be in that game and say "well thats whats going to happen in GW2". This explains my point a bit (pay attention to the highlighted portion):
Q: You seem set on fundamentally changing a lot of the MMO established models, and in particular the “holy trinity.” Aren’t you afraid that there are too many innovations for GW2? How can you be sure that it’ll be fun for the GW1 players?
Jon: We are very set on changing established models that we think were not working in general or do not work for our game. Guild Wars 2 is its own game with its own rules, and we want to make sure that the experiences from playing it gel together. If we see something that is an established convention, we are just as unafraid to use it as we are to use something new. We have a lot of GW1 players here at the office, and they are our first line of defense to make sure we are doing the right things, but ultimately it comes down to making the right decisions to make Guild Wars 2 the best game it can be.
Clearly you have never played GW. All protting takes place in combat. it is not a bunch of buffs placed on before hand. Many of the buffs that last 20 second (not 10-60 min buffs you find in other games) on a fully prot specced character and many have CD's longer than their duration. In GW there is also a much smaller mana pool, even maxed out, than you will find in any other game. Therefore, protting takes a great deal of thought and tact. Sure you can cast Protective Spirit (http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Protective_Spirit) on the each member of your party, but only one member got attacked, the buff was wasted on the rest of your party, as was your mana. Your party loses. As I said in previous posts this works very similar to healing during battle in other games. They are not creating something brand new with this system, simply improving on a stagnant one. In addition you can only have 8 skills on your bar unlike other games where you have access to all skills at all times. If you approach protting in GW or GW2 as you are suggesting you would fail and wipe your party. You are trivializing something you really don't understand. The zerg approach you stated was epitomized by "spike" teams (a la the classic Blood Spike) in GW pvp. A team of all dps goes in, everyone targets the healer, hits them at the same time, healer down, target next weakest and kill, and so on. These groups quickly fell out of fashion because against any team that knows what they are doing, they fail. 1 intelligent Prot monk protting the spike target (a healing monk will often fail to stop a spike unless they are really good) stops a spike entirely (see the link to the skill above). Like I have stated earlier protting in GW is totally different from any other healing/buffing situation you have experienced in any other game. You are certainly entitled to your opinion though. You either get it or you don't, I'm certainly not going to convince you. If you want to check it out you can always go play GW or wait till GW2 comes out before leaping to assumptions about something you have yet to experience.
Steam: Neph
I'm in a similar situation as OP.
I don't really feel much like someone with a damage-style role. I prefer staying back and helping people stay on their feet.
I think Final Fantasy XIV is supposed to have healing classes though. I think that will be the next game I pick up. But I think I will leave the healing role there as well. I'm very interested in how these chef and blacksmith roles will play out, since you can base your entire gameplay role on making food for your group. It sounds very very interesting. I think I will try being a chef or a similar thing in FFXIV and see how it plays out. It sounds very fun and new.
i'd like to say that if you think Crowd control, protection spells, buffs and debuffs are a proactive solution, you're wrong. here is why:
Any sort of defensive spell is a reaction to what you see on the battle field. here are a couple of in game scenarios that might help prove this.
Situation 1: 4 dps classes starts attacking a squishy friendly, you cast a dmg prevention spell in on your ally in REACTION to the people attacking him.
Situation 2: a stealther pops on you you REACT to this by debuffing his outgoing damage then proceed to kite.
Situation 3: you realize that the necro in the back is putting out high dps so you REACT by silencing him.
nothing going on here is proactive... the only proactive prevention is if you buff a target long term before the battle starts.
as for the Protection vs dps "zerg" that's nearly laughable. here's an idea, switch targets. a good high dps goup could switch targets and down another player before the monks cool down (isn't it like 5 seconds?) is up. this is especially true if you take away other forms of healing the monks might be using as the healing in GW2 will be dwindled. look at the melee dps trains you run into in warhammer. if they don't down something in 5 seconds they're on the the next. and if that switch catches the healer off gaurd by a half second that second person is going down. and there are combinations of both prevention AND healing in warhammer not just one or the other. (i've seen dps trains burn through Gromril plating like it was paper armor)
In GW1, proactive defense means also preventing warriors' adrenaline gain, mana burn of casters, harrassing with conditions, hexes and interrupts, kiting and positioning.
There's so much more to defense than healing.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
'proactive' as it is used here and if you read the article correctly means 'before the damage sets in and health bars gets lowered' where in the classic healing your job begins reactive, after health has been lost.
If you don't like that style of play and want a pure healing role, and if you don't believe in broader support roles being interesting, there's always other MMO's for you to play.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
XIV is a different take on the class systems you encounter in EQ/WoW, below is an example of how a balanced group would position for a battle.http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/159900.jpg
Completely depends on the importance of crowd control, mitigation, and other non-DPS aspects in relation to the difference in DPS between "pure" and "support" DPS classes.
