A PSA for poeple picking Miko

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#22

you’re missing the point, this is a TEAM based game. A good player knows what his character is capable of doing, as well as what his teammates characters are capable of doing.

You make decisions based on that information and what’s currently going on.
A good teamup of Miko and any other player will soak up more damage and deal more damage over time, in the end they will win by attrition. This is something ANY good player will know and consider, this includes the Miko.

If a Miko walks into that situation and they do not hook up and heal their teammates after the battle has started, they’re basically throwing away the entire strength of the character, at the expense of their teammate.

If you’re watching your damaged teammate run back from an encounter and you don’t heal him because of your wave clear (which is not as good as Montana’s) then you don’t fall into that description above about a good player.

#23

Situationally dependent. If your team’s Miko is a better killer than you, then yes. If Miko has to stop to heal you then you are removing his CC and Damage from battle. However if you are more able to clear then he should support you. What I’m arguing is that needs to be based off of player skill/spec not just character choice.

#24

Half the people I heal as Miko still run to safety when I’m healing them. Montana having better wave clear is a moot point if he doesn’t use it.

We’re esstentially arguing the same thing, recognize team skill and play to that, except you guys don’t seem to want to admit that sometimes the Miko on the team may be the most skilled killer. Yes the other characters might have more killing potential, but that doesn’t mean they are meeting it. Individual character skill is more important in determining roles than pure character choice.

#25

Also most other characters draw a lot of attention, those knives are easy to miss amongst all the chaos. I feel like misdirection and mastery of the knife arc make Miko quite lethal. Again since it can self heal so easily a good Miko tends to back peddle more than run and eventually is chasing you with knives to the back. This is Attikus’ fate for eternity.

#26

No, you’re not removing your damage, you’re pausing it, while replacing your DPS with someone else’s and at any point you can return your damage instantly, unlike if your teammate has to completely back.
If you’re able to heal your teammate up completely it’s the same as if he backed… if you’re not, then he’s able to supply additional damage to the fight that you wouldn’t have had before you healed him, and he’s still gathering XP, which is good for HIM.

If you’re not willing to sacrifice a few moments of your DPS to help a teammate, you’re going to lose a lot.

#27

And if we are talking of a teammate of equal skill I agree. But if your ranged teammate is right up in a melees face trying to kill them and needing your constant attention to live, then I’m going to let him die (since they probably will anyway) and focus on setting myself up to be able to survive and finish the wave clear after they kick the bucket.

It’s the same for every character, read the situation and use your skills in the best way for the situation. If that’s focusing on healing, do that. If it is forget healing and pour on damage, do that. Don’t blindly heal a teammate missing a fraction of their health because you are considered a “healer”.

#28

No, I’m arguing that being the better killer doesn’t make you the better player.
You’re not going to be dropping sentries by yourself with Miko.
Yes, people shouldn’t play stupid just because a Miko is there, but they certainly shouldn’t assume that Miko isn’t going to heal them when they’re hurt. If you’re the most skilled killer, then why are you on a support character in the first place? If you don’t want to help your teammates, leave support classes for someone else who will.

I have two different loadouts for my tanks, one that drastically increases healing recieved, and one that focuses more on my own health regen, but of course it’s mostly below %50… nothing is worse than taking my healing recieved loadout and running into a healer that won’t help me out. Meanwhile, a good Miko will quickly realize he can top me off really fast, return to fighting, and top me off again a little later. But how does he expect any tank player to get better if he’s teaching him that the support won’t help him?

Selfish play does not help your team, in any instance, and if you want to be selfish, don’t take a support, leave it for someone else to choose.

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#29

I feel like we are pretty much in agreement except that I’ve seen more examples if players expecting Miko’s to save them from their recklessness while you’ve seen more examples of Mikos that only care about their own kill counts.

#30

Nobody said pause for teammates at a fraction of health, I’m talking about actively healing teammates, heck most Mikos don’t even need to hook up to anyone for most of the game if they’d just take the AOE helix option, at that point you can pour on damage and top-off teammates, I’m talking about when there are options to heal teammates to save them from backing, to keep them in the fight, or to save them in a fight. I expect my Miko to deal some damage at the start of the fight, then hook to me once the enemy team dedicates to the fight, that’s when we’re going to turn it, when they think “hey, look, this guy’s health is low, we can kill him.” That’s how a good support handles things, mixing damage with their support options.

