How do people not have their burst heal on their front bar?

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

I see so many builds that have the burst heal on the back bar and not on the front bar, and I just don’t get it. I know not having your burst heal on your front bar can often allow you to fit more abilities on your front bar to raise your damage more. So there’s obviously a benefit to it. But having tried it, I just don’t get it. I don’t spam burst heals a ton in PvP, since often HoTs are enough, and if they aren’t then it’s sometimes a situation where you have to just use whatever escape ability you have. But when I need a burst heal, it’s because I need health absolutely immediately and the burst heal is the only way I can survive. It’s an emergency heal. Needing to switch bars before using a burst heal often makes it take just long enough that I’ll die instead of getting the heal off—which defeats the purpose of an emergency heal.

Granted, I play on console with a normal controller, so I can’t speak to how this would work on PC or if someone had some fancy controller. But needing to reach down to the d-pad to swap bars before using a burst heal takes a slight moment—not a long time, but it’s not 100% instant. And it just feels like it results in my death sometimes where I’d have lived with a burst heal on the front bar. This is particularly true after coming out of a stun, where I find bar swapping is a little bit finicky and non-responsive sometimes. And of course coming out of a stun is probably the most common situation where one would need an immediate burst heal in the first place.

Urzigurumash · April 2020

Bar swapping issues aside, sometimes it's just more efficient to put all of your defensive skills on one bar. This especially makes sense with Resto and S&B, but there are various defensive passives that stack well on one bar.

From the StamDK perspective, GDB works best on a pure defensive bar, but Resolving Vigor is too brief to require a bar swap, like you describe.

Royaji · April 2020

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

Granted, I play on console with a normal controller

Well there is your problem.

And you have answered your own question there too. On k&m or controllers with paddles back bar is a lor more accessible.

Daffen · April 2020

When you play on pc you are able to do way more complicated combination of actions that can make you survive. The most common one is when you get stunned you can; break free -> bar swap and roll dodge same time -> burst heal on backbar.

Sanctum74 · April 2020

Not sure about Xbox, but on ps4 you can change key bindings in the ps4 accessibility options. Changing it to L3 makes it so much easier, but the downside is you have to replace your controller every 4-6 months.

Iskiab · April 2020

I like having my burst heal on my back bar just because that’s the bar I kite on, when I need to buff or heal both need to be accessible. I usually like running a heal on my front bar too.

As mag I always follow the same pattern: radiating regen + burst heal back bar, weak heal front bar. It works for almost all mag classes.

brandonv516 · April 2020

One must first have a burst heal to put it on their front bar.

Wing · April 2020

lack of space and use of an offensive front / defensive back style

I use clever alchemist with the 5 piece being my front and potentates on the back with S&B, undo, etc.

it forces you into a healthy habit of pressure, burst windows, positioning, defense and heals, buffing, etc.

you pretty much kite around and heal until your burst window is up currently anyway.

angelofdeath333 · April 2020

Not trying to sound harsh but its probably a l2p issue, and i'm gonna tell you why! Do you Keep your hot(s) up even though youre at full health? Thats the best way to mitigate big burst. Its Common that most people use their vigor (etc) too late. Keeping your hots Up as much as possible can Keep you out of execute range and heal you even though youre ccd.
And if youre really hurting and your hot is not enough, hold block or Dodge roll while switching bars!

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

angelofdeath333 wrote: »

Not trying to sound harsh but its probably a l2p issue, and i'm gonna tell you why! Do you Keep your hot(s) up even though youre at full health? Thats the best way to mitigate big burst. Its Common that most people use their vigor (etc) too late. Keeping your hots Up as much as possible can Keep you out of execute range and heal you even though youre ccd.
And if youre really hurting and your hot is not enough, hold block or Dodge roll while switching bars!

I play almost exclusively magicka classes (which are the only really relevant ones anyways, since Rally basically has to be front barred on stamina classes), and almost exclusively no-CP. So while I can sometimes dodge roll in these situations, there’s not always the stamina to do that. Breaking free and dodge rolling costs a boatload of stamina in no-CP, and your stamina pool and stamina recovery on a magicka class is not going to be high, particularly in no-CP. I do try to build some solid stamina resources into my builds, but there’s only so much you can do with this with a magicka character in no-CP without creating severe flaws elsewhere in the build. I’m more likely to be able to use something like Elusive Mist (or Cloak, Streak, etc) to get away, and burst heal between uses of it. That’s my normal plan, but even that doesn’t deal with an absolutely immediate emergency unless I put them on my front bar (which basically goes back to the same issue of needing your emergency ability on your front bar—whether that’s a burst heal or something else).

As for keeping HoTs up, I certainly won’t claim I’m perfect about keeping all my HoTs up. But I don’t really think HoTs are the best answer to the situation where you need an immediate burst heal. If you get hit with a big burst and are at like 10-20% health with more damage (likely including executes) about to come in, HoTs aren’t going to take you out of execute range within the basically less than 1 second you likely have left to live.

