Are healing skills the biggest issue with the new scaling?

Seraphayel

Title. While I think the change is great overall, healing on Stamina builds will be way too strong now. They got so much more options - which in itself is great, but their stats are way higher than those of Magicka builds, resulting in overall higher heals, too.

Sure they are limited by their 0 points in Magicka, but most heals don’t cost an excessive amount of Magicka and can still be used 2-4 times with the limited Magicka pool.

So what do you think, will healing skills be the problematic elephant in the room for the scaling change?

OWLTHEMAD

The new scaling is cool and all. But at the end of the day it's going to be a big step towards homogenization of builds in general I think. We already have an issue with their being a singular meta but with this instead of two distinct styles of Play I think it will gravitate to just one.

That will be stam using mag skills to improve sustain on stam rotations. We've already seen this with some classes where stam builds started using magicka skills for dps (eg nightblade shade) and the rotations started too look similar as a result.

There will be no reason to roll mag if stam can have the same utility from mag damage skills and vice versa

The best mag skills are class abilities so stam doesn't even have to sacrifice opportunity for it. Where as with mag being reliant on destro staff will have an opportunity cost running the best stam skills.

Even more so because basic defense in blocking and roll dodge is stam reliant.

It's not necessarily a bad thing but this is going to push several races into obsolescence and contribute even more to class identity loss. Both are already major issues.


That's my 2 cents

burglar

So many possibilities now it's kinda crazy to think about. I haven't played much in years because im a magblade main, but that also makes this patch really exciting. Theres so many possibilities. I wanna try magicka nightblade using a bow for the movement potential: shadow image + cloak with concealed weapon + hasty retreat + scatter shot. It won't be game breaking, but might be very disorienting to go against.

Something else I was thinking is magicka 2h/bow: momentum > mark target > lotus > incap > scatter shot > image > focused aim > merciless resolve or impale. Minor vuln, minor+major breach, minor maim, +25% damage, and ending with one of two really strong closers.

Having access to both sets of abilities is kinda cray.

burglar

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

The new scaling is cool and all. But at the end of the day it's going to be a big step towards homogenization of builds in general I think. We already have an issue with their being a singular meta but with this instead of two distinct styles of Play I think it will gravitate to just one.

That will be stam using mag skills to improve sustain on stam rotations. We've already seen this with some classes where stam builds started using magicka skills for dps (eg nightblade shade) and the rotations started too look similar as a result.

There will be no reason to roll mag if stam can have the same utility from mag damage skills and vice versa

The best mag skills are class abilities so stam doesn't even have to sacrifice opportunity for it. Where as with mag being reliant on destro staff will have an opportunity cost running the best stam skills.

Even more so because basic defense in blocking and roll dodge is stam reliant.

It's not necessarily a bad thing but this is going to push several races into obsolescence and contribute even more to class identity loss. Both are already major issues.


That's my 2 cents

For homogenization to occur people will have to allocate the same number of resources and use abilities at the same rate(or rotation). There are so many combinations now it will be hard to know what's best. Granted, people will find something optimal, and many others will follow that path of optimization. However, that's homogeneity as a consequence of the community's decisions, rather than of build diversity - which is a problem that exists now without hybridization, a la meta. Other's will forge their own paths and find optimizations other's didn't consider. With more options, creativity in builds isn't as hard as it used to be.

katorga

Most stam builds seem to go ~ 25-28K stam 15-18K mag and 7K or higher weapon damage.

That is plenty of mag to keep armor buff, vigor, class hots, and a class burst heal in reserve. Those going to be some massive heals. Will be a good patch to be an imperial, lol.

Broken, who knows. Depends on if you think damage is out of hand now. It might balance out the damage levels, or it might unbalancing things in the other direction.

fwiw, in the Old Days you had diminishing returns on stats so they game kind of forced you into a balanced playstyle. All weapons , including staves scaled off weapon damage, if I remember right. All class skills except for really few stam morphs that existed scaled of mag/spell damage.

etchedpixels

Seraphayel wrote: »

Title. While I think the change is great overall, healing on Stamina builds will be way too strong now. They got so much more options - which in itself is great, but their stats are way higher than those of Magicka builds, resulting in overall higher heals, too.

Sure they are limited by their 0 points in Magicka, but most heals don’t cost an excessive amount of Magicka and can still be used 2-4 times with the limited Magicka pool.

So what do you think, will healing skills be the problematic elephant in the room for the scaling change?

