Healer Differentiation

[Drys]

I acknowledge that this concept is not fully fleshed out, but it's a concept that's occurred to me several times to add a little more flavor to the healing classes and I wanted to put it out there. I know WP/DOK just got reworked, so maybe this is a suggestion for a future healer revamp.

We have 3 healing classes per side, and all typically do the backline heal. Even with the changes to DOK/WP, healers still typically back-line cast heal. My suggestion is to fully differentiate the classes into three groups -- back-line heal, mid-line heal, front-line heal.

Front-line heal
This would be WP/DOK. Have heals, cleanse, etc. on very short cast times (e.g., 0.5s) but with only a 30-ft range. The goal would be to force the WP/DOK closer to the front-line to be effective. A shorter cast time would be needed because of all the setbacks.

Maybe a tactic could be available in the healing tree to increase range of heal at the cost of reducing armor to light armor values (no need for a med. armor back-line healer).

Mid-line heal
This would be AM/Sham. The goal would be to increase the hybrid potential of these classes without making them as overpowered as before. The thought is to reduce the range of all spells (damage and heals) to 65ft. This puts the AM/Sham at greater risk. In exchange, the mechanic would again convert Int to WP and WP to Int if below 3 mechanic points. Basically, if you swap between DPS and heals (i.e., hybrid) then you are much stronger. If you sit back and only DPS or only heal, you don't get the full stat conversion bonus.

Back-line heal
This would remain the domain of Zeal/RP and be unchanged from current.

[toffikx]

As they say; ”Don’t fix what’s not broken”.

[Sulorie]

A lot text just to nerf wp/dok/am/sham. No!

[Jail]

One of the worst ideas.

[mjwrench]

As a front-line healer, it takes a lot of battlefield awareness and picking and choosing your fights. And those fights aren't so much as going toe to toe, but supporting a member in that fight while healing.

The answer may not be in tweaking the classes, but more so tweaking the gear to better support those kinds of builds.

[WeGotThis]

As they say; ”Don’t fix what’s not broken”.

Do you mean: "If it aint broken, don't fix it."

[emiliorv]

In exchange, the mechanic would again convert Int to WP and WP to Int if below 3 mechanic points. Basically, if you swap between DPS and heals (i.e., hybrid) then you are much stronger. If you sit back and only DPS or only heal, you don't get the full stat conversion bonus.

This part is interesting to make the mechanic usefull for hybrid purpose, i have though something like that for shammie...like a harbinger of doom but you cannot simply turn on/off pushing one button and need to use heal/dps to make it work. Maybe tweaking the % of Int/WP gain to not make it OP....

The rest of the proposal...30ft range is really a short range, you will be totally exposed....

[Luuca]

In exchange, the mechanic would again convert Int to WP and WP to Int if below 3 mechanic points. Basically, if you swap between DPS and heals (i.e., hybrid) then you are much stronger. If you sit back and only DPS or only heal, you don't get the full stat conversion bonus.

This part is interesting to make the mechanic usefull for hybrid purpose, i have though something like that for shammie...like a harbinger of doom but you cannot simply turn on/off pushing one button and need to use heal/dps to make it work. Maybe tweaking the % of Int/WP gain to not make it OP....

The rest of the proposal...30ft range is really a short range, you will be totally exposed....

AM already gets cast time reducers for mechanic points as well as +heals and +damage for mechanic points. I assume Shaman gets the same. The only issue is tuning those +heal and +damage. Before in the .abex days, it was over-tuned, then reverted, now Lifetap heals do not benefit from the mechanic points.

I can only imagine how extremely difficult it is to balance a hybrid spec. The player assumes Hybrid heals will be as good as pure spec and hybrid dps will be as good as pure spec dps. The answer is no. they never will be. When they are, the class is overpowered and thus the end of .abex

I main an AM, and am fairly better than the worst AM around. The only issue I see is our counterpart class, the Shaman, has a fairly reliable and automatic escape tool while AMs do not. We had an M1 bubble that lasted 1 minute (provided it was not dpsed away) that used to help with kiting etc, but that was nerfed to 30 seconds. Maybe there needs to be a 30 second internal CD on Run Away Tactic for Shamans?