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Calling all MMO Healers - Name your top 5!
dzones
Member UncommonPosts: 121
Like the title asks, what would you rate as the top games you have played as a healer in your MMO gaming time?
Also if you could, please state why you chose those titles as your favorites.
What game do you consider the most fun as a healer RIGHT NOW based on what is out there and active?
Thanks for your time!
***I just inserted a POLL to go along with this as per request. I tried to include the most common titles chosen so far but could only include 10***
Comments
My favorite healer was in Vanguard, the Bloodmage.
I thought the design of that class was masterful. There was a beautiful balance between blood of your enemies and the power of your heals. The problem was that the other healers in that game were stronger. Any of the three could heal as well and cause more damage, but were also easy to play.
A great Bloodmage was just as good as a good Cleric and no better. I know I probably offended people there, but that's the way I saw it. The Cleric wasn't easy, but it was more like the EQ healer, but the Bloodmage was a class you had to play carefully.
I wouldn't rate the game as best, but I loved playing the Bloodmage right.
2. Everquest I doubt you'll ever feel more powerful in an MMO again as you could with an EQ Cleric. Healing a Tank with massive HP against a mob that could kill him with 2 hits is heady.
3. GW 1 To me this was a perfect example of a PvP healer. Reversal was the key to its success. I never would have guessed I'd like Arena games until GW came along.
4. WoW Nothing special to differentiate my last two
5. Aion (I'd just lump this in with all other games that had any healers)
I've been trying AA, which isn't a good game for healing. The healing isn't super powerful, but would be enough except that it's PvP which makes it a tough row to hoe.
I like it so I play it but it's not great. They have honor points for killing reds, but only the killer gets the points and not the group so healing will get you zero points while your group might be raking in the points.
Asdar
EQ would be up there , i enjoyed doctor in A.O.
My personal favorite though was my Goblin Shaman in WAR. The way you had to balance offense with healing to maximize your effectiveness was interesting.
My very top was the gravity /empathy controller in City of Heroes. I loved her because she could crowd control and heal. She would use her own health to heal even and that made her vulnerable to AOE. Very good class and very enjoyable but was totally group dependent.
A close second is my kinetic defender in the same game that had well only one heal which was an area heal but you had to choose the mob to target to get the best area effect to heal the maximum number and I would take an additional heal from the general pool to augment it. You can hold up a group with just transfusion if it was well slotted plus to die for buffs. Also cool class.
Next would be the rune-keeper in LoTRO. A balance between damage and healing. The very nice area spell effects were loads of fun.
Then probably Doctor in Anarchy Online . It was a more traditional healer but I guess I enjoyed the game a lot so the class was fun. I would place the operative in SWTOR here too as a very enjoyable class to play .
Then comes my priest,druid in WoW and I would also place my current whitemage in FFXIV in this group as being fun. I also enjoyed the archmage in Warhammer Online that was fun too. Should mention that the scholar in FFXIV is quite an interesting class and plays quite differently from the whitemage but I like the whitemage more.
Runes of Magic in its heyday before the druids tricks, nerfs and OP dps made them pretty much obsolete, which seems to be the trend these days anyway, dps pretty much taking over and its mainly about the burn and kite.
As far as naming a game with "decent" healers, usefulness and fun to play these days I can't comfortably recommend a top 5 but I can do a top 3.
1.) Aion - high demand you will feel VERY useful here!!
2.) FFXIV - pretty much needed and useful, makes you glad to be one and you will enjoy being one.
3.) SWTOR - not really needed as much but you will make things easier and the flexibility of the types of healer you can be make it fun.
I recommend them in that exact order.
1. EQ 1 cleric. 30 minute continuous trash mob fight in unrest and entire party survived. was the most fun ever and solidified my love for healing!
2. Eq 2 reactive healing was a lot of fun
3. COH a group of rad/rad characters was a ton of fun
4.WoW shaman was extremely fun to play
5.FFXIV. Loved playing healer in that game.
My problem with pretty much all games after EQ 1 was that the combat speed just keeps getting faster and faster and you cant enjoy the fights themselves. Just a single glance away from health bars and people dies.
As for most fun right now is probably FFXIV. Not just as a healer but in that you can be pretty much all classes with just 1 character.
