Incentives for healers in PVP

Everyone needs a healer, yet no one wants to run a healer.

Just as how tanks received incentives for tanking in PVE, I think healers deserve incentives for PVP.

1. What about players who enter as dps and leave as healers?

Credit for a title/mount would be dependent on the amount of HP restored. Since regen effects are removed except for single target regen, this amount should be 150k-200k HP restored before a player receives the credit for the run.

2. What sort of incentives?

Titles: "Medic", "Doctor", "Doctor in the House", "Medic-a", "Healing Touch", etc.

Mount: A first aid kit with flapping wings, similar to the Egg Model. Or the ADS mount but white with a huge red cross on it.

3. Why is this a good idea?

It'll encourage more players to heal, and with (hopefully) a larger healer pool, battles in frontlines would be more drawn out versus being silly. Players charging into a team of 24 and wondering why they end up dying.

I agree that healers need more rewards for PvP, especially now that Frontlines has become a fast and efficient way to level. More often than not, I load in with all three alliances full of DPS who refuse to switch since they are trying to level.

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Originally Posted by AlexiosCalisthenes

Everyone needs a healer, yet no one wants to run a healer.

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If everyone needs a healer, healers are broken and need to be nerfed, as the need implies that no other job or role is equal to one.

So if your premise is true, the course of action that needs to happen is to nerf healers. If your premise is not true, there is no need to create incentives for healers. Pick one.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

If everyone needs a healer, healers are broken and need to be nerfed, as the need implies that no other job or role is equal to one.

So if your premise is true, the course of action that needs to happen is to nerf healers. If your premise is not true, there is no need to create incentives for healers. Pick one.

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Weird reasoning: "If everyone needs dps, dps are broken and need to be nerfed".
When was the last time you did a dungeon/trial/whatever without a healer?

I had three matches in a row last night where I was the only healer in the entire alliance. I would love if they could grab more healers.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

If everyone needs a healer, healers are broken and need to be nerfed, as the need implies that no other job or role is equal to one.

So if your premise is true, the course of action that needs to happen is to nerf healers. If your premise is not true, there is no need to create incentives for healers. Pick one.

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Interesting logic. So, how often do you run dungeons without tanks or healers?

- Make the next healer relic weapon the best stylish weapon of all
- Make Frontline part of the relic quest

I very much agree with this! I'm playing PvP-healer since the first Frontlines (aaaah, good old secure days...) but I cant deny that I was a little bit mad when they introduced achievments (with actually nice titles) for killing people - great, as healer I'm filling a role no one else wants to fill but I have pretty much zero chance to ever get those achievements!
I always wished there was something similar to them, just for healers (like The Feast has now, with support kills - Frontlines is till lacking something like that) - not only to give people an incentive to play healer but also for fairness sake and to reward those of us who are already healing through that mess.

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Originally Posted by Felis

- Make the next healer relic weapon the best stylish weapon of all
- Make Frontline part of the relic quet

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I already liked the scholar weapons...

And: no, never ever for all that is holy make frontlines/pvp part of the relic quest. NEVER. It sucks for those who dont want to PvP and it sucks for those who want to PvP but have to put up with pure PvE-people. PvP can stay an option for relic-progress (as it is already - you get tomes and light), but never ever make it mandatory to take part in PvP.

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Originally Posted by Felis

- Make the next healer relic weapon the best stylish weapon of all
- Make Frontline part of the relic quet

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The relic was part of frontlines last time around. It was one of the more pleasant ways to get light when you needed a break from hitting your head on the wall in A1S

As to OP I agree. Healers need more incentives in general. I feel like each healer should have its own special mount just like tank. I've always wanted this. Even in PvE

Now in PvP its worse. Most times i've dropped in there i'm the only healer. It used to be at least 2 of us, if not more, most of the time.

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Originally Posted by daedalusAI

When was the last time you did a dungeon/trial/whatever without a healer?

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PvP and PvE function quite a bit differently, missy. Do I really need to explain that?

The whole point of PvP is to kill each other. In PvE, the point is to kill the scripted enemy. Healers and tanks exist to delay death caused by damage, DPS exist to create death by causing damage. As such, healers and tanks rely on damage to exist in the first place and your attempt to try and turn the logic around is doubly stupid - once because you neglected the different premises, twice because tanking and healing are roles derived from damage. In PvP, the damage comes from other players, in PvE, it comes from the scripted AI.

