All of us (including myself) having been speculating under the assumption that there will be an Advanced Class dedicated to healing and support, but I'm starting to think there won't be any exclusively support-oriented AC's at all. Here are the basic reasons:
1) Tank specs in TOR seem to still be competitive damage-dealers. The main difference between the Marauder and Juggernaut, for example, seems to be the difference between very high multi-target DPS versus survivability & single-target DPS. Similarly, the Trooper seems to be a very clear combat class regardless of spec (though admittedly we know very little about the Trooper's AC's).
2) Universal rezzes and self-healing. Every class in the game has at least one out-of-combat self-heal. Every class in the game seems to have an out-of-combat rez for companion players. These, especially the latter, are skills that are generally reserved for healing/support specs in other MMOs. BW has said they want to keep the combat fast-paced, and it makes sense to give these abilities to everyone).
3) At least half the classes can combat heal. The Smuggler, the Consular, the Sith Inquisitor and the Imperial Agent have either had in-combat healing skills or healing trees confirmed. However, none of these classes have been described as having a "pure support path."
4) TOR has a "Soft Trinity." The most recent interviews from E3 describe group roles as "less of a hard trinity," and they go on about how Advanced Classes and companions help this idea. Granted, it's clear companions totally can't replace a player character that's healing, but they also mean that a player who us super-specialized to do one thing (tanking/healing/dps) is not as useful to a group as he or she would be in another MMO. Imagine if you're a "healing spec" Consular who only heals and you have a group of guys who also have some healing companions. The significance of your role is greatly reduced. The Juggernaut isn't just going to tank and the "Darth Maul" Inquisitor isn't just going to do raw DPS, so why a Consular that just heals and supports?
5) Of those healing classes, all of the others are still clearly combat-focused. Let's take a look.
- Scoundrel (Smuggler) has combat healing in this AC, but the focus of the AC is stealth and closer-ranged combat.
- "Darth Maul" (Inquisitor) has lightning and melee.
- "Palpatine" (Inquisitor) has more ranged lightning and telekinetic abilities.
6) The idea of a "traditional MMO healer" doesn't fit Star Wars iconic combat. Tanking fits, ranged gunfire fits, melee combat fits, acrobatic lightning fits, but doing nothing but buffing and healing a group doesn't. Every other class role makes sense except what we've speculated about the Consular.
With what we know, it would be bizarre for the Consular to be the only class in the game with a role that's no different from a priest in another MMO. There's no dedicated support path suggested in any other class, so why would the Consular be any different? I know there are some very early comments in that first article in Nov. about a "traditional healer" role for the Consular, but that was before they announced AC's and, honestly, most of the descriptors for the other classes in that article have since been debunked.
My theory: healing/buffing abilities will exist, but like the Smuggler and Inquisitor they will only be a portion of what each Advanced Class does and will not define that Advanced Class. Where those abilities exist in the Consular's skill trees is anyone's guess, but I think we have it on good grounds that "pure support" in the traditional MMO sense won't appear.
Reasons 1 and 2 don't necessarily mean that there will be no healers. We still don't know anything about the Juggernaut and Marauder trees, so that's still up in the air. Giving everybody a rez and an out of combat heal doesn't replace healers. Maybe healers have a in-combat rez that makes them more valuable.
As for reason 3, that's 4 out of 16 ACs. So there really aren't that many healers per faction.
I don't think that the JC will be the only class with a pure healer tree; I would expect the SI to have something similar but only semantically different. Until we see the individual trees, I don't think that we can discount that the Smuggler and Inquisitor will have pretty specific healing roles if they spec a certain way.
Given Bioware's comments that it will take 4 companion healers to cover for one PC healer, I think we will have dedicated healers, and it won't be restricted to the JC because the Sith would be left with nothing.
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that there won't be healers, just that it's overkill to dedicate an *entire* AC to just healing, just as it's overkill to dedicate an entire AC to "just tanking." The Juggernaut can tank, but the devs have been clear that these guys can do other things too. Hybridized, multi-role, etc.
But really, the strongest evidence is the Scoundrel situation. Why would any Scoundrel bother putting points in healing if he'll always be inferior to a Consular? And if they are both equally good at healing, then why does the Scoundrel get to do other things (stealth) besides healing?
Yeah, I too think it is overkill to devoting both trees of an AC to tanking and the other to DPS, for instance. So I agree that each AC will feature distinct roles for each tree; what essentially amounts to a solo play tree and a group play tree, loosely speaking. I don't think it will be any different with healers (see my post in the JC AC thread concerning the support tree).
