Have Healers and Mages Become too powerful?

Over the years of MMO's I have seen the classes evolve into what they're today. Back in the Day in a MMO casters would suffer large interuptions when casting, so any melee on them would greatly disrupt them, hence needing a party for them to have a "clean pocket" to do what they do best which is heal and do damage.

Now over time people wanted to be able to do more content on their own and at least be ablew to have some soloable content, and rightly so, it is boring always trying to find a group.

That being said, have games gone too far in what we have given mages and healers?
So now they can solo any mob, in most cases many mobs at once
Suffer no penalty for being hit
Have shields,escapes,roots

So is their a downside to playing a healer or a mage?

Mage is maybe a bit squishier but that was always the case as it should be with massive damage output.

Healer, seems of any game of late can take on multiple enemies to kill just 1 healer. where are the silences, the kicks, the stuns...

What are your thoughts on todays healing and mages? in games like Archeage mages rule all and it's not even close, in New World Healing Is Top Dog, In WoW Shadow Priest For years and Probably still is Was the best.

I get it, healing is boring, but that doesn't mean when need to make it so OP that they need to be gods to get people to play it.

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Comments

Electronn

Mag7spy wrote: »

Competent dps should be able to kill a healer as there should be ways to spec against healing as well.

Fixed that for you:
Competent dps healer should be able to kill a healer avoid being killed by dps there should be ways to spec against healing damage as well.

Mag7spy

mcnasty wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Competent dps should be able to kill a healer as there should be ways to spec against healing as well.

Fixed that for you:
Competent dps healer should be able to kill a healer avoid being killed by dps there should be ways to spec against healing damage as well.

Fixed for you:
Competent healer should not forever be able to avoid being killed by dps there should be ways to spec against damage as well but not be unkillable as it creates balance issues and content issues.

Atama

Noaani wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

a competent healer shouldn't be able to be killed by a single player.

So all things being equal, a healer can’t be killed by another player in 1:1? I disagree. Classes need to have advantages over some, and weaknesses to others.

I think it is perfectly balanced if a healer can't be killed by an equal DPS or tank.

The equalizing factor there is that the healer can't kill the DPS/tank either.

So basically, in PvP the healer is a lawn chair. Just there, not really doing anything, and ignored by everyone.

I'll say that if you had a "you can't kill me and I can't kill you" class in a game like Ashes of Creation, that's extremely overpowered.

"Hey, there is this guy in our guild's territory taking all the best resources!"

"It's a cleric, we just have to let him do it, there's no way we can stop him."

A good way to do a healer, and have it be functional, fun, and balanced, is this...

The healer can heal by doing damage. That way the class isn't just a healbot. You're not a walking hit point vending machine. You can actually fight.

Make it extremely squishy. You do ranged damage and your damage output is adequate but not the best.

In PvE group content, you are blasting at enemies and topping off the tank and others.

In PvP content, especially one-on-one, if someone attacks you, your health drops fast because your defenses are garbage. You can counteract that with self-healing as you damage the enemy. That in itself becomes a form of mitigation and makes up for the lack of defense you have. But doesn't make you invincible.

As a total hypothetical, let's have Cleric vs Bow Guy.

Bow Guy has leather armor and it reduces the damage he receives by 50%, and he shoots an arrow that does 100 damage. Cleric has a Holy Bolt spell that does 100 damage and heals 50 hit points.

Bow guy shoots Cleric with an arrow and does 100 damage. Cleric casts Holy Bolt against Bow Guy and does 100 damage, but the leather armor absorbs half so Bow Guy only loses 50 hit points. Meanwhile, Cleric heals 50 hit points from his spell. Net result: both characters are down 50 hit points, even though they have very different ways to deal with damage.

Of course that doesn't mean they're the same. If Cleric and Bow Guy had only 100 hit points worth of health, then Bow Guy stays alive because of his armor and Cleric is dead, since a dead person can't heal themselves. Spike damage is always the danger with self-healing.

But this is just a very simple hypothetical to show how these sorts of things can be balanced if the developers are thoughtful. Suggesting that the only way to make a healer balanced is to take away their ability to heal is short-sighted. Let them do damage, let them heal, they just can't heal enough to make themselves invincible.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

Noaani wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

a competent healer shouldn't be able to be killed by a single player.

So all things being equal, a healer can’t be killed by another player in 1:1? I disagree. Classes need to have advantages over some, and weaknesses to others.

I think it is perfectly balanced if a healer can't be killed by an equal DPS or tank.

The equalizing factor there is that the healer can't kill the DPS/tank either.

So basically, a healer is the Perfect gatherer, can run around without worry, only needing to fret about 2 or more people going corrupt to kill him. What a great world to live in.

