It seems that the more I play an evoker...

[HastyPudding]

...the more I turn into a healbot. o.O

Seriously. I wanted to try an offensive FVS, but I am frequently finding myself going into a cleric mindset. I mean, I love the soloability of an evoker, but I keep watching red bars more than I'm using my blade barrier or flame strike (lvl 14, atm). I like happy, healthy red bars; black bars make me sad.

And really, apart from the lack of damage, what is wrong with healbots? I have to say, I thoroughly enjoy being full support, and buffing and healing to my heart's content, but it seems to me that all other evokers I see are offense first and 'the rest of you bring pots, my sp is for BB'. I just can't get in that mindset of 'attack attack attack' unless I'm on a sorcerer and I have flashy stuff to play with. I found myself being jealous of the FVS I saw today who had a massive SP bar and tons of HP (a cha/con build) who was happily healing away.

Is there really no space in DDO for those of us who enjoy being HEALERS? This happen to anyone else?

[Mubjon]

Why not do both?

Offensive cast and if someone is in trouble toss a cure/heal :D If they die, then they die and they should have bought some of their own pots or scrolls along to help out.

[Claransa]

I play a human FvS, melee based, and I toss all kinds of heals out to players that manage to be near enough and in line of sight at the time but i am not a healbot.

Its not really about being a healbot, an evoker or melee based, that's just your personal play style. The real issue is about being someone's nannybot. Team work is one thing, carrying someone through a quest is something else.

Complicating this is the fact that some people seem to grow very dependant on this treatment very fast and in some cases make the mistake of assigning this as the role of the class, not realizing that DDO does not follow contemporary class roles as established in other games.

There is NO healer class in DDO, never has been never will be. Some players, like yourself, may enjoy playing the healer role but that too is just a matter of personal playstyle.

Power too you, if you enjoy this role. I would just ask that you not to spend too much effort carrying people through quests if its obvious they're not even trying to keep up their end of the team effort, which in DDO mainly means self sufficiency includes sometimes self buffing and self healing. Every class has the means of doing this through in game items.

Peace,

[GermanicusMaximus]

I'm not sure that you have what I would call a cleric mindset. My cleric has led the kill count in all caster eChronos and all caster elite Shrouds. He also oftens leads the kill count in hard Shrouds with a traditional "balanced" party -- he just needs to squeeze in his kills between heals.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with just standing back and throwing heals. To do so requires a willingness to prioritize group objectives over your individual objectives. The ability to do so is a sign of maturity, something probably lacking in someone who would look down upon a divine caster who chose to only be a healer.

A divine caster who only throws heals is probably one of the most valuable members of a party. A divine caster who can successfully mix healing and offensive casting is even more valuable. That kind of multi-tasking takes practice in order to become proficient.

[MeliCat]

Depends on the group.

I do like being a healer and I overly fuss about red bars at times. I have one zergist friend who would run ahead and remain at quarter hp on his barb just to annoy me ie he really didn't need help and was fine soloing - it was just me fussing. Bars with only a little bit of red inherently distress me.

I think part the 'go drink a pot' crowd are just reacting to the demandingness of some who may be used to the concept of a healer type in different games. And really with some of the outright rudeness and lack of consideration I've met in some partiness I can totally understand why they subscribe to this view.

There are also the self-sufficient elitests who really don't need a healer, who see anyone who likes just focusing on healing as lazy and an inadequate player.

When I first started this game it took me a long time to learn to heal in time and appropriately, to learn to buff appropriately and when and with what. I'm still learning tweaks and efficiencies. However it has got to a point where I get bored if *all* I am allowed to do is heal. I want smash stuff with my clonk to add debuffs (not dps - she's not built that way), I want to do spell damage and CC with my leftover sp. A group that you're just keeping alive and nothing else can get boring for some. But sometimes I find it relaxing to just tag along and help out keeping people out while they go all out dpsing or whatever - it makes them faster and more efficient in getting stuff done and I get a visceral joy at their prowess while bumming a completion :P

[JasonJi72]

When I play an evoker fvs, I constantly remind everyone that I am not a healer. I really am just joking about it, and the truth is that, with the exception of Raids, I do not heal in the beginning of combat. For me there are 3 phases to every encounter when I play a divine.

Phase I: Crowd Control, Nuking, and positioning.

Phase II: Heal, Ressurect, and look for / prevent, situations that might turn into a 'we are so gonna die' situation.

Phase III: Mop up, and giving a healing boost so the party can save some resources.

[DDOisFree]

I fully welcome non healing pure evoker FVSs to join any of my groups :)

My PM doesnt need heals, my Mech Rogue carrries full stacks of heal and ressurect scrolls (Yes ressurect not raise dead, godly UMD rogue :D), and my WF Arti has full stacks of heal, recon, and ressurect scrolls as well as the recon spell ofc.

