So I wanted to see if I could get some feedback from some of you guys/gals on something that I have seen pretty heated arguments for and against.  The current game that I am playing until my month is up is SWTOR, and my main is a healer.  I have played a ton of MMOs but the ones that I spent a good amount of time PvPing in was WoW and to a lesser extent Rift.  The question that I have for you guys is do you feel that healers should outheal DPS, or should a DPS always out damage heals (healing resources excluded).  Here are a couple of hypothetical scenarios:

1) Fighter A finds Fighter B afk, and starts to beat on him.  Random neighborhood friendly healer stumbles upon the fight and tries to spam heal Fighter B to save him.  Assuming Fighter A never switches targets and the healer never runs out of mana, should Fighter B ever die?

2)In a 2v2 arena in an open field with no LoS issues, with two teams at exactly the same skill/classbalance/gear level should a 2 DPS team win over a 1 DPS / 1 Heal team?

The purpose of me asking these questions isn't an attempt at a "gotcha" moment, or any attempt at a trick question.  I am really just curious because this is one of those topics that is a constant tug of war, and it is a VERY fine line that seperates being underpowered/overpowered.  In my opinion when I left WoW healers were very strong, and in good gear could laugh with impunity at 2 DPS beating on them, all the while keeping their team alive in battlegrounds.  Rift seemed pretty balanced, but I only played it for a few months after release; I have no idea how it is now.  With SWTOR healers seem very underpowered.  DPS seem to have a very easy time keeping up with if not exceeding healing output, and once you throw in the overabundance of stuns/interrupts/knockbacks the game seems to have showered onto the DPS it's game over for that healer.  Most 1v1 fights with a healer vs DPS at equal skill the healer would be eating dirt.

Ultimately this isn't about any one specific game, but just where should a healers place be in that struggle.  In the #1 scenario above my view is Fighter B should never die, until the healer runs out of healing resources.  Also in scenarion #2 I think the team with the healer should be the winning team.  I would like to see healers in a place where 1v1 if they know their class they should always survive the encounter, but not always kill their opponent.  In a 2v1 all they could hope to do is run away successfully.  In the end if a healer cannot keep up with the damage then why even bring a healer?  At that point everyone should just play DPS and strive to do more damage than your opponent to win.

I think a pure DPS class (non hybrid) should be able to take out a healer if they play their cards right and hit opportune interrupts etc. It shouldn't be faceroll automatic, but you should have a good chance imo.

When you're healing someone else I think you should be able to keep non-light armor targets alive through 1 dps.

I see what you're saying.  I played a Priest in WoW, a heal spec in Rift, and now have a Sawbones.

If you follow the trend though, why not end with the obviously GW2 "Everyone heals"?

Personally,

I should be able to heal people.  I wouldn't mind getting the snot pummelled out of me by  DPS'r if it didn't affect my cast time.

For example, I think that if Warrior is being attacked by Warrior, a healer should ROUGHLY be able to heal up the warrior abou 4-5 times from down to full.  By then you should be seriously hurting for mana.

I think that if you were healing said warrior, and  Rogue started punching you in the back, you should be able to protect yourself for roughly half your health, have enough time to get a heal down on yourself, before you dropped.  That seems like the best terms for ME.  For the other Warrior, it'd be a WTF NERF THIS WARRIOR opinion.  For the Rogue, it'd be a PRIEST IS OP NERF THEM!  If a Priest dropped in 2 hits it'd be, PRIEST is so crap.  They need a buff.

So....

Healing is the most proactive form of support there is and it's stupid for a class to only being able to heal and do nothing else.

I think that healers often ruin the excitement of PvP. People don't have to play defensive, They just steamroll, because someone is constantly healing them and the team with the best balance of healers/damage dealers wins..

In 1v1 a dps should be able to kill a healer, BUT the healer should also have a chance to kill the dps. That means down the healing output and up the damage of healers.

The most fun PvP I ever had was when there were no healers present.