1. WoW- Shaman.
2. AoC - ToS
3. TSW - AR / Fist
4. PS2 - Medic.
5. Wildstar - Medic
All those with the exception of 4 are really exotic healers which is what make/made them interesting.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
1. Warhammer Online : Best healer classes I've ever played are Zealot, Shaman and Warrior Priest. All of them from Warhammer Online. Just amazing...
2. Knight Online : Priest is very fun to play in this game. You're like a healing god. Non stop aoe heals, buffs, debuffs. In pvp, healer is a key class for the victory.
3. FFXIV : I love the Scholar class in this game. You have to control your pet very good. All those macros, pet mechanism etc. Just amazing...
4. Guild Wars : In arena pvp this game got the best healing class I've ever seen. Monk. And with that skill system you're free to change your class whatever you want. It is an unlimited selection pool...
5. World of Warcraft : Discipline priest and mistweaver monk are some of the best healing classes I've ever played.
1. Warden - EQ2, you could shapeshift, portal around, fast heals, what is not to love?
2. Doctor/TKM - SWG - All around fun, making my buffs, non stop killing machine too
3.Healer - DAoC
4. Druid - WoW - I love shapeshifting, and fast heals!
5. FFIV - White Mage, and you get that great unicorn mount :P
The games I enjoyed healing most in were;
Everquest
Everquest 2
Vanguard
Aion
City of Heroes
On a side note, I am fed up, as a healer, of these Devs telling me that I should be sick of 'managing health bars' from the back of the group.
When I choose to play a cleric, that's exactly what I want to do 8/10 times. That's the role I enjoy. All you have to do to make the cleric attractive is make it 1. great in groups, 2. satisfying to solo with when I need to, and 3. able to hold it's own if I want to PvP.
That's it, no more. It doesn't have to be some kind of healing ninja jumping all around the area like a dick.
The actual group play of the cleric doesn't need to be messed with to make it more 'action' (urgh...), it just needs to be able to function without a group now and again. The reason Aion makes my list is because it actually got this balance pretty right.
OP, throw a poll up there based on these answers. Would be interesting to see what ranks clearly
I only have a top 1 as only game where I did play as healer in a team.
GW1 monk: many builds also for damage and solo farming. In GvG you had to watch the game and not just watch health bars.
1. eq2 druid (warden)
2. gw1 monk
3. eq1 druid
EQ2 fan sites
Daoc Healers, for me best 1.
5) WHM in FF11. {Casting} {Benediction} everybody else {Run}
4) Shaman in EQ1 You didnt have the complete heals of a cleric but boy oh boy could you ever debuff the ever loving crap out of the mobs. as in, the most brutal debuff ever in an mmo. for those of you who didnt start til after EQ, it was a chain of two spells: an unresistable (on anything) debufdf that debuffed the mob's resistances, then followed up by a 75% decrease on its attack speed for 3 minutes... and you got AA to increase it to like 6 minutes. still the best "support healer" ever in a game IMHO
3) Logistics in Eve. Did you know eve had healers? Spaceships need repairs too! Logistics are cruiser level vessels that specialize in healing either shields, armour, or capacitor (mana). the downside: they essentially cannot fight back, and your opponents know that you are keeping that pwnmobile that is shooting them alive.... so you are target number one in many engagements. teamwork required, which is why it hits number 3 on my list.
2) Minstrel in LOTRO. Why? because playing one made me sing to myself "brave sir robin ran away, bravely ran away away" EVERY TIME! heals by virtue or soothing the spirit was also a neat way to sneak healing into a world where magical healing doesnt exist. (in LOTRO your health is called morale, btw, to further explain why a minstrel heals)
1) Cleric in EQ1. you don't really wield ultimate healing power in any other game when you compare it to the spell Complete Heal in its heyday (Planes of power and before). what did it do? exactly what it said. heal to full, from however low the poor soul was who you were casting it on. Also you got a weapon later on that let you click on a player's corpse and rezed them at no cost to you with 95% of their lost exp returned to them. which was a big deal back in the day, ya know, when the sh*t was real.
thx for readin'
Da Skull
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
Cleric and Mage healers in Rift were fun.
Cleric Healer for PvP
Mage for PvE
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I only have two
1 Lotro Minstrel
2 Rift custom class Cleric
I have always liked healers that can also do damage and debuff while healing.