That’s actually one of the things I love most about this game, the supports aren’t useless, they can certainly deal damage, and get things done, so you don’t feel like you aren’t good for anything but staring at a teammate while they do work, but a good support should certainly be taking moments out of their damage to help teammates survive, that’s part of the deal they take when they pick a support, that they’ll be there to help teammates when they can. It’s no different than any other damage based character, or tank, when a teammate’s in trouble, they should be committing everything they have to helping, whether that’s damage, a flashbang, or just stepping in the way to take some of the bullets.

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#31

Well, except you’re saying you’d rather make your tank back than heal him while he clears the wave, and I think that’s just silly :stuck_out_tongue:

#32

Only if he sucks at clearing the wave :smile:

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#33

I’ve been noting this over and over to no response (this forums, bug forums, support contact) - but some of us don’t even have the chat window. It seems broken on 21:9 monitors, and even fiddling with settings hasn’t done anything. I ONLY see the chat window in the active match, after characters are chosen and everything else. Some BULL***T.

More to the point, there’s always a learning curve for people with characters, and Miko’s another case where I can see people not realizing he can actually well balance the damage WITH healing. That’s what I do. It’s utterly stupid to push the notion that their one job is to heal (as so many seem to think), since they pack a punch that when timed properly, can cause massive disruption to the other team, including picking off running players, and throwing some rather high damage knives to other ranged charaters tormenting the battlefield.

As far as blocking goes, this happens in both and all directions, part of the nature of such a visceral FP game. I can’t count the times I’m blocked in exit because some large character steps behind me (or those damn Thralls come up from behind while I’m healing another character), OR when I’m about to throw a critical stun spor, to have some giant character (cough Montana cough) step right in front of it. But it happens. Annoying, but aside from trying to be more aware, it’s hardly entirely avoidable based on the nature of the gameplay.

You wanna talk Rambo? (if that’s even an appropriate comparison), how about those idiot DPS characters who run all the way into Battle assuming that Miko will just keep them healed, despite (when you’re Miko) having the entire enemy team on your ass any time you’re even slightly visible or in range. And then on top of it, to then have your characters demanding healing completely fail at keeping you slightly covered or staying at an INTELLIGENT range so that you’re not killed in an instant so they can stupidly charge into battle and die only moments later. When we gonna talk about that? Huh? :stuck_out_tongue:

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#34

Playing Thorn as a sniper is generally a bad idea.

Play her a bit closer and use her AOE/Volley.

Sure you can pick off targets from a distance, but speed and agility are what really helps Thorn to shine, that and massive damage output if you spec right.

I’m sure other people have other thoughts on this, but this has been my experience playing Thorn as a main and watching other successful Thorns.

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#35

The issue isn’t really that Miko can or can’t pack a punch : it’s that other characters can’t heal properly and reliably. Miko is one out of two ( from the top of my head ) characters with a potential emphasis to support through healing.
Imagine a party in, say, WoW because it’s the first that comes to mind, with a warrior, a rogue, a ranger, and a priest : well, the priest is the only one that can actually heal. He is going to get flamed for suddenly switching to Shadow to dps because it’s not fun healing or something.
It’s actually super individualist and egoistical of a Miko player to prioritize damage over heal. Or plain refuse to heal, which would be, like, never using two or three of his moves ?

It doesn’t mean he CAN’T pack a punch, it just means the reality of the game is that Miko is expected to heal and if he doesn’t, he should expect to get flamed and that’s perfectly legit. You don’t take a slot, block a character who has the very useful trait of being one of the rare healer, because you find it fun to do something else with him. If you could take more than one Miko, then I’d say please, be my guest, by all means build him the damage way. If there is an Ambra willing to heal, please too. If there’s only him, again, he should favor healing. It’s not me trying to impose my will over other players, it’s just common sense speaking and frankly, it’s how the game rolls.

In short, if a player’s intention is not to favor healing over damage when the call is made, he should take another character and leave Miko to someone that would. It’s not like there are 24 other characters available, most of them being there to exclusively deal damage or crowd control. Maybe an assassin ?

About that last paragraph, though, I totally concur! It’s one thing to demand healing, it’s another to try and protect your healer. It’s like PvP ( and even PvE frankly ) 101 ! Teamplay, symbiosis basics. You heal us, we protect you, so that we can go on wrecking stuff !

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#36

I think this is where I’d agree with you - and find it strange if people don’t choose Miko in some regards to his healing.

But just like any other character and player, it’s about learning and using the strengths for the team, which in Miko’s case is prioritizing healing of course while getting the right damage in. But that consideration goes towards any character and their capabilities, just like you wouldn’t have a squishy DPS trying to tank. Or a Melee trying to snipe. Or whatever.

And I stand by the notion that for as many times as someone’s complained about their team’s Miko not obeying their ‘job’ to heal, there’s another idiot who runs into battle to their death and blames the Miko for not accounting for THEIR own lack of coordination and stupidity. Heck, for all of the OP claims against Galilea, I’ve seen many cocky players (Rath too), get annihilated because they go at it alone. It’s a team, Miko’s just another character on it (and not always even present).

#37

I think they should have given Miko an area burst heal instead of the self healing stream, to promote the player staying near the team and also reduce Miko’s ability to solo the enemy and still run away to fully heal very quickly then go right back. He is the ultimate harasser and it doesn’t seem like that is what the role should be but whatever. There are bigger problems than Miko.

#38

He has a slight AOE heal with some ability, I tend not to pick it though since the stream is more effective. I like that he’s not an AOE since it directly challenges notion that he’s just a healer (granted, his ultimate is an AOE mushroom, but I think it’s very well balanced to answer some of that need to keep people aware of their surrounding for support). Both Miko and Ambra have healing WITH damage, since like all of the characters in Battleborn, it’s balancing a role with an overall ability to still be an effective combatant. Again, I agree that if you choose Miko, it should be with the intention to provide healing to your team. But people need to stop complaining that he’s not doing his job when 9/10 it’s the teams lack of ability to coordinate (since Miko again may not even be on a team), that gets them killed.

I think people are so used to the mindless plug-and-play efforts with MMOs where you serve as a class that just hits the same buttons in a sequence, instead of something that’s more in-the-action combat and tactical.

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#39

Fair point, hell that’s why I love Ambra now, she blends roles very fluidly and has some of the more debatable helix choices in the game IMO. For instance the sun spots are undeniably useful (my favorite is once I can charge them with the staff they work great) but I’ve gone with full solar wind damage and that is amazing as well. I get annoyed at a good Miko, but I realize it’s taking them a lot of effort to play in that manner so I respect it.

#40

Yup, I can absolutely go with all this. Funny enough, I was precisely telling myself "hey, it’s just like if I take Phoebe, people will expect me to kill things’, because she’s an assassin like Rath and a few others, mainly damage dealers. They won’t expect me to try and tank a Galilea, even if, with the proper build and loadout, she may very well be able to harass a Galilea. She’d just have to sacrifice everything that makes her damage great for something … Quite not as interesting.

It all boils down to expected primary and secondary role. The lines are more blurred than in a actual MOBA, true. There aren’t a lot of healers so it kinda limits the possibilities, true. Reyna’s abilities to overcharge a shield aren’t as handy as Miko or Ambra’s abilities to “recharge” life, and a few characters can somehow regen life by themselves, true. But nobody can really give back health to a teammate in need except Ambro and Mika.

But heck yeah, when teammates start dying because they all ran in a different direction all expecting to get healed, that’s disheartening. To add insult to injury, they won’t wait up at respawn and will just run again like headless chickens to the slaughterhouse.
Everything needs proper teamplay :slight_smile:

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#41

Really depends. It’s funny since I’ve been finding Reyna more frustrating as others are exposed and learn to play as her since she’s been the most effective at countering my efforts to take out runners as Miko, or peeling off some hits. I’m usually pushing the team to knock her out first, since she can keep Miko shielded too! haha