Healers and Supports: What are you hoping to see in AoC?

Title pretty much says it all. I'm wondering what other healer/support players are looking for in Ashes in all aspects of the game.
Quick note: The vast majority of my experience healing comes from WoW. I've read stuff about other game's systems, but haven't played them personally.

What I'd like to see:
-Each class/augmentation to have its own unique niche/playstyle. From what I understand, the cleric is going to be the base healing class, and the bard the base support class. I'm hoping that when you augment your base class it changes the playstyle of it significantly. Just some basic examples: healing mainly through HoTs, specializing in AOE healing with weaker single target, healing through dealing damage, specializing in preventing damage with shields vs direct heals, etc.

-I don't want to feel like I'm a bad DPS class that occasionally heals. Please make it so I can spend the majority of my time healing, buffing/debuffing, CCing enemies, etc. I have no issues with playstyles that do mix in dealing damage with healing, but I don't want it to be the norm. To me this feels like a design choice to entice DPS players into healing/supporting at the cost of pure healing/support gameplay.

-Make healing "rotations" and spells interesting. I'd love to see spells that interact with each other in different ways. Casting heal A puts a buff on the target that increases healing from your other heals. Allies standing in your AOE healing have increased healing from your abilities, etc. There are probably a lot more interesting things that can be done, but these are just base ideas. Basically, I want to be thinking about the abilities I'm using and which ones I want to use next rather than mindlessly spamming 1 or 2 heals.

-On the topic of controls: I hope that for targeted heals I'm able mouseover heal, either through an option/toggle or a macro. Bonus points if I can bind these to my mouse buttons. Also, with action combat being in the game I'm really hoping that there aren't a lot of "aimed heals" with a reticle. Trying to aim a heal in a raid/PvP environment sounds terrible to me. I'd rather see more template style "action healing".

-For the UI: I'm hoping for customization for my party/raid frames. Coming from WoW there are a lot of raid/party frame addons that offer a high level of customization for stuff like postion, size, buffs/debuffs, incoming heals, etc. I want to be able to have as much information as possible so that I can make informed choices with my healing.

What do you folks think about all this? Agree/disagree? Any other points? I'd love to have discussions about this stuff!

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neuroguy

virtek wrote: »

For me, this post reminded me of thoughts on Bard, specifically.
I'd like my support class to feel like the major power is from the support abilities. They should spend 90% of their time taking supportive actions.

I was thinking of a multi-level casting solution. Something like the below:

Stage Set (maybe a stance change?) - Single power cast or lengthy ticking action

Opener (Optional) - Alters base single-target spell into AoE effect (could potentially be an additional "stance" choice?)

Performance - Choice between heal, damage, buff, debuff, crowd control ability to cast

Finale (Optional) - Activates AOE spread of ticking effect already cast

Multiple layers will provide a dynamic feeling to performances, optional components would add resource demands and flexibility to the end-product.
Maybe some abilities that spread and/or refresh other hot/dot effects applied by party members?

I like it

. Monster hunter world has a support weapon (hunting horn) where you play different notes which accumulate into a "song" that provides a buff. Different song, different buff. That could allow the flexibility in the "performance" you mention. I think it's a cool idea to have a modular process where in each stage you need to make choices with certain effects and you can't undo it until you finish this sequence and start a new one (similar to cooldowns). The one issue I see is that since the whole process may take a while, it fails to be time sensitive so you might just be going through the motions without any chance to interact with events or having to time particular things very much.

Wandering Mist

That just may be some difference in the era of WoW we are talking about. I only played vanilla and TBC and thus that's what I'm referring to. I didn't feel like there was much healing spell selection for the most part. The skill-cap of knowing what spell to use was very low & easy to achieve and knowing damage patterns was rarely ever actually relevant if memory serves.

@neuroguy Things have changed considerably for healers in WoW. You are right that back in vanilla and TBC healing pretty much consisted of "do I use my aoe heal or single target heal?" and that was it. Things have changed a lot since then and there is a lot more synergy in healing kits than there was before. Monk healers are particularly interesting for me, since they have spells that alter the functions of your other healing spells, meaning you have to think about the situation a bit more and decide which healing spell to alter.

https://www.wowdb.com/spells/116680-thunder-focus-tea

danada

neuroguy wrote: »

