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Targeted Healing and it's pitfalls?

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  • sirglenosirgleno Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 75
    edited March 2013
    I likewise ran a cleric (to L16) and had an awful time trying to target heals. I get that it is supposed to make things more challenging, but if I can't fire off my most important class abilities unless I carefully train every pugger I ever run with to stay in my line of sight, I can't see myself (or many others) enjoying the critical role of healer in a party.

    Also, in the early levels, it is so easy to heal with pots, that players don't get into the "listen to the cleric" mentality soon enough, and therefore are likely to develop very bad habits. I presume that for much of the endgame stuff, an actual healer will be very necessary and pots will only be useful to supplement the "real" healing coming from the cleric.
    Dystopia - Impact Cleric
    Nyx - Divine Cleric
    Medusa - Brush Wizard
    Spinnerella - Combat Wizard

    Don't forget to update the Wiki!
  • zumanjeezumanjee Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 16 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I was wondering myself this past weekend how to target a rapidly dying member of my group if they were mixed in a bunch of mobs and the rest of the group. I was putting the Astral Seal on every mob to help keep health up, but I didn't know what I would do if the situation came about. Luckily it didn't.

    I do have an idea though! It would also keep this game action oriented for heals! I think it would be a good idea if the Cleric's groupmates could have a keybind for a flag of some sort that would show up above all the action, and this flag would be the groupmates way of saying I need a heal! The Cleric would then only have to aim at the flag above everybody and cast their single-target heal. That heal would then go to the player with the flag over their head!

    If no one likes the idea of the other groupmates putting up their own flags, you could also just go to an automatic flag that would show up over a players head after their health gets to say 25% or below. This may be the better idea so no one could abuse the flag raising idea themselves.

    I believe the above ideas could greatly help the Cleric on single-target heals and still require the Cleric to aim the heal without having to search for the injured player in the chaos!
  • ranncoreranncore Member, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 2,508
    edited March 2013
    zumanjee wrote: »
    I do have an idea though! It would also keep this game action oriented for heals! I think it would be a good idea if the Cleric's groupmates could have a keybind for a flag of some sort that would show up above all the action, and this flag would be the groupmates way of saying I need a heal! The Cleric would then only have to aim at the flag above everybody and cast their single-target heal. That heal would then go to the player with the flag over their head!

    Maybe if the floating healthbars that show up above player's heads were part of their targeting hitbox, and grew bigger in size as the red bar went down?

    ****, I think you're really onto something.
  • zumanjeezumanjee Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 16 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    ranncore wrote: »
    Maybe if the floating healthbars that show up above player's heads were part of their targeting hitbox, and grew bigger in size as the red bar went down?

    ****, I think you're really onto something.

    There ya go! I like that to! See, there are ways to do it and still require some aiming! Not like other games where the healer could face a wall and just click on nameplates and click "heal". I agree, I think we got something here ranncore!
  • deahamletdeahamlet Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 191 Bounty Hunter
    edited March 2013
    kfmc wrote: »
    In an ideal mmo-world, other classes will pay attention to their own survival and promptly move towards the healer when needed. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening. I have played many MMOs where playing a healer requires a much steeper learning curve because they are expected to be the ones to pay extra special attention in combat.

    And even if other classes did pay attention properly, there is still the issue of melee players being stunned or immobilized and thus unable to move away in time.

    TERA online somewhat gets away with this by letting heals (that are typically the single-target kind by mmo standards) be able to target up to 3 players. But even then, there's still the problem of actually having to chase down a player (running away from danger) with your mouse. I get dizzy in boss fights :confused:

    I play a priest in TERA. In TERA endgame you are considered a fail melee if you do not dodge properly or block properly (depending on your class). Many boss special attacks are insta-glib and quickly teach players to mind their own positioning and use evade tactics... or else. Melee still don't always keep in mind where the healer is, making boss fights in big area (oh hello Queen) a bit annoying but generally the person who runs across the room from everyone else dies and has nobody to blame but themselves.