So, for example, let’s say I’m a Magplar. My HoTs are Puncturing Sweeps, Living Dark, and Extended Ritual, with Honor the Dead as my burst heal. If I suddenly get burst down to 10-20% health, those HoTs aren’t going to save me. If I’m on my back foot like that, I can’t really be using Sweeps. Living Dark is great but only heals a set amount when you take damage, so it’s not going to really prevent me from dying when I take massive execute damage. And Extended Ritual is great but only ticks every two seconds—and therefore may not come on time—and the tick itself isn’t super high (the tooltip will be like just over 1k healing per tick in no-CP PvP). My options to survive really come down to using Honor the Dead or maybe Elusive Mist, but if I bar swap there’s a good chance I’ll be dead before those go off.

It’s possible these issues may be more relevant to no-CP. I think people tend to be able to survive longer in CP, so it could be less common to have a scenario where you take a big spike of damage and are unable to survive bar swapping before the burst heal. In no-CP, that’s not that uncommon, especially in BGs.

angelofdeath333 · April 2020

Okay you play no-cp! Yeah healing is alot worse there. The best thing is to play defensive until you have a Good burstwindow really, and know when you have to go into Turtle mode.
Have you tried rapid regen?

Sanguinor2 · April 2020

As a magplar main Im wondering how anyone can have their burst heal on their frontbar.

Beardimus · April 2020

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

I see so many builds that have the burst heal on the back bar and not on the front bar, and I just don’t get it. I know not having your burst heal on your front bar can often allow you to fit more abilities on your front bar to raise your damage more. So there’s obviously a benefit to it. But having tried it, I just don’t get it. I don’t spam burst heals a ton in PvP, since often HoTs are enough, and if they aren’t then it’s sometimes a situation where you have to just use whatever escape ability you have. But when I need a burst heal, it’s because I need health absolutely immediately and the burst heal is the only way I can survive. It’s an emergency heal. Needing to switch bars before using a burst heal often makes it take just long enough that I’ll die instead of getting the heal off—which defeats the purpose of an emergency heal.

Granted, I play on console with a normal controller, so I can’t speak to how this would work on PC or if someone had some fancy controller. But needing to reach down to the d-pad to swap bars before using a burst heal takes a slight moment—not a long time, but it’s not 100% instant. And it just feels like it results in my death sometimes where I’d have lived with a burst heal on the front bar. This is particularly true after coming out of a stun, where I find bar swapping is a little bit finicky and non-responsive sometimes. And of course coming out of a stun is probably the most common situation where one would need an immediate burst heal in the first place.

Don't use d pad.
Report the Xbox so right thumb press in switches, it's way faster. Then right dpad is crouch.

BaiterOfZergs · April 2020

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

As a magplar main Im wondering how anyone can have their burst heal on their frontbar.

That’s why most magplars get stuck on their back bar.

Waffennacht · April 2020

I use D-pad, but anyway, you typically should be ACing something into the backbar heal, so it's not much of a loss really.

When I was running around, I'd have like a HoT or something front bar and the big heal backbar. AC the Hot into the burst, ac back to the CC prob

MurderMostFoul · April 2020

My solution; don't use a burst heal.

I only play stam atm, and have each class leveled and BG ready. They all run vigor (some front bar, some back) and bow back bar. If I get low on health it's (snare removal/immunity)-(dodge roll on bow bar for major expedition)-(vigor)-(LOS). It works wonders. All of my toons have health as one effect on their potions, so I can pop one of those if its not on cooldown and I really need the heal.

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

angelofdeath333 wrote: »

Okay you play no-cp! Yeah healing is alot worse there. The best thing is to play defensive until you have a Good burstwindow really, and know when you have to go into Turtle mode.
Have you tried rapid regen?

I use Rapid Regen on MagDK and Magblade. I’m actually not as big a fan of it as I thought I would be when it got changed from Mutagen, though, to be honest. The fact that it can go to anyone is helpful for healers, but if you’re playing in BGs with it, you can end up not getting the Rapid Regen heal on your first cast—which can get you killed. In that sense, it’s less consistent than Resolving Vigor. And, of course, it can’t be on the front bar since it’s a resto staff weapon.

As for playing defensive until you have a good burst window, I think I tend to have a bit more of an offensive play style than that. I tend to build for pretty high damage (usually with light armor and a defensive monster helm as my only defensive set) and mostly just try to melt people quickly. Of course, building for a lot of damage also makes me easier to burst, creating more of the situations I’m talking about in this thread than if I were a more defensive player. The result is that I can do a lot of damage and get lots of kills (have had multiple 30+ kill BGs in the last week, for instance), but I’m squishy and can be put in an emergency situation fairly easily.

