Add the Healer class to DDO

[azrael4h]

The real question is in a game where the fast paced action system is well known to be its soul superior trait over other MMOs new and old alike, why should anyone be put in a position where that aspect is completely denied them?

Problem is that some people actively seek to do just that to Clerics and Favored Souls. This gives those players a class specifically aimed at what they want; a baby sitter.

[taurean430]

/signed.

And when they do this they can give Cleric's their domains and some of their significant missing spells. You know, the stuff they gutted with a chainsaw when introducing the class to DDO.

A DDO Cleric makes a PnP cry salty tears of shame.

[dennison_brillo]

so your wanting a Cloistered Cleric. I just couldn't see anyone playing a healer they are too limited it would be like a FVS without all the goodies. Idk I just don't see the need. Clerics get free heals, FVS's get pretty good heals, and druids get heal over time (not to forget monk,bard,pally,and any toon with UMD). I think there are lots of options for healing already.

[azrael4h]

so your wanting a Cloistered Cleric. I just couldn't see anyone playing a healer they are too limited it would be like a FVS without all the goodies. Idk I just don't see the need. Clerics get free heals, FVS's get pretty good heals, and druids get heal over time (not to forget monk,bard,pally,and any toon with UMD). I think there are lots of options for healing already.

That's not the point. I've already explained the reasoning behind asking for the class. Repeatedly.

[donfilibuster]

That's not the point. I've already explained the reasoning behind asking for the class. Repeatedly.

Yeah, a native healbot with healing related abilities instead of turn undead or fvs abilities.
However there's the issue with all the classes are kind of balanced, to let people play em in the way of completionist, wether they want a focused role, solo or mix.

The original Healer has like zero offensive power and that's appropiate for its setting.
(only the fvs is fit to questing, the marshal and warmage are rather focused on the battle theme)
In DDO an absolutely pure healer is going to need party, not to say there's not players already doing that.
(but the fvs in ddo can still use light damage if they dump combat and casting stats)

To fix this there's a number of options and no need to reinvent the wheel if drawing stuff from PnP.

First the obvious, let the companion be powerful.
The unicorn could be changed to other monsters, the book used a Lamassu in the example.
(one of those can beat the panther figurine any day)
Maybe take it further and give healer summon monster, maybe augment summoning for free.

For the defensive, it'd need more than healing spells.
DDO still lacks the mighty Sanctuary spell, but it'd be similar to one of those epic destinies that put you on invis with diplo.
It may be a good excuse to come up with more from those non-dps classic spells cut off from ddo.
Spiritual weapon, hide from undead, silence, antilife shell, and so on.

For the offensive, an interesting option is to give it non-core light (blinding) spells, not the searing damage ones but the blinding ones.
The BoED has a few, along with some good (aligned) spells that are good (to have), for blinding.
(imo going exalted is much more interesting than a healbot but that'd be off topic and each to their own)

Having to fall back to bare minimum dps is ugly, but against blinded foes it'd be at least free flanking.
(healer has 1/2 bab, simple weapons and light armor and shields, provided they are not metal)

On top of that you can throw some more useful PrEs like those i mentioned earlier.
The combat medic has evasion and the hierophant has SLAs and free maximize, and there's others.

[SirValentine]

There is a literal 'Healer' class in D&D 3.5e.

I don't object, especially if it helps reduce all the nonsense about "Clerics are healers!" that gets spewed around.

- Passive past life can be +1 Spell pen, +10hp, mirroring FvS PL and Barb PL, but providing incentive to desire to run it.

For a class that won't have offensive casting, I don't see how Spell Penetration is at all appropriate for a Past Life benefit.

See how many run this one after getting the past lives for their completionists and casters.
<snip>
I'd truly like to see how many would like a true Healer-only class, and who would run that beyond getting a past life.

There are some folks who honestly like being hjealbots. They're not that common, but there are a few out there. If a Healer class was clearly better than a Cleric or FvS at the healing role, they would play it.

[Silverleafeon]

Yeah, a native healbot with healing related abilities instead of turn undead or fvs abilities.
However there's the issue with all the classes are kind of balanced, to let people play em in the way of completionist, wether they want a focused role, solo or mix.

The original Healer has like zero offensive power and that's appropiate for its setting.
(only the fvs is fit to questing, the marshal and warmage are rather focused on the battle theme)
In DDO an absolutely pure healer is going to need party, not to say there's not players already doing that.
(but the fvs in ddo can still use light damage if they dump combat and casting stats)

To fix this there's a number of options and no need to reinvent the wheel if drawing stuff from PnP.