    ---
    Now to Neverwinter. I played the first dungeon... we did have 2 healers, the other guy seemed much more heal oriented than my "I'm divine wrath, hear me roar" approach to cleric, but we have zero deaths. However, I did position myself closer to people and used Q, also marked every single monster with the debuff to basically life leech and used the TAB abilities as soon as I was fully charged up. I only used E (healing word or whatever) a bit. I left emergency recovery for the TAB ability that heals (though was it me halucinating or the attack spell heals people crossing the stream?!). I think the other three were all wizards... but all the bosses have AOEs and move around like crazy so I think it's harder to keep wizards alive than guardians, just my thought.

    This game seems more about providing steady good sources of heal over time than emergency last minute heals (I find the heal ability from TAB to be much better for this, you can move while casting, you can move its target better etc).
  • sirglenosirgleno Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 75
    edited March 2013
    Similar to the way Control locks on to a target, there could be 4 keys to lock on to party members.

    If we can lock a target, there is no reason we shouldn't have the ability to lock on to the party member of our choosing without clumsily centering them in our UI first.
    Dystopia - Impact Cleric
    Nyx - Divine Cleric
    Medusa - Brush Wizard
    Spinnerella - Combat Wizard

    Don't forget to update the Wiki!
  • ranncoreranncore Member, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 2,508
    edited March 2013
    sirgleno wrote: »
    Similar to the way Control locks on to a target, there could be 4 keys to lock on to party members.

    If we can lock a target, there is no reason we shouldn't have the ability to lock on to the party member of our choosing without clumsily centering them in our UI first.

    I don't like this. That's tab targeting with a different name.
  • siskaxxsiskaxx Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 15 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    or if the added the the heal goes to the target of target if it is a friendly player or goes to the closest player with the lowest hit points inside an area.
  • sirglenosirgleno Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 75
    edited March 2013
    ranncore wrote: »
    I don't like this. That's tab targeting with a different name.

    Good for you, call it what you want, but I expect that your desire to not allow this, while not unique to you, is far more uncommon compared to people wanting it. There is an important difference in what I'm suggesting vs tab-targeting (like DDO as a familiar to me example), in that this would only be available to auto-lock on to party members - not enemies. The ability to target lock by holding down control (which is in game) pretty much gets rid of any "but the character wouldn't be able to automatically lock it" arguments, since the same logic would apply to locking a target.

    At the end of the day, not being able to reliably target fellow party members is a UI issue, and I expect this to be corrected in favor of playability.
    Dystopia - Impact Cleric
    Nyx - Divine Cleric
    Medusa - Brush Wizard
    Spinnerella - Combat Wizard

    Don't forget to update the Wiki!
  • cwiyk13cwiyk13 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    sirgleno wrote: »
    There is an important difference in what I'm suggesting vs tab-targeting (like DDO as a familiar to me example), in that this would only be available to auto-lock on to party members - not enemies. The ability to target lock by holding down control (which is in game) pretty much gets rid of any "but the character wouldn't be able to automatically lock it" arguments, since the same logic would apply to locking a target.

    With Ctrl lock, you do have to first line up the reticule on your desired target before you can lock onto them. Once you're locked on and hold Ctrl, yes, you can freely cast on them without needing to keep the reticule point on them and without needing to worry about someone/something jumping in between you and them. But you must release the lock before you can affect anyone/anything else or attack in anyway. Then you would need to manually reacquire them with the reticule again.

    If this process is what the developers want Clerics to have to do in order to cast a single heal/regeneration spell on a group member, then any sort of group-member-hotkey button would negate that design. But, having said all of that...

    sirgleno wrote: »
    At the end of the day, not being able to reliably target fellow party members is a UI issue, and I expect this to be corrected in favor of playability.