Atama

Santanico wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

a competent healer shouldn't be able to be killed by a single player.

So all things being equal, a healer can’t be killed by another player in 1:1? I disagree. Classes need to have advantages over some, and weaknesses to others.

I think it is perfectly balanced if a healer can't be killed by an equal DPS or tank.

The equalizing factor there is that the healer can't kill the DPS/tank either.

So basically, a healer is the Perfect gatherer, can run around without worry, only needing to fret about 2 or more people going corrupt to kill him. What a great world to live in.

Exactly, that's why I said in a PvX game like AoC, such a thing isn't balanced, it's massively overpowered.

Summpwner

I can only speak for WoW and for mobas and GW1/2.

In GW1 (prophecies, assassins ruined all of this), warriors had the highest armor and were constant targets of slows without the ability to teleport around, and without a dedicated slot or support teammate to removing that slow or blind, a warrior can go an entire match without hitting an enemy. Conversely, a warrior with 2 interrupt skills could lock out 2/3 of an elementalist's casts.
From what I have heard about the class systems, party/class balancing etc, I believe GW1 is a huge influence for Intrepid. You could build a monk to do amazing holy DPS or you could build a monk to make another player nearly invulnerable with powerful enchantments, or you could make a monk able to do the biggest heals in the game. It will depend on which skills you choose to leave town with.
In this vein, it isn't about the class philosophy, but about the skill balancing... will warriors have answers to casters, and will healers have answers to melee, and what kinds of conditions or skill effects can each archetype use to disrupt the others?
I cannot wait to confirm all of this when we get a glimpse of augments.

Myosotys

Atama wrote: »

Santanico wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

a competent healer shouldn't be able to be killed by a single player.

So all things being equal, a healer can’t be killed by another player in 1:1? I disagree. Classes need to have advantages over some, and weaknesses to others.

I think it is perfectly balanced if a healer can't be killed by an equal DPS or tank.

The equalizing factor there is that the healer can't kill the DPS/tank either.

So basically, a healer is the Perfect gatherer, can run around without worry, only needing to fret about 2 or more people going corrupt to kill him. What a great world to live in.

Exactly, that's why I said in a PvX game like AoC, such a thing isn't balanced, it's massively overpowered.

A healer is a healer. It shouldnt be killable 1v1. Or except by very high dps class (with low defense). Would be fine for me, as far as the healer cannot kill no one of his level.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

A healer being unkillable in is nonsense, are there no silences, stuns or any mechanics to keep them for chanting their heals? or mechanics they can have like fear to keep the DPS off them, and who uses them better. At 1 point in time interuptions was a real thing, not it's la la land feel free to cast away pretty birds nothing will hurt you.
I'm failing to see the Rock, paper and Scissors in a class that can't be countered...

And I can give a few example where games that maybe intended healers to do no damage, but certainly can kill people is New World and Archeage. ever been hit by a 100k Skewer?

Mag7spy

Healer does not mean unkillable lol. People out here really think someone being heavy focused while being interrupted and cc'd as well should be unkillable. So in a group scenario with 2 healers plus your team to peel and their mobility healers will never die or have pretty much ridiculous kill times.

Mag7spy

Santanico wrote: »

A healer being unkillable in is nonsense, are there no silences, stuns or any mechanics to keep them for chanting their heals? or mechanics they can have like fear to keep the DPS off them, and who uses them better. At 1 point in time interuptions was a real thing, not it's la la land feel free to cast away pretty birds nothing will hurt you.
I'm failing to see the Rock, paper and Scissors in a class that can't be countered...

And I can give a few example where games that maybe intended healers to do no damage, but certainly can kill people is New World and Archeage. ever been hit by a 100k Skewer?

Very true people are effectively saying healer should have no counter lol.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

What worries me the most is Steven has openly said he has played healers a lot and we know he has played mages, you REALLY think they're gonna suck..... I think not my worries grow lol

Azherae

As a Healer I don't really care which of the ways they balance it.

My experience is actually quite the opposite. When healers are killable by most equally skilled DPS in 1v1 (without it coming down to randomly who has the better weapon or slightly better crits/armor because they both run out of resources) the game becomes solo-ish and then people dislike how ineffective healers are at keeping OTHER people alive in various content.

Then the game ditches the 'Healer' concept entirely, gives everyone a 'little' healing and tries to balance based on that.

Same for Mages. If a Mage has NO ability to throw out 'big burst damage almost on demand', people will just look for the class that does. You can see this multiple times throughout games. The 'setup mage' is shunned (relative to other classes).

I like the 'slow prep healer' and 'setup mage', so I'll be fine with that, I just don't need another 'eh might as well just let everyone have LifeSteal' game.

