Healers/Support in PSO2?

[sugarFO]

Hi. I didn't play the Alpha, but I was wondering if anyone had an idea if healer style gameplay is viable in the game. Are people taking enough damage to warrant such a role? In PSO Forces were often relegated to healing which many didn't like but I enjoyed personally. I'd be sad if I don't get be a designated healer in game.

Thoughts?

[Emmie]

I think it all depends on the people you are playing with and how good they are at dodging/blocking attacks.

[Dinosaur]

Resta was pretty easy to get off. I'm sure it will even be easier when we have access to higher levels of Resta. You will definitely heal more when you have hunters on the team.

With that said, there have not been any support skills in the Force skill tree as of yet.

[Serephim]

Resta does a wonderful job of healing, but people actually kind of have to stand still for a second to get full blast of it.


Generally, you're no longer really able to just press a button and be back to full health. If a hunter wants to heal, they'll need to get to a safe spot and use a mate, which takes a second or two to work. (Di and Tri mates take increasingly longer time.)


Charge Resta usually gets 70 to 100% of their health up, but you have to charge it of course, which isn't too smart in the heat of things. I've never gotten killed trying to Resta on my force, but ive gotten killed plenty of times trying to mate on my hunter.


Probably because mirage is much better for gaining distance.

[Slidikins]

Sounds like it's going to be the same thing as flash heal vs full heal in other MMOs.

[Razelis]

Please forgive me about the English!

Okay, here are my feeling about healing and support (I played support on PSO2 Alpha2 and on PSU)

First of all, I have to say thank god we can finally be dedicated healers!
Unlike PSU, you get experience by being near the monster when it gets beaten. Which means you can concentrate on healing and supporting the party and not tagging everything you can.

About Resta: This opinion is far from finalized because the max lvl Techs you could have in Alpha 2 was only 5.
Here are some points about Resta Lv5:
Resta has VERY small range, which is fine mid mission. But in case of big bosses like the Dragon, which has a huge area of effect, its harder to both keep the party (especially melee) healed AND dodging the dragon attacks at the same time.
You'd need to pretty much run and stand exactly where the melee players are at, charge your tech, and then release all the time hoping the drahon won't 1hit you XD;;

In fact, the ONLY times I died in bosses was that reason. To heal the melee players.

About the charged Resta: IMO there is no place in a fast paced action game to have this kinda of charged resta. Charged resta should just be a powerful heal, and not an area of effect where players need to STAND STILL at. I'd spend so much time chasing players just to heal them, and even though a charged resta would heal them to full, having players stay in the Resta healing pool until they got full recovery was rare case. Which meant I had to keep chasing them and spam resta a few times.
Imagine the chases you will have when buffs get added ><

Uncharged resta had even SMALLer range (you pretty much had to stand ON the person or they wouldnt get healed) and the effect was dramatically lower which IMO was not worth using at all except maybe self heal on emergency (which even then I used the charged one usually)

Numbers (not exact)
Effect of Uncharged Resta: 25 x2
Effect of charged Resta: 80 x4

On PSE boost, not only damage is raised but also healing power, I could heal up to 120+ x4 HP with charged Resta.

Overall opinion: If Resta gets better range on higher lvls, supporting won't be as bad. But even now that's okay just much more risky, especially if you're a fragile Newman XD

Anti was the normal Anti we know from PSU but again, smaller range, which does not bother since you just need to hit the player once and not chase around them keep healing.

A tip for healer: When you see the fight is about to end (before it actually ends) throw a heal in middle of the party because that's when the party is usually concentrated on one spot and everyone gets healed.

Hope that helps! d( ' w '-

Edit- few things I remembered:

1. PSO2 adds the option to view HP bars above player characters' heads. I did not know about this option while playing, but noticed it on one of the videos after the Alpha 2 test end ( - . - ;
This is very helpful for healers, espiecially in multiparty area which otherwise you CAN NOT see the HP of players which are not in your party.

2. Resta height range was very bad. If you jump slightly higher than a person and healed midair, the pool would not hit that player. So for example if player you wanted to heal stood on a rock you could easily miss them with resta if you jump and healed slightly higher than where they stand.
I hope SEGA will change that.