Even in current MMORPGs, players choosing among DPS classes often choose a weaker DPS class in favor of one with more group utility. When players don't overgear an instance, this stuff matters and players aren't only concerned with a raw DPS measurement.
And that's with existing MMORPG mechanics. New games could certainly introdruce a lot of additional nuance which is required to beat a dungeon optimally.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
CoX (City of Heroes/Villains) already proved that good support teamplay needn't be all about reactive healing - the Defender and Controller classes were mostly about on-the-fly buffs, debuffs and control, and they worked excellently.
I think this thread shows that a developer would find equal success in either using classes with hybrid skills or classes with primary skills only. There are plenty of people supporting one way or the other. They just need to keep in mind how their game needs to be made to fit the classes they are making available.
well more and more reading of this... im thinking that gw2 will turn out to be like twelve sky and alot other mmorpgs without healing classes..
basicly its all about spam pot fest and yeah.. like some people said zergfest. you cant deny that anyhow. you might start babbling about *its about strategy and stuff you know dood* but still hey.. without healer the pvp especially will be like over 9000 people rush on one guy and kill him in few secs and then next target. the group with more dps will always win
if it goes like pot spamfest oh cmon. we have seen where that goes. player with most cash shop items/potions or money overall to get all those potions and got better gears will always win.
also there is plenty of games with good healing system already and in them yeah you can survive without healer but it will be easier with healer. also you wont have to use so much food/potions etc. will save money for whole team and ofcourse bosses hit hard so lets say winning without healer is 50%. then you add up healer and voila ur winning chance just gone up to 60-75%!
and if you moan about healers being overpowered.. in most games their heals are lame. seriously. in most mmorpgs lets say tank class has 40k+ hp yet the healer only heals like 1-5k each heal and usually it even has cooldown and heck. high level monsters tend to hit so hard that you cant keep up with healings unless you got 2 or more healers. tank has to pot anyways.
thats what i call balanced healing. not too powerful, but not too useless either. i think the healer class should be concentrated on supporting team with buffs. wards. what ever you name it and then ofcourse heals too. but not too powerful ones. oh yeah healers should have also abit somekind dps. like hex/curses or debuffs etc. leave nukeing to wizards.
but true there is some of those mmorpgs with healer class being overpowered. 1 heal > full hp. thats lame. id say 1 heal should heal max like 25-75%hp but if its *mega heal* 75% heal it should have *high cooldown* then there should be spammable minor heal which heals like lets say 2-5% hp and or *medium heal* with like 10-20% healing each time.
ofcourse it can be more depending what class you heal but just said examples because cant say *healing numbers* because hard to know max hp and so on. or then just make healing %. not solid healing. that works too. that wont make healing overpowered. yet then again it would make healing more useless on mage classes.
that way the healer isnt crucial for the group but as always *support class* is useful, but not needed.
like in GW1 you can survive without healer but if you add healer. it changes the gameplay and the strategy also. enemy has to think more who to attack and when. if there isnt healer then again. diffirent plan and so on. its just another twist for fight if they manage to make *healer* class that is balanced. not overpowered.
its like lets say other team only has CC dps/tanks. you could basicly kite them to death as ranged, but if they have even 1 support class you cant just kite them since it wouldnt be so good. you would have to teamwork more like lets say simple way which everyone understands.
kite cc dps to get his attention > he starts to follow and support heals him etc.
ur teamie sneaks up on healer when ur kiter friend got their dps attention.> kill support > 2vs1 > win/profit > ???
without stuff like that you might lose if you cant take their cc dps down before it kills you or your groupie if you attack it head on. ofcourse it could end up you 2 owning him even with supports help but lets say without support it would take 30sec to take him down but with supports help he can last that extra 15secs. that 15sec can be crucial to kill you or ur teamie. then after it is 2vs1. ur pretty much done for.
with no support class the team with more kiters or better gears / more dps wins mostlikely always no matter what tactic. just generic play spam buffs / debuffs etc etc and dps dps dps dps dps.
instead of that sneakup killing healer it would go like. kite kite kite kite the their CC dps is low hp. ur teamies CC dps 1hits him and its 2vs1 again. alone you wont stand a chance against 2 anyways without healings if they just kite / debuff spam.
also you cant say that isnt true. ive seen many fights without monks etc(supports). really its all about which team got better gears / more dps / debuffs / better kiters. ofcourse you need strategy and so on for that cant deny that as most of you will moan about that but hey even with supports you need strategy also healers arent needed. they just change the tactics and makes enemies switch their strategy too and play more as team.
but yeah mmorpg without healer / support class will mostlikely turn out as spampot / zergfest with tactics such as *lets gang that one and then that one because that one is weaker than those 2 lets kill him last. his dps sucks. my pots/buffs heal me more/faster than he cant hit me*
its really all about how balanced the support class is. no overpower healings. some debuff/curses etc DOT skills mostlikely... no huge nukes leave that to wizzies etc. good buffs. avg dps. yeah thats the real support class and alot games have it like that.