Fair points, but I think I have equally fair rebuttals ;D. I think perhaps the sharing of responsibilities may have been overstated. In general it is very much the responsibility of the healer to select the right heals. If the fight requires high mobility from your ranged dps, then maybe it's not a great idea to cast the heal that only ticks when the target is stationary on your ranged dps. But why shouldn't the party be expected to be mindful of a healer's healing mechanics? I think a lot is just based on convention and what people are used to. Tanks for example are used to having no autonomy on the threat generation of DPS classes (and DPS classes are expected to be mindful of the tank's role), and players have to be cognizant of their positioning to take advantage of totem buffs. I don't see any problem with asking players to be mindful of how to optimally take advantage of the healer's spells. It may feel confusing when people start the game and are familiarizing themselves with the classes but I'm sure totems and auras etc also had to be explained to players when WoW was first released and people just now take for granted that they understand how to optimally take advantage of the mechanics of other classes for their own benefit. And perhaps I overstated the importance of party/raid use of such spells... I don't think balancing should be done around optimal use of spells like the healing well I described but if you are pushing hard content and your healer might go oom, using the well optimally vs not may save the healer mana and give the party that much more chance of success.

Now in terms of the communication, I recognize that it can get very chaotic very fast if too much communication is demanded in combat but I mostly meant communication around the toolkit that the healer in particular is bringing. If I explain to my party before a fight "hey, this is how to maximize my healing effectiveness..." based on my augments and personal preference of spells to use for this fight, that would go a long way I think. Like I said, it allows class design to dictate strategy as much as boss mechanics. But I do get the fear of requiring too much communication on coms, I just think that's more of a content difficulty balance concern. If a healer can't heal a player because they don't know where they are there are still ways to figure it out without coms haha, so unless that player is in imminent danger of death it may not warrant verbal com in the moment but may earn that player a scolding between wipes :P.

Fair rebuttals ;D Like you, I think i might have overstated my opinions. As far as other roles historically having to deal with mechanics outside their own role I think for the most part they were fairly passive if that makes sense. DPS having to keep track of threat was just a matter of keeping an eye on your threat meter and adjusting your DPS if you're getting too high. As far as auras and totems go it's mainly a positional issue. Making sure that you're standing near the healer/totem is the same idea as standing in the good healing stuff and not standing in fire. Very simple concepts. My worry is that if you're asking DPS to have to think more about other role's mechanics they either just straight up won't, or their personal performance may suffer. As a support/healer I'm there to enable the other roles to do their job. If my actions take away from that I see that as a problem. Now, of course when you get to top tier min/max situations I think it's fair to expect people to play better and react to healers in a more active way. Though your points about playing around healer comp do sound really awesome, don't get me wrong. I just want to make sure that it isn't too detrimental to people doing their job.

Just a quick point I thought of that I wanted to bring up RE: raid frames. I understand that people don't like staring at raid frames instead of the fight, but at the same time trying to heal by name plates hovering above people's heads in a 40 man situation sounds worse imo. Raid frames help to organize information and make it available at a quick glance. Now, maybe Ashes has a neat take on this and name plates will be more readable than in other situations, but I'm not going to hold my breath personally.

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Monk healers are particularly interesting for me, since they have spells that alter the functions of your other healing spells, meaning you have to think about the situation a bit more and decide which healing spell to alter.
https://www.wowdb.com/spells/116680-thunder-focus-tea

I've been wondering if you played a mistweaver ;D

danada

Nagash wrote: »

I just hope the summoner can be played a hybrid suport

Yes! I'm actually super excited to see what happens with summoner and its augments. I've always enjoyed playing jack of all trades style characters, and it sounds like summoner might be this for Ashes. If so I'm highly considering playing one, if not as a main definitely as an alt.

Wandering Mist

danada wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Monk healers are particularly interesting for me, since they have spells that alter the functions of your other healing spells, meaning you have to think about the situation a bit more and decide which healing spell to alter.
https://www.wowdb.com/spells/116680-thunder-focus-tea

I've been wondering if you played a mistweaver ;D

They are by far the most interesting healing spec to me

danada

Wandering Mist wrote: »

They are by far the most interesting healing spec to me

I wish I had geared up my mistweaver for BFA. I concentrated on my shaman for the beginning because they're my favorite class in general, but mistweaver healing sounds more interesting to me. I really didn't want to bother to gear up a second character.

Wandering Mist

danada wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

They are by far the most interesting healing spec to me

I wish I had geared up my mistweaver for BFA. I concentrated on my shaman for the beginning because they're my favorite class in general, but mistweaver healing sounds more interesting to me. I really didn't want to bother to gear up a second character.