    ...I agree with your desire to have the aforementioned group-member-hotkey. I do want to be able to instantly target my group members for healing purposes. I really do enjoy the Devoted Cleric's ability to spread out healing to all party members with Astral Seal, Sunburt, Sacred Flame, etc. But I also want the ability to quickly target that one group member that needs my immediate attention so I can do something to help them immediately.
    Krae Vull - Devoted Cleric
  • stridionstridion Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    sinhealer wrote: »
    I haven't played NW yet but on TERA the players have to be aware of where their healer is,some players take longer than others as they are still in the 'tab' combat frame of mind.

    I had some good experiences from TERA and a couple of bad 1's..I remember 1 player just would not listen and kept running away from me when he needed healing,he finally got the message that I was there to help and if he just gave me a chance he would do a lot better.

    AOE heals are very good but you still needed the direct heals on boss fights,I always found myself on the move and getting better positioned as the fights went on,it was really a lot of fun.

    I have to agree with you, I like the target heals, made me feel more like i was apart of the battle. I am not really for the tab targeting, sitting back and just tab heal, tab heal. Target healing made playing a healer a lot more fun and involving, to many years for me sitting on a rock and just tab healing, this breathed some fresh air into healing and made it full of action.
  • sindofinsindofin Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    cwiyk13 wrote: »
    With Ctrl lock, you do have to first line up the reticule on your desired target before you can lock onto them. Once you're locked on and hold Ctrl, yes, you can freely cast on them without needing to keep the reticule point on them and without needing to worry about someone/something jumping in between you and them.

    Is this how it is supposed to work? As it did not for me. Trying to hit the keybind for e.g. Healing Word, while locked on another player via holding Ctrl, would just result in a weird error message in the chat log.
  • comran1comran1 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Clerics definately need a locked targetted healing as its impossible to heal an individual in combat and stop them dying/
  • torskaldrtorskaldr Member Posts: 559 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Targeted healing seems to have had a huge improvement. You can cast healing word and it will hit a target on the other side of a mob. If two allies are next to each other and there are mobs in between you it is still pretty much impossible to select which target to heal, but in that case I would expect one of the players to move out of mob fire.
  • prunetracyprunetracy Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I don't think it's a bad thing for players at low health to learn they need to get clear of mobs.

    That said, I haven't been using targeted heals. Are healing word and Soothing light it? Soothing light drains my entire divinity meter without healing someone to full, and healing word doesn't seem to tick for enough to matter. I guess I'd rather just let Astral Seal, Divinity Forgemaster's Flame and Sacred Flame's temp HPs take care of it. With potion use from players to recover from burst damage they were stupid enough to stand in.
  • ranncoreranncore Member, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 2,508
    edited March 2013
    comran1 wrote: »
    Clerics definately need a locked targetted healing as its impossible to heal an individual in combat and stop them dying/

    If you're using individual heals in combat you are just plain doing it wrong. The only time healing word should be used is stacked onto the tank before he enters combat, but in reality, the spell should be entirely abandoned at the earliest opportunity. AoE heals are far more effective and easier to use.
  • horrorscope666horrorscope666 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 415 Bounty Hunter
    edited March 2013
    ranncore wrote: »
    If you're using individual heals in combat you are just plain doing it wrong. The only time healing word should be used is stacked onto the tank before he enters combat, but in reality, the spell should be entirely abandoned at the earliest opportunity. AoE heals are far more effective and easier to use.

    I agree Healing Words should be abandoned as it sits now... Because it sucks. Not because there shouldn't be a nice single target heal spell. There should be. This is an offensive cleric.
  • torskaldrtorskaldr Member Posts: 559 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    ranncore wrote: »
    If you're using individual heals in combat you are just plain doing it wrong. The only time healing word should be used is stacked onto the tank before he enters combat, but in reality, the spell should be entirely abandoned at the earliest opportunity. AoE heals are far more effective and easier to use.