As for the Scoundrel situation, I think healing will be comparable across all ACs specialized to do so. Otherwise, what would be the point of rolling a Smuggler or IA to heal if they can't compare to a JC or SI? I think the Scoundrel will end up with one tree focusing on stealth and close-quarters combat, while the other tree focuses on healing. It's the similar to what I think the "caster" AC for the JC will result in: a healing tree and a DPS tree. I don't think the Scoundrel will be able do to heal and DPS, just like I don't think a JC will be able to heal and DPS with equal effectiveness.
As I mentioned in the other thread, I think you could very well be right. Also, this would be a unique way to portray the Consular as "more of a healer" than the Smuggler without actually being better than healing, when specced properly. It would just mean that it's easier for Consular's to take on that role, but both classes would be equally useful doing it.
Just to make sure I've got this clear, you're saying that (in your opinion) neither of Consular advanced classes will be pure support, but one of the (for lack of a better word) advanced classes 'talent trees' will contain the healing/support path? I think that makes sense, I'm just wondering what then will the advanced classes themselves focus on? By similar reasoning, you could discount the other assumed crowd control advanced class of the Consular. I'm not sure if telekentic force powers could serve as the basis for an advanced class whilst still allowing two further talent trees and a there is not really an iconic Jedi version of the 'Darth Maul' lightsaber specialist build. I don't mean to discount your reasoning, because I think it's solid. I'm just really not sure what to expect at this point in time.
If I had to guess, I'd say something like this seems plausible:
Advanced Class 1 - Group Support *Tree 1 - healing *Tree 2 - crowd control
Advanced Class 2 - Solo/DPS/Survability *Tree 1 - force powers *Tree 2 - lighstaber/survival
With the shared tree being general lightsaber/jedi goodness. Obviously thats really rough, and probably unlikely, how would you guys sort it out then?
I think what you can say is that it won't be completely dedicated healing/support. That doesn't mean you can't have trees to make you better at it. They really seem to have covered a lot of different playstyles, and I think they recognise that some people want to help others and play support, so there'll be the capacity to do so effectively. That said, I do think, regardless of spec/trees/talents any sort of static healing role will go out the door.
I don't think Bio would want any AC to be useless in a group or useless solo, since that would effectively chop in half your possible interaction with the game content in a relatively early, not-easily-respec-able choice.
Quote from Jatlantis there is not really an iconic Jedi version of the 'Darth Maul' lightsaber specialist build
Not in the movies, but KOTOR featured Bastila. The "Hope" consular is another saberstaff-using female, so...
Speaking of KOTOR, we've seen many of the powers there come back, but no sign of the "stasis" group CC. That's the sort of thing I'd expect from the non-saber AC.
I honestly hope they steer clear from directly aping too many powers and classes from KOTOR. The Sentinel is just a middle-ground between Guardian and Consular, and I'd rather see BW make the Consular AC's explore the Force-centric abilities rather than just make it more like the Knight. Also powers like stasis were cool, but I think there are more dynamic ways to stun/mez enemies that look a bit more Star Wars-y.
What if, in the vein of "heroic combat," the majority of encounters involve a gaggle of enemies and the most efficient way to deal with the incoming damage is to crowd control instead of heal through it? I could definitely see the Consular getting a host of Force-oriented CC abilities (Slam, Mind Trick, Push, etc.) that take enemies out of the combat picture. In that case, instead of priority #1 of the healer being to fill the health bars and the DPS CC'ing 1 or 2 of the 4-5 powerful enemies (like in WoW), the healer CC's 2-4 of the enemies while DPS CC 1 enemy each and the incoming damage is something that can be direct healed sparingly instead of in a chain-cast manner. It flips the majority of the CC burden from the DPS to the healer and changes the healer's priority from healing to CC'ing.
You make a good point, I don't think the trinity system will be as highly enforced but remember we haven't seen high level characters. We have no idea how Itemization will effect classes as they advance nor talent point systems. My guess is 1-CAP, no a dedicated healer won't be necessary but I can't imagine it not being for high level endgame.
If there are dedicated tanks there will need to dedicated healers as well. Daniel Erickson mentioned that 4 heal companions would allow you to complete the flashpoint but wouldn't be as good as having a full dedicated healer. He also mentioned how awesome it'd be to have a healing companion whilst playing a healer. There could be companions that boost healing done by X% when they are near you for example. This sort of ability would benefit a full player much more than other companions.
