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No healing class in GW2
drkoracle
Member UncommonPosts: 120
On the GW2 site it says there wont be a dedicated healing class and instead everyone will be forced to take 1 healing spell.... that in my humble opinion is counter productive. In every MMO I have ever played I played a healer, sure we don't have the Pew Pew Power of a dps or the toughness of a tank but killing a good healer in PvP is a nightmare. We just don't die 
In WoW I played a holy priest ,dual specced to dicipline on fights where the tank takes a lot of damage, while in GW1 I use mostly protection prayers with some added toys to make them heal the person they land on. I have 0 skill points in healing prayers but my monk still heal like a MOFO.
That just illustrates the richness of healing, so many options, damage prevention over more powerful healing, stronger HOT's over more powerful single target heals or the complete reverse with very powerful heals but weak hots, and that's not even including choices over mana pools vs mana regen.
My point with all this is only that a healing class can be fun and highly customizable. Hard Core healers like their job, they didn't accidentally roll a healer. So why on earth take the entire mechanic away and replace it with everybody having one silly heal.
The game looks fantastic and I love GW1, but this is not far from a deal breaker. I like healing, why not have a class for little old me and the rest of the healers.
Comments
because they're trying to be innovative at all costs, even if it means screwing you over.
but i did hear they were going to have a healer class. but i think the fanboys only said that because i was using it against them...they flip it back and forth so much i can't keep up. the healer might be in there, wait until all the classes are revealed.
Not to be too rude, but the answer to your question is already contained in their blogs. You could take a second to read them yourself and have a better answer than any of us will provide here sans copying and pasting from their articles. Anyway, here's a couple reasons though...1) to make grouping easier...no more LF Healer and G2G or w/e. 2) Healing in 99% of games is purely reactive rather than proactive (your prot monk example in GW1 is one of the few proactive healers out there). Health bars go down I hit button to make health bars go up. Doesn't matter what you are casting or how much "variety" there is, the mechanic is the same. 3) They are focused on making healing more proactive rather than reactive therefore this does not require a dedicated healer anymore. For example (please ignore GW spell mechanics I am making up off the top of my head here): in GW2 Earth Ele casts stone skin similar to the monk's prot spirit. 4) You have more flexibility within each class to do different things.
It may be worth noting that contrary to your statement each class will not "have to" carry a healing spell on their bar, but each class has access to healing abilities.
Personally I have been a long time dedicated healer and with GW2 I finally say good riddance.
Steam: Neph
They have specifically stated there will be no healing class.
Steam: Neph
I read somewhere that certain classes will have more support and/or healing specs than olhers. Looking into which class could have the most beneficial healing capabilities could be something for you.
instead of a pure healer , you get a support role , wich is as it said proactive , instead of reactive. But as others have sais, READ the BLOGPOST and ARTICKLES as many good arguments is given , and if we are going to discuss this again , lets discuss their reasons for doing it ! And whether its makes sense or not !
It's a design change in the way they are structuring their game. I play support classes, this ranges from healers to things like bard.
I am not upset at the fact that there is no healing class, they have said that there will still be support roles if you want to take them. It seems every class will get a bit of support so it will be a matter of when the game comes out to see who is best at what type of support.
It's a different system, so we will just have to see how it works out.
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You heard wrong. There is no dedicated healing class. Yes, they are screwing you over. The good news is that nearly every other game uses the holy trinity so you still have plenty of options to remain snuggly within your comfort zone.
Well you are right there, may just play Rifts instead, have a Beta key for that.
Yes they will. From the GW2 website:
"One of these slots is dedicated to healing skills that replenish the health of the character and his allies"
DEDICATED
You mentioned you liked protective prayers in GW1 and that all your skills were specced for that.... WELL I HAVE GOOD NEWS; that's exactly what GW2 is making for their pseudo-healing class. The devs have mentioned that although there won't be any dedicated healing class, there will be a class that can heal more than others and it would be focused on proactive instead or reactive healing which is what Protection prayers were all about.
If you had been following GW2 new and gossips before, you would have heard of the rumored "Knight" class also know as the "Blue mace Lady" (google Blue mace lady and you should find out all the gossip about that) which is rumored to be the more healing specced class and is not a dedicated healer. Also this class wears heavy armour, suggesting that if it is a "protective healer" it is meant to be hard to put down.
This is not a game.
