There are often complaints (and justified at that) the the buff/healer classes are far less able to defend themselves than other classes as they don't have any real skills that can do damage.
Looking at their skills from a logical perspective (and being literal in my thinking) if these classes are able to heal they would in essence know how a body worked to be able to do that. By that same token they should also be able to remove life using that same understanding. Therefore these classes (mainly SE as they seem to have the biggest problem) should have skills enhanced that allow them to be able to do some major damage this way.
It doesn't make sense that a healer class would not be able to defend themselves better. If they were a real lifeform they would have found a way.
I agree, but this won't happen, turning healers into damage dealers... But a viable way of defending them selves would be cool. And no, using dual swords or bow or any form of weapon evend if you're a prophet fully buffed is useless.
As I said, this is the most unlikely thing to happen, buffers remain buffers and only orcs have significant offensive capabilities as orcs don't have nukers but a mix of buffer&dd (still dd sucks imo).
Can't think now of a way they could do some significant damage and still remain fairly the same, have to think.. (damage against undead mobs is irelevant).
The easiest way for NCSoft to "balance" healing classes in respect to DD's is to not address the issue. Shadow Priests in WoW destroy people, and when given a few seconds, can heal themselves back to full and go right back at it.
By giving healers, Dryad Root, Sleep, and Trance NCSoft is telling folks that your best bet as a lone healer is to either:
- Stay with your party
- Escape and evade
Olympiad matches between healers and other classes almost seem to favor healers as it is, so you will most likely see little movement towards DD capabilities from NCSoft. Getting focus fired in open field PVP with little recourse?
If they were a real lifeform they would have found a way.
IF they were a real life form, very well put, but this is a game and you don't see pigs telling you that they look better as pigs then as humans, nor do you see people beeing killed and then after 5 seconds alive again in the nearest town. It would be a good idea (and I especially agree with it, as I am rolling a bishop ;)), but then everyone would have a healer, don't you think? ^^
The easiest way for NCSoft to "balance" healing classes in respect to DD's is to not address the issue. Shadow Priests in WoW destroy people, and when given a few seconds, can heal themselves back to full and go right back at it.
By giving healers, Dryad Root, Sleep, and Trance NCSoft is telling folks that your best bet as a lone healer is to either:
- Stay with your party
- Escape and evade
Olympiad matches between healers and other classes almost seem to favor healers as it is, so you will most likely see little movement towards DD capabilities from NCSoft. Getting focus fired in open field PVP with little recourse?
*shakes Magic 8-Ball*
"It is decidedly so."
Well, true that, but I can't help but feel that they should have some offensive capabilities, that's how i feel :(.
Looking at their skills from a logical perspective (and being literal in my thinking) if these classes are able to heal they would in essence know how a body worked to be able to do that. By that same token they should also be able to remove life using that same understanding. Therefore these classes (mainly SE as they seem to have the biggest problem) should have skills enhanced that allow them to be able to do some major damage this way.
That isnt entirely true. Lets make an example: We have a gunsmith who has made guns all his life. He knows how they work, inside out BUT, he has never even shot one bullet. Now then, he is forced to use a gun for the first time, and because he knows the guns inside out he should be a real master, right? Well, he most likely wont be hitting [censored] since he doesnt have any experience on that field.
Or, lets say we have the healer, who has spent his life studying the art of healing, now you give him a sword and pit him against a swordsman. Who will win? The healer knows all the vital spots, but without being able to use the sword properly, he will be butchered anyhow.
It doesn't make sense that a healer class would not be able to defend themselves better. If they were a real lifeform they would have found a way.
Why arent all the paramedics, nurses and doctors the best at fighting then? You dont really need much medical knowledge to know how to hurt a person enough to warrant death or life long injuries. But you need strength(bashing someone to death^^, firearms and knives etc. dont take much strength) and the will to do it.
Why arent all the paramedics, nurses and doctors the best at fighting then?
They are. They just don't use guns or swords to do it, they throw nasty biological weapons to mass murder people (i.e. soldier with a gun vs. a doctor who develops "weapons of mass destruction").
So why not give healers nasty debuffs and DOT attacks?
