Another update and no changes to healing in pvp?

Lags · April 24

Im posting this here because yet again another update, another pts cycle, and no healing changes. Something is wrong with this picture. I refuse to believe you arent aware of it. I refuse to believe you cant come up with something to solve the issue without impacting pve. And the answer cannot be because you are working on something similar to vengeance 2 years down the road. This issue is one of the things that has been destroying pvp for the last few years, and left it in the sorry state its in.

Im going to try to word this so that i dont get moderated. Your way of balancing offends me, deeply. And im not alone. You make no meaningful changes in certain areas of the game for very long periods of time, and then out of nowhere you come out with huge sweeping changes, flipping the game upside down. Which i could have sworn you said you werent going to do anymore, back when you changed your "content cadency" a year or two ago.

And here we are again, with the games biggest change ever. Which isnt the point, but yet another update and there is no changes to healing in pvp. I dont understand. It seems like either you've known about it and just dont care, or you are going to let pvp keep bleeding until you make some big changes in a year or two. That would be crazy.

if you have plans for pvp in the future that doesnt mean you should ignore the issues going on now that can easily be solved. And it feels like you've been ignoring it forever.

Heal stacking is, and has been, out of control. Healing is too high in general, especially since the hybrid changes, but heal stacking is the main issue. You've also confused countless players who think everyone is a tank in pvp, not realizing that the issue is mainly over healing and heal stacking. Please, stop letting things deteriorate and do something about the issue. Here ill give you a simple solution. Take battle spirit and add a 10% healing debuff, remove the ability for the same heals to stack on the same players from multiple sources (like regeneration/mutagen), and cap cross healing at 3 people. Problem solved.

Even if you just removed the same heals stacking you would be doing so much for pvp. Like it would be huge. I just dont know why you guys are so afraid to try things like this, its not like you cant reverse it if something goes wrong. But doing nothing, like you have been, is only chasing people out of pvp and hurting the people who play every day. And if you think everyone will magically come back if you fix things some day, you're wrong. Some people return but some people move on and never come back. Stop chasing pvpers away by doing nothing.

supabicboi · April 25

im not here to disagree with u. in my exp, the problem with heal stacking is most probably aimed at ball groups. if you arent referring to ballgroup heal stackings.. well imo heal stacking is only an issue with ball groups

im just here to point out 1 thing. any single pug, now with subclassing, can have a negate on their bar.

ball groups, even the best ones, will struggle with coordinated negate dumps, the less optimized ball groups will get destroyed with negate dumps; almost all burst heals are mag based, merely spamming vigor within the negates will not save the group as a ballgroup healer.

...and coordinating this negate dump amongst pugs rly isnt that hard. /yell, negate when the ballgroup pulls. and if pugs all dump, then its an effective counter. it should even become a 'thing' to do whenever a ball group shows up. deny them.

dumping negate ults in keeps, choke points, or wherever the ballgroup is stacking is the best strat that should be used to counter ball groups u46.

no one after u46 should mention the lack of utility to fight against a ballgroup. in the right situations, the power distance between pugs and ballgroups have immensely become more in reach.

this isnt even a theory. some pug groups in PCNA are alrdy doing this to counter ballgroups that are running/farming on the 3rd floor keep, 16 negates, counted in metrics, within a short period of time, dumping negates in a line to make sure the ballgroup can't get any heals off whichever direction the run to, its a death sentence most of the time. this is pre-subclass.

some might counter this argument with, ''well all ballgroups can now equip tons of negate too then''.
they are stuck together in a clump most of the time, whoever gets left behind, will most certainly die being out of range of heals, mobility, and buffs. negate dumping is much more effective for pugs than ballgroups.

dumping negates is the way for pugs to win fights against ballgroups. with a ROA pull, only 6 or 8 gets pulled in, the other pugs that did not get pulled, assuming they all have negates, merely has to react to the pull and negate the pull point, turning the table on the ballgroup; the pull point is also where all of the ballgroup members will be around to do burst dmg. effectively negating most of the group, basically disarming them.

when u46 kicks in and pugs start realizing the strength in numbers(and the number of negates), ballgroups will be faced with a huge challenge, which is a good thing, and there isnt rly anything bad with having a negate slotted in the backbar for any players, it might even become a meta.

but this is not to say heal stacking isnt an issue, I am merely saying, there is a way to counter heal stacking now, a very effective way.

the devs did not fix heal stacking, i dont care what the reason is, it is stupid indeed.

