Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the RUHelar, my son!
The teams that wipe, and debt accrue!
Beware the forum troll, and shun
The incorrigible healer, true!"

He took his power pool in hand:
Long time the aid other he sought --
So rested he by the Spirit tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The RUHelar, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The medicine pool went snicker-snack!
He administered meds, and near the hospital beds,
It had its life brought back.

"OMG, U let me die,
learn how to play, j00 stupid n00b!
O what crap! U suck! I say!"
said the giant rube.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

---

(In response to this person. who seemed nice)

It's because this game isn't (or at least wasn't) everquest. And this is very specific, because people from UO do not [censored] and moan about healers.

In Everquest the healer was *absolutely* vital to the team, because there were encounters which *could not even be attempted* without some incredibaly beefy tank to hold aggro and a bunch of people chain healing him. The game was simply not designed for normal healthy gameplay; it was a triad of healers, tanks, and damage dealers of various kinds. The concept of buffing was secnodary, and debuffing? WTH is a debuf?!

They infected Dark Age of Camelot with this attitude. In Dark Age, the best way to level is to get a pet to wander out into a field of things that are waaay too high level to fight, put a damage-done-returned shield on them, and get several people chain healing. That's how I got from level 39 to 40.5

it was the dumbest thing I've ever done.

Healing is this game-breaking mechanism in these other games, because the systems are so incredibly simple. City of heroes is somewhat more interesting (not to say that it's AMAZING--but it *is* lightyears ahead of other mmos in terms of gameplay... maybe someone in Eve would argue with me, but in any case...). City of heroes is about comic books, adn in comic books, the only people who heal are the people who heal *themselves* for deus ex machina, or for fun or whatever. The typical healer role takes place in between comic book fights while heroes recuperate from being poked by a badger. A Mutant badger.

So these people with previous MMO experience come here,a nd they do what *anybody* does; they reduce their learning curve by finding analogies with what they've already done. That includes healers.

Keep in mind one of the biggest differences with this game is that there aren't any 'rest' cycles really. The rest button serves the same function as 'sprint' does in most games (a quick respite from a bad situation so you can come back rested and finish the fight--or a way to get across a difficult zone after being hit by potshots from high level enemies). Whereas this sprint button...there's no allegory really. To just let people run faster?! MADNESS!!

But anyway. They show up here and get into the groove. Since their way of doing things affects so many aspects of the game, such as lingo and expectations in team environments, new people who join the game learn a kind of hybrid-concept for the game. They don't just learn how to play *this* game. They learn how to play this game from the perspective of people who played a totally different game. People who are using metaphors and allegories to make this game easier for them to understand. There isn't a term like 'healer' in this game. There is the term heal, and there's the empath set which has some *excellent* buffs in it, and is more about providing buffs than it is about healing. But these aren't the 'healer' role. The guy who stands there and does NOTHING but heal--which is what the everquesting zeitgeist is all about. In this game, combat is supposed to be more fluid (and I don't mean kiting), and people are supposed ot have 2 or more different things they could be doing at a time. When they balanced CoV ATs, they did a much better job of making this clear. But even CoH ATs are unique in that *all* of them have interesting stuff they could be doing. A blaster *can* grab aggro and draw an overwhelming force off the tank while he takes care of business. I know, because I've done it (as a defender... not as a blaster... hehe).

This game really *deserves* the lingo it comes with. Words like defender and offender have waaay more meaning. Blastfender. Scraptroller. They help you understand the aspects of *these* mechanisms which are being emphasized. The old words like meatshield and healer are from a different system. They work here only as useful allegories.

But they're not useful allegories anymore. They're defining people's understanding of play. If you die, it's because someone didn't heal you, not because you didn't figure out how to take advantage of the defender buffs, or not because youw eren't in range to be healed by the transfusion. A buff is this weird deal. People don't notice buffs because, in Dark Age, or Everquest, the only time you *really* noticed a buff was when 3 druids spooged all over your face filling your entire buffbuffer, or when someone 20 levels higher than yuo wandered by and gave you enough power to take down oranges solo.

In this game, give someone Fortitude and it's a *big* deal. Even if it came from a *lower* level empath. Who has not loved the speed boost? Yet people are not familiar with the concept. Perhaps worse, the metaphor that defines the everuest playstyle involves healing and 'crack' or mana and endurance regeneration. Well in *this* game that all comes from one powerset, coincidentally. So instead of it being a quirky powerset, the defender's version of scrapper regen, it's *the* defining powerset that other ATs are comfortable working with. Early on that was how it was recognized, how it was billed, and how it's been perceived since.

Now we're here at the restaurant at the end of the universe, on the eve of the launch of a huge refinement of the game (CoV *is* better and different than CoH, if you want my opinion; the difference is huge), and the concepts that didn't really fit in the first place are trying to transfer *again* to a new game which suits them *even less*. CoV is hard for people to learn and define, even using CoH classes and concpts as metaphors!! So for everquest terminology is it particularly unsuited.

We've always been bugged by the 2 dimensional view of our class. We've always been annoyed at being undesireable on teams because we weren't empaths. Especially since defenders are so fricking overpowered it's kind of rediculous on stilts (yes, that's right, I said it). Now there's a new environment in which we're still trying to just *udnerstand* what's going on. Beta didn't give us a good understanding of how all these ATs fit together at various levels. That's still to be determined. We still have a long time to go before we see The Mighty Scourges DefenderMind FAQ. We have time on our hands before we see Hobo's Mastinator Guide. Or the complete FuryStalker's handbook. That's all to be seen. But already people are trying to JAM these SQUARE PEGS into delicate octagonal openings. The problem is that if they *try* hard enough, they'll make it work, and then you wno't be able to fit a goddamned octagon in there!

This is the crux of our discomfort.