3. Resta and Anti were the only support technics avaible on Alpha 2 test, that's why I only wrote about them.

[Serephim]

Did anyone get the auto-mate ability for the Hunters? Does anyone know if it automatically heals you without the animation? (i can only see it being annoying if it didnt)



ANYWAY: The idea of having to stand still is there to balance out the difficulty of the game.


your access to unlimited healing ability comes at the price of mobility, which also directly impacts your saftey depending on where you are or what you're doing.


So, unlike PSO and PSU where you don't really care to get hit because you can always just get up and instantly heal, this game further encourages you to 1) NOT get hit, and 2) don't put yourself in situations where you'll be surrounded / hit multiple times.



Resta doesn't need to instantly heal at all. At higher levels each tick can heal more, but nothing in the game should instantly heal you. It was done on purpose. They could have very easily went the instant use + Heal Over Time route, but that's a pretty sloppy idea meant for Point-And-Click MMOs, and still just encourages you to tank through hits.



Also, Resta's current form also kind of promotes a sort of Teamwork aspect of the Force and its surrounding players. The Force has low HP and has to sacrifice his/her saftey for the healing of the other team. Therefore, the most effective method would be for the players to meet the force half-way. (Sort of like in PSU when the force has to call out "COME GET BUFFS" so the idiots will stop running out of the active area of their technic.) Since the healing is on a tick base and you have to stay in the field to be healed, if you're running around like an idiot then you'll miss most of the benefit of the technique.


Nothing about Resta needs to be changed right now, IMO. It's just another very welcomed change to remove all of the "muscle memory" reaction effect of playing Phantasy Star. Every healer should welcome having a job harder than just using your super resta to heal someone a block away instantly.

[Fenn777]

Did anyone get the auto-mate ability for the Hunters? Does anyone know if it automatically heals you without the animation? (i can only see it being annoying if it didnt)



ANYWAY: The idea of having to stand still is there to balance out the difficulty of the game.


your access to unlimited healing ability comes at the price of mobility, which also directly impacts your saftey depending on where you are or what you're doing.


So, unlike PSO and PSU where you don't really care to get hit because you can always just get up and instantly heal, this game further encourages you to 1) NOT get hit, and 2) don't put yourself in situations where you'll be surrounded / hit multiple times.



Resta doesn't need to instantly heal at all. At higher levels each tick can heal more, but nothing in the game should instantly heal you. It was done on purpose. They could have very easily went the instant use + Heal Over Time route, but that's a pretty sloppy idea meant for Point-And-Click MMOs, and still just encourages you to tank through hits.



Also, Resta's current form also kind of promotes a sort of Teamwork aspect of the Force and its surrounding players. The Force has low HP and has to sacrifice his/her saftey for the healing of the other team. Therefore, the most effective method would be for the players to meet the force half-way. (Sort of like in PSU when the force has to call out "COME GET BUFFS" so the idiots will stop running out of the active area of their technic.) Since the healing is on a tick base and you have to stay in the field to be healed, if you're running around like an idiot then you'll miss most of the benefit of the technique.


Nothing about Resta needs to be changed right now, IMO. It's just another very welcomed change to remove all of the "muscle memory" reaction effect of playing Phantasy Star. Every healer should welcome having a job harder than just using your super resta to heal someone a block away instantly.

This is good news! I'm glad dedicated healers/support will be able to find the game as challenging and dynamic as the attackers will.

[Mag-X]

I'd imagine the range or Resta will be larger at higher levels. After all, Resta was pretty useless at level 5 in the original PSO as well.

[moorebounce]

I didn't start using forces until recently on private PSOBB servers. I'm glad to hear you don't have to tag everything to get exp. They may need to tone down the visual effects when you're healing a group when you get into higher lvl resta. I would think at higher lvls it would blind everyone being healed.

[Angelo]

I'd imagine there will be a Resta/Healing/Buffing branch of the FO skill tree later in the game.

iiirc 'wind' element techs are going to be buffs.

[Eclipse5632]

iiirc 'wind' element techs are going to be buffs.
"iirc"? Did you read this somewhere or are you just speculating? And does this mean that there's no Grants since Resta/Anti are light, then?

[Serephim]

I didn't start using forces until recently on private PSOBB servers. I'm glad to hear you don't have to tag everything to get exp. They may need to tone down the visual effects when you're healing a group when you get into higher lvl resta. I would think at higher lvls it would blind everyone being healed.

if effects scale anymore in this game, i'd assume even the first change would blind players.