but pugs are now enabled by subclassing to counter these groups, much much more effectively. perhaps one of the few things that makes subclassing a good thing in pvp.

and btw, i put this 'strat' out to discuss, as a solo and a ballgrouper. its hecking effective.

devs cant say no to ballgroupers, as it'll break the essence of the game, group play.

devs dont know what to do with the problem with heal stacking. but pugs, do have a way now.

if anyone is gonna come up with the 'but i dont wanna be forced to slot in the skill line Dark Magic' well.. the formula is there, up to pugs if they want to or not.

a 1-2 bar population is around 20-40 players. if half of those have negate coupled with meatbag/coldfire , are in the same fight with an opposing ballgroup, then the chances of winning the fight against the ballgroup significantly increases.

i am merely saying, there is a way now.

Joy_Division · April 25

They did make changes to healing.

It got buffed.

SpiritKitten · April 25

I guess you didn't hear about the massive polar wind nerf in the last pts patch?

LunaFlora · April 25

Polar Wind was clearly changed due to PvP.
it doesn't give allies a heal over time anymore plus the burst is weaker, making it less useful to healers in pvp and PvE

•Warden
•Winter’s Embrace

•Arctic Wind
•Polar Wind: Increased the self-healing over time of this ability by 11.1%. Reduced the healing of the ally targeted portion of this ability by ~33.3%. The ally targeted heal no longer applies a heal over time.

[Developer Comment]
Spoiler

With subclassing here, we're toning down the raw power of this burst heal so it doesn't stand above others for group play.
The self-heal portion of this ability will be increased to make it more suitable for tanks, while the ally healing will be reduced to ensure it doesn't surpass other ally-targeted burst heals in all situations.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676794/pts-patch-notes-v11-0-1#latest

Zyaneth_Bal · April 25

SpiritKitten wrote: »

I guess you didn't hear about the massive polar wind nerf in the last pts patch?

I guess it’s obvious that a nerf to one skill will have no effect at all on the situation?

Zyaneth_Bal · April 25

LunaFlora wrote: »

Polar Wind was clearly changed due to PvP.
it doesn't give allies a heal over time anymore plus the burst is weaker, making it less useful to healers in pvp and PvE

•Warden
•Winter’s Embrace

•Arctic Wind
•Polar Wind: Increased the self-healing over time of this ability by 11.1%. Reduced the healing of the ally targeted portion of this ability by ~33.3%. The ally targeted heal no longer applies a heal over time.

[Developer Comment]
Spoiler

With subclassing here, we're toning down the raw power of this burst heal so it doesn't stand above others for group play.
The self-heal portion of this ability will be increased to make it more suitable for tanks, while the ally healing will be reduced to ensure it doesn't surpass other ally-targeted burst heals in all situations.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676794/pts-patch-notes-v11-0-1#latest

Needless to say that pve healers don’t use polar wind because it scales with max heath.

Polar is only used in pvp and by pve tanks.
Of course it’s less useful for cross-healing in pvp, it is overperforming massively on live. There’s too much cross-healing as is, there’s no need for one of the strongest self heals in the game to do that to such an extent too. Self healing has been buffed btw.

SpiritKitten · April 25

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

I guess you didn't hear about the massive polar wind nerf in the last pts patch?

I guess it’s obvious that a nerf to one skill will have no effect at all on the situation?

This doesn't make sense to me, but you believe what you want I guess.

Deimus · April 25

SpiritKitten wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

SpiritKitten wrote: »

I guess you didn't hear about the massive polar wind nerf in the last pts patch?

I guess it’s obvious that a nerf to one skill will have no effect at all on the situation?

This doesn't make sense to me, but you believe what you want I guess.

If you truly don't understand let me make it clearer for you.

Changing a single skill or adding a set does not fix the systemic issue being exploited in their game design of infinite heal stacking. If they changed every healing ability in PvP to only place a HoT on just yourself and not others then your post would have merit.

Second Polar Wind can currently only be ran by Wardens. If that was the singular issue then half the PvP population would be playing Warden and people would have been fruitlessly going to ZOS about Polar Wind instead of pointlessly warning them about Heal Stacking from other sources like Vigor, Regen, and Scribing eroding their existing PvP community and turning potential new players away in disgust when they learn the developers of an MMO think there's nothing wrong with allowing players to receive 30k+ in healing per second in a PvP environment.

Deimus · April 25

Instead of putting a cap on heal/shield stacking in PvP they're hitting the real performance killer by limiting the amount of pets a player can have in PvP to 5.

