Concern about classes with no self heal

I have a concern about non-healing archetypes that have no self heal (like tank and mage in current alpha). Also, I am thinking of primary archetypes, before they get their second archetype, which they could always go secondary cleric if they need self heals.

If non-healing archetypes have self heals, it can make 1v1 or small group pvp battles much longer, boring, and frustrating. Also, archetypes would start to feel a bit same-y and healing archetypes would feel less important, and almost irrelevant to some extent.

But if they have no self heals, these archetypes would struggle at solo play. You can't party up with a cleric all the time, so I feel each archetype needs some sort of sustainability. As the game is now, they would need many potions (expensive), or wait after each combat for health to regen (boring).

As I don't actually have access to the Alpha-1, there may already be a solution that I am not aware of. But if this is an issue, I don't know what the solution here should be. I played a warrior in classic wow, and it was tough in the early levels. I had to bandage or eat food in between each fight, and it was extremely dull. But I am against every archetype having some sort of self heal, as this would lead to lack of class identity.

Any thought, opinions, or suggestions?

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Azherae

The regeneration between battles with your weapon sheathed, at this time, is something like 5% health every 3 seconds, or better. Open world is relatively safe in terms of keeping one's health up if you are aware of your surroundings.

The difficulty comes when you make a mistake and end up under attack after battle 1, since you cannot currently sheath your weapon consistently under that condition.

McShave

Azherae wrote: »

The regeneration between battles with your weapon sheathed, at this time, is something like 5% health every 3 seconds, or better. Open world is relatively safe in terms of keeping one's health up if you are aware of your surroundings.

You know, I did forget to consider this is an open world PvP game, so you always have to be careful of the area you're in. This sounds reasonable as a solution. Maybe there can be a food buff to increase this or something.

bloodprophet

Every class being DPS and having self heal is the main reason I despise Garbage Wars 2 as much as I do.
I usually play mage and there are ways to get around this. Even in classic WoW. I would rather have class identity and need to bandage or eat/drink every few battles then hack and slash through big groups of mobs as I smash my face over and over against the keyboard like BDO.

Dygz

Well, the game is balanced around 8-person groups with one of each Primary Archetype.
Tanks have Damage Mitigation, so should be fine. Mages should have high DPS which should compensate a bit for low health, but...

If you're really concerned about it, choose Passive skills, like Max Health. And choose armor that will maximize Damage Mitigation and Evasion.
And/or make some friends with characters who will heal you so that you frequently are able to at least duo with them.

In the Alpha, my Cleric typically duos with a Tank.

Azherae

In general, the only negative effect of 'having strong HP regen with weapon sheathed between battles' is that players have faster kill times in terms of clearing an area. But enemies in Ashes group up a lot, and areas seem to be pretty dangerous so far.

I'm not saying this is a solution or isn't one, but right now it does not seem like a pain point. I am a Cleric though, so all I can offer personally is that I don't heal using skills, between harder solo battles (because Cleric runs out of mana doing this instead, and then still has to stop to regenerate the Mana). My group's non-Cleric members seem to approach this by moving to safer areas on their path. Dungeons are harder to do this with.

George_Black

Many mmos had classes without self heal. There are cheap consumables like healing potions, campfire mechanisms, lifesteal(hp back on hit), selfbuffs or other sources.

I find selfhealing in all classes poor design.
I prefer it when it is a function locked for types like healers paladins summoners. Not archers fighters rogues etc etc....

And remember, if a game doesnt give selfhealing for all classes, it is only reasonable that the combat is created based on that fact.

It's crazy to take eso as an example, with all the self healing everyone has access to, remove all the selfhealing in order to simulate the AoC situation, and judge it as "not working".

Atama

Mage has a self-heal, when you put points into Drain Essence it regenerates both health and mana. It does it well enough that it really reduces downtime for a Mage. It's not an emergency heal or anything, but it's a lot better than nothing.

Cold 0ne FTB

Atama wrote: »

Mage has a self-heal, when you put points into Drain Essence it regenerates both health and mana. It does it well enough that it really reduces downtime for a Mage. It's not an emergency heal or anything, but it's a lot better than nothing.