In fact, I waste all my plat on scrolls so your FVS can just focus on nuking! But I only heal others in absolute emergencies.... They should heal themselves!

The only problem with melee classes is Turbines refusal to give them better potions / self healing. Pallys and Monks can self heal, but they are very limited. I hope that turbine will give melees and rangers a much needed buff in the self sufficiency department in the future.

[Jaid314]

The only problem with melee classes is Turbines refusal to give them better potions / self healing. Pallys and Monks can self heal, but they are very limited. I hope that turbine will give melees and rangers a much needed buff in the self sufficiency department in the future.

monks and paladins have ridiculous self-sufficiency, even with very minimal healing gear. what they need is to have their killing power improved a bit.

[sirgog]

I find when playing a divine, actively healing takes ~10% of my time if I'm not conserving mana (quickened maximized mass cures), and ~30% if I am conserving (Mass Heal, Heal scrolls).

The other 70-90% of the time, I contribute in a non-healing way. Melee/Energy Drain/DP on my FvS, but other builds usually do some combination of Implosion, Destruction, Slay Living, Cometfall, Greater Command, DP.

[CodyGenX]

The best heal is the one you dont have to throw. If its dead it cant kill your mates.

[DarkForte]

On the issue of liking full red bars, I think it takes some time before you can get to terms with the fact that people do not need to be at capped health most of the time - special situations such as keeping your horoth tank alive not withstanding - and if they REALLY feel that need, they can always chug a pot after the fight. You tend to get a feel for how much damage they can take before they are in that 'danger zone'. This depends not only in how much damage they take, but also when they are taking that damage.

On the issue of offense over defense: sometimes you can kill mobs with less resources by grinding them into blades than the other 10 melees by hitting on them while you heal them (happened to me in an elite at-level VoN 5, where I pretty much had to kill Arach's Knight alone while the melees kept dogs busy). A lot of the time, you can't. Either thinking that it is always the case, or believing that it is never so, is very wrong. Playing an evoker means that you need to know when to do CC and heal, when to do instant kills and heal and when you need to use all your time to heal.

[HastyPudding]

Thanks, guys.

I get the point of the evoker, of being able to heal when necessary in order to focus on damage. But, I just constantly feel the need to make sure people don't die, and often find myself going out of the way to help others. Call it a nannybot if you want, but I certainly don't hold people's hands or heal the people that rush ahead of the traps, etc. I don't hold people's hands, but I find myself healing more than attacking simply because I want to help.

I throw down a BB or use flame strike when it's necessary and also heal when necessary (like when your party is caster or melee based that kills so quickly that using BB is a waste of SP if it's only going to get a single hit), and also love to play with Command (and GC once I get it). I know the feeling of '****, lost my buffs' and it sucks, even if people have grown dependent on them, so I like to make sure people don't die. When somebody on the other side of the quest has a low HP bar, I find myself clicking their name in a paranoid manner to get it to light up.

I try to put offense ahead of defense maybe in a 60/40 ratio, but more often than not, I recently find myself playing a healbot, and to be honest, I actually prefer it. Like somebody said, I like to prioritize the group's objectives before my own. Let the melee boast of their kill counts and save more mobs so the wiz can say they just wailed 12 mobs at once. Doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when I'm using BB and have aggro, and then other people get low on health and I have to prioritize myself to heal first, possibly causing others to die simply because I was fighting; regardless if they say 'it's the healer's fault' or not or if they're self-sufficient (sometimes it's hard to be self sufficient for some classes). If somebody dies in a quest, I somehow felt it was my fault for not putting that DW on them, or that extra aid/bless, or healing them instead of using blade barrier, even though I know it's really not.

Tl;DR I really want the Beacon of Hope PrE for FVS.

[sirgog]

Healing requires a lot less actions on your part once you get to higher level.

At level 8, a group where 3 people have taken a lot of damage takes maybe 9 spells to patch up.

At level 13 that's 3 spells (Heal x3).

At level 19 it's 1 spell (albeit one that takes 2½ seconds to cast).

[aristarchus1000]

At first, I was like the OP. Then, I started to notice that in some groups, I would watch the health bars and... nothing would happen. Well run groups with good cc and self sufficient characters didn't really need me for 90% of the time, so I started looking into how could contribute when I didn't need to heal.

Learning how to play a cleric or a favored soul well takes time, and i believe that you are just in a stage.

[HastyPudding]

At first, I was like the OP. Then, I started to notice that in some groups, I would watch the health bars and... nothing would happen. Well run groups with good cc and self sufficient characters didn't really need me for 90% of the time, so I started looking into how could contribute when I didn't need to heal.

Learning how to play a cleric or a favored soul well takes time, and i believe that you are just in a stage.