The answer to that is pretty simple. There aren't enough healers who like their job. Hence, grouping in most games means a lot of trouble trying to find enough healers. This happens even though a lot of players play healers for the sake of making it easier to find a group, even though they would rather not be a healer. Putting in a mechanic that 5% of the players like and drives the other 95% nuts because they have to sit around for an hour trying to find a healer before giving up, logging off, and quitting the game really isn't a good way to expand your player base.
This has been a problem in MMORPGs for a long, long time. ArenaNet was well aware of it when designing Guild Wars 1 even, which is the biggest reason why they made henchmen and heroes: so that you could have a group and go without having to stand around all day looking for a dedicated healer.
Still, for some games to have no dedicated healer is a good thing. That means that the people who like being a dedicated healer can be more concentrated in the games that have dedicated healers, making the mechanic work better in those games, too.
That's not to say that you can't focus reasonably heavily on support in Guild Wars 2. You'll probably be able to, even if you won't be a pure healer.
Then again, one could argue that Guild Wars 1 didn't have pure healers, either. Yeah, you took monks and ritualists who mostly healed, but if that's all they did, then they weren't doing their job properly.
I'm assuming they are just trying to move away from dedicated healer classes. There will still be support classes. Maybe every class will have the ability to play a support role. Some players will support their team more than others. Sounds fine to me.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I'd rather play a game where I am able to heal myself, in a pinch and require my teammates, not to constantly heal my squishy body (i.e. Champion in LOTRO), but for support each other with Banners, Glyphs and Shouts. I find that kind of gameplay a lot more fun and requires a more proactive playstyle, when you've got to create the opportunity to self-heal rather than leave it to your healer(s). This sort of change from the generic "Holy Trinity", is just one of the many innovative aspects of GW2 that I find so appealing. Whereas in the current MMOs; losing your dozy healer, in a dungeon, or in PvP battle is like a guaranteed wipe.
This funny pic from the Guild Wars 2 Article on "Healing & Death", helps illustrate my sentiments.
Yes you will have a healing skill on your bar. You can also add additional healing/support type skills to your bar if you so choose from one of the utility skill slots. So no there will be no healer class, but there will be the ability to have a focus on playing a support role.
The big reason they had to do this was because of their decision to do away with the holy trinity playstyle, not because they hate healers. Let me paint a picture for you since you have WoW experience clearly.
Say you're running a 5 man dungeon with your buddies and you're plodding along your tank buddy is spamming his aggro skills, you're the healer and you're keeping that guy topped up with the odd party heal in case someone else gets tagged by AOE, and your DPS buddies are talking about the weather as they mindlessly run their dps rotation.
The holy trinity gameplay allowed you to almost run it in your sleep as your most highly defensive member of the group that poses the least threat of death manages to hold all the attention on him and basically remove any intelligence the AI might have. No surprises, no fun.
Now keeping with the same example what happened when you were playing and all of a sudden your tank dropped and the enemies were on all of you. Suddenly your DPS had to break their rotation in order to play intelligently, they needed to kite the melee while mixing in snares and using skills that would self heal that they hadn't used in ages. You as the healer changed from healbot to miracle man as you did some CCing of your own and balanced healing your allies with somehow finding the time to res in between all the while being chased by mobs. Mundane talk turns into structured chaos as party members shout out targets for CC and focus fire. I'm assuming you've had an experience like this before and if you're like me it was the most exciting gameplay experience you had playing the game when you achieved victory in such a situation.
Guild Wars 2 is essentially trying to capture this style of exciting gameplay by removing the holy trinity and adding mechanics like the downed system.
This thread again. You can still play with support oriented builds. You will now have more versatility than just a healbot now. If absolutely cannot get past the fact that there won't be a healer only profession dedicated to you then find another game, plain and simple.
No healbot for the win I say.Though there will be many ways to play support if you wish. A Charr can lay down a war banner than offers health regen, also an elementalist can attune themselves to water and heal as well.
To be fair I will wait for beta and try it out. It may work well, or maybee it will FAIL like no tommorow, but its hard to judge without trying it. As to my most exciting moment in a MMO.....
Gothik the Harvester
My entire team died and I tank/healed myself alive for 2 rotations with my dicipline priest.
I never could get myself into played Guild Wars for the simple fact that I could not jump. I know this sounds stupid and maybe I am an overly difficult customer, but when I come up to a 2 inch ledge that I can't step down, I start to wonder about wtf they were thinking.
