Healing in AoC

ArchivedUser

I'm new to the forums and relatively new to AoC. My experience in MMOs as a more competitive player has generally been as a healer, whether it be PVP or PVE. Healing has its caveats like any other role but I'm curious to see if they move healing away from the Healthbar mini game that has, in my opinion, been in need of a redesign for a long time. Personally I'd love to see the "health" of a group be more than just hit points and a single dispel. Any thoughts on this topic? And as a relative newbie to AoC, can anyone update me if they have said anything about healing so far?

ArchivedUser

The cleric in the Pax West pre-alpha gameplay experience was hands down the most powerful class if played correctly. Intrepid is trying to make the cleric have a greater role in the frontlines instead of the typical backline healers of other MMOs.

ArchivedUser

i was impressed by the cleric in the pax demo. i felt like i could do a good amount of dmg while healing. and the healing spells have a good amount of depth. 

ArchivedUser

As mentioned before, Intrepid has its plans in place to give healers a more diverse gameplay than just standing around and watching the top left corner of the screen. I also want to play a healer, so this is a rather motivating factor for me.

ArchivedUser

Intrepid view healing as a form of "life balance" so in order to give health/life then it must come from somewhere. 
At PAX we saw Cleric that was STAFF WIELDING.
They are rewarded when playing upfront because the more damage they do the bigger their heals are. 
From what we've seen so far and heard in streams healers won't be  pulling figures from the air but will be looking to see where to "balance" life forces from enemies to allies - or even from ally to ally.
We've only seen half a Cleric in play.
We still need to see augmentations, different weapon types, racial influence etc so there is still much to learn

ArchivedUser

I believe healing will be the foundation of any team- pvp/pve and the dual class system will make for some serious Paladins/Shamans etc..

ArchivedUser

I always thought healers were supposed to preserve life ....not take it.
So I guess its fitting they are called 'cleric' and not healer.

After all....there are bad clerics and good clerics.
Those that would free your soul...and those that would steal it.
It is like a neutral archetype that can become good or bad...healer or leech.

Perhaps one gods healer is another gods leech.
hhhmmm.

ArchivedUser

The way they talk about making 8-man groups in order to give each archetype a spot, also makes me wonder if they are trying to sort of evolve the "trinity". Maybe expand upon it or just give a bit of a redesign. I like the idea of the "life balance" in terms of design direction, I'm just excited to see what this then translates into in combat. 

Thanks for the info everyone!

ArchivedUser

Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to 'take' points to use towards healing from your allies damage rather than 'have' to do damage yourself ... if that'd be what you'd prefer to do.
But much love towards the healers

ArchivedUser

TBH I would rather be drawing energy from the air...aka heat.
Poltergeist activity and such, is normally accompanied by rapid temperature drops.
Life/thought moved from energy > air > liquid > solid as the universe cooled.
Would be really cool to have a frozen cloud envelope a healer in action and cause damage if you get too close.
The more powerful the heal...the bigger the cloud.

Of course, that doesnt negate the possibility of some players leeching life force from living organisms for healing or other energy charging.
In fact, it adds a whole new dimensions and makes gameplay interesting.
Those pure that generate/channel lifeforce from the source ...and those corrupted that take it.

/shrugs

ArchivedUser

Rune_Relic said:

TBH I would rather be drawing energy from the air...aka heat.
Poltergeist activity and such, is normally accompanied by rapid temperature drops.
Life/thought moved from energy > air > liquid > solid as the universe cooled.
Would be really cool to have a frozen cloud envelope a healer in action and cause damage if you get too close.
The more powerful the heal...the bigger the cloud.

Of course, that doesnt negate the possibility of some players leeching life force from living organisms for healing or other energy charging.
In fact, it adds a whole new dimensions and makes gameplay interesting.
Those pure that generate/channel lifeforce from the source ...and those corrupted that take it.