The healer doesn't fit "iconic combat" but the Multiplayer E3 Video heavily suggests they will have priest like characters in group encounters. Daniel Erickson mentioned how he likes to play "the healer". I think all the classes that can heal will be able to spec into healing AC/Talent combinations of about the same healing effectiveness. JK/SW/BH/Trooper have all been shown to have tanking trees (technically the BH hasn't been shown tanking but if the Republic has a ranged tank so should the Empire) so it would stand to reason the other 4 classes have healing/support trees/specs. I think you'll have the option to specialize more into cc or more into healing. You'll have to choose to be awesome in 1 or the other or merely average in both.
I would note that ALL the classes will be doing things other than their primary trinity role. We saw the Consular do minor DPS whilst healing, so I imagine we'll see tanks CC and DPS tank in certain situations. Each AC will allow a great deal of customization I think as well. You'll be able to spec DPS even in the "healing" AC. You'd probably just be more force power based than the "DPS" AC which would likely focus on saber staff techniques. Each AC has 3 full trees they can to put points into after all.
I played straight up dedicated healer whack a mole on party frames (which I do not personally enjoy) in our multiplayer demo, but I can see how later on it has the potential to be a bit more involved in the combat directly like a controller and throwing out some damage spells here and there.
It really depends on the damage output of the NPCs and how strong the tank mitigation is. I can't quite put my finger on it just yet, but the impression I got was if the tank is adequate, then it frees you up to do more things than just stand there and spam heal.
Apparently there will be a dedicated tree off the Sage build called Seer...So it appears you can either invest heavily into that tree to be main healer or divest in the shared tree (Balance?) and dump some points in Telekenetics to be a hybrid....
I am really interested in the consular class, but wanted to play a saber wielding jedi that had some cool telekenitic powers at my disposal as well....that may not be the case, perhaps under the shadow treecombat build - saberstaff with some telekenetic abilities like in the hope video.
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Posted 6/20/2010 9:09:49 PMAll of us (including myself) having been speculating under the assumption that there will be an Advanced Class dedicated to healing and support, but I'm starting to think there won't be any exclusively support-oriented AC's at all. Here are the basic reasons:
1) Tank specs in TOR seem to still be competitive damage-dealers. The main difference between the Marauder and Juggernaut, for example, seems to be the difference between very high multi-target DPS versus survivability & single-target DPS. Similarly, the Trooper seems to be a very clear combat class regardless of spec (though admittedly we know very little about the Trooper's AC's).
2) Universal rezzes and self-healing. Every class in the game has at least one out-of-combat self-heal. Every class in the game seems to have an out-of-combat rez for companion players. These, especially the latter, are skills that are generally reserved for healing/support specs in other MMOs. BW has said they want to keep the combat fast-paced, and it makes sense to give these abilities to everyone).
3) At least half the classes can combat heal. The Smuggler, the Consular, the Sith Inquisitor and the Imperial Agent have either had in-combat healing skills or healing trees confirmed. However, none of these classes have been described as having a "pure support path."
4) TOR has a "Soft Trinity." The most recent interviews from E3 describe group roles as "less of a hard trinity," and they go on about how Advanced Classes and companions help this idea. Granted, it's clear companions totally can't replace a player character that's healing, but they also mean that a player who us super-specialized to do one thing (tanking/healing/dps) is not as useful to a group as he or she would be in another MMO. Imagine if you're a "healing spec" Consular who only heals and you have a group of guys who also have some healing companions. The significance of your role is greatly reduced. The Juggernaut isn't just going to tank and the "Darth Maul" Inquisitor isn't just going to do raw DPS, so why a Consular that just heals and supports?
5) Of those healing classes, all of the others are still clearly combat-focused. Let's take a look.
- Scoundrel (Smuggler) has combat healing in this AC, but the focus of the AC is stealth and closer-ranged combat.
- "Darth Maul" (Inquisitor) has lightning and melee.
- "Palpatine" (Inquisitor) has more ranged lightning and telekinetic abilities.
6) The idea of a "traditional MMO healer" doesn't fit Star Wars iconic combat. Tanking fits, ranged gunfire fits, melee combat fits, acrobatic lightning fits, but doing nothing but buffing and healing a group doesn't. Every other class role makes sense except what we've speculated about the Consular.
With what we know, it would be bizarre for the Consular to be the only class in the game with a role that's no different from a priest in another MMO. There's no dedicated support path suggested in any other class, so why would the Consular be any different? I know there are some very early comments in that first article in Nov. about a "traditional healer" role for the Consular, but that was before they announced AC's and, honestly, most of the descriptors for the other classes in that article have since been debunked.
