SolicitorPirate said:

I...what? I'm not exactly sure if your analogy works here.

Whatever the case, let me expand on my own point, which I believe is harmonious with that of the OP's. The problem with healers and healing is that it's a boring simplification of what a support class should be.

One of the reasons healers are always in the minority in MMOs is that its incredibly difficult to make the player feel powerful or cool as a healer. Like how many people honestly would rather be the person in the white dress and a staff, rather than the lady in the dragoon armor and cool spear, or the guy who beats things to death with his fists? While the player might feel good handling the mechanical difficulties of playing a healer well, that feeling rarely translates visually to the screen, where your character just waves her wand around and a bunch of green numbers appear over your friends' heads.

How much cooler would support characters be if you kept the depth and difficulty of healer style gameplay, but moved the focus to mitigation rather than healing? Take the controller class from City of Heroes; rather than healing, you are summoning cold storms to slow enemies down, freezing the ground to make enemies slip and be unable to attack and turning yourself into a walking tornado and running into enemies to knock them off course. You're still doing the same thing a healer would do; you're keeping your team alive, but you're doing it in a much more engaging manner. You still get the satisfaction of being the backbone that keeps the team together, but the game also allows you to feel powerful as an individual warrior, seperate from your team.

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ClayKavalier said:

I don't completely agree with OP (though I usually don't have as much fun playing a healer) but something being necessary doesn't make it good design. It's like if someone said the "touch your bloodstain to get progress back" mechanic was bad design and you replied "nah fam, you wouldn't be able to level up as often."

Presumably they think the design that makes healers the backbone of a team should be changed.

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Kito said:

Every game is consistent for the healer: heal damaged allies and stay as safe as possible. Win or lose, it's easy to fulfil your purpose. Healers may depend on damage dealers (dd) to win, but dd depend on healers to even function. Complex, algorithmic matchmaking (mm) systems can also force you into the healer class forever. When you try your hand at damage, mm does not know you are practicing damage. It expects you to do the job - a job you cannot do well.

Healers are only redeemed by their easy, noob-friendly gameplay that can make a game accessible to a wider audience.

This is why I am looking forward to leaving Overwatch for Splatoon 2 - no healer class and no mm memory. I can get to S+ and not be expected to use rollers forever, because there is no record of me using rollers.

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Laiza said:

I actually think PSO2 does this balance the best.

Everyone has a large number of potions at hand, but difficult enough content can see you running out eventually, especially if you're bad at timing your dodging and blocking. Plus, there's a huge opportunity cost to sitting in one place sipping down a trimate (especially if you're solo - you usually lose most of the HP you just restored).

Hence, healers are not necessary but they are still very nice to have. Better yet, all of the classes that cast heals cast them as a secondary concern - they're still primarily damage dealers capable of taking down enemies with everyone else (though techers are less so, as they make up the support specialist class). It's not the one thing they're good at and expected to be doing all the time, and it feels damn good that way. It's like if you got to play black mage and white mage in one character in a Final Fantasy game.

Dragon's Dogma Online also handles this an interesting way, as healers also reveal enemy weak points, and they can only heal "grey" damage - any damage beyond that is permanent unless healed with healing potions or rested off at an inn. If you're good enough, you can ultimately succeed even without a healer at all, but a healer is, of course, very nice to have and can help speed up big boss encounters very handily.

What I DON'T like is the 100% dependency on healers we see in games like FFXIV and other old-timey tab targeting MMOs. Make one element of the party too damn important and the game becomes rigid in how heavily structured it is. I didn't realize just how much I appreciated having some freedom until I got to experience what partying is like when you can have any party composition you want and still succeed at completing content. It's liberating, is what I'm saying. I really enjoy these types of games now. I hope that this is the direction we continue to head in for the foreseeable future.

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CcrooK said:

I don't think the OP understands a healer's role in...anything really. You have zero idea.

I still believe this is one of THE best healers of any game.

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ViolentP said:

The whole mom thing was a joke.

