Are healers even needed?

Samostorm

DAoC was my first MMOPRG and still my favorite of all time.  I came back to it awhile ago but found it to be an empty wasteland full of max level people who wouldn't talk to me.  But I have been hearing that the server population is actually ok now thanks to the clustering and what not.  However I have a question about being the state of healers in this game.  Are they even necessary?  Healing is my favorite thing to do and I want to be a Cleric, but with the number of buff bots walking around I am afraid that I will find out later that I am not even needed.  So do you guys still look for healers or have the buff bots taken over that field.  I know that they are used for buffing people with their crazy amount of buffs, but I just wanted to ask just incase.

Ogrelin

We love healers!

But as you said, it can be hard to level them solo.

If you play on Classic-servers you won't have to compete with that manay bbs, they are still around in PvE, but in RvR they are not used very much, besides you can't rely on BBs in RVR to heal you, for that u need a healer!

daeandor

Healers are actually needed quite badly at 50.  The sad thing is that they are more difficult™, so they are often PL'd to 50 and played as alts.  In RvR, it can be tiresome to be the first target every time you have an encounter and if you die, it generally means your group is dead.  Personally, I almost always play healers or healer hybrids in DAOC, EQ, EQ2, etc because I find those classes the most rewarding.  For the record though, if you are ending up solo, the best healing class's are the hybrids, Warden, Friar and Shammy IMO.  Druid and Cleric solo okay also up to 40.  Healer I find least enjoyable to solo.  If you want to be the last person standing in any confrontation, choose Warden.  Friars and Shammy are probably the two most fun healers overall though.  Dedicated healing classes are few and far between though, most people move on to other classes and only whip out their healer when absolutely necessary.