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Healing in Rift vs other games
I really have a problem with healing in Rift. I'm a lvl 50, sentinel skilled. In EQ2, I have a lvl 90 templar. In EQ2, I have 2 full bars for active healing (heals, short buffs, etc.) and 2 more for buffs. In Rift on the other hand, I have 1 buff and mainly use only one heal (big heal of the sentinel). Some days ago, someone I dont know noticed, healing in Rift would be complicated. In what way, for a Wow-Player? Atm I'm really bored in instances. I target the tank and start watching TV, while my finger is pressing >1< again and again...
Comments
maybe switch to a differnt role??
This is why you should have 4 roles built to switch to when the need arises. Sentinel is the AOE heal class. I believe Warden might be the single target heal and most used. Mix and match from other souls, some souls aren't worth going to the 51 points and better to put into other roles to accentuate or appease any weaknesses in one soul or your gameplay.
This is one area that CRUSHES WoW in sheer terms of being useful and fun and deep. I'm a mage with these 4 roles ready to go when needed:
1. Necromancer/Warlock - single target PVE solo spec. Perfect for questing and such.
2. Chloromancer/Warlock/Archon - dps healer, its amazing, only scary part is burst damage isn't easy to heal but for being a mage and stil dishing out a nice amount of dps this is my favorite build to run in parties in dungeons.
3. Pyromancer/Dominator/Archmage - PVP build. Tons of CC for survivability and some nice burst damage and DOTs. I'm having a blast in this until I start getting prestige ranks and then I'll put more points in archmage.
5. Archon/Warlock - Raid support role. Buffs and Debuffs a plenty, pure support with a smidgeon of DPS, not my favorite but if it helps the rest of the raid hit harder and faster then I don't mind.
That's just a small example of how I've done my mage.
I'm currently playing a cleric alt and loving Inquisitor but I can see myself making a justicar build for tanking and a warden or sentinel build for healing.
I've been digging my Druid/Shammy/Sent SUPER crit build. It'll be nerfed eventually but until then I will continue to crit for high numbers even under lvl 20 :-)
Sounds like most people are missing the OP's point.
which is what?? he's bored and doesn't feel like switching roles to get more out of the game??
Are you grouping with good people? I know every game I've played a good group makes healing incredibly easy.
I'm not level 50 yet, only been playing 1 week. But I ran DSM twice last night, once with a bag group and a level 40 in a DPS spec tanking, and once with a good group with a level 30 in a tanking spec. In the first group we wiped once, and people died a lot. I ended fights many times low on mana from having to spam group heals to keep up. on the second run I relied on only HoTs and my single target heals, and ended every boss fight with 98% mana.
When feeling bored do what I do, make a challenge. The other week I decided to see If I could solo heal Baradin Hold on my druid (WoW refrence) in mostly 346 gear. That fight ended with all my cooldowns gone, and about enough mana for 2 more heals. It was a blast, had me on the edge of my seat. In guild wars I would see how much smiting I could get into a build to do damage without letting the party die.
Or try PvP healing. I have yet to find an enemy group that was so bad at focus fire that I could keep everyone up.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
My friend is playing a cleric, so this is all second hand.
We played wow together for about 3 years, and he has raid healed as a priest, pvp healed as a priest, druid, and shaman, and recentaly said he has never felt more op then he did in this game, and it is almost imposibble for someone to die unless they are incredibly stupid and pull 7 groups of mobs in a dungeon.
Or if the cleric doesn't actually know how to play.
Whoa Whoa Whoa, are you guys saying there is balance issues in rift already?!
Any balance issues are on the player's side. Their are a multitude of ways to spread points out. As well as have certain roles with your one character that do one thing better than another. Complaining about it means someone hasn't experimented enough.
I speak from experience. I think I rerolled 3 warriors, 2 rogues and 4 cleric characters until I found the right starting souls and then from there experiment with point distribution.
I'm still tweaking my roles on my main Mage and I don't mind at all. Resets are fairly cheap and its fun to see what does what.
which is what?? he's bored and doesn't feel like switching roles to get more out of the game??
And to which role should I switch in an expert dungeon? )Pure healing consists of pressing one button.
No the game isn't challenging one bit, and can be played in autopilot.
