Rethinking Mend Wounds from the Psijic Skill Line

thesarahandcompany

Mend wounds has very few practical uses in PvE and PvP, and should be updated to include more utility. In its current state, mend wounds replaces light and heavy attacks so that they heal allies rather than damage opponents. In their morphed states, a user may either choose between morphs that buff an ally with major resolve while the skill's channel holds (the heavy attacks) or heal themselves for fifty percent of the healing done to allies. Most players already have access to major resolve or high enough resistances, and the heal of the skill is so underwhelming that the fifty percent redistribution of heals is hardly noticeable.

Here are some suggestions for how to improve the utility of mend wounds.

1. Turn the skill into a damage-over-time vs. healing over time effect in its morphed stages. Damage abilities are already missing from most of the Psijic Skill Line. It would also give classes like necromancers more options to utilize their damage-over-time passive or sorcerers without access to single-target applied dots.

2. Allow the skill to apply major resolve to all allies upon activation, similar to a Warden's Ice Fortress buff. Convert the heal skill into a splash heal like power surge. This could be another way to encourage diversity in healer classes.

3. Include in the skill an option where after X amount of light attacks with the ability toggled on go off, buff group mates or provide a burst of healing.

The_Wunderboy

It turns your LA and HA into a channeled frèe heal while toggled and also gives mitigation to you through passive now. I don't know why dedicated healers don't run it already in PVP at least.

DocFrost72

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

It turns your LA and HA into a channeled frèe heal while toggled and also gives mitigation to you through passive now. I don't know why dedicated healers don't run it already in PVP at least.

There's a few reasons. Primarily because it takes away your chance to activate enchants or weapon poisons, the former useful in PvE and the latter stellar in PvP.

Worse still, the animation gets a little wonky. Maybe I didn't have enough practice, but I found weaving tremendously difficult.

The heavy channel may be valuable in small groups, but it prevents skill activation while it holds. This means that you cannot purge, combat prayer, debuff, anything. As the OP mentioned, the heal itself is marginal because it is a "free" resource.

I definitely feel that the ability itself is underwhelming, but only because of how active the healing role is in eso.

Vevvev

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

It turns your LA and HA into a channeled frèe heal while toggled and also gives mitigation to you through passive now. I don't know why dedicated healers don't run it already in PVP at least.

It's not that good honestly. There are some uses for it, like keeping an Ally alive who's being ganked, but for a group of people the ability falls flat. It's too difficult to adequately target allies with this thing that need it, and the light attacks have travel time so they might not get to the person before they die. As stated by DocFrost72 it also locks you out of doing anything on a heavy attack making it almost as niche as Vampiric Drain.

The_Wunderboy

Just saw a healer in cyro on Nyce's stream using this to effectively keep a NB alive and become super tanky themself...until Nyce got the NB and chased the healer away. Still, it worked for a hot min.

buttaface

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

The_Wunderboy

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

Vevvev

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

Or they were using Symbiosis which heals you for 50% of the healing you give allies with the ability.

The_Wunderboy

Vevvev wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

Or they were using Symbiosis which heals you for 50% of the healing you give allies with the ability.

As stated in post, that heal is usually quite small. Most definitely was using it, but the passive was doing the defensive work as well.

Merllow

I agree with the author of the post, the ability does not reach competitiveness. It would be more interesting if this healing worked as an AOE, and not for a single player, as it is now.

divnyi

AoE healing resource-free GCD-free would be abused by every ball group to the point where ppl would ask to remove the skill completely.

CP5

If they brought back the pre-elsweyr version of the skill, where the light attack was a powerful hot and the heavy attack was practically a targetable burst heal it may see more use, but when elsweyr came out they made it 'free' but reduced the healing so much that, as a former user of this skill, it isn't worth the bar space to slot or the healing output to bother toggling on.

ESO_Nightingale

it'd be cool if the light attack didn't cancel itself if you didn't hit anything.

Merllow

divnyi wrote: »

AoE healing resource-free GCD-free would be abused by every ball group to the point where ppl would ask to remove the skill completely.

