MMO question - 'Stuck' with a healer

The Game Room
1

So, over the past couple of months on Warcraft, myself and a few others have been noticing a real dearth of healers. I play one, but I’m often loathe to do so, as it feels like ‘If you don’t play it, no one will, and thus we have no group’. I’ve heard this complaint from a lot of people, both within and outside my guild, and I’m constantly seeing groups looking for healers.

So why is healing not fun, and what can be done about it?

Identifiably for me is the reactionary nature of it. You don’t get to brag about accomplishments like taking out x monster or using y cool combination of powers. You just hit various healing and curing buttons in order to keep folks alive. It just doesn’t -seem- exciting.
I think there may also be a link to the fact that, while other classes have things they do that enhance play outside of groups, healers really don’t. (ie- ability to kill things, or stealth, or transport themselves and others, etcetera.)

I guess my questions are:

  1. Anyone else notice the dislike for playing healers?
  2. What causes that dislike?
  3. What can be done about it, either from a personal or game-design standpoint?
2

Interestingly, the LotRO Minstrel (their healing class) is complicated as heck and a juggernaut of a soloer, but there still aren’t all -that- many of them.

You -could- make a case for healing not being glamorous, but honestly, -most- jobs in MMOs aren’t glamorous. Tank? Yeah, good job there fella. Way to stand up and get hit. DPS class? Whatever, it died. Unless you’re parsing, no one cares what your DPS number is. The last ‘glamorous’ MMO class was the oldschool Everquest enchanter where you could have this monstrous horde of mobs bearing down on you one moment, and the whole horde of them standing around and contemplating their bellybutton lint the next. That was glamorous. Since then? Meh.

It could be argued that when people think of heroic fantasy, they think of mighty warriors or all powerful wizards or the occasional deadly rogue, not, generally, of the Holy Priest type. Maybe -that- sort of glamorous is what’s missing, but that’s not really a game issue, per se.

What I think most people don’t like about healing is the feeling of responsibility. If you’re a tank and you die, it wasn’t your fault (probably). If you’re a DPS class, no one is even paying attention to what you do. But if you’re a healer, and someone dies on your watch, it was YOUR FAULT. Even there really wasn’t anything you could have done to save them.

Of course, all that said, I actually am discovering I sortof like playing a healer. I have a couple of secondary healing classes in a couple of games, and I’m seriously considering rolling a ‘main healer’ as my next MMO character, because, honestly, it’s pretty cool to be able to think “Yeah. No one died in that fight. Why? Because of ME.” Will other people bow and pay tribute? No. But it’s hard to beat the warm glow of satisfaction of keeping people up when the going gets tough.

I don’t really think there’s anything that can be done from a game design perspective except to make sure that healers are interesting to play in solo situations - the bane of the EQ cleric and the WoW healing priest is that they are -deathly- -boring- when not healing challenging group content. Avoid this trap with designs more like the EQ Shaman or the LotRO Minstrel and you’re in good shape from a design perspective.

3

I’m noticing it for sure. My friend and I are specifically leveling up healers in WoW because the guild doesn’t have nearly enough.

It is pretty much the lack of damage output. As a general rule, more players than not prefer to be the badasses dealing damage. They all want to be the one that delivers the last hit on the big boss. Recount is a WoW addon that tracks various combat statistics, and my guildmates are fond of using it to report DPS to the guild channel. Only once did they actually report healing, when one reported overall damage. Most of the raid members had done something in the tens or hundreds of thousands of points of damage, and one poor soul was down at the bottom with, like, 30 damage dealt. Someone commented, and the guildie reported healing done, with that raid member way, way at the top, having done 50% of the total healing for the group. It gets overlooked often.

City of Heroes has an interesting take on it. Rather than having dedicated healer classes, they dilute abilities among the various archetypes (classes). There’s only one real healing powerset, while the rest provide buffs and debuffs and some occasional healing. Every single character has access to damage output, so nobody’s necessarily stuck being solely support unless they choose to. This way, everyone contributes to both the offense and defense of the team, and team composition is less strict than in games like WoW.

