I'm worried about healing!

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?

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Copperfield

i expect very depth groupplay in this game.. altho i might be getting dissapointed because of the combat they have in aoc..

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

LuckyAutobot

I think a group should contain a DPS fighter a tank and a cleric.

Wandering Mist

@noaani This is a problem that GW2 faces and it makes having a dedicated healer quite pointless. Unlike raid fights in WoW, Aion and FFXIV, in GW2 most of the incoming raid damage is completely avoidable, meaning if the players know what they are doing they can defeat the boss without a healer. to add to this every class has dodges to avoid taking damage and a self-heal. It's quite sad that the "healing" spec isn't actually taken for the heals but for the buffs it provides, buffs that are passively applied through a normal dps rotation. This results in a meta where raiding teamcomps are fixed in order to provide all the necessary buffs and the general strategy is "stay stacked next to the boss unless you need to avoid some kind of highly telegraphed attack".

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.

Songcaller

Granted we have little actual footage and few statements about healing to go by. Yet the Cleric in the earlier videos cleansed mist/fog to allow the group to progress. Then we had the skill bar which has since been removed. In DCUO we had AoE heals and the range was ridiculous but the heals were minimal compared to burst heals from a Paladin in WoW.

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.

Damokles

Wandering Mist wrote: »

@noaani This is a problem that GW2 faces and it makes having a dedicated healer quite pointless. Unlike raid fights in WoW, Aion and FFXIV, in GW2 most of the incoming raid damage is completely avoidable, meaning if the players know what they are doing they can defeat the boss without a healer. to add to this every class has dodges to avoid taking damage and a self-heal. It's quite sad that the "healing" spec isn't actually taken for the heals but for the buffs it provides, buffs that are passively applied through a normal dps rotation. This results in a meta where raiding teamcomps are fixed in order to provide all the necessary buffs and the general strategy is "stay stacked next to the boss unless you need to avoid some kind of highly telegraphed attack".

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.

Noaani

Wandering Mist wrote: »

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.

This is my experience on raids as well.

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.

Songcaller

If the raids in Ashes of Creation mimick, match or copy other raids from other games it will be short lived. While most raids do mean the tank takes most damage not all raids require a solo tank - some raids require tanks to share and cycle aggro. Ashes of Creation is meant to revolutionise the genre so I think it will be very bad if healers aren't required for the hardest pve content. I quit gw2 because of their systems. It was good to begin with.

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.

Wandering Mist

Damokles wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

@noaani This is a problem that GW2 faces and it makes having a dedicated healer quite pointless. Unlike raid fights in WoW, Aion and FFXIV, in GW2 most of the incoming raid damage is completely avoidable, meaning if the players know what they are doing they can defeat the boss without a healer. to add to this every class has dodges to avoid taking damage and a self-heal. It's quite sad that the "healing" spec isn't actually taken for the heals but for the buffs it provides, buffs that are passively applied through a normal dps rotation. This results in a meta where raiding teamcomps are fixed in order to provide all the necessary buffs and the general strategy is "stay stacked next to the boss unless you need to avoid some kind of highly telegraphed attack".

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.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMWKYUsCj9w

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc7a4Qwa8AM

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.

Songcaller

Arenanet have been killing Guild Wars 2 for years. At the start of a game the raid content is difficult then the first conquerors come, then people cant match the gear, then noobs want the raids nerfed, then the company fears for subs and lowers difficulty, then the cycle repeats.

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.

Wandering Mist

Neurath wrote: »

Arenanet have been killing Guild Wars 2 for years. At the start of a game the raid content is difficult then the first conquerors come, then people cant match the gear, then noobs want the raids nerfed, then the company fears for subs and lowers difficulty, then the cycle repeats.

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.

Caeryl

noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

To be fair, all currdntly "known" abilities of the cleric are aoe in some regard, or require you to hit the enemy.

This is one of the bigger red lights for this game for me, to be honest.

