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5 Reasons that Its more fun to heal in Vanguard than WoW
danbala
Member Posts: 181
This thread is directed to the healers out there. Like you, I have been cursed with the healing bug. I love to heal my party and keep them in the fight. But sometimes it can feel like a curse too. I don’t need to explain why, we all know the story.
I had a level 60 paladin, druid and priest in WoW all spec'ed for healing. But I got burnt out. The reasons why aren't the purpose of this thread (although it may become obvious from the comments below).
However, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that healing in vanguard has been a joy – particularly compared to my last days of WoW. Why?
Well, here’s the top 5 reasons that healing in Vanguard is more fun that healing in WoW
5. Each healing class can make soulstones that allow party members to rez the healer. In WoW, I often found that with good healing I was the only one who had to make corpse runs. It was satisfying but also very biter. There was nothing worse that having my party take a bio break while I ran from TP back down to BRD or UBRS. In Vanguard, those days are behind me. If I get taken out then party just rezzes me and we move on. Problem solved. This also allows me to focus that last bit my my mana (eneregy) on keeping the tank alive which is a tremendous tactical advantage. (And don't worry, all Vanguard healers get this special ability).
4. You can make all the +plus healing gear you want. Itemization is not a problem for healers in Vanguard. I think we are all aware of how difficult it is in WoW to get your hybrid healing gear. In Vangurd, whether your healer wears plate, leather or cloth, the flexible crafting system allows you to make gear that is specifically “tailored” to your character.
3. You can heal on the move. That’s right healing no longer means standing in one place – usually in the back. You can now be involved in the party’s tactics by moving along with the party while you are healing. This can become very important during those fast getaways.
2. You can DPS without compromising your healing. The encounters seem to be tuned so that you don’t need to spend you entire time healing. In fact, I spend more time DPSing with my Blood Mage and Disciple than I do actually healing -- even though I’m the only healer for my party. As a result healing has become an add-on to my other roles in the group, not my sole focus. Although, I do full-time heal in tough boss encounters most of the time I can focus on taking the fight to the enemy. And with the Blood Mage and Disciple I actually need to do DPS to be most effective at healing. That means that my party can’t even complain about it. And since I can move and heal, I can actually be good at both roles.
And the Number One reason why healing is better in Vanguard:
1. All Healing classes are hybrids. You read that right, they are all designed to excel at healing and something else. The Blood Mage is like a healing Mage; the Disciple is a hand-to-hand DPSer, the Cleric is basically a WoW paladin and the Shaman is, well, a Shaman. No more arguments about why the dedicated healer class should heal the best. There is no “dedicated” class. And Sigil has ensured that they all heal equally well when they are only healing because they all have access to the same healing spells (more or less) at the same levels. What makes the classes distict is either how they also accomplish their secondary role.
For example, the disciple has access to all the straight forward healing spells as the cleric. If he stands in the back row he can heal just like the cleric would. But he also has access to hand to hand abilities that heal. So in ordinary encounters he can go to the front row and beat on the enemy as a light DPSer (similar in WoW to a Rogue or cat form druid). When things get tough he can stand in the back and heal like a WoW healer.
If you are a healer that has become burnt out in WoW you owe it to yourself to check out Vanguard. I think you’ll be pleasantly surpised.
Comments
By that I mean, at comparable levels in WoW, it was probably acceptable for you to mess around in bear form as your Druid and not mindnumbingly spam decursive on your Paladin.
Because Vanguard is more group-centric than raiding focused, I never expect it at even end-game to get as bad as WoW in rigidly forcing people into a small niche of what they can and cannot do; but when those tough raiding encounters come along where streamlined and efficient playing of your archetypes best role is necessary, things will naturally be less flexible.
Excellent Post.
I totally understand what you are saying. I have a 70 druid in WOW and agree with your analysis about WOW healing.
I also love healing and am looking forward to seeing how healers solo and group in Vanguard.
That is a very fair point. I don't know yet what the end game in Vanguard holds. I am quite familair with the WoW end game. And since the WoW end game was my most recent experience it was my primary point of comparison.