Well then, let it be not free use, but AOE, but in such a form, as now it can already be removed from the game))

tripp

Also Meditate should proc Spell Orbs. The damage is negligible, but it could allow for some fun shenanigans, killing enemies/bosses with nothing but your brain.

Tommy_The_Gun

Tbh. I was thinking of using this skill next patch on my NB to replace Malevolent Offering - Because that NB skill will gonna cost magicka next patch and on my support tank build I wont be able to sustain it. Right now it costs health, and it is not some great amount of health, so it is basically a "free" healing for a tanky build with some tiny amount of health recovery (although you have to be careful with it as you need to manage your health bar).

Mend Wounds is basically totally free heal too, but it is not instant and requires a toggle + light attacks or channelled heavy attack. So "on paper" it should work as a Malevolent Offering replacement.

thesarahandcompany

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Tbh. I was thinking of using this skill next patch on my NB to replace Malevolent Offering - Because that NB skill will gonna cost magicka next patch and on my support tank build I wont be able to sustain it. Right now it costs health, and it is not some great amount of health, so it is basically a "free" healing for a tanky build with some tiny amount of health recovery (although you have to be careful with it as you need to manage your health bar).

Mend Wounds is basically totally free heal too, but it is not instant and requires a toggle + light attacks or channelled heavy attack. So "on paper" it should work as a Malevolent Offering replacement.

I'm trying to sit back and collect feedback on this post and not responding a lot in the process. I have loved the feedback so far.

I'm pushing back on this particular comment though. I think your comment is exactly why the skill is problematic. It serves a
very niche role for you as a nightblade tank in PVE(?). It has little practical use and it shouldn't be left unchanged when you have multiple other avenues to manage your sustain.

*****

As an additional note, I think the idea of a DOT for this skill could be very useful. It would synergize well with elemental weapon which acts as a burst skill and the game is missing something in regards to another single-target, all-class applied dot like entropy or destructive reach.

thesarahandcompany

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

To my knowledge it does not behave like normal heavy attacks. For example, using it does not proc sets that require a heavy attack skill to proc them.

The_Wunderboy

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

To my knowledge it does not behave like normal heavy attacks. For example, using it does not proc sets that require a heavy attack skill to proc them.

Well that's probably why it's underperforming. Should be awesome on Resto HA.

thesarahandcompany

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

To my knowledge it does not behave like normal heavy attacks. For example, using it does not proc sets that require a heavy attack skill to proc them.

Well that's probably why it's underperforming. Should be awesome on Resto HA.

Yea but it's not really a heavy attack the heavy attack is turned into a channeled effect. If the channeled effect could proc sets like Scorion's Feast that would be beneficial.

The_Wunderboy

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

To my knowledge it does not behave like normal heavy attacks. For example, using it does not proc sets that require a heavy attack skill to proc them.

Well that's probably why it's underperforming. Should be awesome on Resto HA.

Yea but it's not really a heavy attack the heavy attack is turned into a channeled effect. If the channeled effect could proc sets like Scorion's Feast that would be beneficial.

HA on Resto and Light is already a channel?

thesarahandcompany

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

The_Wunderboy wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

If not backed by an experienced team who knows to defend you and have your back, stopping and taking the time to target fast moving players while you are also juking will get you killed more than getting anyone healed. Autotarget and AOE heals are the way in PvP for that important reason. In PvE it's grossly inefficient for most content where healing matters. It's a neat idea for a skill that has no place in the ESO system so agree with OP.

Haven't played with it since the last patch, but IF it counted as a channeled ability that gave you 30% dmg reduction from the passive ala meditate or other psijic channels THEN it might get some use. Has anyone tested that?

It is a channeled ability, and judging by the tankiness of the healer I saw in Nyce's stream using it, I'd guess it gets the 30% mit passive. Paired with resto HA major mending proc makes sense.

To my knowledge it does not behave like normal heavy attacks. For example, using it does not proc sets that require a heavy attack skill to proc them.

