I can heal massive amounts, but no one needs heals anymore.
Example: Last weekend my GF hit 70, I pulled the stored gear out of the bank and got her up to around 2k IL. We look and see that the dungeon of the day is Malabogs. There are 4 of us, me (who has never tanked anything before ever in any game) a GWF, a HR and a TR. Our 5th went off to do a Dragon Flight so we queue up as a foursome for a pug.
It dumps us into a match that was about half completed, as we enter the last person quits and there are no reinforcements.
The 4 of us finish the dungeon with no healer, and a poor excuse for a tank (me). The only one who died was me and it was because I'm still figuring out my new rotation and forgot to equip potions.
4 manned an "Epic" dungeon without a healer or even a good tank.
Would we have liked a healer? Um, yeah, but it clearly wasn't needed. It made me sad for my healadin.
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
Ive pretty much resigned myself to the fact this game has no real place for the healer class.
Im looking at respeccing my healadin to a tankadin.
I dont know any1 who actually plays healer anymore, all DCs focused on buffs and Pallys became tanks...even then the preference was for GF tanks when the content was not being 5 DPS or 4 DPS + buff
@mimicking#6533 if you have any regard for making this game have a viable healer requirement let us know. Dev silence means this is either being ignored or you have no plans.
Ive pretty much resigned myself to the fact this game has no real place for the healer class.
This and mostly what you guys have already said. Lately full support builds are nigh to useless.
All content can be done without them and for the player running with a support it's all but hard work, hard work doing the dailies, if possible at all.
My tact GF and my full heal DC just lie around and act as storage toons, it is a rare occasion when i use them, but then again only amongst friends, who can value them.
As written above, 1 shots can't be healed, other places just require the DC to be a buff bot, if at all (i blame the bonding era, makes content trivial, meh), but still a DC has it easier compared to support built GFs, cause a DC can do pretty well out of the box, while a support GF relies heavily on some boons, heavily on guild boons and here we are at another design flaw, guild boons for GFs. Those of us, who are in small guilds and don't have access to huge boons have a much harder time to play the GF. This flaw can only be cured by heavy money investment, which most can't do, so i really fear for the support classes extinction from game.
There is also the human ego factor, if something goes wrong most people blame it on the support players, but when it comes to credits, a support can't earn anything, cause he ain't top paingiver and that's what most only look for.
Devs should focus on making dailies scale for the full support builds, many of us won't beg for babysitters to carry us around, just to be able to finish the quest before the sun goes down. They should also make or bring back content like the old dungeons were, where control/heals/tanking was really mandatory.
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
I do agree to most of the extent. I remember when my healer actually healed in a dungeon and was needed. I've played a Devoted Cleric since Alpha and she is arguably my main character (a toss up really with my oldest wizard). I miss those days as I love playing a cleric that heals and protects. The only real need for Clerics now are for their buffs really, which isn't even needed that much. I remember when I'd see party health bars start dropping and have time to drop and throw heals, watch their bars go back up and the fight push on. Now, most group content feels like a race to do the most damage you can as fast as you can regardless of any possible tactics, strategies, or communication. Either player's health bars are constantly full, or they are one shot dead, leaving no room for a healer spec. I miss content that made you take time to think and cooperate rather than the end-game content we have now that, whether intentionally or not, encourages the opposite.
I fully agree with you, I have the same feeling and I liked much more old mechanism, where haling was slow and constant, not die or be 100% healed like nowadays.
For rest of folks - I think you are not referring to original question of the author - this game indeed do not need tank and healer. What you are wrote that you have mixed party included support (supporting role to increase DPS!), it's not that you are required one slot for someone who will focus on tanking (not like it's now that mostly buff you). So indeed, I am also agree with author that this game does not required pure tank or pure heal (unfortunately - hope they will fix it), and of course supportive classes make run much faster then going only DPS - but it's nothing new.
