Though I know that some of you guys might hate Guild Wars I still wanted to add that I really liked the healing techniques in Guild Wars. For one it wasn't only about "reactive healing" (what I call it). Reactive healing means you cast your healing spell after a player lost health points. This way of healing can become tricky against spike or burst damage (may it be PvE or PvP). Next, monks in Guild Wars have the option of protective healing (called: protter). The idea is to prevent incoming damage. This way of healing is tricky since you have to guess what will happen. Finally healers in Guild Wars can reduce damage by sharing the damage (known as "life bonder").
In WoW you'll find some of this aspects, too. But they are spread amongst the classes so that each class is reduced to mostly one healing style.
How is it in VG? Blood mage looks pretty interessting for example.
Trying to compare healers in WoW and healers in vanguard is like trying to compare a model T to a modern indy/f1 car.
Wow was released what 3 yrs plus ago and van only recently of course van designers would improve how things work just like modern car designs have improved the concept of the model T.
Finally discussions like this are similar to ppl discussing their fav football/baseball/soccer teams everyone has a fav team and theirs is better than yours.
Van was not for me , I wont bag it , but it didnt fit my expectations ... to those who enjoy it .. have fun ... cause thats the name of the game.
Someone asked for a raiding perspective, here we go.
I am a bloodmage, and have so far taken part in 2-group and 3-group raids on various 6dot (thats multi-group classification, though a few can be taken out by a single group too) targets, successfully except for one where our tank went LD during the fight.
The primary reason why Vanguard healers play differently, and cannot be relegated to healbot status, is that they all have to use various aspects of their offensive abilities, or utility abilities, to be able to keep healing for a while. Simply converting mana into hitpoints with the "flash heal" equivalent, as its done in WoW (where flash-heal is the one-size-fits-all heal for most encounters) will make you a horrible healer, and out of energy (=mana) real quick. Mana regen buffs cannot keep up with healspam of your standard heals, no matter how many you stack, and how much vitality you have.
Blood Mages have a number of mana-free heals that draw upon a specific ressource unique to the class, Blood Union. Basically, you get blood union for doing damage, dots or being in a special stance to your target. These points can then be used to various effects, among them a stacking spell-haste buff (very useful), an incredibly powerful HoT (one of the mainstays of standard exp group healing if you play an offensive BMG), one of the few (if not the only useful) percentage-heals, and other stuff that doesnt belong to the healing category (DD, AoE DD , dots etc. )
Also, it increases your heals efficiency by 2% each point (to a max of 10), so at the very least, you ll want some blood union going while you heal.
Bloodmages partially heal through their own life, using it as another energy bar to fiddle with, AND can convert health to mana at a decent rate too. This results in a need to heal the bloodmage, which is best accomplished (IE most efficient) through him lifetapping the target (which also gives blood union. You see the mesh emerging here?)
So in the end, a bloodmage has to constantly balance 2 energies (health and mana), blood union and the cooldowns on some of his abilities to be an efficient healer. Standing back WoW-style and spamming the quick, or the efficient heal, results in OOM and/or dead, overaggroed and 10% heal efficiency loss.
Disciple has very inefficient mana-based heals ( i use the term mana as most will be more familiar with that. In VG its called energy) and relies heavily on his jin heals and/or melee based chains, which means meleeing as a Disciple to add anything is a MUST.
Clerics refill their mana through melee, and also heal by procs. A cleric that just sits there and heals has no way of sustaining it for long.
Shaman is the most traditional healer if the player desires to play that way, as he can heal, and convert health to mana. However, shamans "heal" by reducing damage incoming, and the 3 different totems are, similar to WoWs skill trees, specializations that totally govern the way a shaman plays. A Phoenix shaman has access to good nukes (when using proper synergies) and a mana-regen buff that the others lack.
A bear shaman has one of the most important buffs that affects endurance (the 3rd energy type that melees and some casters use, its imperative to have it regen as fast as possible) and incidentially is the best in game for that purpose.
