Issue 28: Casual Friday - Sick Of Healing

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Frosty840

Heh. Played one of those Darkness-type Defenders in CoH for a while, sounds like the one John describes.
The defining power of that class is an area-of-effect shield that targets an enemy, nerfs him all to crap, then uses that nerfage to also shield any nearby players from all damage types, inclusing psychic damage, which makes that particular subclass any non-Stone tanker's best friend (the entire tanker class is unprotected from psi damage apart from one highly specialised Stone shield).
My routine with that character was always "I'm *not* a healer. It's not what I do. I shield. The heal for this class requires me to hit an enemy with the heal power first, *before* it heals you guys. It's worthless. I shield, and I use that guy over there, who's nerfed all to crap and has a gigantic pile of oily black evilness around his feet as a focus for that shield. DO NOT KILL HIM. IF YOU KILL HIM, YOU LOSE YOUR SHIELD."
They killed him, they bitched about not getting healed. I wasn't too bothered, because I never attacked anything anyway and so caught no aggro. Wasn't my job.

But I definitely wasn't a healer.

Also, to Ghog: That's why the majority of players aren't healers. Duh!

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Aero

I hear people in many MMORPGs saying stuff like this, and I tend to believe it. I've been playing a healer for years now in the games I play, though, and I must say I rarely get treated that way.

It makes me wonder if the people complaining couldn't do better. Maybe they shouldn't be expected to do better, and I do believe healers are held to a higher standard as far as skill. It's basically, "you have to be good to play the healer."

I'm playing Guild Wars now, and people often refuse to go out without at least one healer, and in full size parties (of 8) 2 or 3. They believe a group cannot be successful without healers. In this game, that's not true, they are perfectly capable of doing it without the monks. I personally am beginning to believe that it isn't that monks are so powerful as a class, but that the players that play them are so mentally strong and skillful that they are the real reason the group succeeds more with healers.

If I make a mistake, I accept the blame. They make mistakes constantly, but the difference is their mistakes have significantly less chance of causing the group to fail. As a healer, you aren't just another member of the group, you are the heart and life of it.

I give it my full concentration, do my best, and don't make excuses. I rarely get criticism. If I did, it wouldn't bother me because I know I'm doing all I can. I'm ok with the greater expectations.

Also, a tip for the dishonest: People will appreciate you more if you wait till the last moment (allow them to reach near-death) and then "save" them. Since they have no concept of what it is to play the healer, they think you've done so much better (even though it's exactly the opposite as it will most likely be less efficient on energy). My guess is that they are at that point giving up and realizing they can't do it on their own right before you save them. I won't take advantage of this stupidity, but...

So anyways, I think they just see things from their own point of view and either can't or can't be bothered to see anything else.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Flipx


A doctor trains for at least seven years, barely making minimum wage throughout, and saves hundreds and hundreds of lives. No one notices. This is the bare minimum, the very least expected of him


My wife is languishing in the hospital right now without much hope or help from them, and let me tell you, this is not what doctors do. Doctors for the most part do what people in every other job do, the bare minimum to make the problem directly in front of them go away. I was nearly killed in my local hospital due to doctors not bothering with my strep throat.

I was thrown out of a hospital for asking the doctor for some paperwork relating to my wife (who he was openly hostile to when she was suffering) Most doctors studying right now no longer train as generalists, the "family doctors" of old, and instead look for the least amount of effort for the most money and become specialists. The system, especially the HMO system, then lets and even encourages the generalist to bounce the problem back to the specialist and vice versa until all the money is squeezed out of the family, the patient is dead, and the problem thereby solves itself at excellent profits for the pharmas, the labs, and the doctor and their administrative staff.

The recent legal initiatives taking away our ability to sue is only going to make the problems that much worse. I can't even afford time or money to sue until she is well. I could complain to the CA medical board and it is my word against the hospital's for their criminal level of negligence toward my wife. Good luck proving someone DIDN'T do their job in a medical case. I'm not talking anything complicated here either just things such as actually doing what they just said they were going to do five minutes ago to my face and not treating my wife and I like criminals or drug addicts.

My point is, people need to wake up and realize these are just schmucks in another type of job in general, they definitely do not need to be put up on a pedestal like this in probably 95% of cases. There are some good, real doctors out there I'm sure, but most of them now graduate from Botswana with a degree in Egomaniacal Studies it seems like, please don't feed their delusions of grandeur when hospitals kill people right and left and common diseases like strep throat and endometriosis go undiagnosed and symptoms glossed over (for years in my wife's case).

There needs to be an official board with teeth that is *actually* accountable to we the people if we want this problem to go away without lawsuits.

No one gives a flying eff about anyone anymore unless there is $$$ behind it, least of all doctors.

Not game related I know, but I did play CoH a lot, had 4 or 5 level 50s on Guardian, I'm just ranting to take my mind off my wife.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: mike
http://walla.com
Hey! I really want to see a perfect build for assist! Can you show me what are the options for making a rough assist?