Misuse of the word "Healer"
By
Acyl,
Posted on: 2009-05-15 19:43 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Good Empaths do far less healing than buffing. At least that's been my experience when teaming with good Empaths. i've been on teams with mediocre to bad Empaths that quit because the buffs and debuffs from other team members made healing largely unneeded beyond patching up minor damage. Many of them had taken the Medicine pool in place of non-healing powers like Fortitude, Adrenaline Boost and Clear Mind. Others has some of those powers but would only use them after repeated requests.
i've also teamed with good Empaths who would toss Clear Mind on debuffers when fighting mezzing opponents, throw Fortitude on any teammate who tended to receive extra aggro and generally supported the team by buffing those who needed it and tossing out a heal when required. They didn't sulk and eventually quit when they had no reason to generate green numbers, instead they helped turn the team into a juggernaut.
Empathy in the hands of a good player is not primarily a healing set by the mid levels.
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Thank you so much for posting this. I am in complete agreement with you. I love playing my empath. But I don't just heal. I have Buffs, which I use as much as possible (always), and I do enjoy getting to use my secondary. Now are there occasions when the "Oh $&!+" heal is needed? Yes, but not all that often, and that is fine with me. Yes I am a "healor," but I don't advertise as such. LVL 50 DEF LFT.
If you define "healer" as someone who stands in the back and only heals, yes healers suck.
If you define "healer" as someone who is pretty good at "healing" then they are not bad to have around.
The word "Defender" doesn't cover it because a Controller can very easily fit the role of "healer."
No one complains about the word "bubbler."
We all have too much free time.
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I think that was the point of the statement.
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The statement was:
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a "healer" is highly desirable if not outright required
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(On lolsewer teams.) The poster framed it as a "heals vs. buffs" question, so I had to say a little something about buffs. But I mainly wanted to talk about debuffs, which are already way better than heals even on lolsewer teams.
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But I mainly wanted to talk about debuffs, which are already way better than heals even on lolsewer teams.
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Since everyone knows a Defender armed with Flash Arrow, Glue Arrow, Ice Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow and a single target blast is going to make the team completely survivable. Nevermind that, at the time the sewers are initially entered, said Defender probably only has Flash and Glue. (I'm giving the best case scenario here and skipping Entangling Arrow altogether).
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I think that was the point of the statement.
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The statement was:
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a "healer" is highly desirable if not outright required
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(On lolsewer teams.) The poster framed it as a "heals vs. buffs" question, so I had to say a little something about buffs. But I mainly wanted to talk about debuffs, which are already way better than heals even on lolsewer teams.
[/ QUOTE ]Are healers needed Yes and No. It all depends on the team. Tank and scrapper teams with heals not so much. Ones with squisher arch-types or none healing tanks/srappers may need one. It should not be no team every needs a healer. That is looking for trouble becuse it all depends on what your fighting and a ton of other factores so like i sayed. Are healers needed Yes and No. 
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Glue Arrow's nice, but the real best case scenario would be Darkest Night and Radiation Infection.
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But I mainly wanted to talk about debuffs, which are already way better than heals even on lolsewer teams.
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Since everyone knows a Defender armed with Flash Arrow, Glue Arrow, Ice Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow and a single target blast is going to make the team completely survivable. Nevermind that, at the time the sewers are initially entered, said Defender probably only has Flash and Glue. (I'm giving the best case scenario here and skipping Entangling Arrow altogether).
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Actually it can. Glue Arrow alone stops a lot of incoming damage.
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Short of Hamidon and the high-end strikeforces, I have yet to see a situation in this game where more buffs/debuffs would not be preferable to heals.
If you've capped +DEF, +RES, and the equivalent debuffs on the enemy, and you still need heals, you're doing it wrong.
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Maybe they don't want to wait for just the right defender who can cap everything with just the right amound of buffs and debuffs, and a frickin heal of any sort will cap their hp just fine and dandy. There is no reason on Earth to just avoid heals for the sake of avoiding them, and debuffs with a heal is a nice quick way to get rolling without advertising for a ________ (insert your desired favorite AT here).
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You persist in your delusion of claiming I avoid heals. I could claim, and with more validity, that you are avoiding buffs. When I look for a defender/controller/MM/Corruptor, I am looking for heals. And buffs. And debuffs. And blasts. And control. And soaking ability. And more.
But YOU are defending the term "healer." You would exclude a TA player, or a Kin who skipped Transfusion. Exclude a FF or Traps character. Sonic or Ice. Sets with powerful abilities that could shift the tide of battle before the heals (that don't help much against alphas or lag) you so desire.
You are excluding, not me. You are promoting the use of imprecise terminology from other games, a trait that demonstrates either an unwillingness or inability to adapt to a system that is not the triad of tank-healer-dps.
