Why Is Healer Gear Progression Tied To The Slowest Character Progression Option?

[EuphoricAnguish]

You can run scenarios and get to 40/40 at a decent rate.

Or you can run PvE and fly to 40 in half the time and then play catch-up for your renown.

Or you can run open RvR and get comparatively horrible rewards on both sides of the XP/RP coin on top of the, also comparatively, slow as dirt item progression.

Healers are already in low supply, with what feels like about 50% of them pretending they're a DPS class, so why the crappy gear progression on top of it? Of course people are going to go the DPS route when the primary method of leveling, scenarios, gives you nothing but gear statted out for DPS. I can spend three hours in a WB on my mid-tier DoK flipping a zone and get 50k XP and 15k RP for my efforts (if we're successful, otherwise halve those numbers), or I can get the exact same amount of both in three scenario wins.

So what's the reasoning on locking the most important archetype into the worst progression model?

[CyunUnderis]

Level up in SC, and leech during keep attack/defence. You don't need too much tokens to get T2/T3/early T4 RvR's set.

[don775]

Unfortunately this is not just a healers problem, I think being able to exchange emblems-medalions-coins (even with a penalty) is a must, at least for up to dominator/conquerer.

[saupreusse]

exchanging currency for the sets is something I strongly suggest. It's not a problem exclusive to healer classes and quite honestly i think it is alright to level a healer. But its true that as a healer you would probably be much faster if you leveld doing sc, but theres no item set for healers out of sc.

[BluIzLucky]

You seemed to have joined at just the time when ORvR renown gain from BOs have had multiple nerfs, if you want SC lvl progress in ORvR now, from my experience you either join a organized battle focused WB (bit rare these days - at least off peak hours) or go 2-6 man roam with solid players, mostly ignoring BOs unless it's where the kills are.

The only time it would say it's remotely worthwhile (from a progression PoV) running in PuG ORvR WBs is when you get Vanq gear in gold bags, before and after that, it's just a matter of where's the faster renown coming from.

And SC will still get you (near-)BIS healer weapons, so not bad to get to 50 with (especially with a premade).

[Omegus]

You can run scenarios and get to 40/40 at a decent rate.

Or you can run PvE and fly to 40 in half the time and then play catch-up for your renown.

Or you can run open RvR and get comparatively horrible rewards on both sides of the XP/RP coin on top of the, also comparatively, slow as dirt item progression.

Healers are already in low supply, with what feels like about 50% of them pretending they're a DPS class, so why the crappy gear progression on top of it? Of course people are going to go the DPS route when the primary method of leveling, scenarios, gives you nothing but gear statted out for DPS. I can spend three hours in a WB on my mid-tier DoK flipping a zone and get 50k XP and 15k RP for my efforts (if we're successful, otherwise halve those numbers), or I can get the exact same amount of both in three scenario wins.

So what's the reasoning on locking the most important archetype into the worst progression model?

I know the "pure" healer stuff is mostly behind ORvR, but the DoK's 3 specs (melee heals, melee dps, ranged heals) are all viable, which is why there is gear for all 3.

But yes, if you're looking for ranged heal gear then it's pretty much Redeye and then open RvR.

[CountTalabecland]

I can't say I've had many issues as a healer with gear. The renown in ORvR comes from kills of higher renown rank players, but it is of course dependent on your DPS securing high damage and deathblows on those players so having good DPS to support is key.

Scens are about winning. If you don't win, they give almost nothing. Remember that the gloves and boots for most sets are now bind on equip, so if you have a high lvl main, they can break down junk medals/emblems and buy the gloves/boots for your alts and mail them over, which cuts down on having to grind ORvR for the admittedly terrible low level loot bags.

[Sulorie]

Do rvr for one or two evenings to get the currency to buy healer set, then either keep doing rvr, if you want to minmax xp to rp gains or join a premade for SC and enjoy the ride.

[Omegus]

That's a good point about the vanq gloves/boots. You can buy 2 pieces without needing the currency.

The other thing to remember is that Vanq is also in keep bags (gold... Maybe purple too? I can't remember). You only ever roll against yourself for keep bags, where your contribution + random roll needs to be over a set threshold to get a bag. Each time you don't win a bag of a set colour you get an ever increasing bonus so eventually you are pretty much guaranteed a bags of all colours (the bonus resets when you win a bag, but that doesn't reset the pity bonuses for the other bag colours).

Obtaining vanq is mostly a case of buying 2 pieces and then keep track of what you get from bags. Don't spend any vanq tokens unless it will complete the set as you might buy a piece then get duplicates in gold bags.

[paperclipdog]

Or you can run open RvR and get comparatively horrible rewards on both sides of the XP/RP coin on top of the, also comparatively, slow as dirt item progression.

RvR has very high RP gains. Just join proper groups instead of open warbands.

And if you dislike it so much, farm a PQ a few times to get PvE gear every few lvls and spam your SCs.