First the obvious, let the companion be powerful.
The unicorn could be changed to other monsters, the book used a Lamassu in the example.
(one of those can beat the panther figurine any day)
Maybe take it further and give healer summon monster, maybe augment summoning for free.

For the defensive, it'd need more than healing spells.
DDO still lacks the mighty Sanctuary spell, but it'd be similar to one of those epic destinies that put you on invis with diplo.
It may be a good excuse to come up with more from those non-dps classic spells cut off from ddo.
Spiritual weapon, hide from undead, silence, antilife shell, and so on.

For the offensive, an interesting option is to give it non-core light (blinding) spells, not the searing damage ones but the blinding ones.
The BoED has a few, along with some good (aligned) spells that are good (to have), for blinding.
(imo going exalted is much more interesting than a healbot but that'd be off topic and each to their own)

Having to fall back to bare minimum dps is ugly, but against blinded foes it'd be at least free flanking.
(healer has 1/2 bab, simple weapons and light armor and shields, provided they are not metal)

On top of that you can throw some more useful PrEs like those i mentioned earlier.
The combat medic has evasion and the hierophant has SLAs and free maximize, and there's others.

Interesting reading.
Perhaps after Swordmage and a few others.

[Silverleafeon]

IIRC the pen and paper Healer class was worse at healing than a cleric (although I could be wrong, the books are in a box at the moment).

I studied this in detail, hunting every 3.5 book every release for a better healer than the base cleric along with the options from the player's handbook two. The cleric with or without splat books beats any other healer in 3.5 edition.

I'd much rather they tweak the Bard and the Druid to make both viable end-game healers (possibly by breaking from 3.5 traditions like 'Bards cannot cast Heal without UMD').

Reviewing the bard class is highly recommened by this completionist.


The problem with a noncombative healer is that sooner or later you must fight foes for one reason or another.
Sorry but I tried it and that is the nature of DDO...

We probably will get more millage out of a few "healer" presigue classes for favored soul, bard, and druid in the long run.

[Silverleafeon]

Title. There is a literal 'Healer' class in D&D 3.5e.

My all time favorite class, I can understand your liking it.

Would like to see the Marshal class as well as someday.

There are soooo many good classes/races available.

[Chai]

Yeah the "healer" class had MMO written all over it. Since cleric and FvS are more proactive mitigation devices, they tried to create a healer that was more of a reactive damage recovery archtype. In most MMOs theres at least one class that plays like that. Most people looked at it, make a snoring noise, then rolled up their cleric or other divine that had some offensive/defensive balance.

[Gizeh]

I have difficulties understanding your intent, OP.

You say there are a lot of cleric and favored soul players who don't like to heal others, and your solution is introducing a class that can do nothing but heal others.

The only people I can see playing such a class are completionists, and they will run 10/9 splits, or even 5/14 splits with a +5 LR heart.

[kilagan800]

At first I disagreed with the OP, but i'm starting to think that this is a great idea that will work well with the game.

When clerics were first designed they were warrior-healers much like palidins, but were later seperated into two classes: The fighting priest (cleric) and the holy knight (palidin). With that being said, making a pure defensive healer certainly makes sense, just as long as it's a desirable class to play, and not something that you're forced to follow the barbs around like a lost puppy.

[azrael4h]

I have difficulties understanding your intent, OP.

You say there are a lot of cleric and favored soul players who don't like to heal others, and your solution is introducing a class that can do nothing but heal others.

Probably because you're too busy trolling and making ad hominem attacks.

Divine casters heal, all day long. They just won't heal people like you.

[azrael4h]

For a class that won't have offensive casting, I don't see how Spell Penetration is at all appropriate for a Past Life benefit.

I wanted the past life to be desirable, actually. Unlike the Druid one. Hence the 10hp (everybody could make use of a life or two for that, though I doubt most would run specifically for it), Spell Pen (desired by all DC casters, especially now), and an active with 10% healing amp (desired by anyone competent) and a heal clicky (meh, but useful in a pinch maybe).

Silverleaf, I said this should be packaged with a Gish class. I just didn't say which one.

[Gizeh]

Probably because you're too busy trolling and making ad hominem attacks.

Divine casters heal, all day long. They just won't heal people like you.

Ok, maybe I misunderstood you, but I still see no point in a pure healer class. You can build a cleric or a favored soul to be a healing specialist, so what's the point of a class that cannot do anything but heal? And more importantly, can you see yourself having fun playing such a character?