My stamina Bretons are very pleased with the changes. I'm not sure it actually makes much difference for most cases. In PvE at least heals are so overpowered the scaling is not really relevant for most content. Some of the buffs are to me more of a question. Being able to backbar a healing staff and use combat prayer and friends on a stamplar solo for example.

Seraphayel

Yeah I am not really talking about PvE, that doesn't really matter and balance there is an illusion. But in PvP? I mean all Stamina players have now access to class based Magicka heals that are usually very strong. Now they're scaling with Stamian as well. I mean Vigor is already powerful and now imagine players adding class heals on top of that - are people even dying anymore?

Sneakers

This is obviously gonna be a dissaster.

Imagine resto staff HoT + Vigor + Class big heal + class HoT and CP hold block mitigation etc.

Damage will be 0, will need more people to zerg one person to get the kill which add to zerging which adds to lag which adds to even more brain dead 1 bar builds.

Add to this plague breaker and VD + DK corrosive armor will be quite hilerious. I forsee small groups of 4-8 dks running this baiting huge zerg balls unable to kill them until they detonate them all with these sets.

Seraphayel

Yeah, this is my fear as well. Everybody has so much access to healing skills that players just won't die anymore.

Ythotha

Heals are already so strong in pvp it just might make it worse with people casting regenaration with 7k weapon damage instead of 4k spell damage but we will see.
Man everytime they change something to be better something else gets outa hand and it is a vicious cycle

exeeter702

Seraphayel wrote: »

Yeah I am not really talking about PvE, that doesn't really matter and balance there is an illusion. But in PvP? I mean all Stamina players have now access to class based Magicka heals that are usually very strong. Now they're scaling with Stamian as well. I mean Vigor is already powerful and now imagine players adding class heals on top of that - are people even dying anymore?

You are greatly overestimating stamina builds potential magicka pools. As well as opportunity cost of engaging with said magicka based heals.

If a stamblade slots offering for a strong self burst heal, he is ooming after 3 casts while actively giving up his other utility options.

Give me a scenario where a full on stamina build is fully and regularly engaging with magicka based class burst heals while not losing critical buff and utility uptime.

exeeter702

Sneakers wrote: »

This is obviously gonna be a dissaster.

Imagine resto staff HoT + Vigor + Class big heal + class HoT and CP hold block mitigation etc.

Damage will be 0, will need more people to zerg one person to get the kill which add to zerging which adds to lag which adds to even more brain dead 1 bar builds.

Add to this plague breaker and VD + DK corrosive armor will be quite hilerious. I forsee small groups of 4-8 dks running this baiting huge zerg balls unable to kill them until they detonate them all with these sets.

For low effort non actual pvp arrangements in cyrodil, a stamina build zerg surfing or sitting around in a group is one thing, yet that isnt anything new. But for a properly built stamina character to function with self sustain while possessing actual lethal potential, you are not commiting more than 2 self heals.

Think about this for a second. 4K wd /40k stamina , how much magicka is he going to have? You are suggesting they are going to commit their back bar to a restoration staff exclusively for regen? A spell he may be able to refresh 3 times at best?

There absolutely is going to be compromise, but this scenario that many people are making up is extremely misguided.

FeedbackOnly

It's time to separate spell damage and weapon damage from healing power

exeeter702

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

It's time to separate spell damage and weapon damage from healing power

That is not the solution, and would entail far more to accomplish than the benefits said change would bring.

Seraphayel

exeeter702 wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

It's time to separate spell damage and weapon damage from healing power

That is not the solution, and would entail far more to accomplish than the benefits said change would bring.

It absolutely is. Healing should never scale with the same stats as damage output. It’s just a dumb decision because this way healing and damage are always 100%. You shouldn’t be top parsing DPS with 100% healing capabilities.

exeeter702

Seraphayel wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

It's time to separate spell damage and weapon damage from healing power

That is not the solution, and would entail far more to accomplish than the benefits said change would bring.

It absolutely is. Healing should never scale with the same stats as damage output. It’s just a dumb decision because this way healing and damage are always 100%. You shouldn’t be top parsing DPS with 100% healing capabilities.

That is a bad faith argument that is predicated on the assumption that proper balance isnt at the very least attempted. You are suggesting throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Either you have to implement an entire new independent stat that governs healing throughout exclusively and apply it to the item stat budget so it conflicts directly with "offensive stats", effectively turning every healer into a zero damage dealing heal bot, or at the very least, posses an amount of damage that might as well not even exist with how paltry it would be.