Uhm, a paramedic is far from a biochemist or a biologist who makes stuff like that. And throwing it? Yeah, some bio-grenades/chem-grenades are there, but you usually disperse them in another way ;)
Both those exampls are using a physical form of attack and a weapon. Healers perform their skill with magic (and don't need a weapon to do it) therefore what I am saying is if they know how to manipulate the body using magic to heal it is also possible they would know how to manipulate the body to harm.
Combined with their other skills like root, sleep, etc they would at least stand a chance of defending themselves and in some situations even win (if they are really lucky :D)
folks, remember to focus on THIS world. this is a game. please keep to the parameters given. and yes, a healer CAN defend themselves WITH weapons! i know, i do - i prefer fist weapons to fight with if i can not get them from a distance, or a combination of spells and weapons.
true, if the healer depends totally on spells for their safety, they will get whipped most of the time, group OR solo. but, the player willing to work with any and all available tools and resources can succeed. it would depend on how much time YOU wish to DEVOTE to the raising of your healer, as with any other character class available. individual diligence and learning the skills and attributes of each class (3 healer classes) will be one's best tool of all, knowledge.
Healers perform their skill with magic (and don't need a weapon to do it) therefore what I am saying is if they know how to manipulate the body using magic to heal it is also possible they would know how to manipulate the body to harm.
Following this logic, nukers who use their magic to kill and destroy, should also be powerful healers! Sorry, but your logic fails.
Healers perform their skill with magic (and don't need a weapon to do it) therefore what I am saying is if they know how to manipulate the body using magic to heal it is also possible they would know how to manipulate the body to harm.
Following this logic, nukers who use their magic to kill and destroy, should also be powerful healers! Sorry, but your logic fails.
I didn't say they should have attacks as powerful as nukers did I, therefore why would a nuker be able to heal like a SE/EE etc. In the majority of cases a nuker manipulates elements not bodies.
Regarding the self defense abilities of healers , with return2 PP/EE are already pretty safe. I would agree with giving that spell also to Bish/SE.
Celestial Shield on Bish is also a good self defense skill, in situations, but is cheesy due to its ability to cast on others , eg DDs, as well as limited in duration/resuse.
I think a good idea, would be to create a self-only version of celestial shield , and give it to all of se/pp/ee/bish. 15 sec dutation and 5 min cooldown would probably be acceptable.
This would give healers more chance to play their defensive role in PvP at least during the initial 15 secs (where they are often the first targets)
Aside from ellie does anyone here actually play a healer/buffer? No? I wonder why they are a dying breed? I play an SE, sleep is null after 40, root only works PVE unless the toon is well beneath you in lvl. Like it or not NC will have to do something to improve all healer/buffer classes, people don't play them anymore. I think giving SE's a defense is a good idea. EE's and PP's have return which is like a free bsoe. What do SE's have? Wind Shackle? LOL What a joke. Sleep? Riiiight...more like I sleep permanently with my face in the dirt for being dumb enough to try... Sure I could go out and get an OE'd A Bow...but um...who has that kind of coin? Not to mention I only hit for like...100 damage = waste of money.
Whether or not you like the logic...Ellie is right. SE's need something...throw us a bone or something.
For defence only, they have all the crowd control skills. Peace is very clean because you don't have to run away ten kilometers and on groups of mobs if you just Peace the leader, it stops everybody. Otherwise Dryad Root, Trance and Sleep if you need more time are generally very efficient. Even for classes of healers/buffers that have a Dryad Root skill level of 9 maximum, it lands better on white mobs than Trance or Sleep on Sleep resistant mobs.
Basically you need to flee and being a healer you have more time to flee. EE and Bishops have an advantage with their Major Heal, but if you don't have a hell of a train behind you and you don't panic, a Greater Heal or Battle Heals are efficient enough.
Frankly, I have no problem of defence with my Bishop. On the other side, on my Scavenger when I aggro too many mobs, I have to run and run and run until they loose aggro. It's really longer.
In terms of damage dealing, in my opinion it is not defence anymore. But if you want to be able to kill a mob rather than flee, if it is not an undead or you are not EE/Bishop, then take a weapon. It works. You can't chain mobs to xp with it, but a dagger or a dual will get rid of mobs of your level.
The undead nuke will get some love with the Holy Weapon boost around CT1 so, nothing to ask for if you're EE/Bishop and want to play SpS-wannabe.