We all know the armies of Necromancers and pet Sorcs have just been causing tremendous lag and desync in PvP and we can't let that go on any further. Any performance impact from the hundreds of computations caused by sources of damage being calculated against dozens of stacked HoTs and shields pales in comparison to the impact Sorc familiars and Necromancer corpses has on Cyrodiil's performance. Whenever a Necromancer shows up might as well just go somewhere else or your ping will shoot to 600+

Lags · April 25

SpiritKitten wrote: »

I guess you didn't hear about the massive polar wind nerf in the last pts patch?

LunaFlora wrote: »

Polar Wind was clearly changed due to PvP.
it doesn't give allies a heal over time anymore plus the burst is weaker, making it less useful to healers in pvp and PvE

•Warden
•Winter’s Embrace

•Arctic Wind
•Polar Wind: Increased the self-healing over time of this ability by 11.1%. Reduced the healing of the ally targeted portion of this ability by ~33.3%. The ally targeted heal no longer applies a heal over time.

[Developer Comment]
Spoiler

With subclassing here, we're toning down the raw power of this burst heal so it doesn't stand above others for group play.
The self-heal portion of this ability will be increased to make it more suitable for tanks, while the ally healing will be reduced to ensure it doesn't surpass other ally-targeted burst heals in all situations.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676794/pts-patch-notes-v11-0-1#latest

Seems like you didnt read the post. Either way, thats not the point. Nerfing one heal because of sub classes has nothing to do with the issue im talking about. Its much bigger than one skill. Its how strong heals can be over all because of scaling and hybridization, its cross healing to a degree being too many people, and most importantly its heal stacking making ball groups so much more broken than the play style should be.

Im sorry for the pve players every time zos nerfs something because of pvp, but guess who the fault lies with. Zenimax, for not balancing these things separately. Especially with healing. As i said in my post. And nerfing one skill for everyone does nothing to solve it.

And like i also said, im under no impression they will fix this. Its one of the reasons pvp has been bleeding for the last couple of years, and plenty of other people have brought it to their attention, and they have ignored it. But sometimes they take years to adjust things so i had been hopeful these last few patches, but no.

Lags · April 25

Joy_Division wrote: »

They did make changes to healing.

It got buffed.

necro_the_crafter · April 25

Deimus wrote: »

If you truly don't understand let me make it clearer for you.

Changing a single skill or adding a set does not fix the systemic issue being exploited in their game design of infinite heal stacking. If they changed every healing ability in PvP to only place a HoT on just yourself and not others then your post would have merit.

Second Polar Wind can currently only be ran by Wardens. If that was the singular issue then half the PvP population would be playing Warden and people would have been fruitlessly going to ZOS about Polar Wind instead of pointlessly warning them about Heal Stacking from other sources like Vigor, Regen, and Scribing eroding their existing PvP community and turning potential new players away in disgust when they learn the developers of an MMO think there's nothing wrong with allowing players to receive 30k+ in healing per second in a PvP environment.

But... cant you just stack 30k dps in dots on the ball group? Oh they will cleanse that right...
Maybe you can dispel their HoTs? Also no... 0 offencive dispells, right...

On top of having broken heal stacking, this game also lacks basic action-game PvP mechanicks like roll-catchers and guard breaks, at least we got channel iterruptions...

Imagine if stuning an enemy while they block will put 60% blocking mitigation debuff on them for the next 4 secs, or put 2 additional stacks of fatigue if you stun them while they are in rolling animation...

Then reduced cost of core combat abilities by 20-30%, increased the cost of stamina abilities due to spare stamina you have now.

Also would categorized CC's into following groups:

Weak stun - can be blocked or rolled, includes most of scribing/guild/weapon/world cc's, and incapacitating stun as well.

Guard breaking stun - can be rolled, cannot be blocked, includes javelin, streak, mass hysteria, turn evil, mesmerize, bone totem, arctic blast, simmering shield.
Those apply mitigation debuff if target was stuned during blocking, and will change vfx of blocking from dimm gold aura we currently have to bright red fractured shield instead.

Roll catching stun - can be blocked, cannot be rolled, includes rune cage, rune of eldrich horror/uncanny adoration, wardens charm, empowering grasp, volcanic rune, meteorite, fossilize (with animation like valkyn scoril, that resemles throwing a bowling boll - the boulder rolling towards its target and fossilizing it upon contact, in short it will need a projectile).
Those apply addtional stacks of rolling fatigue, or increase fatigue debuff, change green vfx on your legs to red while affected by a roll catch.

