Compiled: Wishes of Siege Healers

I noticed none of the healers came to the forums to voice their concerns on the forums, so I wanted to echo what they said after the latest siege and will continue to use this very thread.

1) When they were stuck in tab, they had no way to tab over and heal people in their own group directly.

2) They also had no way to track the health of people that they were standing on top of.

3) The UI is a bit minimal for healers and lacks indicators to whos in the group and raid on the ground (XY axis), when your character is moving around, fighting etc.

To reiterate, I will continue to use this thread to compile the concerns of healers and their experiences in siege.

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Comments

Wandering Mist

I feel a lot of those problems will be solved when the UI is more than just place-holder. The only thing I would love to see is mouse-over healing as an option.

Solvryn

5) F2-F8 for targeting party members
And F1 for self

Solvryn

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I feel a lot of those problems will be solved when the UI is more than just place-holder. The only thing I would love to see is mouse-over healing as an option.

I would really like to see the UI and mouse over too, Intrepid will do the best job of it. I liked TERAs healing system tho.

Azherae

Oh don't worry, we complain. Technically the reason you might not see it as much is that we don't want to complain too much on something that has an intended fix.

The F keys for example are already marked as being in the keybindings, but they don't work yet for me. If they're working for anyone else, though, hey, let me know, since that means SongRune and I need to make a bug report rather than 'assuming it just isn't fully implemented yet and giving them time to fix it'.

Solvryn

Azherae wrote: »

Oh don't worry, we complain. Technically the reason you might not see it as much is that we don't want to complain too much on something that has an intended fix.

The F keys for example are already marked as being in the keybindings, but they don't work yet for me. If they're working for anyone else, though, hey, let me know, since that means SongRune and I need to make a bug report rather than 'assuming it just isn't fully implemented yet and giving them time to fix it'.

Will find out

Saedu

I think most of these will come with time, but here is my list:

1) mouseover healing (most important change and gamebreaking for me if not done). The player moused over should be prioritized to recieve the heal, even if another player or enemy is currently tab targeted.
2) ability to reposition and resize the raid frames (by resize not only the size of each players unit frame, but how many show up in each column before the next column starts)
3) ability to use raid frame instead of party frame when just in a party.
4) raid frames color coded by class
5) indicators for when people have debuffs. Color coded by type of debuff. Prioritize displaying debuffs that I can dispell and debuffs that cause major damage. I assume healers will have dispell abilities in the future of course. Even if we don't, this is helpful to know who may need extra healing.
6) a small number to indicate how many enemies are targeting each player.
7) range/LOS indicators in raid frames (heavy fade out people who are out of range. If in range, but out of LOS then perhaps a lesser degree of fading out?). An audio cue of a failed heal appempt when trying to heal someone out of range/ or LOS is a helpful backup as well (i.e. don't just cast the heal on self if the mouseover or tabbed target was out of range)
8) Ability to sort raid frames by group or role.
9) Ability to toggle pets on/off in raid frames.
10) ability to toggle on/off health/mana/casting bars directly over players heads, with priority for displaying those who have taken damage. (This helps primarily when healing those not in the group/raid.)

It's not realistic for a healer to visually keep track of everything going on in the battlefield, this is why indicators within the raid frames are so critical to successfully healing. These various indicators are all about giving the healer the necessary data so they can make split second decisions and will reward more those raids with the healers who are best at doing this. Fewer indicators just means less informed decisions so the outcome is impacted more by luck than skill.

tautau

The list that @Saedu presents would be very useful for healers (like me) and I commend him/her for putting it together so well.

However, it begs the question of how much information the game should provide. Just like AoC is not going to provide dps meters (good call!), all of this information seems to be the healer's equivalent. Since the game is taking the route of not providing vast amounts of information, rather letting the players figure out what they can in the game world, I would rather have to do without all this information and heal by the seat of my pants.

I think that less information means that the outcome is more influenced by skill, not less influenced.

Saedu

I wouldn't equate this to dps meters at all. there are actually healing/dispell meters that are the more proper equivalent. Also, the desire to exclude dps meters is due to the perceived concern that it will cause toxicity (which I disagree with based on what I've observed over many games... toxicity is more about the player's nature, particularly when losing, not about the tools they have). Everything I recommended benefits all players of the game and actually could reduce anger within a group as the healers can better do their job.

The reality with healing is that it is FAR more difficult to do than dps or tanking. Without these tools it becomes more luck based than skill based. In PvE DPS just need to keep track of the mechanics of the fight and do their rotation. Healers need to keep track of the mechanics as well as the damage patterns and what everyone else is doing, the tank CD, and their healing CDs. If you've ever been a competitive raider you will see that it seems like the heals are taking the longest to figure out the fight while the tanks are the quickest. If that's all good they usually have a minor dps rotation to use as well. In pvp Healers tend to be the primary targets so the pressure of everything going on is even higher.

I've done all three roles quite extensively in competitive pve and pvp... Healers need these sorts of things for the best gameplay experience. Without them either the healers need to be overpoweredly buffed or encounters nerfed to compensate for the decrease in skill/increase in luck.

Healing is generally more of a reactive gameplay than dps and having the info to know what needs to be reacted to is critical to making the split second decisions. This is especially true in pvp where things are less scripted. This isn't combat trackers.. this is real time indicators of what is happening to the group that cannot realistically be seen just by looking around.

What I've recommended doesn't automatically make players good healers. It gives them the tools so that with experience and developing skill they have the ability to do their role effectively. It simlply reduces random luck.

Solvryn

Played the Cleric.. from a skill feel stand point I think Castigation, Judgement, and Divine Censure should be skill shot, not hit scan etc.

Devotion - definitely should be lock on/mouse/reticle hit-scan it's definitely fidgety when someone runs outside the reticle

Divine Light could be a front cone as a burst heal.

Regeneration - lock-on hit scan still harder to land the ability soon as a player steps outside the reticle.

Hallowed Ground is perfect

and Radiant Burst just needs clearer visual effects

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