Wow shaman (wotlk) - I am not sure why but this was simply fun. Very good custom UI is definately one important factor, one click healing beats everything I have tried.
Vanguard blood mage - Brilliant concept of healing based on damaging and very fun.
Neverwinter cleric - The mouse targeting was a bit wierd at first but once you get better and learn a few tricks, it is pretty fun and very skill based.
Eq2 shaman - proactive healing and wards, but constantly switching targets between mobs and players got a bit annoying.
The red thread here is, except for eq2, that healing should be more than only healing and not require target acquiring before cast.. In wow one click cast, vg defensive target didnt change much, neverwinter mouse aim. Healing should be more than staring at health bars, but still be so important that you can't be without one. Good UI is very important, and should help the healer acess the health situation in a simple way, thus making it easier to be in present in the fight itself, which again makes healing overview even better.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
This could be hard but let me do my best:
1.) EQ Cleric - I love my eq cleric, even the one I started a couple months ago on emu server. They had very powerful heals, great hp/protection buffs and were ACTUALLY amazing undead killers. This one class was amazing because it was powerful in 2 different ways. DPS vs undead and healing. Not to mention the utility you had with buffs, roots, and stuns made this class truly fun and epic.
2.) DAoC Hib Druid - This class was another class that really was able to stand on it's own. It was a Healing pet class. The pet didn't help you heal, it was merely an extra dot. However, with the power in healing that the druid had as well as the pet and dot's, this was another fun healer. Again it had a damage line as well as healing, however the healing was where the druids true power was. The dots (including the pet) helped a ton and made it easy to stay in the back and either heal or dot up mobs, making this class one of the best healers I ever played.
3.) Wow Priest - I played wow a ton and I started on Day 1 release of vanilla with a troll priest which I played for 4-5 years. The wow priest wasn't really anything special, sure it was the main healing class but over all there wasn't anything extrodinary about it IMO. However the changes they made with specs over time definitely made it pretty awesome. Between the different specs you had at one time and different types of heals (Lightwell, Circle of light, duo heals) it really made the priest shine as an amazing healing rather then just a spammer.
4.) Empathy Defender COH - I almost forgot this one. This healer was absolutely amazing. Specifically designed as a AOE healer, with this game, it made healing extremely fun. Not only could you heal large areas and increase the size but with your other power pool you could choose a ton of damaging abilities that made the character not mundane at all. However this healer did do a lot of the same as other healers listed, (AOE healing, strong hp/protection buffs, resurrect) but with the addition of a bunch of different very powerful power pools to supplement your healing, you could easily make a very powerful character in terms of healing and dmg/CC. In the end, this one was just plain FUN!
I don't have a 5th, I just haven't run into other games where the healers really stood out, just more of the same as one of these four. These four healers are what made me love healing and enjoy playing the games for the length of time that I have played them. (at least a year if not multiple) I look forward to see how some new games from some of the same devs as the games listed here, try and innovate healing and in what ways.
WoW holy and discipline priest were very fun from vanilla through LK, and also very different ways to play a healer; holy was reactive and disc was proactive (bubble spam was a lot of fun and very OP until it was nerfed).
Played a Minstrel healer in LOTRO raiding through Isengard content. That was a fun class that really had to manage the skill queue and changeup skills depending on the size of the group.
Today, I play a cleric in Rift and really enjoy it. Because of Rift's multiple talent trees and saved skillsets, I can swap on the fly between being a reactive raid healer (warden), a proactive healer (purifier), a tank healer (sentinel) or a dps healer with links (defiler).
1. WoW- Druid, best class to me could heal, fly, stealth, tank
2. SWG - Doctor or medic, best experience was finding an empty hospital and setting up shop, wounded players coming in needed heals to cure their wounds, and grouping as a medic to heal. Playing a TK master who could meditate to heal their own wounds.
3. TSW - Fist / Sword combo for powerful heals
4. Aion - Chanter
5. EQ - Druid
I love games in which you can solo level as a healer, throw out heals to none group players who get in over their heads, and save money by not needing healing potions to levels except in rare emergencies.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Great idea! Poll Inserted!
Thanks everyoine for the answers thus far. Nice collection of answers for sure.