How many players should it take to kill a healer

Whats everyone's thoughts on this?, from previous experience I think many games miss the sweet spot with healers in PvP and make them either too easy to kill or damn close to impossible.

Watching A1 footage back, there are quite a few videos of clerics doing things like 7v1, this should never be allowed to happen in a MMO,

Personally I think healers should be able to withstand at least two other players attacking them, but I also believe that there should be out play potentials for people to burst down a healer with silences or cc.

It's definitely a tricky thing to balance, I'm interested to hear people's opinions

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Dolyem

Once balancing is focused on it wont be too big of an issue honestly. But seeing as balancing will be focused around 8 player parties, I would say to make them capable enough of sustaining themselves with either protections or heals against maybe 2 damage role players on their own if they are focusing on surviving? Then when you pair up a tank or even another support like bard you benefit from other protections and heals to keep up against 3 to 5 dps in a team fight. But thats just me spitballing. The other factors to consider are which classes they stand no chance against 1v1, the classes they outmatch drastically, and the ones they are evenly matched with.

Noaani

To me, healers should be able to be killed in 1v1 situations given the right class (a mana drain opponent, for example).

The trick to getting healers to work in group based PvP is to give others the ability to keep opponents from attacking them in the first place.

Tanks and CC keep healers out of the action, and in return healers keep tanks and CC topped up with health.

This puts the survivability of the entire group or raid as being a result of the effort and skill of the entire gropu or raid.

Apok

Usually prefer Healers to be squishy, in zerg fests like how NW works it's the AoE heals that keep the zerg going. almost every OPR (20v20) My play style for pvp is actually built around taking out healers by using gap closers and whatever speed increases I can find as a more tanky build.

for me this feels balanced out because usually in an MMO a tank can't just go head to head with DPS and can't pull agro like they would in PvE. Going after the good healers, the ones that are pocket healing the good players will usually peel off and gang up on me to protect their healer.

now there are times when a healer can hold their own when they have a bunch of people on them through self healing, but this is a trap people fall into cause those players are just getting kited around and it's not a smart position to find yourself in.

I don't know how to explain the math here but it's usually like if you only have a few healers and they keep a whole zerg alive, losing 1 person to distract or chase off 1 healer would be in your teams favor, but to have 7 people would not. chasing a healer around like that as a mob is just a failure on that team.

you don't have to kill the healer, just keep them from doing their job.

Laetitian

Noaani wrote: »

The trick to getting healers to work in group based PvP is to give others the ability to keep opponents from attacking them in the first place.

As a healer main, I used to have a low opinion of archer players and single-target warlocks because it felt like their damage was being soaked up by group shielding and regeneration, and their damage was near worthless against frontliners when there was a charge.

That was until my clan leader pointed out to me that good marksmen were responsible for keeping mages and healers zoned out of the charge, and good warlocks were responsible for keeping those marksmen busy so the healers could get something done. I was only noticing the bad ones, because the good ones were playing their own archer-v-warlock minigame without me.
Was a really fun lesson to learn, I've looked at pvp parties completely differently ever since, and I appreciate every game that manages to create those kinds of solid role dynamics.

Sylvanar

If healers can duel two dps classes at once to a standstill, arent they better suited to be tanks at that point? I doubt you would say the same thing about a tank being able to sustain taking damage from 2 dps classes at the same time in a duel and not die without some special combo.

The typical line up is "tanks > dps > heals" BECAUSE healers are squishy and not because they can outmatch 2 damage class players.

PS: My perspective of how 1 on 1 duel among different roles should play out...
- Dps vs Healer: DPS wins.
- Tank vs Dps: Tank should have clear advantage as it can mitigate damage and stuns/cc/etc
- Tank vs Healer: Inconclusive because both can negate damage some way or the other.

Laetitian

Sylvanar wrote: »

If healers can duel two dps classes at once to a standstill, arent they better suited to be tanks at that point? I doubt you would say the same thing about a tank being able to sustain taking damage from 2 dps classes at the same time in a duel and not die without some special combo.

The way healer tankiness gets balanced is that
1) having to defend themselves renders healers essentially useless to their team while they're under attack, and/or
2) their tankiness is limited in duration. Between 30 and 90 seconds tops of strong defence buffs mixed with heals, then they start to crumble, and/or
3) if you silence them or debuff them with an effect that disables receiving healing/shields, or manage to drain their mana, they just instantly topple over (unless their team protects them, at which point we're not really talking about the healer's tankiness anymore).

All of these are unlike the tankiness of a proper tank.

nanfoodle

Depends on the healer build. Even gear score and level. A pure PvP healer that's 100% speced into healing. Should take 2 people to kill such a healer. If the healer is 100% focused of keeping themselves alive. If they are balanced between healing and DPS spec. 1v1 to kill a healer.