0
lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
@matthiasthehun76: Can't say I agree with you about the GF bit. I have a Tact GF buff bot at 3k IL and he only has problems soloing Baphomet (can take anywhere between 10-15 mins depending on what help he gets). Otherwise everything else is smooth sailing and I do dailies on him every day.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I really wonder where people are getting the idea that the old dungeons required tanks or healers.
Did you run dungeons during the first year or so of the game? Yeah, that question is just as silly as your ponderance, for as I am sure you very well know that unless you and your 4 friends were decked out with the absolute best the game had to offer and were extremely skilled in your gameplay and tactics, then yes the old Tier 2 dungeons required a Tank or Healer unless you wanted to spend a few hours dying and running back through the dungeon. Even then, one simple mistake could mean an entire part wipe. If you didn't, then you were among the less than 1% of the game's population and grats to you...
The reality is that for the majority of the population, and the non-elitist, Tanks and Healers were needed to complete many of the Tier 2 dungeons without a sense of discouragement or even anger. Especially in cases like Spellplague Caverns, Dread Vault, Temple of the Spider Queen, and for a time even Frozen Heart. Most dungeons now are little more than solo content that requires a party for terms of game mechanics and those that really do need more than one well-skilled player, they still don't really need a healer or a tank, for you're either one-shot dead or always full on health. Which is the point of this thread. Not about your tactics, skill level, or character's gear.
I have the same problem, i spend a lot of AD and time for my GF's but i see my char in pt is secondary. Maybe not useless but unrequired. I try play but few days ago i finish my game with gf and strat play gwf, but i think soon im done with nev.
Before I made my dc (or had any toon above lvl.70) I read a guide by someone named Kaelac. This person seemed very rational and so I followed the guide that informed me that DO faithful was the way to go...needless to say it was very much outdated... Reading his guide it seemed like playing a dc would be awesome fun and far more than being a wandering buff-o-mat. So there must have been a time when that was the case. I felt cheated. But traipsing around in PVP a little lately I realized that introduces some variety because in that biotope my little dc can be a (face-) tank! Ha!:) Unless I meet an actual BIS-tank (GF) who can massage my poor toon into the floor with one swing of his big bad erm...shield. This one angry brute GF made my wussy toon glide about hysterically every time he was bulldozering his way....lol It´s all so weird....
The first year or so of the game is an awfully long time and would push the time frame well into Mod 3 or maybe 4 when power creep had long since trivialized the content. By thr time of live launch, LFG was full of requests for full parties of CWs, a problem which remained ling after HV stacking. When I first started researching what my DC should get armor-wise (July '13) the meta was pretty firmly against Miracle Healer but not yet set on High Prophet as DCs overhealed the content but the value of debuffing hadn't yet taken hold. When I first joined Legit (mid Aug '13) GFs were rather rare and when playjng my DC I was told to just debuff and maybe clutch heal. Every DPS was advised to just stack Lifesteal.
Now I can't account for the months of May (wasn't playing) or June but the extreme difficulty part was over pretty quick. Claiming that the old dungeons represented a more balanced time could then only work for two months out of over two years that they were around. If power creep eliminated the need for healing and tanking in them then, I would suggest that that is the problem with the current content.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
My take on this is that the state of the game is so right now that tank/healer is less necessary for most "end-game" decked out players. My TachGF + Buff Cleric + 3 DPS did eToS 4 times averaging 6 min per run. I'm sure that isn't a record, but the point is we are all geared and the only reason for us to even be in there is for protector seals and purples for the guild coffer. We're not in there because it is challenging at all, we're in there to get the seals and surplus!
Now tell someone who just hit 70 last week and trying to get their 1st set of alliance gear or Elven gear that they don't need a DC or a tank and they may disagree?
This new map with big HE is a joke. All ppl want in pt only dps -.-
Even worse HDPS, snob elitism, one nail more in the coffin. I blame bondings for all this, it trivializes content and makes classes useless.