Ludullu

As I said in another thread, give us some mana gameplay. Clerics should be the ones to burn through mana the fastest, so once they come across any other player that can speed up that mana burn - they're in trouble. But in a party situation there should be ways to mitigate that mana burn, be it buffs or abilities from other archetypes or maybe even some items.

But I do agree that healers should come to a stalemate with a mid-power dps. A burst dps class should be able to kill a healer even w/o mana gameplay, if they get lucky enough on a crit right after some kind of CC.

Iskiab

I'd just like to clarify, if a healer is just trying to keep themselves alive and the other person is attacking them then the healer should be unkillable. The reason being otherwise the DPS is putting out more damage than the healer can heal, and it's lobsided favouring DPS.

Balance would be where the healer can win in a duel. That means being able to keep themselves alive if that's their sole focus, but in danger when they try to go offensive.

Someone mentioned healers healing by doing damage, I've seen it tried in a bunch of games but never done well. The issue that always comes up is a stat split between damage stats (to increase damage) and healing modifiers (to be competitive with other healers). They usually end up okay in PvE where boss' are debuffed but useless in PvP where people have mitigation.

I guess it could work if the amount healed doesn't depend on the damage done, which is the root of the problem.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

Iskiab wrote: »

I'd just like to clarify, if a healer is just trying to keep themselves alive and the other person is attacking them then the healer should be unkillable. The reason being otherwise the DPS is putting out more damage than the healer can heal, and it's lobsided favouring DPS.

Balance would be where the healer can win in a duel. That means being able to keep themselves alive if that's their sole focus, but in danger when they try to go offensive.

Someone mentioned healers healing by doing damage, I've seen it tried in a bunch of games but never done well. The issue that always comes up is a stat split between damage stats (to increase damage) and healing modifiers (to be competitive with other healers). They usually end up okay in PvE where boss' are debuffed but useless in PvP where people have mitigation.

I guess it could work if the amount healed doesn't depend on the damage done, which is the root of the problem.

Play archeage, 1 of the inspirations for the game and your thoughts on healers and mages will make complete sense. Please don't compare it to ESO like someone tried too. Pretty sure I never heard Steven talk about emulating ANYTHING from that game.

Abarat

Santanico wrote: »

So is their a downside to playing a healer or a mage?

I am assuming you play tank as your main.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

Abarat wrote: »

Santanico wrote: »

So is their a downside to playing a healer or a mage?

I am assuming you play tank as your main.

You would be assuming wrong, I actually am playing Archeage atm, and am playing a healer, started as my main, now she is justa alt but still is a 12k gear score and without really even trying she has over 130 kills, so I think it's safe to say healers can kill in that game.

My other Class is a Archer if you're wondering. And while a archer can kill a mage if they get the jump on them. Mage damage rules all in this game, stupidly out of tune.

Mag7spy

Iskiab wrote: »

I'd just like to clarify, if a healer is just trying to keep themselves alive and the other person is attacking them then the healer should be unkillable. The reason being otherwise the DPS is putting out more damage than the healer can heal, and it's lobsided favouring DPS.

Balance would be where the healer can win in a duel. That means being able to keep themselves alive if that's their sole focus, but in danger when they try to go offensive.

Someone mentioned healers healing by doing damage, I've seen it tried in a bunch of games but never done well. The issue that always comes up is a stat split between damage stats (to increase damage) and healing modifiers (to be competitive with other healers). They usually end up okay in PvE where boss' are debuffed but useless in PvP where people have mitigation.

I guess it could work if the amount healed doesn't depend on the damage done, which is the root of the problem.

DPS that is spec'd anti heal should be able to kill a healer, DPS are not just a dps bot they should have other skills as well to interrupt, cc, reducing healing strength, etc.

There should not be a game where a class is just unkillable from everything because of a heal...The game is being balanced for PvX so it needs to make sense for both pve and pvp.

CROW3

Nope.

The degree of specification provided for classes in Ashes would allow me to build a dps with the stated objective of bursting a healer down. Doesn’t mean I’m spec’d to win against every class, but intentionally designed to kill a healer of class x.

Having a blanket rule that independent of spec a healer of equal skill cannot be killed 1:1 is a ridiculous notion for an ow pvp game.

TheHiddenDaggerInn

CROW3 wrote: »

Nope.

The degree of specification provided for classes in Ashes would allow me to build a dps with the stated objective of bursting a healer down. Doesn’t mean I’m spec’d to win against every class, but intentionally designed to kill a healer of class x.

Having a blanket rule that independent of spec a healer of equal skill cannot be killed 1:1 is a ridiculous notion for an ow pvp game.

Agree, the Augments I think are really going to change the way we look at what healers can or cant do, now a cleric/cleric I could see being quite difficult to take down, but that one makes sense, others not so much.

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