Being a healer in many MMOs I have enjoyed over the years, I have been keeping a particularly close eye on the healing classes of Star Wars: The Old Republic and what we know about the different healing mechanics so far.
Regrettably, we don
The Latest TORWars Podcast
TORWars Podcast #151: Aren't You the Pretty Kitty?: It's that time of week again, my fellow galactic travelers! That's right, I'm talking about TORWars ...
Let’s go for some wild mass guessing, with a vague basis in lore and an attempt to avoid everything simply being a direct heal, with a few class-specific mechanics to change things up. So, basically, everything I’m writing here is completely wrong.
I rather hope the Sith Inquisitor might end up acting slightly Shadow Priest-y, either getting the ability to drain life from an enemy directly into the tank (although, if we’re sticking to the trinity, probably dealing minor amounts of damage and healing for far more) or using an aura or a debuff to otherwise drain life to the party. And, on the other hand, using Force Lightning as a defibrillator *would* be one of the most hilarious possible resurrection methods. Unlikely, sadly, if the Republic/Sith classes are going to be rough analogues of each other. I dunno how the Jedi would square with that.
The Imperial Agent – as someone who is, lore-wise, unlikely to be a medic, and more concerned with making sure people can get the hell in or get the hell out – might well focus on massive heals with larger cooldowns. Adrenaline shots, and the like, to keep people on their feet. It’d be interesting to see these as temporary heals – a massive boost which gradually fades away, but can be topped up again, with a few other skills to actually stabilise the health and stop it draining.
No idea about the Bounty Hunter, mind you. I’d have thought Bodyguard would have been more of a tank, with the whole “protecting others” thing, although I guess it’s not a stretch to extend that to a healer.
That said, I could conceivably see any of these being incredibly skilled *self-healers* – I mean, I’d assume Bounty Hunter suits would tend to have life-support gizmos and various body chemistry monitors. Makes me wonder if the trinity might end up being broken or bent, slightly, with tanks capable of self-healing for minor amounts.
Would be an interesting twist, no? If the tank was doing half of the healing to himself, and one of the DPS classes was doing the other half of the healing while also damaging the opponent… But I really, really think that’s unlikely.
I’m just afraid we’re going to end up with a lot of classes that have very similar direct heals. I don’t see why DPS should get all the fun mechanics
Well, In all I like your ideas, especially the sith inquisitor idea of dealing minor damage to heal. Of course that is partially due to a healing inquisitor being the character that i will play first or maybe second. Also, in the big behemoth (if you don’t know wow), in cata, they made blood the death knight tanking tree, and it works like you described, with a large amount of self healing and a lot of damage absorption from not armor but their self healing. Of course, WoW relies very heavily on the trinity system, and as such the death knight can in no way go without a healer, however it makes the blood death knight much more survivable solo. However, the problem WoW made with them was that now my blood dk can not only do that large amount of healing and absorbing, but also crit for anywhere from a quarter to half of an enemy players hp, which is why as Acea said, their damage needs a serious nerf to take it more to the level of the other tanks damage. I would like to see perhaps a sith warrior tanking similar to this, just with tweaks to make it more balanced both pve and pvp wise
Those are some pretty great ideas. I really like your idea about the Imperial Agent having massive healing/buffs that degrade over time.
“I’m just afraid we’re going to end up with a lot of classes that have very similar direct heals. I don’t see why DPS should get all the fun mechanics”
I TOTALLY agree with you. I hate to bring up the big World of Warcraft, but recently they introduced an aspect to healing as a Discipline priest where you can use your Smite ability from time to time to help damage enemies, while it provides a buff to your own healing and returns a % of mana(on cooldown). This type of interaction and uniqueness to healing I would love to see expanded upon in SWTOR.
In terms of the Tank providing most of his own self-healing, that would certainly be an interesting aspect – but if that was the case, the Tanks damage would need to be seriously nerfed. In a lot of instances these days, Tanks end up being a top-damage dealer as well as doing their job at holding aggro. If these guys were comparing to healers w/ their healing WHILE doing awesome DPS and holding agro, I think it would be game-breaking. It’s hard to say though, it may be do-able and I am just limiting my vision.
As for the Sith Inquisitor being like a Shadow Priest, I love this idea. I could see them being like a mix of a Shadow Priest and Warlock. Using debuffs and offensive spells while they may have some kind of buff that provides a % back of healing to the party.
Haha wow, should we really be getting this excited about healing? I say YES!
Should we get excited about healing? Hell, yes. After a levelling up to the cap, a fair amount of players are going to be primary healers. If healing isn’t fun – if it’s something we should be resigned to, rather than excited about – then it shouldn’t be such a major part of the game.
There’s a lot that can be done with healing, I think, but most games seem to focus on DPS. It’s what pretty much everyone does for most of the levelling experience (while soloing, at least) and it’s what most players will be doing at max level, if we consider the trinity of one tank, one healer, three DPS. It’s a shame. It’s not like it’s impossible to make healing fun – it just doesn’t seem to get the focus it requires when compared to tanking or DPSing.
(For the sake of full disclosure: I haven’t healed in an MMO at max level for, ooh, a year or so. I’ve had plenty of experience with all three aspects of the trinity in the past, though.)
And yeah, I fully agree – a Shadow Priest-like offensive healer would be a fun way to play. Even if the damage was negligible when compared to pure DPS (so that there’s still a point to playing DPS) there’s plenty you could do. I can think of ways to hybridise melee DPS and healing, so that the healer can’t just sit at the back and has to get close-up. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.
I can’t help but think that with the few abilities we’ve already seen shuffled about, the Bounty Hunter will probably have access to the Kolto Dart that we originally saw with the Imperial Agent, and the Agent might just go with Probes and whatever sort of “healing beams” they were using in the group-play videos.
The question of course, is how will the healing system for Bounty Hunters fit in with their Heat-based resource system?
The idea of healing as a Sith Inquisitor is really interesting to me, but my fear is that the class will better fill the role of ranged dps using force lightning rather than healing.
I’m excited about healing in SWTOR….have been a healer in WoW for last 5 years, 3 most recent of which were strictly PvP heals. I enjoy playing all the healing classes of that game, and I cannot wait to get my hands on every one of these in SWTOR, which looks to be better than ANYTHING i have imagined before.
Can’t wait until this game comes out…but in the meantime I’d love more info about healing!!! Its killing me seeing so much info on dps, some on tanks, tons about environment, worlds, character armor progressions…and 2 tantalizingly unexplained heals for each of the healers…I’m screaming here, can’t wait for more info! Thanks for this post..helps to calm my nerve-endings, although is all same stuff as forums/site, helps to know other healers out there are curious too…