I have asked a party a few days ago to shut down their bonding companions and omg where they terrible, even those who had formerly skill are now skill-less cause they got so much used to them. Meh...
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
I think they should decrease bonuses from bonding. If people had lower att they want DC/GF/OP in pt. and not only like a buff. But im sure cryptic do nothing. Of course, if a lot of people that requested, they must respond, but i think 70-80% players is a DPS class so we dont have chance. DC/OP/GF will slowly die out.
I think the reason it has not been addressed is mainly because there not enough PvP'ers complaining yet. Once they start raising pitchforks, expect bonding to have a 30 min or so cool-down...
0
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
in the first year, before everyone had epic gears.. or even r7s.. most of us played this game in found blues and r4/5 enchants.
You in fact needed a tank, but it wasnt the GF, most people used a GWF as the tanker.. then mixed a tr and 2 cws and dc. You actually kited more in this game , then tanked anything , I E standing there and taking hits, wasnt really a thing for most of the first year or so of this game.
Sometimes you would see 3 cws, 1 gwf and 1 dc instead.
you could do everything with 4 cws , 1 dc as well, or 3 cws, 1 tr and 1 dc. Sometimes you would take 2 dcs and split the Ashield times, after they nerfed it from being perma. 1 dc with moonstone trated HG and Ashield could more or less keep a party alive .. they nerfed getting AP while HG was down at some point, making it nearly impossible to do that.. so people just adjusted again.
It wasnt well into mod 3 I remember that people had a use for a GF again. It wasnt until mod 6 really that GFS/Tanks were real tanks again (standing around taking hits) no one stood around to take hits, it wasnt needed and GFS at that time (between mods 1 -3 had not much use in game.
I might be off a little about the timing, but I can tell you NO one really took tanks to tank.. they took kiters to kite and GWFS kited as well as any class.
I see that not many people are interested in this theme, but i have 1 question what we could do to extort changes on cryptic? Maybe a probe? When they want change dungeon key, a lot of ppl start crying and they changed their mind.
That was due to a much larger than usual portion of the player base expressing their total objection - in a way that offered sensible analysis and suggestions, but yes it was mostly the weight of opinion.
Long term fixes? I'm not holding my breath.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
It's not a matter of things needing to be nerfed so that the healer/tank are needed again. It's that the higher end content is simply alive vs dead.
Stop demanding nerfs and instead ask for balance.
You want to make a healer back into a healer - you need to create content that makes healing needed.
You want the tanks to feel needed - make it so that the GWF's can't take the abuse so you need an OP or GF to take it for you, and THEY need a healer to help them out.
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
IF a party overpowering the content they would not need tank or healer. (eg. 3k-4k group doing T1 Dungeon)
Equal power level of content vs Player will need a tank and healer (2k-3k vs T2/T3)
Higher level content from what i can see its the tank (Bad character build/undergeared/Bad choices of skill/overconfident) Die too fast before healer can actually heals them (CN/Edemo/FBI/Svardborg)
I think the current @dev team are doing a great job the newer contents whereby all of them needed healer and tank to complete (CN/Edemo/FBI/Svardborg) everyday i saw LF Tank/Healer on demand on PE or custom channel for these newer content.
I would say getting DPS jobs are far more competitive than Support jobs where people these days are looking forward HDPS or 3k+. Whereby normally on party 3k+ if its looking for Tank/Healer/Buffer you may apply with a 2k+ toon they still takes you in due to its hard to find compare to DPS toons.
0
lantern22Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,111Arc User
Not 100% sure of the timing (i.e. whether it was Mod 2 or 3) but I can remember the role of my GF in parties back then was to mostly Kite, particularly in Spell Plague and (I think) Frozen Heart. By mod 4 or 5 the only things that got me into a PK run was ITF to speed it up, back then it was common for there to be 4 or 5 CWs in the party.
Now, there is still a role for tanks and depending on the rest of the party healers / buffers.