My theory: healing/buffing abilities will exist, but like the Smuggler and Inquisitor they will only be a portion of what each Advanced Class does and will not define that Advanced Class. Where those abilities exist in the Consular's skill trees is anyone's guess, but I think we have it on good grounds that "pure support" in the traditional MMO sense won't appear.
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Posted 6/21/2010 1:47:59 AMReasons 1 and 2 don't necessarily mean that there will be no healers. We still don't know anything about the Juggernaut and Marauder trees, so that's still up in the air. Giving everybody a rez and an out of combat heal doesn't replace healers. Maybe healers have a in-combat rez that makes them more valuable.
As for reason 3, that's 4 out of 16 ACs. So there really aren't that many healers per faction.
I don't think that the JC will be the only class with a pure healer tree; I would expect the SI to have something similar but only semantically different. Until we see the individual trees, I don't think that we can discount that the Smuggler and Inquisitor will have pretty specific healing roles if they spec a certain way.
Given Bioware's comments that it will take 4 companion healers to cover for one PC healer, I think we will have dedicated healers, and it won't be restricted to the JC because the Sith would be left with nothing.
The Fatman - PvP - East Coast
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Posted 6/21/2010 3:08:58 AMI think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that there won't be healers, just that it's overkill to dedicate an *entire* AC to just healing, just as it's overkill to dedicate an entire AC to "just tanking." The Juggernaut can tank, but the devs have been clear that these guys can do other things too. Hybridized, multi-role, etc.
But really, the strongest evidence is the Scoundrel situation. Why would any Scoundrel bother putting points in healing if he'll always be inferior to a Consular? And if they are both equally good at healing, then why does the Scoundrel get to do other things (stealth) besides healing?
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Posted 6/21/2010 3:28:01 AMYeah, I too think it is overkill to devoting both trees of an AC to tanking and the other to DPS, for instance. So I agree that each AC will feature distinct roles for each tree; what essentially amounts to a solo play tree and a group play tree, loosely speaking. I don't think it will be any different with healers (see my post in the JC AC thread concerning the support tree).
As for the Scoundrel situation, I think healing will be comparable across all ACs specialized to do so. Otherwise, what would be the point of rolling a Smuggler or IA to heal if they can't compare to a JC or SI? I think the Scoundrel will end up with one tree focusing on stealth and close-quarters combat, while the other tree focuses on healing. It's the similar to what I think the "caster" AC for the JC will result in: a healing tree and a DPS tree. I don't think the Scoundrel will be able do to heal and DPS, just like I don't think a JC will be able to heal and DPS with equal effectiveness.
I think we both agree on the big picture.
The Fatman - PvP - East Coast
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Posted 6/21/2010 5:19:31 AMPretty sure healing will be in *neither* advanced class but in the shared class tree.
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Posted 6/21/2010 5:24:35 AMAs I mentioned in the other thread, I think you could very well be right. Also, this would be a unique way to portray the Consular as "more of a healer" than the Smuggler without actually being better than healing, when specced properly. It would just mean that it's easier for Consular's to take on that role, but both classes would be equally useful doing it.
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Posted 6/21/2010 11:22:58 AMInteresting points HT =].
Just to make sure I've got this clear, you're saying that (in your opinion) neither of Consular advanced classes will be pure support, but one of the (for lack of a better word) advanced classes 'talent trees' will contain the healing/support path? I think that makes sense, I'm just wondering what then will the advanced classes themselves focus on? By similar reasoning, you could discount the other assumed crowd control advanced class of the Consular. I'm not sure if telekentic force powers could serve as the basis for an advanced class whilst still allowing two further talent trees and a there is not really an iconic Jedi version of the 'Darth Maul' lightsaber specialist build. I don't mean to discount your reasoning, because I think it's solid. I'm just really not sure what to expect at this point in time.
If I had to guess, I'd say something like this seems plausible:
Advanced Class 1 - Group Support
*Tree 1 - healing
*Tree 2 - crowd control
Advanced Class 2 - Solo/DPS/Survability
*Tree 1 - force powers
*Tree 2 - lighstaber/survival
With the shared tree being general lightsaber/jedi goodness. Obviously thats really rough, and probably unlikely, how would you guys sort it out then?
I think what you can say is that it won't be completely dedicated healing/support. That doesn't mean you can't have trees to make you better at it. They really seem to have covered a lot of different playstyles, and I think they recognise that some people want to help others and play support, so there'll be the capacity to do so effectively. That said, I do think, regardless of spec/trees/talents any sort of static healing role will go out the door.
