Found this gem over in the Dedicated Buffing thread from Mark and it really was great news from my perspective.

Original thread: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/379325/page/1

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

Originally posted by Tumblebutz

Originally posted by Plastic-Metal
 

Doing battle with a bit of a headache right now (working on this eyechart of Digitial Reward Tiers from home doesn't help) but my thoughts here are:

2)  In CU, I want pure healers to play an important role in the game. Back at Mythic I had numerous discussions about the role of healers in future games and while I think self-heals are great for quick PvE-based games, in a game like CU, we want to encourage healers to play that role.

This is much bigger news than buffing classes IMO, looks like pure healers are back, and this makes me very happy. 

Since there won't be some sort of heavy PVE grind to make it hateful to create one, perhaps we can go back to the day where the strategy of properly healing (and not getting killed in the process) will come back in style. (and more people will enjoy learning how to do it)

Originally posted by colddog04
I thought pretty much every MMORPG (edit: well, fantasy style ones anyway) had pure healers except maybe GW2. Or are you saying that you think he's implying they will do absolutely nothing except heal?

Well, back in DAOC pure healers really did nothing but heal in RVR, sometimes there was some buffing/buff shearing but those abilities normally were weakened by the spec into strong healing abilities. And you did absolutely no damage  during the fight, just didn't have those abilities.

Which made them a real challenge to level in PVE (well, solo anyways) and you could not respec easily once you got past level 40.

Oh ok, so it's healers that damage that you're not so happy about in more recent MMORPGs.

I love playing healers and I also really like when they have a lot of variety and hopefully complexity. Low damage output is fine with me personally because it adds to the amount of tactics to think about when playing with others. I also would prefer healers to have other roles besides strictly healing/shearing (i assume shearing is removing buff or debuffs): kiting skills, limited cc skills, etc depending on the class.

It sounds like what you're saying is that you think healers might go back to the more basic role of reacting to health gauges and using LoS. I personally don't like that idea because it would feel very basic to me. But there is a good chance that I am oversimplifying what you are saying too.

Personally, I feel that healers need to have some further utility beyond just healing (though not necessarily damage capabilities). I've enjoyed being a dedicated healer in previous MMOs (both PvE and PvP), and I must admit that I don't see myself playing a class that does absolutely nothing but healing.

Just my two cents.

Originally posted by meddyck
It'll be great playing a game again where it is possible to directly heal a group member taking damage. I am fine with AE healing fields as extra spells but I don't like them being the only healing like in GW 2 and apparently TESO.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like fun at all. If healing is like whack-a-mole, then that's whack-a-mole with a hammer that hits all the holes at once. Snore.

There's only one Jem for me.

This is one of the area's I actually think Warhammer did right/better then many other mmo's.

I'm normally not the type of person that plays healers, I just do not find it that fun to play "Look at the health bars and spam heals all the time" type of gameplay, it gets old SUPER FAST imo, and it's repetitive as heck. THat is why you generally have healers being one of ht eleast played /most sought after classes in groups.

However in Warhammer online the way it worked was that healers actually had to take an ACTIVE part in combat, using their abilities, to help build up "WAAAGH" which in-turn made their abilities better. If you did damage, it built up the WAAAGH meter that buffed your healing, if you did healing, it buffed up your damage metter, etc. It was a way to promote healers to do a variety of things to play best, rather then just healing.

So you didn't just stand around in back of groups, healing people, but actually got into the fights as well, doing many things which in turn made you a BETTER healer.

I enjoyed that kind of gameplay a lot more then I would have had it simply been normal healing and staying out of fights.

My favorite healer of all MMO's to date is the Empathy Defender from City of Heroes (RIP). The whole system was extremely basic with only a few different type heals and abilities but it felts really fast paced and action packed. 

Originally posted by Stiler

This is one of the area's I actually think Warhammer did right/better then many other mmo's.

I'm normally not the type of person that plays healers, I just do not find it that fun to play "Look at the health bars and spam heals all the time" type of gameplay, it gets old SUPER FAST imo, and it's repetitive as heck. THat is why you generally have healers being one of ht eleast played /most sought after classes in groups.

However in Warhammer online the way it worked was that healers actually had to take an ACTIVE part in combat, using their abilities, to help build up "WAAAGH" which in-turn made their abilities better. If you did damage, it built up the WAAAGH meter that buffed your healing, if you did healing, it buffed up your damage metter, etc. It was a way to promote healers to do a variety of things to play best, rather then just healing.