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I said that they may want a person with healing abilities and may be just fine for buffs and debuffs. They would no doubt be happy with extra buffs or debuffs. I have sought people with a heal power of some sort more than once.
You speak as one of those who immediately falls into a gran mal siezure when the word heal is even mentioned. These boards are filled with such haters of the word heal or healer. It just defies logic. This is the only game where I have seen such anti-heal fanatics.
Im finding that people just use 'healer' in lieu of 'support type' or defender.
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Actually it can. Glue Arrow alone stops a lot of incoming damage.
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Ok, I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you, but now we're promoting science fiction. Glue Arrow is an AoE slow that provides -20% recharge. This is the same amount of -Recharge as, for example, an Ice Controller's Frostbite. It's not useless, but it is not going to fill the void for a low level team that is taking lots of collateral damage and would like for their as-yet unshielded Scrappers to stop dying.
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You speak as one of those who immediately falls into a gran mal siezure when the word heal is even mentioned. These boards are filled with such haters of the word heal or healer. It just defies logic. This is the only game where I have seen such anti-heal fanatics.
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Funny that, how I've spent so much time playing Empathy Defenders despite hating heals violently. We don't hate the word heal. We hate the word "healer" coming out of the mouth of those who are ignorant and resistant to accepting that debuffs>buffs>heals.
"Healers" mainly irk me when they spam advertise in broadcast for selfish gains. Inevitably when I see one 'lvl XX healer' broadcast, 2 or 3 more pop up from others right behind it. People realize that team leaders go crazy about picking up a healer and even if their build has only 1 so-so single target heal with an average recharge, they pass themselves off as "healers" and they're almost guaranteed to get picked up in the next minute, depending where they broadcast.
I personally couldn't care if a player has heals or not. Defenders buff and debuff with their primary power set while controllers control with theirs. This is what I look for in broadcast, a player's AT. The "healer" broadcasts communicate to me that those players believe they have a sole function to heal and nothing more.
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By the way, as to why people get the idea that having a healer is important early on, it's because early on a healer, *is* extremely effective. I'm sure someone can come up with an obscure build to try to prove this wrong, but that fist run through the sewers is made ten times easier if someone can heal.
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and its made even easier than that if you bring Force field defenders instead for the stacking 40% toxic resists.
Or cold for the defense buffs that make mob just plain miss a lot.
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Is it really worth excluding a whopping 3 sets, to use your pet stereotypical term?
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Its an MMO, the term go "Tank" or go "scrap" are both stereotypical, its not a means to offend, but used in short. Helps people just get to the work need be done. If I ask for a "healer", I'm asking for someone with at the very least, one heal. If you've been playing the game for more than a month, than you would know that most if not all "healers" come with debuffs/buffs. But as I posted before, its all a matter of wanting heals. I know an emp will come with RA's, Fort and CM, I know a Kins will come with FC, SB, and Transf, you see where I'm going with this?. As a vereran I know what I mean when I ask for a "healer" on the team.
If you don't like being called a healer, then may I advise some serious time with a psychologist, someone is in need of a hug or a cookie. You could also of course try to define what a healer is. You could look at it as; a healer is someone who makes sure his/her team is kept "healthy", making sure everyone is safe and patched up accordingly. Either way your nitpicking something that has been encrusted into the annals of MMO's.
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Actually it can. Glue Arrow alone stops a lot of incoming damage.
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Ok, I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you, but now we're promoting science fiction. Glue Arrow is an AoE slow that provides -20% recharge. This is the same amount of -Recharge as, for example, an Ice Controller's Frostbite. It's not useless, but it is not going to fill the void for a low level team that is taking lots of collateral damage and would like for their as-yet unshielded Scrappers to stop dying.
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But it does keep the people of of melee range of blasters... That alone is a huge survivability boost.
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I generally agree that preventing damage is better than healing it afterwards. What I've seen in-game though is that many times, when you have that damage mitigation on a team and nobody's taking any damage...... you turn up the difficulty until people do start taking damage, making heals very welcome.
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Is it really worth excluding a whopping 3 sets, to use your pet stereotypical term?
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Its an MMO, the term go "Tank" or go "scrap" are both stereotypical, its not a means to offend, but used in short. Helps people just get to the work need be done. If I ask for a "healer", I'm asking for someone with at the very least, one heal. If you've been playing the game for more than a month, than you would know that most if not all "healers" come with debuffs/buffs. But as I posted before, its all a matter of wanting heals. I know an emp will come with RA's, Fort and CM, I know a Kins will come with FC, SB, and Transf, you see where I'm going with this?. As a vereran I know what I mean when I ask for a "healer" on the team.
If you don't like being called a healer, then may I advise some serious time with a psychologist, someone is in need of a hug or a cookie. You could also of course try to define what a healer is. You could look at it as; a healer is someone who makes sure his/her team is kept "healthy", making sure everyone is safe and patched up accordingly. Either way your nitpicking something that has been encrusted into the annals of MMO's.