The wolf shaman has an ability that helps others critical (in turn increasing the efficiency of Disciples, and people relying on chains)
I played WoW for a long while, and half of it as a shaman in a raiding guild. The ONLY game that comes close or surpasses the sheer involvement and fun of healing in Vanguard is Guild Wars.
But Guild Wars is probably the game most notorious for being too deep and intelligent for most of its playerbase, and also is so fast its not really feasible to transfer its complexity to a regular MMO.
On the topic of unique classes: In Vanguard, several classes have specific paths to take, in addition to attribute spread and playstyle. These are big parts in how a class plays, and easily as important as the skill build of a WoW char. The big point that I havent seen mentioned is, though:
A healer in Vanguard does not have to cripple his other abilities in order to fulfill one. Since healing is not something you can specialize in (luckily) there is no special path that could be enforced by ignorant guilds, and you never end up as the proverbial "holy priest" that has to suffer in all aspects to make the best raid healer.
How well you heal is in how well you play your class, and how well you adjust to the encounter. Its not in how well the template you got from the net is built, or how fast your can spam one heal.
That does also mean, sadly, that there is a distinct amount of very BAD healers around. Thats the price you pay
The problem isn't one game versus another on this issue. It's the players. Lots of games have tried to make healing more interesting and fun. You brought up WoW, so let's take that one. You can make a shadow priest and do a ton of damage. You can be a druid and have 3 forms. You can be a shammy and they have lots of cool stuff. You can be a pally. There are 4 classes that can heal, all very different. And yet, in the end, no matter which class you play, in WoW as in all games, when you get to high end content your group or raid is going to want you to stand in the back, stfu and heal, if you are the group's intended healer. Sure, on the way up the level ladder you can do other things, but in the end player pressure will be brought to bear in Vanguard, as it has in all its predecessors.
Well said.Clearly you haven't really played VG much, but I'll give an example.
As a disciple, you can go stand at the back of the group, throw 8-12heals, go OOM and then your group can die.
Alternatively you can stay at the front line, use your melee generated heals/hots/buffs only use mana heals for crises/spikes and your group won't die.
Next please.
What level are you in Vanguard as a healer? Are you at end game content? I doubt it. But if it's your position that the Vanguard healing experience will be different there then all the other games that came before, otay.
I obviously can't speak from experience about the end game -- whatever that ends up being.
But I think you are not recognizing that the mechanics are different in play. The mechanics are a significant factor.
Though I know that some of you guys might hate Guild Wars I still wanted to add that I really liked the healing techniques in Guild Wars. For one it wasn't only about "reactive healing" (what I call it). Reactive healing means you cast your healing spell after a player lost health points. This way of healing can become tricky against spike or burst damage (may it be PvE or PvP). Next, monks in Guild Wars have the option of protective healing (called: protter). The idea is to prevent incoming damage. This way of healing is tricky since you have to guess what will happen. Finally healers in Guild Wars can reduce damage by sharing the damage (known as "life bonder"). In WoW you'll find some of this aspects, too. But they are spread amongst the classes so that each class is reduced to mostly one healing style. How is it in VG? Blood mage looks pretty interessting for example.
I liked GW too for the same reason.
In VG there is less in the way of protective healing -- although it is there. The main design goal in Vanguard healing is to make a way for the healers to get into the fight and have that benefit the healing. AS someone pointed out on another post Disciples, for example, HAVE to fight in order to heal most effectively.
Someone asked for a raiding perspective, here we go.
I am a bloodmage, and have so far taken part in 2-group and 3-group raids on various 6dot (thats multi-group classification, though a few can be taken out by a single group too) targets, successfully except for one where our tank went LD during the fight.
The primary reason why Vanguard healers play differently, and cannot be relegated to healbot status, is that they all have to use various aspects of their offensive abilities, or utility abilities, to be able to keep healing for a while. Simply converting mana into hitpoints with the "flash heal" equivalent, as its done in WoW (where flash-heal is the one-size-fits-all heal for most encounters) will make you a horrible healer, and out of energy (=mana) real quick. Mana regen buffs cannot keep up with healspam of your standard heals, no matter how many you stack, and how much vitality you have.