4

This is a big thing too. When you play a healer well, nobody really notices because they’re able to keep concentrating on their own work. When you fail, or when circumstances go beyond your control, it’s your fault.

5

This is exactly the problem for me. I got my priest to 80 last night, and the feeling of “now I have to respec Holy and go heal raids - ugh” was exhausting. I used to tell my guild, in the last expansion, that I would only heal Kara raids on weekends because I slept like crap after healing a raid and didn’t want to be a zombie at work the next day. They always worked me up so much that I felt like a complete stressball afterwards.

My husband would get grumpy with me when I’d be making little “eek eek” sounds while waiting for Greater Heal to land; he always played tank or DPS. These days he has a lvl 80 resto shaman and healed a Naxx raid - now he understands the stress.

6

I used to play a cleric as my main on EQ original, and got no love until one time we were lan partying, and they actually saw how much it was to keep a party alive, they could tap buttons and eat, drink and chat, and I had to cycle through all the other players, and do the healing sit/stand/drink dance … pretty much constantly through the first instanced run, then someone volunteered to play me while i got some dinner, and teh party wiped horridly in 10 minutes …

7

While I’ve never played a healer, my WoW priest used to be “shadow heal.” Her spec threw purists into fits, as it was specifically set up so that she’d be able to heal effectively in instances or PvP - definitely no raid healer though (a shadow priest with improved finger-healing and improved renew).

  • In many cases, all I had to do during trash fights (i.e., 90% of the time) was keep renew up. Wake me up at the boss, willya? KthxbzzzZZZZ…

  • A ranged DPS manages to steal aggro from the tank and it’s my fault he goes splat in a single hit? I am supposed to do what, taunt the mob?

  • Hunters who yell at the healer because the pet died. It’s a pet, if it dies it doesn’t have a repair bill, and while its death means lower DPS for the hunter, it’s less serious than if we lose a whole player. Plus, use Mend Pet.

  • Let us not get into why there should be a special circle of Hell reserved to Tanks Who Don’t Wait For Casters To Drink.

I get a lot of pain for being a hunter (if you listen to my coworker who plays a tank, 99% of the wipes in raids are the fault of “pet classes”) but nobody has ever gotten in my hunter’s face as badly as they got in the priest’s. I’ll be happy to heal people who understand I’m doing my best, who own up to their mistakes and who accept my apologies graciously when I think they’re warranted - but not people who think I’m a cross between Superman and their Mom.

ETA: Ferret Herder, there’s no such thing as “druids and shamans are very popular as healers right now.” What happens is that Spadow Priests are absolutely kickass DPS right now, so think again about the respec. My current guild is 100% about raiding and we only have a single Holy Priest to about 10 Shadows.

8

Raids suck. No one should have to heal on a raid ever. The whole concept should just go die. It won’t, but it should.

9

Oh, I pulled the trigger on that already. Dinged 80, finished the quest I was on, and it was off to Orgrimmar to respec, slap in new glyphs, put on a few new heal-oriented lvl 80 gear pieces, etc.

I’m a little disturbed about my guild right now. It seems like the most raid-eager people are a group of teenage boys who love their DPS and wouldn’t consider doing otherwise, unless maybe they can pull out their twink DK and claim to be a tank. At least one has been warned by the guild leader for leaving instances/raids without warning, and others just babble for the sake of it. I fear my head will explode if I have to deal with them for long.

10

Wow, I absolutely love being a healer and always have. (Mooma, Eonar, EU). But then, my husband plays as well and he is enhancement shammy, so we kinda compliment each other if we are questing together. But I absolutely love healing in raids, I feel it’s much more of an art compared to the science of dps and tanking. Sure, there’s the theorycraft around which stats to stack, but the actual game play requires concentration and anticipation. And I’m always popular for heroics due to the healer shortage!

