How's Sorc, Nightblade, and warden healing after the patch? (murkmire)

Tasear

These 3 had some significant changes so how are you feeling about them?

crashen17b14_ESO

As a Nightblade Healer, how do I feel about the healing changes? Bad. So bad in fact, that I am no longer a healer. So unhappy with the decision that I am unsubbed and focusing on other games. Now, understand that I am not whining or going to engage in hyoerbole. The sky is not falling and I dont think ESO is a trash game or whatever. I have spent the better part of 15-20 years playing all sorts of MMOs and games, from ancient Anarchy Online, to WoW, to Warhammer Online, to Guild Wars (1 and 2). I am no stranger to change, and I understand nerfs and buffs. I may not always like them or agree with them, but I generally dont get particularly upset. So I am not raising pitchforks and torches. I have played ESO since its beta and persisted through the awful content drought pre-console launch. So, I have considered things and decided that right now, there are other things I would rather spend my money on, now that the identity of my preferred class has changed so drastically.

Now, on to the meat of the Why. I started as a magblade dps, but the more I played, both solo and in groups, the more I found myself gravitating towards healing and support. I might take a slight personal hit to damage or toughness, but I could keep my group alive better. Que times were faster, dungeons were more fun, and I actually enjoyed splitting my attention between healing my team and killing enemies and dealing damage.

Sure, I didnt bring much in terms of group utility like a templar or buffs like a warden, but I could play aggressively and pretend I was a dps, while actually being responsible for my group. Not by standing to the side and waving a hand to heal them, not for me blessings and prayers. No, I got to heal my friends by hurting my enemies, and even myself with Offering. We killed things quicker and I got to use cool blood magic. And if I just wanted to solo some difficult content, I could do that too without changing morphs and with minimal gear swapping.

By cutting the damage of Health Funnel, now I have to choose between being a dps and being a healer, and if I am going to dps, I might as well use Force Pulse or Crushing Shock like literally every other mag dps, since it can proc three effects, and weaves easier. If I am going to heal, I might as well use a restoration staff skill, since there are plenty that are useful and provide buffs. Neither morph is particularly powerful and both lack comparable utility. What made them useful and interesting was their hybrid nature. You could deal decent damage and support the group.

Then you have Path of Darkness. This is the worst change, almost laughably so. Unmorphed Path of Darkness does nothing but give the group 4 seconds of major expedition... if they run through the narrow area of affect. Compare that to Rapid Maneuvers, which grants everyone movement speed for longer, with none of the positioning needed.

Morphing it to Twisting Path makes it a worse Wall of Elements. It deals less damage, has no secondary effects except again, 4 seconds of speed if you move in it. It doesnt proc elemental effects or have any synergy.

Morphing it to refreshing path gives you a worse Healing Springs. It is harder to aim, heals for less, and it's built in secondary actively encourages players to *leave* it. Positioning for it is awkward and ungainly and any healing you could get out of it is countered by how narrow and slow it is.

Both changes also undercut the identity and unique feel of nightblade healers, that is aggressive healers. Dealing damage while healing the group. The skill was split in half "in order to allow classes to bring something unique to the group". I find that curious because it made the skills completely generic. Pure damage, or pure healing, with arguably a useless, unintuitive secondary effect, a secondary effect that encourages peoe to get OUT of the spell quicker.

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Now, it EITHER deals damage OR heals. But not both. Yes, it acts quicker than Ritual of Retribution, but it is a narrow column that affects a much smaller area and does not last as long. The changes made to it boggle the mind and completely remove any sense of hybrid "heal by hurting" trait. It worked well before because it could be combined with Wall of Elements or Blessing of Protection to have some overlapping synergy, but now you get so little it isnt worth using as a damage dealer or a healer. And that isnt even considering the enormous advantage Ritual lf Retribution has with his cleansing synergy.

So now, because the two core class skills that made Nightblade Healers unique, interesting and different from traditional healers have been converted into generic abilities that feel like unmorphed skills, I am faced with a choice. The choice the design team seemed deliberate to force players to make. Either be a healer, or be a damage dealer. In an effort to make healers more relevant, they took away one of the more fun, unique ways of being a healer.

Surely I am not the only one who doesnt think being a healer MUST mean being a pure supporting caster, standing back and using righteous holy magic and never getting their hands dirty. Surely I am not the only one who enjoyed being able to heal, while having gameplay like a damage dealer. Surely I wasnt the only one who enjoyed the versatility of not being useless outside of a group. But now that is all gone. If I want to heal, I might as well go templar.

Nightblade Healers traded the utility of pure healers in the form of damage shields, buffs, resource restoration and purges for a little more damage, and I was okay with that. But now, we lost that damage, that unique niche, but we didnt get any of that utility we traded away for damage.

KellionBane

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

As a Nightblade Healer, how do I feel about the healing changes? Bad. So bad in fact, that I am no longer a healer. So unhappy with the decision that I am unsubbed and focusing on other games. Now, understand that I am not whining or going to engage in hyoerbole. The sky is not falling and I dont think ESO is a trash game or whatever. I have spent the better part of 15-20 years playing all sorts of MMOs and games, from ancient Anarchy Online, to WoW, to Warhammer Online, to Guild Wars (1 and 2). I am no stranger to change, and I understand nerfs and buffs. I may not always like them or agree with them, but I generally dont get particularly upset. So I am not raising pitchforks and torches. I have played ESO since its beta and persisted through the awful content drought pre-console launch. So, I have considered things and decided that right now, there are other things I would rather spend my money on, now that the identity of my preferred class has changed so drastically.

