Thursday 29 April 2004

Pic of the day: A cat-eared nurse is welcome on almost any team. But even better is to not need nursing in the first place.

CoH: The no-cleric MMOG

There is a point that simply cannot be stressed enough about this online game: There is no cleric or even healer class. Yes, the game has healing. No, it is not limited to one archetype, and no, there is no archetype specialized in healing.

The new arrival from EQ, DAoC or similar games will start out thinking that the defender archetype is the "healer". This could just happen to be right in the case of one defender, and totally off with another. Likewise, some controllers are quite good healers, but suck at mesmerizing. And then suddenly as you're on the receiving end of a can of whup-ass, this wolverine clone heals you repeatedly. What's going on here?

***

First let us declare that archetype is not class. Well, it is, but in a very wide sense. There are only 5 such archetypes, and they define loosely what role you can play in a team at level 2. That's pretty much it. You take it from there.

If you want to specialize in healing, I do indeed recommend becoming a defender. More exactly, defender with empathy as primary power set. And both kinetic and dark powers have an option to heal in battle by sucking energy from an opponent. But there are defenders with no healing powers whatsoever. For instance, you could have the power to generate protective force fields around people. This is clearly a case of defending, and so this character is classified as a defender. Actually, I personally prefer not being hit in the first place over being healed later, so I'm quite happy to team with a bubble boy. But you still see people broadcast "looking for healer". Old habits die hard, I guess.

Most primary powers for defenders are available as secondary powers for controllers, so a controller may be a pretty good healer as well. As time passes, primary powers grow more rapidly than secondary powers, so a controller specializing in healing will never be the Best Healer Ever. Still, you're likely to get a lot of friends.

However, healing is not entirely reserved for the two support archetypes. Blasters, scrappers and tankers can get the medicine power set at level 6. "Aid other", a kind of high-tech first aid, is available right away. It is kinda limited: Only heals one person at a time, requires standing close, and can be interrupted if you are attacked. But it can be improved by adding a few enhancers over the next few levels: Heal enhancers will make it heal for more each time, reload enhancers will let you fire it off more often, and there are even enhancers that makes you harder to interrupt. Of course, if you're that much into healing you should probably have gone a different route to begin with, but it is possible.

In addition to all this, healing inspirations abound. These are one- shot power-ups found after a combat or given by thankful citizens. They can be given to other players, so if you notice that you're dragging around a lot of heals, your friendly neighborhood tanker is likely to accept them thankfully.

Add the fact that we are all heroes here, and will shrug off any flesh wound given a brief rest. In addition many tankers and quite a few scrappers have inherent powers that let them heal themselves for a considerable amount now and again. The sum total of all this is that healers are optional if you take a bit care. Of course, it is fun to wade in among high level opponents and survive. It is in fact very exciting and one of the highs of the game. But it is not necessary. Pick your fights according to what your team can do (or compose your team for the fight you are expecting) and you should do well without a cleric class.

***

As an afterthought, basically the same rules apply for resurrection. Actually, no one ever dies in City of Heroes. Criminals can be heard threatening to kill the citizens, but they are just bluffing. They may take a purse and run, never to be seen again, but none of them would actually kill a civilian. (Perhaps there are really severe laws against it, and the crooks all know they will be nabbed sooner or later.) Heroes are all given a hospital card, or more exactly a skin patch, which can teleport them to hospital if they are critically injured. When defeating a villain, he will also be tagged with a teleport patch and disappear to the prison hospital.

The technology and magic of Paragon City can fix up anyone in record time even from the brink of death. But the hospitals are not the only ones who can patch up a defeated hero. Any defender or controller specializing in the healing art can get this skill as well. In addition dark magic has a revive that transfers life from an enemy. (Beware that high level enemies have similar powers as heroes, so take care.) And even one of the fire power sets has a phoenix effect, although this is self-only. Anyone specializing in medicine can get revive other at security level 14 or above. And finally, there are revive self inspirations, although they are found rarely and are expensive to buy. The best thing is of course to not get defeated in the first place...