    I think you're wrong about this. I'm having no real problem using healing word both solo and in group play. The DP counterpart is a nice emergency burst heal. The heal now circumnavigates foes to the friendly target on the other side. I use Sunburst for overland and in the mid 30s it's a great 10sec aoe heal. The third skill is situational for me. At higher levels I use Astral Shield as a main group buff and heal.

    In any event you can heal fine with or without healing word and I think it's overstated to say people should ditch it entirely.
  • iymalaiymala Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I actually like the reticule targeted heal a lot. I also played a mystic in Tera and am used to this style of healing. I often re-position myself in combat to better separate the melee targets and keep everyone heal. With that said, I do not use the Healing Word skill often as I feel the ramp up on its healing is a little too light. I prefer Forgemaster's Flame and Sunburts with Seals on the mobs. I like the more offensive style that benefits clerics at the moment and in no way miss playing wack-a-mole.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • gerngern Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I felt frustrated playing my cleric this weekend. I hate that I felt that way because I love healing classes. Tera's lock-on system is so much better. I could lock multiple people for a high level heal and just about everything else was ground targeted AEs. Here I'm constantly moving in circles trying to get one HoT off on the correct person. I feel like I spend more time trying to get the right people healed than actually doing anything else. Instead of feeling the system is working with me, it more of an against me type thing. Granted I was only 18, but I doubt things change drastically. Our main heal is our lackluster HoT.
  • pallierpallier Member Posts: 149 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    in the current status of clerics that player would have been better off carrying pots.
    clerics are broken heals demolished and threat generated makes them run around with all the enemies the entire fight.
    only reason to invite a cleric to a party now is to have someone to hold all the trash adds while your party kills the boss using pots to heal themselves.
    Oh Atari how I miss you!
  • iymalaiymala Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    pallier wrote: »
    only reason to invite a cleric to a party now is to have someone to hold all the trash adds while your party kills the boss using pots to heal themselves.

    Or they could focus down the spawned minions quickly like most skilled groups do and alleviate the stress on the cleric. This allows the clerics to contribute a good amount of damage on all enemies in the dungeon and put out a significant amount of healing.

    There seems to be a lot of frustration between people expecting clerics to play like wack a mole healers in standard non-action based games and the more action focused healers in games like Tera. There were plenty of instance in Tera where my healer had to kite minions until the dps handled them and got back on the boss. I did like the lock out targeting of Tera for the larger heals, but people still complained that it was too hard to target people with that and if you got someone locked on that you did not intend it took too long to cancel the lock and retarget. No system is going to work for everyone, but strong players should be able to adjust to the system and make it work for them.

    I did not find it difficult to target heals on people be it healing word (in divinity for burst or rolling hots outside for maintenance) or the channeled divinity heal. It does require a more organized group to really utilize cleric healing and there will be much frustration when running groups with random players of all skill levels. In a solid group your dps will kill minions first, your tank will hold the boss and your dps will step out if they are low to allow you to burst them up to re-enter the fray. In randoms, too often people just beat their head against a wall and boss hump regardless of their life. Potions seem to be a good padding for those players who do that to maintain their own hps while you shake your head and watch them each a the red swathed AOE in the face.

    I can see the huge benefit of running with organized groups, be it in guild or a group of friends, who are communicating and reacting. Wizards who are using their control appropriately ( not using every knockback skill in their arsenal on pull and causing groupwide facepalms). DPS who are switching off the main boss to burn down minion spawns and clerics who can re-position during combat and toggle in and out of divinity to put down burst aoe and single target healing when needed, while adding a respectful amount of dps in the process.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • pallierpallier Member Posts: 149 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    some dungeons if they focused on the new spawned adds it would be impossible. you see some dungeons have enemies that spawn every 5 seconds and take 30 seconds to kill each with a large health bar (almost as much as the boss in some cases) and there is simply no way to keep up with the massive spawning numbers and kill the boss too. most players find it easier to burn down the boss quicker than trying to kill half of the enemies that spawn especially with the weak healing that a cleric currently has they figure its better to try and kill faster than healing needed.

