Rip off that Bandaid

Having played a DoK at launch of WAR, it’s a career that I think about often. Even more so, the concept of lifetapping healers is something I think about a lot. I know I’m not alone, but when I heard about Warrior Priests and Disciple’s of Khaine, I was excited for the concept of a melee healer. It was an exciting and heady concept – being able to stay in a fight and heal your group. The best of both worlds, the thrill of combat and the fulfillment of playing a vital role. At launch, the careers were not so hot. It’s hard to remember since the two have been so powerful for so long (regen on off-hand item was the straw), but there was a time, when even healing spec for the two classes was less than optimal. In today’s game, melee healing isn’t a real viable path, but playing DPS and being a back-line healer is. Most I’ve talked with will admit they are TOO good at both, and have never really hit the vision we were presented with.

This stray from the original concept wasn’t intended obviously, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Instead, I think it was more a result of trying to do a really tough job from the start and please too many bases at once. When people started to realize that what was presented earlier wasn’t reality, players started to revert to traditional patterns of the healer role-fullfillment; sitting in the back, playing the green-bar version whak-a-mole. Beyond that, we saw the people who wanted to be in the combat and to stick with the careers, take that aspect as far as they can with that, and in some cases (DoKs moreso than WP), have become frightening killers in their own right. So, instead of hitting the middle ground of a melee healer, the result was a pair of extremes, neither of which was originally intended.