Healers in General

I am.. well I was a fully decked out Inquisitor. Thanks to the new changes, I probably couldn't keep a cockroach alive. In BG's I'm more useful in offensive mode. I'm on Nagefen, and in warfields I'm about as useful as a bandaid. You keep nerfing Healers all the time, yet over the almost 10 years I've played this game I've seen fighters, mages, scouts all get heals. While we Healers are stuck at being nerfed. No positive change is ever given to us. So, do you intend on every actually making a positive change or are you just going to nerf us out of the game. You know, some of us play healers. We don't all go for the other classes. I have another healer, a mystic and from what I've read its been affected really bad. So please tell me for once: are you trying to nerf us out of existence? Because, right now you have done a great job!!!!!

Healers have traditionally always been overpowered in this game.

BG/PVP is no different. Set up two teams, give one team no healers, and that team will (likely) lose. Healers are less overpowered now than they have been previously, but it still isn't a contest. =/

Saying a class is 'overpowered' because it heals, when that is it's job is just.... silly. Of course a group with a healer is more likely to survive in pvp then a group w/o a healer. That doesn't make a healer overpowered. A group with a tank is more likely to survive then a group without a tank. Does that make tanks overpowered? No. It just means they have a roll to fill and things go more smoothly when that roll IS filled.

Interesting comparison, but I'll explain a bit more.

Pick a content. Try to accomplish said content without a healer. It is very difficult, if not impossible, most of the time. Compare this to any other archtype, tanks are important yes, but not as important as a healer. Possible examples of content include solo, heroic, raid, duo zone, pvp, old-school crafting, whatever. If a content can be accomplished without a healer, it is usually a big deal.

The same could be said with "DPS" or "Tank" or "Support" classes, but it isn't to the same degree. For example, "dps group + tank" vs. "dps group + healer" is a no contest, neither is "tank group + dps" vs. "tank group + healer," etc.

They are important, yes, but no where near as important of a role. Which is why a healer has been traditionally over powered. Less so now than before (advanced solos, mercenaries, new healing gear, etc.), but still (easily) the most powerful archtype by any stretch of the imagination.

Healers haven't been nerfed as much as they are now being asked to actually heal. This is a HUGE difference than the faceroll that the game has been in the last few years. Now, instead of building up your DPS spec knowing that being in Offensive stance won't make any difference to your ability to overheal by 800 percent, you are going to have to make choices and actually go in and heal your butt off.

I am looking forward to seeing how this pans out, but I think it's a good change. Recently, healers were basically being replaced...with mercs and (as you say) heal procs that every class now seems to have. The little Beta I played showed me that you might have a necessary role now, vs having your group prefer the Mystic Moppet merc for the Bolster buff to your actual heals.

Also, to the OP: You say: " I have another healer, a mystic and from what I've read its been affected really bad." If you've read that on the forums this early in the expansion, I'd suggest you play your Mystic for awhile and see if you agree.

People that scream their class is totally unplayable on the first day of an expansion - when promised significant changes have been made - are often not playing the new way, they are just reacting to it being different.

It might very well BE that healers are totally borked and unplayable. That's happened before (LU 13 anyone?), but changes were made, and most of the healers came out of that pretty well. But it's hard to say if that's true from forum hysteria.

First response: I have been in both Offensive and Defensive. The stances have both been affected. I no longer give any meaningful buffs (unless your a fighter). Second: I have healed my butt off in BG's, warfields, raids, and in questing in general. Now, if your actually playing a healer... you will notice a HUGE difference. Up the HP's to over 200k, but lower the healing that the healer does. How am I supposed to be an effective healer when you do that? How can you say that I'm OP when some fighter's heals out-parse mine now? Yes, I've been nerfed before and yes I've struggled till I was given a more of a balance. HOWEVER, I am saying this for the first time, they are nerfing us out. The Templar's have never been given a re-haul. Shamans barely have been surviving and now the most effective leather healer is: The Channeler. Groups need a healer and yes it matters. The healer has been historically an important class to play. Now, play BG's. How many healers do you see up there that are keeping people alive? If your on Naggie, how many healers are in warfields healing and still wiping? If your grouping to do a dungeon, how many healers are needed? (Mercs are usually chosen before a RL person who plays a healer) If your raiding, its no longer a guarantee that 4 slots at least will be filled by healers. That is what I am saying. That is how SOE has made the entire Healer class a fourth class to be chosen. I'm not saying this because of the day it launched the GLOOM set in. Its been happening. Ask any healer that has played over the last few expansions if they have not been nerfed somehow. This time (instead of it being a slight change) it was a HUGE change!!

