In context, Funnel Health was nerfed more than intended

db0ssman

I was inspired to write a commentary on Funnel Health after reading a well thought out post on Refreshing Path (Refreshing Path.

Just to clarify a few terms I'm going to use:
White mage healer - 90%+ healing, 10%
Red Mage healer - 70% healing, 30% damage
Black Mage Healer - 30% healing, 70% damage
DPS off Heals - 10% healing, 90% damage

I've mained a NB red mage healer since I first logged into ESO 3 years ago on the PSN (switched to pc 2.5 years ago) and in that time its effectiveness has gone up and down with the last major change being a huge buff with the reworking of whatever that ability was into malevelant offering and then the final burst heal healthy offering change. It would be hyperbolic to say that it would now be impossible to play as a NB red mage healer, it is pretty accurate to say that these changes are going to push you into playing either a black mage healer or white mage healer. The main reason is that 3 of the 4 main boss damaging weapons you bring to the fight are getting nerfed. Refreshing Path, Funnel Helath, & Impale are all getting damage nerfs which means as a NB redmage you are problably going to be doing somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the damage pre-patch. This leaves you with the choice of going black mage and doubling down on damage or switching to a white mage (which is what I think ZOS wants) and abandoning strife all together. Funnel Health will likely now becoming a DPS off heals ability so that fully spec'd out dps will use it to squeeze out extra group healing for minimal dps drop.

I know that mathmatically it looks like it should be the same amount of healing as before because it is 1/2 damage and 2x health, except that isn't true due to penetration. If you were going to make a healer build where damage is a significant part, then it makes sense to invest in spell penetration which will increase that damage and will also increase healing from funnel health. If you are going full healer, it doesn't make sense to invest in penetration until cp 600 (when healing and crit is maxed). If we look at that context, where you go from running max pen in a NM dungeon to 1/2 pen and 14k pen shy in a vet dungeon, I think the problem becomes obvious.

Rounding out (assuming you only have the Light Armor penetration bonus) you will do about 10% less damage during a NM dungeon ((9100-4400)/500 =9.4) and about 28% less damage during a vet dungeon ((18200-4400)/500=27.6). Granted, in NM dungeons, most tanks will use the major debufs and in all vet dungeons the tanks should have the major debuffs, but with pugs, you never know. That would make closer to a 18% drop in damage/healing in a vet dungeon.

That means for me the base damage of funnel health is dropping from 5706 to 2853 with the base now being about 2584 NM and 2065 vet. Various buffs in combat would add about 50% more damage and you can't crit the heal on top of criting the damage so that is around another 65% in total. With 31% healing now and 62% in update the numbers work out to about 4.3k for old (2.15k sec) and in the updated is 4k nm (2k sec) and 3.2k vet (1.6k sec). Those numbers put it a little lower healing than mutagen, but more expensive and with no secondary benefits besides a very small amount of damage .

That means trying to use this as a white mage healer from a red mage healer, a black mage healer, or dps will drop the damage by closer to 70% (60% nm and vet on boss) and the healing by about 1/4 (1/8 nm and vet on boss). I'm pretty sure that isn't what was intended by these suits of changes. A possible way to mitigate these changes is to add some other type of utility to the ability. An obvious choice would be to add minor vitality or minor protection to the teammate that gets the second heal.

With the current changes it is like you are changing the base NB healer concept of damage and heals and forcing it behind being a cp 800 healer (so it is worth investing in pen) or making your toon even less of a healer to keep that playstyle.

NyassaV

+1

Silver_Strider

Looks like I'll need to upgrade my NB Healer's grave into a full on Mausoleum now.

Although to be fair, you'd still have Major Breech regardless of tank intervention since you'd still have E-Drain so that'll shave off a few extra spell resist from enemies.

db0ssman

I don't use E-Drain on my Red Mage. If you are going to use a destro to its full potential, you are probably playing more of a black mage. Since these are really off meta builds, I guess there is no 'right' way to play, so you might still have e-drain and play like a red mage.

idk

Really good points. There are probably not many NB healers that understood that spell pen increased the size of the heals.

It is good to point out that these effective changes are essentially a nerf to NB healing itself. Not to mention a loss of the additional effectiveness.

Joosef_Kivikilpi

db0ssman wrote: »

Funnel Health will likely now becoming a DPS off heals ability so that fully spec'd out dps will use it to squeeze out extra group healing for minimal dps drop.

Minimal fully spec'd dps off heal Funnel Health ability... will still do 50% of the damage it would have. Idea: Swallow Soul remains how they want to change it to 35% healing of damage to caster alone. Funnel Health changes from 25% healing of damage to caster OR ally --> Funnel Health does full 100% damage (same as before), but heals both caster and one ally for 15% of damage. Literally makes it garbage in PVP for support heal, but helps PVE still.

Literally only had to reduce its healing to be more minimal to help others choose have hard choice (35% healing like they are saying for Swallow Soul is a lot for self dps).

Xvorg

Strife went from being one of the best skills in magicka builds to one of the worst so fast, I didn't have time to notice it.

As a spammable skill it was OK. Then the nerfs came.

Now I feel they are making it a bad skill just because they want to push NB healers to use MO, and that makes me wonder if there was a need for that skill in the first place. Siphoning line already had 2 heals (Funnel Health and Sap Essence).

What I see now is that NB healers are obligued to slot funnel health if they slot MO, making healing on a NB quite generic.

ZoS took away the rest of the fun of NB healing with this change.

lucky_dutch

Thanks for posting this. I have no idea why Magblade healers are getting hit so hard from so many directions in this patch