Also in a stage where my leveling partners surged ahead of me and are now too high to party with me, thus leaving me to rely on pugs and the occasional TR farming LFM I find. I'm a horrible leader, and even worse at making LFMs. In all honesty, I get the worst DDO has to offer when I make LFMs, like 5/5 wiz/sorc or melee deepwood snipers, or some other near-useless build (I've really seen both of those build during this life).

[pHo3nix]

There are also the self-sufficient elitests who really don't need a healer, who see anyone who likes just focusing on healing as lazy and an inadequate player.


I'm far from elitest, but i love self-sufficiency. When a cleric/fvs joins my party i'm really disappointed if they just heal.

I mean, healing requires at most 10% of your time, what are you going to do for the remaining 90%? Pike? :)

[Isharah]

Tl;DR I really want the Beacon of Hope PrE for FVS.

I share the same sentiment on my FvS. :(

[EvilI]

At level cap there are rather few evokers who are geared well enought to contribute to CC, and instakills are *meh* when Implosion is on cooldown because they need to be targeted at low fort mobs or prepped with energy drain first.

What I find turns you into a heal-bot in that situation is when the rest of your party fails to understand and take advantage of the power of your main damage dealing capability, aka blade barrier. It can easily clear out a room of mobs in the same time and with less sp used than a full group of melee - unless they grab aggro and keep the mobs standing still in the middle of it. That spell simply does not encourage grouping. But if it was designed any other way it would be beyond broken...

[HastyPudding]

At level cap there are rather few evokers who are geared well enought to contribute to CC, and instakills are *meh* when Implosion is on cooldown because they need to be targeted at low fort mobs or prepped with energy drain first.

What I find turns you into a heal-bot in that situation is when the rest of your party fails to understand and take advantage of the power of your main damage dealing capability, aka blade barrier. It can easily clear out a room of mobs in the same time and with less sp used than a full group of melee - unless they grab aggro and keep the mobs standing still in the middle of it. That spell simply does not encourage grouping. But if it was designed any other way it would be beyond broken...

That's what I can't stand; it happened in Chains of Flame yesterday, on my FVS. I saw a fairly large group of gnolls going towards the party and I ran towards them ahead of my allies, dropping a BB midway to grab aggro and bring them back. I was going to plan to kite them around the BB, as usual, but what does the melee do; rush towards them, and kill them in the middle of it or off to the side, negating the SP I just used to make their fighting easier.

When I'm on my monk, I see a BB and I run towards it, making full use of the damage I know it can give. Even if I'm in the middle of fighting a mob by myself, I run towards the barrier; it makes my job easier. Fewer hits I need to give means I can move on to another mob, making the quest go faster. Only in the higher levels do I see people use BB correctly; rush towards the BB, give a few hits, then move to the other side of the barrier, rinse, repeat. It's even more fun on my AA, where I can help kite things through the barrier.

People need to learn how BB works; it doesn't do constant damage like firewall or acid rain. Enemies need to be moved THROUGH the blades, not just sit in them. It makes me think of the Wall of Blades from NWN, where it takes the form of firewall, only it's not fire, but a straight line of moving blade. If it took that form, I think people would better understand it.

[sweez]

Hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you are an enabler :p

If that makes you happy, go for it though. Problem is, as long as you keep topping people off they'll never learn to take better care of themselves, and then when they get in a group with a divine that prefers to blow stuff up, they'll give them a hard time and make their gameplay less enjoyable.

You'll find that most people that deserve your heals, don't really need them anyway (as long as we're not talking raids and more difficult epics).

[muffinlad]

That's what I can't stand; it happened in Chains of Flame yesterday, on my FVS. I saw a fairly large group of gnolls going towards the party and I ran towards them ahead of my allies, dropping a BB midway to grab aggro and bring them back. I was going to plan to kite them around the BB, as usual, but what does the melee do; rush towards them, and kill them in the middle of it or off to the side, negating the SP I just used to make their fighting easier.

When I'm on my monk, I see a BB and I run towards it, making full use of the damage I know it can give. Even if I'm in the middle of fighting a mob by myself, I run towards the barrier; it makes my job easier. Fewer hits I need to give means I can move on to another mob, making the quest go faster. Only in the higher levels do I see people use BB correctly; rush towards the BB, give a few hits, then move to the other side of the barrier, rinse, repeat. It's even more fun on my AA, where I can help kite things through the barrier.

People need to learn how BB works; it doesn't do constant damage like firewall or acid rain. Enemies need to be moved THROUGH the blades, not just sit in them. It makes me think of the Wall of Blades from NWN, where it takes the form of firewall, only it's not fire, but a straight line of moving blade. If it took that form, I think people would better understand it.

This! Well said. Blade Barrier is NOT just to raise up the caster's kill count....USE IT to kite your enemies though, and reduce the hit points you have to work off of them....

muffinblades