The changes for relative player Hit Points vs healer potential output were quite necessary. As an Inq I welcome the change.

Here in TOV I still feel the class is very well equipped and as long as I am willing to take a DPS output reduction my effectiveness has gone up substantially. Aftershock actually matters again and I have need for more than Divine Guidance and Inquisition to cover Heroic/Solo content.

Mercs never cover Heroic+ in the absence of a healer.

To the OP, and anyone like-minded...

Have you taken into consideration that the issues you're having as a healer could be just you? Now, I only get on to raid these days, maybe solo a little and do some heroic crap, but I personally have had no issues healing since the expansion, and I've not had time to grind out a bunch of new gear...still keeping up with healers that have new gear as a matter of fact. Now, I've not done any pvp since the expansion, so I'll not comment on that.

Most I sustained healing before the expansion was around 56k hps when my silly SK pulled a group of swarm adds in SG while I was solo healing, in beta, with new heroic gear, I had no issues sustaining over 80-100k hps, with spikes close to half a million hps. Do we actually have to heal now? Yes. Are we underpowered? Nope. I've seen every healer in my raid that is good at their class keep their groups up just fine.

Quit crying wolf unless you are a shaman. Their ward situation sucks, I will agree to that. Inqs aren't having issues, at least not the ones I play with. I honestly can't see where you are saying we were nerfed. That's just silly.

Well first, are you on PVP server. Second, its nice you only log into raid where there is still use for more than one healer, however how's your buffs these days? Enjoying the fact that you only increase fighters health and do a mitigation for the others. As to the other responses, great ideas.. just that. How long have you been playing? Inquisitor is not what it was 10 years ago, not what it was after RoK and as long as you think that them just nerfing us so we have too "heal harder" is fine, then you don't know anything about what we were intended to be. Sure, heal spec it to the nines. If your on Nagafen, that doesn't work. Maybe some of you guys should run a program to see how fast your reactives are eaten up. Mine are mastered out. Mine often go for 21 hits, and while that is never enough in PVP (on Nagafen) it was enough to heal with other heals and reactives. Measure what your individual heals do now. If you think that they changed our buffs to give us a beat down b/c we were so OP. Then show me!! Show me how OP we were before. If you think the Shamans should have been changed b/c they were so OP, or that the Druids were too OP. Then obviously you haven't been paying attention! You have not seen the constant nerfing down over the years. How about the Templars? How well do they heal now? How many times in raid do you have to sacrifice some other person b/c you have to heal yourself.. b/c your group heals do not work. Continue to take it, continue to just "play" another class. I have been a healer on The Bazzar, on AB and on Nagafen. I've ONLY been a healer. So, yeah.. maybe that's my fault. Maybe I should go fighter and heal myself, or Conjy and heal me and my pet. Or maybe its time that SOE wakes up and realizes that a nerf applied to all Healers is not in their best interests. So for you people just taking up for SOE, go ahead. DEFEND till your dying breath... b/c soon... it will be just that!! I don't think many of your main toons are Inquisitors. Sorry, if I choose to learn a toon, invest in for 10 bloody years to see it just destroyed.

Lol, I've mained this toon since a month after original release. So, December of '04. I've solo healed mage groups in hardcore raid forces since we became the go to healer for that spot as furies. Hell, I wrote the biggest fury guide on the internet. I'm not defending SoE, I blasted them on beta repeatedly, but healing is just fine in PvE. Except shamans to an extent. Healers do what they are supposed to for the most part in PvE, that's my only point. If you want to whine about PvP, feel free.

Like I said, I've not done pvp of any kind since the expansion, so I didn't comment on that, nor do I plan on it.

If SoE didn't scale heals to match the new HP pools for PvP, then that sucks. It's not like healers could instantly refill people before, but if the amounts are about the same with 4x the hp, and with the giant increases in potency/cb, i can see damage going up quite a bit too.

My comments were for the people whining about PvE, but I will say no heals were lowered, just terribly scaled now. People are doing just fine with the buff changes in PvE as well.