Queues pop for my GF almost instantaneously, a little longer for my DC and it takes ages for queue's to pop for my DPS (CW and GWF). Most of the requests for classes are either tank or DC. DPS is a dime a dozen.
At the moment I am levelling my DC up to end game. In the pug queues that I am playing in atm we always need a tank and often they need heals (sometimes more heals than my Righteous DC can dish out). Yeah for high IL parties the DC is jmostly for buffing now, but low IL people still need heals. In fact, I found out yesterday that some 3K players also need heals, I had a 3K GWF complain because my heals didn't keep him alive in the final boss of eSOT (fact that he couldn't dodge the dagger throws or the red zones long enough for me to build divinity didn't matter), my poor heals let the party down. I was very sad
Taking good 3K+ players in low IL content out of the equation (aforementioned GWF not included), there is definitely a role for tanks in this game (way more than Mod 3 or 4) and there is still a role for heals, it just need to be balanced with buffs now as well.
I think them selling the high IL level 70's has increased the need for heals in the mid-high IL dungeons because so many people can buy a character and walk into a T2 dungeon with out having any idea how to play the character. And at first it's hard to spot them, you think an experience player walked into your dungeon and quickly realize that you were wrong.
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
At the moment I am levelling my DC up to end game. In the pug queues that I am playing in atm we always need a tank and often they need heals (sometimes more heals than my Righteous DC can dish out). Yeah for high IL parties the DC is jmostly for buffing now, but low IL people still need heals. In fact, I found out yesterday that some 3K players also need heals, I had a 3K GWF complain because my heals didn't keep him alive in the final boss of eSOT (fact that he couldn't dodge the dagger throws or the red zones long enough for me to build divinity didn't matter), my poor heals let the party down. I was very sad
Sounds like someone needs to watch this guide to healing in MMO's.
At the moment I am levelling my DC up to end game. In the pug queues that I am playing in atm we always need a tank and often they need heals (sometimes more heals than my Righteous DC can dish out). Yeah for high IL parties the DC is jmostly for buffing now, but low IL people still need heals. In fact, I found out yesterday that some 3K players also need heals, I had a 3K GWF complain because my heals didn't keep him alive in the final boss of eSOT (fact that he couldn't dodge the dagger throws or the red zones long enough for me to build divinity didn't matter), my poor heals let the party down. I was very sad
Sounds like someone needs to watch this guide to healing in MMO's.
On the plus side, PUG runs can sometimes be amusing when you see the scores at the end and realize you out-dps'ed most of the team as a healer.
lol funny video, also watched the tank one after it. thnx.
I did make them watch me kite the ESOT boss for a while (doing almost no damage I might add) just so they can see it is possible to stay alive by themselves for more than 5 seconds
Post edited by lantern22 on
0
gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
IF a party overpowering the content they would not need tank or healer. (eg. 3k-4k group doing T1 Dungeon)
Equal power level of content vs Player will need a tank and healer (2k-3k vs T2/T3)
Higher level content from what i can see its the tank (Bad character build/undergeared/Bad choices of skill/overconfident) Die too fast before healer can actually heals them (CN/Edemo/FBI/Svardborg)
I think the current @dev team are doing a great job the newer contents whereby all of them needed healer and tank to complete (CN/Edemo/FBI/Svardborg) everyday i saw LF Tank/Healer on demand on PE or custom channel for these newer content.
I would say getting DPS jobs are far more competitive than Support jobs where people these days are looking forward HDPS or 3k+. Whereby normally on party 3k+ if its looking for Tank/Healer/Buffer you may apply with a 2k+ toon they still takes you in due to its hard to find compare to DPS toons.
You don't really need to be that overpowered not to need healing. A few days ago I saw one guildie of mine on his HR 3,1k. He was alone at Valindra's final battle (we did a duo until final boss, then I died due to a lag spike at the first red stripes phase). He stayed clutched into Valindra's grasping hand with a dozen wights pummeling him and he didn't die, actually he freed himself by destroying the hand with reflection damage from boons. In the 30-40 seconds needed for the reflection damage to kill the hand he never ever went below half of his HP bar. I agree that his iLVL was almost twice what you need to enter, but we are talking about a squishy dps, completely controlled and unable to act for 30-40 seconds...