/shrugs

Thats a very interesting take on a healing class, makes me think more of an arcane spell caster or maybe a druid though. Is Cleric the only base class that comes with heals? I could see the bard have heals too. But I think any other class doesn't really make sense to have heals unless you add a healing subclass.

ArchivedUser

Berhane said:

Rune_Relic said:

TBH I would rather be drawing energy from the air...aka heat.
Poltergeist activity and such, is normally accompanied by rapid temperature drops.
Life/thought moved from energy > air > liquid > solid as the universe cooled.
Would be really cool to have a frozen cloud envelope a healer in action and cause damage if you get too close.
The more powerful the heal...the bigger the cloud.

Of course, that doesnt negate the possibility of some players leeching life force from living organisms for healing or other energy charging.
In fact, it adds a whole new dimensions and makes gameplay interesting.
Those pure that generate/channel lifeforce from the source ...and those corrupted that take it.

/shrugs

Thats a very interesting take on a healing class, makes me think more of an arcane spell caster or maybe a druid though. Is Cleric the only base class that comes with heals? I could see the bard have heals too. But I think any other class doesn't really make sense to have heals unless you add a healing subclass.

Havent heard any other healing classes as such.
Bard appears more akin to an efficiency buff (moral).
Its also destined to be in your face and make art with your blood.....at least something along those lines was quoted.
Seems more of a DD CC related archetype.

If archetype are neutral and can go good or bad....
They could be an efficiency drain or effiency boost build.
Perhaps mesmerish.

ArchivedUser

@Berhane Cleric is the only class that heals other players If you choose cleric as a secondary archetype any healing augmentation on offer will only heal yourself. Each Primary archetype is the main "role" of a class. Augmentations are there to give your "role" a flavour of another archetype and will personalise your "role" to your play style e.g Tank/Rogue will always be a "tank" role but might be more evasive in defence due to the rogue secondary archetype

ArchivedUser

Diura said:

@Berhane Cleric is the only class that heals other players If you choose cleric as a secondary archetype any healing augmentation on offer will only heal yourself. Each Primary archetype is the main "role" of a class. Augmentations are there to give your "role" a flavour of another archetype and will personalise your "role" to your play style e.g Tank/Rogue will always be a "tank" role but might be more evasive in defence due to the rogue secondary archetype

Awesome! Thanks for the info, I'm very excited for this design direction. The fact that cleric is the only healer and that group size will be 8 to accommodate all archetype roles really makes me excited as it seems they are evolving from just the standard "trinity".

I'm dying to find out the combinations, I know its going to be released soon.

ArchivedUser

Hello all I am newer to the forums here,
As a person who plays many healers, I just hope there is a option to act as a support class in addition to healing. Often times healers get stuck with just reviving players and balancing their Mana with aoe heals or single player heals. To create a dynamic healer I hope there is more to the class, maybe shields and speed buffs.

ArchivedUser

Saieie said:

Hello all I am newer to the forums here,
As a person who plays many healers, I just hope there is a option to act as a support class in addition to healing. Often times healers get stuck with just reviving players and balancing their Mana with aoe heals or single player heals. To create a dynamic healer I hope there is more to the class, maybe shields and speed buffs.

Hi! It sounds to me that instead of healing being a role, support will be the role. Healing being one way to provide support. Just guessing though. Perhaps this has been already clarified.

ArchivedUser

Saieie said:

Hello all I am newer to the forums here,
As a person who plays many healers, I just hope there is a option to act as a support class in addition to healing. Often times healers get stuck with just reviving players and balancing their Mana with aoe heals or single player heals. To create a dynamic healer I hope there is more to the class, maybe shields and speed buffs.

Berhane said:

Saieie said:

Hello all I am newer to the forums here,
As a person who plays many healers, I just hope there is a option to act as a support class in addition to healing. Often times healers get stuck with just reviving players and balancing their Mana with aoe heals or single player heals. To create a dynamic healer I hope there is more to the class, maybe shields and speed buffs.

Hi! It sounds to me that instead of healing being a role, support will be the role. Healing being one way to provide support. Just guessing though. Perhaps this has been already clarified.