This. Honestly I would be very surprised if tanks don't get one. Remember you are only see a fraction of combat and combat isn't even remotely close to done so there may be other things that compensate for this that we have no idea of yet.

Malapapas

This is were the dual-role aspect of the game should be impactful. If you go some form of tank/cleric, you should have a self heal but tank/tank should have better damage mitigation etc...This is what made GW1 interesting.

I am also hopeful that support options will be prominent at release as well. Maybe speccing into the Dual Role of Tank/Bard allows for a "shout" type build that gives buffs, with these buffs actually being impactful instead of a gimmick. Basically, reinforcing that the meta is not just holy trinity but also includes support, as it should.

Tyranthraxus

A possible (I dare say probable) solution may be potions. However, the Wiki is pretty bare in this regard, currently:

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Potions

As entertaining as I find the notion of "potion launchers", I don't know how practical these would be. As long as there was a fair-length cooldown on using Healing potions in combat, though, then we may not necessarily need each class to have a self-heal.

Tanks in many games often have some mechanic to convert damage to health-gain for a few seconds, and nearly all games give brief damage-mitigation or even straight up damage-evasion as defensive cooldowns, but we still don't know entirely a lot about the abilities-to-be.

At this time, it would appear that there will be a LOT of Clerics and Cleric/Other-Class combos for heals, in AoC.

tautau

If you need healing, make friends with healers. Party with them. Help them as they hunt and gather and quest. If you have a competent cleric with you, you are gold. If you don't, isn't it pretty much your own fault you die?

Sathrago

For the love of all that is good in the world, don't make hybrids the meta. Pure dps should deal more damage and or have more tools to kite or disorient enemies allowing for a meaningful solo player experience and hybrids should be decent at their main role and better than nothing with their secondary role. I dont want any of that world of warcraft tank everything, kill everything, heal everything crap.

Dygz

Any of the Primary Archetypes should be able to survive solo - without self-heal Active Skills.
(Cleric and Summoner will have some self-heals, of course. Possibly Bard also.)

But, expect there to be self-heal Racial, Religious, Social Org and Node augments as well as potions and scrolls.

Aerlana

in self heal for me i include life-steal skills.
And the real problem is not "self healing" but "being able to clean 100 mobs at the same rate"

Personally, the out of combat regen is fine. i did play mage i didn't feel a matter with "big break" like was needed in wow vanilla... which made it "more hardcore" but also "more boring'
I didnt take the life-mana steal skill also.

Don't think there will be problem to not have selfhealing in our character

Dygz

I think life-steal does not count as a self-heal if that steal isn't added to Health.
Currently, Drain Essence steals life and adds it to the Mage's Mana.

But, Mages have Passives for Max Health and Health Regen.

dewan58

Having played a ton of Dark Age of Camelot, I welcome this. There were very few dps classes that had heals, and when you got to a point where you could PvE solo without needing to rest a ton between pulls was awarding.

This also helps keep pvp more balanced. The game afterall will be balanced around group play, not solo play.

Dygz

Well, the Adventurer Archetypes are balanced for 8-person group play. True.

McShave

Dygz wrote: »

If you're really concerned about it, choose Passive skills, like Max Health. And choose armor that will maximize Damage Mitigation and Evasion.

I like the idea of passive skills to help survivability. +Health and +Health Regen sound like reasonable ways to go about this. This with food buffs, and you might not have to ever stop 👍

Atama

Dygz wrote: »

I think life-steal does not count as a self-heal if that steal isn't added to Health.
Currently, Drain Essence steals life and adds it to the Mage's Mana.

That is untrue. If you play a Mage and actually try it out, it heals your health. If you put 2 ranks in the skill, at least. You will see both blue and green numbers (mana and health), and see your health refill.

It is a self-heal currently in Alpha.

Dygz

Well, what I said is true AND what you said is true.
Rank 1 is not a self-heal because it only adds to Mana.
Rank 2 is a self-heal because it adds to Mana and Health.

Thanks for the clarification!!

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