And for non undead, just get a reason, there's not need for healers/buffers to kill them. And if you really want to do that Wedding Dress quest alone, I can tell you that with my shadow kesh*kesh and shadow DC Light, I had no problem at lvl 67 to slaughter the mobs dropping quest items. You need to be a bunch of levels higher, simply because you're a healer/buffer, not a damage dealer.
And finally, in my opinion it is a very bad design to combine both healing and damage dealing powers on a same character without drastic restrictions. It's not a problem of game lore, pseudo-realism or whatever you're calling for with your "they should know how to...", it's a game design.
If you really want game lore, just think that healers abandonned the study of spells that hurt to focus on healing one. The result : they know how to make a wind strike of a beginner level, but they didn't study enough to be able to be better at it. Healing spells require too much attention to be able to study hurting spells. Also EE/Bishop are studying sacred magic, that's why they can hurt unsacred creatures. In every other game you can damage undeads using healing spells. It's kinda the same. Negative energy and all.
I play all of them at different levels but none as my main. I find my SE the hardest to play and can't solo her at all really. It's because I was thinking about problems with SE's that I made the suggestion :D
Rightly or wrongly my thought was as I said, if they can manipulate to heal they should be able to manipulate to harm although only to a certain degree because they are after all healers and buffers not DD's.
Well SEs can root and run screaming for help. But that won't work against archers, as root = 600 and arrows = 900+. You cannot do sh*t there, heal too slow, root too slow at small distance and it does not stick, windshackle lasts too little, in general you are just small nuisance for them since you get 2-shot at max when archer has some really really bad day :p
I put blue wolf light + dagger with crit damage on my SE and she kills stuff faster than my paladin and with even less down time than he has. With wind shackle she totally destroys stuff.
Skills, including magic, need to be learned, as in the "Learn skills" you click at the NPC. If you study healing spells, you don't study harming spells. Necromancers study harming spells, not healing ones. They work the opposite.
You stopped learning wind strike, vampiric claw, etc. Your own fault. If you want to use them, learn them, but you won't be able to study healing spells.
If you want to solo with your SE, take duals and kill green or light blue 1/2 hp mobs. If you want to be a SpS-wannabe like EE and Bishops with Might of Heaven, make a SpS. I don't see why you want solo if you chose SE. Personally as a Bishop I don't want to solo. I want groups. If they encourage soloing, even with my class, I'm not happy. If I want to nuke I go nuker.
If you want to solo to raise a SE to box or buff clan but you don't like how SE are played, get powerleveled or buy a full-grown SE, there are promotions those days... (Yeah it's sarcasm)
SE hardest to play... when a nuker will take me to duo in FoD and go 70-75 in one month, I'll consider your difficulties to play. But yeah if you solo with a SE, that's hard. So what, don't play a SE?
Bishops are the best damage dealing class in the game. HOWEVER when becomeing a bishop they took a vow to do no harm. Therefore, they have no damage skills.
I play My bf's SpS with my SE, I have no other choice, if I waited around for groups I'd still be 60. 70-75 in one month eh, thats some serious gaming, like, bot or LIVE on l2...
The fact remains that healer/buffer classes are a dying breed. Vamp claw and Windshackle don't give you enough time to get away...or didn't you get the memo? PvP and I'm toast. I have no defense. I would be happy with Return, or maybe Trance like the other healers got. But no, you say lvl Wind Shackle LOL, omg I lamost fell of my chair, ohhh watch out everyone, it's the scary SE and her Windshackle lol.
All of the healer classes in EQ2 can hold their own. Most of them aren't PvP monsters, but neither are they something to ignore. A well-built Inquisitor or Fury can ruin your day with a quickness.
I'd agree, it is a design issue... but not in the way the detractors are thinking. It's a balance issue, and also a priority issue. Stop trying to build classes around the Oly, and build them for the "real world" in Aden.
I would really just like to see the healing classes with a self buff that greatly increased their pdef or self healing capabilities. But I don't want to the class degraded into another DD class. I think that transformations will help some in CT-1, however.
