Hearken! Healers, do you weary of healing?

pyreal

I fear that Healers won't be doing much healing...

I'm primarily interested in the healer class, High Priest, but right now my hopes aren't that high that this 'healer class' will be much of a healer.

What I've seen so far is that they are a run-of-the-mill dps class- with primarily 'dark' dmg skills- and a few heals.

Someone who likes to play a healer is interested in bolstering their party, not necessarily engaging the mob, and for that reason I feel that a Healer's job, while in a party, should be healing, not dps.

If an appropriately skilled party undertakes an appropriate challenge, and the healer is not required to be primarily engaged in their job of healing, the Devs have failed to make the healer class fun.

Healer having fun = healing!

I'm not suggesting that Healers be defenseless mutton, but rather once they are engaged in Group content, their contribution should be firmly within their class role = Healing!


Am I alone in the position that Healers should be Healing, not rocking as off-dps?

Dygz

Ashes Clerics are what we would expect from D&D and Pathfinder - which makes sense because Ashes is based on Steven's Pathfinder homebrew game.

A High Priest will be able to focus on adding augments from the Life School to their Active Skills.
Passive Skills will allow the High Priest to maximize Healing.
And there may be Healing augments from Social Orgs and Religions. There could also be some Healing augments from Racial augments.

Steven doesn't want Clerics to just stand in the back of the party and Heal.
But, you could probably craft a build that excels at just that if that's what you want to do.

Azherae

pyreal wrote: »

I fear that Healers won't be doing much healing...

I'm primarily interested in the healer class, High Priest, but right now my hopes aren't that high that this 'healer class' will be much of a healer.

What I've seen so far is that they are a run-of-the-mill dps class- with primarily 'dark' dmg skills- and a few heals.

Someone who likes to play a healer is interested in bolstering their party, not necessarily engaging the mob, and for that reason I feel that a Healer's job, while in a party, should be healing, not dps.

If an appropriately skilled party undertakes an appropriate challenge, and the healer is not required to be primarily engaged in their job of healing, the Devs have failed to make the healer class fun.

Healer having fun = healing!

I'm not suggesting that Healers be defenseless mutton, but rather once they are engaged in Group content, their contribution should be firmly within their class role = Healing!


Am I alone in the position that Healers should be Healing, not rocking as off-dps?

I actually don't know what you mean by this, and since you added more stuff in this thread.

Of course I want to engage the mob. Why wouldn't I want that? Why shouldn't I DPS while healing?

What is 'a few' heals? How many heals do you want?

If other classes are having fun, chances are I don't need to be throwing out a heal every time I finish casting the last one. If Tanks are good, 80% of my healing goes to them, and Tanks are mitigation so there's no way that relies on 'me healing every moment'.

You have a status that implies you could play the Alpha, I think, but I don't know what you mean by 'what you've seen so far', either.

Atama

I like the idea that nobody has to be a "healbot" in this game.

wherediditrun

Atama wrote: »

I like the idea that nobody has to be a "healbot" in this game.

Healbot? that sounds a bit sad.
Healers role is keeping party alive. Healers generally have the pleasure to be making most decisions in regards to engagement mechanics as they deal with player mistakes which bottleneck at survivability. And people mistakes warries from specific environment mechanics to brain fart stumbles / self sabotage.

If you want to play an engaging spec / class for the sake of that class being interesting to play, then healer is where it's generally at. When tank. And when dps.. which are generally bot like rotation type of deal, the whole "dynamic" part coming not from class spec but from raid / environmental gimmicks which apply to all.

I think it's perfectly valid to be concerned that healers might be turned to be about as unengaging / monotonous as a DPS spec.

Dygz

Healbot is as unengaging and monotonous as a DPS spec, so...
That is subjective.

mfckingjoker

I agree that healers should only heal and there should be no dps skills at all, just few debuffs maybe.
It's just a different approach that ashes has that I'm willing to check out
I love healing btw I will most likely main a high priest.

truelyyy

I wouldn’t worry, the alpha may have given you a skewed perspective, their group role will be mainly healing

Xerheart

Since we have yet to see the classes fully fleshed out, I wouldn't be so quick to worry. From what I gather, your desire is to be spending your time focusing on healing and buffing allies while you interact with the content and only maybe dps if extreme low damage phases, etc. This might be still possible, even with these dps spells, but you might not encounter that playstyle until you hit larger raid content towards the end game. Of course, I am being speculative again, but usually early levels are not indicative of end game healer content, as they need to give healers the tools to level solo if they wish to. Which would mean giving more dps oriented spells earlier on. Healers tend to also dps in lower grouped sized content as well vs. large group content.

Unless I have missed something else that has been said on this topic, I think it is too early to tell.

daveywavey

If your healer can add to your group damage output while healing the party, that can only be a good thing. If they can debuff an enemy to help increase the group damage output while healing the party, that can only be a good thing. Primary role is to keep everybody alive, for sure, but that's not all they should be able to do.