But I think my point still bears out when comparing small group healing in both games. Even in a small instance group in WoW, if you are the groups only healer you will be focused solely on healing (if only not to draw aggro). You might wand a bit too but that is not saying much. Even as a WoW pally, if you are the main healer in an instance you end up in the back row with the mages.
Those things are not true in Vanguard -- even in the instance-equivilent areas.
Thanks for the clarification.
As to your first question the answer is yes. (In fact all spells can be cast on the move).
As to the second question, each healer has access to four basic healing spells: (1) fast, small heal; (2) slow, big heal; (3) expensive instant heal and (4) group heal.
In addtion to that each healer as other healing realted abilties that are unqiue to the class. For example, a Blood Mage can heal a defensive target based on the strength of his offensive spells. Likewise, a Disciple can heal his defensive target by performing karate attacks on the Mob.
You can move and cast spells, you just move slower.
This is something I wish ALL mmo's did. I always play a caster and I can't stand being stationary when I cast spells; I like to move around. In my opinion this is one of the things that makes playing a caster in VG better then WoW. I know a lock can be pretty mobile in WoW, but still stuck standing in place at some point.
Silly but little things like that make a dif.
Melee classses are a dif. story in VG though, but then Lineage2 and EQ2 are the only MMO's I've played that I liked the way the melee classes are done; not even WoW's are fun, IMO.
Sounds like an upgraded version of a EQ II healer . About the only thing different is the healing on the move.
Just for the record, none of that is new.
EQ2 has had all of that for 2+ years, with the exception of casting while moving, and EQ1 has had most of it.
Just because something is done better than WOW does not mean it is new or revolutionary.
So into EQ2 and find me a healing monk or healing wizard.
Or any healer who's any good for anything besides standing way back and...healing. Healers in EQ2 are very traditional. If a Fury or Warden gets aggro, they're dead in a blink. A shaman stands back and slows, dots, heals , but can't really melee. A Cleric is armored but has very little offense.
The healing classes in Vanguard, from my experience share absolutely nothing but names with any other game. Much more functional, and much less single-focused.
Bite me, Turbine.
Uh . . . ok . . .
Who are you responding to?
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Delanor
So into EQ2 and find me a healing monk or healing wizard.
Or any healer who's any good for anything besides standing way back and...healing. Healers in EQ2 are very traditional. If a Fury or Warden gets aggro, they're dead in a blink. A shaman stands back and slows, dots, heals , but can't really melee. A Cleric is armored but has very little offense.
The healing classes in Vanguard, from my experience share absolutely nothing but names with any other game. Much more functional, and much less single-focused.
Like I said and upgrade version of a EQ II healer ? But most of the healers i knew in eq furys and wardons didn't really stand back and strickly heal.Tthey were debuffers and such. But the way its sounding is that a healer in VG is more of a uber class, self tank and all.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I wish more games would take a note from CoX and not require healers.
WAR. And since when did CoX not require Healers? Or did I somehow mistake Defenders for healer/buffers when in fact, they are actually tanks. Or Masterminds on the villian side of things. I'm pretty sure the group invites I got every 3 seconds weren't because they thought my pets would make a super keen addition to the party.
And for the person that said the healer classes has been done in EQ2, and EQ1. No. Just no. Cleric, and Shaman, sure, but then, they were being done since the 80's and D&D. And D&D just stole the idea from their real life counterparts, Clerics and Shaman, just with the added twist that their "powers" actually worked. Guess you'll all be heading to Gary Gygax's house to let him know what an unoriginal POS he is.
But Disciples, and especially Blood Mages are pretty new. I don't recall any classes like them in EQ. Maybe some MUD somewhere, maybe. I suppose you could find a Disciple like class in one of those god awful asian martial arts MMOs. If you look hard and long enough, I imagine you could tear down everything in any game if you were so inclined.