I get what you are saying but that lack of excitement is sadly par for the course. Without that healer, no one lives which is why healers also get certain preferential treatment especially in MMOs. Healers are the IT of games. When everything goes right, people ask why a healer is even needed. When everything goes to shit, people always ask why they have a healer if they aren't healing.

While it may not be the funnest role to play, I do fine it to be the role that deserves most respect.

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SolicitorPirate said:

lol, alright, I'm on cold medication that makes me drowsy at the moment, so I'm not at my most alert to jokes.

And yeah, I get that healers are crucial to a lot of games. As one of the three corners of the triangle, it makes sense that they should be crucial. The problem is the fact that such a central pillar is so boring and unappealing to a large contingent of players.

Which is why I think think we should think of the triangle less as DPS/Tank/Healer and more of DPS/Tank/Support. Support characters should be every bit as crucial to survival as a healer, but giving players more interesting and direct ways to mitigate damage would likely be far more appealing to many people. The role, duties and goals should largely remain the same. I just think disabling fools for a few seconds with a stun grenade or saving a teammate with a clutch deployment of a portable barrier is a cooler way to keep the team alive than casting a heal spell.

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Mawile said:

I actually think SCH in FFXIV is a poorly designed Healer. I think what people enjoy about it is that it has somewhat automatic healing and it takes a DPS class moveset so you are a essentially a mini Summoner while also being able to heal.

I'm actually glad they are reworking that class cause it never felt like a class designed with healing first in mind.

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Kito said:

Tell that to Splatoon.

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Dunlop said:

While my MMO days are over, the notion that playing a DPS is remotely as difficult as a healer is pretty damn funny.

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Dunlop said:

While my MMO days are over, the notion that playing a DPS is remotely as difficult as a healer is pretty damn funny.

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Zvonimir Boban said:

Every game is consistent for the Sniper/Recon class: Play like a complete dipshit and stay as safe as possible. Win or lose, it's easy to fulfil your purpose.

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MartyStu said:

I think there is an argument to be made about the design of healers and how best to make them fun AND important, but otherwise...nah homey.

Also, Ana says hi.

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Laiza said:

I actually think PSO2 does this balance the best.

Everyone has a large number of potions at hand, but difficult enough content can see you running out eventually, especially if you're bad at timing your dodging and blocking. Plus, there's a huge opportunity cost to sitting in one place sipping down a trimate (especially if you're solo - you usually lose most of the HP you just restored).

Hence, healers are not necessary but they are still very nice to have. Better yet, all of the classes that cast heals cast them as a secondary concern - they're still primarily damage dealers capable of taking down enemies with everyone else (though techers are less so, as they make up the support specialist class). It's not the one thing they're good at and expected to be doing all the time, and it feels damn good that way. It's like if you got to play black mage and white mage in one character in a Final Fantasy game.

Dragon's Dogma Online also handles this an interesting way, as healers also reveal enemy weak points, and they can only heal "grey" damage - any damage beyond that is permanent unless healed with healing potions or rested off at an inn. If you're good enough, you can ultimately succeed even without a healer at all, but a healer is, of course, very nice to have and can help speed up big boss encounters very handily.

What I DON'T like is the 100% dependency on healers we see in games like FFXIV and other old-timey tab targeting MMOs. Make one element of the party too damn important and the game becomes rigid in how heavily structured it is. I didn't realize just how much I appreciated having some freedom until I got to experience what partying is like when you can have any party composition you want and still succeed at completing content. It's liberating, is what I'm saying. I really enjoy these types of games now. I hope that this is the direction we continue to head in for the foreseeable future.

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Mawile said:

I actually think SCH in FFXIV is a poorly designed Healer. I think what people enjoy about it is that it has somewhat automatic healing and it takes a DPS class moveset so you are a essentially a mini Summoner while also being able to heal.

I'm actually glad they are reworking that class cause it never felt like a class designed with healing first in mind.

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Abinash117 said:

I also don't like the dependency of healers, but I believe the game's(mmos) combat mechanics would have to have depth and complexity to it. I never played Overwatch, but I would image that since it is a pvp game, you don't need healers as much as you would in a MMO pve games.

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Fantastapotamus said:

Being a healer and being good at being a healer are two different things.

