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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
I'm worried about healing!
chaoko954
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So I've heard that healing in the siege is basically shooting health at people. I'm really worried that my main method of healing is going to be pew pewing health back up in the MMO. I am all for skill shot heals as abilities though!
I don't want to see Ana from Overwatch be the main way all healers heal you know?
That being said I'm not against it if that's the way it's going to be. I just feel like it's going to be so much trouble! The dps walks in front of you, the tank goes behind a rock, ect. I guess I can see these as game mechanics if it's done correctly, but this is why I'm worried. Thoughts?
I don't want to see Ana from Overwatch be the main way all healers heal you know?
That being said I'm not against it if that's the way it's going to be. I just feel like it's going to be so much trouble! The dps walks in front of you, the tank goes behind a rock, ect. I guess I can see these as game mechanics if it's done correctly, but this is why I'm worried. Thoughts?
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There have been times in target-based MMOs where I gave up healing players that moved too quickly out of my range or line of sight to heal other players. If people were encouraged to wiggle constantly to avoid ranged attacks, I don't know how I would feel with healing that with a single direct healing projectile. I hope people aren't jiggling all around in a massively multiplayer setting, getting in the way of line of sight constantly.
So, while pew pewing health at your friends may well be one way a healer class may be able to be built, it won't be the only way.
GW2 tackled this problem by having all healing abilities be big aoe spells that were very easy to aim. Unfortunately the result of this is that in raids the general strategy is to stack up as much as possible and only spread out for specific boss mechanics that require you to, which to me kinda defeats the point in having an action combat system.
@unknownsystemerror I'm curious, why do you think that having the tanks in the front and the healers in the back is a bad thing in group content?
If I want to be in the thick of it, I'll be a tank or a melee DPS, if I want to be back a bit, I'll be a ranged DPS or a healer.
Where is the issue in that? We have options, those options work well, we know what those options are, why change it?
We've seen tab healing in Alpha 0, and we know you can choose up to 75% tab abilities if you want them.
Augments have the potential to create a pretty drastic playstyle change, so I could certainly see something like the cleric/cleric, or cleric/mage fitting a playstyle that would be more in line with the usual healer class we see a most games.
Then on the other hand with augments from the fighter/tank/maybe even ranger you start to see healers that fit into this more “unconventional” style of being all up in the action through things like radial heals, and maybe things like “whenever you take damage, heal allies around you for X amount, Based on the damage taken or mitigated or etc.”
I know this aims to be a trinity focused game, but I am certainly not against the idea of different teams comps that we may see such as being able to run a tank/healer or healer/tank with a bard for off heals and buffs, or a fighter with the ability to off tank.
I also don’t consider this exactly a new concept. Chanters in Aion could heal a decent amount of content and primarily operated in the thick of it, with possibly moving to the back line if the damage output started to get too heavy.
Revelation online had the ability to play in action combat(soft targeting), and even though I didn’t like it(since it was all or nothing), I knew quite a few healers that swore by the action combat version. ESO has action combat healing, and ESO even has some healing builds for some content that can certainly be played at medium/close range, probably a lot of builds if you aren’t doing cutting edge content.
I feel like the major benefit to healing being a back line role comes from the ability to see everything that’s going on easier. So I do agree that if action combat locks you into a more frontal field of view some people may have issues but that kind of turns into learning to play your class the way you chose to augment your class, than a straight up design issue.
Also with no armor restrictions, if you’re playing an up close and personal healer in light armor I also don’t feel like that is the games problem, that would be people being so entrenched in their ideas of what a healer should that they refuse to adapt.
Playing a cleric with mage augments? Sure slap on that light armor because your goal is to never get hit. Playing a cleric with tank augments that cause your heals to be more melee range focused? Should probably wear some medium/chain/plate so you don’t die to adds/AoEs. But all the plate I have gathered just gives +resistance/health!, how will I ever have the mana to heal? Time to get a crafting friend to make you some plate with mp5 or learn how to make it yourself.
