Healers Discussion
Tweet from EA_PvZ_Mario (PvZ BFN lead multiplayer designer) regarding healers & overhealth. Tweet link: https://twitter.com/ea_pvz_mario/status/1230688746393108481?s=20 Hurrah! Sunflower...
Forum Discussion
Ok, here goes nothing 😫
With all modes except Battle Arena & Team Vanquish, the object of the game is not to get vanquishes. The modes are about taking, defending or achieving an objective, so I think both xp & play should reflect that.
At the end of the day, the role of a healer is to heal & prevent their team-mates from dying, enabling their team to do well, so I don't fully understand blaming them for doing precisely that - if you can't finish a player off because they're healed while you reload or take cover, why is that the healer's fault? As for healers being able to negate abilities, just about every character can negate one ability or another - even the summonable AI can do that!
Heal-rate may possibly need bringing down a small amount, but self-defense needs addressing before that is considered, especially with Sunflower who cannot warp out of danger & I sincerely hope that nothing will be changed until we see how much Wizard affects the existing balance.
As far as overhealth goes, as I've already said I'd be happy to see it go. The xp is negligible, many playing heals make the mistake of getting players up to maximum overhealth before bringing others up to maximum normal health & others will consciously not heal until players have reached critical health levels because they know that gives better xp.
There are also plenty of upgrades that provide it anyway, or other health-related ones that are just as useful.
I've truly, genuinely done my best not to make this a rant but sincere apologies if I've messed that up 😖😊
With all modes except Battle Arena & Team Vanquish, the object of the game is not to get vanquishes. The modes are about taking, defending or achieving an objective, so I think both xp & play should reflect that.
At the end of the day, the role of a healer is to heal & prevent their team-mates from dying, enabling their team to do well, so I don't fully understand blaming them for doing precisely that - if you can't finish a player off because they're healed while you reload or take cover, why is that the healer's fault? As for healers being able to negate abilities, just about every character can negate one ability or another - even the summonable AI can do that!
Heal-rate may possibly need bringing down a small amount, but self-defense needs addressing before that is considered, especially with Sunflower who cannot warp out of danger & I sincerely hope that nothing will be changed until we see how much Wizard affects the existing balance.
As far as overhealth goes, as I've already said I'd be happy to see it go. The xp is negligible, many playing heals make the mistake of getting players up to maximum overhealth before bringing others up to maximum normal health & others will consciously not heal until players have reached critical health levels because they know that gives better xp.
There are also plenty of upgrades that provide it anyway, or other health-related ones that are just as useful.
I've truly, genuinely done my best not to make this a rant but sincere apologies if I've messed that up 😖😊
@ToastedSarnie @What I mean is that i think Sunflower is a little too effective at saving someone with her heal beam. I still believe Healing should be able to save an ally, she just might do it too well
Ok, so Sunflower is supposed to be really good at keeping one person alive with Heal beam. This would makes sense since Scientist heals for less but can heal multiple zombies. So basically, Sunflower paired up with a teammate should always be a strong combo that is difficult to beat, especially if there is only 1 zombie. I guess a zombie could always fall back or keep their distance, since Heal beam requires Sunflower to walk.
It's good that Healers have a means of defending themselves (Warp and SSU) but I think the only one that needs change is Warp. A Healer should rely on their team to keep them alive. A Healer should NOT be able to be independent like Scientist. Scientist doesn't have to rely on his team as much as Sunflower because Warp is broken and gives Scientist too much survivability. SSU isnt OP in my opinion, buts it still gets the job done well enough as it gives Sunflower a decent amount of Helath back, plus the sundrops. SSU isnt a Combat tool and shouldn't be too strong of a Defensive tool like Warp, it's there to keep Sunflower good on Health and get her back in the fight when out of combat. Warp kind of works this way since you can teleport in and out of fights, it's just too effective.
I believe the reason she gets killed more often than not is because of poor teamwork and bad positioning. Especially in 8 v 8, Healers can be more vulnerable to a coordinated team. Sometimes Teams either dont care about their Healers, or are too imbalanced for a Team to protect their healer.
I think some key issues being overlooked is the Game's overall Slow walking speed and possible balance issues on the zombie side (Barrel being to fast, Space Station). Even sunflower and Scientist are too slow, and I admit Sunflower is pretty easy to Snipe. Without faster movement, Healers can't really dodge as well, which makes them hide most of the time when Healing. The movement feels a lot like COD or Battlefield, which it shouldn't especially with the current TTK. It should be on par with GW walking speed.
People may not play Healers because Healers lack combat capabilities of other classes as they should, and these could be the same people who just throw themselves at the enemy and die over and over. I have seen Sunflowers sprint alone into zombies, because they dont know where they are or what they are doing.
A Healer is a Support class, and simply does not work if they dont have a Team to support.