[donfilibuster]

Ok, maybe I misunderstood you, but I still see no point in a pure healer class. You can build a cleric or a favored soul to be a healing specialist, so what's the point of a class that cannot do anything but heal? And more importantly, can you see yourself having fun playing such a character?

Because some players play the MMO roles and build their party accordingly, min/max etc.
Some others don't of course, going for versatility or customization.

It was not long ago that Shroud runs would limit access to one caster, limited room for bard/rogue/ranger
and no battleclerics, wanting dedicated healers and even then not too many or dps would suffer.
Was repeteadly proven it was up to player skill, but leaders keep wanting easy runs.
Nowadays it is much much easier and everyone can join a Shroud or at least there's no such nonsense.
Point is, players that wanted healbots likely wanted them for raids, say VoD or ToD.

Then there's the players that want a healbot for support or just tagging along.
Inviting the GF is one exapmle, but there's all sorts of people that are just in for the fun.
A healbot maybe boring but it's easy to find parties to get carried up to cap.
These days you can reach 4000+ sp on a fvs with little offensive casting, but they still have light and bbs.

At the very least they can play punch bag and last a while.
Unfortunately the Healer class has low armor and few buffs, altough good ones like sanctuary.

Still the big rule of splatbooks is to use things where appropiate and for DDO the healer should be adapted.
Even if dumping the offensive they still need stuff like fast movement to catch up with the zergers

[sephiroth1084]

Really, the game should have never been designed with the thought of needing a healer in any group. As I said in another thread, my D&D sessions often had no casters in the group, and no one who could heal more often than that. But as that would take a redesign, it'll never happen.

Well, it wasn't really. It developed that way. You can get through the early game without a healer, and really only need one for a few quests, and for raids. This largely mimics D&D 3.5. The problem DDO ran into is that there isn't a live DM that can adjust the game on the fly to match whatever party composition walks into the dungeon the way a DM can in pen and paper, so what you end up with is either dungeons that are way too easy for groups that have a healer, or bard, or crowd controller, or quests that are too hard for groups without one or more of those.

Which do you choose? How do you balance the game? With the dungeon scaling tech they have now, maybe dungeons could be designed to function differently if class X, Y or Z are present or not, but then you start running into situations where it's better to NOT have one of those classes, because the dungeon is easier without them at all than it is with them, especially in places where the content is hard enough that you can't rely on having the support of that class full time. If dungeons scale up to assume players have bard buffs when a bard is there, what happens to the group when the bard dies and the buffs run out, or the bard leaves the party? Now you're playing a dungeon scaled up to account for +6 attack/+8 damage/+4% Dodge/Haste/Blur but you don't have any of those things.

The same goes for healers. If damage scales up significantly when you get a healer in the group, then everyone not getting healed is is much worse shape than they probably were without a healer in the first place, and if you bring a mediocre or bad healer, you're that much worse off.

Add to that the MMO-ized inflation of stats, damage and healing, and you end up with situations where you need a healer, because incoming damage has been scaled up too far for personal healing on non-casters to be sufficient--it has to keep pace with player HP, damage, AC, and healing amplification.

We could dial DDO back to where no one has anything better than a +10 weapon at level 20, and probably had nothing better than a +1 weapon until level 5 or so, and where acquiring a second +6 stat item (let alone a 3rd, 4th 5th or 6th) is a big deal, where races and classes don't grant an additional +4 bonus to a stat, and players aren't gaining hundreds of HP from gear, but everyone would quit the game.

So what do you do?

[gphysalis]

You did notice the part about healers not being able to refuse healing someone in the PnP version, right?

Ultimate piker class:
1) Enter dungeon
2) walk away from computer
3) let AI heal other people for you
4) Come back to computer
5) Loot chest (presumably there was some fighting near the chest, so you aren't too far away)
6) profit


edit: really awful class
besides the can't refuse healing to any ally or good aligned character

can't wear metal armor (like the druid)

can't use a shield

has no offensive spells
(DCs based on cha and spells based on wis, but with no offensive spells, this doen't actually matter)

benefit:
adds cha bonus to amount healed by spells
unicorn companion

[donfilibuster]

Gotta say the Couatl is a darn good companion, from the alternates list.
Dismissing the unicorn merely takes away its devotion, SR and a few bonuses.

I'd say that list should be expanded, picking from other ecl lists like the one for exalted cohorts.
Blink dog at 6, Pegasus even, Werebear at 10 (or bearwere, for that matters), Lillend at 14.

[cocoax]

I disagree. I have a cleric that has very, very poor dps. But its heals are nice.