They definitely have options to make all of this work in their broad vision they have given us, and they have some other games that can be used as jumping off points to make it a reality, it’s just making sure throughout the entire testing phases people give thorough feedback to make sure their vision is being achieved to its fullest potential.
Not that it's ever stopped me, but I'm going a little off topic here.
One of the best things Ashes will do is move the group size from 5/6 up to 8.
This means a standard group with 1 tank and 1 healer will go from allowing a group with 3 others up to allowing a group with 6 others.
How much of a difference this will make is anyones guess, but it's a difference in this game that I think is one of the most important.
WoW did something similar with the melee mistweaver in WoD, but later scrapped it sadly.
"fistweaving" still exists in WoW, but it's very situational and most Monk players don't bother with it.
@unknownsystemerror I think that no matter what you do there will always be less players wanting to heal than dps. It's not even so much about the mechanics or healing either, but more the attitudes involved. Healing is very much a thankless role. You do your utmost to help your team and keep the idiots alive, yet still get blamed by ignorant fools whenever they die due to their own stupid mistakes. Putting healers into melee range isn't going to change that.
With regards to making healing and tanking more interesting, most games do this by putting some damage into the class kit. The problem with this is that more often than not it turns the class into a dps class that happens to tank or heal on the side, rather than a dedicated healer or tank. For example, let's look at one of the proposed Cleric abilities for Ashes:
Stolen Blessing - Drop a totem to damage enemies within range and provide that damage done as heals to your allies in range.
Now depending on the numbers and how the fights play out, it's entirely possible that you could keep your party topped off with that ability whilst dealing damage. If that's the case then you can pretty much just do a bog standard dps rotation and let your abilities passively heal your allies at the same time. At that point I would question why you had a dedicated healing class in the first place.
Tanks in a lot of modern mmorpgs work in a similar fashion, acting effectively as dps classes that just happen to be tankier and have threat generation on their abilities. Back in the old days of WoW (pre-Wrath) keeping threat was a skill. You couldn't just spam any ability you like and magically hold aggro no problem. Instead you had to pick your skills and targets carefully to ensure you kept aggro. It was a completely different playstyle to the dps classes.
Going back to healing, if they are going to add dps abilities to the healing classes there should be some restrictions on it. Players should have to choose whether the ability they cast is going to heal or dps. There are lots of different ways you can do this, from simply splitting up the dps and healing abilities but giving them a shared cooldown, to stance-swapping mechanics or combo skills that activate certain effects.
No matter what though you have to make players choose between healing or dpsing rather than letting them do both at the same time.
Banish - Teleport the target away from the caster (Rank 2 reduce hate and clear target, Rank 3 snare enemies that are banished)
Divine Form (Focus ability)- increase healing and damage, apply a healing aoe hot around you, pulse aoe heal and damage around the caster (Rank 2 reduce hate and clear target, Rank 3 increase effectiveness of heals in form)
Life Bolt - deal damage based on missing health (Rank 2 add aoe, Rank 3 slow enemies hit)
Lifes Blance - Balance HP of all party members
Lifeline - Chain heal to friendly targets (Rank 2 deal damage to enemies around last target healed, Rank 3 heal and damage scale with amount of targets healed)
Proximity Chain Stun - chain enemies to a certain point, stun them if they leave the proximity
Righteous Blessing - Deliver a spot heal (Rank2 add hot, Rank 3 add dot on enemies )
All of these abilities most likely dont exist anymore, because they are from a pretty old build, but they show the general direction that IS may take the cleric.
If i am honest, all of them look amazing and i cant wait to see the current itteration of the cleric!
If all healing is AoE, that means Intrepid expect everyone to be taking damage. This says to me that they have little expectation of structured groups maintaining that structure.
Basically, they expect all groups to end up like the average pug.
I have doubts you’ve done much healing then. Anti-stack damage mechanics are a good thing, no fight should let someone parse like they’re on a target dummy if the point of it is to pose a challenge. If your group is required to soft stack to avoid overlapping damage, then you need AoE healing. Single target healing is boring and just whack-a-mole, only really useful for use on the tanks and off-tanks when you know they’re about to take heavy damage. Untargeted healing requires group coordination and good positioning.