Blood Mages have a number of mana-free heals that draw upon a specific ressource unique to the class, Blood Union. Basically, you get blood union for doing damage, dots or being in a special stance to your target. These points can then be used to various effects, among them a stacking spell-haste buff (very useful), an incredibly powerful HoT (one of the mainstays of standard exp group healing if you play an offensive BMG), one of the few (if not the only useful) percentage-heals, and other stuff that doesnt belong to the healing category (DD, AoE DD , dots etc. )
Also, it increases your heals efficiency by 2% each point (to a max of 10), so at the very least, you ll want some blood union going while you heal.
Bloodmages partially heal through their own life, using it as another energy bar to fiddle with, AND can convert health to mana at a decent rate too. This results in a need to heal the bloodmage, which is best accomplished (IE most efficient) through him lifetapping the target (which also gives blood union. You see the mesh emerging here?)
So in the end, a bloodmage has to constantly balance 2 energies (health and mana), blood union and the cooldowns on some of his abilities to be an efficient healer. Standing back WoW-style and spamming the quick, or the efficient heal, results in OOM and/or dead, overaggroed and 10% heal efficiency loss.
Disciple has very inefficient mana-based heals ( i use the term mana as most will be more familiar with that. In VG its called energy) and relies heavily on his jin heals and/or melee based chains, which means meleeing as a Disciple to add anything is a MUST.
Clerics refill their mana through melee, and also heal by procs. A cleric that just sits there and heals has no way of sustaining it for long.
Shaman is the most traditional healer if the player desires to play that way, as he can heal, and convert health to mana. However, shamans "heal" by reducing damage incoming, and the 3 different totems are, similar to WoWs skill trees, specializations that totally govern the way a shaman plays. A Phoenix shaman has access to good nukes (when using proper synergies) and a mana-regen buff that the others lack.
A bear shaman has one of the most important buffs that affects endurance (the 3rd energy type that melees and some casters use, its imperative to have it regen as fast as possible) and incidentially is the best in game for that purpose.
The wolf shaman has an ability that helps others critical (in turn increasing the efficiency of Disciples, and people relying on chains)
I played WoW for a long while, and half of it as a shaman in a raiding guild. The ONLY game that comes close or surpasses the sheer involvement and fun of healing in Vanguard is Guild Wars.
But Guild Wars is probably the game most notorious for being too deep and intelligent for most of its playerbase, and also is so fast its not really feasible to transfer its complexity to a regular MMO.
On the topic of unique classes: In Vanguard, several classes have specific paths to take, in addition to attribute spread and playstyle. These are big parts in how a class plays, and easily as important as the skill build of a WoW char. The big point that I havent seen mentioned is, though:
A healer in Vanguard does not have to cripple his other abilities in order to fulfill one. Since healing is not something you can specialize in (luckily) there is no special path that could be enforced by ignorant guilds, and you never end up as the proverbial "holy priest" that has to suffer in all aspects to make the best raid healer.
How well you heal is in how well you play your class, and how well you adjust to the encounter. Its not in how well the template you got from the net is built, or how fast your can spam one heal.
That does also mean, sadly, that there is a distinct amount of very BAD healers around. Thats the price you pay
Made a Bloodmage the other night. Very interesting class.
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.
At this stage in V:SoH life, not *better* than WoW, just different than WoW. Only long term time will tell if these operational modes are actually better, or just different.
With no dedicated Healer in V:SoH, the added abilities of the Heal Capable classes may be needed to offset the lower, non-specific healing.
Let's talk 6 months to a year from now, after a lot of End-Game play has been done, then we will see how it all stacks up in V:SoH vs. any other game; EQ2, WoW, whatever.
Too bad us Dread KNights have no heal, not even a small one. I do think we get some type of healing but thats far down the line in skills and its some type of tranferring heal from a foe to yourself and we know those types aren't any good.
Someone asked for a raiding perspective, here we go.
I am a bloodmage, and have so far taken part in 2-group and 3-group raids on various 6dot (thats multi-group classification, though a few can be taken out by a single group too) targets, successfully except for one where our tank went LD during the fight.
