Healers in NW... is it worth?

ares10412 · March 2016

Hi there,

I've been seeing palas with perma bubbles and shielding the hell out of a party.
My question is: Is it worth it to build a DC in this game with the objective of healing?

It seems to me that roles are just a concept in this game... and you can get useless or usefull totally depending on the party skills.

Any help will be appreciated, tks

putzboy78 · March 2016

no.... but here me out. If your running with a low geared OP he may need haste which comes from heals. So in effect you can make that OP perma-bubble. While the role isn't healer it is the act of healing that gives this OP his ability. Another option is to run with a GF. Unless he's high geared he is probably going to need your heals and he buffs the party better than an OP does. This also can give a GF the option of wearing knights captain.

Anyhow healers can find a niche in this game but they are far from necessary.

rapo973 · March 2016

putzboy78 said:
no.... but here me out. If your running with a low geared OP he may need haste which comes from heals. So in effect you can make that OP perma-bubble. While the role isn't healer it is the act of healing that gives this OP his ability. Another option is to run with a GF. Unless he's high geared he is probably going to need your heals and he buffs the party better than an OP does. This also can give a GF the option of wearing knights captain.

Anyhow healers can find a niche in this game but they are far from necessary.

Correct. Focusing on heals only is not the best choice today. Feats triggered by heals are more interesting than the heals as such. An OP healer is more effective than a cleric from this perspective.

clericalist · March 2016

No, heals are close to pointless now. When you have essentially a class that has been given god mode, and they have no intention of removing it, it does not only make heals pointless, even other stats like defense, stamina, control resist are all useless now.

urabask · March 2016

clericalist said:
No, heals are close to pointless now. When you have essentially a class that has been given god mode, and they have no intention of removing it, it does not only make heals pointless, even other stats like defense, stamina, control resist are all useless now.

Pretty much all well geared parties take a GF over an OP and DC has crazy synergy with ITF so in well geared parties heals are actually preferred over bubble.

rapo973 · March 2016

urabask said:

clericalist said:
No, heals are close to pointless now. When you have essentially a class that has been given god mode, and they have no intention of removing it, it does not only make heals pointless, even other stats like defense, stamina, control resist are all useless now.
Pretty much all well geared parties take a GF over an OP and DC has crazy synergy with ITF so in well geared parties heals are actually preferred over bubble.

Unless:
- you spam AA seamless: in this case heals are pretty useless (my case)
- you have a DC+GF+OP in your party: heals are useless again.

putzboy78 · March 2016

no need for an OP if you got GF+DC, and even a right dc can keep a good GF standing.

BTW it should be noted that CN is more about damage mitigation than heals. The spike damage is high so focusing on preventing damage will go much farther than healing

urabask · March 2016

putzboy78 said:
no need for an OP if you got GF+DC, and even a right dc can keep a good GF standing.

BTW it should be noted that CN is more about damage mitigation than heals. The spike damage is high so focusing on preventing damage will go much farther than healing

Heals still help for the if you're having trouble getting time to pop steel defense though. GF can tank a hit or two and heals make it a lot easier.

rapo973 said:

urabask said:

clericalist said:
No, heals are close to pointless now. When you have essentially a class that has been given god mode, and they have no intention of removing it, it does not only make heals pointless, even other stats like defense, stamina, control resist are all useless now.
Pretty much all well geared parties take a GF over an OP and DC has crazy synergy with ITF so in well geared parties heals are actually preferred over bubble.
Unless:
- you spam AA seamless: in this case heals are pretty useless (my case)
- you have a DC+GF+OP in your party: heals are useless again.

Only worth it if you can keep Hallowed ground up while you spam AA. If you're spamming AA without hallowed ground you're giving up +35% damage for your party from ITF alone.

plavia · March 2016

with so many one kill hit at PVE AA is usuefull. especially when you party with GF.
keep in mind the AA protect you from control (with demon limitation)

with OP i can spam AA allmost all time, but only cause i try to buff the OP.
with GF its not the case. i agree the HG will do better damage, especially on bosses.
but on adds by the time i drop HG the party allready moved 100 feet away.

soonergm · March 2016

i have a bubble pally, and i will tell you i love a good healer in the party. and i don't mean for the haste, although that is nice too, but for the heals. i play a little crazy if a good healer is with us, because i will soak up as much damage as i possibly can so that i can deal more damage. if i don't have a healer with me, or a poor healer, i will basically 1 shot myself repeatedly if binding oath goes off before i can get the next one up.

so, that's the thing. i believe you will always have lower level pallys running around because it's pretty expensive to get to true perma-bubble status. also, perma-bubble does not make the pally invincible... binding oath does, but only if your recovery is high enough for back to back binding oath. that's a specialty build though, not all pallys are like that. so when binding oath goes off, there is a price to pay, and it doesn't take long to go down after those temp HP are blown away and you have the agro of everything in the mob.

putzboy78 · March 2016

but why take a pally if there isn't a bubble?

ares10412 · March 2016

Thanks all for your expertise and opinions.
As i suspected i'll have to ditch my DC since i'm a "healer kind of guy" on all MMORPG i've been playing.
I don't like the idea of playing in party with 4 players and a potion/elixir (me as DC).
For the time being, that's all a DC is in this game: A potion for the other party members.