If all healing is AoE, that means Intrepid expect everyone to be taking damage. This says to me that they have little expectatuon of structured groups maintaining that structure.

Basically, they expect all geoups to end up like the average pug.

I have doubts you’ve done much healing then.

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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.

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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.

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Edit: And if you don’t expect there to be any ambient damage, why bring a healer in the first place?

I've broken your post in to four parts that I am going to address individually (This is easier than breaking it in to 4 quote boxes imo).

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.

Thinking all healing will be AoE based on one class’s playstyle is shortsighted at best. Obviously there will be single target abilities, likely aura-based, damage-dealt-based, and negation-based healing styles as well.

DPS should be taking non-ignorable damage regardless of group skill, otherwise there’s no need for a dedicated healer since a DPS with a buff rotation and one burst heal would suffice. Basically the difference between needing a Cleric and a Bard vs a Bard and a DPS class lies in how much ambient damage is present in a raid. A healer doesn’t negate the impact AoE damage, the damage demands a true healer be present.

The way you’ve framed healing is as a dps with buffs and a guaranteed burst heal, which is a flawed way to approach healing as a role. As a heal style sure, but that style shouldn’t be the perma-pick for every raid. Some should demand damage negation, others wide reaching AoE healing, others HoTs, maybe the starter raids push for just pockethealing the tank but that should be a minority of raids as it is very shallow experience.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Thinking all healing will be AoE based on one class’s playstyle is shortsighted at best. [/quote]
Oh, I agree, but it's all we have to go on right now.

I don't expect any class to have much resembling the ability list that is currently public by the time the game goes live, but those lists do give us a good idea of the intention for those classes.

The current cleric spell list has one spot heal and 5 abilities that function as AoE heals.

Again, this won't be how the game launches, but also again, this gives us an idea of what the developers are thinking.

The amount of damage a DPS needs to take in order for it to not be negligible when healers have this many AoE heals available to them is almost as much damage as the tank would take.

There absolutely should be AoE heals, as I said in my previous reply to you, but what we know of so far is FAR too heavy on AoE heals.

Caeryl wrote: »

The way you’ve framed healing is as a dps with buffs and a guaranteed burst heal, which is a flawed way to approach healing as a role.

You and I have had enough conversations on these forums for you to know that when I am talking about class design or raid design, I am talking from the perspective of EQ2.

In EQ2, there are 3 classes of healer, each with 2 subclasses.

Those three subclasses each have a specialty heal, with Clerics (Templars and Inquisitors) having a reactive heal that functions as a buff you cast on a target, and if that target takes damage, the buff will heal them a given amount automatically. Then there are Shamans (Defiler and Mystic) that have wards (functioning essentially as a second HP pool above the targets regular HP). The last healer type is the Druid (Fury and Warden) that have HoT's.

Each of the above class has one single target heal of their specialty variety, two single target regular heals, one AoE heal of their specialty variety and one regular AoE heal (and some healers also have situational heals, but they are unimportant here).

With exactly two AoE heals, this means that healers need to know wtf they are doing. If an AoE hits the group/raid and their AoE heals are down, there is a damn good chance the group/raid will wipe.

If that same healer has access to 5 AoE heals, there is never any concern.

I assume you can see where I am coming from, and why I consider this a red flag at present.

Caeryl wrote: »

Some should demand damage negation, others wide reaching AoE healing, others HoTs, maybe the starter raids push for just pockethealing the tank but that should be a minority of raids as it is very shallow experience.

Main tank healing (pockethealing to people that haven't played a game where a good main tank healer is the difference between world firsts and guilds breaking up) should be the most rewarding healing position in the raid.

A main tank healer in a good game should do more than just healing the main tank. There should be other things that need to be taken care of (cures, short duration buffs etc) that others are unable to take care of.

