Healing/support Classes in new mmorpgs??

[Drauger]

Hey first, I?ve played as healing/support class since , meh I started playing mmorpgs with Ragnarok online, and yes I?ve tried other classes in lots of games like : WoW, Aion, Lineage, Fiesta, FlyFF Perfect World evolution, Forsaken world ect... I enjoy healing/supporting, now the question:

When Guild Wars II started advertising I wanted to play then suddenly, "there's no healing class everyone has healing skills"............... uhhhhh what? ._. no I don't play GWII and yes it's mainly because that,, now I see news of other new mmorpgs being develop and guess what , some won?t have healing clasesXD, what's the big idea? everyone wants to be tank dps ect ._. I don't know maybe it's just me but isn't part of the fun of being in a mmorpg to do parties with different people doing different jobs? mehhh maybe I?m getting to old for this xD.

 

[Rack]

The trinity has to go from MMOs, even though people who like playing healers may lament it unfortunately it just causes way too many problems.

99% of players want to play DPS, .9% tanks and .1% healers, but the standard party requires a 60/20/20 split. This means DPS will be waiting till doomsday to every get to play in a group, tanks will be waiting for hours and may never get to play and even healers won't have a clean uninterrupted experience.

Trinity gameplay is way too prescribed. I find tanking most enjoyable as I get a reasonable level of juggling defence and threat but playing a free form group with no dedicated healers and no dedicated tanks was about a thousand times more enjoyable. Playing a well run group far too often falls down to each player hitting their rotation. Stripping out these kind of roles introduces chaos and interesting decisions.

I can entirely see why you'd lament the loss if you enjoy playing support. It's a great feelimng being that one important player that makes the whole group function but there needs to be a new way to get there.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

I was dissapointed too. I've never played an MMO, but I wanted to heal in guild wars 2. I like the idea of no holy trinity, but they could at least make one class that is predominately healing. That's what I wanted to do. I mean there's the water elemental, but even then you're supposed to switch attunements all the time, so you'd only be doing that for a tiny bit.

 

[Zaik]

Some people are trying to break the tank/heal/dps trinity nonsense that has been copypasted ever since Everquest did it, and then World of Warcraft did it more popularly.

Maybe that's your thing, I promise there are a LOT of MMOs that use that system still, and I'm sure there will be plenty more. I doubt anyone actually learned a lesson from TOR.

 

[Rawne1980]

I've been a healer in every MMO i've played and that is also the reason I won't be getting GW2.

I love healing, it's my favourite thing to do in MMO's and, modesty ahoy, i'm pretty damn good at it.

Any game that wants to take that bit of fun away from me isn't going to get my attention.

 

[Savagezion]

Because you always play healer classes, you must be unaware of how much of a pain in the ass it is finding one or two good ones for a raid. I love that games are pulling away from this. I usually run a healer but god help me if my tank, or worse my DPS, toons need something for a raid. I have stood around for 2 hours many times looking for a capable doc. I would rather get to play the game without needing YOU there if you can't be.

 

[Hazzard]

I think every game should have an option that allows you to play as a healer and the other 2 roles.
What shouldn't happen is you need them, you should be able to run a whole dungeon in a game with the same class, but the healers can still help.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Technically if you still want to be a support like class in Guild Wars 2 then I guess the Guardian is for you. They're like warrior but more defences and with defence bluff to support others. Beside each of the Profession in Guild Wars 2 does got some support like skills like Warriors got banners to strengthen up the surrounding players, if the matter of you to choose those skills.

Sorry to disagree but I'm glad the trinity is gone, ok to be fair I did suck being the monk in Guild Wars. I just hate how much pressure you get for the other players to rely on you to heal their asses and it's so repeatitive since that all I do, heal, heal and more heal. If you tell me that I shouldn't be playing as an monk in the first place then I did make my own build (set of skills to use) to make my monk more offensive when I'm playing by myself.