Charged lv1 foie is bigger than lv 50 foie in PSU.

[Angelo]

"iirc"? Did you read this somewhere or are you just speculating? And does this mean that there's no Grants since Resta/Anti are light, then?

It was said in an interview or something. I remember seeing it on the bumped PS blog.

I could be remembering wrong though.

Also, I'm not saying that an element is going to be restricted to a certain type of tech. In PSU 'Light' had both healing and damaging techs. I should have said "iirc there are going to be 'wind' element buff techs".

[Omega-z]

There wasn't anything wrong with Resta/ Charged Resta. I think ppl need to re-train themselves how to use it correctly with other abilities, Especially Team play. It's not the same as before and better for it too. We don't need it bigger it's fine. lol at getting hurt doing it, re-think what your doing. I like how Hunters aren't going to think themselves as immortal any more and think before they leap and how support from both tech and ranged play well be more strategic to get results. The thing is do we need big flashy tech's to get the job done which could slow down ppl and have it nerfed again, I think not and is pointless to have other then to show off. If they do add more to the tech it should be mild little by little not like PSU which had problems and looked ugly and overdone.

[Razelis]

your access to unlimited healing ability comes at the price of mobility, which also directly impacts your saftey depending on where you are or what you're doing.


So, unlike PSO and PSU where you don't really care to get hit because you can always just get up and instantly heal, this game further encourages you to 1) NOT get hit, and 2) don't put yourself in situations where you'll be surrounded / hit multiple times.

Of course having unlimited healing ability in this game is very boring i agree there, and it's also nice that we can not instantly heal effectvly since we need to charge first.

I was mainly aiming for the chasing.

Of course all that teamwork stuff sounds good on paper - in reality it just won't happen (or never did for me on PSO2 Alpha2 or PSU)

People will never stand still and wait for you to heal them, just won't happen.
When someone is on low HP, they freak out and run around to dodge every possible attack, they will not stop and look for the healer, and stand there waiting until they be healed.
It's either chase them around and spam resta or let them die / use a mate.

Regardless (even in a dream world where players stand still for you to heal them), I consider myself a bad support if I have to slow down the party in order to support it.
On PSU, I never called out for people to gather for buffs, I just took advantage every time the party was concentrated and rebuffed even if the party was already buffed. Which meant we completed mission insanly fast and swiftly without stopping at all!
Asking all the party to gather together and stand still for few second just seem too much for me (in a fast paced action game).

I also agree the charged resta should not heal you to full but i rather it be a slightly stronger one time heal. Not game breaking +1000 HP, but +100~150 instead of 80 x4.

I really do not want to get into numbers but more about the method, I will leave the balancing to SEGA.

Overall as I said, supporting is very fun and engaging, but know that if you want to be supportive this is something you have to put up with (at least on low lvl resta)

[Omega-z]

I think most might not know this but Charge Resta is pretty much for the Caster and not for team most of the time of how you say (slowdown or drop everything and come here), even then you can manage to still do a CR to your team mates time to time. But really you need to do normal Resta more often since the Melee have better auto heal so the Caster don't slow the party or be in harms way to help some one else. MB is a god-send and most need to learn to snap heal and so that the Melee fighter doesn't have to stop.

You just have to MB in Resta and MB out fast you can do that faster then CR or just standing there and you can do it multiple of times. Yes it's not an instant heal but makes things more interesting. it's better to heal smaller amount with the help of the hunter auto-heal then trying to do everything yourself (ppl hated that in PSU, especially AT ). This time around it's a combined effort to heal your team not just the Caster's job. There's no "I" in TEAM.:)

And "No" to making it bigger it will break the fluid-ness of the Tech-class, it's not stand back at the sidelines and stand there and be pretty and heal me job it's fast pace game where standing around = death since Lv.20 was noobie range and at higher Lv's the techer couldn't stand around any where for to long. That's why we have a small resta range to in-courage us to move to heal to heal others and be more in the game.

Resta at higher Lv's will just get stronger to keep up with the scaling of HP, at the rate I see it will top out at a skill of 30 unless HP gets huge later on.

[Spellbinder]

Excuse me for asking, but what is MB?

[Games not even out yet and there are acronyms I don't understand. ((((゜д゜; )))) ]

[Omega-z]

sorry Mirage Blast it's a dodging skill. It will take out the long animation of Resta and the spell will remain to heal your buddies. But don't Charge before Mirage Blasting it will cancel your Charge, reason why I recommend Normal Resta.