Or

Bolster the outlets for which healing is achieved eg. Slotting skills and passives with slotted skill criteria etc while reigning in optional player choices in how they put together their build so compromises are forced to be made eg. Different catagories of glyphs or consumables to directly effect healing.

Having a universal governing stat is not the issue, it's the modular/flexabile options that cause the problem. But this has always been systematically addressed organically - a tank for example needs to be durable and the avenues to obtain durability come opposite of avenues that provide offensive power. Healing sets do not have offensive weighted stats or effects, so you are giving up key contributors to how your build functions via 5pc, monster sets and arena weapons. For these reasons, any claim that 100 percent damage and healing can be achieved is fundamentally false.

The issue is simply with power creep and the sheer amount of variable sets in game and cp. You control these aspects first and foremost. Neutering a healers ability to contribute damage is short sighted and is terrible design in any mmorpg. People who advocate for it generally want healers to do nothing but be a heal bots. This might be cute and all for nonsense psuedo pvp in cyrodil but in pvp scenarios that actually mean anything and for end game pve group content this is absolutely not the way.

Merforum

Seraphayel wrote: »

Title. While I think the change is great overall, healing on Stamina builds will be way too strong now. They got so much more options - which in itself is great, but their stats are way higher than those of Magicka builds, resulting in overall higher heals, too.

Sure they are limited by their 0 points in Magicka, but most heals don’t cost an excessive amount of Magicka and can still be used 2-4 times with the limited Magicka pool.

So what do you think, will healing skills be the problematic elephant in the room for the scaling change?

If they keep the trend like on the sets that w/s damage does NOT scale up heals but only mag/stam/health do, it will actually make all the skills much better and NOT OP. But it would be kind of nice if instead of using the highest stat of stam/mag/health to scale heals they combine those to scale the healing. Right now the biggest problem with healing in PVP especially is having heals scale of damage, removing that would fix a lot. Then also change damage skills to scale off combined w/s dmg to have true hybrid.

Merforum

Merforum wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Title. While I think the change is great overall, healing on Stamina builds will be way too strong now. They got so much more options - which in itself is great, but their stats are way higher than those of Magicka builds, resulting in overall higher heals, too.

Sure they are limited by their 0 points in Magicka, but most heals don’t cost an excessive amount of Magicka and can still be used 2-4 times with the limited Magicka pool.

So what do you think, will healing skills be the problematic elephant in the room for the scaling change?

If they keep the trend like on the sets that w/s damage does NOT scale up heals but only mag/stam/health do, it will actually make all the skills much better and NOT OP. But it would be kind of nice if instead of using the highest stat of stam/mag/health to scale heals they combine those to scale the healing. Right now the biggest problem with healing in PVP especially is having heals scale of damage, removing that would fix a lot. Then also change damage skills to scale off combined w/s dmg to have true hybrid.

It is hilarious the exact same people who say you can't be tanky AND do damage or you can't have high mitigation AND do damage or can't be a healer AND do damage, but if THEY can have HIGH DAMAGE and scale healing off that high damage stats so HEALING is also OP. WHAT. NO NO the solution is OBVIOUSLY to NO longer scale any healing off damage stats.

Wolfpaw

I hope ZOS next balance pass is to finally change heal scaling with w/s damage.

auz

They could just nerf healing again. They have done it before. Then gave us an extra 1k weapon and spell damage a couple patches later. Just nerf heals across the board through battle spirit again. Reduce it in small increments until we get to a decent level. And buff wardens a little bit up first, because their heals suck. And make it so RR doesn't stack.

I think a separate healing stat would be good. But probably more a long term solution than a fix right now.

To people saying you can't sustain mag skills on stam builds... lol. I am definitely interested to use htd on stamplar. I don't need to spam it. I will still have vigor and ritual and rune and rally. Just adding a burst heal. Could run bubble too, but i don't. And stamplar is probably the hardest to sustain the mag drain. Stamcro has very little mag drain atm. Like hard to run out of mag on. I get a full strength ghost that I was already using, siphon, vigor, rally and add a full strength resistant flesh. Switch my armour glyphs to tri stat's and I am good to go. Stam won't need to spam their burst heals because they still have their hots ticking that were always there.

ealdwin

auz wrote: »

They could just nerf healing again. They have done it before. Then gave us an extra 1k weapon and spell damage a couple patches later. Just nerf heals across the board through battle spirit again. Reduce it in small increments until we get to a decent level. And buff wardens a little bit up first, because their heals suck. And make it so RR doesn't stack.

I think a separate healing stat would be good. But probably more a long term solution than a fix right now.

