Too many healers?

Will there be too many healers in AoC with too little demand for them?

My concern stems from two bits of information coming from Steven, stated in various interviews.

1.) Clerics will be the only main archetype with a focus on healing, that is, you’ll need to be a cleric/something to fulfill the healer role in your group.
2.) The standard group size will be 8, and the content/PvP will be balanced around the idea of these groups of 8 containing one of each of the main archetypes.

It follows from the above that a group of 8 will require one main healer, allowing that other something/cleric classes will be able to provide some off healing, the ratio of which we have no information on as of now.

I have little experience with MMOs, only ever played WoW and ESO, where the standard group sizes (requiring one healer) are 5 and 4, respectively. And in neither of these games have I seen a shortage of healers, which means that every 4th or 5th player in the game is willing to play a healer. If AoC is balanced in a way that requires every 8th person to play a healer, won’t there be too many of (with too little demand for) them?

#clericunemployment

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Daedrik45

I think people are continuing to confuse exactly what the secondary class does for your character... it doesn’t give you new abilities. It adds affects to your primary abilities.

Leiloni

For some reason this idea keeps spreading that Bard is an AoE healer and Cleric is single target. This is false. Cleric is the only primary healer in the game and they will have heals of all types. You can already look at the wiki for the current Cleric skills and they have a wide variety of all types of heals - https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Cleric

Bard is also detailed quite clearly on their page as the support class via proximity based buffs, debuffs, damage, supportive healing, etc. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Bard

The interview from a couple weeks ago on July 25th details both roles more clearly. He said Bards healing will be "much, much less" healing compared to a Cleric" and "will be proximity-based as opposed to direct target or otherwise." Then he says "The base archetype Cleric will be the predominant healing force class with some supplemental healing that would be more over time healing or proc-based healing based on the action of players that's assigned to the Bard role."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtVUiS7yAHE&feature=youtu.be&t=58m38s

Debase

My guess is that Bard heals are going to be a lot more like the way you see increased health regen in other games from like food or a health regen potion. Without knowing what the real numbers would be, I would guess that if a cleric could cast a group heal for 100 per groupmate every 8-10 seconds, a bard would have a spell that regens 10 health every 5 seconds for a 20 seconds. It won't be a situation where it saves the group, but can perhaps save a cleric from having to individual top off every group member from AoE or other chip damage in some settings. On a Pathfinders podcast the other day, it was talked about like Lucio from Overwatch and I think that's a fair comp for how I envision bard healing.

Indure

If I had to guess this game will have even more of a healer/tank deficiency than in most MMO's. We haven't seen how hard the trinity will be enforced in the game, but if it is heavily enforced having only a single dedicated healer class with 7 competing classes is already room to worry. Add to that you can't change your base class, which means if you're a healer, then you're a healer for life. This is much tougher sell than something like WoW where 33% of the classes can be healers and you can change roles at the click of a button.

Damokles

Bards offer HoT healing, while Clerics giv you direct healing.

delghinn

Indure wrote: »

If I had to guess this game will have even more of a healer/tank deficiency than in most MMO's. We haven't seen how hard the trinity will be enforced in the game, but if it is heavily enforced having only a single dedicated healer class with 7 competing classes is already room to worry. Add to that you can't change your base class, which means if you're a healer, then you're a healer for life. This is much tougher sell than something like WoW where 33% of the classes can be healers and you can change roles at the click of a button.

this ^

Daedrik45

There are 8 healer classes. I’m almost postive the secondary attached to the cleric will give people different play styles..... let’s not start playing violins before we have even seen the classes and what the secondaries do to differ there play styles

Malc

Healers will be restricted in a lot of ways, they always are. This generally makes them undesirable for a lot of the player base. I've played a healer on most games and I can say with certainty that for the most part they are pretty uncommon. My only concern with healing is the lack of diversity if Cleric is going to be the only viable healing method. (Assuming they don't bring Bard into line with this.)

I wouldn't worry too much about an abundance of healers, there are a few polls on here regarding class choices and whilst Cleric often rates high. You also have to understand that this is only a small collection of data, if you blow other class choices up and numbers higher. The ratio will be relatively fair.

consultant

Well hopefully the devs will find ways to put plenty if not just more tanks and healers in the game. Already posted a lot on this topic, just hope they increase the number of tanks and support toons to more than just one class (Tank class and Cleric Class.

Daedrik45

Again there are 8 tank classes and 8 healer classes.... for all we know tank plus cleric with holy augments gives you protection Paladin. Tank plus cleric with death augments bc clerics control life and death could give you a death knight play style, people need to stop thinking about classes in wow, this game has 64 classes. 64 different possible play styles. U like Druid healing?? Go cleric/bard the bard augments could add a heal over time affect to your clerics heals stuff like that. You like healing with disc priest?? You can do cleric/mage or cleric /summoner and those augments could possibly make your damage heal a % to the party. You like holy Paladin?? Go cleric/fighter be the front like healer you’ve dreamed of being. There are 5 healing classes in wow 6 healing specs but there are 8 healing classes in AOC and yet they need to put more healing classes in AoC?