So you didn't just stand around in back of groups, healing people, but actually got into the fights as well, doing many things which in turn made you a BETTER healer.

I enjoyed that kind of gameplay a lot more then I would have had it simply been normal healing and staying out of fights.

 

As someone who almost always players a healer as a main I really don't want a system like this. I don't want to do damage. Give us some CC or debuf abilities, and thats it. I've been really sick of recent games making healers do damage in hopes of making it more fun for more people, and all its doing is ruining the fun for the few of us who like to play healers. Or then there is GW2 which removed healers, and couldn't keep my interest for more than 3 weeks.

But heck, since there will apparently be many diverse classes maybe we both can get what we want.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Found this jem over in the Dedicated Buffing thread from Mark and it really was great news from my perspective.

Original thread: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/379325/page/1

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

Originally posted by Tumblebutz

Originally posted by Plastic-Metal
 

Doing battle with a bit of a headache right now (working on this eyechart of Digitial Reward Tiers from home doesn't help) but my thoughts here are:

2)  In CU, I want pure healers to play an important role in the game. Back at Mythic I had numerous discussions about the role of healers in future games and while I think self-heals are great for quick PvE-based games, in a game like CU, we want to encourage healers to play that role.

This is much bigger news than buffing classes IMO, looks like pure healers are back, and this makes me very happy. 

Since there won't be some sort of heavy PVE grind to make it hateful to create one, perhaps we can go back to the day where the strategy of properly healing (and not getting killed in the process) will come back in style. (and more people will enjoy learning how to do it)

 

 

 

 This is a very good sign indeed!

Originally posted by jplusplus

Personally, I feel that healers need to have some further utility beyond just healing (though not necessarily damage capabilities). I've enjoyed being a dedicated healer in previous MMOs (both PvE and PvP), and I must admit that I don't see myself playing a class that does absolutely nothing but healing.

Just my two cents.

 And you have a ton of games that offer you just that.  Watering down classes and allowing everyone to play every class is fine if you want a game like that, but I think it's more interesting when your character has limits and isn't allowed to play all roles.  Call it more challenging if you like or TOO CHALLENGING.  It fits well with me.

Originally posted by Stiler

This is one of the area's I actually think Warhammer did right/better then many other mmo's.

I'm normally not the type of person that plays healers, I just do not find it that fun to play "Look at the health bars and spam heals all the time" type of gameplay, it gets old SUPER FAST imo, and it's repetitive as heck. THat is why you generally have healers being one of ht eleast played /most sought after classes in groups.

However in Warhammer online the way it worked was that healers actually had to take an ACTIVE part in combat, using their abilities, to help build up "WAAAGH" which in-turn made their abilities better. If you did damage, it built up the WAAAGH meter that buffed your healing, if you did healing, it buffed up your damage metter, etc. It was a way to promote healers to do a variety of things to play best, rather then just healing.

So you didn't just stand around in back of groups, healing people, but actually got into the fights as well, doing many things which in turn made you a BETTER healer.

I enjoyed that kind of gameplay a lot more then I would have had it simply been normal healing and staying out of fights.

 

Oh yeah, loved it. Best healing mechanics I've seen so far. You could go straight out heal botting if you wanted but if you wanted you could also do some other cool stuff like supplementing a healer in a premade using life taps. So you could also help burst down an enemy WHILE you helped keep your defensive target alive.

They were really really clever with that. Shame about the other stuff XD

My primary toon in DAoC is currently a Healer in Thid, love the abilities, but the class comes up short once I have to go into  melee combat.   Any class should have a chance at winning a melee combat  if the attacker is already mostly dead.  That is one thing I loved about WAR, every class can make a good run at it in melee combat, not too happy about having to wade into battle to get enough power to heal though.  

One thing I do love about RIFT besides the gfx, instant heal timers are very short.   I do love a long battles, makes victory a far sweeter  moment vs a quick gank and their dead.  

Originally posted by Karraptathid

My primary toon in DAoC is currently a Healer in Thid, love the abilities, but the class comes up short once I have to go into  melee combat.   Any class should have a chance at winning a melee combat  if the attacker is already mostly dead.  That is one thing I loved about WAR, every class can make a good run at it in melee combat, not too happy about having to wade into battle to get enough power to heal though.  

One thing I do love about RIFT besides the gfx, instant heal timers are very short.   I do love a long battles, makes victory a far sweeter  moment vs a quick gank and their dead.  

Rock Paper Scissors class system.

There are solo toons and there arn't solo toons. This might not be the game for you?

