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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.
Off heal?
Nefficles
Member, Alpha Two
With the recent AMA, Steven said they were going in a balancing direction of limiting the archetype choices for healing and tanking. However, they did state they were pursuing an "off-tank" build for some classes.
Has it been confirmed that there will be "off-heal" builds as well?
Has it been confirmed that there will be "off-heal" builds as well?
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Here’s the wiki link:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Archetypes#Bard
Hopefully, this will be covered in the upcoming Bard reveal.
Ahh after reading this, it sounds like they aren't going with an off-heal type style of combat. The bard fills it's own space of amplifying the party and not healing them.
I was hoping for a class that is partially amplification with like...two backup heal spells or something that are more focused on assisting the main healer during overwhelming times. I guess time will tell!
There's always the chance that the Bard/Cleric, at least, might have some way of using their Augments to achieve this.
The only 'restrictive' thing they've told us it that you will 'always' want a Cleric for main healing serious group content, but it remains to be seen if that means Bard/Cleric cannot offer any form of targeted healing to others at all.
So far, though, Heal-Over-Time is the most that I reasonably expect.
get 2 clerics in your party ;3
@Depraved That makes me want to know if there's a DPS spec for clerics that can rival a main DPS 🤣
That is when things get interesting in a boss fight for the raid. The boss is down to less than 1% health, but the main tanks and healers are down as well. The off-tanks and off-healers have popped their cooldowns and hope the boss goes before their abilities wear off.
Some of the best raid fights end like that, with the boss going down at the last second.
While I agree with comments above that the Bard is likely to have healing abilities that will be useful for specific encounters, and can probably really step into a legit off-heal role with a Cleric secondary, I really think Summoner is most likely to be the best off-heal.
From the wiki:
"Summoners can shift their roles easily to fill gaps in a group's composition based on the role of the summon they are utilizing coupled with their choice of secondary archetype, which influences the role the summons perform best at.[197][18]"
"Q: Will Summoners want to build different stats when playing as either a DPS, healer, or tank role?
A: Yes. It is important that Summoners understand the role they're trying to hybridize into, as that decision might influence the types of stats they want to spec for.[198] – Steven Sharif"
Also, I'm hyped AF for A2!
I'm so hyped for A2! My PC is alllll ready for it.
well, steven said that clerics will have a dps spec (I suppose bards too). you will still be a main healer, that can do some damage. not sure if it will rival a pure dps or maybe a dps/mage. but I'm sure more pvp oriented players will most likely have 2 healers in their party, and those healers wont be damage oriented
(Apologies in advance for using WoW comparisons.)
Though, from a reasonable guess, some of the top healing classes with be Scryer (Cleric/Bard), which will probably be like a Discipline Priest from WoW, with good healing and buff/protections. A High Priest (Cleric/Cleric), very powerful heals of various types. And Shaman (Cleric/Summon, the flip side for the Necromancer) which will probably have some interesting type heals, I would guess chain heals and heal over time spells.
Though, with this meaning classes, I hope to see some damage style healing. Where by the more the class does in damage, this allow the class to offer both passive healing and active healing spells.
A caster version of this would likely be a Shadow Priest from WoW. An example of a melee version would be a Shaman from Age of Conan.
In addition, I hope some of the tanks have the raw passive skill, seen on a few times, where the more damage the tank does, the more passive healing the party receives.
I.E. Cleric/Tank would be beefy and able to heal other party members. Tank/Cleric, however, will likely only have the ability to regenerate *themselves*. We'll still have to see how it all fleshes out, at this point in development.
The question was asked and Steven gave us the example of the Tank/Cleric being able to self-Heal.
Heavily implied that you are correct that x/Clerics can't Heal others, but not completely ruled out... I think.
He did specificly mention bards as a form of off healer. I think its more of a "top off" healer.
Ahh okay that would be similar to a class I used to play in Aion called Chanter. I really thought that was pretty cool back in the day