What if the 5th class were a HEALER?

[direfire]

I know my standpoint on this but I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.
What if the 5th class were a HEALER?

How would that impact the gameplay? Good or bad?
Let me know and I'll give you my take on it.

[ThulRasha]

What if the 5th class were a HEALER?


Then it would mean Blizzard went back on their earlier announcement that they don't intend to have a dedicated healer class.

In this game your meant to plow trough hordes of monsters, dedicated healing classes don't fit.

[Moonfrost]

Healers work in party-based games where healers can rely on other classes to fill the damage role, but not in ARPG where every class must have enough offensive potential to single-handedly beat the game. As soon as you give a healer enough offensive potential to do just that, the class is no longer a healer but an offensive caster like the wizard or witch doctor.

Whether or not one of the classes will have some kind of minor healing ability is a different matter altogether, though.

[djfriesen]

In this game your meant to plow trough hordes of monsters, dedicated healing classes don't fit.

Indeed. Say "no" to drugs, but also say "no" to MMO mechanics in ARPGs.

[chillietaco]

Indeed. Say "no" to drugs, but also say "no" to MMO mechanics in ARPGs.

There are actually probably quite a few MMO mechanics that are suited to Diablo III but I agree that a dedicated healer is not one of them.

[djfriesen]

As someone not especially familiar with MMOs or their myriad mechanics, I won't try to dispute this. I just long for (and with good reason I think) the ability to lone-wolf it through the game. I'm all for people being able to party up, I just don't do it very often. A game that necessitates a dedicated healer class ceases to be an ARPG for me.

[Apocalypse]

only way i see a healing character working is if you also give him good summonables(is that even a word?). a druid usually fits this mold with ok heals and pretty good summoned pets but there wont be a druid so he is out. anyway point is like already stated the point is to kill mobs and kill them fast. also you need to do it alone so a healer wont happen and if it did it would play like the d2 necro just replace curses with heals

[konfeta]

A healer doesn't make sense in a game where the primary source of healing has already been rather conclusively stated as killing things for shiny AoE heals.

[Technomancer]

Not.

I could maybe see a class with a couple of healing(-ish) skills, but as a class, not possible in an ARGP. That said, I think a Cleric-type class that focuses on Holy offensive magicks could be awesome, though more so for an expansion.

[Apocalypse]

unless they are healing pets then they wont be healing. a ranger class could easily have heals. uses a bow, has a pet, has heals for pet and party. though in most ARPG it is easier to kill than heal so i dont see anyone leveling up heals even if they were in the game

[Chukcharcoales]

I don't foresee a healing class in D3. If there was one, I hope it wouldn't be mandatory to have at least one in every game like in Guildwars if you want to progress though more difficult parts of the game.

[ThomasJ]

Diablo 3, the mmo ? Healer lfg Diablo run!

[Chukcharcoales]

Always annoyed me that you couldnt go anywhere without at least one monk in your group. >_<

[direfire]

I still say that Blizzard will ruin the thing that made Diablo2exp stay alive so long and that is that everyone had an equal chance of being the best player in the game.

Looking at the first game play video from Diablo 3 you'll see the team of players beating up the boss. That means with most sertainty that you'll never be able to solo him or any other end game boss.
And that means that you will need friends to play with and that means you remove everyone that just don't have the time or the will power to play with other people.

I love Diablo 2 because I play alongside other players but I'm not dependent on them.
World Of Warcraft is dead as you reach the highest level for me because I just can't take playing with a bunch of 12 year olds for hours to get the best items.

That's going to ruin Diablo3 for me, cus...can it be any other way? I don't think so, do YOU?

[Moonfrost]

Looking at the first game play video from Diablo 3 you'll see the team of players beating up the boss. That means with most sertainty that you'll never be able to solo him or any other end game boss.
So if you saw a video of 4 players beating Baal in D2, you'd jump to the conclusion that you'd never be able to solo him...? D3 is no different from D2 in this regard, both games are fully intended to be soloable.

[TheMythe]

If this game isn't soloable, Blizzard can scratch single player campaign alltogether. Blizzard can also scratch everyone who does not have a very good internet connection. So, HELL YES it is meant to be doable (yet hard of course) to solo it and with more players in one game, the /playersX multiplyer is used. And that is what you saw in the video, an endboss with the /players4 on....

[GoldenBird]

Looking at the first game play video from Diablo 3 you'll see the team of players beating up the boss. That means with most sertainty that you'll never be able to solo him or any other end game boss.
And that means that you will need friends to play with and that means you remove everyone that just don't have the time or the will power to play with other people.


I'm pretty sure scaling monster difficulty to amount of players will still exist, and thus allow soloing. After all, it's not a MMO.

As for the OP's question, the answer is that angry mobs would flood Blizzard offices for not filling in the ranged physical damage (aka ranger) archetype.

[WizardGurl]

A healer would be weak in battle alone but a good party character as he would heal while others fight.

But a healer class would be...boring.And probably healing skills will be in the tree of the Monk.

[sirroman]

A healer would be weak in battle alone but a good party character as he would heal while others fight.

But a healer class would be...boring.And probably healing skills will be in the tree of the Monk.

You are half-right, I can say from my personal experience, some of the most fun game-nights I had with D2 was with a HC Cleric (paladin w/ maxed holy bolt).

Besides, I loved act 2 w/ that character man. Act3 was still a pain in the ***, though.

But yeah, holy bolt is only ONE skill of the paladin. An entire class based on that would be lame. I just like to have more options (heck! Blizz can't spare ONE SKILL? damn!).