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by colddog04
I thought pretty much every MMORPG (edit: well, fantasy style ones anyway) had pure healers except maybe GW2. Or are you saying that you think he's implying they will do absolutely nothing except heal?

Well, back in DAOC pure healers really did nothing but heal in RVR, sometimes there was some buffing/buff shearing but those abilities normally were weakened by the spec into strong healing abilities. And you did absolutely no damage  during the fight, just didn't have those abilities.

Which made them a real challenge to level in PVE (well, solo anyways) and you could not respec easily once you got past level 40.

 

Only poor/newbie healers did nothing but heal, those healers were utterly worthless to any top 8-man.

I played every imaginable spec druid as my main and while yes, healing was my main task, CC, buff shearing DoT, pet interrupting, AoE interrupts etc were critical to success ("sometimes"? I'd say every time, critical to success and the timing of such skills in line with my group mates was also critical... essential even....if all I did was heal then I might as well not even bother playing).

Those who simply specced everything into their main heal line and never even explored their other skills were a terrible liability and which group worth it's salt ran with anything less than 2 differently specced primary healer classes and at least one back-up healer?

Levelling solo as a healer was indeed harsh (although all primary healers had a spec line which at least made it possible, if painful to solo), but if I wanted to level solo i'd have rolled a solo class, I rolled a group support class and I only ever played in groups where my class skills helped the group be more than the sum of it's parts. I don't think I ever had a problem in my 8+ years getting a group for anything, the realm was always crying out for good healers. The homogenisation of classes so every class can heal, every class can solo and no class excells at anything is imo a terrible loss for MMORPG's (thanks GW2).

Originally posted by Niix_Ozek

Originally posted by Karraptathid

My primary toon in DAoC is currently a Healer in Thid, love the abilities, but the class comes up short once I have to go into  melee combat.   Any class should have a chance at winning a melee combat  if the attacker is already mostly dead.  That is one thing I loved about WAR, every class can make a good run at it in melee combat, not too happy about having to wade into battle to get enough power to heal though.  

One thing I do love about RIFT besides the gfx, instant heal timers are very short.   I do love a long battles, makes victory a far sweeter  moment vs a quick gank and their dead.  

Rock Paper Scissors class system.

 

There are solo toons and there arn't solo toons. This might not be the game for you?

Yeah, im sorry but expecting to win in a melee conflict as a dedicated healer versus a melee-specialist is a bit silly.

DAoC "healers" could kill and some made a very interresting living doing so (on my old server Excalibur we had solo druids such as Motorhead, Novamir, Douglas etc all of which were formidable 1v1), but if your specced to heal in Thidranki it doesn't give you much in the way of other tools. At 50 it's a different story of course, Nature specced Druids for example were hideously powerful pre-SI, 1v1 you'd be VERY lucky to beat a well played and equipped one as any other class (except maybe sorcs?).

This changed with SI quite a bit but still a well played nature druid was a really tricky 1v1 kill.

Also, not all healers in WAR had it easy in melee, your talking about a Priest/DoK (i assume from what you say about powering-up in melee) which were very much the exception to the rule (good classes though, battle healers were a lot of fun to play). Try that shiz as an Archmage and see what happens.

Originally posted by Niix_Ozek

Originally posted by Karraptathid

My primary toon in DAoC is currently a Healer in Thid, love the abilities, but the class comes up short once I have to go into  melee combat.   Any class should have a chance at winning a melee combat  if the attacker is already mostly dead.  That is one thing I loved about WAR, every class can make a good run at it in melee combat, not too happy about having to wade into battle to get enough power to heal though.  

One thing I do love about RIFT besides the gfx, instant heal timers are very short.   I do love a long battles, makes victory a far sweeter  moment vs a quick gank and their dead.  

Rock Paper Scissors class system.

 

There are solo toons and there arn't solo toons. This might not be the game for you?

I don't think you have played a Midgard "Healer" class.  Unlike any healing class (Hib/Alb or Midgard Shammy), Midgard Healers had zero offensive DPS spells.   Best that could happen is a target of a Mez  died of sleep apnea (which can't happen) because their damage via melee combat was laughable.   If MJ is bring back a true "healer" class (Midgard Healer) without offensive DPS spells, they need to have enough melee capabilities to earn them some respect vs being known as a easy kill.  Mythic made one adjustment for PVE but didn't allow that adjustment for RVR, Eir's weapon proc spell.  

Originally posted by NBlitz

There's only one Jem for me.

Truly outrageous.