I've seen a video of him soloing eLoL without dying (not even soulforged procs) with that same toon.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Can't speak for tanks, am a buff/debuff DC, and I would love to have the option to be a healer. So I agree with OP about that. Heck I would even level up another DC as a healer (while we optimistically wait for dual-spec) just to play a healer.
But it's not a nerf that is needed. It's enemies damage mechanics that need reworking, at least in higher end-game content.
Damage that you can not mitigate, or avoid. Does medium amounts of damage, that you will need to heal through and can. If the content dishes out enough of it, this will validate the need for healers. Most of the time right now, as a buff DC ("Jarek's AC righteous" build), I can heal enough with DG to keep people alive long enough for them to heal themselves through the rest or top them up.
Tanks however, from a spectator point of view anyway, seem to still have a few more options than healers. The masters, CN, both demos and FBI...
Then again support roles, while always in great demand, will always remain under-appreciated and thankless roles.
Can't speak for tanks, am a buff/debuff DC, and I would love to have the option to be a healer. So I agree with OP about that. Heck I would even level up another DC as a healer (while we optimistically wait for dual-spec) just to play a healer.
But it's not a nerf that is needed. It's enemies damage mechanics that need reworking, at least in higher end-game content.
Damage that you can not mitigate, or avoid. Does medium amounts of damage, that you will need to heal through and can. If the content dishes out enough of it, this will validate the need for healers. Most of the time right now, as a buff DC ("Jarek's AC righteous" build), I can heal enough with DG to keep people alive long enough for them to heal themselves through the rest or top them up.
Tanks however, from a spectator point of view anyway, seem to still have a few more options than healers. The masters, CN, both demos and FBI...
Then again support roles, while always in great demand, will always remain under-appreciated and thankless roles.
I'm a righteous DC as well (due to the mechanics of the game). It's disappointing that healing is so irrelevant in neverwinter.
The problem, as you mention, is the damage mechanics but I do think a nerf to lifesteal and/or mount insignia bonuses is also needed.
The idea of a self-sustaining class is really cool (SW), but it has somehow spread across every class at this point. Lifesteal is so powerful that at end-game, as long as you arent one-shotted, you can heal yourself back to full pretty quickly. The added problem is that we can't heal one-shots (not that I think we should).
Even if they have no desire to rework past content, I really hope going forward, they create content that has less one-shots but more overall damage that lifesteal alone cant mitigate.
The problem is that a lot of the content is solo and dps players need to be able to survive that content in a solo context.
In Guild Wars you could take teams of NPC 'mercenaries' with you through solo content (up to 5 of them at once), including healers, tanks and dps. This meant that as a DPS you could bring your own healer(s) and as a healer you could bring your own DPS. You just picked them up in town before heading out.
They would fill a space in your party and would also enable you to run dungeons with less than the max number of players by filling spaces with the NPC's. Of course they weren't as good as a real player but it meant you could run your preferred build without things like lifesteal (only necromancers could do this) or self healing skills (only healers could do normal heals).
I found it to be a lot more balanced.
The current Companion system is a nod in this direction but as they are expensive to kit out it's really hard to have a different companion for different circumstances, especially as companion damage and survivability is very poor.
If we were to rely on them in normal content they'd need to be much more configurable and made to perform at around the level of a 2.5k player. That means giving them weapons, armor, more skills, much more health etc.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I know the game will not change for the better for NOT dps classes. But maybe begin nerf DPS! It's embarrassing on KR/ESOT/ELOL/VT/POM etc. they dont need dc or gf/op. Only few dung when they "graciously" inv a gf/op/dc. DPS char is to strong! It is so difficult to understand? or i know delete all other classes and save only this st*pid GWF.
