Hey all, ive loved healing, and played it in all of my mmo experience.  Doctor/combat medic in swg for a while, then priest and a druid in wow.

Now, to start, ill say i like a pure healer more than a hybrid.  For example, priest and druid were more pure healing (healbot), where as medic on star wars puts more emphasis on doing damage while still healing well.

From what ive read, in WAR, all the support/healer classes actually contribute alot of damage, as well as heal/buff others.

1 question- what classes are the most "pure" healers in game?   Im thinking goblin shaman and rune priest?

Any other thoughts on the topic of healing are more than welcome!

The runepriest and the zealot  are the closest to pure healers.   :) you get credit for healing as if you were doing damage so atleas tyou wont be missing out hehe.

The warrior priest & the disciple of khaine require you to do damage....the Shaman & archemage are I believe a combination of both.

WAR will be my first MMO where I try a healer class exactly for the above mentioned reason.

ive got another question- On the topic of tanks in pvp

Say your a tank, you can take ridiculous amounts of damage, how do you "tank" in pvp- where the player decides who to attack? I'd assume you cant "taunt' another player..

This question spawns from the problem in wow, of defensive spec warriors, people just let em run around and do nothing.

Im assuming they do such ridiculous amounts of damage that it is beneficial to kill them first?  /shrug

Edit: spelling

Tank classes are very viable in pvp.  When you get into the game, or NDA is lifted I would be happy to give you more info.  Even Taunt is viable in PVP from what info is available though podcasts and reading open available info.  Just takes some digging.  I won't break the NDA to answer but I can give you that.

Also, I believe there is collision detection in PVP so a tank really can be an obstacle between his squishy friends and their enemies.

This isnt an nda break as I have seen it posted on only-war forum and also I think on a q&a on the official forums that a tank when he does his taunt the player/s he is taunting have to attack him within a certain time or they will get some sort of debuff or dmg,they didnt mention that so I guess that is either to be decided or is under the nda.

edit- yep like the above poster said they can also be used as the "meat shield" so the healers have some protection.

Correct, Vernd.

Collision detection, awesome.  Being they are huge, it could actually work too! cant wait

Originally posted by silveradond

ive got another question- On the topic of tanks in pvp

Say your a tank, you can take ridiculous amounts of damage, how do you "tank" in pvp- where the player decides who to attack? I'd assume you cant "taunt' another player..

This question spawns from the problem in wow, of defensive spec warriors, people just let em run around and do nothing.

Im assuming they do such ridiculous amounts of damage that it is beneficial to kill them first?  /shrug

Edit: spelling

WAR has colision detection.. which means you cant run trough the tanks& other meleers to get to hit the casters/rangers in the back.

So you will have to breach the front line. To do that means you will have to kill some tanks.

Dont know if they can taunt you but I know they wont let you pass slowing you, knocking you back and doing other debuffs on you.

as said before collission detection is a biggy, make a WALL and move forward, or stand infront of a squishy.

Also taunt has a PVP function making a debuff that makes people do more dmg to that target, it either goes away in time or they have to hit the tank 3 times.

Also Tanks can pick a target that they can watch over , essentially if that target gets hit you split the dmg with them. Not to mention a tank is a front line Warrior.

I'd say the Archmage would make a really good pure healer. They have the reverse of the Shaman mechanic. For an Archmage, the more you heal, the better your heals will become. Whereas with the Shaman the more damage you do the better your heals become. So yeah, the Archmage would be good because you can strictly heal and do better and better.

With arcmage, the more dmg you do, the better you heal.  And the more you heal the more dmg you do.

Originally posted by SundersGhost

With arcmage, the more dmg you do, the better you heal.  And the more you heal the more dmg you do.

 

Yah...I was gonna say.

But I don't think that a Zealot or RP healer will be better than any of the other healers.

Page 22 of the Gamespy blog:

First I had to wrap my head around the Archmage's High Magic mechanic. There are two aspects to High Magic -- Force and Tranquility. You build up Force with damaging spells and Tranquility with heals. High magic "points" improve your spells by reducing their casting time by 20% per point and by improving the damage of instants by 5% per point. You get better heals by healing and better damage spells by attacking with them. It's the converse of the Gork and Mork system that the Greenskin shamans use.

So.... I was right, the more heals you cast, the better your heals get. It's NOT like the Shaman where your heals get better by casting damage spells.

Originally posted by vernd

Also, I believe there is collision detection in PVP so a tank really can be an obstacle between his squishy friends and their enemies.

yep all you gotta do is get in the way.

Originally posted by Arndur

Originally posted by vernd

Also, I believe there is collision detection in PVP so a tank really can be an obstacle between his squishy friends and their enemies.

 

yep all you gotta do is get in the way.

Loved the gamespy info about tanks blocking the hallway and engys throwing granades at the players that the tanks were blocking...

Nos speaking of healing... you have the the shaman and archmage who can either cast heals or damage spells... casting damage spells gets some internal counter up and makes healing spells faster or cheaper or whatever... that info is still either under the NDA or i havent read it yet hehe... and vice versa... casting heals makes your damage spells better or faster or whatever... so kinda like this... i cast 5 damage spells on a enemy and then i can instant cast a "big" heal on a player... untill i get enough morale for a rank 2 tactic maybe that does an AoE heal... so it will be a very tactical way of healing...

then we have the warrior prist and DoK... they generate an interlan counter deppending on the damage they do and then their spells improve... something similar to the first two but i never read about it to be honest :o)

and then we have the zealot and rune priest... from what i heard they use buffs a lot... prolly something like casting a buff that will heal everyone in the team when the player gets hit or something... but maybe i'm guessing wrong :o)

so yea... zealot and runepriest will prolly be the "pure" healers... maybe combined with the path of valaya/path of alchemy... the other 4 require you to do some damage so you can heal better so maybe even more fun...