What does that mean? It means that PvP works perfectly well without healers and tanks. You are supposed to kill each other and die anyway, so the function of delaying that is counterproductive. It only slows down the pace of the match. PvE doesn't, because PvE demands tanks and healers, as you are unable to kill the enemy before he kills you without them by design. That isn't the case in PvP. It would be broken if it were. Can you imagine playing as Alexander Prime in Frontlines? That'd be dumb, as whoever plays it would have a hugely higher impact than any other player who doesn't. And because that's dumb, players are supposed to be balanced against each other in the impact they have on the match. And thus, any job or role being required or shunned implies an imbalance, as it implies a difference in impact.

And the course of action when such an imbalance in impact exists is not to incentivize people to play that job/role/whatever, but to balance it so that the impact is equal to that of other jobs/roles/whatever. In PvE, we simply live with that imbalance, because it cannot be used against players. In PvP, it can.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

What does that mean? It means that PvP works perfectly well without healers and tanks. You are supposed to kill each other and die anyway, so the function of delaying that is counterproductive. It only slows down the pace of the match.

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This is silly. The point of PvP isn't to kill each other and die anyway, it's to win.

In Frontline that doesn't necessarily mean killing other players.

Furthermore, with more incentives for healers via titles or mounts, I believe players who try healers will actually enjoy the difference in approach to PVP. At the same time other players begin to appreciate the more drawn-out battles in Frontlines.

This can help change the mindset in PVP to allow for more healers. Just as a reference.

Those on NA servers. If you played PVP on Aether and ran into Mr Happy's Adder pre-made, which consisted of 8 warriors, 8 ranged dps (BLMs/SMNs) and 8 healers, you will remember how insanely difficult it was to take them down. They had coordination AND easy healing ouput (1 healer to 3 players). Right now I'm lucky to get into a match with ONE other co-healer.

I really hope this gets visibility from other players and support from the developers. :D

p/s. let's ignore players who do not contribute constructively to this discussion, shall we? :D

Hmm, yeah, I sort of agree. I love playing healer with my friends, but solo? I'm not so sure. It's the same for PvE with me. I don't mind tanking for my friends, but I don't really like tanking for randoms.

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Originally Posted by Heliantheae

I had three matches in a row last night where I was the only healer in the entire alliance. I would love if they could grab more healers.

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Yeah, this happened quite a bit last night so my FC master switched to SCH to help me out, although he says it's a pain to target alliance on PS4.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

The whole point of PvP is to kill each other.

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Uh, the point is to win.

From here:

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Just because you like killing other players (i.e. what you call PvPing) does not mean that any competitive game mode that does not focus on that isn't PvP. Anyone one who says that is actually committing a "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

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Well, they could make healing suck less to do.

I main healer in PvE, and my biggest issue with PvP is targeting and Range. There are not alot of heals anymore that are instant and none of which are spammable outside of Lightspeed combos. This means I have to get super close to targets to heal them because they oft run out of range mid cast (I feel your pain Eda). So more than half my casts are fails.

Meanwhile, on SMN, it doesn't matter who I hit, I can kite whoever is nearest me until they melt. Guess what I play in PvP (Hint: It isn't the healer)

"The hurting is more rewarding than the healing."

- Medic TF2

You'll always be hard pressed to get healers in PVP because for many, killing is more fun than healing. Personally, I've been having a blast healing in PVP but I do agree that some more incentives could be added. It's not fun getting rushed the entire match as the only healer on the team.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

This is silly. The point of PvP isn't to kill each other and die anyway, it's to win.

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Maybe not, but it's a much easier to complete the objective when there's nobody there to stop you. I'd rather have the guy on my team that can force the other team into a spawn camp and not care about the objective at all than the guy who constantly rushes the objective, only to keep getting himself killed.

Zojha isn't wrong, the entire spirit of PVP is to fight each other. They just add something to fight over so that every game isn't straight up death match.

it would help if people on your team actual try and help the healers as well. More often than not you're just expected to heal everyone, but when the other team attacks you, you hardly ever get any help from team mates, you die, and the rest starts complaining why they're not getting healed.

I'd happily heal in pvp, but probably not without at least a few people who I know will come and kill stuff trying to kill me.

The thing that detracts from PvP the most for me as a healer is the same thing that detracts from it in every other game. The moment you start wiggling your fingers at someone to knit their wounds, the entire enemy team descends upon you in an effort to erase your existence. Meanwhile, your team just ignores the other team's healer, leaving them free to squirt healing to their heart's content.