Guild wars 2 has no healers or tanks. I'm looking forward to it :)

Depends on healer balance, but if we're talking 2v2 dps/dps vs. healer/dps, the combo team should clearly do better.

All roles (including tanks) should act as force multipliers when playing in a teamwork-heavy style.

It might even be possible for the dps/dps vs. healer/dps fight to be balanced even, with skill being the defining factor, if DPS classes also have teamwork skills.  Meaning skills that, like healing, are most effective in teams and probably not worthwhile at all 1v1.  A simple example being a group buff that you need to use global cooldowns and energy to keep it active, but the payoff isn't worthwhile in a 1v1 fight, it's only when your team is actively taking advantage of the buff that it becomes worth it.  But that'd be something to experiment with before going live, since those kinds of things can easily landslide into a player perception of DPS roles being all you need.  And even if players are wrong and all the roles are actually balanced, you don't really want the perception that DPS is all you need.

But I don't even bother with PVP in MMORPGs (preferring to PVP in True PVP games), so take this all with a grain of salt. Haven't done PVP once in TOR so far.

Originally posted by dais

1) Fighter A finds Fighter B afk, and starts to beat on him.  Random neighborhood friendly healer stumbles upon the fight and tries to spam heal Fighter B to save him.  Assuming Fighter A never switches targets and the healer never runs out of mana, should Fighter B ever die?

 

2)In a 2v2 arena in an open field with no LoS issues, with two teams at exactly the same skill/classbalance/gear level should a 2 DPS team win over a 1 DPS / 1 Heal team?

 

 

1) No caster should ever be able to achieve infinite MP.

2) If the 2 DPS team both attack the healer first, they should be able to win the fight.

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

2) If the 2 DPS team both attack the healer first, they should be able to win the fight.

Doesn't sound like good design if a combination team (healer+DPS) always loses to a pure DPS team.  Why would you ever take healers in that case?

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

2) If the 2 DPS team both attack the healer first, they should be able to win the fight.

Doesn't sound like good design if a combination team (healer+DPS) always loses to a pure DPS team.  Why would you ever take healers in that case?

Because in actuality, not everyone is the same skill level, armor level, etc etc as the question theorized.

Yes, I do think a healer should be able to out-heal dps. People are forgetting there are more ways to win a battle than simply stabbing someone. If a healer can't really heal you for the damage you're taking, they're not worth having. Likewise, if the only thing you are capable of doing is slashing at the healer, don't be surprised when it's inneffective. Damn near every MMO I can think of outfits even the purest of meleers with a few crowd control abilities (stuns, knockdowns, etc.) to combat the situation. 

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by dais

1) Fighter A finds Fighter B afk, and starts to beat on him.  Random neighborhood friendly healer stumbles upon the fight and tries to spam heal Fighter B to save him.  Assuming Fighter A never switches targets and the healer never runs out of mana, should Fighter B ever die?

 

2)In a 2v2 arena in an open field with no LoS issues, with two teams at exactly the same skill/classbalance/gear level should a 2 DPS team win over a 1 DPS / 1 Heal team?

 

 

1) No caster should ever be able to achieve infinite MP.

 

2) If the 2 DPS team both attack the healer first, they should be able to win the fight.

I do agree that no healer should ever be able to have unlimited resources, but for discussion purposes in both scenarios I wanted to eliminate all variables except for healing output vs damage output.  In the 2v2 team that does seem like an unfavorable outcome to the fight.  Even in 2 DPS vs 2 DPS fights the teams should always be focus firing on one target, so that really is just "PVP 101".  Under that outcome for number 2 that you suggested there isn't a point to bringing a healer.  If the 2 DPS team always wins everyone should just DPS and strive to out-dps their oponents, which begs the question "Why even bring other roles to PvP?"