If anyone in the raid can cast cures and/or short duration buffs on anyone else in the raid, then that absolutely will make roles in raids like main tank healer far less interesting - which as I said is an issue to take up with the people that made the combat system. Ideally, things like that should need to be cast from within the group the target is in, not just from within the raid.

For healers that are not main tank healers, your primary duty should be assisting the main tank healers when (and ONLY when) there is a content based requirement to do so, next is keeping those assigned to you alive, and if neither of those need your immediate attention (which is honestly more than half the time in most raids) you should be doing everything you can to contribute what you can to the raid.

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If Ashes goes live with healers able to have 5+ AoE heals, and all heals/cures/buffs working equally on anyone in the raid, I can see raids of 40 taking 4 healers.

I don't want that, and I assume you don't either.

Glory

I know it's early and the mmo is set to have action/tab mixed. However, as someone who plays healer often, I do hope that most healing in the mmo is targeted. Action healing is not really my thing. I tried it in Wildstar also but the targeted healer was just far superior as a result of those critical heals not being missed.

Damokles

glory wrote: »

I know it's early and the mmo is set to have action/tab mixed. However, as someone who plays healer often, I do hope that most healing in the mmo is targeted. Action healing is not really my thing. I tried it in Wildstar also but the targeted healer was just far superior as a result of those critical heals not being missed.

You will be able to adjust the amount of tabtargetting and action combat up to a 75-25 adjustment either way.
And if the hybrid combat totally falls through, then we will get tab targetting.

Caeryl

Damokles wrote: »

glory wrote: »

I know it's early and the mmo is set to have action/tab mixed. However, as someone who plays healer often, I do hope that most healing in the mmo is targeted. Action healing is not really my thing. I tried it in Wildstar also but the targeted healer was just far superior as a result of those critical heals not being missed.

You will be able to adjust the amount of tabtargetting and action combat up to a 75-25 adjustment either way.
And if the hybrid combat totally falls through, then we will get tab targetting.

If hybrid combat falls through, a lot of the audience is going with it unfortunately. There’s not much way to exercise skill when everything is auto-aim, you just get zergs and bigger numbers wins

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

glory wrote: »

I know it's early and the mmo is set to have action/tab mixed. However, as someone who plays healer often, I do hope that most healing in the mmo is targeted. Action healing is not really my thing. I tried it in Wildstar also but the targeted healer was just far superior as a result of those critical heals not being missed.

You will be able to adjust the amount of tabtargetting and action combat up to a 75-25 adjustment either way.
And if the hybrid combat totally falls through, then we will get tab targetting.

If hybrid combat falls through, a lot of the audience is going with it unfortunately. There’s not much way to exercise skill when everything is auto-aim, you just get zergs and bigger numbers wins

A lot?

Probably not.

Some, for sure. But not a lot.

It's really easy to look at the niche you are a part of as being bigger than it is - and people wanting an action combat based persistent open world MMO are very much a niche.

Most people want a good game with enjoyable combat. If that is action - cool. If that is tab - cool. If that is both - cool.

If the game does move to tab only (which is unlikely), most players will only care about whetherthe game is good or not.

When everything is auto aim, the focus shifts to other things (a factor of tab target games you refuse to recognize). If there is enough variety among the different classes as to what that variety consists of (skill selection, rhythmic timing, positioning, mobility, even set rotation if a player wishes), then most players are not going to be concerned if aiming is not among the list of things they can build their class around.

Because that is all it is - one thing among many that a developer could build a class around.

Wandering Mist

The way you’ve framed healing is as a dps with buffs and a guaranteed burst heal, which is a flawed way to approach healing as a role. As a heal style sure, but that style shouldn’t be the perma-pick for every raid. Some should demand damage negation, others wide reaching AoE healing, others HoTs, maybe the starter raids push for just pockethealing the tank but that should be a minority of raids as it is very shallow experience.

@Caeryl

sidetracking a little bit here but I've personally never been a fan of "pocket healing" in raids, and I'm glad that that particular stigma has more-or-less disappeared from modern raiding. When I'm raiding I prefer to be part of a healing team responsible for the entire raid rather than having dedicated "tank healers" and "raid healers".