...

Yeah, separating stats or even different formulas for scaling between damage and healing values is quite the big change that would have huge consequences across different modes within PVE and PVP. It's not the kind of change that's made in a rush. ZOS may very well be building towards that change, but they'll likely want to make sure the groundwork is laid down first so that the experience is more smooth than rough.

Battlespirit would be the first place to source any changes. Pick a reasonable, though not dramatic reduction and then see how it goes. Then do minor tweaks until the sweet spot is reached. PVE isn't touched for now.

Firstmep

It is definitely not looking good right now.
Stamcro with intensive mender and vigor combo,
Stamplar with bubble vigor hotd.
The list goes on.
If anyone thinks people arent going to "sacrifice" skill slots for these skills they're kidding themselves.
Mag sustain on most stam specs is not really an issue with things like bear haunch and wretched vitality.
This is likely going to make it live and then we will see some nerfs 3-6 months down the line.

Seraphayel

ealdwin wrote: »

auz wrote: »

They could just nerf healing again. They have done it before. Then gave us an extra 1k weapon and spell damage a couple patches later. Just nerf heals across the board through battle spirit again. Reduce it in small increments until we get to a decent level. And buff wardens a little bit up first, because their heals suck. And make it so RR doesn't stack.

I think a separate healing stat would be good. But probably more a long term solution than a fix right now.

...

Yeah, separating stats or even different formulas for scaling between damage and healing values is quite the big change that would have huge consequences across different modes within PVE and PVP. It's not the kind of change that's made in a rush. ZOS may very well be building towards that change, but they'll likely want to make sure the groundwork is laid down first so that the experience is more smooth than rough.

Battlespirit would be the first place to source any changes. Pick a reasonable, though not dramatic reduction and then see how it goes. Then do minor tweaks until the sweet spot is reached. PVE isn't touched for now.

I honestly think PvE has no issues whatsoever with this change. Healing in PvE is already like 10% healing and 90% buffing / dealing damage.

Healing needs to be drastically toned down or adjusted accordingly.

Vaoh

Seraphayel wrote: »

ealdwin wrote: »

auz wrote: »

They could just nerf healing again. They have done it before. Then gave us an extra 1k weapon and spell damage a couple patches later. Just nerf heals across the board through battle spirit again. Reduce it in small increments until we get to a decent level. And buff wardens a little bit up first, because their heals suck. And make it so RR doesn't stack.

I think a separate healing stat would be good. But probably more a long term solution than a fix right now.

...

Yeah, separating stats or even different formulas for scaling between damage and healing values is quite the big change that would have huge consequences across different modes within PVE and PVP. It's not the kind of change that's made in a rush. ZOS may very well be building towards that change, but they'll likely want to make sure the groundwork is laid down first so that the experience is more smooth than rough.

Battlespirit would be the first place to source any changes. Pick a reasonable, though not dramatic reduction and then see how it goes. Then do minor tweaks until the sweet spot is reached. PVE isn't touched for now.

I honestly think PvE has no issues whatsoever with this change. Healing in PvE is already like 10% healing and 90% buffing / dealing damage.

Healing needs to be drastically toned down or adjusted accordingly.

PvE healing output is fine. The issue is for the vast majority of encounters our damage taken is either too small to care about (just offheal it) or outright oneshots.

Those huge heals are needed for the few situations with healing debuffs... aka vSS HM Ice Tombs, vCR HM execute, etc.

AcadianPaladin

If spell damage stat doesn't boost both healing and damage, my healer will quit healing and go pure dps. If she wanted to do a support role and have crap damage, she'd play a tank.

PvE: Healers doing good damage doesn't hurt PvE a bit.
PvP: Battle Spirit is for adjusting things in PvP that might need adjusting, right?

Seraphayel

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

If spell damage stat doesn't boost both healing and damage, my healer will quit healing and go pure dps. If she wanted to do a support role and have crap damage, she'd play a tank.

PvE: Healers doing good damage doesn't hurt PvE a bit.
PvP: Battle Spirit is for adjusting things in PvP that might need adjusting, right?

Healers are no damage dealers and I hate the idea of healing being sidelined to be a capable damage dealer as a healer on top of the most important job (aka healing).

I hate this in WoW, I hate this in FFXIV and I hate it in ESO. No idea when developers had the idea that healers all of a sudden need to deal respectable damage as well. For two decades healers did primarily heal and it was fine. Then something changed.

By the way, this is my personal opinion, others might like damage dealing healers and that’s fine.