Sorry this doesn't make any sense to me. Since players HP have been increased exponentially, by decreasing the volume of heals available, this means each heal won't make even a small dent in the amount of damage a player is taking. (I've seen it too on the inquis where Penance dropped from at least a few thousand healing amount down to well under 1000 as one example.)

Just because healers previously had a high amount of healing (HOT, reactives, wards, etc), doesn't mean they didn't actually work their butts off to keep groups alive and healthy. I agree with the OP, nerfing the healers is probably the worst action taken in this xpac. It definitely makes me want to not play my healers at all now. What's the point, if I can't keep my group mates alive (or myself), dot-free and still be able to toss in a hit, spell or debuff once in a while... this nerf takes away all fun of playing a healer class.

Ok.
If a healer can 'out heal' any form of dps (fighter, dps, support, whatever) 1v1 they are overpowered. Heals are fundamentally more powerful than damage, or 1,000 hp damage << a 1,000 hp heal.

Some mechanics that illustrate this principle:
There are few* methods to prevent healing, but many to prevent damage

AoE Blocker

Stone Skin

Avoid
Resist

Intercept

Etc.

Heals are 'easier' to cast

Range

Line of Sight

"Pre" healing

The probability that a heal sustains its full duration is much higher than a spell (dispel vs. cure)
Healers, in general, have less 'constraints' applied to their characters

Status Immunity

Power Regeneration/Free Spells/Lower overall power costs

Etc.

Heals were OP before because the hp recovery of a heal >> a damaging skill.
Heals are still overpowered in pvp, but less than before.

Then become a better healer. If you have been "working your butt off" to keep your group alive for the last two expansions, you've been doing something wrong. Healing has been less of actual healing and more curing and hoping your group mates aren't standing somewhere stupid and getting one-shotted. Having larger health pools along with more consistent damages shifts the emphasis back to our primary task: actually healing.

In response to a previous comment on this point, in COE the levels of crit bonus and potency in heroic steward gear placed the major direct heal for me in an 'overheal' state pre TOV.

Now, ministration heal doesn't completely heal a high hit point character, alleviation is not a substitute for actually changing targets (I'll have to rearrange my UI to actually start doing that), and aftershock actually has room to heal becoming of value again.

Right now, healing is more fun than it has EVER been. Your heals aren't supposed to be as much/more than the tanks/groups HP. Trying to DPS as a healer is now again relevant considering if you can keep the group up AND squeeze deeps/debuffs/w.e, you are doing something right. Prior to ToV, healers just facerolled DPS. I like having to work in groups now instead of getting bored grouping with a Shaman.

The hell are you talking about? Show me where heals were lowered with the expansion. Not sure where we were nerfed. If you can't keep people alive now, then you're doing it wrong, plain and simple. Someone else said it too... if you were having to work your butt off before, then you were either solo healing an MT or OT in raids, or your group sucked, or you sucked. There's not any other reason. Outside of a few fights in the game, a good healer could literally doze off if all they did was heal. I've done the maths on most of the healers' potential healing max, compared to what they were actually doing before, and it was much less than 1/3 of their potential for most classes.

There are still plenty of instances during gameplay where you will get to dps/debuff your little heart out. Don't be mad because you actually have to do your job on the harder fights now.

Lest we forget the stupid amount of procs on gear and runes in previous expansions that healed you and your group mates simply by being there, thus making the healers job....just stand there and look pretty.

If you're a decked out Inquisitor, and you're having problems, you're doing something wrong.

Signed,
A Scrub Inquisitor

Well as usual all the people who say things are great are from the blue servers. I'm sure you guys are all great at healing and the best on your server, I remember when they actually ranked people on their servers. You guys need a reality check! Yeah, I'm sure it's fun for you all who just had to show up in Raids and get your DKP now to actually heal. However, go to a BG and face any of the people from Naggy that have been there since day one getting their gear and show me your OUTSTANDING heal parse. Most of all your self-righteous comments were about PvE, which does not apply to what I was talking about. PVP it is hard to heal your group/raid now. You basically have to heal yourself and are only there to take off DOTS which you really can't b/c they are right back on the group b/c of all the procs. So, I'm glad you have the time and safety to just sit around and do nothing but Raid and Yawn. Try the "reduced" healing in PVP or BG's and see if your still "Yawning".

Probably should have made this thread on the pvp forums then, if you only wanted pvp responses. That's what they're for.