Does healing require clicking?

[Thornstar]

I think what the main point boils down to is will we need to be healing that fast to warrant any macros. If something is fine and we only need to throw out the occasional heal then I think no macros add ons would be fine. From what I have seen this is the way the game is at this time from videos ( although we do not know for sure)

Wow as I know first hand really started to get heavy on macros/mouse overs/ add ons in BC. Decursive was big in Vanilla and some people used Xpearl but that was pretty much it for allot. Once healing required people to get faster, and encounters started to get very fast paced people really pushed their need to do things easier. When necessity is there then the game changes. I think that is why healers especially got very tied up in add ons. In order to make healing easier they needed a way to make it faster.

My hope is that SWTOR focuses on the story and is challenging but not as super spam heal paced as wow ended up.

[vizzle]

I think what the main point boils down to is will we need to be healing that fast to warrant any macros. If something is fine and we only need to throw out the occasional heal then I think no macros add ons would be fine. From what I have seen this is the way the game is at this time from videos ( although we do not know for sure)

Wow as I know first hand really started to get heavy on macros/mouse overs/ add ons in BC. Decursive was big in Vanilla and some people used Xpearl but that was pretty much it for allot. Once healing required people to get faster, and encounters started to get very fast paced people really pushed their need to do things easier. When necessity is there then the game changes. I think that is why healers especially got very tied up in add ons. In order to make healing easier they needed a way to make it faster.

My hope is that SWTOR focuses on the story and is challenging but not as super spam heal paced as wow ended up.

The "videos" that we have seen are low level 4 man flashpoints where the devs have already stated that they won't be difficult at all.

Healing will have to be fast-paced whether you like it or not if they are to make hardmode raids that are truly "hard". If healing isn't fast-paced, then it won't have much challenge to it.

[Thornstar]

The "videos" that we have seen are low level 4 man flashpoints where the devs have already stated that they won't be difficult at all.

Healing will have to be fast-paced whether you like it or not if they are to make hardmode raids that are truly "hard". If healing isn't fast-paced, then it won't have much challenge to it.

Mainly why I admitted that healing as it is has yet to be seen. There are ways to make encounters challenging besides making healing spam crazy. Solving puzzles, having different teams do different objectives at the same time. Healing should be a challenge in hard content, but it should not be 4 times as hard as a dps or a tanks job.

[vizzle]

Mainly why I admitted that healing as it is has yet to be seen. There are ways to make encounters challenging besides making healing spam crazy. Solving puzzles, having different teams do different objectives at the same time. Healing should be a challenge in hard content, but it should not be 4 times as hard as a dps or a tanks job.

You cannot compare tank/dps/healer difficulty with each other, because they are all so different.

If we are to use WoW terms, then:

DPS - Track DoTs, line up external and internal procs and CDs for the best DPS, interrupt, knowing how long the fight will generally last so that you know when it's good to pop your CDs
Tank - Positioning, threat (in the first few seconds at least), taunting/grouping up adds together, popping CDs at the right time to keep yourself alive
Healer - Watching health bars, watching your own resource and making sure you don't run out, popping CDs at the right time for extra healing/raid damage reduction.

Everyone - Not standing in bad shit.

If healing were not hard, then people would not be at the brink of death. If you don't want the responsibility of keeping people alive, you don't have to roll a healer, some people relish the challenge.

I played all three roles in WoW for a few tiers each, and I really found DPS the hardest to be amazing at (I like to blame the fact that I was trying to play a DoT-heavy class with 400ms) because you had to track so many different DoTs while being a part of the fight and thus avoiding the bad shit, tank being the easiest, and healing being my favorite but the most challenging, in a different way.

DPS don't have easy jobs, if they want to play as best as they can. People just like to assume that DPS have it easy because if you are to fail or die as a DPS, you aren't really missed in the fight that much. If a healer were to fail, then a tank will die and the raid will fall apart. Healing just has more responsibility, and responsibility does not directly correlate with difficulty.

And guys, stop with this "raiding will be different because we'll be solving puzzles" mantra that people love. Yes, there will be "puzzles" in raids but I doubt every single (or even a majority) of the fights will have puzzles in them. It will still be mechanics that are part of the boss fight. If you think about it, all boss fights are already "puzzles", in the sense that 10/25man (in WoW) people have to work together to solve the puzzle/beat the boss. All fights are 5-10minute multi-person "puzzles".

If you were average at WoW, you'll be average at SW:TOR. It's the same game when it comes to raiding, as much as you guys think story elements will change it. When it comes to raiding endgame, all the Light Side/Dark Side stuff is thrown out the window and it becomes a progression grind.

[Thornstar]

While I would love to debate the reasoning ect. behind my opinion not actually knowing how the raids or healing will be it would be pretty pointless now. It really depends on the direction BW wants to take the game. Should healing be a challange? without a doubt, should it be so spam heavy if you miss 1 heal everyone dies? Not in a long shot. Arguing how the raids will be or how the healing will play out is pointless at this time as all we are doing is offering opinion on what they should be. Here in a few months for sure the debate would be better. Right now though it is just not possible to prove/disprove.