    To be able to wipe the groups you would need the cleric to put all stat in health and max defense then tank by standing still while 3 of the dps in the party (which would have to all have aoe's) would massive aoe the enemies down and then continue on the boss again. Fact is clerics in CB3 became the tanks of the game with the aweful threat built by the heals.
    Oh Atari how I miss you!
  • iymalaiymala Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Tanks without a doubt. I never tried it, but I am starting to wonder how squishy a cleric would be in full defense/deflection gear.

    Granted, I would rather them just fix the threat than have clerics turn into "Off-tanks" heh.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • pallierpallier Member Posts: 149 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I'm thinking to fix clerics threat is very simple 1% generation of threat per second for a heal and 5% per second for all types of damage.
    now if they get threat for a heal any damage can pull off the cleric with first hit of damage. boss never loses arggo to an attacking player over heals, adds get picked up by dps or companions with aoe, healer is free to do his job. if there is no damage being done for some time healer can pick up arggo due to healing threat generated guaranteeing you can't simply hit a mob once and go back to the boss.
    Oh Atari how I miss you!
  • greenmoxgreenmox Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    So, I didn't get very far on my cleric and I never played in more than two man Groups with my friend. Thus i never had a problem healing him.

    But, I'm curious about healing in larger Groups. You guys say that there are no way to target players, other than the reticle and the CTRL key lock-on? There's no other keys to target wounded PC's?

    As I understand it, AOE healing is the best way to go, but when do you get those abilities, and what are they called?

    Thanks for helping out a newbie healer :)

    Love, Moxy
  • erideitaerideita Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 304
    edited April 2013
    Sunburst is your first AoE heal, and you get it at level 3.

    There are tons of other AoE heals, sometimes as a component of damaging abilities. For example,
    - Bastion of Health is a direct AoE healing spell.
    - Forgemaster's Flame is an offensive spell, but when used in Divinity mode, it also heals nearby allies, so it counts as an AoE heal.
    - Hallowed Ground is a daily buff that increases offense and defense of the party members who stand in the zone, but also heals them over time if you choose to specialize in the Faithful paragon path.

    Astral Seal counts as an AoE heal as well. Other AoE heals are Astral Shield (Divinity), Guardian of Faith, Sacred Flame (Temp HP), Divine Armor (Temp HP), Repurpose Soul, Prophecy of Doom( Virtuous paragon).
    In fact I think Healing Word is the only targeted heal we get along with Soothing Light.
  • rkv13rkv13 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 217 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    Best heal in the game: Repurposed Soul. It's the feat (3 points) that makes all of your critical hits cause an AoE heal to emanate from the stricken foe healing for 5/10/15% of the damage dealt.

    Build for Power and Crit Chance and you'll get a metric s**t-ton of heals out to your allies, who are always bunched up near your foe.
    8.jpg
  • sarsparilla1sarsparilla1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 27 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I spent the weekend constantly running trying to get mobs out of my face long enough to target the players on the other side of the mobs with my control wizard telling me to "stop so I can get mobs off you" constantly. So I'm trying to throw heals around mobs that are trying to smash my head in while the wizard is chasing me trying to aoe the mobs that I've aggro'd and I have barely a self heal so I'm gulping potions every cooldown.
    It's chaotic and fun but I'd LOVE to have a "FADE" button. I'm hoping at higher levels we get something similar to instantly drop aggro.

    Aiming heals isn't bad when you don't have 50 mobs blocking your view lol.
  • gertona2gertona2 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 60
    edited April 2013
    iymala wrote: »
    Tanks without a doubt. I never tried it, but I am starting to wonder how squishy a cleric would be in full defense/deflection gear.

    Granted, I would rather them just fix the threat than have clerics turn into "Off-tanks" heh.

    Hehe, i made my cleric and/or cleric/*fighter or pala* tank in Baldur's gate 1 and 2 quite often while potting my warrior or ranger back to full.
    Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!
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