I mean, I might be exaggerating a little bit there, but no amount of incentive makes being the perpetual mass target much fun for me. Some other masochistic people might like it, and to them, maybe some incentives would get them into the queue.

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Originally Posted by HyperSMB

Well, they could make healing suck less to do.

I main healer in PvE, and my biggest issue with PvP is targeting and Range. There are not alot of heals anymore that are instant and none of which are spammable outside of Lightspeed combos. This means I have to get super close to targets to heal them because they oft run out of range mid cast (I feel your pain Eda). So more than half my casts are fails.

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On WHM I mainly spam Regen as my go to heal. I use Benediction as an "oh crap" button. I use Divine Bension for when someone's diving into enemies. But other than that I use Cure and Cure II. I have to do a bit of prediction and I end up overhealing a bit, but imo in PvP overhealing is better than letting someone die.

Yeah, this is why I prefer running with my FC, other than the fact that they actually peel for me. Because we generally move together as a group so they're generally in range or I can be like "come back" in Discord.

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Originally Posted by ToasterMan

You'll always be hard pressed to get healers in PVP because for many, killing is more fun than healing. Personally, I've been having a blast healing in PVP but I do agree that some more incentives could be added. It's not fun getting rushed the entire match as the only healer on the team.

Maybe not, but it's a much easier to complete the objective when there's nobody there to stop you. I'd rather have the guy on my team that can force the other team into a spawn camp and not care about the objective at all than the guy who constantly rushes the objective, only to keep getting himself killed.

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Hmm, I actually don't know why, but I prefer support much more to doing the killing. I do like helping people. That being said, killing is fun too.

You're not wrong that it's easier to complete the objective but it doesn't mean any killing needs to be done to complete the objective. It's possible to stall the other team with no one dying but win due to that.

I'm pretty sure one person can't force the other team into a spawn camp unless the other team is just horribly bad. And with the amount of people just doing Frontlines for experience, there's a lot of people who don't have experience knowing how to play in a PvP mode. In my opinion, at least in Shatter, it's far easier to do the objective than try to kill people, especially if you have no idea how to play your job in PvP.

I'll say that sort of person you're talking about describes me quite a bit. I see people in Shatter tunnel vision a lot by just killing but I try to avoid that if there's ice and do the objective but if I'm the only one on my team at the ice it's very likely for me to die. I mean if you can win just via killing that's great but having spammed it with my FC I'd say winning Shatter generally requires a mix of both killing and carrying out objectives.

Guess ill spam heal on myself when i jump off cliffs ;)

I agree there needs to be something. Especially since "Hand of Mercy" is a title for killing 5k players. That's not easy to get as a healer...

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Originally Posted by ToasterMan

I'd rather have the guy on my team that can force the other team into a spawn camp and not care about the objective at all than the guy who constantly rushes the objective, only to keep getting himself killed.

Zojha isn't wrong, the entire spirit of PVP is to fight each other. They just add something to fight over so that every game isn't straight up death match.

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You may have missed the second part of the sentence, "and die anyway." The point isn't just to kill, but also to not die.

The best players on my team tend to be the most cautious. They don't die because they know when to go for a kill, and when not to.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

You may have missed the second part of the sentence, "and die anyway." The point isn't just to kill, but also to not die.

The best players on my team tend to be the most cautious. They don't die because they know when to go for a kill, and when not to.

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Exactly this. However, I do think this is beyond the purview of my suggestion. Knowing when to charge in and getting proper kills is something that perhaps come with practice over time.

To answer some concerns from other players; there ARE players who enjoy healing, myself included, in PVP. It's not because we're masochistic or anything (okay maybe to a small degree), but it's fun knowing that you kept people alive in skirmishes and battles. The issue is, one healer can only do so much when there are 23 people charging in different directions - the paladin running in to stun-lock, the summoner dps-ing on another target, while a machinist is hitting somewhere else.. -continued below

-continued from previous post

Couple that with the fact that healers have very few AOE heals now with the battle system revamp, you just NEED more healers. Make frontlines more fun so that it's something that can grow instead of merely for achievements like the Garo collaborations. So give healers a carrot since the other roles enjoy going for kills and getting their "Slaughterhouse" or "Hand of Mercy" titles, what say you? :D

Agreed. I like going DPS so I can join in on the killing. I only go heal if I really have to. If no one if playing to win then I go back to DPS and bait in desperate enemies into my group