[Spellbinder]

I thought the name was Mirage Escape?

[Razelis]

Assuming you were replying to my post... XD


I think most might not know this but Charge Resta is pretty much for the Caster and not for team most of the time of how you say (slowdown or drop everything and come here), even then you can manage to still do a CR to your team mates time to time. But really you need to do normal Resta more often since the Melee have better auto heal so the Caster don't slow the party or be in harms way to help some one else.

I think that Charged Resta has bigger range than normal Resta partly becase it meant to support others than yourself...


You just have to MB in Resta and MB out fast you can do that faster then CR or just standing there and you can do it multiple of times. Yes it's not an instant heal but makes things more interesting.

I fully agree there, I never wanted resta to be a instant full recovery. In fact, I find its fun as it is in terms of charging.


it's better to heal smaller amount with the help of the hunter auto-heal

Hunter Auto-Heal? didn't know such thing exsisted (sorry i didnt get high lvl in Hunter class ><) XO; do all Hunters have that?


then trying to do everything yourself (ppl hated that in PSU, especially AT ).

People did? I had a lot of fun healing and supporting party without letting them spend even one monomate! XD
In fact, it's weird for me you say that especially AT hated their own job which is the most support class in PSU... (it was the only class with support techs lv50)


And "No" to making it bigger it will break the fluid-ness of the Tech-class, it's not stand back at the sidelines and stand there and be pretty and heal me job it's fast pace game where standing around = death since Lv.20 was noobie range and at higher Lv's the techer couldn't stand around any where for to long. That's why we have a small resta range to in-courage us to move to heal to heal others and be more in the game.

That makes sense~~~ It is different than previous resta and more engaging and fun~


Resta at higher Lv's will just get stronger to keep up with the scaling of HP, at the rate I see it will top out at a skill of 30 unless HP gets huge later on.

Is that an assumption? XO;

[Astarin]

Haven't seen this anywhere yet: What does charged Anti do?

I kinda dig the concept of charged Resta functioning the way people describe. I usually main healer/support, and having people come to me for a change sounds kind of awesome. As someone mentioned, it'd make it an actual group effort, rather than people just expecting miracles. With that said, I'll reserve full judgement until I get hands-on time myself.

Another thing people should keep in mind; even in PSO/U, level 5 Resta has pretty crappy range. It's always scaled up with level.

[Razelis]

Haven't seen this anywhere yet: What does charged Anti do?

I kinda dig the concept of charged Resta functioning the way people describe. I usually main healer/support, and having people come to me for a change sounds kind of awesome. As someone mentioned, it'd make it an actual group effort, rather than people just expecting miracles. With that said, I'll reserve full judgement until I get hands-on time myself.

Another thing people should keep in mind; even in PSO/U, level 5 Resta has pretty crappy range. It's always scaled up with level.

Charged Anti just had more range as far as I know~

[Omega-z]

yeah, Razelis the last part was more of assumption base on Lv per Lv upgrading and Testing with my HP. You could call it an educated guess but could change any time now to then.

It's true that not all techer's hated to support people. But more of the idea people wanted them to, and if they didn't or not good enough got booted or where unkind to them.

I think most Sega can do for Force is decrease the pp amount of normal spell to 5~10 pp a piece and add in a Skill in the skill tree to increase the speed of your charge time for cost of pp perhaps.

It's true that charge Resta is larger and can work better, But I think it depends on the foe's you fight or the best moment to use it since charging makes you more open then you like. That you can't Mirage Escape (sorry for thinking it was Blast) with a charge since you`ll just be wasting PP then.

yeah Charge Anti doesn't seem much at the moment, I think the best thing they could do is add the revival ability to it with the Charge Anti so it would have better use.

[Kent]

It's interesting - in most online RPGs, being the "healer" in a group is the most boring thing possible. MMORPGs, for instance, basically have you playing whack-a-mole with health bars by mashing buttons on your keyboard. That's not fun, that's annoying and boring.

In PSO, being a healer basically meant that you were a Force and you were close enough to an ally to pop Resta if they got hurt bad, and that's it, you're done. It's funny that what's probably the most straight-forward and hands-off method of healing people made it the most fun and least in-the-way to actually do. However, it also required an expendible resource to actually do (TP, and by extension fluids).

