Nalano, on 27 December 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:
Tanks burn out in keyspam games.
Healers burn out in keyspam games.
I had to fix that for you. TERA uses a similar system of ground targeting and tab target avoidance, but it does it better. You can still do single target heal spells, but you have to aim them with a reticle. Healing in TERA is, quite frankly, the most fun I've had in an MMO for a long, long time. And that surprises me, to be honest. I've got two sleeper hits on my hands right now; Free Realms, which I was lead into by a lady friend, which is a completely open-ended system and the closest thing I've played to Ultima Online, and TERA because they somehow actually made being a healer fun. It's a fun role.
There are a number of reasons why it's fun. Just like it's fun being a tank in TERA. A tank there is a lancer, and standing still as you would in traditional MMOs and spamming your keys will have you laid out on the floor, the lancer is actually an avoidance and kiting tank. And it's a brilliantly realised concept. It actually reminds me of dodge tanks in Champions Online, but done properly as a focused tanking system. Helping to keep a lancer on his feet as a priest is actually really enjoyable. It is because you're not just staring at bars.
The problem with healing and tanking isn't healing and tanking, it's keyspam. I didn't realise or understand this before TERA, which is why that was so enlightening for me. And you won't understand this either until you've tried it. It has a free trial up until level 28 right now, so there's no excuse not to at least give it a go. Try playing a priest, get into a few groups and see how healing works. Or try being a lancer, and watch how different tanking is.
TERA's taught me that the trinity isn't explicitly wrong. In fact, it can be fun. What I've learned from the experience is that far, far too many MMOs are based around monotonously slow combat, with deterministic dice rolls, and key spam. Oh the never-ending keyspam of it all. I doubt you're even going to humour me and see for yourself, but that's your choice.
GW2 convinced me of the idea that the trinity could be dumped. The result was a never-ending mindless zerg of keyspam. That depressed me so much that I dropped GW2 within a week and went back to other games, games like Mass Effect 3, where you didn't have to grind or keyspam in order to be amazing. I needed to play that just to get the anger out of my system, anger at the promise of something new, that just turned out to be more broken and more mindless than anything else before it.
So yes, I agree to an extent. WoW tanks and healers are bad, they're bad because of keyspam. Keyspam defines WoW. But keyspam zerging defines GW2, too. But if TERA is the way forward, I can be happy with the trinity. Dodge tanks and tactical healers, both requiring skill, is an awesome thing to have.
(And if I'm honest, the guardian is no different than a paladin tank in WoW. It's just based around survivability and keyspam. The dodge tanks in TERA are way more fun to play. But you still see 'LF1MGUARDIAN' in map chat. So... keyspam-laden guardian or lancer? Hm. Lancer, pls. It's not even something you have to think about.)
Edited by DuskWolf, 28 December 2012 - 10:37 AM.
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shout and banner support is decent!
