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A Healer is a Player Who Gets No Love from ZOSESO Elder Scrolls Online News - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A Healer is a Player Who Gets No Love from ZOSESO Elder Scrolls Online News - MMORPG.com
I've been spending a lot of my free time on the PTS playing the Thieves Guild, so much that when I logged into the live servers today I had been removed from my Trading Guild. Perhaps, I need to properly manage my game time a bit better. While playing on the PTS I've come to realize something, something that I'm not particularly happy about and it's more of an observation than a realization but it's still upsetting. Zenimax hates healers.
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what i like about ESO's one has to strategize in order to be successful- no pocket healers in this game.
and iam fine with that.
As for the number of sets that favor DPS over tank and heals, DPS players make up more than 50% of the player base thus I would expect 50% of diverse new sets be DPS based.
For the sets of gear available you leave out all magicka focused gear just because it doesn't "specifically" effect healing. Much of the best healing gear in game is general magicka based gear. Willpower jewelry for example is a staple now (Replacing the Healers Habit Set at VR14).
There is no shortage of crafted gear to support healers and much of it (Seducer) is craftable at very low level and others (Kragenec) at higher crafting traits. The gear is there but it doesn't scream "Healer equip me!", and you have to understand your class and abilities to know what gear would work well for you.
There is another reason that healing set bonus' are not being added to gear currently and that is healing for some classes is substantially stronger than others. This is being brought into line with TG with reduction in targets for Templar and Nightblade class heals and upgrade in the sorcerer healing pet.
Healers are in good shape in ESO. Most can either Heal and Tank at the same time or Heal and DPS at the same time. Regardless, they bring much more to a group than just heals.
So any set with those traits can be used for healer build. Add "Magicka Recovery" and "Max Magicka" and you are good to go.
Therefore "Eyes of Mara" is not the only crafted set a healer can use. Crafted sets like "Armor of the Seducer" (Reduce the Magicka cost of abilities) and "Magnus' Gift" (Chance to negate the Magicka cost of a spell) are most useful, considering that they also come paired with magicka increase and recovery.
Then there are "healer" sets like "Law of Julianos", "Healing Mage", "Relics of the Physician", "Willpower", "Combat Physician", "Meritorious Service", "Trinimac's Valor" ...
ESO doesn't have strict "BiS" items and that creates a very unique playstyle that hinders you only if you are afraid to explore your options.
thx for the video. Sounds like you had alot of fun. Also, Beware of "the thing"
A man who fears nothing is a man who loves nothing; and if you love nothing, what joy is there in your life?
First, lets discount jewelry as its not craftable. All classes and builds have to loot their jewelry.
The following crafted sets are perfectly good for healers with no farming.
Seducer
Magnus
Julianos
Kagrenac
Mara
There are other crafted sets that can be used in conjunction for an additional 2 PC bonus on top of these sets so you don't have to farm any.
Playing a healig class can hand you extra responsibility. You also end up sacrificing some attack power for those healing skills, so leveling can be slower.
Most players just want to go down the pew pew route, there's less group responsibility and you killl stuff faster. Hey, Blame the Healer phrase is an accurate reflection of players wanting to shift responsibility.
The more recent games remove the complexity of healing, by dumbing character health down to picking up potions, (or not surprisingly buying the same from the cash shop).
So ESO, as a game that still sticks with healers, give the role more love. It's not a role for the dps masses, but it is one that's loved by quite a few.
Druid, Priest, Mystic, Chloromancer, Cleric - and several more across many mmo's.
Healers are very much loved by not only ZOS, but also the player-base. More desired over tanks.
I find with classes in ESO that everyone is expected to be a bit hybrid. DPS needs a little self heal, a little mitigation/dodge for off-tanking, and a lot of dmg. There's tanks that play full heal + tank in the same role, or heal + dps effectively. Gearing can sometimes be tough, sure, but there's a lot of love for "play your way".
ESO offers a real hybrid-trinity mix. It's actually one of my favourite parts about ESO.
None of those are geared specifically towards the healer role, with the exception of Mara (speaking strictly about the 5 piece bonus). They are just generic magicka sets that anyone who uses magicka based abilities will benefit from.
Saying those are designed for a healer is saying a healer is a generic class that has no special or specific uses. A tank is designed to mitigate damage, there are many sets designed to do just this. DPS is designed to do as much damage as possible, there are sets that are designed to do this specific thing. Healers get a healing Staff reduction set...
There are other sets but the only crafted set designed specific for the healing role is Mara.
In addition to class skills, there is an entire weapon line and abilities dedicated to healing in the game, Resto Staff. In addition to this there are heal and cleanse abilities through the Undaunted lines and through Alliance skill lines.
What almost all of these have in common is that they use magicka and heals scale with maximum magicka and spell damage. In addition magica regen is very important to healers. All of the Crafted sets I listed can be used to make strong healers.
Just because there isn't a "heal only" 5 PC proc doesn't mean any of this gear is less available or useful.
Personally I prefer this as I don't want to see shield stacking DPS sorcerers wearing a 5 PC that heals them to full right when they are about to die. Then you wouldn't need healers at all.
Oh, Phoenix set. But it's not crafted.
well said!!!
Another nail in the roles' coffin - shame.
Group it with other recent depressing all dps classes look after themselves games.
Well It IS still Elder's Scroll, a game series where being a Hybrid of is sort of their thing. I don't see anything wrong with it tbh. Its probably a bit more realistic (well, as realistic as one can be in a fantasy setting) to think that a healer would have skills other than healing to survive in a world like this as an adventurer...
It's not a hybrid class game exactly. Every class has the potential to play every role, if they have the right abilities and gear equipped. You could for example be a Nightblade tank or a Sorcerer Healer.
The game is however hardwired for a tank, heals, and dps. Most groups for (4 man) end game content use 1 tank, 1 heal, and 2 dps. If you are really good, you can have a tank/heal hybrid with 3 DPS, but the player playing multiple roles has to be really good and well geared.
Regardless, the content is challenging enough that everyone needs to bring a little more to the table than just DPS, or just healing, to excel.
I've been doing veteran dungeons with four DPS. I play a Templar 2hander stamina build and for the few fights that benefit from having a tank, I just use Inner Fire from the Undaunted skill line to taunt as needed, while using the Brawler morph to keep a shield up on myself. As long as everyone in the group knows the fights and knows their class, you can get by just fine without a traditional tank and healer set-up.
Of course, if you really like the Holy Trinity, that option is still available to you. It's just not as important in ESO as it is in other games. I do miss every class having a self-heal button like in GW2, but there's plenty of other ways to survive in ESO without it. Build your character for more utility than just whatever your primary role is. That's what the second action bar is for.
I've played over 30 mmo's and healed at a hardcore level in pve and pvp endgame levels in 8 of them. From this background I found healing in ESO to be one of, if not the most, easiest games to heal in and be good at. By no means does that mean there were never bad healers, as easy as it is/was I saw plenty who would just spam breath of life.
In an effort to explain how "easy" it is, there are several simple explanations. Firstly, multiple healing methods go through walls and floors, including the always op, strong, and spammable breath of life skill. Secondly, due to the ability to min/max gear, champion points, pot usage, passives, gear sets, etc. a hardcore pvper could achieve almost unthinkable stats in terms of spell damage, reduce spell cost, and spell regen all at once. Many people were/are unaware that you really don't need to spec into one specialization, like traditional mmo healers, you could do it all in ESO. For example within the current patch of the game my healer has 2700 spell damage - buffed (extremely high for a healer), 3400 regen - unbuffed, and a high reduce spell cost with passives and max champ points.
Thirdly, you can not just be a great healer with redic stats, but you can be very tanky as well. Once again in traditional mmo healing roles if you want to not be super squishy you have to sacrifice significant healing output to achieve this. In ESO you can run a 5 light 2 heavy build and if you have a good skill rotation, exceptional stats, animation cancel, and take advantage of every los (line of sight) available to you; you can be a tank as well as a healer. I can't tell you how many times I've tanked half a dozen to 20 people through precise timed healing, ultimate use, pots, and using los to maneuver while tanking them long enough for my guild group to arrive. Many people would give up and run away from me, this was not just for me, I encountered atleast another 10 healers from other factions who could do the same throughout my playtime. None of this accounts for the broken period of nightblades who have been able to 1-3 hit instant kill people with animation canceling abilities from stealth for the past 9 months, just an example of imbalance that ZOS doesn't address except once a year (they admit to this).
Lastly, and even in terms of pve as well as pvp there are a wide selection of skills that have/had situational uses. As a healer you simply could not only run the same two bars and be good. You needed to either be quick at adding and dropping skills on the fly in between fights, or have an add on to do so. You would need to do this for ultimates like barrier, healing ulti, warhorn etc. just as much as you wold for purge, healing springs, repentence, purifying ritual, etc.. In the end, I've done everything ESO pvp can offer me 1,000 times each and won the vast majority of the time, and I have to tell you as a healer is was simply too easy. If they do indeed nerf Templars in the Thieves Guild dlc it is about time, more of a challenge is needed.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
Well put Torval the thing is that people hate on all these games when they are too different from WoW, what they want is just another WoW clone, then they will complain that its too much like WoW so..... games cant win either way
I don't disagree with what you said. I originally was a Tank/DPS and they changed tanking so that you really had to specialize. I found as a Stamina Nightblade I could no longer do both exceptionally well. I had to choose and I went DPS. My wife (Templar Healer) modified her build and now she is a heal/tank.
I think some of the changes they are making in the next update is to separate off healers and full time healers. Breath of Life and Funnel Health changes mean that if you want to be a great healer, you may have to sacrifice some of the other abilities, such as your dps or tanking ability.
If anything, the ESO dev team are making changes to get people to be less hybrid and more focused on playing one role well, even Healer.
Could be done better.
And 90% with the author says isnt right.
Healer in eso doesnt mean heal only but heal/dps/buff you will be a bad healer if you only heal.