But feel free to correct me if i'm wrong and you know something that's not under the NDA :o)

Originally posted by vernd

Also, I believe there is collision detection in PVP so a tank really can be an obstacle between his squishy friends and their enemies.

That only stops melee and not ranged so it becomes completly pointless and in the crazyness of RVR noone every uses collision detection and it just becomes an annoying feature where you keep running into people.

Originally posted by JustBe

Originally posted by vernd

Also, I believe there is collision detection in PVP so a tank really can be an obstacle between his squishy friends and their enemies.

 

That only stops melee and not ranged so it becomes completly pointless and in the crazyness of RVR noone every uses collision detection and it just becomes an annoying feature where you keep running into people.

Yeah collision detection is bullsh*t let's all petition it in real life too. I mean it just sucks that you have to bump into people in a crowded street or hallway, why does it have to be that way in a game too? It's so stupid and unrealistic that OH MAH GAWD I JUST HATE IT SO MUCH.

You don't know how handy or useless it'll be. So what if it's a ranged duel? At least if you have tanks there then you have the advantage, since the enemy's melee can't get in. That means if you have stronger nukers/healers you'll win the fight. I'm going to laugh when I see a bunch of ex-WoWers trying to go up a flight of stairs and bumping into each other and going "OH MAH GAWD I JUST HATE IT SO MUCH."

Nos speaking of healing... you have the the shaman and archmage who can either cast heals or damage spells... casting damage spells gets some internal counter up and makes healing spells faster or cheaper or whatever... that info is still either under the NDA or i havent read it yet hehe... and vice versa... casting heals makes your damage spells better or faster or whatever... so kinda like this... i cast 5 damage spells on a enemy and then i can instant cast a "big" heal on a player... untill i get enough morale for a rank 2 tactic maybe that does an AoE heal... so it will be a very tactical way of healing...

Uh.... did you not see my post just a couple above yours? ONLY the SHAMAN increases their heals by doing damage spells. The Archmage is the OPPOSITE, they increase their heals by casting other heals. I've mentioned this multiple times on multiple boards over the last couple days, and no one believes me, then I show them the info from page 22 of the Gamespy blog that shows that I'm right. Anyways, sorry if that came off a little rude, lol, I just like people to have the correct information.

Originally posted by JustBe

Originally posted by vernd

Also, I believe there is collision detection in PVP so a tank really can be an obstacle between his squishy friends and their enemies.

 

That only stops melee and not ranged so it becomes completly pointless and in the crazyness of RVR noone every uses collision detection and it just becomes an annoying feature where you keep running into people.

Considering squishies are usually most vulnerable to high-DPS melee classes, I think collision detection is significant.

Originally posted by daemon

Originally posted by silveradond

ive got another question- On the topic of tanks in pvp

Say your a tank, you can take ridiculous amounts of damage, how do you "tank" in pvp- where the player decides who to attack? I'd assume you cant "taunt' another player..

This question spawns from the problem in wow, of defensive spec warriors, people just let em run around and do nothing.

Im assuming they do such ridiculous amounts of damage that it is beneficial to kill them first?  /shrug

Edit: spelling

 

WAR has colision detection.. which means you cant run trough the tanks& other meleers to get to hit the casters/rangers in the back.

So you will have to breach the front line. To do that means you will have to kill some tanks.

Dont know if they can taunt you but I know they wont let you pass slowing you, knocking you back and doing other debuffs on you.

They're experimenting with taunt in PvP but last I heard the taunt decreases your damage by a fair amount until you attack the tank a certain number of times - it doesn't force you to kill the tank per sé but until you do your DPS is affected. They're still tweaking it around a bit so have to wait until release to be sure.

True, DB... i'm sorry about that :o)

Altho it kinda makes you think... shamans "spend" their gork and mork once they cast the oposite spell IIRC... what happens with archamges then? i just spam heals and they get better and better untill they "cap" and i keep spamming?

Yeah, I'm not sure either. I think the Shaman sounds a LOT more interesting to play. Maybe it's like the Witch Elf and Witch Hunter, where you build up combo points/accusations (use minor heals) that then allow you to use finishers/executions (big AoE heals or whatever). If it's like that then it will be a lot better than if it's just spamming, getting better, keep spamming, hit cap, keep spamming.

Originally posted by DapperBantam

Nos speaking of healing... you have the the shaman and archmage who can either cast heals or damage spells... casting damage spells gets some internal counter up and makes healing spells faster or cheaper or whatever... that info is still either under the NDA or i havent read it yet hehe... and vice versa... casting heals makes your damage spells better or faster or whatever... so kinda like this... i cast 5 damage spells on a enemy and then i can instant cast a "big" heal on a player... untill i get enough morale for a rank 2 tactic maybe that does an AoE heal... so it will be a very tactical way of healing...

 

Uh.... did you not see my post just a couple above yours? ONLY the SHAMAN increases their heals by doing damage spells. The Archmage is the OPPOSITE, they increase their heals by casting other heals. I've mentioned this multiple times on multiple boards over the last couple days, and no one believes me, then I show them the info from page 22 of the Gamespy blog that shows that I'm right. Anyways, sorry if that came off a little rude, lol, I just like people to have the correct information.

You're wrong. It works the exactly the same way as a shaman. I'm in closed beta.