Edit: And if you don’t expect there to be any ambient damage, why bring a healer in the first place?
Other than caster DPS, healing is what I have done the most in groups and raids. I've done a fair amount of tanking, I've done a shitload of DPS, but I've done a good amount of healing.
Since I've been raiding in MMO's since the very early 2000's, that is a lot of healing experience.
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I never said AoE healing is bad, I said if all healing is AoE healing it is bad.
These are very different statements.
If there is enough healing being thrown around to keep a tank alive, and that healing is all AoE, that means every other player within range of that healing has literally no fear of being killed unless they take a single hit that is big enough to kill them in one hit.
When playing a caster DPS, the size of the individual heals needed to keep the tank alive in almost every game I've played are bigger than my entire HP pool. If the tank is taking damage, and those heals are being thrown around, what is there for me to worry about?
If all healing is AoE healing, that means mob AoE's are suddenly a worthless mechanic to add, as the healer need do nothing different at all. Rather than having to shift focus from keeping the tank up or performing the other tasks that healers do in some MMO's in order to cast a group/AoE heal, they simply need only carry on doing what they are doing, knowing that the heals they are casting for the tank will take care of that AoE damage.
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I've never played a game where healers have no abilities other than heals.
If you are a healer in a group or raid and only cast healing abilities, you are a shit healer. If you have a debuff, you should be using it. If you have a buff, you should be using it. If you have a damaging ability, you should be using it. If you are doing all of that and still feel like you are playing whack-a-mole, complain to the developers of the shit game you must be playing.
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This is an odd question, the answer is obviously to keep the tank up.
Healing/buffing/supporting will hopefully indeed be skillbased and will make orginaized small groups worth the efforts to do so..
Main reason why i dont put money yet into this game.. because nothing is known
In all the other mmorpgs I have raided in, there is a healthy amount of unavoidable raid damage and mechanics to force the players to change formation. This helps keep the gameplay varied and the players engaged instead of just standing there spamming their rotation over and over without having to react to anything that's happening.
Without knowing hit points, damage numbers, resistances and dodge mechanics it isnt clear how effective the Cleric will be or even if Cleric/Cleric would be required. Because of the plan to allow two classes to merge I believe Clerics wont just be a heal bot but will be a much more fluid experience. Some Clerics can self heal and some Clerics cant from what I've read. I believe Cleric/Cleric can self heal.
If the healer can heal others but not themselves then AoE damage stacked would require higher skill and sharp focus. I dont particularly like games where the healer is impervious and able to keep groups up with minimal effort (WoW Paladin) yet when in pvp and facing stacked AoEs the Healer must be able to counter either with shields or AoE heals.
If all heals are AoE then this reduces skill required to heal and makes the Cleric a heal bot which Steven stated he wanted to avoid.
This is why I stated there isnt a perfect healer class because it is important to give players and challenges the opportunity to kill a healer much like everyone else in the game.
Furthermore if the heals are HoTs and not burst for AoE then again this is like DCUO. A Healer shouldn't need more than one or two burst heals. Healers should have limited damage abilities too. When cooldowns come in to play it will be easier to balance the class because on paper it's all theory.
Some Clerics might have life leeches to match Templars, some Clerics will have teleport like Sorcerers. The complexity of Ashes of Creation is what attracted me. There wont be a cookie cutter healer I think and certainly a cleric without a secondary class shouldn't match cleric/cleric or cleric/rogue or whatever your fancy is.
In DCUO most heals were AoE because everyone was hit by aoe spells constantly. AoE even stacked to one shot people. It is all dependant on so many factors and I dont want to create The Indomitable Wall of Text lol.
Thats actually not the case... i dont know when you played GW2, but most if not all boss fights have damage auras nowadays. Thats why raids all stack in one position with a scourge necromancer. He can shield the whole raid and mass rezz everyone around him. A standard raid composition in gw2 is 2 chrono mesmer tanks, 1 scourge necro, 1 druid, 1 condi bannerslave, and 5 extra dps. If the necro is good enough (or has enough gear) you can switch out the druid for dps.
