Yes, that’s my rogue, and yes, she is a halfling riding a giant ant.
In almost all MMOs the first ‘trinity’ type character I make is a healer. You know, the holy trinity? Healer, tank, dps? Right. That one. Well I’m most comfortable playing healers, so that’s what I stick with at least the first time around. Healers are pretty boring. You spend all of your time watching other peoples health bars and making sure you’re not stepping on something you shouldn’t be. It’s rare that you get to move from that role, even when EQ2 added dps stances through alternate advancement it was still pretty boring.
Vanguard took a different approach to healing; at least for two of its classes. I can’t confirm on the other two because I don’t play them. First, the blood mage. This is my main character and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The blood mage is a cloth wearing healer who acts more like a necromancer then a healer. That is to say that unless you’re doing damage to the mob, you’re not doing a lot of healing. Your heals are tied directly to your nukes. The more damage you’re doing, the more you’re healing. This presents some good things and some bad. One bad would be that if the mob is too high level for you chances are you’re being resisted and there for having a difficult time healing. On the plus side, you’re having a lot of fun ganking agro from your tank with your uber dps, and it makes things a lot more fun in the long run. Blood mages are also the only healer class who gets counter, which is a reaction that can cancel the mobs spell casting. An amazing thing when you’re fighting mobs that silence, stun, or heal. Blood mages also create hand crafted items called symbiots (may have spelled that wrong). These little creatures are created from live body parts that you rip out of mobs, a different body part depending on which dot you’ve placed on it. They’re used to create ‘attachments’ to players with a timer. Basically a temporary buff. There are a lot of them and they’re all useful. Some are hastes, some give levitate, some allow you to cast spells with reduced energy (mana) consumption. Not only that, but blood mages have a huge amount of buffs, at level 47 I’ve got at least 10. The down sides, being cloth, they’re squishy.
Then there’s the disciple. This is a monk healer class. They get feign death, and stuns and do their healing through dps combos on the mob. Again if you’re getting resisted a lot you may find yourself having a hard time healing but it’s a lot of fun to play. That doesn’t mean that you’re not still watching health bars, but at least you’re also doing something else at the same time.
I love Vanguards approach to healer classes. It’s nice to know there’s more for me to do, and that I’m not restricted to dps OR healing, that they’re both tied together. What game has your favorite class? Is this something that would appeal to you?
Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Telon!
Disciple isn’t just my favorite healing class in Vanguard. It’s not even just my favorite healing class in any MMO. It’s my favorite class of any kind in any MMO.
Actually, every class I’ve played in Vanguard has been head and shoulders above most classes in any MMO.
I primarily played a DSC in the beta when I was in it. I *loved* the concept behind the class. The implementation was a bit off then — dps was FAR too low, yet we could heal so well that we were invulnerable, even vs 4-dot red mobs, they just took FOREVER to kill. Thing was, that awesome healing came from a heal chain that was “hidden” and had to be figured out, but once you knew it and could get it going….. your group was invulnerable with you.
It got changed to be more like the current implementation where you start your chains off crits just before release, and tbh I hated that change, so…. I have tried a DSC on the noob isle back when I had VG installed with my station pass, but I don’t think I got it past level 7. I’ve also tried a blood mage but didn’t get really far with it. I completed the noob island wit ha level 10 cleric, and yet it didn’t really “do it” for me either. I’ve never actually played a shaman. the other 3 healers didn’t work out for me, so I’ve had a hard time imagining that the 4th will. Perhaps someday if I ever try VG again.