If all i'm good for is buffing i don't see a point getting to lvl70, wich is excrutiating as a virtuous build, compared with my GWF for example.

I understand the concept, but i won't enjoy it, personnaly.

Hopefully the DC will be usefull and indispensable again

since his playstyle as healer is one of the best i played lately.

Thanks all

urabask · March 2016

ares10412 said:
Thanks all for your expertise and opinions.
As i suspected i'll have to ditch my DC since i'm a "healer kind of guy" on all MMORPG i've been playing.
I don't like the idea of playing in party with 4 players and a potion/elixir (me as DC).
For the time being, that's all a DC is in this game: A potion for the other party members.

If all i'm good for is buffing i don't see a point getting to lvl70, wich is excrutiating as a virtuous build, compared with my GWF for example.

I understand the concept, but i won't enjoy it, personnaly.

Hopefully the DC will be usefull and indispensable again since his playstyle as healer is one of the best i played lately.

Thanks all

DC is useful. With a GF you can boost your parties damage by 500% with the right buffs. You'll see bosses melt in seconds because of a DC.

taitinhakkaaja · March 2016

My 2 cents as 3.7k sw and 3.1k DC. Good GF don't need heals in t1 content, but usually need heals at t2 content (as do rest of the party). There is no way i would take OP/DC combo to dungeon over GF/DC combo, even if GF/DC combo means rest of the party will take damage.
Pug runs usually need healer badly and many times DC is in most important role to make run successful -> it feels good to be able to do that and DC is always welcome to any party.
Other thing. Cryptic have said they are gonna nerf OP in near(?) future, so that means probably no perma bubble -> OP's too cry for heals. Sure OP or temptation SW can heal too, but buffs they provide ain't even close to what DC can offer.
Oh one more thing. GF/DC combo will make runs a LOT faster, so that's one more thing to consider -> Things tend to become very boring at some point so at least i want to do them quickly.

clericalist · March 2016

taitinhakkaaja said:
My 2 cents as 3.7k sw and 3.1k DC. Good GF don't need heals in t1 content, but usually need heals at t2 content (as do rest of the party). There is no way i would take OP/DC combo to dungeon over GF/DC combo, even if GF/DC combo means rest of the party will take damage.
Pug runs usually need healer badly and many times DC is in most important role to make run successful -> it feels good to be able to do that and DC is always welcome to any party.
Other thing. Cryptic have said they are gonna nerf OP in near(?) future, so that means probably no perma bubble -> OP's too cry for heals. Sure OP or temptation SW can heal too, but buffs they provide ain't even close to what DC can offer.
Oh one more thing. GF/DC combo will make runs a LOT faster, so that's one more thing to consider -> Things tend to become very boring at some point so at least i want to do them quickly.

I have had the opposite experience with recent PUG runs, since almost all of them are with Palladin (where are all the GF ?), I have not seen this great need for healing, even the non perma bubbles provide a clutch that is so strong that I hardly ever been a healer.

Going back to the opening post, its not just the palladin however, with life steal going back to pre mod 6 levels (and showing how much a waste of time mod 6 was), I am observing monster life steals that I have no doubt will start out healing even the monster virtuous clerics. This is why I believe they should simply give clerics (and other classes) roughly the same dps.

clericalist · March 2016

clericalist · March 2016

putzboy78 · March 2016

righteous dc has roughly the same dps

bitt3rnightmar3 · March 2016

I'm a firm believer in the notion that you should build your character how you want and play how you want. If I get burned out on a role or class I just go play or make an alt. I've been playing a healing DC forever- I generally run with guildmates or premade groups for PVE content and I've not often had an issue finding a place there where I can be useful or needed.

instynctive · March 2016

I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but I'm bored, so...

YES. Healers = GOOD.

Especially Virtuous DCs, and no, not because of GoH.

If the virt is a solid build (as mine is), they can keep a party shielded, buffed, and full on HP. They can also debuff bad guys. I've been on many T2 runs with no tank (well, my yeti tanked) with a Virt DC and still had smooth runs.

I'm so sick and tired of "such and such a class is useless now". No. They're not. Every class brings something to the table. Unless, of course, you've made the class into something it's not. Heal over Time is not a "waste".. it keeps parties alive.

YMMV.

Whatever.

nosimo · March 2016

3 CN public solo ques with my Virt DC today, all 3 put me at the lost boss campfire. Took out Orcus in 1 try without issue each time, if "healer" DCs are worthless it makes you wonder why the groups were failing before...If the in game healing chart showed mitigation done and the paingiver chart credited buffed damage to the buffer no one would come to the conclusion DCs were worthless.

rapo973 · March 2016

I don't know who say that the DCs are useless.
We should be more carefull about wording: DCs are not healers only. It's not an equation and too many players don't understand this simple concept.
If a team needs heals only, then it should ask for an OP devotion and not a DC. That means that the real power of the DC is in the mix of the features where healing is just an ingredient.
The weight of such ingridient in the overall mix depends on many circumstances: there are DCs where healing is just a very minor feature because they mainly perform another role which is not "The Healer".
Generally speaking, a heal-only cleric is not a good DC, but be ready to be at least a decent healer if and when needed.

putzboy78 · March 2016

nosimo said:
3 CN public solo ques with my Virt DC today, all 3 put me at the lost boss campfire. Took out Orcus in 1 try without issue each time, if "healer" DCs are worthless it makes you wonder why the groups were failing before...If the in game healing chart showed mitigation done and the paingiver chart credited buffed damage to the buffer no one would come to the conclusion DCs were worthless.

I think you may be confused as noone said healer DCs are worthless; however, even in your argument against the unsaid argument your counter by pointing out damage mitigation and dps buffing which is specifically what the OP stated he was not interested in doing as he wanted to be a pure healer.

rapo973 said:

We should be more carefull about wording: DCs are not healers only. It's not an equation and too many players don't understand this simple concept.

Similarly I don't being called a dps DC. I take a dps slot but i call myself a debuff DC. Since the purpose of my rotation is usually around proc'ing Bear your Sins and I use debuff encounters. Not my fault those things put me in the middle of the dps chart :-)

rapo973 said:

If a team needs heals only, then it should ask for an OP devotion and not a DC. That means that the real power of the DC is in the mix of the features where healing is just an ingredient.

This... so much this. Remember when the SWs came into their own as healers. Everyone was running their mouths because a SW was getting bigger numbers as a dps/healer. We are buff/debuff/healers at some level or another. GFs are buff/debuff/tanks. People want to pigeon hole classes but the game is not designed for that and it shouldn't be in 5 person parties (to small for absolute role specialization.

putzboy78 · March 2016

Also it shouldn't be noted that the need for heals is being more diminished via the new mount system which can provide up to 4k more stats through the mount bonus, 4500 stats through insignia, and of course the insignia bonuses which have 6 healing abilities (never mind the buffing and mitigation abilities). When bosses like orcus are dead in one phase you have much less need for healing of mitigation and therefore much less need for pure healers.

Vampire's Craving - Whenever you perform a Lifesteal, you are healed for 3% of your maximum Hit Points over 4 seconds
Survivor's Blessing - Whenever you Deflect an attack, you are healed for 3% of your maximum Hit Points over 4 seconds
Oppressor's Reprieve - Whenever you are Stunned, Knocked, or Immobilized, you are healed for 4% of your maximum Hit Points over 4 seconds
Barbarian's Revelry - Whenever you perform a Critical Strike, you are healed for 1.5% of your maximum Hit Points
Magistrate's Patience - Whenever you perform a Critical Strike, your target will gain a stack of Magistrate's Consideration. Enemies affected by Magistrate's Consideration take Psychic Damage equal to 10% of your Power over 4 seconds. Allies affected by Magistrate's Consideration are healed for 3% of your maximum Hit Points over 4 seconds
Champion's Return - Whenever you are reduced to 50% Hit Points, you instantly recover 20% of your Stamina and are healed for 20% of your maximum Hit Points over 10 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 60 seconds

Just more reason why a pure healer doesn't have a big role in this game outside of low ilvls who have not built up their stats yet

clericalist · March 2016

putzboy78 said:

This... so much this. Remember when the SWs came into their own as healers. Everyone was running their mouths because a SW was getting bigger numbers as a dps/healer. We are buff/debuff/healers at some level or another. GFs are buff/debuff/tanks. People want to pigeon hole classes but the game is not designed for that and it shouldn't be in 5 person parties (to small for absolute role specialization.

The temp locks could out heal any cleric of any level by orders of magnitude. With a single feat they could beat every cleric there was regardless of what gear difference there was, the difference on the field medic ranking was anything from 3 to 1 to 10 to 1, added to that the cleric would not beat the temp lock on paingiver either. One could say there are grounds to complain.