Comments
I can heal massive amounts, but no one needs heals anymore.
Example:
Last weekend my GF hit 70, I pulled the stored gear out of the bank and got her up to around 2k IL. We look and see that the dungeon of the day is Malabogs. There are 4 of us, me (who has never tanked anything before ever in any game) a GWF, a HR and a TR. Our 5th went off to do a Dragon Flight so we queue up as a foursome for a pug.
It dumps us into a match that was about half completed, as we enter the last person quits and there are no reinforcements.
The 4 of us finish the dungeon with no healer, and a poor excuse for a tank (me). The only one who died was me and it was because I'm still figuring out my new rotation and forgot to equip potions.
4 manned an "Epic" dungeon without a healer or even a good tank.
Would we have liked a healer? Um, yeah, but it clearly wasn't needed. It made me sad for my healadin.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
Im looking at respeccing my healadin to a tankadin.
I dont know any1 who actually plays healer anymore, all DCs focused on buffs and Pallys became tanks...even then the preference was for GF tanks when the content was not being 5 DPS or 4 DPS + buff
@mimicking#6533 if you have any regard for making this game have a viable healer requirement let us know. Dev silence means this is either being ignored or you have no plans.
All content can be done without them and for the player running with a support it's all but hard work, hard work doing the dailies, if possible at all.
My tact GF and my full heal DC just lie around and act as storage toons, it is a rare occasion when i use them, but then again only amongst friends, who can value them.
As written above, 1 shots can't be healed, other places just require the DC to be a buff bot, if at all (i blame the bonding era, makes content trivial, meh), but still a DC has it easier compared to support built GFs, cause a DC can do pretty well out of the box, while a support GF relies heavily on some boons, heavily on guild boons and here we are at another design flaw, guild boons for GFs. Those of us, who are in small guilds and don't have access to huge boons have a much harder time to play the GF. This flaw can only be cured by heavy money investment, which most can't do, so i really fear for the support classes extinction from game.
There is also the human ego factor, if something goes wrong most people blame it on the support players, but when it comes to credits, a support can't earn anything, cause he ain't top paingiver and that's what most only look for.
Devs should focus on making dailies scale for the full support builds, many of us won't beg for babysitters to carry us around, just to be able to finish the quest before the sun goes down. They should also make or bring back content like the old dungeons were, where control/heals/tanking was really mandatory.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
For rest of folks - I think you are not referring to original question of the author - this game indeed do not need tank and healer. What you are wrote that you have mixed party included support (supporting role to increase DPS!), it's not that you are required one slot for someone who will focus on tanking (not like it's now that mostly buff you). So indeed, I am also agree with author that this game does not required pure tank or pure heal (unfortunately - hope they will fix it), and of course supportive classes make run much faster then going only DPS - but it's nothing new.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The reality is that for the majority of the population, and the non-elitist, Tanks and Healers were needed to complete many of the Tier 2 dungeons without a sense of discouragement or even anger. Especially in cases like Spellplague Caverns, Dread Vault, Temple of the Spider Queen, and for a time even Frozen Heart. Most dungeons now are little more than solo content that requires a party for terms of game mechanics and those that really do need more than one well-skilled player, they still don't really need a healer or a tank, for you're either one-shot dead or always full on health. Which is the point of this thread. Not about your tactics, skill level, or character's gear.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
But traipsing around in PVP a little lately I realized that introduces some variety because in that biotope my little dc can be a (face-) tank! Ha!:)
Unless I meet an actual BIS-tank (GF) who can massage my poor toon into the floor with one swing of his big bad erm...shield. This one angry brute GF made my wussy toon glide about hysterically every time he was bulldozering his way....lol
It´s all so weird....