In other news though, I always play healers, in every mmo. If this game does not have a healer class, I am sadly not going to be a part of the Guild Wars community. I wish you all the best.
So you lived longer than everyone else and all you could do was stand there and fight to stay alive? Pardon me if I'm mistaken (you've only provided a two sentence description), but while it's impressive that you lived longer than your party, how is what you did any fun? You simply forestalled a wipe and accomplished nothing further by doing so except delaying your own death. Perhaps with GW2 mechanics in place you could have actually fought back against the boss, your downed party members could have continued assisting you, you (and anyone else in your party) could have rezzed your downed party members, and still have a chance to win. Which sounds like the better experience to you? For me it's GW2 hands down, for you maybe not, to each his own. The game will not be perfect and I don't see it as the holy grail of MMOs, but don't simply throw it in the trash because they are trying an idea you don't care for prior to release. Like you said GW2 is a long way from launch, you may like it or may not, but as you suggested we'll have to wait for release and finished product so that we can make up our minds based on reality not conjecture and snippets of info from devs.
Steam: Neph
LOL I hear that, the jumping thing pissed me off from day 1 and still does today.
lol no jumping pissed me off in GW1 as well, but I got used to it. Anyways...
All they are saying is that there is no DEDICATED healing class. This does not mean that you cannot take a support role within a class. It simply means there is no monk, priest, etc. There is still healing and room for people that love to be the support for their team. They are specifically trying to make the support role more fun by being more proactive rather than reactive. I have long played a dedicated healer and with GW2 (and my recent sub to Darkfall), I say good riddance. I would not discount the game and exclude yourself from the community simply because of this. The devs are targetting all playstyles, not simply discarding those that love to heal and hoping they go play another game.
Steam: Neph
Why are people bugging about such a trivial matter? I ALWAYS play the healer, in every MMO, I'm either the priest, the cleric, the ~whatever~ that can heal, and I'm not bothered by this. Why, because ALL classes in GW2 can heal. Some are better at it than others, for instance, an Elementalist that specializes in Water gets Healing Rain, which can heal a whole team. The warrior can heal, but in a first-aid kind of fashion, same for the ranger. Necromancers have control over death, death is a part of life, so it makes complete sense that they can be extremely adequate healers.
This is no different than GW1 when people were whatever/Mo or /Para so they could heal/buff their teamates while they dished out damage. It's presented differently, in a way that attempts to innovate. Have you read any of the discussions or articles about dungeons? How almost everyone died, and the WARRIOR used his healing ability to get up the water Elementalist, who then used her Mist Form to run away (invulnerable while in Mist) then healed the others, got them all up and then it was RIGHT back to the battle. How is that not fun? Do you really need to be relied on that heavily that you're unhappy when the team can function without you, for once?
I for one am not going to miss the "Heal/Rezz plox!"es or the fighting over who gets me in their team when the rest of the guild's healers are offline. I am also NOT going to miss having to rely on crappy clerics when I decide to pop on my dps alts. I'm NOT going to miss needing to bring a healer friend along just to do random content that shouldn't require a group.
People bitch and complain constantly for something new and the moment it's on the horizon they're ready to jump ship without doing even the small amount of research necessary to really put the changes into perspective. If you're that willing to bail, then goodbye.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
My ignorance about GW2 is showing. I know very little of the game other than I was going to "give it a shot" when the game came out. I am only basing my responses to those who are sharing their knowledge, as limited as it may be.
If there is a class that is regarded as the "healer type", then I will choose this class. As a poster inclined, many classes have heals. Some classes are better at it than others. Well, I want to be the class that is "better than most" at healing.
Well it really boils down to that the game can't cater to everyone. If this is an absolute game breaking issue for someone then they shouldn't play it. There are plenty of other games on the market and others coming out that can cater to your playstyle. I recommend trying one of those games. However, if you can go into this game with an open mind then perhaps you might like the differenty playstyle that is offered.
Another poster said it earlier and I'll echo it here - if you can't stand playing anything other than a pure dedicated healer go play a game that caters to you, I'm going to be very thankful of any heals you provide if I'm playing the same game. GW2's pricing model means I'm not stuck subbing to it which frees up those fees for another game for you to heal me in (woot!). I like playing a healer but I'm not the best so I generally leave it to other folk and you dedicated and competant healers are much appreciated.
I still think a lot of you could find some joy in support roles in GW2, I hope you give it a chance should the beta or a free trial after release come along.