Also I hate the fact that I can be denined from joining a party just because of my class ie the whole "LF Monk". I should be able to joined others whenever I want to without the need of such requirement in order to complete a mission which Guild Wars 2 had done.

 

[That Guy Ya Know]

I was dissapointed too. I've never played an MMO, but I wanted to heal in guild wars 2. I like the idea of no holy trinity, but they could at least make one class that is predominately healing. That's what I wanted to do. I mean there's the water elemental, but even then you're supposed to switch attunements all the time, so you'd only be doing that for a tiny bit.

Guardian: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_skills

Grab a mace and a shield then pick the right utility skills and you can have your entire skillbar dedicated to healing/buffing

 

[Shadowsetzer]

I was dissapointed too. I've never played an MMO, but I wanted to heal in guild wars 2. I like the idea of no holy trinity, but they could at least make one class that is predominately healing. That's what I wanted to do. I mean there's the water elemental, but even then you're supposed to switch attunements all the time, so you'd only be doing that for a tiny bit.

Guardian: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_skills

Grab a mace and a shield then pick the right utility skills and you can have your entire skillbar dedicated to healing/buffing

Also, Water-attuned elementalists get a ton of healing skills.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills

 

[Drauger]

When I read Holy trinity and those expressions I kind of get the feeling you guys are GW players, am I right?.
Anyway the healing - tank - dps model isn't an universal truth in every mmorpg there is eh? there are other roles to be played. I do see the problem you guys state, people get bored waiting for a healer, for me the solution was make healer class more fun, not a mole wack-a-thon like it was in GWI, like for example look how tera handles healing ?, but well I think it also has to do to the kind of gamers GWII is aimed at, I don?t know if making a healer yourself could work since, well people will expect you to do some stuff in party and wouldn?t it be funny to be kicked out of a party because " you only heal buddy u suxs" XD

 

[WoW Killer]

The Ele/Guardian group heals in GW2 are pretty weak. They won't make you feel like much of a healer. Not sure exactly how Guardians work, but a Water specced Ele is more of a debuffer than a healer. Through either Shatterstone or Ice Spike you can keep a mob (or group of mobs) at a full stack of Vulnerability through a fight, which lets everyone else do more damage. The heals you get are a little bonus on top, but they won't save the day.

The thing is, if a viable designated healer role exists at all then it's bound to be a very effective strategy. Even if it's possible to complete a dungeon without having a healer, if that's the easiest way of completion then that's what'll become the norm for the community. When faced with the choice of struggling through a dungeon with 5 generalists, or having a healer carry you through, your average MMO player will opt for the easy option, even if it means waiting outside the dungeon for an age spamming general chat with "LF1M Healer".

Still, you'll have a smaller crowd that like to take on the dungeons without a healer. DDO is a bit like this. The hardest content normally requires the usual tank/healer setup, but with a team of soloists you can make your way through a surprising amount of the content. IMO it makes for a superior playstyle. You get a much better chance for individual contributions. The trinity is more like a blame game to me. You have your role, and so long as you do that all else is someone elses problem.

After 3 BWEs I'm none the wiser on how GW2 will actually turn out in that regard. The last BWE I got a quick peak at one of the dungeons, but most of the group were under levelled and we didn't get very far. Hopefully next weekend we'll be able to try it properly.

Captcha: "i love you". I love you too captcha.

 

[Fishyash]

Honestly, I like the idea of everyone having to contribute to a form of support, rather than giving it to one person/a select few (for bigger scenarios).

Honestly, when I played WoW, I found healing rather boring.

On the contrary, playing a support role on League of Legends feels much more active. There's more to it than checking your UI for healing and dispelling in some whack-a-mole style gameplay. Rather than trying to go against some attrition, it focuses on timing.

Guild Wars 2 is more like that I feel. You have to time your debuffs, your heals, and the party in general just has to have good positioning and well timed evasion. You need to work as a unit, rather than everyone just "doing their roles".