Think it's funny when you see these comments and they have "Now Plaing: WoW" in their sig
To the OP, try some different builds.
What are your other classes. All i read was Im a lvl 50 sentinel. Which honestly makes me think your BSing. No rift player list there char like that. It would be Sentinel/(insert soul)/(insert soul).
Ya sentinel has alot of lazy aoe heals. But it sounds to me your overkilling on the heals. Most players have a role that is somewhat self sufficent. You should be doing more than just healing.
I said lvl 50, sentinel skilled, not lvl 50 sentinel. I have 51 points in sentinel, the leftover isnt importantGet out of Iron Tomb and into something more difficult
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
Well perhaps you aren't supposed to be a 'pure' healer. You have a bunch of other buttons, use them too - they may not be your heals, but those other powers will help the group out as well, i've noticed groups tend to like it when mobs drop faster, perhaps you could actually use some of your melee or spell powers and still keep the group healed. I know I know, 'but that isn't how I've ever played a cleric before' - well, you know, we keep asking for 'new' things in mmo's, are you sure you aren't pissed because your cleric isn't the same as all the others you've played?...............
If you actually use your other abilities in conjunction with your heals, you may actually find a challenge in maximizing your dps without getting aggro, managing your mana so when it is time to hit that heal, you still can and get kudos from the group for keeping them alive and still helping with the dps-
Personally I am thoroughly impressed by their ability to make clerics more than just healers. It's why I liked the healing classes in vanguard and war - get to learn the dps side of your class and I'm sure you will be happier.
Or if you want the same ol' cleric you've always had - maybe stick with the same ol' game you were playing.
Probably it should tell you something actually.........
As you can see from the other games in my sign, I like hardcore MMOs, probably I know how to evaluate the challenge in a MMO.
I can play Rift in autopilot.
Also WoW is not listed as one of my favorite MMO, the fact that I play it doesn't mean I like it.
In fact I don't like theme parks, but WoW is the best in its class and even an old school player can enjoy it in small doses.
Rift is not enjoyable, even taken in small doses.
It's dull, feel plastic and has zero challenge.
"Rift is not enjoyable, even taken in small doses.
It's dull, feel plastic and has zero challenge."
.....srsly, umadbro, that is probably along your lines of mentality. Anyone who can just press 1 button and heal hasn't done any dungeon past IT. You must have one hell of an off healer to mash one button, maybe u should try playin the game to help him out.
PS - I have been a member of mmorpg.com for a long time, and reading these forums anymore makes me rage.
Actually, the left over points are very important. You can go half way up another tree with 15 points that you have left.
So how about you just don't play Rift? I don't see what the point of coming to post a thread complaining about how you don't like your healer that you decided to use only Sentinel skills with, and aren't interested in doing anything other than purely healing your group- and then going to say you do not enjoy the game. If you don't enjoy it just cancel your sub and go on to whatever game you do enjoy?
I feel like half the threads in these forums can be removed because they are just someone bitching about the game they are willingly dedicating their time to. The moment I stop having fun is the moment I unsub and move on. I feel no need to come whine to strangers about how I disliked something and think the game is bad.
I agree completely with the OP here. Compared to most other mmos out there, there's no such thing as mitigation in Rift at all. As a healer you just chain heal the main nonstop no matter what you're doing. Trying to save a mage or whatever is risky, as even the most defensive of paladin specs can die in 5 seconds or less. That means there's no variation at all as a healer.. You're just pressing 1 (or wherever you're big heal is located) a thousand times and that's all there is to an instance.
In most mmos I've played (I've played 20+ by now) a tank can usually stay alive without heals for AT LEAST 10-20 seconds as he can mitigate a lot of damage. That means a healer can handle more than just healing the MT. I healer can also cure the poison on the mage, heal the rogue etc. but there's no time for that in Rift because the MT can go down so fast. It's not that I don't WANT to heal the dps or whatever, but if I have to chose between the dps getting killed and risk losing the MT (AKA. Wipe) I'm going to have to let the dps guy die.