@Saieie @Berhane It's difficult to say accurately because we know so little information. In terms of standard support classes we will have "Bard" and "Cleric" primary archetypes as support. Of course we will have many variations of these "roles"  because of the secondary archetype augmentations so there will be 8 "healers" so to say because there will be 8 different options for secondary archetypes ^^  

1. Cleric / Cleric
2. Cleric / Fighter
3. Cleric / Tank
4. Cleric / Ranger
5. Cleric / Bard
6. Cleric / Rogue
7. Cleric / Mage
8. Cleric / Summoner

So perhaps Cleric/Mage might adopt the "After Image" skill mage has in an augmentated form offering another layer of support. Perhaps Cleric/Tank will be able to apply a form of "Cover" to act as a shield/power absorption ^^

ArchivedUser

I would like the treatment of the cleric to be independent and only supplemented (amplified) by the damage, so as not to make him a vampire.

ArchivedUser

How much of a vampire the character is will likely be up to which abilities and augments the individual player chooses.

Also, I'll be interested to see what healing abilities a Staff will have and how that will change when used by the various archetypes.

ArchivedUser

For me the Cleric is turning into a class that is going to be hard for me to pass on. I was set on being a Tank (still hate the fact that the class is just called that) but from PAX we got to see a lot more about the Cleric and the entire shift of melee healer instead of ranged healer was hugely promising.

The addition of the confirmation that any class can use any weapon and the Cleric is looking very much like the Warrior Priest from Warhammer Online - still my most favourite class from any MMO I have played.

Being up in the thick of the fight, sending out AoE heals due to damage done, the ability to pop up damage shields (this is just an assumption on my part, but it would fit with their idea of a more proactive rather than reactive style of healing) and just the versatility that the class seems to have from a design aesthetic is really exciting for me.

Let me have my hammer wielding, plate wearing healer, knocking out heals by doing damage and a happy chap I shall be.

ArchivedUser

Bajjer said:

For me the Cleric is turning into a class that is going to be hard for me to pass on. I was set on being a Tank (still hate the fact that the class is just called that) but from PAX we got to see a lot more about the Cleric and the entire shift of melee healer instead of ranged healer was hugely promising.

The addition of the confirmation that any class can use any weapon and the Cleric is looking very much like the Warrior Priest from Warhammer Online - still my most favourite class from any MMO I have played.

Being up in the thick of the fight, sending out AoE heals due to damage done, the ability to pop up damage shields (this is just an assumption on my part, but it would fit with their idea of a more proactive rather than reactive style of healing) and just the versatility that the class seems to have from a design aesthetic is really exciting for me.

Let me have my hammer wielding, plate wearing healer, knocking out heals by doing damage and a happy chap I shall be.

That would be awesome! I'm sure that there will be a class like that. Sounds like that will be a cleric - tank (not to be confused with tank - cleric).

I know that "tank" sounds boring but it is just an archetype not a class. Once you combine 2 archetypes then you have your class. They just mentioned in their last stream they want it to be extremely clear what kind of gameplay to expect. If you're just holding back on playing a tank because of the name, I wouldn't worry about that since as soon as you add the second archetype it'll have a dope name! Think of it as picking the style of gameplay you want.

ArchivedUser

Will there still be a possibility to be the so called 'back line healer'? 
Not a fan of 'dpsing' i rather stand back watch the health bars and heal would that be cleric/cleric? 

Also how is the balance going to be kept between all variations? 
As i see it if the content will be 
 1. Spike dmg on allies - cleric/cleric might be good option
 2. timed dungeons or burst phases - cleric/summoner cleric/mage or something with high dmg would be preffered 
 3. boosting someone for loot groups eg. getting new friend some gear claric/bard for the extra buffs (def buff/dmg buff) 

So it always annoys me in games like wow for example when fotms roll around and everyone takes only one type of healer and either you have one as alt, you main one or you will spend hours looking for group because you dont play fotm.... 