The primary reason why Vanguard healers play differently, and cannot be relegated to healbot status, is that they all have to use various aspects of their offensive abilities, or utility abilities, to be able to keep healing for a while. Simply converting mana into hitpoints with the "flash heal" equivalent, as its done in WoW (where flash-heal is the one-size-fits-all heal for most encounters) will make you a horrible healer, and out of energy (=mana) real quick. Mana regen buffs cannot keep up with healspam of your standard heals, no matter how many you stack, and how much vitality you have.
Blood Mages have a number of mana-free heals that draw upon a specific ressource unique to the class, Blood Union. Basically, you get blood union for doing damage, dots or being in a special stance to your target. These points can then be used to various effects, among them a stacking spell-haste buff (very useful), an incredibly powerful HoT (one of the mainstays of standard exp group healing if you play an offensive BMG), one of the few (if not the only useful) percentage-heals, and other stuff that doesnt belong to the healing category (DD, AoE DD , dots etc. )
Also, it increases your heals efficiency by 2% each point (to a max of 10), so at the very least, you ll want some blood union going while you heal.
Bloodmages partially heal through their own life, using it as another energy bar to fiddle with, AND can convert health to mana at a decent rate too. This results in a need to heal the bloodmage, which is best accomplished (IE most efficient) through him lifetapping the target (which also gives blood union. You see the mesh emerging here?)
So in the end, a bloodmage has to constantly balance 2 energies (health and mana), blood union and the cooldowns on some of his abilities to be an efficient healer. Standing back WoW-style and spamming the quick, or the efficient heal, results in OOM and/or dead, overaggroed and 10% heal efficiency loss.
Disciple has very inefficient mana-based heals ( i use the term mana as most will be more familiar with that. In VG its called energy) and relies heavily on his jin heals and/or melee based chains, which means meleeing as a Disciple to add anything is a MUST.
Clerics refill their mana through melee, and also heal by procs. A cleric that just sits there and heals has no way of sustaining it for long.
Shaman is the most traditional healer if the player desires to play that way, as he can heal, and convert health to mana. However, shamans "heal" by reducing damage incoming, and the 3 different totems are, similar to WoWs skill trees, specializations that totally govern the way a shaman plays. A Phoenix shaman has access to good nukes (when using proper synergies) and a mana-regen buff that the others lack.
A bear shaman has one of the most important buffs that affects endurance (the 3rd energy type that melees and some casters use, its imperative to have it regen as fast as possible) and incidentially is the best in game for that purpose.
The wolf shaman has an ability that helps others critical (in turn increasing the efficiency of Disciples, and people relying on chains)
I played WoW for a long while, and half of it as a shaman in a raiding guild. The ONLY game that comes close or surpasses the sheer involvement and fun of healing in Vanguard is Guild Wars.
But Guild Wars is probably the game most notorious for being too deep and intelligent for most of its playerbase, and also is so fast its not really feasible to transfer its complexity to a regular MMO.
On the topic of unique classes: In Vanguard, several classes have specific paths to take, in addition to attribute spread and playstyle. These are big parts in how a class plays, and easily as important as the skill build of a WoW char. The big point that I havent seen mentioned is, though:
A healer in Vanguard does not have to cripple his other abilities in order to fulfill one. Since healing is not something you can specialize in (luckily) there is no special path that could be enforced by ignorant guilds, and you never end up as the proverbial "holy priest" that has to suffer in all aspects to make the best raid healer.
How well you heal is in how well you play your class, and how well you adjust to the encounter. Its not in how well the template you got from the net is built, or how fast your can spam one heal.
That does also mean, sadly, that there is a distinct amount of very BAD healers around. Thats the price you pay
Thanks for this. I found it very informative. Its gotten me energized to level.
The problem isn't one game versus another on this issue. It's the players. Lots of games have tried to make healing more interesting and fun. You brought up WoW, so let's take that one. You can make a shadow priest and do a ton of damage. You can be a druid and have 3 forms. You can be a shammy and they have lots of cool stuff. You can be a pally. There are 4 classes that can heal, all very different. And yet, in the end, no matter which class you play, in WoW as in all games, when you get to high end content your group or raid is going to want you to stand in the back, stfu and heal, if you are the group's intended healer. Sure, on the way up the level ladder you can do other things, but in the end player pressure will be brought to bear in Vanguard, as it has in all its predecessors.
Well said.Clearly you haven't really played VG much, but I'll give an example.
As a disciple, you can go stand at the back of the group, throw 8-12heals, go OOM and then your group can die.
Alternatively you can stay at the front line, use your melee generated heals/hots/buffs only use mana heals for crises/spikes and your group won't die.
Next please.
What level are you in Vanguard as a healer? Are you at end game content? I doubt it. But if it's your position that the Vanguard healing experience will be different there then all the other games that came before, otay. Curently lvl 38, my disciple's melee generated powers are only becoming more important, not less as I level. Alot of melee moves add to your jin count. Jin you use to do a variety of things like lower mobs damage output and Heal Over Time, instant heal, return mana etc etc. Many combat moves have differing benefits to healing built into them and various combo's of moves used in a certain sequence within a time frame creates beneficial effects on either your group or your defensive target including heals.
A large part of playing a disciple is making snap decisions on when you can use a chain to save mana, or when you direct heal to save time, when you burn or stock on Jin etc etc
Comments
Though I know that some of you guys might hate Guild Wars I still wanted to add that I really liked the healing techniques in Guild Wars. For one it wasn't only about "reactive healing" (what I call it). Reactive healing means you cast your healing spell after a player lost health points. This way of healing can become tricky against spike or burst damage (may it be PvE or PvP). Next, monks in Guild Wars have the option of protective healing (called: protter). The idea is to prevent incoming damage. This way of healing is tricky since you have to guess what will happen. Finally healers in Guild Wars can reduce damage by sharing the damage (known as "life bonder").
In WoW you'll find some of this aspects, too. But they are spread amongst the classes so that each class is reduced to mostly one healing style.
How is it in VG? Blood mage looks pretty interessting for example.
Trying to compare healers in WoW and healers in vanguard is like trying to compare a model T to a modern indy/f1 car.
Wow was released what 3 yrs plus ago and van only recently of course van designers would improve how things work just like modern car designs have improved the concept of the model T.
Finally discussions like this are similar to ppl discussing their fav football/baseball/soccer teams everyone has a fav team and theirs is better than yours.
Van was not for me , I wont bag it , but it didnt fit my expectations ... to those who enjoy it .. have fun ... cause thats the name of the game.
I am a bloodmage, and have so far taken part in 2-group and 3-group raids on various 6dot (thats multi-group classification, though a few can be taken out by a single group too) targets, successfully except for one where our tank went LD during the fight.
The primary reason why Vanguard healers play differently, and cannot be relegated to healbot status, is that they all have to use various aspects of their offensive abilities, or utility abilities, to be able to keep healing for a while. Simply converting mana into hitpoints with the "flash heal" equivalent, as its done in WoW (where flash-heal is the one-size-fits-all heal for most encounters) will make you a horrible healer, and out of energy (=mana) real quick. Mana regen buffs cannot keep up with healspam of your standard heals, no matter how many you stack, and how much vitality you have.
Blood Mages have a number of mana-free heals that draw upon a specific ressource unique to the class, Blood Union. Basically, you get blood union for doing damage, dots or being in a special stance to your target. These points can then be used to various effects, among them a stacking spell-haste buff (very useful), an incredibly powerful HoT (one of the mainstays of standard exp group healing if you play an offensive BMG), one of the few (if not the only useful) percentage-heals, and other stuff that doesnt belong to the healing category (DD, AoE DD , dots etc. )
Also, it increases your heals efficiency by 2% each point (to a max of 10), so at the very least, you ll want some blood union going while you heal.
Bloodmages partially heal through their own life, using it as another energy bar to fiddle with, AND can convert health to mana at a decent rate too. This results in a need to heal the bloodmage, which is best accomplished (IE most efficient) through him lifetapping the target (which also gives blood union. You see the mesh emerging here?)