AcadianPaladin

@Seraphayel I don't actually disagree with you. When with a group, my dps is modest and almost all of it is incidental to healing/support (shards, wall, relfective light, etc). What I love about my healer though is that when running solo (she does that alot) in dungeons or overland or vs WBs, she is quite capable by simply shifting the focus of her rotation. No need to change gear or skills. Since I spend much more time solo than grouped, this is important to me. Again, that's why I don't play tanks - I find running a solo tank tedious and hate trying to run two sets of gear or fooling with the armory or swapping skills etc. Some of my fave healing is done when I'm running solo and encounter newer players trying to take on a WB and struggling. I don't have time to change gear or skills, I simply dive in and keep them alive while adding some semi-reasonable damage.

Some of my perspective may come from single player as well. This is the only MMO I've ever played. Though I've learned to love the ability to heal others, my preference would be for a single player ESO. Lol. One big reason I stay with ESO is the sheer mass and scale (which dwarfs Oblivion and Skyrim combined).

maxjapank

Being able to be both a healer/dps is exactly what kept me a healer in ESO. I like being able to do both, and I would be greatly against separating stats, one for healing one for dpsing. If anything, I would support being more tied to resource control. Having to make a conscious choice between power and sustain.

FeedbackOnly

Seraphayel wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

It's time to separate spell damage and weapon damage from healing power

That is not the solution, and would entail far more to accomplish than the benefits said change would bring.

It absolutely is. Healing should never scale with the same stats as damage output. It’s just a dumb decision because this way healing and damage are always 100%. You shouldn’t be top parsing DPS with 100% healing capabilities.

DPS can have higher heals then healers....

FeedbackOnly

Merforum wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Title. While I think the change is great overall, healing on Stamina builds will be way too strong now. They got so much more options - which in itself is great, but their stats are way higher than those of Magicka builds, resulting in overall higher heals, too.

Sure they are limited by their 0 points in Magicka, but most heals don’t cost an excessive amount of Magicka and can still be used 2-4 times with the limited Magicka pool.

So what do you think, will healing skills be the problematic elephant in the room for the scaling change?

If they keep the trend like on the sets that w/s damage does NOT scale up heals but only mag/stam/health do, it will actually make all the skills much better and NOT OP. But it would be kind of nice if instead of using the highest stat of stam/mag/health to scale heals they combine those to scale the healing. Right now the biggest problem with healing in PVP especially is having heals scale of damage, removing that would fix a lot. Then also change damage skills to scale off combined w/s dmg to have true hybrid.

It is hilarious the exact same people who say you can't be tanky AND do damage or you can't have high mitigation AND do damage or can't be a healer AND do damage, but if THEY can have HIGH DAMAGE and scale healing off that high damage stats so HEALING is also OP. WHAT. NO NO the solution is OBVIOUSLY to NO longer scale any healing off damage stats.

Exactly they should have to use potions or build more into if they want to heal.

Also dps should never be able to have higher heals then dedicated healers

FeedbackOnly

Vaoh wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

ealdwin wrote: »

auz wrote: »

They could just nerf healing again. They have done it before. Then gave us an extra 1k weapon and spell damage a couple patches later. Just nerf heals across the board through battle spirit again. Reduce it in small increments until we get to a decent level. And buff wardens a little bit up first, because their heals suck. And make it so RR doesn't stack.

I think a separate healing stat would be good. But probably more a long term solution than a fix right now.

...

Yeah, separating stats or even different formulas for scaling between damage and healing values is quite the big change that would have huge consequences across different modes within PVE and PVP. It's not the kind of change that's made in a rush. ZOS may very well be building towards that change, but they'll likely want to make sure the groundwork is laid down first so that the experience is more smooth than rough.

Battlespirit would be the first place to source any changes. Pick a reasonable, though not dramatic reduction and then see how it goes. Then do minor tweaks until the sweet spot is reached. PVE isn't touched for now.

I honestly think PvE has no issues whatsoever with this change. Healing in PvE is already like 10% healing and 90% buffing / dealing damage.

Healing needs to be drastically toned down or adjusted accordingly.

PvE healing output is fine. The issue is for the vast majority of encounters our damage taken is either too small to care about (just offheal it) or outright oneshots.

Those huge heals are needed for the few situations with healing debuffs... aka vSS HM Ice Tombs, vCR HM execute, etc.

We tried lowering healing output in scalebreaker. It wasn't the answer.

A healing stat though is the answer. Healing shouldn't scale on a damage stat