Aside from ellie does anyone here actually play a healer/buffer? No? I wonder why they are a dying breed? I play an SE, sleep is null after 40, root only works PVE unless the toon is well beneath you in lvl. Like it or not NC will have to do something to improve all healer/buffer classes, people don't play them anymore. I think giving SE's a defense is a good idea. EE's and PP's have return which is like a free bsoe. What do SE's have? Wind Shackle? LOL What a joke. Sleep? Riiiight...more like I sleep permanently with my face in the dirt for being dumb enough to try... Sure I could go out and get an OE'd A Bow...but um...who has that kind of coin? Not to mention I only hit for like...100 damage = waste of money.
Whether or not you like the logic...Ellie is right. SE's need something...throw us a bone or something.
I play a healer/buffer as my main. I both solo and group, about half of each. I find that I am able to solo just fine, choosing different undead areas (fettered souls --> FoM --> Cemetary --> FotD --> Imp tomb).
As a general rule I am against making the game easier and that includes making it easier for me. I don't think making L2 easier has either increased player retention nor has it decreased cheating, the two alleged benefits proposed by those who want changes in this direction.
It takes a special kind of person to enjoy helping others more than hurting others. Perhaps the soul of the player is more important thant the skills we are given ingame.
I have always done as Ellie has done, roll with a melee.
Yes, it is very frustrating for me to not be able to do any damage (except to undeads, which, if you were to use might of heaven to kill most mobs, you would be left with not very much MP to heal with). I think that is why most healers sub a DD class of some kind.
All I've been able to figure out is that I have nice skills to keep me from being killed in PvE... and on occasion to barely survive in PvP.
A drain of some kind might be appropriate for all healers, like the one that WC have. After all, it is a healing function, taking hp from one and giving to another (yourself).
And we get some buff which increases the amount of mp recharged on the one who is buffed with it.
To those who say SE can solo perfectly well self-buffed, try this:
Take a 78 ShSaint with a +crit dagger (like kris/focus) or focus duals and light armor. Go to Blazing Swamp or any other area with x1 hp mobs which are green to a 78. Self-buff everything you have, including prophecy of wind, maybe even gulp down a GSAP (not self-buffed then, but it sure helps). Target a mob and attack. See how much it sucks, how long it takes to kill the mob and how often you have to heal yourself. Grab another mob, maybe get an add on you. Reconsider your "SE can solo well" opinion. I tried it, and by the time I am down to half mp because of heals, I maybe got 0.01% to 0.02% exp. It is better to sit around for 50 minutes waiting for a nuker to log on and then exp for 10 minutes, than to solo for one hour. EE and Bishop have it far better, they can at least do first room IT or try to sneak around at other places like Shrine and pick out the undead mobs.
omg its not about solo play, healers and buffers in L2 have never been ment to xp solo, whan you look at the game closer none class in L2 have been designed to be a solo class, why you think people box, none DD or buffer can efectly xp on they own...
again healers are not asking for way to xp solo, its more about surviveing ability in pve but mostly in pvp in end game, coz firt target in pvp means also first dead and no cp, hp drinking will help
yes BP/EEs have strong heals and atleast have a chance to outheal the dmg + some debuffs and whan it goes really nasty, they have free bsoe
WC got life drain + sleep and most con from all healers/buffers
SE, PP got no chance to outheal dmg in pvp or pve, pp got at least heavy armor masteries + nice protection buffs + bsoe, but root will not save you from anyone deas days, or lets hope the rooted DD dont have a bow... PP, SE are just a joke in pvp at least pp isnt targeted as first so got time to root 1-2 targets ...
any protection buff or debuff to SE would be a much better way to go than more skills for recharging... who wants to be a live mp battery, hands up please...
As far as PvP goes - they just need to fix the rate at which damage is being out-putted (which means fixing the buff system) before touching anything else.
Designed to be, not successfully designed to be. Archers/nukers can't really solo anymore either (only summoners remain if you look at it that way).
But if you look at the skill set, all of these classes are designed to be able to maintain their own HP/MP in solo play, and that is, after all, what marks a solo class.
That said, shame on NCSoft for never sticking true to their original designs and messing up all the classes.
How about adding in a DD-like profession choice to the cleric branch? Healers could have the option of becoming the Elder path for support, or self-sufficient Monks. Obviously, monks would have much better soloing capabilities too.
of couse people will probably QQ and scream overpowered!!11, but atleast it's an effort to make the cleric class less monotonous.
It would be nice if more healers carried melee weapons, especially if they know they are going to party with a tank.