Rawblin

Off the cuff; It should be a stalemate for a 1v1 Healer vs DPS.

Now if you get into the nitty gritty of things, there is a massive amount of variables that come into play. But I think with all things being equal, you want that stalemate as the ultimate goal. The damage a DPS can do should be the same as the healing a healer can do. The variables come in with CC/Mana(Or Class Resource)/Positioning/Etc. All of these things introduce the variable of player skill, which would determine whether the Healer or DPS won in said fight.

And that is just for a single target healer vs a single target dps. There's sooo many more things to consider when going into say teamfights with aoe healing, aoe damage, burst heals, burst damage, focus firing/healing. I'd never expect a fully group centric spec'd healer to survive a 1v1 with a single target gank spec'd rogue, for instance. But I'd also never expect an aoe spec'd mage to endanger a more single target focused healer.

Tons of variables. But again, I think the basis you should aim for is stalemate when looking at raw power. Then allow spec, playstyle choice, gear choice to alter things and keep that rock/paper/scissors dynamic going. And I feel like Intrepid has that as their goal. I doubt things are balanced that way in Alpha right now but I'm fine with that. Long road of tinkering with power levels ahead before the game is launched.

KingDDD

A dps should be capable of killing a healer 1vs1 but it should require well timed cc, interrupts, and burst windows. Conversely healers should be able to take on 1-3 dps (but not kill) with good resource management and cc.

Class comp should also play a role in this balancing act.

Ruerik

Just 1 person, however it should take clever use of stuns, interrupts, and baiting the healers big heals or mitigations.

A tank should be able to kill a healer too, though it would take longer. Tanks should have more disruption abilities. But I would expect tanks to focus on protecting allies by disrupting enemy dps players before going to disrupt a healer to help push kills.

In simpler terms, a player doing simple damaging rotations only, should never kill a healer.

It should be a team focused balance situation.

Frontliners focused on killing.
Midliners focused on supporting frontline damage to help get the kill, and overall team support since they have a larger field of vision than frontliners.
Backliners focused on support.

Dripyula

Hmmmm, I have two versions in my head.

= Version 1 =

The healer cannot be killed efficiently by a single player and while the healer can not only keep his own health afloat he can also heal others while being at it.
But he can't take his attacker down either. He can only survive against him.
In that case it should take only "1,5 dps players" to focus a healer down and they should do in 10 seconds at maximum, even less if more people focus on the healer.
All accounting for that this healer is also not healed by yet another healer that is allied with him.

= Version 2 =

The healer is likely to fall to a single player but has a high chance to take his attacker down before he himself goes down and while the healer fights it out with his assailant, the healer has no time to heal someone else.
But if the healer gets ignored by everyone, this allows that wound unmaking menace to do about TWO times the amount of healing than a single DPS can do in terms of damage in that time.

So attacking a healer is always priority, to keep the healer down to the "also just ONE other player" level instead of two in one.

Personally I prefer version 2.

Vyril

Applying pressure to the cleric should result in the rest of the party losing the sustain. The party will ultimately die since the healer is trying to keep themselves up, even if the DPS don't kill the healer.

I dont have a defined number of how much dps or player count it will need for this to be accomplished until we see all class kits, and test.

The real question will be. Do parties just run two clerics?

Chicago

Vyril wrote: »

Applying pressure to the cleric should result in the rest of the party losing the sustain. The party will ultimately die since the healer is trying to keep themselves up, even if the DPS don't kill the healer.

I dont have a defined number of how much dps or player count it will need for this to be accomplished until we see all class kits, and test.

The real question will be. Do parties just run two clerics?

It really depends on the situation I guess, if you are going out looking for PvP then yeah maybe you run to clerics, but most of the time I'm guessing it will be groups fighting over dungeon spots or grind spots and it might hinder the Rest of your gameplay to run 2 clerics

Otr

How many engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Diamaht

If it's just strait dps vs healing then it should take at least 2 or 3.

They need to be capable of doing their job vs sustained damage from multiple people or what is even the point?

1v1 should be possible when you are able to shut them down instead of out damaging them. Meaning cc, mana drain etc.

Someone heavily spec'd into cc should be able to heavily hinder a healer and slowly wear him down. Someone lightly spec d into cc should struggle to take a good healer 1v1.

Chicago

Diamaht wrote: »

If it's just strait dps vs healing then it should take at least 2 or 3.

They need to be capable of doing their job vs sustained damage from multiple people or what is even the point?

1v1 should be possible when you are able to shut them down instead of out damaging them. Meaning cc, mana drain etc.

Someone heavily spec'd into cc should be able to heavily hinder a healer and slowly wear him down. Someone lightly spec d into cc should struggle to take a good healer 1v1.

