Healers…the next big thing?
Looking at polls on a few of the blogs I read and on some websites I was interested to learn that the Tempest of Set and the Priest of Mitra, two of the healers in Age of Conan, were amongst the most popular classes. I had a feeling that this might be the case because I always saw these classes whenever I was playing. Warhammer isn’t much different, with the Warrior Priest and Zealot attracting a lot of pre-release interest. Are healers becoming more popular and, if so, why?
In previous MMOGs there has always been a shortage of healers. You always required at least one healer for any group, and some encounters may have use for a second, or backup, healer. And understandably they were always in short supply. Playing a healer required a particular kind of player; someone who preferred group over solo play and who found the success of a group more rewarding than individual success. Healers were, for the most part, difficult to play solo. They never did high damage to mobs and in some cases wore light armour. Levelling a healer could take considerably more time then other classes.
But MMOGs are ever evolving beasts and over the years the healer class has come under a lot of scrutiny. Gamers have complained of a lack of healers and developers have introduced more solo content to their games, not the healer’s strong point. So we’ve seen the healer evolve to make it a better solo class in the hope that it would appeal to more players. And it seems to be working. No longer are we just a heal bot. But why would someone want to play a healer now anyway? There are still better solo classes after all.
I think it’s because most MMO gamers don’t want to solo. We want to be able to solo of course and want solo content, but for those times when we can’t group for lack of time, or just don’t feel like it. And that’s why we’re seeing a lot of healers these days. People are rolling this class in the hope that they’ll be in demand and be able to get a group whenever they want one. I mean, who wants to solo for 80 levels so they can raid or PvP? No doubt there are some of you out there but it’s not me.
In the end the popularity of the healer class in Warhammer will come down to how well it does in PvP. The popularity of the healer class in general will be influenced by how much demand there is for them in groups. Initially I intended to play a healer in WAR but that’s no longer my first option. The loss of the Knight of the Blazing Sun and Blackguard class has negated my next option. So I’m seriously considering rolling a Swordmaster or Shadow Warrior as my first character. When you consider that I’ve played a healer as my main in almost every MMOG that I’ve played, I guess it’s a significant moment for me. If I can’t get a group as a healer then there’s little point in playing the class, it becomes obsolete. No longer will I need to worry about speccing my character to optimise my healing abilities at the cost of being able to solo and dish out damage. I can selfishly spec him to be a solo beast or PvP killing machine.
Comments
Comment from 
caliga
Time: July 13, 2008, 9:14 pm
I’m in total agreeance with you on that one. I’ve said in the past that I don’t mind sacrificing solo ability because I know that I can make up for it by grouping; being more likely to get a group.
In AoC I’m no longer in demand and find it more difficult to get invited to group then other MMOGs I’ve played in the past. Tabula Rasa suffered from a similar problem and with the appeal of the healer classes in WAR, I see a pattern emerging.
Comment from SwS
Time: July 13, 2008, 10:34 pm
Currently I’m playing LOTRO and the healer there is more traditional it seems, more about being a group player than a solo player. I’ve noticed a fair bit of Minstrel’s running around in the game, I play a champion and I’ve probably seen more Minstrels. Being that LOTRO seems to be a lot more group focused than most other newer MMO’s they are in high demand even with quite a large quantity of them.
AoC dropped the ball on pretty much everything IMO, the healers were poorly planned out I think. Once people saw how hard they were to kill, and how they did comparable damage most started playing them. In AoC I never had trouble getting “healers”, the hard part was finding a tank or dps - but generally I played my DT because it was easy to find groups with it. I’m hoping that in WAR healers have a more traditional healing role, or we’ll just see more of the same from AoC - where “healer” popularity has overtaken the DPS. I use the “healer” term lightly for AoC because I view most people who play them as not people who would play a traditional healer, they were just looking for the FOTM.
Comment from Openedge1
Time: July 14, 2008, 4:43 am
We need to understand that the PoM and ToS are specced in AoC as the most powerful classes. A majority of Melee classes cannot even make it through the game unless they are in a group (with a ToS, PoM or BS) and the the damage output for these classes are still ridiculously overpowered.
As soon as the nerf bat hits we may see a difference in that respect.
But, as an overall, I have always played the healer, thans to the husband wife dynamic of my gaming.
This may explain the abundance of players being healers.
As to WAR, I will be interested in the standard Tank/Heal/Spank combo, but with some races missing their melee, tank classes, this could be weird.
Will wait and see.
Later
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Comment from SwS
Time: July 13, 2008, 6:47 pm
Healers are a tough thing to balance. I personally believe healers are made to heal, not DPS. I believe they should have to pick what they want, the WoW formula is a good one in that respect. The reason ToS and PoM were so popular at first (Don’t know now since I haven’t played in abotu a month) was because they were unkillable and did massive amounts of dps. That’s not balanced.
Like I said, I am a strong believer if you choose a healing class… you are there to heal. If you want to do lots of damage, you play a DPS, etc. Granted this changes a bit with things like specializing in the equation. I’m also not saying healers should have no damage, but they should be no where near the level of a DPS class, like they were in AoC. Healers and Tanks should have similar dps, I think that’s a good balance.