So in the end, a bloodmage has to constantly balance 2 energies (health and mana), blood union and the cooldowns on some of his abilities to be an efficient healer. Standing back WoW-style and spamming the quick, or the efficient heal, results in OOM and/or dead, overaggroed and 10% heal efficiency loss.
Disciple has very inefficient mana-based heals ( i use the term mana as most will be more familiar with that. In VG its called energy) and relies heavily on his jin heals and/or melee based chains, which means meleeing as a Disciple to add anything is a MUST.
Clerics refill their mana through melee, and also heal by procs. A cleric that just sits there and heals has no way of sustaining it for long.
Shaman is the most traditional healer if the player desires to play that way, as he can heal, and convert health to mana. However, shamans "heal" by reducing damage incoming, and the 3 different totems are, similar to WoWs skill trees, specializations that totally govern the way a shaman plays. A Phoenix shaman has access to good nukes (when using proper synergies) and a mana-regen buff that the others lack.
A bear shaman has one of the most important buffs that affects endurance (the 3rd energy type that melees and some casters use, its imperative to have it regen as fast as possible) and incidentially is the best in game for that purpose.
The wolf shaman has an ability that helps others critical (in turn increasing the efficiency of Disciples, and people relying on chains)
I played WoW for a long while, and half of it as a shaman in a raiding guild. The ONLY game that comes close or surpasses the sheer involvement and fun of healing in Vanguard is Guild Wars.
But Guild Wars is probably the game most notorious for being too deep and intelligent for most of its playerbase, and also is so fast its not really feasible to transfer its complexity to a regular MMO.
On the topic of unique classes: In Vanguard, several classes have specific paths to take, in addition to attribute spread and playstyle. These are big parts in how a class plays, and easily as important as the skill build of a WoW char. The big point that I havent seen mentioned is, though:
A healer in Vanguard does not have to cripple his other abilities in order to fulfill one. Since healing is not something you can specialize in (luckily) there is no special path that could be enforced by ignorant guilds, and you never end up as the proverbial "holy priest" that has to suffer in all aspects to make the best raid healer.
How well you heal is in how well you play your class, and how well you adjust to the encounter. Its not in how well the template you got from the net is built, or how fast your can spam one heal.
That does also mean, sadly, that there is a distinct amount of very BAD healers around. Thats the price you pay
As a disciple, you can go stand at the back of the group, throw 8-12heals, go OOM and then your group can die.
Alternatively you can stay at the front line, use your melee generated heals/hots/buffs only use mana heals for crises/spikes and your group won't die.
Next please.
What level are you in Vanguard as a healer? Are you at end game content? I doubt it. But if it's your position that the Vanguard healing experience will be different there then all the other games that came before, otay.
I obviously can't speak from experience about the end game -- whatever that ends up being.
But I think you are not recognizing that the mechanics are different in play. The mechanics are a significant factor.
I liked GW too for the same reason.
In VG there is less in the way of protective healing -- although it is there. The main design goal in Vanguard healing is to make a way for the healers to get into the fight and have that benefit the healing. AS someone pointed out on another post Disciples, for example, HAVE to fight in order to heal most effectively.
Made a Bloodmage the other night. Very interesting class.
At this stage in V:SoH life, not *better* than WoW, just different than WoW. Only long term time will tell if these operational modes are actually better, or just different.
With no dedicated Healer in V:SoH, the added abilities of the Heal Capable classes may be needed to offset the lower, non-specific healing.
Let's talk 6 months to a year from now, after a lot of End-Game play has been done, then we will see how it all stacks up in V:SoH vs. any other game; EQ2, WoW, whatever.
Thanks for this. I found it very informative. Its gotten me energized to level.
As a disciple, you can go stand at the back of the group, throw 8-12heals, go OOM and then your group can die.
Alternatively you can stay at the front line, use your melee generated heals/hots/buffs only use mana heals for crises/spikes and your group won't die.
Next please.
What level are you in Vanguard as a healer? Are you at end game content? I doubt it. But if it's your position that the Vanguard healing experience will be different there then all the other games that came before, otay.
A large part of playing a disciple is making snap decisions on when you can use a chain to save mana, or when you direct heal to save time, when you burn or stock on Jin etc etc