To the other poster Guild Wars 2 certainly seems interesting to me.  Making all classes true hybrids that rely on actively dodging/blocking/healing/damaging all at the same time to survive is the ideal way to do it.  Guild Wars 2 certainly has promised to deliver on quite a few things, now whether or not they can actually do it is a different story.  I have been burned by too many games to buy into the hype, but if they actually come through it's going to be an amazing game.  Another poster a while back made a really interesting statement, and he was very accurate in doing so.  ArenaNet relies on box sales exclusively for their revenue, and potential expansions down the road.  MMOs rely on monthly subscriptions, so to make their money they have to constantly keep their product polished and updated.  All B2P games have to do is hype their game up so much that they have a ridiculous number of sales at launch.  Even if their game is terrible it doesn't matter, because they earned all their revenue.  I am worried that GW2 is generating a ton of hype.  If the game is terrible you can't exactly say "Well I just won't sub to it".

Sorry for going a little off topic.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Depends on healer balance, but if we're talking 2v2 dps/dps vs. healer/dps, the combo team should clearly do better.

All roles (including tanks) should act as force multipliers when playing in a teamwork-heavy style.

It might even be possible for the dps/dps vs. healer/dps fight to be balanced even, with skill being the defining factor, if DPS classes also have teamwork skills.  Meaning skills that, like healing, are most effective in teams and probably not worthwhile at all 1v1.  A simple example being a group buff that you need to use global cooldowns and energy to keep it active, but the payoff isn't worthwhile in a 1v1 fight, it's only when your team is actively taking advantage of the buff that it becomes worth it.  But that'd be something to experiment with before going live, since those kinds of things can easily landslide into a player perception of DPS roles being all you need.  And even if players are wrong and all the roles are actually balanced, you don't really want the perception that DPS is all you need.

But I don't even bother with PVP in MMORPGs (preferring to PVP in True PVP games), so take this all with a grain of salt. Haven't done PVP once in TOR so far.

That statement right there I completely agree with.  Ideally the teams would be exactly balanced, but in order to do so the DPS cannot rely completely on damage alone.  Using WoW as an example, in PvP rogues had a lot more utility than the average forum troll gave them credit for.  Gouge for example was an ability that incapacitated your target for about 4 seconds.  In 1v1 it didn't do much for the rogue.  You can't restealth in that time, you can't really get off a bandage.  You might be able to use it as an interrupt of a spell cast while you wait for other interrupts to come off cooldown, but ultimately while they are incapacitated you aren't damaging your opponent which is really what you want to do to win.  In 2v2 however it takes one of your opponents out of the fight for a few seconds, and you can continue to damage the partner.  I would love to see developers change the role of DPS to more than just "big numbers".  When you boil it down eventually to win your opponent has to die, and DPS should be the best at that, but making the class feel like there is more to it than just having 10 skills that "just deal damage" would be best.

Originally posted by dais

Under that outcome for number 2 that you suggested there isn't a point to bringing a healer.  If the 2 DPS team always wins everyone should just DPS and strive to out-dps their oponents, which begs the question "Why even bring other roles to PvP?"

 

I never said there was no point in bringing a healer. Really the question itself is just flawed. As I mentioned before, no one is ever the exact same gear level, skill, etc. Secondly, the question doesn't take into account what kind of support abilities the healer may have. If all they can do is spam heals, as was suggested, then yes, under the theoretical conditions listed, a healer would be useless. Taking other abilities into account, that could change dramatically.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

2) If the 2 DPS team both attack the healer first, they should be able to win the fight.

Doesn't sound like good design if a combination team (healer+DPS) always loses to a pure DPS team.  Why would you ever take healers in that case?

Assuming dedicated DPS hitting a Tank, dedicated healer should out-heal damage.  Take out the Tank, and add a light tank type class, the healer should be fairly outpaced by damage.  Replace the "light tank" with a squishy, and the healer shouldn't come close. 

The healer has so many other restrictions, i.e., limited mana, interrupted spells, etc, absolute healing totals really aren't as important as they look "on paper".  In your 2 vs. 2 scenario, one or two of the DPS's would concentrate on the healer, and once the healer is gone, focus on the DPS w/ both DPS's.

It must be like everybody can use heal potions and bandages for healing. Only spells must be a class thing.