In the game I've played the most, it is fairly normal for the tank to take 10 times more damage than the rest of the raid combined when looking at zone wide figures. This is why we call tanks meat shields.
That's not to say the rest of the raid don't take damage, every healer in that game has at least 2 AoE heals, and on raids they do get used a lot - just not as much as single target heals to keep the tank alive. The AoE heals need to be kept ready to cast in a lot of fights to heal the healers group back up after AoEs (most AoE heals only healed people in your group, as opposed to people in your raid - if you needed to heal someone in your raid but not in your group you had to use a single target heal).
I had the same issue with GW2 when I played it last - which was not long after launch.
I never saw the point in the early raids in that game, they were all so boring. That said, initial content in MMO's is rarely the best content the game will have - and I have no doubt that game has better raids now (not that this would get me to play it, as it is still a game with class mechanics designed to fit a UI).
The raids in GW2 (early and current) are the kind of content I expect in Ashes for world events and such - it is not what I expect (or would accept) as content for an organized raid guild to tackle.
The fact remains that a good raid group will minimise damage beyond the tanks while a bad raid group will die rapidly. This separates the wheat from the chaff and in such circumstances the better healers will prevail. While I have played in mmos as tank, healer and dps, when one isnt required I wouldn't play the role.
To summarise guild wars 2 is an exception and not the rule. It is also intellectual property in it's own right and I doubt Steven would invest in his own game just to copy someone else.
You can fear for the healing and claim healers aren't required but you aren't basing it on ashes of creation, you are basing it off another game entirely.
I think the fact we can make 16 combinations of Healer in Ashes of Creation means at some point one of those 16 variations will be required if not more than 1 variation.
In my own experience I hate single target heals because it forces me to leave the enemy target. It is a much more satisfying experience to move, fight and heal in flow and sequence than having to select a target every other attack.
That's exactly my point. In GW2 as long as you have the right teamcomp you can pretty much negate all the unavoidable damage. The Necro does a standard dps rotation which passively shields the entire raid, and the Druids do a standard rotation to maximise their buff time which passively heals any damage the raid takes. If you took out the incoming raid damage from the fight nothing would change. The players wouldn't need to change anything about their rotations at all.
I'm just watching through some videos of the Cardinal Sabir (released June 11 2019) and yeah, the unavoidable raid damage is completely negligible, easily healed through with standard Druid rotations.
Hell, this group isn't even using a Necro so doesn't have access to that raid-wide shield and are still able to kill it. Aside from a couple of people who got downed by 1-shot mechanics, the rest didn't drop below 50% health throughout the entire fight.
That's why you can also do shit like this:
Now bare in mind that gear is standardised in GW2. Once you get full ascended gear (which most players get before ever stepping foot into a raid), your character doesn't get any stronger. It's not like in WoW where you eventually become strong enough to 2-shot a raid boss. They even hit the "enrage" timer on this boss at 20% and have it enraged for the last 3 minutes of the fight.
So yeah, incoming raid damage in GW2 is negligible in my opinion.
This is why I left guild wars 2 and many other MMOs because the toughest pve content in the game should be a challenge. WoW created raid finder and all the WoW clones copied.
It is not clear yet what the raids in ashes of creation are like but it is almost impossible to say that they will remain as born throughout the lifespan.
Such is the bane of the hardcore and why you shouldn't judge an unreleased game with a game that has been out for years unless it is another WoW clone. Shalom.
It's not even about difficulty, but mechanics and playstyle. It's not even about gear either. As I said before pretty much everyone has full ascended gear before stepping into a raid and there is nothing beyond that to increase your character's strength.
One of the reasons why I like playing healing and support classes in mmorpgs is because they offer a different playstyle to the tanks and dps, but in GW2 this isn't the case. What's the difference in playstyle between a tank and a dps in GW2? Nothing. What's the difference between a dps and a healer in GW2? Nothing.