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The healer deficit.
crappynamerules
Posts: 81 Arc User
Been playing the cosmics every day since they dropped last week, and it's become very clear there is one very big problem that is holding the efforts back, delaying runs for crazy amounts of time, and that is a lack of healers. Every time it takes an hour or more for the Teleiosaurus or Kigatilik group to finally get underway, it's because we can't get the needed healers.
To address this problem, we've got to look at why it's happening. A lot of people say it's because of the completion credit bugs. But I don't think that's it. Or at least, that's not only it. Speaking from my own viewpoint, I have a healer. I made him as he is to run stuff like Fire & Ice, to help guarantee wins when it seemed like groups would constantly lose. When premade queueing for it became prevalent, healing was always in high demand.
So why do I not whip out my healer for cosmics when we are waiting forever for a healer to come and save us? Because most importantly, when I got rewards in the rampages, I wasn't stuck with them on my healer character. I do not particularly like playing a healer, and gearing my healer is a priority very, very far down the list. He has heroics with R5s and armadillo secondaries, and that's all I really care to give him. I think a lot of people feel the same way about theirs. Plenty have healer alts, but they don't consider them priority characters. Folks don't come into a superhero game expecting to make super-healers, after all. They want to make superheroes similar to the ones they know and love, very few, if any, of those heroes are "healers". Yes, we do have people who do prioritize and love their healer characters, and rest assured, we love having you around to heal us! But these people are not the norm by any stretch, and honestly, this creates a situation where the rest of us are left praying these people are available, or waiting god knows how long until they are.
So how do we fix this? That's the real point of posting about it here, yes. There are some possibilities that occur to me, with varying levels of usefulness:
The first, is to create what I call a double or layered bind for the GCR reward items that bind on pickup. Obviously as bind on pickup items, it is intended by design that they not wind up finding their way to the auction house, and not making them bind to account on pickup is in place to make sure people don't just have one set of these they pass around multiple characters. These both make sense, but it prevents me from say, running this with my healer character to help out my fellow players and make the run go smoother and get started quicker, because I don't want the GCR stuff for my healer, I want it for other characters who I enjoy more and prefer. So when I say double-bind, what I mean is that there is an initial bind for the pickup of the item, and then a second bind for the equip. Initially, when you pick it up, it binds to account. This keeps anyone from being able to trade it around, and preserves the clear intent that it only be a reward item for high end content. The second bind is when it is equipped, which binds it to the character who equips it. This prevents it from being passed around multiple characters, people who want this stuff for multiple characters. will have to play the content and get it for multiple characters. But what this kind of a system allows is people to run the content with characters they don't necessarily want the rewards for, but are vital to the team effort, and still get rewards they can put on a character they actually want the rewards for.
When I've highlighted the problem in chat of people not wanting the rewards for their healer alts, often people bring up making GCR transferable like drifter salvage. I am not certain this is the ideal solution. It would address the problem, but I think it might work against some of the developer intent. I bring it up here for the sake of completeness, but with systems in place that keep someone from accruing large amounts of GCR in a single day, I suspect the developers would not be amenable to putting this in place, as it would allow circumventing this intended limit by using alts. The aforementioned double-bind mechanic I think would work against this design objective far less, because one would still need to amass the needed rewards on a single character in order to purchase the item. So while theoretically one could concurrently run several alts to get a full set of distinguished primaries on one character in one third of the time, it still prevents the scenario of someone using an army of alts to put enormous amounts of GCR together in a very short amount of time.
The second idea I have is simply to make more options for healer concepts/builds. Right now, if you want to be a healer, your options are basically angelic/mystic type powers that are cosmetically and conceptually similar, or some psychic stuff that isn't much further off. What about some better tech type heals? Maybe some kind of gadgeteer heal-ray stuff, or shooting healing nanite injections at people? Why not some kind of functional opposite to the toxic powers? Instead of spewing harmful poisonous crud, you spew helpful medicinal goodness? Maybe some more dual functionality stuff like the celestial powerset has? I target an enemy, I hit them with a hypo full of nasty poison stuff, if I target a friend, instead they get the healing nanite hypo!
The third idea is perhaps the simplest, but might be the most radical to try and program, and that's a dual-spec system. This would allow people to keep characters as they want and like them, but also have an off-spec handy they can fire up if a team needs it. This would also go toward addressing the issue that exists of people building for PvP and not being able to do much but DPS the high end PvE content, and often be built in such a way that it can throw the team synergy off (crippling challenge on attacks meant to break player blocks, no solid threat wipe, yada yada). The game does allow quick build switches, but to build for multiple roles right now, you need to divide your available power selections up, and you are still forced to pick superstats and specializations that are good for one thing or the other. Allowing for a full secondary build will facilitate more ability for teams to run the content, as the likelihood will increase that someone will have a secondary build handy that lets them fill a needed role that everyone is waiting to get filled before they can start. The issue of people somehow using this as a combat exploit to their advantage can easily be fixed using cooldowns and preventing the switch during combat. Other games have dual specing and it works out just fine, and allows for people to make their own preferred individual character builds while also giving them the ease of fitting right into teams for group content.
To address this problem, we've got to look at why it's happening. A lot of people say it's because of the completion credit bugs. But I don't think that's it. Or at least, that's not only it. Speaking from my own viewpoint, I have a healer. I made him as he is to run stuff like Fire & Ice, to help guarantee wins when it seemed like groups would constantly lose. When premade queueing for it became prevalent, healing was always in high demand.
So why do I not whip out my healer for cosmics when we are waiting forever for a healer to come and save us? Because most importantly, when I got rewards in the rampages, I wasn't stuck with them on my healer character. I do not particularly like playing a healer, and gearing my healer is a priority very, very far down the list. He has heroics with R5s and armadillo secondaries, and that's all I really care to give him. I think a lot of people feel the same way about theirs. Plenty have healer alts, but they don't consider them priority characters. Folks don't come into a superhero game expecting to make super-healers, after all. They want to make superheroes similar to the ones they know and love, very few, if any, of those heroes are "healers". Yes, we do have people who do prioritize and love their healer characters, and rest assured, we love having you around to heal us! But these people are not the norm by any stretch, and honestly, this creates a situation where the rest of us are left praying these people are available, or waiting god knows how long until they are.
So how do we fix this? That's the real point of posting about it here, yes. There are some possibilities that occur to me, with varying levels of usefulness:
The first, is to create what I call a double or layered bind for the GCR reward items that bind on pickup. Obviously as bind on pickup items, it is intended by design that they not wind up finding their way to the auction house, and not making them bind to account on pickup is in place to make sure people don't just have one set of these they pass around multiple characters. These both make sense, but it prevents me from say, running this with my healer character to help out my fellow players and make the run go smoother and get started quicker, because I don't want the GCR stuff for my healer, I want it for other characters who I enjoy more and prefer. So when I say double-bind, what I mean is that there is an initial bind for the pickup of the item, and then a second bind for the equip. Initially, when you pick it up, it binds to account. This keeps anyone from being able to trade it around, and preserves the clear intent that it only be a reward item for high end content. The second bind is when it is equipped, which binds it to the character who equips it. This prevents it from being passed around multiple characters, people who want this stuff for multiple characters. will have to play the content and get it for multiple characters. But what this kind of a system allows is people to run the content with characters they don't necessarily want the rewards for, but are vital to the team effort, and still get rewards they can put on a character they actually want the rewards for.
When I've highlighted the problem in chat of people not wanting the rewards for their healer alts, often people bring up making GCR transferable like drifter salvage. I am not certain this is the ideal solution. It would address the problem, but I think it might work against some of the developer intent. I bring it up here for the sake of completeness, but with systems in place that keep someone from accruing large amounts of GCR in a single day, I suspect the developers would not be amenable to putting this in place, as it would allow circumventing this intended limit by using alts. The aforementioned double-bind mechanic I think would work against this design objective far less, because one would still need to amass the needed rewards on a single character in order to purchase the item. So while theoretically one could concurrently run several alts to get a full set of distinguished primaries on one character in one third of the time, it still prevents the scenario of someone using an army of alts to put enormous amounts of GCR together in a very short amount of time.
The second idea I have is simply to make more options for healer concepts/builds. Right now, if you want to be a healer, your options are basically angelic/mystic type powers that are cosmetically and conceptually similar, or some psychic stuff that isn't much further off. What about some better tech type heals? Maybe some kind of gadgeteer heal-ray stuff, or shooting healing nanite injections at people? Why not some kind of functional opposite to the toxic powers? Instead of spewing harmful poisonous crud, you spew helpful medicinal goodness? Maybe some more dual functionality stuff like the celestial powerset has? I target an enemy, I hit them with a hypo full of nasty poison stuff, if I target a friend, instead they get the healing nanite hypo!
The third idea is perhaps the simplest, but might be the most radical to try and program, and that's a dual-spec system. This would allow people to keep characters as they want and like them, but also have an off-spec handy they can fire up if a team needs it. This would also go toward addressing the issue that exists of people building for PvP and not being able to do much but DPS the high end PvE content, and often be built in such a way that it can throw the team synergy off (crippling challenge on attacks meant to break player blocks, no solid threat wipe, yada yada). The game does allow quick build switches, but to build for multiple roles right now, you need to divide your available power selections up, and you are still forced to pick superstats and specializations that are good for one thing or the other. Allowing for a full secondary build will facilitate more ability for teams to run the content, as the likelihood will increase that someone will have a secondary build handy that lets them fill a needed role that everyone is waiting to get filled before they can start. The issue of people somehow using this as a combat exploit to their advantage can easily be fixed using cooldowns and preventing the switch during combat. Other games have dual specing and it works out just fine, and allows for people to make their own preferred individual character builds while also giving them the ease of fitting right into teams for group content.
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Comments
That's a tall order in the middle of ground zero, where you are most needed. The only healer I have who can place on the board is using AOED. I think a lot of people tried and then gave up. Why do that when you can grab a DPS and be guaranteed a reward.
- Support Toons are usually alts.
- DPS is the easiest road to success in CO.
- Lack of healer/support AT options. There's only three. Two have a rez.
- Dino's AOE's require high HP & Defense to mitigate.
- Lack of high HPS or strong burst heal talents.
- Most heals are maintains or charges.
And this is a real issue. My level 40 Radiant (my only pure healer) gets mobbed with requests to heal on Cosmics. He just isn't capable of it. He only has 8k hitpoints and virtually no defense. When you get hit for over 10k damage while blocking, 8k simply isn't enough. And constantly dying healers don't deal enough sustained HPS to count for a reward.
A healer has to stay in the game in order for their efforts to count for a reward. Even after the bug fix. If you are not tagged as participating enough - you don't get anything. As opposed to my Void AT - which is quite literally plug and play for cosmic encounters.
Or just remove the leeching mechanics entirely.
Healing is a nightmare at the best of times and doubly so in these events. Teliosaurus, for example - multiple villains, 50+ heroes and their pets, and people shouting "heal the tank!" without realising you can't see, let alone target, the tank.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Basically, its the best option. I use an AOED healer that I primarily built for stuns a while ago. But he's perfect for Cosmics. AoeD pumps up everyone's damage so it's good for low damage tanks. I also don't have to do two jobs (damage plus healing) thanks to dmg proc. While my heal isn't super amazing it's good enough - but it won't help tanks with really heavy hits. So the tanks lose out. Plus I'm not using something like AoRP or AOPM so they lose out some more.
And your primary heal has to be an AOE heal, and there's not much to choose from. I've tried the single target heals, and healing one tank single target doesn't get you very far. If you are only healing, you must perform a huge amount of AoE. That's why healers on tanks in Kigatlik lose out.
In fairness, I noticed the specialization auras range was increased to 100ft.. that's going to help a lot . Especially Sentinel aura.
But the real issue is.. how many people are going to be happy rolling a support alt, when only other people are going to benefit from it? All the GCR you earn is only going to that alt.... and the gear is Bind on Pickup. So your main gets nothing.
Not many people are going to do that.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
CO has never really required healers to this extent before. Even F&I is doable with healers and tanks. TA and the new cosmics.. not so much.
The reality is, dps has always been the most popular role in MMOs, and in precursor RPGs. In class-based systems this was usually somewhat mitigated by making the healers and tanks overpowered, but that's not really a viable solution for a classless game.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained