Why Does The Term "Healbot" Ride Alone?

[The Crimson Binome]

Why is there a derisive name for a character whose main contribution is keeping the party alive but not for other characters with one dimensional characters?

The implication is that the healer could be replaced by a robot, since there's very little decision-making involved. The underlying math of a system may assume a character who just stands there and hands out healing every round, which isn't very interesting to play, but is nevertheless a requirement in order for the game to function as-intended. (I'm not saying that any particular game is guilty of this, but the implication is always there.)

There is some amount of truth to the perception, and I say this as someone who plays a healer whenever possible: Healers interact primarily with willing targets, who cooperate with their plans, while strikers and tanks primarily interact with enemies who have their own ideas about what they should do. The healer is much less adversarial of a role, in combat. I don't want to say that it's easy mode, because we do have our own challenges (mostly in regards to managing resources), but it's a different sort of thing; and it's not the sort of challenge that everyone really understands or appreciates.

Some games are worse about this than others, and there have been a number of attempts to address this. Most familiar to the majority of this forum, 4E attempted to hide healing away as a swift action, so you could still do something "interesting" with your major action even though you felt "obligated" to provide in-combat healing. World of Warcraft "solved" the problem of just spamming the heal spell by providing a number of random and trigger-able buffs and cost-reductions to each of your various spells, such that you had to pay constant attention and use the best healing spell for the situation at hand.

 

[Tony Vargas]

but not for other characters with one dimensional characters? Okay, I suppose "meatshield" exists too but I get the sense that it does not quite have the same tone to it.

Its not just being one-dimensional.. Healbot implies an essentially choiceless role, vital, but bland and fungible.
Meatshield is worse, implying a character so worthless that his sole value is in his own innate expendability.

You don't hear "trapfodder" too often, but it'd be a fair summation of the classic thief, also contributing little beyond being expendable.

Ultimately, of the classic Big 4, only the magic-user was meant to be taken seriously in the long run.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

There are plenty of epithets for just about all the classes that are used by people who have particular issues with that class, or how players choose to play that class, or how they DON'T play that class, how it CAN be played and/or how the rules get in the way of how it SHOULD be played, etc.

I wouldn't agree that "healbot" is all that special in denigrating clerics in particular above other classes. It's just a reflection of a widely-held perception that the cleric class should/shouldn't be played in a particular way. But people do that with other classes as well.

 

[Ovinomancer]

FWIW I don’t see “meatshield” as implied disdain. Well, no more so than “jarhead,” “grunt,” or “squid.”

So, then, massive amounts of disdain but depending on the speaker?

 

[Aldarc]

It got popularized in MMOs in the days when healing your party consisted of (using EverQuest here):

1. Sit (Meditate)
2. Stand
3. Cast Complete Heal on %target
4. GoTo 1

It drifted back to the RPGs that inspired them - I don't think the term applies as much in TTRPGs - maybe in the MMOs some.

I'm not sure why the above point was mostly ignored, but the term "healbot" derives from MMOs.

I am not familiar with EQ raiding, but I am with WoW. Tanks and DPS usually had dynamic rotations of their abilities with a lot of emphasis on positioning, movement, and skillful threat control. In contrast, you can find videos of Vanilla WoW raiding where healing classes are mostly standing still in the back lines maintaining a stream of the same handful of heals or other support skills (e.g., Cleanse) on their tank or DPS allies. Occasionally sitting down to drink water to recover mana.

"Healbot" was even an addon that healers could use for managing their healing in WoW.

In fact, a Google Trends search for 'healbot' reveals that the term mostly relates to and was popularized by WoW.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Bawylie]

So, then, massive amounts of disdain but depending on the speaker?

Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I don’t see meatshield as disdainful. I compared it to other terms I also don’t see as disdainful. Same for healbot.

If someone else does have disdain while using those terms, I don’t share it or experience it, or attribute an inherent disdain to the terms themselves.

I suppose like any terms, they can be used disdainfully or endearingly. Ya filthy animal. ;-)

 

[LordEntrails]

I don't see any of the terms by themselves as being disdainful, only descriptive. The disdain comes from the context and what the speaker is implying.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I always play my clerics as plate wearing knights. Stand behind the line and just do heals? No, I think I'll brain someone. If a need to heal pops up I'll do my best but I may be knee deep in killing at that time. But I do run into players who think the cleric should only stand behind their PC and bail them out, those who view them as nothing more than healbots and support characters. I don't find that fun so I make up clerics of war gods and fight as often as I can. Break the expectations and play your cleric as you want. If they were only behind the lines support types why do they wear the heaviest armor? Now that they are nearly as effective as fighters with their class weapons in 5e it makes it more fun to take a brawling priest.

 

[Istbor]

We use diplomancer for the talky guy, too.

We use that too, but I don't think it carries a negative connotation. In fact, I enjoy rolling for diplomancy or being the face sometimes. Especially with some of the terrible decisions my group has made in the past with other faces, that will remain unnamed...

We have used Rogue in a negative light as a generalization and sometimes the term Deeps is used, both for good and ill.