Well that's probably why it's underperforming. Should be awesome on Resto HA.

Yea but it's not really a heavy attack the heavy attack is turned into a channeled effect. If the channeled effect could proc sets like Scorion's Feast that would be beneficial.

HA on Resto and Light is already a channel?

Resto heavies have endings. So sets like Scorion's that require a fully charged heavy attack can proc off them. Mend wounds is just a steady channel and isn't an attack, it's just a connective beam and doesn't have a "fully charged" proc.

BXR_Lonestar

As a healer main, it has been so long since I even attempted to use this skill. I totally agree that the skill is really useless for most applications in that it comes at to great an opportunity cost when you are using the heavy attack channeled heal. It would be nice if using the skill didn't cost magika, as it could be used in fights that strain healer sustain, but as I recall, the last time I tried to use the skill, it drained your resources when you used it, so it didn't work as I anticipated it would.

Overall, definitely just needs to be reimagined. Change it to another AOE HOT and make it so that while standing in it, the healer gains X% stronger heals and it might become more useful to use.

Vevvev

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

As a healer main, it has been so long since I even attempted to use this skill. I totally agree that the skill is really useless for most applications in that it comes at to great an opportunity cost when you are using the heavy attack channeled heal. It would be nice if using the skill didn't cost magika, as it could be used in fights that strain healer sustain, but as I recall, the last time I tried to use the skill, it drained your resources when you used it, so it didn't work as I anticipated it would.

Overall, definitely just needs to be reimagined. Change it to another AOE HOT and make it so that while standing in it, the healer gains X% stronger heals and it might become more useful to use.

The ability is free to cast and the channeled heal restores Magicka to you if you heal damage on the target. Even with that QOL change to it the ability is difficult to pull off well in group scenarios.

Wolfshade

Its the same problem with Guard, much to heavy to play. Last time i tried the HA with Bastian in combination with Guard. It was pure fun, but there are too many problems with it. Range, dodgeroll, running wired around to next mob etc. In pvp with a second player, smart, but mostly to useless and weaving the la, its fully messed up even if it is still on by swapping bar. A rework would be nice.

Merllow

Well, at least everyone agrees that this ability is at the very bottom of demand. Well, if you really think:
1) Very weak heal of the target solo;
2) During the application, you simply release the rest of the group / raid members to your own healing or already to death, because sometimes you need to heal a lot;
3) Doesn't activate any sets, it's just a flow of energy;
4) The regeneration of mana is weak, more regeneration will be from the heavy resto of the staff;
5) Morph that heals you for 50%, heals you for ridiculous numbers.

You can do something:
1) You can make a heavy attack not with a beam, but with a completed action with an AOE healing burst at the end and strong regen;
2) Or. Make Paid this skill and make a constant stream that really heals everyone around, in order to maintain life in weak fights and stages, where it is not necessary to heal very much.
At least there will be a niche for this skill, at least some.

Syrpynt

Instead of a toggle, it should be backbarred (no toggle), and the enchantment should still take effect.

Basically, if you have it slotted at all, the weapon will not appear. This way you can swap between healer without staff, and a frontbar weapon/staff.

No AoE's though as someone pointed out. Unless you have an activation cost.

Like 5 light attacks let you get counters to do a big aoe heal for 5,000 magicka or something. Think of it like: a strictly healer version of "Nightblade's focus"

It obviously needs to be balanced as far as the magicka cost and heal amount. But I think this is a good start to a revamp for this skill.

thesarahandcompany

Merllow wrote: »

Well, at least everyone agrees that this ability is at the very bottom of demand. Well, if you really think:
1) Very weak heal of the target solo;
2) During the application, you simply release the rest of the group / raid members to your own healing or already to death, because sometimes you need to heal a lot;
3) Doesn't activate any sets, it's just a flow of energy;
4) The regeneration of mana is weak, more regeneration will be from the heavy resto of the staff;
5) Morph that heals you for 50%, heals you for ridiculous numbers.

