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So i rolled a healer
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Hey.
I always like to heal in mmorpg's, so I started a Betazoid Sience officer to get max healing power. Started doing some ground episodes with friends and solo (not sulu). Then I noticed one major thing.. no one needs any health healing, seems like all the "healing" is done on shields by engineers.
Am I playing a worthless niche? Perhaps health healers will be needed on higher levels? ^^
Any help would be greatly apreciated
I always like to heal in mmorpg's, so I started a Betazoid Sience officer to get max healing power. Started doing some ground episodes with friends and solo (not sulu). Then I noticed one major thing.. no one needs any health healing, seems like all the "healing" is done on shields by engineers.
Am I playing a worthless niche? Perhaps health healers will be needed on higher levels? ^^
Any help would be greatly apreciated
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Welcome to the world of "No death penalty" and instant regen.
Healers are worthless here, your BO does a much better job than you.
Science is the Debuff class, buffing is effectively worthless as well since you spawn 10 seconds later less than 30 seconds from the fight. This is in both Starship and Ground combat.
Healing is not required by players in this game, just let your Science BO do it.
I love to play healers, but Beta showed me that there is no reason for players to heal in this game, except themselves.
Right now this game is very space oriented and very combat oriented (or rather DPS oriented). In other words, it is great to have a Science officer along with you, but honestly...loot in Fleet missions (these are the missions with the BEST loot) are given to the person with the highest DPS. They need to fix this mechanic...but right now...DPS rules if you want to get the best loot.
Most people play an engineer or tactical officer. Just look around...but! If you want to be unique and you can get yourself in a good Fleet, I'd bet that being a higher level Science officer would probably make you an incredibly valuable ally to have. Especially in raids.
The choice is yours, but in the early part of the game, you'll be soloing more than grouping.
This is exactly the same as in Champions Online, and Champions has been live since September 2009. They haven't addressed the issue yet.
My main on Champions was a healer; yet when doing mass event fights for rewards, especially during Christmas, I pretty much didn't bother healing anyone. I just healed myself and did the DPS thing.
Because while Christmas is the season for giving, I wanted some reward drops too, damnit. I play healers and support, but I'm not that selfless. If I just sat there and healed people, I'd barely place in the rankings. If I started attacking, I could potentially be top 5. The choice was clear.
Luckily in STO (and in Champions), a properly built support character will also be a pretty good debuff and self-healing character, which means you can sit there and do decent damage numbers.
But in general, the whole team healing thing isn't as essential to the gameplay as other MMOs.
The way that STO is oriented right now, pretty much everyone is self-sufficient. There us no role diversification in Space, only different approaches to accomplishing the same thing - defeating your enemies.
On the ground, anyone and everyone can and should use Bridge Officers to support them. This usually means one Science officer who has healing abilities - even Medical Tricorder I is quite strong due to only having a 6 second cooldown and Vascular Regenerator is a strong HoT. The other bridge officer slots are usually either tactical officers if you like straight up riflemen/grenadiers or engineers who use turrets, the best of which seem to be the phaser and shield turrets. The only time that role diversification would even be an issue is on the ground when in a player group because then the Bridge Officers may not be present.
Bottom line: playing a healer in any circumstance is currently a waste of time. A Science officer should focus on debuff-style attacks while keeping in mind the odd potential to heal or buff if the situation calls for it, but I could never recommend devoting slots to doing that.
It gets more complex then that. Sure Eng is the shield healer. But shields do go down and when they do Sci is the guy you want around with there medical triqauter. I don't go on any away teams with out one (player or BO). Later they get some nice kits and skills to deal with other stuff like rooting and removing debuffs and the such. While Engs go more down the brake stuff or build things that brake stuff sort of route.
Ahhh! that's why I kept dying when I started a Klingon. They kept meleeing me in the ring and I only look at my shield bar. It was full but they can still kill me.
It is really rare for a Captain to need to heal. When it is needed, if they have the skills, they are very valuable.
dont knock science officers just yet, you do get some handy skills to play with on the ground which used well can really make your character shine.