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Posted 6/21/2010 5:11:48 PMI don't think Bio would want any AC to be useless in a group or useless solo, since that would effectively chop in half your possible interaction with the game content in a relatively early, not-easily-respec-able choice.
Not in the movies, but KOTOR featured Bastila. The "Hope" consular is another saberstaff-using female, so...
Speaking of KOTOR, we've seen many of the powers there come back, but no sign of the "stasis" group CC. That's the sort of thing I'd expect from the non-saber AC.
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Posted 6/22/2010 5:31:32 AMI honestly hope they steer clear from directly aping too many powers and classes from KOTOR. The Sentinel is just a middle-ground between Guardian and Consular, and I'd rather see BW make the Consular AC's explore the Force-centric abilities rather than just make it more like the Knight. Also powers like stasis were cool, but I think there are more dynamic ways to stun/mez enemies that look a bit more Star Wars-y.
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Posted 7/28/2010 5:55:47 PMWhat if, in the vein of "heroic combat," the majority of encounters involve a gaggle of enemies and the most efficient way to deal with the incoming damage is to crowd control instead of heal through it? I could definitely see the Consular getting a host of Force-oriented CC abilities (Slam, Mind Trick, Push, etc.) that take enemies out of the combat picture. In that case, instead of priority #1 of the healer being to fill the health bars and the DPS CC'ing 1 or 2 of the 4-5 powerful enemies (like in WoW), the healer CC's 2-4 of the enemies while DPS CC 1 enemy each and the incoming damage is something that can be direct healed sparingly instead of in a chain-cast manner. It flips the majority of the CC burden from the DPS to the healer and changes the healer's priority from healing to CC'ing.
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Posted 8/15/2010 7:45:04 PMYou make a good point, I don't think the trinity system will be as highly enforced but remember we haven't seen high level characters. We have no idea how Itemization will effect classes as they advance nor talent point systems. My guess is 1-CAP, no a dedicated healer won't be necessary but I can't imagine it not being for high level endgame.
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Posted 8/16/2010 4:01:08 PMIf there are dedicated tanks there will need to dedicated healers as well. Daniel Erickson mentioned that 4 heal companions would allow you to complete the flashpoint but wouldn't be as good as having a full dedicated healer. He also mentioned how awesome it'd be to have a healing companion whilst playing a healer. There could be companions that boost healing done by X% when they are near you for example. This sort of ability would benefit a full player much more than other companions.
The healer doesn't fit "iconic combat" but the Multiplayer E3 Video heavily suggests they will have priest like characters in group encounters. Daniel Erickson mentioned how he likes to play "the healer". I think all the classes that can heal will be able to spec into healing AC/Talent combinations of about the same healing effectiveness. JK/SW/BH/Trooper have all been shown to have tanking trees (technically the BH hasn't been shown tanking but if the Republic has a ranged tank so should the Empire) so it would stand to reason the other 4 classes have healing/support trees/specs. I think you'll have the option to specialize more into cc or more into healing. You'll have to choose to be awesome in 1 or the other or merely average in both.
I would note that ALL the classes will be doing things other than their primary trinity role. We saw the Consular do minor DPS whilst healing, so I imagine we'll see tanks CC and DPS tank in certain situations. Each AC will allow a great deal of customization I think as well. You'll be able to spec DPS even in the "healing" AC. You'd probably just be more force power based than the "DPS" AC which would likely focus on saber staff techniques. Each AC has 3 full trees they can to put points into after all.
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Posted 1/5/2011 8:22:30 PMI played straight up dedicated healer whack a mole on party frames (which I do not personally enjoy) in our multiplayer demo, but I can see how later on it has the potential to be a bit more involved in the combat directly like a controller and throwing out some damage spells here and there.
It really depends on the damage output of the NPCs and how strong the tank mitigation is. I can't quite put my finger on it just yet, but the impression I got was if the tank is adequate, then it frees you up to do more things than just stand there and spam heal.
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Posted 1/21/2011 7:48:04 PMApparently there will be a dedicated tree off the Sage build called Seer...So it appears you can either invest heavily into that tree to be main healer or divest in the shared tree (Balance?) and dump some points in Telekenetics to be a hybrid....
I am really interested in the consular class, but wanted to play a saber wielding jedi that had some cool telekenitic powers at my disposal as well....that may not be the case, perhaps under the shadow treecombat build - saberstaff with some telekenetic abilities like in the hope video.
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Posted 5/2/2011 3:33:27 AMI hope the "Healing" side of the AC will have a nice variety of heals, debuffs, and buffs.
From the video's I have seen healing seems VERY easy, hopefully that changes.