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Conkerkid11 said:

Nah.

GW2 tried to get rid of the holy Trinity. That didn't work.

There's a reason healers exist.

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Kent said:

While I do jokingly refer to myself as an xth DPS of the group when I play Scholar, no, just being a damage-dealer isn't what makes it fun.

It's the fact that if you play well, and proactively defend and mitigate damage, you make free time for yourself. That is, you do your job so well that you have nothing left but to throw out DPS at this point. You'll still have to heal things, because some damage is inevitable - but you have so many tools at your disposal for reducing damage taken by your party, that having spare time to sit there and deal damage means you're healing smarter, not harder.

In a lot of ways, it feels more support and less healer - but this is also a trend with any role as some jobs are placed at various points on the sliding scale of purity-vs-utility. It's also a thematically-appropriate way to go about the healer role, as you play smarter, not harder.

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Laiza said:

GW2 is the worst possible example to use here.

Blade & Soul would be a much better example. Everyone has powerful defensive abilities, as well potions and at least some method of self-healing, which heavily mitigates the need to have a dedicated healer on hand. Moreover, if the players are skilled enough they don't even need those sources of healing, either. You can still play a character specced for party heals if you want to, but it's so superfluous that it's generally skipped over entirely - except for a handful of very specific boss fights that encourage it.

However, unlike GW2, encounters are actually structured with mechanics and party roles outside of the holy trinity. CC effects take center stage here, which is remarkable considering how many games completely throw away the notion of applying CC to a boss. Instead of forcing dependency through a strict trinity, they create dynamic roles based on the mechanics of the particular encounter, which I find far more interesting than the staid triad. Your entire run doesn't instantly die upon the loss of one or two especially important party members, either - there's far more wiggle room when everyone is capable of reviving and everyone has at least some ability to fill in for other party members.

I can actually carry an entire party through a potentially failed run if I'm good enough, and that's just an impossible occurrence in a stand holy trinity game. If you like that sort of interdependency, good for you, but I appreciate having the option to sidestep that entirely.

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Mawile said:

I guess what I was getting at is that I feel as if that role has a lot of things going for it compared to the other healers. Although it takes skill to pull off effectively, the fact that you can actually pull off a lot more due to all these options existing that are potent I find to be an issue with the design.

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VanillaCakeIsBurning said:

Monster Hunter multiplayer is similar to this, in that it's possible to play without any sort of healer with everyone taking care of themselves with items, but it's nice to have someone who's good with a Hunting Horn or someone with the wide range support skill (so when they use items the effects extend to teammates allowing them to keep everyone's HP up without requiring that teammates stop to heal themselves when they take damage).

Both have their merits but I find that MMOs in particular tend to favour the hardcore dependency on healers too much.

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Laiza said:

GW2 is the worst possible example to use here.

Blade & Soul would be a much better example. Everyone has powerful defensive abilities, as well as potions and at least some method of self-healing, which heavily mitigates the need to have a dedicated healer on hand. Moreover, if the players are skilled enough they don't even need those sources of healing, either. You can still play a character specced for party heals if you want to, but it's so superfluous that it's generally skipped over entirely - except for a handful of very specific boss fights that encourage it.

However, unlike GW2, encounters are actually structured with mechanics and party roles outside of the holy trinity. CC effects take center stage here, which is remarkable considering how many games completely throw away the notion of applying CC to a boss. Instead of forcing dependency through a strict trinity, they create dynamic roles based on the mechanics of the particular encounter, which I find far more interesting than the staid triad. Your entire run doesn't instantly die upon the loss of one or two especially important party members, either - there's far more wiggle room when everyone is capable of reviving and everyone has at least some ability to fill in for other party members.

I can actually carry an entire party through a potentially failed run if I'm good enough, and that's just an impossible occurrence in a standard holy trinity game. If you like that sort of interdependency, good for you, but I appreciate having the option to sidestep that entirely.

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jon bones said:

everyone post healer art go

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Stackboy said:

So what I'm hearing is you're bad at Lucio.

Do the heals, get the kills. Break it down!!

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CaviarMeths said:

Aw yis.

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