I played a healer in a hardmode environment for a looooong time.( 5-6 years, god I have wrinkles to prove it lol) Hell I played every spec of healer at every tier of content. I enjoyed the Priest healing of Vanilla, the druid and Priest healing in BC and in Wrath and Cata I gave paladin, shaman, priest and druid all a go. In terms of WoW healing was really fun when it did matter that you did your job, I did not like it as much in Cata where healing was sooooo spam crazy. Cata is where allot of the healers I knew for years stopped healing. I think so long as Bioware will not make healing that spam happy they will be ok.

[pcbogey]

would anyone know if there are any plans for a addon like healbot to be implemented shortly after release?

[blackblade]

would anyone know if there are any plans for a addon like healbot to be implemented shortly after release?

Addons wont be available until after launch.

[Traces]

would anyone know if there are any plans for a addon like healbot to be implemented shortly after release?

It has been announced that add-ons will be available post-launch but then you need to wait for someone to develop the add-on, so I would get used to healing via keybinds.

[Nuhpie]

Hypothetically speaking, of course, if I were to have been in the Beta, I would have provided feedback asking for mouse-over macros or a similar functionality for healing. Clicking and hot-keying simply isn't as fun as mouse-over healing.

Had I been in the Beta, I may have healed as if I still had mouse-over macros, so I healed the wrong person or myself a bunch of times. It is a hard habit to break. If they do not add mouse-over healing at launch, it will be something that you will have to get used to for a while. Mouse-over macros are not game breaking nor mandatory and healing is still possible without them. It is more of a quality of life issue.

I do believe that BW has received a lot of feedback regarding a need for mouse-over macros and macros in general and if not implemented at launch, I would expect them to add it very soon.

[PuliGT]

I really think this is not as big an issue as some people make it out to be. Everyone is going to be in the same boat and Bioware can design content around that fact that no one has mouse-over macros. They can make challenging content and easy content, that has all to do with what they do, not whether an add-on makes other games easier. It may be that if you took the mechanics of a SW:TOR boss fight and threw them into WoW a challenging fight could become easy with the addition of addons, but that doesn't mean anything.

As soon as Add-ons are implemented the design team will have to take them into account. To not do so would make those add-ons too powerful. However, not everyone downloads every add-on and they shouldn't have to. Seems to me that all add-ons do is force the design team into a corner where they either have to make encounters harder insofar as they require those add-ons, or they make high-end progression pointless because the add-ons do too much.

[Fevor]

Right off the bat I'm going to be legen-wait for it-dary.

My armour is going to look legen - hope your not lactose intolerant - dairy!.... Heavy Armour Suit up!

[vian]

Glad Im not one of those don't feel the need for mouse-over healing.

[pcbogey]

Glad Im not one of those don't feel the need for mouse-over healing.

How do you heal then? Do you click manually on the characters icon and press a keybind?

[papajohn4]

We have to see the game first...maybe healing in this game is more depended on "strategic healing" than "lightning reflexes Healing" . for what I ve seen till now Healer have force(mana) which is around 100 and spell cost around 25-45..(think hunter focus bar and hunter abilities). So I doubt a successful healer will be the one that he can spread heals among raid faster..maybe you have to cast 3-4 heals max and then wait for a lot of seconds until you are able to heal again, it will depend what you will chose to heal and not how fast you ll do it..

of course I don't mean wow healing doesn't require strategy, but you get the point..

[PuliGT]

We have to see the game first...maybe healing in this game is more depended on "strategic healing" than "lightning reflexes Healing" . for what I ve seen till now Healer have force(mana) which is around 100 and spell cost around 25-45..(think hunter focus bar and hunter abilities). So I doubt a successful healer will be the one that he can spread heals among raid faster..maybe you have to cast 3-4 heals max and then wait for a lot of seconds until you are able to heal again, it will depend what you will chose to heal and not how fast you ll do it..

of course I don't mean wow healing doesn't require strategy, but you get the point..

All of the Healers have different resource mechanics. Not totally sure how much I can say without getting into NDA covered material.

[Rexter2k5]

There will be no Grid and Clique at launch. We will need to do this manually until BioWare allows mods. Then, I want a Grid and Clique ASAP.

[Greevir]

I would be completely content with just having mouseover macros. Never really bothered with anything else for healing.

[WoWGoneBad]

It's not being at a disadvantage that bothers me, it's just so incredibly annoying to heal that way. Annoying enough to stop me rolling a healer till it's sorted.

seriously man. I click-healed all through BC up to cata (where i stopped playing) click-healing aint all that hard,. i actually prefer it that way adds a bit more flavor and fun factor.

[pcbogey]

seriously man. I click-healed all through BC up to cata (where i stopped playing) click-healing aint all that hard,. i actually prefer it that way adds a bit more flavor and fun factor.

Being able to do something, and having it be the most efficient way to do things are two different things. When I first started healing I did the same thing, but after a few years I learned to keybind all of my abilities and I also use healbot for all my healing and helpful spells. I mainly do PvP so having this set up allows a faster reaction time since I do not have to target a friendly manually. This also means that I can have an attack target and focus target at the same time of the enemies I am facing.

[Deadlycaster]

Right off the bat I'm going to be legen-wait for it-dary.

me too!

i think i heard something about macros and addons being released post-launch but yeah i think everyone knows that already