Game Mechanics: Some are better than others?

[Frith-Rae]

I..dont understand whatever it was you just said.

If you said "healer priests cant dps" well..thats what duel-specs are for. One spec for full healy - one spec for dps. Switch at will *shrugs*.

It is an awesome game mechanic in and of itself and Im glad WoW brought it to the table for everyone else to get the idea =D.

[Dhalin]

Back on the subject, in other MMORPGs...

Final Fantasy XI.

White Mages (and to lesser extent, Red Mages) were your healers. Both of them had some decent offensive capability. You'd be thinking "what!? a WHITE mage offense?"

Yup!

With proper gear, that is.

White Mages had access to some gear that no other class had, and they were the one-and-only who had access to a weapon skill called Hexa Strike. Before the huge endgame overhaul, Hexa Strike was -the- most damaging weaponskill in the game, by pure numbers. The only reason White Mages were not putting out larger numbers than warriors, is because warriors had superior damage-dealing gear available to them.

But still, you give a white mage who was maxed on his club skill the right gear (and equipped the Ninja subjob which allowed dual-wielding), they could put out some not-too-shabby damage, but doing this hurt their healing ability quite a bit unless you had a ridiculously hard to obtain weapon that gave you another weaponskill to recover lots of mana.

Red Mages on the other hand, were like Red Mages in any other Final Fantasy -- a jack of all trades. They could throw offensive magic OK-ish, they could melee not too bad, and they could definitely be a healer in a pinch. For awhile, they were better healers than White Mages until they finally fixed that.

And then, you have Dancers which were added to the game some time later. You're thinking "huh? A person who dances"? Yup. A dual-wielding, dagger-stabbing dancer. They healed using TP (the same resource you use for weaponskill) instead of mana, which means they never had to worry about running out of it as long as they continued to melee a mob. Their dances healed their allies, removed their bad status effects and did other things. So they healed while putting out some DPS, and as long as they could hit the mob reliably, they never ran out of healing power. But their dance-heals weren't as strong per use as a White Mage's casted heals and it forced them to be in melee (and in AoE range) the whole time.

Dancer also made a heck of a subjob for any class wishing to solo because TP = Self Healing.

[Frith-Rae]

Ahh the "dancer class" - healing through DPS.

Its a cool healy mechanic - one that was used very well by a class in Warhammer and I belive RIFT also has a magey-class that works the same way.

SW:TOR has healing classes that can definintley DPS as well without switching specs - but not "healing through melee/attacks."

And I believe - though it is not set in stone yet of course - that the new MONK class for WoW will be healing through melee DPS as well.

Its a mechanic I really enjoy actually. You dont stand back and heal, you get yourself into the middle of the fight - start swinging - and then heal through auras/totems/AOE stuff.

[Dhalin]

Ahh the "dancer class" - healing through DPS.

Its a cool healy mechanic - one that was used very well by a class in Warhammer and I belive RIFT also has a magey-class that works the same way.

SW:TOR has healing classes that can definintley DPS as well without switching specs - but not "healing through melee/attacks."

And I believe - though it is not set in stone yet of course - that the new MONK class for WoW will be healing through melee DPS as well.

Its a mechanic I really enjoy actually. You dont stand back and heal, you get yourself into the middle of the fight - start swinging - and then heal through auras/totems/AOE stuff.

They have to be careful with that though -- there needs to be drawbacks.

If you can take a Monk or Dancer-type healer with you, who puts out some DPS (not as much DPS as actual DPS though), then the question becomes "why bring an older type healer instead of this new type healer? The older type healer puts out NO DPS at all!"

Especially when it comes to Mana.

Right now, many boss fights in WoW is a race of Healer's Mana vs Mob's HP -- if you kill the boss before the healer runs out of mana, you live. If the healer runs out of mana, you die. The only exception to this rule, is if the healer or tank dies due to fight mechanics.

If you have a healer that does not use mana, but rather a resource that is earned or replenished through melee combat rather than a resource that you start off full and slowly tick down as you use abilities (like mana), then you have a vastly superior healer in nearly every boss fight.

But yet if you weaken Monk's heals to account for the fact they use a renewable/theoretically infinite resource, then they stop being viable healers and you won't see them healing raids, or maybe even heroic dungeons depending on how weak their heals are.

Also, what about PvP? Healers in PvP rarely win 1v1 fights because they put out no DPS, but yet they rarely die in 1v1 either, it becomes an endless match. A monk-type, however, is sure to win if he can put out some DPS but keep himself healed endlessly, kinda like the problem they are having with Blood Deathknights right now -- A Blood DK is a tank, who does nice damage, who also heals himself with his most damaging attack (Death Strike). They had to nerf an entire tank mechanic just to deal with it (and in the process, ruined two other class's tank specs in PvP).

I think Blizz is walking a tightrope with this one.

The reason why Dancers worked in FFXI, is because Square-Enix never pretended to have anything as "silly" as class balance (lol) and there's little to no PvP in FFXI.

That, and endgame mobs are notoriously hard to hit. If you can't hit anything, you won't build TP and definitely won't be dancing much.

Not to mention, you can change your class at will in FFXI with a quick trip back to your Mog House. You can't change your class in WoW.