The first year or so of the game is an awfully long time and would push the time frame well into Mod 3 or maybe 4 when power creep had long since trivialized the content. By thr time of live launch, LFG was full of requests for full parties of CWs, a problem which remained ling after HV stacking. When I first started researching what my DC should get armor-wise (July '13) the meta was pretty firmly against Miracle Healer but not yet set on High Prophet as DCs overhealed the content but the value of debuffing hadn't yet taken hold. When I first joined Legit (mid Aug '13) GFs were rather rare and when playjng my DC I was told to just debuff and maybe clutch heal. Every DPS was advised to just stack Lifesteal.
Now I can't account for the months of May (wasn't playing) or June but the extreme difficulty part was over pretty quick. Claiming that the old dungeons represented a more balanced time could then only work for two months out of over two years that they were around. If power creep eliminated the need for healing and tanking in them then, I would suggest that that is the problem with the current content.
Now tell someone who just hit 70 last week and trying to get their 1st set of alliance gear or Elven gear that they don't need a DC or a tank and they may disagree?
I have asked a party a few days ago to shut down their bonding companions and omg where they terrible, even those who had formerly skill are now skill-less cause they got so much used to them. Meh...
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
But im sure cryptic do nothing. Of course, if a lot of people that requested, they must respond, but i think 70-80% players is a DPS class so we dont have chance. DC/OP/GF will slowly die out.
in the first year, before everyone had epic gears.. or even r7s.. most of us played this game in found blues and r4/5 enchants.
You in fact needed a tank, but it wasnt the GF, most people used a GWF as the tanker.. then mixed a tr and 2 cws and dc. You actually kited more in this game , then tanked anything , I E standing there and taking hits, wasnt really a thing for most of the first year or so of this game.
Sometimes you would see 3 cws, 1 gwf and 1 dc instead.
you could do everything with 4 cws , 1 dc as well, or 3 cws, 1 tr and 1 dc. Sometimes you would take 2 dcs and split the Ashield times, after they nerfed it from being perma. 1 dc with moonstone trated HG and Ashield could more or less keep a party alive .. they nerfed getting AP while HG was down at some point, making it nearly impossible to do that.. so people just adjusted again.
It wasnt well into mod 3 I remember that people had a use for a GF again. It wasnt until mod 6 really that GFS/Tanks were real tanks again (standing around taking hits) no one stood around to take hits, it wasnt needed and GFS at that time (between mods 1 -3 had not much use in game.
I might be off a little about the timing, but I can tell you NO one really took tanks to tank.. they took kiters to kite and GWFS kited as well as any class.
Maybe a probe?
When they want change dungeon key, a lot of ppl start crying and they changed their mind.
Long term fixes? I'm not holding my breath.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Stop demanding nerfs and instead ask for balance.
You want to make a healer back into a healer - you need to create content that makes healing needed.
You want the tanks to feel needed - make it so that the GWF's can't take the abuse so you need an OP or GF to take it for you, and THEY need a healer to help them out.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
IF a party overpowering the content they would not need tank or healer. (eg. 3k-4k group doing T1 Dungeon)
Equal power level of content vs Player will need a tank and healer (2k-3k vs T2/T3)
Higher level content from what i can see its the tank (Bad character build/undergeared/Bad choices of skill/overconfident)
Die too fast before healer can actually heals them (CN/Edemo/FBI/Svardborg)
I think the current @dev team are doing a great job the newer contents whereby all of them needed healer and tank to complete (CN/Edemo/FBI/Svardborg) everyday i saw LF Tank/Healer on demand on PE or custom channel for these newer content.
I would say getting DPS jobs are far more competitive than Support jobs where people these days are looking forward HDPS or 3k+. Whereby normally on party 3k+ if its looking for Tank/Healer/Buffer you may apply with a 2k+ toon they still takes you in due to its hard to find compare to DPS toons.
Not 100% sure of the timing (i.e. whether it was Mod 2 or 3) but I can remember the role of my GF in parties back then was to mostly Kite, particularly in Spell Plague and (I think) Frozen Heart. By mod 4 or 5 the only things that got me into a PK run was ITF to speed it up, back then it was common for there to be 4 or 5 CWs in the party.