Cant remember the name of the kit im using offhand, comes with Gravimetric shift as standard with a bonus knockdown wave thingy, both of which are awesome for those times when you either want to root a few people (with a fair chance of an expose) or clear yourself some breathing space and blast everything nearby out of melee range.
Engineer shields and turrets are wonderful and pretty, but wiping out half a klingon squad in 1 shot with a lucky grav-shift rooting/exposing a couple of people and a quick blast from a split beam phaser/disrupter rifle to disintigrate them all.... well thats just priceless imho.
Have to admit i've not played engineers at all, but from playing tactical and science now, both in CB, OB and headstart, have to say that in most cases, one toon at your level is just as squishy as another and heals just aren't that big a deal compared to a well placed root or buff.
Specialist?
Please forgive me for saying this, but if you're the kind of "specialist" that needs a doctor around to keep you alive you're probably more of a "closed combat fan who gets hit a lot and needs more practice" than an actual specialist per se.
Maybe a Casualty specialist...
Sorry lol, I really couldnt resist, no harm intended....
I'm pretty sure you'd be usefull with your healing abilities there tho.
This is actually a damn good point. You're not a healer. You're a Science Captain in a Science Vessel.
Heals aren't the only powers you have. And they aren't the only powers you should be using. A Science captain should use their full array of abilities. Sure, sometimes you'll want to heal. But you shouldn't be healing all the time.
You can heal, and your healing abilities are very good. But you're not a healer. You're Science. You're more than a healer.
That said, how you play any character defines how welcome and useful they'll be. What kit you wear, will give you alot of flexibility as a scientist, too. Having a healer-spec Boff will ease up on YOU having to heal others, but the value of being able to rez others, when you want to, is great.
If you're doing ANY support character, in ANY game, you'll be more useful in a group than if you're just soloing one mob at a time, with breaks to recover between. If you prefer to solo, like to do mostly space missions, then being a healer early on may not be exciting for some.
This game isn't about the holy trinity of TANK, DPS, and HEALER, as it is in games like EQ and WOW.
Science Team, can be used on your team member's ships, very useful. Just have to keep an eye on everyone, like a good little healer would.
On the ground, there are times when the battle does get heavy, and a good Science player out does a BO. And that's in just normal PvE....Fleet Actions, would be extremely useful, even if you only have one skill for healing. Pretty much all you need.
Plus your debuff clearing skills....Plus the other skills that you get...I say stick with it. It's not a true "Healer" class for sure...but in MANY ways it's more versatile then you are giving it credit for.
As a Klingon in our fed ball constant re-spawn PvE death map its great.
The initial heal you get (the HoT +11(untrained)) is pretty good. Its especially useful right after you revive someone knocked unconscious. The Healer becomes notable when they revive and heal a teammate in the middle of combat while being shot. Suddenly that lil HoT isn'tl as insignificant as it seemed.
Healing helps more(is more notable) when your healing someone in melee as melee tends to ignore shielding.
More like, Champions Online has been on 'life support' since Sept.2009. Just wanted to make that one correction.
Telepathy aparently translates into the exact same bonus as having acute senses. So basicly being able to read your opponents mind is no more valuable than having a good set of eyes? That doesn't make any sense!
The Empathy bonus is the absolute worst though. First of all, who needs aggro reduction in STO? Ever? Even if that was a good bonus, what good would it do in PvP?
But the thing that really makes empathetic just horrible is that the regeneration aura doesn't even work while you're in combat. It boosts out of combat regeneration only. What a load of shat. I mean what good does that do anyone? The regeneration out of combat is extremely fast, and you get a tiny bonus to it. I suppose that the 0.05 bonus is supposed to be 5%, but come on? What does that save me? Half a second after the fight is done?
So basicly Betazoids are TRIBBLE.
Telepathy is a pretty meager bonus and empathy is just absolute garbage. They get no additional Betazoid traits either, and what's worst, the biggest advantage of being a Betazoid should be that you know how your crew feels at all times, or in combat you could read their mind so they don't have to verbally communicate with you, but you get absolutely no space bonuses.