String stun - cant be blocked or rolled, includes most ultimates with cc - soul shred, take flight, storm atro, frozen collosus, nova's synergie, dawnbreaker of smiting. Those doesnt apply any debuffs to mitigation or roll fatigue.

SpiritKitten · April 26

Well, then let me return the favor and explain so you can understand. I am a PVP polar wind healer. Yes, one of the 45k+ health, hated polar wind wardens. Why are we hated? Because we can be the difference between wins and losses. I and other polar wind healers will no longer be able to shift the outcome of the battles like we can do now. I can show up and my faction is losing and now suddenly we are winning. Polar wind healers are CRUCIAL to the survival of non-ball groups and solo pvpers. We are crucial to regular pvpers surviving bombs and ball groups.

Nerfing polar wind is a death sentence for casual, solo, and non-ball group pvpers who want to dps and not be a dedicated healer. It's a huge nerf to healing in PVP. Dots will have to come from other sources, and the 33% nerf to burst heal will not save as many lives at the last second like it did before.

The only choice these players have now is to slot it themselves, which takes up one of their subclassing lines. They would also have to give up some dps power to boost their health to get the most benefit from polar wind. You are going to see people become even more tanky and unkillable if they go that route.

I do understand what you are saying and I do not think you know exactly what you are talking about. This is a huge nerf to healing in PVP. Facts.

My PvP main just got seriously nerfed as a support class. I will NOT be changing my build much, I am not giving up my polar wind as I need it for myself, because I can't heal if I am dead.

I've got nothing else to say about this.

Lags · April 26

SpiritKitten wrote: »

Well, then let me return the favor and explain so you can understand. I am a PVP polar wind healer. Yes, one of the 45k+ health, hated polar wind wardens. Why are we hated? Because we can be the difference between wins and losses. I and other polar wind healers will no longer be able to shift the outcome of the battles like we can do now. I can show up and my faction is losing and now suddenly we are winning. Polar wind healers are CRUCIAL to the survival of non-ball groups and solo pvpers. We are crucial to regular pvpers surviving bombs and ball groups.

Nerfing polar wind is a death sentence for casual, solo, and non-ball group pvpers who want to dps and not be a dedicated healer. It's a huge nerf to healing in PVP. Dots will have to come from other sources, and the 33% nerf to burst heal will not save as many lives at the last second like it did before.

The only choice these players have now is to slot it themselves, which takes up one of their subclassing lines. They would also have to give up some dps power to boost their health to get the most benefit from polar wind. You are going to see people become even more tanky and unkillable if they go that route.

I do understand what you are saying and I do not think you know exactly what you are talking about. This is a huge nerf to healing in PVP. Facts.

My PvP main just got seriously nerfed as a support class. I will NOT be changing my build much, I am not giving up my polar wind as I need it for myself, because I can't heal if I am dead.

I've got nothing else to say about this.

Maybe its just a difference of opinion. Sure polar wind is nerfed but its a drop in the bucket of the entire issue. You think its a bad thing, i think its a good thing. And deff not a big deal. Fine. This is the problem with many pvpers. Healers complain when healing is nerfed, but almost everyone hates ball groups and the current pvp meta. And healing is a huge part of the problem, so it only makes sense that to get better changes have to be made. Or pvp can just continue to die.

Not everyone has to get hard carried by a healer. Some people literally sit half afk in a zerg with no idea whats going on, without a care in the world. And not every healer has to use polar wind. I think you're way over exaggerating how much this change will impact 99% of pvpers. A death sentence? Really? I disagree. And i think its the last thing people will be worried about next update.

People can make adjustments and learn to improve how they play and their builds. There is a middle ground where healing gets toned down and healers can still heal perfectly fine. But at the end of the day something has to give. Most people hate ball groups and how tanky everyone feels in pvp, and the major causes are healing, heal stacking, shields, and scaling.

So thats it for me as well. We can agree to disagree.

React · April 26

SpiritKitten wrote: »

Well, then let me return the favor and explain so you can understand. I am a PVP polar wind healer. Yes, one of the 45k+ health, hated polar wind wardens. Why are we hated? Because we can be the difference between wins and losses. I and other polar wind healers will no longer be able to shift the outcome of the battles like we can do now. I can show up and my faction is losing and now suddenly we are winning. Polar wind healers are CRUCIAL to the survival of non-ball groups and solo pvpers. We are crucial to regular pvpers surviving bombs and ball groups.

