Hello folks, long post ahead for who's interested.
Just dropping my feedback on my experience as healing on TERA as a Mystic and healing in general.
Having played healing classes in all MMO's I've ventured on, playing as Mystic was a very unique albeit frustrating experience. This is only from a perspective of a complete casual who's been pugging low-end dungeons for dailies like RR and RK9 so my knowledge doesn't extend further than those but I have a general idea of how the class plays what should be done to make Mystic (and probably Priest) more friendly as healing classes towards newcomers.
First and foremost, TERA doesn't throw you in any situation where your healing kit is necessary during your leveling journey, all you needot know is how to DPS everything as quickly as possible to complete quests and progress, the sole exception is if you're instance queueing for leveling dungeons prior to 70 and those require basically no healing if you and your party are not facetanking bosses, pots are more than enough.
Now, this is a very big problem. In any other MMO I've played as healer, right from the beginning your healing kit is necessary to an extent and then there's the typical difficulty curve as you level up and complete higher level dungeons with more difficult mechanics, this is a natural process to 'ease' the player into the role as healer since it is most pivotal role in the party.
However this is not the case with TERA, you spend 69-70 levels without using your healing kit, you unlock these cool healing skills, Healing Totem, Thrall of Life, etc and you never have to use them since no healing is necessary. I unlocked Titanic Favor (the lock-on heal) in my first 10-15 levels and I never had to use it until max level, how weird is that? So where does the problem begins then? When you reach max level.
My expectaction into going into new max level dungeons like RR and RK9 were very low, because after Catacombs I expected the next new thing to be maybe slightly more difficult if not just another cakewalk where healing is barely needed, then the tables have turned on me in the most brutal way possible.
So I queue for RK9 and the first boss already does some good damage to my party, I see mechanics happening, AoE's I have to dodge or I'll probably get one-shotted or nearly so. WHAT A SHOCK! This was not I was expecting after going through a tutorial for nearly 70 levels. This is not good. Long story short, it was a painful 1st run, some party members died, I died, but we still got through.
Fast forwarding a week or so and having run the dungeon plenty of times now, I got familiarized with the mechanics and I can most of the times go through without much hassle, so what did I gather from this bittersweet experience? Healing in TERA needs some key improvements, here's a list for Mystic as I do not know how Priest handles.
- First issue: Lock-on heals are problematic.
This is the only MMO I've played with this system and I applaud the devs who had the courage of coming up with this, but it's unfortunately very flawed. As a healer in TERA, the preferable way to be positioned during the fight is in one of sides of the boss so your lock-on heals can reach both the tank and the group which should be in theory behind the boss, now where is the problem in this? Ranged DPS classes.
My most frustrating runs were with ranged classes, because of their nature, they will not be stacking with the rest of the group (I guess they should? Somebody call me on that), now as a healer, I've tried to adjust and stay in the same side as the ranged DPS but even if they're not moving around too much, the lock-on strain is already there, you waste more time dragging your cursor around to heal who's in need, and god forbid you get these ranged DPS who will not stay put for one second and just dance around the boss (looking at your Archers) then your day will be ruined.
Now, this is another issue, maybe slightly less problematic. Your only lock-on heal works only in your party members but not yourself, why is that? I was baffled when I found this out, even with the lock-on heal traited, you will not get any healing from it, this is bad design in my opinion. Moving on to next issues:
- Second issue: Lack of emergency healing.
Oh wow where to start. With so many things that go wrong in a PUG setting, as a healer (Mystic) you're stuck with 1 emergency burst heal in the form of Thrall of Life, it's a great skill but it shouldn't be the only burst party heal available, even if has a measly 20% chance of resetting its cooldown, why on earth would you rely on that if shit hits the fan, it's just non-sensical.
There should be a few more emergency healing skills, the bare minimum should be at least 3 of them and we have 1, it's not enough.
- Third issue: Healing skills in general are missing.
This is actually very funny, as a Mystic I have this HUGE skill list and guess what? Not even 1/4th of all those skills are HEALS. This is a healing class, correct? The way it feels right now, it's that Mystic is this summoner/debuffer who was taught some healing skills during his free time and got certified for it. I wonder how Priest is but I'm going to assume there are more healing dedicated skills there because frankly Mystic is disappointing if you are expecting an interesting healing kit as a HEALING CLASS.
- Fourth issue: Death is very punishing on Mystic.
You're on the thick of the fight, an unexpected mechanic comes in and you die, it happens. Now as a Mystic that is twice as punishing, why is that? Your most important toggle skill is disabled, the Thrall Augmentation that only makes your Thrall of Life the single most important healing cooldown in your kit, no biggie. Yeah. You die, you pay the fine, get ressed and then your party is getting hammered left and right so you use your quick fingers to try and save the day but WAIT A SECOND, LET ME JUST POP MY TOGGLE ON FIRST. Very frustrating. I won't even get started with the Auras.
- Fifth issue: Locking important healing upgrades behind Advance Skill progression.
I understand the concept of this but not how it's currently implemented for Mystic at least, the boomerang heal upgrades that HEALS the caster because normally it doesn't, is locked behind an hefty amount of gold and a ridiculous scroll number requirement that will takes several weeks to farm, how silly is that? In a class that is already deprived of healing skills, you make it even worse this way. I would understand if its only healing potencies but healing mechanics that are ESSENTIAL? Just no.
With all that said, do I hate playing Mystic, no I don't, the class is very fun to play still, it's just frustrating that the most important part of it, the healing part, is just so barebones in comparison to the rest, it's like they wanted Mystic to be another DPS class and last minute they decide to slap some healing skills on it and call it a healer.
There should be more ways for a new player to experience healing before venturing into max level dungeons without a single use of healing skills throughout the whole leveling process, it's going to be very frustrating. I'm pretty positive healing in an organized group is great, I had some excellent runs with some groups but the messy groups and more often the occurrence.
Here's hoping the devs will do something so more players can enjoy healing in TERA.