Dr_Ganknstein · April 2020

get an elite controller or something similar. This will help with bar swapping but when its laggy nothing will help lol. I would sometimes double bar my heal for that reason... back when I used heals.

Vermintide · April 2020

Ha. He thinks I have a burst heal.

MurderMostFoul · April 2020

Icky wrote: »

get an elite controller or something similar. This will help with bar swapping but when its laggy nothing will help lol. I would sometimes double bar my heal for that reason... back when I used heals.

This is where it's at:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerA-Enhanced-Wired-Controller-Xbox-One/dp/B07DHY6YLM

raasdal · April 2020

You can’t make a blanket statement about wether it is best to have a burst heal on frontbar, backbar, mainbar or offbar. It all has to do with the build anf what you are trying to accomplish.

In general terms, what you are talking about is a mainbar/offbar build vs a frontbar/backbar build.

It’s like comparing oranges to tomatoes.

Magplar is one the classes that favors mainbar/offbar more than others and would explain your confusion.

But to relate to your post;

1. Most builds have heal on backbar due to limitations on skill space and need to specialize frontbar for damage.

2. On PC there is no delay at all for backbar actions as they cancel animations. I can weaponswap-skill just as fast as i can -skill. Only issue is due to lag. In heavy lag onebar builds are great.

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Icky wrote: »

get an elite controller or something similar. This will help with bar swapping but when its laggy nothing will help lol. I would sometimes double bar my heal for that reason... back when I used heals.

This is where it's at:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerA-Enhanced-Wired-Controller-Xbox-One/dp/B07DHY6YLM

Oh wow, that looks perfect and also is way cheaper than I thought a specialized controller would be! Thanks! I think I’ll get it.

MurderMostFoul · April 2020

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Icky wrote: »

get an elite controller or something similar. This will help with bar swapping but when its laggy nothing will help lol. I would sometimes double bar my heal for that reason... back when I used heals.

This is where it's at:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerA-Enhanced-Wired-Controller-Xbox-One/dp/B07DHY6YLM

Oh wow, that looks perfect and also is way cheaper than I thought a specialized controller would be! Thanks! I think I’ll get it.

Both the Xbox Elite controller, and the Elite Series 2 controller have had manufacturing issues that made some of them not work perfectly out of the box. Or, it will only take them a little while to stop working with regular use. Given that the PowerA controller I linked is 6 to 7 times cheaper than the Xbox Elite controllers, and it has the essential extra features one would want, I see it as a much better investment.

RiskyChalice863 · April 2020

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Icky wrote: »

get an elite controller or something similar. This will help with bar swapping but when its laggy nothing will help lol. I would sometimes double bar my heal for that reason... back when I used heals.

This is where it's at:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerA-Enhanced-Wired-Controller-Xbox-One/dp/B07DHY6YLM

Oh wow, that looks perfect and also is way cheaper than I thought a specialized controller would be! Thanks! I think I’ll get it.

Both the Xbox Elite controller, and the Elite Series 2 controller have had manufacturing issues that made some of them not work perfectly out of the box. Or, it will only take them a little while to stop working with regular use. Given that the PowerA controller I linked is 6 to 7 times cheaper than the Xbox Elite controllers, and it has the essential extra features one would want, I see it as a much better investment.

I’ve ordered it. Hopefully that makes bar swapping smooth enough that I don’t need to front bar my burst heal. And even if it doesn’t, it’ll still surely make bar swapping smoother in general. Honestly, I’d have gotten this a long time ago if I realized I could get something like this for so cheap. Thanks for the info!

MurderMostFoul · April 2020

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Icky wrote: »

get an elite controller or something similar. This will help with bar swapping but when its laggy nothing will help lol. I would sometimes double bar my heal for that reason... back when I used heals.

This is where it's at:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerA-Enhanced-Wired-Controller-Xbox-One/dp/B07DHY6YLM

Oh wow, that looks perfect and also is way cheaper than I thought a specialized controller would be! Thanks! I think I’ll get it.

Both the Xbox Elite controller, and the Elite Series 2 controller have had manufacturing issues that made some of them not work perfectly out of the box. Or, it will only take them a little while to stop working with regular use. Given that the PowerA controller I linked is 6 to 7 times cheaper than the Xbox Elite controllers, and it has the essential extra features one would want, I see it as a much better investment.

I’ve ordered it. Hopefully that makes bar swapping smooth enough that I don’t need to front bar my burst heal. And even if it doesn’t, it’ll still surely make bar swapping smoother in general. Honestly, I’d have gotten this a long time ago if I realized I could get something like this for so cheap. Thanks for the info!

You're welcome!

My setup has bar swap on the left customizable button and B on the right one. Having another skill you can fire without taking your thumb off the stick is really nice.