The healer souls do get more than just a single heal and an endurance buff, but they're rarely used as curing a posion or whatever simply isn't important enough to justify gambling with the life of the MT
Telling the OP to pick another soul is no solution either as it isn't a case of the Sentinel lacking useful skills at all. The problem is with the massive ammounts of damage players (even paladins) take in Rift. You never get to use your skills because of cast times, GCD and so on. Just keeping a MT alive requires you to chain cast whatever heal is working best for you and for a Sentinel that's usually the big 3 seconds "Healing Invocation".
Before anyone starts with any fanboi BS, I have a level 50 cleric AND a level 50 warrior, so I've seen it from both "sides" of the healing game. As a warrior you're often sure you're going to die.. Not because the healer is bad or anything but because the mobs will hit you for 1/4-1/3 of your total hp pool every 2 seconds.
It's the lack of mitigation in Rift that's making the game extremely boring for a healer.. Not the OP's choice of souls.
Oh, and please stop calling the Sentinel an AoE healer. If you really think that's what a Sentinel is, you obviously never played one. Sure, a Sentinel has a couple of AoE heals but they're like 300 mana to cast. You're never going to be using those as your main heals in Rift. The instant AoE heal is great for "Oh Sh*t" situations where the AoE damage is going a bit crazy etc. but other than that it's rarely worth using at all due to the nasty mana cost.
EDIT: I also have to agree with ste2000 to a certain extent. I absolutely hate Blizzard and WoW for what they've (indirectly perhaps) done to the mmo genre, so I hate to admit this... Rift is even more simple and easy than WoW was when I played it (Pre-TBC). There's no challenge or thinking involved in anything in Rift. I have never managed to get two characters to the cap and two other characters to their mid-20's during the first free month in any mmo. Never. It's not hard or challenging in any way.. The hardest part is having to put up with the exact same boring quests all over again.
I haven't even logged in for the last 2 or 3 days, as I'm bored with it already.
"Then leave the game!" Oh, I will. But I was dumb enough to believe this game would be better, so I paid for 3 months already.
No the game isn't challenging one bit, and can be played in autopilot.
Think it's funny when you see these comments and they have "Now Plaing: WoW" in their sig
Probably it should tell you something actually.........
As you can see from the other games in my sign, I like hardcore MMOs, probably I know how to evaluate the challenge in a MMO.
I can play Rift in autopilot.
Also WoW is not listed as one of my favorite MMO, the fact that I play it doesn't mean I like it.
In fact I don't like theme parks, but WoW is the best in its class and even an old school player can enjoy it in small doses.
Rift is not enjoyable, even taken in small doses.
It's dull, feel plastic and has zero challenge.
Not to belabor the obvious, but what MMO can't be played on auto pilot? They are all pretty easy when you get down to it. What exactly is challenging in most of these games besides the amount of time you have to spend playing them?
That said, one button healing everywhere sounds like an extreme case, but a little more information is needed. For instance, how self sufficient were the people you were grouping with? A Chloromaner Mage, a Bard Rogue and a Justicar Cleric? Well, yeah...those guys are going to heal themselves through most stuff, especially if the tank is absorbing most of the damage. What level were you relative to the instance you were in? Was everyone just over powering the content? Just wonderin'.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Not mind me asking but what your stats for your tank and what instance did you run?
In WoW you need to be heal spammed with any most heroic instance (may be not in wotlk) but Rift is no where as bad as Burning crusade. Remember when SH heroes elites hit thruough plate for 8k and you had to have 2 CCs on 4 pulls?
I am a level 44 SentinelWarden (no points in my 3rd soul) and here are my heal-based abilities on my pure healer role:
1 insta cast hot + cooldown
1 castbar hot + no cooldown
1 castbar hot based on the previous 2 hots + cooldown
1 instacast heal + cooldown
1 castbar small heal + no cooldown
1 castbar large heal + no cooldown
1 insta cast heal buff + cooldown that makes my next 3 castbar heals half the cast bar time
1 insta cast heal buff + cooldown that makes my next heal insta heal (useful only if your next heal you cast is a cast bar heal)
1 insta cast heal buff + cooldown that doubles my next heal
So, not sure if you are feating improperly (not not at all), took classes that dont have heals (Yes, there are cleric roles that dont have heals, notably the DPS roles such as Cabalist or Inquistor), or you feated for heals but those icons are not being placed on your hot bar.
My DPS role? 2 total heals, no hots, no heal buffs.
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