I think it's interesting that Resta in PSO2 is both less-effective and requires - like all healing - a sacrifice in mobility on part of the person being healed. It will be even more interesting to see how much larger the effective range of Resta is at high levels, but as it is currently, it seems that it'll require more in the way of tactics and teamwork for a Force to really pull off healing people well. Say, someone with a wide-AOE weapon keeping enemies distracted so a Force can patch someone up, or an attentive Force having to run in during a prolonged PA animation to drop off a heal on a Hunter.

I think that since PP is such an easily-replenishable resource, it makes much more sense to make it require much more consideration to actually use.

It's worth noting that "support" and "healer" are two different roles, though there's generally some overlap between them - I don't really think that things like Shifta and Deband should have the same restrictions imposted on them as Resta however, just due to the nature of a semi-long-duration buff. If anything, it's one of the only things that could really translate directly from PSO to PSO2 with no actual issues.

[youcantcatchtheblue]

Hunter Auto-Heal? didn't know such thing exsisted (sorry i didnt get high lvl in Hunter class ><) XO; do all Hunters have that?


It's in the Hunter skill-tree. You have to choose if you want to get that skill or not. It basically just automatically uses a monomate/dimate/trimate whenever your health is below a certain percentage. I didn't try it out though since I didn't need to heal that often and I like having control of the items I use O_o

[Eclipse5632]

It basically just automatically uses a monomate/dimate/trimate whenever your health is below a certain percentage.
To elaborate, the skills only give you a chance of automatically using a mate, and there are two skills: one with the threshold at 50% HP and the other at 25% HP. I don't know what the chance maxes out at.

[Omega-z]

the big question would be does Auto-heal for hunter have that annoying animation or is it like other PS titles with no animation. I would think the ladder since it would suck to be attacking and then out of the blue healing which would stop your flow.

[Angelo]

the big question would be does Auto-heal for hunter have that annoying animation or is it like other PS titles with no animation. I would think the ladder since it would suck to be attacking and then out of the blue healing which would stop your flow.

I hope it has some kind of wind up and is not 'instant'. I'm really glad they're getting rid of 'panic buttons' this time around.

[kyuuketsuki]

I hope it has some kind of wind up and is not 'instant'. I'm really glad they're getting rid of 'panic buttons' this time around.
While in most cases I'd agree with you, the HU's auto-heal ability simply can't have an animation. If it did, it'd be worse than useless, since it'd interrupt whatever you're doing when it triggers, opening you up to attack.

[Zorafim]

Wow, healing is both difficult and weak? That's great to hear! Lately, I've been enjoying healing, but have been noticing how mindnumbingly boring it is (as in, stand there most of the time, then instantly revive any damage that has been done). Having to run around and really work should make the job much more fun.
Of course, that also means that less people will want to heal, since people get overwhelmed with difficult jobs. So healers will be more in demand?

I'm going to laugh if auto mate requires the hunter to get stunned for a few seconds to heal. I thought mating in PSU went way too far. I didn't even have to think to heal myself to full, which means all I really did was focus on offense. That lead to really boring gameplay. If mating is automatic in this game, that might lead to the same thing. Of course, you need to spend skill points on it, so you might have to sacrifice better abilities to use it anyway.

[Serephim]

any force who played healer in the previous games was doing it wrong.


Seriously, how could you enjoy being so boring. In PSO/U there are people who die in a few hits, and people who die in a few more hits. Anyone who plays without trying to avoid getting hit because "we have a """""healer"""""" is doing it wrong too.

[Angelo]

While in most cases I'd agree with you, the HU's auto-heal ability simply can't have an animation. If it did, it'd be worse than useless, since it'd interrupt whatever you're doing when it triggers, opening you up to attack.

It still somehow seems like a bad idea... I know it's a passive skill but I hope it has some type of cooldown. I honestly think they should scrap the skill altogether since it conflicts with the whole 'be alert' aspect I feel from this installment. I'll just have to trust Sega on this one though, it's an early build of the game, it will be balanced correctly.

[Serephim]

Yeah, i think it should basically just have a cooldown. Like, 10-20 seconds between activations.


Or maybe even more than that. Because there are different skills for different HP precentages.

[Dinosaur]

Don't nerf Guard Stance!

I want to make a tank FOhucast that can stand in the middle of the room spamming Rabarta with max Freeze Boost and Guard Stance.