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Healing ability and its importance.
RedChampion
Member Posts: 30
Should all characters be given the ability to heal, leaving it up to them if they want the ability to heal or deal more damage?
Before you decide, imagine the game is class-based and anyone who wanted to deal damage could. Also, if this "everyone can heal" ability existed, do you think everyone would flock to it or would you personally go for something that adds more functionality to your character or possibly a bigger damage skill?
Also to note, not all characters classes would be able to heal others, just themselves.
All discussion is welcome. 
Comments
Not always a bad thing, but by doing this you create a potion popping game, very Diablo-esque.
Awe..
Let me add this:
Potions will have no cool downs but must be drank completely before they take affect. So in order to gain X amount of health back you would need to not get hit for X amount of time. No insta-heal in midst of battle from health potions.
Now it sounds really difficult.
There is a game where this is possible. It is called City of Heroes/Villains and for the most part I would say about 1/3 of the character choose to take the healing option. The downside to the "anyone can heal" option in CoX is that it is interruptible and it balances it signifcantly, so while many people choose to take it, twice as many people prefer some other option to enhance their character.
Thank you jade, exactly what I was wondering.
What I merely meant was that if you had a list of 30 skills and could only choose 5 of them, would the fifth always be the "healing" ability.
It's hard to say with such a general topic, I think it really depends on a lot of things about the game in question. Having said that, I don't think everyone will always pick healing. I'm thinking of Guild Wars, and how very infrequently you see Elementalists with Aura of Restoration on their bar. They leave the healing to the Monk, while they focus on their job.
I have always played support characters and continues to do so cause its nice to have some power over players
and.. I love em.
Anyway I would go for a healing class seeing how they always (more or less) turns out to be the best in both pvp/pve and they are always wanted by other people/groups.
And for the skill between damage/healing/some boost for your character I would go for the boost as it would probably add something of more importance to me then the +healing/damage would do in the end.
Dont like the idea that you made it a class-based game would be much funnier to think up something in a skill-based game where you could go 100% healing and do 0 damage so you had to hire a mercenary/player to do the dirty work for you.
In a game where players are able to dodge attacks to avoid damage and also able to deal large amounts of damage, I think being able to heal in combat for any character is perfectly fine, as long as they can't deal damage while they're doing it. Being able to heal for all characters at any time without cooldowns in an autotarget game would just be retarded though, about as retarded as autotarget.
Completely depends on the value of healing. If the average ability is worth 30 DPS but heals are 10 HPS, they probably won't be taken too often. If the heal is 30+ HPS, it'll very often be taken.
The value is further increased/decreased by some of the factors people are bringing up (how interruptable the heal is, and whether it's on a long cooldown or something.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Some people would take it, but I think the majority of players wouldnt. As mentioned though, it depends on its effectiveness. I dislike the idea of giving all characters the ability to heal (effectively) as it takes away from the healer role. A DPS class being able to heal himself in between fights would be fine, but I would avoid a scenario like the Paladin in WoW that can DPS, Heal, and Tank all exceptionally well.
Completely depends on the value of healing. If the average ability is worth 30 DPS but heals are 10 HPS, they probably won't be taken too often. If the heal is 30+ HPS, it'll very often be taken.
The value is further increased/decreased by some of the factors people are bringing up (how interruptable the heal is, and whether it's on a long cooldown or something.)
~this
In Shadowbane, I made a Confessor. The best thing about this class was once it was built right, you could heal yourself for very low mana cost, then sacrifice a little bit of your health for major mana, and then nuke the hell out of something. If played right you were a insta-regen health/mana/armored/nuking machine.
If I could recreate a toon like this... that'd be spiffy.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."