Now, there is still a role for tanks and depending on the rest of the party healers / buffers.
Queues pop for my GF almost instantaneously, a little longer for my DC and it takes ages for queue's to pop for my DPS (CW and GWF). Most of the requests for classes are either tank or DC. DPS is a dime a dozen.
At the moment I am levelling my DC up to end game. In the pug queues that I am playing in atm we always need a tank and often they need heals (sometimes more heals than my Righteous DC can dish out). Yeah for high IL parties the DC is jmostly for buffing now, but low IL people still need heals. In fact, I found out yesterday that some 3K players also need heals, I had a 3K GWF complain because my heals didn't keep him alive in the final boss of eSOT (fact that he couldn't dodge the dagger throws or the red zones long enough for me to build divinity didn't matter), my poor heals let the party down. I was very sad
Taking good 3K+ players in low IL content out of the equation (aforementioned GWF not included), there is definitely a role for tanks in this game (way more than Mod 3 or 4) and there is still a role for heals, it just need to be balanced with buffs now as well.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2DxS7eT_ky4&t=2s
On the plus side, PUG runs can sometimes be amusing when you see the scores at the end and realize you out-dps'ed most of the team as a healer.
I did make them watch me kite the ESOT boss for a while (doing almost no damage I might add) just so they can see it is possible to stay alive by themselves for more than 5 seconds
He stayed clutched into Valindra's grasping hand with a dozen wights pummeling him and he didn't die, actually he freed himself by destroying the hand with reflection damage from boons. In the 30-40 seconds needed for the reflection damage to kill the hand he never ever went below half of his HP bar. I agree that his iLVL was almost twice what you need to enter, but we are talking about a squishy dps, completely controlled and unable to act for 30-40 seconds...
I've seen a video of him soloing eLoL without dying (not even soulforged procs) with that same toon.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
But it's not a nerf that is needed. It's enemies damage mechanics that need reworking, at least in higher end-game content.
Damage that you can not mitigate, or avoid. Does medium amounts of damage, that you will need to heal through and can. If the content dishes out enough of it, this will validate the need for healers. Most of the time right now, as a buff DC ("Jarek's AC righteous" build), I can heal enough with DG to keep people alive long enough for them to heal themselves through the rest or top them up.
Tanks however, from a spectator point of view anyway, seem to still have a few more options than healers. The masters, CN, both demos and FBI...
Then again support roles, while always in great demand, will always remain under-appreciated and thankless roles.
The problem, as you mention, is the damage mechanics but I do think a nerf to lifesteal and/or mount insignia bonuses is also needed.
The idea of a self-sustaining class is really cool (SW), but it has somehow spread across every class at this point. Lifesteal is so powerful that at end-game, as long as you arent one-shotted, you can heal yourself back to full pretty quickly. The added problem is that we can't heal one-shots (not that I think we should).
Even if they have no desire to rework past content, I really hope going forward, they create content that has less one-shots but more overall damage that lifesteal alone cant mitigate.
In Guild Wars you could take teams of NPC 'mercenaries' with you through solo content (up to 5 of them at once), including healers, tanks and dps. This meant that as a DPS you could bring your own healer(s) and as a healer you could bring your own DPS. You just picked them up in town before heading out.
They would fill a space in your party and would also enable you to run dungeons with less than the max number of players by filling spaces with the NPC's. Of course they weren't as good as a real player but it meant you could run your preferred build without things like lifesteal (only necromancers could do this) or self healing skills (only healers could do normal heals).
I found it to be a lot more balanced.
The current Companion system is a nod in this direction but as they are expensive to kit out it's really hard to have a different companion for different circumstances, especially as companion damage and survivability is very poor.
If we were to rely on them in normal content they'd need to be much more configurable and made to perform at around the level of a 2.5k player. That means giving them weapons, armor, more skills, much more health etc.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox