Background: Took my healbot off to fight the Ape last night. We did well, I scored decently for my efforts, kept people alive.
This morning I reflected on the activity, and concluded that something felt wrong. This is not how a superhero fight is supposed to work. In the comics, healers are 1) rare, 2) under-powered, and 3) spend most of their time trying to help bring down the bad guy. In my five years experience as a FFXI Whitemage, I did not spend entire fights focusing on my heal abilities: I buffed, I debuffed, I tossed control and damage spells in as opportunity appeared. However, in the Ape fight, I frankly was unable to take my focus off the tanks for more than the few seconds it took to get out of a lava patch, or they would die. At no point did I manage to take offensive action against the Cosmic Threat.
In short, I wasn't particularly super heroic. While I participated in the battle, I did not contribute to the fight.
So, just as we have many tank threads complaining about how the Cosmics hit so hard that they have to block every third second and can't get any good hits in on the monster in question, I am complaining that a healer has to focus almost exclusively on his or her spike heal after every one of those hits, because the tank lost 30-50% of their health through the block, and much more of that means they will die, and the whole fight wipes.
It isn't that I mind being a healer: I don't. I'm actually decent at it. I just want to be able to be part of the fight, too.
-
Formerly
@Seschat pre PWEmerger.
@Seschat on the Titan boards.
Supporter of the Titan Project.
0
Comments
In CO terms Superman would be a tank since he's the toughest guy on the JL.
Batman would be a DPS with a side of dodge hax to be less squishy.
Usually you don't see comic characters heal DURING fights because writing that into a story is not as easy.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My characters
Secondly, on Trinity, the basic problem is that challenging content has to be based on what characters can do, and the game lets you build a super optimized healer who spits out 5k health per second or so.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I do feel that they get repetetive sometimes. A few more for variety (on the regular cosmics, I know Edo is a thing) would go far.
Frostbiter (Freeform Ice DPS)
Battle Hazard (Unleashed AT)
Glacial Tyrant (Glacier AT)
Silver Mantra ( Freeform Single Blade DPS)
Magnetros (Freeform Heavy Weapons/Lightning Hybrid)
Going back to the original post: playing my healer that night, I certainly contributed to the battle, but not to the victory. In character, Red Medic Sigma might feel she could have been replaced by a Support Drone. Were she an actual comic book character, that sort of thing leads to a month's long journey of self-discovery and re-training, coming back as a better fighter with a couple of minor healing powers. Mechanically, a respec.
And to answer the upcoming question, "Why am I doing Cosmics then?", simple: there's stuff I want behind the @#$% GCR paywall. Specifically powers and costumes. As Spinny frequently points out, there's no need for Justice/Distiguished gear int he content I regularly enjoy.
Formerly @Seschat pre PWEmerger. @Seschat on the Titan boards.
Supporter of the Titan Project.