11

Interresting that I see most satisfied healers are ones that have someone (usually a spouse) that they always team with.
As for the constant lack of healers, I ended up grinding my teeth yesterday when I was keeping people alive with my priest, and a piece of healing plate dropped. Someone said to the paladin, “Hey, you can keep that for a healing off-set.” To which the paladin replied, “Nah. It takes a special kind of mindset to play a healer.” The tone-of-voice was ‘special’ = ‘idiot’. I’ve been hearing that more and more.
Yeah, I suspect there’s a lot to the fact that healing is a ‘You never notice them unless something really goes wrong’ class, and soloing is just painful. I guess perhaps hybrids are the way to go? (Druids, Shamans in WoW.) I’d forgotten about the nature of healing in City of Heroes, and were it not for the fact that I only know a couple of people who really play there anymore, I’d be tempted to go back (WoW is a tremendous social outlet for me).
I’m wondering if there’s any active mindset changes I can make to make the whole healing thing more enjoyable? I started levelling my tank again (something else our guild is in short supply of), then said, “No, I’m not just making characters I don’t like to play so that I can be a doormat for the guild again.”

12

It kind of reminds me of an exchange from Firefly. The pilot episode, in which the crew is looking over the goods they just salvaged:

Wash: “I’d say worth a little risk.”
Jayne: “Yeah, pretty risky sittin’ you did there.”
Wash: “That’s right, of course. Because they wouldn’t arrest me if we got boarded. I’m just the pilot.”

The support always gets overlooked by the primary actors, even though support is just as necessary for success. The healers hide behind the damage dealers, and to an unobservant player it looks like they’re just mooching XP and gear.

Personally I’m kinda looking forward to playing a Holy Paladin. The talents and special abilities all look interesting and promise a different sort of playstyle than a Holy Priest, while still being pretty effective.

13

Can I just say how much I love this thread?

ITA with everyone who said that healers get none of the glory and all of the blame. I was shocked that nobody has mentioned the DPS / Tanks who feel like they have the right to complain / bitch / moan about the healing because, at one point, they had a healer. There’s an undercurrent of bitterness in my guild because of how quick the GM and certain others are to blame the healing whenever anything goes wrong. Granted, there are certain fights where it is all on the GM. Patchwerk, I’m looking at you.

That being said, a healer can’t be expected to counteract the effects of every single dumb mistake a raider might make - being on the “correct” polarity side in Thaddius, not moving out of KT’s circles ‘o’ death, etc.

And Nava, can we work on designing some extravagant punishments for that circle of Hell? We have a DK off-tank who consistently pulls before anyone is ready, and by the time we get to him, he’s on the brink of death, if not dead. This guy has the patience and tolerance of a fifth grader, and so then he proceeds to gripe in raid-chat, making the GM upset and ask why the healers aren’t doing their job. Funny thing is, the GM never clues in on the fact that all the other off-tanks and main-tank don’t have any issues. Sigh.

And if I may make a quick threadjack… for those of you who use DKP systems, I have a question regarding “ethics” and whatnot. My guild only started instituting a DKP system in the past two months or so. We’d been running 25-man Naxx a lot beforehand, and I obtained a lot of gear from that, upper-end crafted items, etc. At the time, my Holy Priest had the highest +healing of all guildies in the class (and higher than some in other classes, as well). So, when the DKP system was instituted,
if an item was a minor upgrade, I’d typically pass on it. My logic behind this was, if I get a +2 upgrade from the item, and someone else would get a +29 upgrade from it, the guild would be better served by the item going to the person who would benefit the most.* This wasn’t an issue at first, but soon, when all the other raid members started accumulating a deficit because they were taking items, and I was still passing, people started noticing. Soon, snide comments were being made about my point total, without people even seeing that an item I passed on wouldn’t be an upgrade.

The only thing I really want out of 25-man Naxx is the Torch of Holy Light (the best “healing mace” in the game), so of course the stupid thing hasn’t dropped after 4 kills. I plan on using my DKP for that item, but otherwise, there isn’t much that I need / want. Even after I get that item, I’ll still have the second-highest DKP in the guild, by a decent amount, and far ahead of all of the other priests. Am I wrong in passing on items that might be a very minor upgrade? The way we “bid” is by whispering the GM after items drop, so I wouldn’t have any way of knowing whether others were interested on the item until after I whispered (and subsequently won). I don’t want to “waste” DKP, especially with Ulduar coming up, but if I’m committing some in-game faux pas, I’d like to know, as well. I don’t think many, if any, items have gone to waste, but if I have some sort of social obligation to reign in my DKP, I guess I should start using it.