I hear ya. Resto Shaman are interesting in their own right but purely because of the sheer amount of utility spells they bring. In terms of actual healing it is pretty boring compared to Mistweavers. I actually prefer taking my Shaman into M+ dungeons because of their utility, but in raids you hardly ever get a chance to use those utility spells so I prefer taking my Mistweaver for that.

Damokles

My ultimate support healer would be something like a fistweaver monk from WoW combined with some more tankyness, where you would have actual melee skills that buff/heal your allies.
Good thing is that Steven already told us that this will be most likely possible ;D
(some examples for bard skills sound a ton like chanter from AION or fistweaver from WoW)

consultant

would like to see healers with some croend control..

Root or slow could be used to slow one of the mobs being pulled so they are late to the fight so the first mob could be dead by the time slowed monster gets the the tank.

Works in pvp also just a little different.

But if there is already another class with that role then there is the possiblity of having an interupt ability.

Plus if they could have a speed buff that could give or use on themselves that would help people run out of danger pretty useful in my opinion.

This way healers will not be all heals.

Some tanks are really good know how to pull and time their abilities just right. Plus some really good groups help the tank out a little with pets and stuns and disarms and buffs. This may make a healer feel less involved cause does not have to push their skills to the limit to keep tank alive. Basical tank always has a nice pool of health-

So intead of nerfing the tank (design mistake in my opinion cause not all groups play at that level) Healers or support class should be able to set up their toon to do little more dps and maybe have some utility abilities
and then during the boss fight change to a setup that puts out more heals.

Personally when I started tanking I was over cautious and would pull one or two mobs and some times I would get really good healers and was near full health most of the time so the healer would just start pulling everything to feel more involved and do actual healing.

Wandering Mist

consultant wrote: »

would like to see healers with some croend control..

Root or slow could be used to slow one of the mobs being pulled so they are late to the fight so the first mob could be dead by the time slowed monster gets the the tank.

Works in pvp also just a little different.

But if there is already another class with that role then there is the possiblity of having an interupt ability.

Plus if they could have a speed buff that could give or use on themselves that would help people run out of danger pretty useful in my opinion.

This way healers will not be all heals.

Some tanks are really good know how to pull and time their abilities just right. Plus some really good groups help the tank out a little with pets and stuns and disarms and buffs. This may make a healer feel less involved cause does not have to push their skills to the limit to keep tank alive. Basical tank always has a nice pool of health-

So intead of nerfing the tank (design mistake in my opinion cause not all groups play at that level) Healers or support class should be able to set up their toon to do little more dps and maybe have some utility abilities
and then during the boss fight change to a setup that puts out more heals.

Personally when I started tanking I was over cautious and would pull one or two mobs and some times I would get really good healers and was near full health most of the time so the healer would just start pulling everything to feel more involved and do actual healing.

It's a very common problem and something a lot of new tanks struggle with, and it really impacts the healer. As a healer I find it annoying that often the better the group is, the less I have to do. If I'm in a group with a tank that never loses aggro and teammates that avoid any unnecessary damage, I barely do anything.

This is where the utility and cc come into play, as they allow me to still positively impact the group even when I'm not required to heal much.

Virtek

neuroguy wrote: »

virtek wrote: »

Stage Set (maybe a stance change?) - Single power cast or lengthy ticking action

Opener (Optional) - Alters base single-target spell into AoE effect (could potentially be an additional "stance" choice?)

Performance - Choice between heal, damage, buff, debuff, crowd control ability to cast

Finale (Optional) - Activates AOE spread of ticking effect already cast

I like it . Monster hunter world has a support weapon (hunting horn) where you play different notes which accumulate into a "song" that provides a buff. Different song, different buff. That could allow the flexibility in the "performance" you mention. I think it's a cool idea to have a modular process where in each stage you need to make choices with certain effects and you can't undo it until you finish this sequence and start a new one (similar to cooldowns). The one issue I see is that since the whole process may take a while, it fails to be time sensitive so you might just be going through the motions without any chance to interact with events or having to time particular things very much.

Agreed on the time-consuming part, with a caveat:
I was thinking that the first two steps could be two separate stance selections (read as: two buttons that can be altered individually) that can remain set until changed and would be off of global cooldown (GCD). Each of them would dilute the instant power (or increase the cost) of a spell in favor of spreading it out over either time or distance. Double dilution (or cost) of power, if both are activated.
Then, you would only have to keep using the "performance" step to cast out your spells (using the optional step 4 if needed) until you need to change anything about the two separate stances. These could then be adjusted while the GCD is processing, getting you ready for the next actual cast.

