AE has caused a resurgence of the word "Healer"

False, it's an inaccurate title by definition. Every AT in the game is by DEFINITION a defender. As with the "scrapper title", everything by said definition "scraps". Scrapper being more accurate but still vague. I understand they don't have specific special abilities like Stalkers do, but alot of things in CoX are very vague.

Dominator
Corruptor
Brute.

By definition nothing matches. I understand it was the devs trying to be original but this is what happens when "original titles" are tried. Fail city.

Five + years of total fail. Just utter and complete fail. So much fail, they are dumping a lot more money and resources into the game so it can fail harder. Fail, fail, fail. City of Fail. Five years of failure and counting. Five years from now it will have been Decade of Fail.

I am ashamed I even play such a failure game.

That is being overly broad in your interpretation. The names of the different ATs identify what that AT does best while trying to stay true to the setting of the game and the abilities that AT brings to the table. "Healer" in this case isn't accurate since several of the sets don't have heals or have very minor heals. We could call them "supporters" but that sounds about as exciting as toast and might be misinterpreted for a type of undergarment.

thank you thank you thank you!!

Where were you when my poor butt-kicking rad/rad was ragged out for not spamming the heal aura? ugh, i just quit the team early. I couldn't stand it.

I'm either a buffer or a healer? What if I'm playing a set that has debuffs? What if I'm playing a set that can heal, buff, and debuff? We need a term that encompasses those rare characters that aren't one-dimensional. I propose the word "defender." This leaves specialized characters with self-imposed limitations free to use words like "healer" to announce their shortcomings to potential teammates.

While there are MMOGs that are designed to need healers, CoH is absolutely not one of them. Since this discussion is about CoH in specific rather than MMOGs in general, it's more appropriate to say, "Let's not try act like CoH needs 'healers', that's just erroneous."

The name of the archetype has nothing to do with why I don't call myself a "healer." It's because healing, while part of what I do, has never been the main or primary thing I do. That, and I actually understand the game.

MMO's, specifically CoX does not need "healers". If there is damage on a team I am going to add more. I am not going to stand in the corner waiting for people to take damage to play health bar whack-a-mole. That is not my job.

My job is to have fun. Fun in a game that is not rocket surgery and does not require any special AT to accomplish just about everything in the game outside of a Hami raid.

What about TA? It is neither a "healer" or "buffer"

Yep and it's played by failures all failing to quit too.

*Hangs head in shame*

Actually, you're the one who's wrong. CoH is NOT like other MMOs in that you Don't need the 'holy trinity'.

Double edged sword that swings all the way back to England.

Already made a post a few pages back saying that the holy trinity in this game is NOT a definitive. This is what happens when you don't take time to read and just wish to jump on anyone with an opinion that differs from you're own.

As I posted before, Defenders are a SUPPORT class, vague as it is, it applies more than Defender.

Support is vague deliberately, because there are many forms of support that a Defender can bring to a team.

They can buff their allies- to make them kill things faster with stronger and make accurate attacks and thus take less damage, or to decrease the attacks that hit, the damage they cause and the mez effects they come under.

They can debuff their enemies, causing them to do less damage, or die faster- and the faster enemies die, the less time they have to do damage, and the better your xp/minute ratio becomes.

Some can even mez enemies, which is why the Controller is as much a 'support' AT as the Defender.

And if all else fails they can heal the damage enemies deal, if the others live long enough to get healed.

The order in which I put those effects is not insignificant.

Agreed, my defenders support by shooting things in the face so they can't shot my mates.

In fact all of my characters support the team in a similar way. Or were you referring to support as babysitting a team?

Not that I encounter behaviors anywhere close to what most on the forums seem to contend with daily, but the last time I experienced this on my Kin, I twice had to inform the leader that I wasn't a healer and left the team-- not because I had a chip on my shoulder, but due to the fact that I could, and was, contributing far more with my other abilities, as opposed to spamming transfusion in the hopes of landing the power on the enemy, and then hopefully healing anyone within range who didn't bolt off as their bars dipped into orange.

Designating a player as a healer by virtue of having a heal, is a terrible way to pigeonhole players into a specific role. This isn't to say that HP support is unnecessary (love that term), but when overreliance rears its head, most times, its detrimental.

So far as the math goes, no set with heals exists without buffs/debuffs, so deeming someone a ‘healer’, when the majority of their set contains buffs/debuffs, still doesn’t make sense. When players make calls for a healer, they literally are interested in powers which have ally heal effects, which as others have stated, are not the best way to keep a team alive.