I mean really, the tank is not going to need much healing so carry some duals and hit the mob too, you will do at least as much damage as whatever tank you are with lol.
It would be nice if more healers carried melee weapons, especially if they know they are going to party with a tank.
I mean really, the tank is not going to need much healing so carry some duals and hit the mob too, you will do at least as much damage as whatever tank you are with lol.
hmm som is a sword, sword = meele weapon, oe som or homu can do much more dmg than duals + acu for debuffs and mob control
SK + SE or TK is nice duo btw but cant be compared to aoe partys
Uh that depends, if the tank is you know... tanking (taking all the damage) they can need more healing than one would figure. I can't even remember the last time I hit a mob though, that's not my job. Unless I was completely bored out of my gourd and the group needed no healing at all...
For defence only, they have all the crowd control skills. Peace is very clean because you don't have to run away ten kilometers and on groups of mobs if you just Peace the leader, it stops everybody. Otherwise Dryad Root, Trance and Sleep if you need more time are generally very efficient. Even for classes of healers/buffers that have a Dryad Root skill level of 9 maximum, it lands better on white mobs than Trance or Sleep on Sleep resistant mobs.
Basically you need to flee and being a healer you have more time to flee. EE and Bishops have an advantage with their Major Heal, but if you don't have a hell of a train behind you and you don't panic, a Greater Heal or Battle Heals are efficient enough.
Frankly, I have no problem of defence with my Bishop. On the other side, on my Scavenger when I aggro too many mobs, I have to run and run and run until they loose aggro. It's really longer.
In terms of damage dealing, in my opinion it is not defence anymore. But if you want to be able to kill a mob rather than flee, if it is not an undead or you are not EE/Bishop, then take a weapon. It works. You can't chain mobs to xp with it, but a dagger or a dual will get rid of mobs of your level.
The undead nuke will get some love with the Holy Weapon boost around CT1 so, nothing to ask for if you're EE/Bishop and want to play SpS-wannabe.
And for non undead, just get a reason, there's not need for healers/buffers to kill them. And if you really want to do that Wedding Dress quest alone, I can tell you that with my shadow kesh*kesh and shadow DC Light, I had no problem at lvl 67 to slaughter the mobs dropping quest items. You need to be a bunch of levels higher, simply because you're a healer/buffer, not a damage dealer.
And finally, in my opinion it is a very bad design to combine both healing and damage dealing powers on a same character without drastic restrictions. It's not a problem of game lore, pseudo-realism or whatever you're calling for with your "they should know how to...", it's a game design.
If you really want game lore, just think that healers abandonned the study of spells that hurt to focus on healing one. The result : they know how to make a wind strike of a beginner level, but they didn't study enough to be able to be better at it. Healing spells require too much attention to be able to study hurting spells. Also EE/Bishop are studying sacred magic, that's why they can hurt unsacred creatures. In every other game you can damage undeads using healing spells. It's kinda the same. Negative energy and all.
Blizzard sucessfully did this with druids. They are really strong healers if using tire 2/3+ healing gear and can be nice dd/tanks in right grea and skill setup aswell. They can res and heal like a EE/bishop, tank like a DA/tk and deal damage like a glad/dagger but are still balanced for bothe pve and pvp. han agin, this game is to restricted to allow sucha customation , we do not get to chose ways to spec.
Healers are alright on L2, its some classes are lil too offensively stacked.
Nukers should not get Crowdcontrol AT all. <3 tanks/healers.
Archers being typically well rounded chars, but in L2 have too much of an advantage with critical stacking effects. Bows are supposed to shoot slow, but critical more. On L2 they do shoot fast and critical more, which is imba.
Healers should get these skills
~paralyze
~cancel
~CP burn (instant cast, low mp cost, 1200 range).
~silence (de healers)
~make absorbing buffs (absorb fire/water/wind/earth/dark/holy, class specific.. effect +5% hp gained for the ammt damage would of been received)
~debuff reflect (100% success rate, 5 sec cooldown, takes buffslot on person its casted upon)
Healers should get these skills
~paralyze
~cancel
~CP burn (instant cast, low mp cost, 1200 range).