Medrash1

@Orell

Your point is good in my opinion, and i think that this will cause a lot of problems. Expecially becouse with this class system, with the lacks of variety of builds and gameplay ... meaning you cannot play 2 or 3 different rule. It will cause a huge queue.

@bloodprophet

bloodprophet wrote: »

Most MMO's I have played suffer from a lack of tanks and healers.
The instance ques in WOW and cross server mask this quite well.
My first MMO was GW1 I started as an elementallist (mage) and could never find a group due to lack of healers. So I went and made one. Never had problems finding a group after that.
But anything is possible.

You are right ... do anybody knows why healers aren't played at all? Same for tanks .. for many reasons of bad design ...
one of them is the heavy responsability that weighs on his shoulders. In wow one of 5 people heals ... he is the only healer, if he do it wrong the team die easy. Same thing for the tank ... the dps? wtf who cares if a dps die or do low dps?
Tanks and healers are harder to play, becouse they need to do the job all by them self, they have to deal with a lot of mechanics ... without dying.
Mage pogchamp , 1 spell rotation... immagine the opposite, the team have only 1 dps that can use all the mechanics of all the dps combined, he needs to chose every time and if he dies the whole team die, becouse they don't have enough damage to kill the boss. Nobody will play dps for sure.
Another motivation to " why nobody play healers " is ... the dps have more funny mechanics but less. A dps need to move and interact with the enemy, the healer not, his design is boring.
The dps scale usually way better for farming and questing, healers sucks, tank a little bit too. Why? The game design is not balanced.

So as i shown to you that's why everybody goes dps, but ... what if the game design of AoC is different? What if the healer is actually fun to play? .... wait ... wait ... there will be 1 healer every 7 people ... oh god, that's bad. Poor healer ...
this means that the healer will be more difficult to play, less funny and more problematic. If the healer is shit the whole team dies xD what a fun mechanics.

Dude ... rly, am i the only guy who thought about this?

Daedrik45

Well I don’t know who in there right mind would only run 1 healer in a 8 man group. I will be going 2 tops with a support 1 tank and 4 dps. I will be playing the tank, the wow players need to realize this won’t be a aoe shit fest like wow has become. It will be assist tank until he grabs all Aggro then go from there. There won’t be a que bc there is no group finder, wether or not you get a group as a dps will heavily depend on your attitude and treatment towards others. THIS IS WHAT IM MOST EXCITED ABOUT.

Daedrik45

And honestly playing a healer and tank isn’t stressful that much... it’s the dps in the group who don’t listen pull when not suppose to don’t assist tank and stand in red bad stuff that make the role of healer and tank stressful.

bloodprophet

I like the healer role. I like the extra challenge that come with it.
Most DPS(not all) are lazy. Killing stuff is faster as DPS sure but in a MMORPG like what they have promoted here grouping looks like the better way to go. I hope they follow through.

Indure

Daedrik45 wrote: »

Again there are 8 tank classes and 8 healer classes.... for all we know tank plus cleric with holy augments gives you protection Paladin. Tank plus cleric with death augments bc clerics control life and death could give you a death knight play style, people need to stop thinking about classes in wow, this game has 64 classes. 64 different possible play styles. U like Druid healing?? Go cleric/bard the bard augments could add a heal over time affect to your clerics heals stuff like that. You like healing with disc priest?? You can do cleric/mage or cleric /summoner and those augments could possibly make your damage heal a % to the party. You like holy Paladin?? Go cleric/fighter be the front like healer you’ve dreamed of being. There are 5 healing classes in wow 6 healing specs but there are 8 healing classes in AOC and yet they need to put more healing classes in AoC?

I haven't played the game so I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I think you are misrepresenting the classes. There really isn't 8 healing classes. There is just cleric and various amalgamations of cleric. We know you can't change your base class and that all clerics have the same spells. The only difference between two players is which spells they leveled up and how the subclass they chose manifest perks on top of those spells. This will lead to different playstyles and roles/subroles, but they aren't really 8 unique classes. Just focal difference in one class. The same way Witcher 3 handles character progression. All witchers are good at sword fighting, potion drinking, and spell casting. You're just deciding which area to focus on.

Even if you believe there are still 8 healing classes ... 8/64 = 1/8, so the representation is the same.

Daedrik45

Cleric is an archetype!!!!!! There in fact 64 classes

bloodprophet

8 of which are Cleric/X

Daedrik45

There primary is yes you are correct

Jubilum

Let me see if I understand. People want to heal but don't want to be a Cleric...Am I right?

Aardvark

Daedrik45 wrote: »

Cleric is an archetype!!!!!! There in fact 64 classes

Cleric is a class with 8 optional sub trees

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