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Proactive Healing or Reactive Healing
Eronakis
Member UncommonPosts: 2,248
Healers have always been an interesting commodity to have in your group. In most traditional MMORPG's you have to have them in your group.
I am asking a simple question for you Healer Players. If you had to choose one type of healer which do you prefer and why?
Do you prefer playing a Proactive Healer or a Reactive Healer? Let me define both.
Proactive Healer is one that uses Heal over times, Shielding, and Mends/Ward type of heals. Can be Single target or AoE.
Reactive Healers is one that typically uses massive direct heals which can be single target and/or AoE.
I do understand that Healers will be more apt in being reactive or proactive with some overlapping of the other. Please let me know why you find playing a Proactive or Reactive Healer as fun. Vote below!
I am asking a simple question for you Healer Players. If you had to choose one type of healer which do you prefer and why?
Do you prefer playing a Proactive Healer or a Reactive Healer? Let me define both.
Proactive Healer is one that uses Heal over times, Shielding, and Mends/Ward type of heals. Can be Single target or AoE.
Reactive Healers is one that typically uses massive direct heals which can be single target and/or AoE.
I do understand that Healers will be more apt in being reactive or proactive with some overlapping of the other. Please let me know why you find playing a Proactive or Reactive Healer as fun. Vote below!
Proactive or Reactive Healing
- If you had to choose to play which would you pick? And Why?22 votes
- Proactive Healer68.18%
- Reactive Healer31.82%
Comments
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But as to the question, I prefer being reactive. For me having to react to the situation is what makes healer role unique from others. If I want to be proactive I'll play a tank.
I wouldn't want to heal if I didn't have both types available to me.
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As for which is better It's situational. It depends on what abilities the enemy uses, what abilities the player has, and relative to the first two how much HP the healing targets have.
Look no further than FFXIV for a prime example of this with Scholar vs White Mage. Two different styles that are more useful depending on the situation.
I really liked some concepts of combat healers like adding debuffs to enemies that grant a small lifesteal or other non direct heals that doesn't require healthbar whackamole like placing a pulsating healing totem, 'aura' like heals that depends on your damage rotations or something.
I choose both.
Good healers know which technique and when to use. Something my resto shaman still needs to master.
would be better saying Discipline priest vs Holy (old times dunno if that changed in legion)
Shaman / Defiler wards vs Cleric (albeit clerics had reactive heals that healed on melee attacks, earth shield for wow players )
Hots , Wards , heals , are all usefull , u need all them to be a efficient healer
Nobody has died so far!
If its more actiony, I prefer proactive healing. If its more laid back, I prefer reactive healing. There have been a few games where I felt the methods of healing did not match the pace of gameplay. For example, there were reactive options to heal in GW2, but I never found that the fast paced, hectic combat really gave enough time to utilize them properly without substantial communication with a group. Inversely, proactive healing in games like WoW, FFXIV, and EQ2 (Shaman Wards, Cleric Reactive healing, etc.) seems too easy and out of place with the slower paced combat/scripted fights.
Worst thing I ever did was applying raid wide shields on lich king fight, spamming hot on everyone comes as a close second.
I may enjoy the reactive but i don't enjoy whack a mole unless the targeting is fun, and I've never seen that in an mmo.
Example
This was a staple skill of the first healer I ever played. While it's technically a proactive heal by the OP's definition I would use when I noticed someone was being hit by a fast attacking class like an assassin or the target of a focus fire.
And that's personally a large part of the reasons I think "proactive" heals are more interesting. There can only be so many takes on "You cast a spell and they recover health." Proactive heals can do a lot of really interesting things and allow you to respond to certain situations with a skill more directly tailored to that situation.
For instance from the same game as the last skill:
Example 2
The first skill is strongest against someone who is being targeted with a massive number of small attacks. One of the counters to it is classes that use a small number of super powerful attacks to down their opponent. Protective spirit is the opposite. It shuts down heavy damage opponents by capping the damage they can do with a single attack. A healer running both those skills can use them in conjunction to essentially make their target invincible for a short duration or, you can use them separately if you notice an ally fighting an assassin (Fast attacks) and another fighting an air mage (Heavy damage) to protect them from those specific targets.
While a HoT healer with few bells and whistles is about the easiest type to play. I think a well built "proactive healer" is actually one of the most skill intensive and powerful classes to be found.
MAGA