All in all, the feeling would be that of a class that needs to know mechanics of a fight, be slightly predictive in what will be needed soon, and paying attention to party members calling out that they need help with something or that they are about to burn an important cooldown that could use a buff.
Truly analyzing all of the needs for the entire situation and prioritizing where to add their support for the most benefit.

Virtek

Damokles wrote: »

My ultimate support healer would be something like a fistweaver monk from WoW combined with some more tankyness, where you would have actual melee skills that buff/heal your allies.
Good thing is that Steven already told us that this will be most likely possible ;D
(some examples for bard skills sound a ton like chanter from AION or fistweaver from WoW)

Actually, from Steven and Jeff's descriptions, it sounds like the base Cleric is going to be very much like a fistweaver. This excites me a LOT, as that was my favorite healer before they removed the fistweaving benefits.
Though....I will admit that I still had fun wikth my mistweaver after fistweaving was all but removed.
Mistweaver, Druid, and Disc Priest were my absolute favorite healers. Fairly tied for top, though I think I slightly favored Mistweaver because of their mobility and toolkit.

Dayuhan

danada wrote: »

Dayuhan wrote: »

I hope the support characters receive experience for their support. So many MMO's only reward actual combat - or give only "participation" rewards to the support characters. I would like to see support roles have their own unique support rewards apart from the combat experience.

I don't quite understand what you mean by this. As far as I know if you're partied up with people and perform a support role in the group (healing, actively buffing/debuffing, etc) you get experience just like everyone else. I guess I'm not really clear on what you mean by support rewards apart from combat experience. Supports will still value combat exp because that's going to be how we level up just like everyone else...

From my experience the support people get the party experience, that is by being a member of the party they get the rewards that are given to all party members regardless of their contribution. However, those who are actually on the front lines, killing the badies, glean more experience because they are individually rewarded for each kill they get. Support people, especially the healers and buffers, spend most of their time keeping the front lines characters alive with heals and buffs and so do not get the kill experience those in actual combat get. I think it would be nice if those in the support role received heal or buff experience in the same way as those fighting receive kill experience.

Dygz

Players who wish to be a Cleric with roots and snares can just grab the augments from the corresponding archetypes that have those abilities.
In Ashes, Clerics are not all heals in any case - they are masters of death as well as life, so will have some abilities that do both (at the same time).

consultant

Well one really cool ability for healers i think is An ability that tells a player that they are standing in the fire and need to move I mean no point in healing someone standing in the fire. Could be a flame over their head and could make toon say somethign like I smell something burning.

But healers naturally know when boss enrages cause they have to heal more and are waiting for it do heals could be given another ability to signal the party to use defensive cool downs and or us offensive cool downs to burst down enraged monster.

Kind of filling the role of command and signal. I know that world markers and icons could possibly be used to do the same thing but if healers were given custom abilites that would make them feel more involved.

Wandering Mist

consultant wrote: »

Well one really cool ability for healers i think is An ability that tells a player that they are standing in the fire and need to move I mean no point in healing someone standing in the fire. Could be a flame over their head and could make toon say somethign like I smell something burning.

But healers naturally know when boss enrages cause they have to heal more and are waiting for it do heals could be given another ability to signal the party to use defensive cool downs and or us offensive cool downs to burst down enraged monster.

Kind of filling the role of command and signal. I know that world markers and icons could possibly be used to do the same thing but if healers were given custom abilites that would make them feel more involved.

Or you could just use voice chat......

WizardTim

Best healing class I've seen is the Goblin Shaman of Warhammer Online.

That class forced you to balance offense and defense. The more you attacked, the stronger your healing/defensive spells became, and vice versa. Powerful shamans were great at switching between the two as needed, but could actually participate in combat in pvp.

AoC sounds like a system that's drawing inspiration from The Secret World, which had an AWESOME horizontal progression system. You picked out 6 active and 6 passive abilities, slotted them, and that's what you worked with. How you set your character build up determined a lot of what you could do, and you weren't shoe horned into a specific role unless you focused on it.

consultant

Guess voice chat could be used if every one used it. Lots of people only use it for raiding. So would still be pretty useful in dungeouns. Some people do not use voice chat in raids just know fights really well. Really signal and command abilities could be used so voice chat not needed in most cases.

consultant

Also voice chat does not make icons and world markers redundant.

Professor Posh

consultant wrote: »

Also voice chat does make icons and world markers redundant.

Every time you post, I get a notification... Wtf is going on? 😂🤣

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