I agree, I think you should be able to kill a healer with cc if you play your class right, and 2-3 seems fine if their just zugging, the problem for me becomes when the healer can survive 2+ but also dps them down, making them sort of op like in the a1

Arya_Yeshe

Aszkalon

Chicago wrote: »

How many players should it take to kill a healer ?

Personally I think healers should be able to withstand at least two other players attacking them, but I also believe that there should be out play potentials for people to burst down a healer with silences or cc.

It's definitely a tricky thing to balance, I'm interested to hear people's opinions.

Thanks for this Topic.

In my humble Opinion, a Healer should already be hard pressed if any Class Combination with decent Damage is attacking him. One versus One.

A Healer should not just "go down inevitably" when being attacked by someone. He should be able to heal against it -> but have the own Hands full and run away and use Attacks, Spells, Damage-over-Time and whatever, to fight back.

Quite similar how it was in WoW at first.

But when a Healer is being attacked by "TWO" People -> that Healer should usually go down. Even if the Healer goes down somewhat slowly by healing against the Damage or so.

Because if not even "TWO" People - Damage Classes included - can down a single Healer -> then You will have immediately the same Situation like in WoW.

Around half the whole Community or above will play Healers in PvP. Why ? Because they are basically invincible when any single Healer is about as strong as Two Players of the same Gear-Level and same Level in general.

This could make PvP boring real quick in Situations where People can't avoid fighting "Healers", lol. Like People would need to have their "targeted Healer" INVINSIBLE for their Enemy Forces when being targeted/locked on themselves,

otherwise the Enemy Healers will know which "Healer" is targeted by their Enemies - and usually heal the Target up without fail - if there are not MASSIVE Damage Spikes on said Target.

I saw this in Worst of Warcraft over the Years happen in Battlegrounds. And there it is even worse - because You can't go anywhere near an Enemy Raidgroup without being immediately perma-stunned until you are dead,

while their "Healers" stand somewhat behind them and heal them up endlessly.

Diamaht

Chicago wrote: »

Diamaht wrote: »

If it's just strait dps vs healing then it should take at least 2 or 3.

They need to be capable of doing their job vs sustained damage from multiple people or what is even the point?

1v1 should be possible when you are able to shut them down instead of out damaging them. Meaning cc, mana drain etc.

Someone heavily spec'd into cc should be able to heavily hinder a healer and slowly wear him down. Someone lightly spec d into cc should struggle to take a good healer 1v1.

I agree, I think you should be able to kill a healer with cc if you play your class right, and 2-3 seems fine if their just zugging, the problem for me becomes when the healer can survive 2+ but also dps them down, making them sort of op like in the a1

Yeah, Shadow Priests in WoW used to be that way. It gets pretty ridiculous.

If you heavily spec damage, you give up a lot of your healing and vice versa.

It should come down to build, so people have agency.

Chicago

Aszkalon wrote: »

Chicago wrote: »

How many players should it take to kill a healer ?

Personally I think healers should be able to withstand at least two other players attacking them, but I also believe that there should be out play potentials for people to burst down a healer with silences or cc.

It's definitely a tricky thing to balance, I'm interested to hear people's opinions.

Thanks for this Topic.

In my humble Opinion, a Healer should already be hard pressed if any Class Combination with decent Damage is attacking him. One versus One.

A Healer should not just "go down inevitably" when being attacked by someone. He should be able to heal against it -> but have the own Hands full and run away and use Attacks, Spells, Damage-over-Time and whatever, to fight back.

Quite similar how it was in WoW at first.

But when a Healer is being attacked by "TWO" People -> that Healer should usually go down. Even if the Healer goes down somewhat slowly by healing against the Damage or so.

Because if not even "TWO" People - Damage Classes included - can down a single Healer -> then You will have immediately the same Situation like in WoW.

Around half the whole Community or above will play Healers in PvP. Why ? Because they are basically invincible when any single Healer is about as strong as Two Players of the same Gear-Level and same Level in general.

This could make PvP boring real quick in Situations where People can't avoid fighting "Healers", lol. Like People would need to have their "targeted Healer" INVINSIBLE for their Enemy Forces when being targeted/locked on themselves,

otherwise the Enemy Healers will know which "Healer" is targeted by their Enemies - and usually heal the Target up without fail - if there are not MASSIVE Damage Spikes on said Target.

I saw this in Worst of Warcraft over the Years happen in Battlegrounds. And there it is even worse - because You can't go anywhere near an Enemy Raidgroup without being immediately perma-stunned until you are dead,

while their "Healers" stand somewhat behind them and heal them up endlessly.

100% agree, and if not Killable by 1 dps, the healer should be extremely hindered in the fact that all their healing output is keeping themself alive and not their team, this will also make the healers choices on positioning have value, and fit the risk vs reward play style, if your team makes the healer out of position it should be felt by everyone

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