You can do something:
1) You can make a heavy attack not with a beam, but with a completed action with an AOE healing burst at the end and strong regen;
2) Or. Make Paid this skill and make a constant stream that really heals everyone around, in order to maintain life in weak fights and stages, where it is not necessary to heal very much.
At least there will be a niche for this skill, at least some.

I bolded what I think ZOS should do.

It should be an AOE dot that deals mag/ele damage or an AOE heal in the morph. DOT/HOT is missing from the Psijic line and it could be a unique way to give a new DOT/HOT that has a unique buff to it. It should be a DOT/HOT similar to soul splitting trap and radiating, in my opinion.

Marchastre

The ability should have some heavy change:
From the starter, the heavy attack is no longer a channeled beam but instead a projective that can be sent on allies and healing them for an amount similar as it is but:
-It scales on both magicka and stamina, depending of the highest value
-It takes the passives from the current weapons, applying a converted effect for their damage bonus:

• Increased stats from all the weapons (2H DW S&B Bow Resto staff)
• Cleave healing + increased next heal for two-handed
• Increase healing on target below 25% health and on CCed target for DW
• increased heal on longer range + increased healing by using HA/La for bow
• increased heal on solo/multi target + cleave HA with lightning staff + shield on HA with ice staff

- The heavy attack can bounce off nearby targets two time, never on the same target again
- Heavy attack regenerate the highest ressources of the caster
- Heavy and Light attack are impacted by the sets (Undaunted infiltrator / Unweaver) and abilities (Lotus flower) when they met their condition.

Mend spirit:
-Remove the major resolve and apply minor evasion + minor resolve instead, since major resolve can already be applied by most of the classes without a lot of cost.

Symbiosis:
- Rename it Parasitism
- Deactivate the healing part of Mend wounds and the conversion of weapons passives
- Light attack (magic damage) now also applies a dot that inflict 100% of the damage over 5sec (Doesn't count the damage received but the base damage of the LA). Light attack cost 680 magicka/stamina per attack
- Heavy attack (magic damage) doesn't regenerate ressources: instead it cost 1720 magicka/stamina for each attack. The projectile leave a dot on the target and every foes in the vicinity (7 meters) that does 100% of the HA damage over 5sec
- Once a dot expire or is cleansed, it heals nearby allies (over 5 meters) as a direct heal for 100% of the damage of the dot (calculated damage, not inflicted damage)

That way, it could be used by others weapons than restoration staff effectively and Parasitism can serve as big scale healing with the necessity of having a large number of enemies while Mend Spirit become more interesting for small scale healing.

YandereGirlfriend

This ability has one very specific awesome purpose but outside of that it is completely useless.

I always double-take when I look at the Major Resolve morph because it is so bad as to be offensive to anyone's sensibilities of balance. Major Resolve is an easy to acquire buff for any class and a Warden will apply it to everyone in any sort of organized group context. After that, the duration is so scandalously under-tuned at 5 measly seconds. So even if you wanted to buff your group with Major Resolve via Mend Wounds, you couldn't - you would be limited to 5 allies only. As I say, useless.

I like the idea of it providing a buff to allies that you target but since you have to MANUALLY target them with a clunky ability that buff REALLY needs to be worth their (and your) while and have a duration long enough such that you can actually buff a large group (20 seconds minimum).

Major Courage would be a candidate, so would Major Evasion, Major Mending or Major Vitality if wanting to slant it more toward PvP. If we remain stuck with the microscopic 5-second duration, however, then buffs such as Major Force, Major Berserk, and Major Heroism should be on the table as suitably powerful buffs.

divnyi

One option is to disable toggle and be automatically toggled on the bar it is slotted.
This way they can also give some active part for the ability.

Heavy attack is horrible and unusable. I'd imagine something like this would fix it: untargeted channel, creates healing globes all around you, they target random damaged allies around each 0.5s, restores mana on heal. Close to what we have now, but being untargeted is really the main thing here. Also healing amount can be increased, compare that to damaging heavys - they hit quite hard, heavy attack healing should heal quite a lot too - you aren't using skills while you are at it.