Healer classes - question

asdar

I played Vanguard at launch and maybe to halfway to max level and liked the game. I played a Blood Mage and I loved it and I think I might want to just do that again, but I was wondering what people thought about the other healer classes.

I'm not looking to be max/min, I'm more interested in the fun of playing than I am in being the best raid healer or anything.

What I loved about the Blood mage was how you could balance the blood and had to juggle and how you had to get the correct NPC target as well as team targets.

I'm hoping someone will post with why they love the cleric or other healing classes or why they think I made the right choice in the Blood mage.

evilastro

Originally posted by asdar

I played Vanguard at launch and maybe to halfway to max level and liked the game. I played a Blood Mage and I loved it and I think I might want to just do that again, but I was wondering what people thought about the other healer classes.

I'm not looking to be max/min, I'm more interested in the fun of playing than I am in being the best raid healer or anything.

What I loved about the Blood mage was how you could balance the blood and had to juggle and how you had to get the correct NPC target as well as team targets.

I'm hoping someone will post with why they love the cleric or other healing classes or why they think I made the right choice in the Blood mage.

My favourite was the Disciple. Was a pretty novel idea for a class, although I think WoW has copied it now with the Monk healer. Heals through damage, and can tank quite well. Very fun to play. Probably the best soloer in the game.

Adamantine

I started as a healer player.

I have all healer classes at 30+ now. My old main was a Cleric, but I hardly touch him anymore. Unkillable, extreme defenses, but also very little dps output. Choosing War or Death as Affinity helps, but not too much.

Blood Mage is a very fun class, because you get strong advantages and special tricks, but also some crucial disadvantages. Awesome dps solo, but has to "tank" the opponents, while lifetapping them with non-instant lifetaps (that keep getting disrupted) and their CC is limited to root and a one-time charm (cant be applied a second time), both of which are also quite slow to cast.

Disciple is weird. It just never feels like a healer class. Its more a "I hit this, so I have healing to spare, who needs ?" class. No quickheals or immunities as such, half of all heals use Jin points instead of mana, not to mention every attack will throw healing around and oh yes, you have to use special sequences of attacks to put up most of your group buffs, and they are quite shorttimed, too. Best single target healer, but really no good class to heal squishies. Solo play ? Feels like godmode. Until you meet a mob that can just hit you that little bit harder than you can heal yourself. The difference between "easy opponent" and "impossible" is very, very abrupt for Disciple.

Shaman is plays VERY differently, depending upon what Totem you choose. In any case, Shamans are the best debuffers in the game, and they are the best mage healer thanks to a great quickheal that includes a 2 sec immunity.

Bear Shaman is the most popular choice. They are possibly even more unkillable than Disciple, thanks to Clericlike defenses in medium gear. Their dps is better than Cleric, but not really that high.

Wolf Shaman has less insane defenses, but better dps output, and they are the only healer with stealth.

Phoenix Shaman is possibly the best healer in the game, but gets mage-like "defenses" and is really squishy solo. They are the only healer class that has to kite tougher mobs.

 

Adamantine

Originally posted by evilastro

My favourite was the Disciple. Was a pretty novel idea for a class, although I think WoW has copied it now with the Monk healer. Heals through damage, and can tank quite well. Very fun to play. Probably the best soloer in the game.

I'm fairly certain WoW copied their idea of the monk as healer from Guild Wars, not from Vanguard, though.

Also, nobody ever was sure what Monks are supposed to be. If you look at the corresponding Wikipedia page, this is all over the place. So D&D is just a weird melee class that somehow ends up being a dedicated mage killer, EQ started this fashion of fake death that Vanguard has copied, GW made them the only dedicated healer class (kind of like priests), WoW as already mentioned just throws 3 different options around (as with every other of their classes, though), in Lineage 2 Monks (called Tyrants after level 40) have been (past tense is very correct, because the current version now practically has the original richness of classes removed and is limited to the 8 classes present in Aion) a kind of melee glass cannon with some magic trickery.

In Vanguard, they can be tank-like (Drunken style), dps-like (Dragon style) or, in a separate class, even healer (Disciple). There was also a debuff variant (Harmonious), but I heard they removed that one. This pretty much reflects how nobody ever knew what Monks are really good for, so they just offer you every option thinkable off ...

Disciple have been the Vanguard version of solist godmode since the start of the game. Nothing ever changed about that.

 

I think the Blood Mage is a more unique approach in Vanguard. Dont think any other game will copy them too fast because you need this split between defensive and offensive target to do that.

 

asdar

Well, I jumped in and my Blood mage was still there. It's been a long time, that really surprised me. I decided I didn't want to jump right back into the blood mage and started up a disciple, but I haven't played enough to give a report yet whether or not I like it.

Thanks for the posts in reply. I hope to see some of you in game when I get upward a few levels.