Nerfing polar wind is a death sentence for casual, solo, and non-ball group pvpers who want to dps and not be a dedicated healer. It's a huge nerf to healing in PVP. Dots will have to come from other sources, and the 33% nerf to burst heal will not save as many lives at the last second like it did before.

The only choice these players have now is to slot it themselves, which takes up one of their subclassing lines. They would also have to give up some dps power to boost their health to get the most benefit from polar wind. You are going to see people become even more tanky and unkillable if they go that route.

I do understand what you are saying and I do not think you know exactly what you are talking about. This is a huge nerf to healing in PVP. Facts.

My PvP main just got seriously nerfed as a support class. I will NOT be changing my build much, I am not giving up my polar wind as I need it for myself, because I can't heal if I am dead.

I've got nothing else to say about this.

The nerf to this skill was one of the most overdue changes we've ever seen. They should have taken care of this over a year ago, the fact it's been allowed to fester this long is disgusting. HP scaling heals and wards should never have been introduced to this game.

You can achieve similar cross healing with plenty of other burst heals and HOTs - but you'll need to build into offensive stats to do so. That was the primary issue with polar wind (and other HP scaling heals) - you were gaining enormous self and cross healing potential by raising your HP, a defensive stat.

For OP's point, he is completely right. While the polar wind adjustment is a great change and will target some of the annoying "healers" with 40-50k+ HP, the primary issue with healing is more in relation to HOT stacking and the accessibility of HOTs/burst heals/shields for every class via hybridization and scribing. They are much larger issues than just one single skill, and something that has only been compounded over time as more power creep has entered the game unchecked by zenimax.

SaffronCitrusflower · April 26

I don't see where ZOS is putting any effort into fixing the most obvious issues ruining PvP as it is now. Specifically the most offending sets like RoA and heal/shield stacking in groups. To me it looks like ZOS is focusing their efforts on a version of vengeance mode instead. And I think it's obvious what that means for the future of PvP as we've known it since release.

SundarahFr3akinrican · April 27

I agree. 4v4 BGs are just no one dying cuz all the heals. Allthey would have to do is adjust the healing some with battle spirit and that'd be enough for the meantine if they wanted a bigger fix down the road.

Lags · April 28

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

I don't see where ZOS is putting any effort into fixing the most obvious issues ruining PvP as it is now. Specifically the most offending sets like RoA and heal/shield stacking in groups. To me it looks like ZOS is focusing their efforts on a version of vengeance mode instead. And I think it's obvious what that means for the future of PvP as we've known it since release.

Ya maybe thats their plan but there is just no excuse for it. Its been going on for so long, it should have been addressed. And now we can imagine the excuse will be, were working on something. Like i said in my post the way they balance offends me, and thats putting it as mildly as i possibly can. Its just such a silly way of doing things. Always has been, and probably always will be. And we sit around waiting multiple years for changes to come, and either they eventually do or the game gets flipped upside down, and they are no longer needed.

SundarahFr3akinrican wrote: »

I agree. 4v4 BGs are just no one dying cuz all the heals. Allthey would have to do is adjust the healing some with battle spirit and that'd be enough for the meantine if they wanted a bigger fix down the road.

its not just 4v4. I have clips of me just sitting in the middle of an 8v8 dog pile of healing legit afk. It never should have come to this. Most players are not or coordinated enough to deal with this type of healing in these type of groups. The healing out classes the damage by a laughable amount.

edward_frigidhands · April 28

supabicboi wrote: »

im not here to disagree with u. in my exp, the problem with heal stacking is most probably aimed at ball groups. if you arent referring to ballgroup heal stackings.. well imo heal stacking is only an issue with ball groups

im just here to point out 1 thing. any single pug, now with subclassing, can have a negate on their bar.

ball groups, even the best ones, will struggle with coordinated negate dumps, the less optimized ball groups will get destroyed with negate dumps; almost all burst heals are mag based, merely spamming vigor within the negates will not save the group as a ballgroup healer.

...and coordinating this negate dump amongst pugs rly isnt that hard. /yell, negate when the ballgroup pulls. and if pugs all dump, then its an effective counter. it should even become a 'thing' to do whenever a ball group shows up. deny them.

dumping negate ults in keeps, choke points, or wherever the ballgroup is stacking is the best strat that should be used to counter ball groups u46.

no one after u46 should mention the lack of utility to fight against a ballgroup. in the right situations, the power distance between pugs and ballgroups have immensely become more in reach.

This right here.

But I do foresee changes to both ball groups and negate in the coming months.