~silence (de healers)
~make absorbing buffs (absorb fire/water/wind/earth/dark/holy, class specific.. effect +5% hp gained for the ammt damage would of been received)
~debuff reflect (100% success rate, 5 sec cooldown, takes buffslot on person its casted upon)
Healers are alright on L2, its some classes are lil too offensively stacked.
Nukers should not get Crowdcontrol AT all. <3 tanks/healers.
Archers being typically well rounded chars, but in L2 have too much of an advantage with critical stacking effects. Bows are supposed to shoot slow, but critical more. On L2 they do shoot fast and critical more, which is imba.
Healers should get these skills
~paralyze
~cancel
~CP burn (instant cast, low mp cost, 1200 range).
~silence (de healers)
~make absorbing buffs (absorb fire/water/wind/earth/dark/holy, class specific.. effect +5% hp gained for the ammt damage would of been received)
~debuff reflect (100% success rate, 5 sec cooldown, takes buffslot on person its casted upon)
Healers arent bad azz enough on L2, sadly.
I like this idea. I still think healers need some offensive capabilities for those tim,es when nobody is around to group with, and to make them generally more appealing. But, good idea.
Blizzard sucessfully did this with druids. They are really strong healers if using tire 2/3+ healing gear and can be nice dd/tanks in right grea and skill setup aswell. They can res and heal like a EE/bishop, tank like a DA/tk and deal damage like a glad/dagger but are still balanced for bothe pve and pvp. han agin, this game is to restricted to allow sucha customation , we do not get to chose ways to spec.
Please do not praise WoW. I tried WoW and since I haven't learned my lesson here with my Elven Elder, I played a priest there too. It's true that the healers can do damage too, but to do that at least fairly, they need to:
1. respec everytime from damage to healing tree for a "nice" amount of gold;
2. gather at least two sets of gear for healing and dmg;
3. live with the even worse dis-balance there because of some many classes and spec trees.
This goes for all their healing capable classes.
It's very simple to fix - give SE/EE/Bish and Prophet different degrees of a self-only skill, that reduces incoming damage by 80% (or so) - and takes it out of your MP pool.
Call it something like 'Self Preserving Heal' - make it last say a few minutes (long enough you can cast it before your hit in a PvP situation) - and by all means, bung it on a cool down.
It won't make them uber - they can't tank (no hate), but it does in mean in PvP environments, these low HP/Def toons can 'hang around a bit' and try to help out, but only by sacrificing lots of MP to do it.
A typical example would be if an SE gets hit for 3k dmg by an Archer crit. If you had this skill running - you'd have taken a loss of 600 MP - keeping you alive, but reducing your healing potential.
I mean - a healer under attack, should be able to *heal themselves* pretty **** well. Sure they could self cast - but with slower casting classes, and massively stacked damage / spell interruption, it doesn't work.
Your then back relying on the player, or a pre-agreed 'tactic' - do you want the healer to burn lots of MP but stay around tight with your PvP group? Or do you want them to use this to evade, and escape - and try and hang out in the shadows.
As it is, typical PvP especially for SE (which has long cast time / low power heals) consists of dieing first, to indicate to the rest of the group - their about to get incoming fire.
Don't want them to use it to PvE? Erm, Ok, have it your way - it only absorbs player damage, not mob.
I've played an SE as my main all the way from prelude up 'till lvl76 - through every update I've seen all classes complain about 'flash in the pan' PvP (2 hit, or be 2 hit at range) - yet every update they bring on more damage, more nukes, more skills - and the healing/defense side is left well sidelined in the equation.
Some of the healing classes (EE/Bish) can almost achieve this affect, i.e. spam Major Heal / Battle Heal (so maybe should get a reduced version) - but at least by having a skill that does this, they can take heat, while still being able to help the party.
Not happy with that? - How about long range heals, so we can hang out at the back? - Or some skill that makes us invisible (dropping target lock) until we cast/attack, but only to other players (not mob).
Something has to be done - as there were (big emphasis: were) a lot of people who've levelled these support classes - only to find that for a 'premiere' PvP game, that *forces* you to encounter PvP - it don't half have some weak classes :(
Telling these people to 'live with it - reroll' doesn't always work. Some people are just casual players, with limited time - and cant' just "reroll ftw". Others actually *enjoyed* raising their toons, but with all the changes, support classes are really sidelined - some more than others admitadly, but for such a PvP world, that aint good :(