A discussion on MMORPG – what works – what doesn’t work – and suggestions for better. A look at the support classes starting with your healers. They play a vital role in keeping the party alive in difficult situations.
Party Animals
One of the major differences in MMO RPGs from solo-play games is the role of Parties within the game. In a MMO RPG no one character holds all the skills. Each class has a role to play within the party. Here I want to explore how this works and the possibilities. For the most part, I prefer to play a healer. In Aion I have played all of the classes so will use it for my examples here.
Support Classes
Your support classes are truly the life of the party. They are your healers and buffers and they play a vital role in keeping the party alive in difficult situations.
Healer
A Healer’s primary objective is to keep the party members alive. Playing a healer means knowing your skills and having excellent timing.
The class as a whole has low to average hit points and deals little to average damage. Most healing classes wear light to medium armor types and carry either a staff or blunt style weapons such a mace and shield. In Last Chaos the healer is the archer. They are often quite slow to level. Solo play on a healer can be challenging. But what they lack in damage dealing, they make up for in survivability. In Aion the healer’s offensive spells are primarily DoTs ( damage over time ). So the healer’s goal is to out live its opponent. Most healer’s stats are built upon wisdom and they are considered to be casters.
In parties is where the healer really shines. A healer’s skills are made up of individual heals, group heals and HoTs ( heals over time ). Individual heals tend to be stronger than group heals. Healers also have a remove debuffing power and some buffing ability. All these skills are tied into a point system such as mana points. Managing these points to maintain adequate healing power during battle is imperative. So a good healer should have this under control. It can be done with certain skills, potions, serums, foods and/or nos – depending upon what is available within the game you play.
A healer’s main focus must be to keep the tank alive first. I will spend time on the tank later, for now know that if the tank dies so does the party. A good healer will rotate individual heals between the tank and group heals for the rest of the party. And they will maintain HoTs on the most vulnerable in the party. This is where a healer’s timing is important. You don’t want to be spamming unneeded heals and wasting points. Paying attention, knowing the opposing mob’s powers so you can time your heals and remove debuffs to do the most good while expending the least amount of points is your goal. You must be adaptable to the situation.
When in a party it is not the healer’s job to do damage. It is their job to stay alive. If the healers die the party wipes. So the healer should stay at max range and be the first to retreat when things go very wrong. As long as the healer survives they can resurrect and get the party back into the fight. But knowing when to run and when to stay takes full knowledge of the foes you face and your own abilities.
Other thoughts – never neglect to heal yourself and remember your heal can be a very strong agro. Always buff and HoT your tank before battle and never heal before they have control of the mobs least you pull them down on yourself. If you do pick up agro run towards your tank never away from them. Stay in good communication with your party at all times. Tell people if they move out of range. And respond when people call for a remove debuffs.
If I built the world …
If I built the world there are a few frustrations I would like to eliminate. First, when healing I rarely actually see the battle as my eyes are glued to the health bars. There are some games in which I refuse to play the healer because the UI is so crappy you can’t see the bars properly. I would very much like an option within the UI to adjust/move these bars to my liking. Secondly, the games give the healer weapons but no real skills to use them. No one expects the healer to be a high DPS toon but if we have weapons we should have some skills with them – skills of defense and to protect and to heal.
Playing a healer is challenging but suited to everyone’s play style. Think carefully before choosing this class.