You touch on an issue that many mmorpgs face, which is giving healers something to do when the raid isn't taking noticeable damage. Vanilla WoW suffered from this problem a lot, where in raids healers would spend a large amount of time just auto-attacking with their wands because there was nothing to be healed. They couldn't even do a proper dps rotation in between healing because of mana restraints.

So, what do you do to keep healers engaged throughout the fight? There are a few options. The first is to increase the incoming raid damage so that the healers are forced to heal all the time. The problem with this is that most healing classes aren't designed to spam heals for 10 minutes straight without going oom, and if you allowed them to do that there wouldn't be a point in having mana in the first place.

The second option would be to allow players to dps in between bursts of healing. Modern WoW and FFXIV do this and in fact in the case of WoW mythic raids, the required damage output is so high that healers have to dps the boss as much as they can in order to win before the boss enrages and kills everyone.

The third option is to put in utility mechanics that healers must do in between bursts of healing, such as CC'ing adds or supplying buffs/debuffs.

The point is though that you can't expect healers to be spamming healing spells throughout an entire raid encounter, so you need to give them other stuff to do when they aren't healing.

Songcaller

Yes as I've said before I left because of the systems in Guild Wars 2.

The problems you describe are present in every Vertical Progression system. I've only seen it countered in Horizontal Progression systems. I mean I go along with Vertical Progression until I can no longer stomach it.

I've reviewed older footage of the Cleric in action and I find the footage lackluster. Its not due to gear but the animations and results themselves. The problem we have got is that it is old footage and I can't be sure of how much things have changed in Ashes of Creation. We haven't got Clerics in the BR until Castle Sieges and once Castle Sieges hit it will be easier to assess the Cleric (At least the High Priest ((Cleric/Cleric))).

There are differences between the classes in the old footage for Ashes of Creation but the ranges are really minimal and everyone seems to stack up on top of each other. I can't be certain if this is due to the classes or the people playing the classes. This will always be an issue when the skills for a heal are glyphs on the floor. There are also differences between Action Combat and Tab Combat due to the Hybrid system.

Because we are told what to test, when to test and how to test it isn't easy to test what we need to test or want to test.

In terms of the skills for Cleric on paper, they are good skills on paper. In terms of the weapon choice and the usage of the weapon (Staff) it is clumsy and ill-effective. Focus is gained by use of the staff though.

The issues I have can be mitigated by the fact that it is old footage. I mean I can't delve deep into class mechanics until I can play the classes.

In terms of actual healing the Cleric does have powerful healing/damage combinations yet we do not see targeted heals, just AoE heals. In Ashes of Creation I believe we can choose our own weapons so the Staff may not be such a limiting factor. Yet the combat (which MMOs are ridden with) appears to be either too fluid and light (BR) or too clumsy and all over the place (Old MMO footage).

In the old footage it is around 5 verses 5 i believe. I also believe the problems I can see and describe here will be magnified when even more players go against each other (Such as sieges). We've already lost levitation for the Mage due to overpowered mechanics. I imagine Cleric may also lose abilities or be modified in the same vein when more feedback is gleaned from tests.

I've resisted the urge to review the combat for years because of the fact everything changes across development. I'm not sure at what point we can say that we have a problem but it will most likely be in Alpha 1, Alpha 2, Beta 1 and Beta 2. I do hope for changes before main release.

The fact the staff is a melee weapon in Ashes of creation means the healer will always be in the thick of it with a staff. The fact the healer is stacked next to the tank means everyone else stacks closer behind. I wouldn't have designed the functions in this way, but I'm not the designer, I'm a tester/gamer. I'm hoping that because there are 16 variations of Healer in Ashes of Creation that each will play different. It should mean that the lackluster combat will disappear due to the variety of healers but I can't guarantee it.