I don't want pigeon holing, but the game has forced pigeon holing, as cleric there is only real role and that is buffing/debuffing, but how many new players do think picked the cleric with that in mind ? How many players do you think have been lost because they realized just how badly the game has designed the roles to be played.

rapo973 · March 2016

clericalist said:

I don't want pigeon holing, but the game has forced pigeon holing, as cleric there is only real role and that is buffing/debuffing, but how many new players do think picked the cleric with that in mind ? How many players do you think have been lost because they realized just how badly the game has designed the roles to be played.

Those arguments can be extended to the GF vs OP discussion.
To some extent you're right, but I see few tempt SWs today and no tempt SWs are asked to be a healer. That means that the mix of features provided by the cleric is more effective than the mix from the SW for that particular role.
Imo a class vs class comparison is meaningless if the overall context is not taken into account: the temp SW heals better and dps better than the cleric, the OP provides protection and dps better than the GF, but many teams want GF+DC because their interactions and their features work very well together.

plavia · March 2016

clericalist said:

I don't want pigeon holing, but the game has forced pigeon holing, as cleric there is only real role and that is buffing/debuffing, but how many new players do think picked the cleric with that in mind ? How many players do you think have been lost because they realized just how badly the game has designed the roles to be played.

true, many clerics i meet think its all about heals and they end up suprised they do bad in PVE / PVP

i wholdn't advice to take Faitful path unless u plan on PVP only!

in my experiance Rightuous path do around 2X more damage then other paths and buff the party for maybe 10% - 25% more so don't expect do out damage SW or GWF (or any other class to be honest)

virtuous path is great buff debuff path, but even here i advice new player to avoid healing buff feats --> take cleanising fire, gift of haste, unbreakbale devotion and have faith.
all the healing % increase are useless for PVE (in PVP it might make sense and even on that we can argue)

putzboy78 · March 2016

plavia said:

in my experiance Rightuous path do around 2X more damage then other paths and buff the party for maybe 10% - 25% more so don't expect do out damage SW or GWF (or any other class to be honest)

Right DCs can hold up to other dps at same ilvl except GWF and only fall behind SW at high ilvls. GWF basically starts becoming damage king after they get perfect vorpal and lol set placing them as dps leaders right around the 3.2 range in most cases. My DC keeps pace with similar geared CWs even if:

1) we don't do big pulls which favors CWS because of their larger range of aoes and attack speed
2) its a low dps party which gives more time for DOTs to do their magic

You will never hold up on the damage chart if things are dropping in half a rotation because our DOTs haven't even hit their second proc yet. That's why on the charts on a high dps team the gap on a right DC looks larger than it really is. If a right DC is really a jerk and cares about the dps chart he can forgo debuffs like bear your sins to increase combat time and therefore increase personal dps standing in terms of the charts. Also not using a debuff enchant or high prophet gear is an effective way to get higher standing on the chart.

But yes if you do door-to-door dungeon runs the Right DC will probably be 3rd or 4th on your paingiver chart.

I agree however in the current meta the value of damage mitigation is superior to healing. With so much lifesteal and other means of self preservation the best gift you can provide for survive-ability is prevent their ever needing to be a heal to start with.

jazzfong · March 2016

When the underdark launched, new players joined us resulting in a new group of players without gear and experience, thats the time healing was neccessary unless you run premade. When most of the crowd get their gear and know to avoid big hits, healing is not needed anymore as no one drop their hp below 90%. When new dungeons or new quest is coming in, where ppl tried to survive and learning the strategy, we need healing. After that, healing is kinda no use at all with shar+dread healing boons, potions, insignia bonuses and lifesteal. There are some exceptions, which is pvp where healing is the only reliable things you can do regardless of il, or you are usually carrying a group of low il players in your guild.

dfnce · March 2016

ares10412 said:
Hi there,
My question is: Is it worth it to build a DC in this game with the objective of healing?

It seems to me that roles are just a concept in this game... and you can get useless or usefull totally depending on the party skills.

There are multiple rotations DC can use. Every time i play with different guys with different rotation. Some Bubble OP require babysitting with 3 healing skills and some don't need my AP at all. Some GF demonstrate great synergy with AS, some just don't use ITF. Some DPS+perma Bubble parties, all they need 3x buff rotations/HG and some middle gear (2.5-3) parties have no tank, so heal+damage mitigation play is satisfying. Look at OP devotion class, capable to do more healing than DC, their population is extremely low, they can be good DPS buffers, but pure healing is not important like bubble.

Healers in NW... is it worth?

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