1. Is there healing aggro? I'm guessing not but if so is there a way to reduce aggro? How do "tanks" keep aggro?
2. Is there mana or mana equivilant regen in this game?
3. Does +healing work in a similar way has in WoW?
I have done much research so sorry if these are obvious questions,
WAR. And since when did CoX not require Healers? Or did I somehow mistake Defenders for healer/buffers when in fact, they are actually tanks. Or Masterminds on the villian side of things. I'm pretty sure the group invites I got every 3 seconds weren't because they thought my pets would make a super keen addition to the party.
And for the person that said the healer classes has been done in EQ2, and EQ1. No. Just no. Cleric, and Shaman, sure, but then, they were being done since the 80's and D&D. And D&D just stole the idea from their real life counterparts, Clerics and Shaman, just with the added twist that their "powers" actually worked. Guess you'll all be heading to Gary Gygax's house to let him know what an unoriginal POS he is.
But Disciples, and especially Blood Mages are pretty new. I don't recall any classes like them in EQ. Maybe some MUD somewhere, maybe. I suppose you could find a Disciple like class in one of those god awful asian martial arts MMOs. If you look hard and long enough, I imagine you could tear down everything in any game if you were so inclined.
Well go to the Defender forum and call them healers and see what happensDefenders are tanks. I can tank with mine. And 8 defender teams work real well.
Besides any class can heal in CoX just take Aid Other. A Storm Defender can't heal any better than some scrapper with Aid Other.
I must say that Vanguard is a blast for me as a healer (cleric). There is variety in heals, buffs (and how to manifest them). I can mix in dps as appropriate, perform small rescues and even solo some. As a cleric, a few seconds or so of offtanking can be handled, depending on gear and stance (defensive or dps mode). I love having to make split-second decisions on who/how to heal. That is something I sorely missed in WoW. As a result, lack of healing classes for groups generally isn't the holdup as it can be in other games.
If you've stayed away from playing healers in other games, you may want to give it a try when you can.
Mirrim
Chanter, Spatalos Server
Not only are the healers very well done in Vanguard, they're almost TOO well done. The most popular and populated class in Vanguard right now is...wait for it...CLERICS! Imagine if there were more Priests than Hunters in WoW.
To put it simply, there is no healbot class in Vanguard. Several dps/tank classes have access to some form of heals (druids, rangers, necromancers, paladins, bards). The healers (Cleric, Shaman, Blood Mage, Disciple) ALL have decent direct damage abilities as well as decent debuffs, buffs, DoTs etc. They also have abilities that require them to be in melee/casting mode in order to augment their healing (ex. clerics get a mana regen while in melee and disciples actually have a melee ability that heals).
How is this possible? It's not just the ability to move while casting (which is also very nice for arcane casters like Sorcerors and Druids making Kiting a very real and viable strategy in fact...playing a Sorceror without kiting would be borderline stupid). It's also because every class in Vanguard has access to the Endurance bar (100 points, kind of like Energy for Rogues in WoW). The Healers along with other melee classes (and some caster spells) draw from Endurance rather than Energy (which is like mana) for meleeing abilities.
Finally, a game where the Cleric isn't wielding that warhammer and shield just for looks. Sigil has made healers fun to play again.
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Life sucks, buy a helmet.
Clerics regain mana by hitting mobs, yes you read that right, using a special melee attack is part of how they manage mana, they also proc healing and numerous group wide buffs by using melee, standing at he back and doing very little is far less efficient. Disciples are even more melee focused, with numerous buffs and all their mana-free heealing being accomplished by moves and combinations of moves using their DPS in melee. Bloodmages accomplish healing most efficiently by drain transfering, i.e. nukes that deduct health from their offensive target and shift it to their defensive target etc etc.
Maybe others can answer your question more fully, but healing causes aggro and as a Disciple I have an ability to lower aggro and deal some damage at the same time. Tanks do keep aggro, but since I have not played one, and did not ask, I do not know exactly how.
Mana is called energy and it can be regenerated at the cost of Jin that in turn can be accumulated by using certain abilities in a fight, but Jin also slowly dissipates after an encounter.
I cannot make a comparison with WoW. It has been too long ago for me. But being a hybrid is more fun than just being a healer.
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Delanor