There have been some stunning Heal/Damage classes like the Blood-Mage from Vanguard, or the Bear Shaman from Age of Conan, or Celestial from DCUO. None of those Healers used glyphs on the floor. Glyphs on the floor really do cause this chaotic combat. It looks and acts like playschool classes compared to the older polished classes but Cleric isn't polished yet.

It certainly looks ridiculous with everyone running all over the place to avoid AoEs (A natural disposition), yet because of the style of AoE (Heal and Damage combined) most people don't even sit and wait for heals. The whole thing looks like a charade and plays out like a clumsy, messy, clusterf*ck (Again in older footage/2017 footage). Divine Form then 'saves' everyone and kills the enemies and its like a get out of jail free card. It seems difficult to merge the standard skills with the ultimate skills and the results didn't inspire. Everything is subject to change though.

Edit: From my perspective it feels like each class was designed and built in isolation. While this might be true in other games it is more noticeable in Ashes of Creation old footage. There are also distinct differences between PvP and PvE functions, AoE glyphs are useful in PvE but not good for PvP. Ashes of Creation is PvX though so perhaps it has been designed for one role to fit them all. Like the ring of doom.

Caeryl

Wandering Mist wrote: »

The way you’ve framed healing is as a dps with buffs and a guaranteed burst heal, which is a flawed way to approach healing as a role. As a heal style sure, but that style shouldn’t be the perma-pick for every raid. Some should demand damage negation, others wide reaching AoE healing, others HoTs, maybe the starter raids push for just pockethealing the tank but that should be a minority of raids as it is very shallow experience.

@/Caeryl

sidetracking a little but here but I've personally never been a fan of "pocket healing" in raids, and I'm glad that that particular stigma has more-or-less disappeared from modern raiding. When I'm raiding I prefer to be part of a healing team responsible for the entire raid rather than having dedicated "tank healers" and "raid healers".

You touch on an issue that many mmorpgs face, which is giving healers something to do when the raid isn't taking noticeable damage. Vanilla WoW suffered from this problem a lot, where in raids healers would spend a large amount of time just auto-attacking with their wands because there was nothing to be healed. They couldn't even do a proper dps rotation in between healing because of mana restraints.

So, what do you do to keep healers engaged throughout the fight? There are a few options. The first is to increase the incoming raid damage so that the healers are forced to heal all the time. The problem with this is that most healing classes aren't designed to spam heals for 10 minutes straight without going oom, and if you allowed them to do that there wouldn't be a point in having mana in the first place.

The second option would be to allow players to dps in between bursts of healing. Modern WoW and FFXIV do this and in fact in the case of WoW mythic raids, the required damage output is so high that healers have to dps the boss as much as they can in order to win before the boss enrages and kills everyone.

The third option is to put in utility mechanics that healers must do in between bursts of healing, such as CC'ing adds or supplying buffs/debuffs.

The point is though that you can't expect healers to be spamming healing spells throughout an entire raid encounter, so you need to give them other stuff to do when they aren't healing.

Exactly. Pockethealing has always been lackluster and boring to put it lightly. I’ve only come as close to “pocket healing” in a vet trial with main focus on keeping our tank’s topped off and resources filled, but I was still buffing the group, holding the main boss’s aggro to avoid ramping splash damage popping the group, and debuffing spawned adds.

Healing can be so dynamic and rewarding (feels nice to get those “great healing” messages), but reducing it to “just heal tank and buff group” is so...pathetic. Put in some damage, make players feel a hit, and for the love of god don’t make every mechanic a oneshot, that’s how a healer feels extra useless.

Songcaller

Cleric has an ability to equalize team health and apply a heal over time to all affected. This skill is much appreciated and will be one of the best skills I will have access to across all healers. This doesn't mean the rest of the issues can be ignored but it is a light compared to so much darkness. If you want to buff people go cleric/bard. Individualizing your healer will be simple, getting a good base for a healer is not so simple.

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