Add rewards to encourage healers in PVP?

[AxelDH]

All too often, we see alliances with no healers, which of course puts the whole team at quite a disadvantage.

I'm sure if there was some kind of mount or minion reward, say for healing 200+ rounds*, this would encourage more PVP-ers to switch to that role!

(*Need to make sure they heal for the majority of the match duration, and not get credit for switching right before the end!)

[Buff_Archer]

For me it was the ADS mount back when I was working on getting it- not healer specific obviously, but when I wanted to be sure to win and there weren't enough healers that made swap. Also when I'm on DPS I try and remind the alliance to commend the healers on their team (which I don't ask for obviously when I'm on a healer role, that's tacky, I only ask for that on behalf of others). Someone who's solo healing for their team and doing an effective job of it should be getting 6 commendations and faster progess towards the associated rewards... even if a team member had battle fever and got 30 kills... because they never could have done that without a healer keeping them up obviously.

Some healers are terrible and screw over their team by casting weak non-CS DPS abilities and they're the worst... if I'm a DPS with battle high I'd be safer with another DPS by my side than a healer who isn't healing me (this one idiot WHM who had me at 10% Hp while I had battle fever and was running back and forth next to them waving while they cast aero 3). But other work their ass off, like this one SCH the other day stone skinning everyone in sight while defending a node, or the one in the alliance who miraculously kept me alive when I hit some weird lag and every one of my abilities failed while I had 3+ people on me I couldn't defend against.

[Velo_Vandore]

I joined a game yesterday as WHM where there were three healers in my party and 0 in another. It's not that three healers queued together as I queued alone. Why didn't the duty finder swap me into the healer-less party? Surely the other party would not be pre-formed choosing no healer?

[Velo_Vandore]

By the way I'm a total scrub at healing frontlines (first 2 matches last night) and I felt completely useless. A big incentive to not switch to dps would be some healing pointers:

• My party seemed to be all over the map, and I was darting around trying to find where the dying party members were. Is there any indication on the map as to which blue dots in particular are your dying party members (or even alliance members).
• Is it better to stay with a flag, or move in with the party?
• What to do when focused on by dps
• Any other advice welcome, including basic strategy on how team wins more points.

Is there anything useful to be taken from the leaderboard at the end regarding your performance / improvement. Obviously dps will check dps, but healing done surely should depend on healing required. The order seems completely random too on that leaderboard rather than in order of best performance?

[Buff_Archer]

I'd say a healers responsibility for healing party members doesn't extend much father than your healing radius, if you're traveling with the group and there are people who go out of range. I'd focus on being in the right place at the right time, and healing party/alliance members who are there as well. Those far off from the group are on their own.

As for knowing where to be, especially while new to PVP and Siege mode, I'd ask the party up front if someone can take the lead on where to go, and then you can make sure to travel with them vs. worry about checking the map and coordinates to get to. Preferably a player who has good cc abilities to help keep you alive like a tank, since healers usually get attacked first which makes healing yourself a priority over a party members when you're both under attack because while you're alive party members can benefit from AOE healing and such but if you die healing another party member while under attack, there's no one to heal the rest of the team (if you're a solo healer). If you have a cohealer with you, heal each other while one is under attack and use AOE heals on your party members, and when not under attack you can heal people directly better.

[Februs]

Snip.

The only thing worse than having no healers in your alliance is when you get a healer, breathe a sigh of relief, only to find out that the healer sucks and can't/won't keep anyone alive. I usually play as DRK (only other option atm is PLD), and, with a solid healer, I can cut lose and hold down nodes almost solo, or go on a rampage. Solid heals in my immediate party have landed me 7+ kills to ZERO deaths, so I get really disappointed when the healer is absent or just not up to snuff.

[Februs]

I joined a game yesterday as WHM where there were three healers in my party and 0 in another. It's not that three healers queued together as I queued alone. Why didn't the duty finder swap me into the healer-less party? Surely the other party would not be pre-formed choosing no healer?

This is actually another problem that people have found with frontlines. There is no DF requirements, so the party placement is random. I've seen groups where there were five healers in one party, one in another, and zero in the third. Some people think there should be some kind of check, or party trade mech, that allows players to balance out the team in those first two precious minutes that, as of right now, only serve to annoy people.

[Buff_Archer]

The only thing worse than having no healers in your alliance is when you get a healer, breathe a sigh of relief, only to find out that the healer sucks and can't/won't keep anyone alive. I usually play as DRK (only other option atm is PLD), and, with a solid healer, I can cut lose and hold down nodes almost solo, or go on a rampage. Solid heals in my immediate party have landed me 7+ kills to ZERO deaths, so I get really disappointed when the healer is absent or just not up to snuff.

Yes, that, or how about when you use all your offensive cooldowns and get slept and watch your timers all count down to 0 while a healer next to you is hard casting DPS spells. We have purify sure but what a waste of something you might need later to survive. Of course if a healer is slept they can't do much so I've used my purify on them when mine was on cooldown, but only want to do that with a healer who you know will u sleep you next time. Had a slaughter match where we took a node down to get the offensive party buff and remounted but the healer was under attack, I dismounted and cast a bind on them all and got slept. The healer however was missed by the sleep AOE and they, along with the rest of the party, got on their mounts and left me standing there slept. I could have easily gotten away with them, but I stood there slept while the binds expired, and then the 4-5 people killed me and I lost my damage boost. All because they couldn't be bothered to cast an esuna/leeches on me. One of the times I think I used a lot of obscenities in alliance chat.

[Februs]

Snip.

Part of this is the responsibility of the team. Parties split up, especially for first nodes, but they should ALWAYS regroup. If they're not, they have no one to blame but themselves when they die.
I'd say always stick with the group. Your map is your best friend in Frontlines. Use it frequently to find out where your team/enemy is, and keep yourself in the best position for healing while staying hidden from the enemy. Your next best friend is the party/alliance list. This could be an issue if you're playing on Ps4, since targeting is awful on controller, but you can at least use the bar to identify dying members quickly.
There's a thread for survival tactics for healers.
Total points healed is your column, but, just keeping people alive is fine. Each death is -5 points. So every life you save helps the team, and keeping people hp caped allows them to cut lose and get some killing done without fear of dying.

[Februs]

Snip.

YES!!! Similar situations have happened to me several times. I especially find it an issue for Drks, now.
Dark arts is an amazing dmg boost on two of my attacks and can completely devastate gimpy targets, but it consts me a HUGE chunk of my mp; so, I get INFURIATED when I pop the buff and have no choice but to sit and watch the timer tick down, unused, especially when my target is stunned and just waiting for the death blow. I absolutely DON'T want to use purity, either, because DRK's can use it to purify the walking dead status. So, if I had to hold down a node and pop living dead, and get pushed into walking dead status, IF I can get away from my attackers, I can save myself with purify. Can't do that if I had to waste it because the healer RIGHT NEXT TO ME was too busy picking his nose to cast esuna.