ArchivedUser

You could try to be a back line healer, but you probably won't be able to heal as effectively as you would be if you included the abilities that are heal/damage, rather than just focusing on pure heals.

I ignore fotm builds.
Play what you like to play.

ArchivedUser

@Onimusza I feel pretty confident you will be able to be a back-line healer. Everything Intrepid have said, or intimated at, so far has been all about giving players choice in their style of play (eg. weapons usable by all, different augments to choose from, etc).

As to whether you could be back-line and be pure heals, we just don't know. You may have ranged abilities that will work like the melee we have seen where your divine strike will splash heal players close to the target, or you may be able to choose to be a pure healer (though this might limit your abilities to play on your own).

Player agency and choice is big with Intrepid, so I would be hopeful that all playstyles will be catered to.

Once they release the 64 archetypes and provide a little blurb on the principles of each one, the forums will go crazy

And we will go crazier when we get some actual build information 

ArchivedUser

@Onimusza There is a thread by @Diura about the class information that we do have here.

This picture is from that thread, but it highlights a lot of what we know (which is very little) about the cleric healing. It's a nice thread, which I would suggest checking out. But from that it should be evident that a lot of different playstyles for a healer will be possible.

You could also check the AOC Wiki. But there isn't much more there.

Since this is the class that I will almost certainly play exclusively (not an alt guy) I am watching all the healing stuff keenly.

**Edit** Can't get the picture to load, Diura's magic is stronger than mine, just check that thread.

ArchivedUser

@Onimusza @Bajjer

Your weapon type will also influence your skill tree so perhaps different weapons will offer more backstage healing. We know so little atm all we can do is speculate

Can't wait to learn more ^^

ArchivedUser

@Diura Ranine Sorcerer!

ArchivedUser

@Diura
Ah, good point about weapons.
I was actually mixing concepts a bit, banking off Onimuza's post.

1: We'll have to get more details of the devs' vision of Clerics. Seems to me it's similar to that of NWO, where you have to do some damage in order to build up enough divine energy to heal.
But, it's possible they could include a branch on the skill tree that focuses on just heals, rather than abilities that mix heals with damage. Also, since clerics balance life, there could be the opposite... focusing on just damage rather than abilities that mix damage with heals.

2: I guess "back line healing" is really more about range v melee.
If you're using a melee weapon, like a sword or hammer, to combo-heal you can't really stay in the back line. If you're using a ranged weapon, like a bow or spellbook, you can stay in the back line.

3: Seems to me, though, that while you can add heals to your weapon, the basic attack of a weapon is going to cause damage rather than just heal - since it is a weapon.
Your weapon is what increases Focus for your ultimate, so to trigger your ultimate heal, you'd want to be doing some damage with your weapon.
You could do that from the back line with a ranged weapon.
But, I still think players trying to do pure heals won't be as effective at being party healer as players who mix damage with heals.

4: How Cleric classes deliver heals could be quite interesting.
Does a Cleric/Summoner deliver heals via their minions??
That could be a fascinating back-line Cleric... even though technically the player would be puppeteering the minion(s).

ArchivedUser

Some great points there @Dygz. It's going to be fun to see how the Cleric plays out. It's reminding me a bit, thus far, of the Bear Shaman class from Age of Conan. I really like the idea of it not being a backline healer like in some other MMOs, and so healing through damage is a great concept imo, especially if we're not tied to the staff. Time will tell.

ArchivedUser

Not all of the Cleric's heals are healing through damage. Only the healing totem spell says that the damage turns to heals. The rest of the healing abilities just have damage added on to the healing effect. The heal over time heals and does damage to those around the recipient. Same with the chain heal. Adding on the damage this way gives the impression that you are balancing life without technically having your heals require you to do some sort of damage for them to work. That's how it seemed in the Pax videos at least.

ArchivedUser

If you played world of warcraft in legion and then the disc priest. I think the cleric here has alot of similarity. It does damage to your enemys and heals your allys or visaversa.