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At this point, you really should realise that 'healer' is not a useful term in this game. Plenty of support sets lack heals but can do just as much, if not more, than an Emp or Kin.
Y'wana know what's almost infinitely better than a 'Healer'?
A Controller. Specifically an Earth Controller with a tiny bit of cover.
Drop quicksand (no need for line of sight) then Earthquake(No need for Line of Sight) Then Volcanic Gasses (Anyone noticing a pattern here?)
The Controller has a 0.00% chance of getting hurt unless you're fighting Igneous, War Wolves, or Carnie Strongmen.
Meanwhile he's got the aggro and the enemy has a 20% to hit debuff when they -aren't- held or falling on their backsides. So pop around that corner for Stalagmites followed quicky by Stone Cages.
Congratulations. You've just lowered their defenses with Earthquake to ensure that your AoE Stun hits them all, making you almost impervious to retaliation. Then you dropped stone cages for added damage. Sure they're not falling on themselves anymore,but they're effectively held by the combination and by the AoE Pulsing Foe Hold.
In charges the group to finish the whole groups off in a bloody massacre.
No need for a Healer.
-Rachel-
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I know an emp will come with RA's, Fort and CM, I know a Kins will come with FC, SB, and Transf, you see where I'm going with this?.
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I wish the Empaths and, to a far lesser degree Kins, that end up on the same team as I had those guarantees. I remember one nasty PuG where all three Empaths the leader thought we desperately needed all only had Healing Aura, Heal Other, Absorb Pain, Ressurect, and the Medicine pool. All. Three. Of them. We wiped hard on the first mob.
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We don't hate the word heal. We hate the word "healer" coming out of the mouth of those who are ignorant and resistant to accepting that debuffs>buffs>heals.
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Exactly! There is no "healer" in this game, and quite honestly the only people who use that term are demonstrating their own ignorance and general stupidity.
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Is it really worth excluding a whopping 3 sets, to use your pet stereotypical term?
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Its an MMO, the term go "Tank" or go "scrap" are both stereotypical, its not a means to offend, but used in short. Helps people just get to the work need be done. If I ask for a "healer", I'm asking for someone with at the very least, one heal. If you've been playing the game for more than a month, than you would know that most if not all "healers" come with debuffs/buffs. But as I posted before, its all a matter of wanting heals. I know an emp will come with RA's, Fort and CM, I know a Kins will come with FC, SB, and Transf, you see where I'm going with this?. As a vereran I know what I mean when I ask for a "healer" on the team.
If you don't like being called a healer, then may I advise some serious time with a psychologist, someone is in need of a hug or a cookie. You could also of course try to define what a healer is. You could look at it as; a healer is someone who makes sure his/her team is kept "healthy", making sure everyone is safe and patched up accordingly. Either way your nitpicking something that has been encrusted into the annals of MMO's.
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At this point, you really should realise that 'healer' is not a useful term in this game. Plenty of support sets lack heals but can do just as much, if not more, than an Emp or Kin.
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What the Prof said.
As a "veteran" (I assume that's what you meant to say,) you should know by know by now how Defenders and Controllers bristle at the term "healer." Many of us do not like to be defined by a single ability. If you wish to limit yourself by requesting "h3al0rz" that's you prerogative.
When the response to your "We need a healer." tell is "Sorry, not a healer." You'll know why. I tend to avoid teams that 'need a healer' like the plague.
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We don't hate the word heal. We hate the word "healer" coming out of the mouth of those who are ignorant and resistant to accepting that debuffs>buffs>heals.
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Exactly! There is no "healer" in this game, and quite honestly the only people who use that term are demonstrating their own ignorance and general stupidity.
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level 16 emp/dark defender with only dark blast, all their empathy stuff, AND the medicine pool, named healbot457453257.
Would that NOT be considered a "healer?"
There are "healers" in the game. Thats their play choice.
I think of them in the same way as petless mm's.
Yeah, I guess that would be their choice to play that way, and they can deal with the consequences of their decision. I've already stated what it says about them if they honestly believe they are useful to a team.
There is not a single thing in this game a dedicated "healer" can do that a well balanced Empath cannot do as well. The opposite cannot be said.
And yet a well balanced Empath is a healer I.E. someone who heals.....
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And the only reason buffs aren't good at low levels are because they're not unlocked yet.
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I think that was the point of the statement.
Until level 12, every Empath is a healer whether they like it or not
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A "healer" who also has a primary/secondary as well. Before (and after) level 12 my Empaths are also shooters or controllers in addition to having heals. It's almost like they get more than one powerset, and those additional powersets do a useful amount of damage/control in the early game and even the late game if used well.
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