  • I oversimplified “numbers” for the purpose of the example, I know… :stuck_out_tongue:
14

I used to play healers exclusively and I enjoyed my very first when playing AC2.
I liked being one on DDO since the mindset for that game was grouping anyways (of course, now they have more uno-quests) and it gave me the opportunity to find reliable players that didnt act like idiots and expect me to save their ass everytime they did something stupid. And those were the players that understood everyone’s importance - that was one of the main reasons I played DDO for as long as I did.

It is difficult playing a healer on WoW because, ime/imo, they do not make good single-party questers and it takes time to level them up - especially when your comrades are several levels higher and prefer to play their mains, so I usually stick with my alternatives (hunter, mage or warlock). But even then I’d say my favorite combo is healer/engineer. I know, strange combo but it works for the most part (and I like my toys :smiley: )

I have yet to do one raid in WoW, and the thought of going in one as a healer is rather off-putting.

15

No. They are being stupid. Those are your points, and you can use them anyhow you see fit.

16

Good thread.

Man, I hate playing dedicated no-combat healers. There’s a certain whack-a-mole excitement to feeding heals into the party, but frankly, there’s also a certain tedium. No matter what elaborate dungeon you’re in, the party list looks the same in most games. Click on the name with the lowest Health; heal; repeat.

Many times in Star Wars: Galaxies with my Doctor I had no idea what we were fighting, or even which planet we were on. The only time I got to see the landscape was when the party inevitably spread out over a wide area, possibly on separate floors or behind walls, and I would have to run frantically between them (dodging Tusken Raiders) trying to heal. They’d say “hlz plz!” and I’d say “Gladly. Where the FUCK did you run off to?”

City of Heroes does healers well, I find: they’re not just spamming the green stuff. They buff the party (leaving them time to blast), debuff the enemy (so they’re actually engaged in the combat), and every Defender or Controller or Corruptor can take attacks as well (unlike SW:G, where to be a Doctor you had no points left over for decent combat and had to run away from womp rats).

17

There were more before MoM. Minstrels may be soloing juggernauts, but they are slow juggernauts. Tactical DPS isn’t restored to them unless they are lvl 60 and completely traited for DPS. My wife’s main is a minstrel, and getting her from 50 to 60 was like pulling teeth. Now that she has some of her old DPS back, she is more willing to play.

My main is a LM, so I have borne the brunt of some of this as well. I can at least stack legendaries to reduce tactical resist rates. I’ve watcher her solo over her shoulder every so often. It looks like this:

RESIST

RESIST

RESIST

RESIST

At least that is getting taken care of in B7.

18

Interresting. My mage is an engineer, and I do like the ‘toys’, but mainly the silly stuff (x-ray goggles, mechanical squirels, and the like). Do you think loading a healer up with bombs / going ‘Goblin’ might be a better fix? Or are you, too, a ‘silly’ engineer like me? (Silly being a relative term. My guild loves my scrapbots, and now they’re so darn cheap to make!)

19

This is why i wish games would move away from the tank/healer/dps trinity in the future. Warhammer tried making healers more involved in the action by coming up with interesting gameplay combinations for each class, like one class heals power up their damage spells and their damage spells power up their heals and another has to melee in order to regain “mana” to use their heals. In the end though everyone just plays them as any other healer sitting back and spamming only their heals, and people actually get bitched at for doing anything else.

20

This is the downside of the buffers in CoH. They’re even more invisible than healers, so you get idiots in the group who think you’re not doing your job by spamming the one heal you might have, when in reality your buffs are cutting damage taken by 50%, increasing damage output by 25%, and increasing their health regeneration rate twice over. But they don’t see the little green numbers, so they think you’re not doing your job. So you leave, and they immediately faceplant.