Now, on to the meat of the Why. I started as a magblade dps, but the more I played, both solo and in groups, the more I found myself gravitating towards healing and support. I might take a slight personal hit to damage or toughness, but I could keep my group alive better. Que times were faster, dungeons were more fun, and I actually enjoyed splitting my attention between healing my team and killing enemies and dealing damage.

Sure, I didnt bring much in terms of group utility like a templar or buffs like a warden, but I could play aggressively and pretend I was a dps, while actually being responsible for my group. Not by standing to the side and waving a hand to heal them, not for me blessings and prayers. No, I got to heal my friends by hurting my enemies, and even myself with Offering. We killed things quicker and I got to use cool blood magic. And if I just wanted to solo some difficult content, I could do that too without changing morphs and with minimal gear swapping.

By cutting the damage of Health Funnel, now I have to choose between being a dps and being a healer, and if I am going to dps, I might as well use Force Pulse or Crushing Shock like literally every other mag dps, since it can proc three effects, and weaves easier. If I am going to heal, I might as well use a restoration staff skill, since there are plenty that are useful and provide buffs. Neither morph is particularly powerful and both lack comparable utility. What made them useful and interesting was their hybrid nature. You could deal decent damage and support the group.

Then you have Path of Darkness. This is the worst change, almost laughably so. Unmorphed Path of Darkness does nothing but give the group 4 seconds of major expedition... if they run through the narrow area of affect. Compare that to Rapid Maneuvers, which grants everyone movement speed for longer, with none of the positioning needed.

Morphing it to Twisting Path makes it a worse Wall of Elements. It deals less damage, has no secondary effects except again, 4 seconds of speed if you move in it. It doesnt proc elemental effects or have any synergy.

Morphing it to refreshing path gives you a worse Healing Springs. It is harder to aim, heals for less, and it's built in secondary actively encourages players to *leave* it. Positioning for it is awkward and ungainly and any healing you could get out of it is countered by how narrow and slow it is.

Both changes also undercut the identity and unique feel of nightblade healers, that is aggressive healers. Dealing damage while healing the group. The skill was split in half "in order to allow classes to bring something unique to the group". I find that curious because it made the skills completely generic. Pure damage, or pure healing, with arguably a useless, unintuitive secondary effect, a secondary effect that encourages peoe to get OUT of the spell quicker.

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Now, it EITHER deals damage OR heals. But not both. Yes, it acts quicker than Ritual of Retribution, but it is a narrow column that affects a much smaller area and does not last as long. The changes made to it boggle the mind and completely remove any sense of hybrid "heal by hurting" trait. It worked well before because it could be combined with Wall of Elements or Blessing of Protection to have some overlapping synergy, but now you get so little it isnt worth using as a damage dealer or a healer. And that isnt even considering the enormous advantage Ritual lf Retribution has with his cleansing synergy.

So now, because the two core class skills that made Nightblade Healers unique, interesting and different from traditional healers have been converted into generic abilities that feel like unmorphed skills, I am faced with a choice. The choice the design team seemed deliberate to force players to make. Either be a healer, or be a damage dealer. In an effort to make healers more relevant, they took away one of the more fun, unique ways of being a healer.

Surely I am not the only one who doesnt think being a healer MUST mean being a pure supporting caster, standing back and using righteous holy magic and never getting their hands dirty. Surely I am not the only one who enjoyed being able to heal, while having gameplay like a damage dealer. Surely I wasnt the only one who enjoyed the versatility of not being useless outside of a group. But now that is all gone. If I want to heal, I might as well go templar.

Nightblade Healers traded the utility of pure healers in the form of damage shields, buffs, resource restoration and purges for a little more damage, and I was okay with that. But now, we lost that damage, that unique niche, but we didnt get any of that utility we traded away for damage.

I'm in the same boat as you... My NB has become kick-bait for Dungeons and other forms of group play, because I can no longer bring some dps to offset my sub-Templar healing potential (or at least the perception of poor healing potential).

This latest patch, has really brought out the FOTM gameplay style that seems to plague almost every other mmo out there. Now, I have to decide if I want to level a Templar (FOTM) to replace my NB or move on to another game.

Oakmontowls_ESO

Yea instead of making healers more needed, all they did is make NB more selfish with their survivability and kill the utility of nightblades. This in combination with the removal of being able to queue as multiple rolls really discourages the night blade healer play style. The thing I liked about night blades was that I could just slap on a resto staff and slot a couple skills and boom you are a healer(in 4 man content).

ccfeeling

ZOS totally destroyed the structure of NB healer , there is no reason to run a NB healer in the trial HM / Score run or you like to be carried , templar and warden are better so much .

Lack of utilities , synergies , and now...healing power .

Stupid combat design .

Joosef_Kivikilpi

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

As a Nightblade Healer, how do I feel about the healing changes? Bad. So bad in fact, that I am no longer a healer. So unhappy with the decision that I am unsubbed and focusing on other games. Now, understand that I am not whining or going to engage in hyoerbole. The sky is not falling and I dont think ESO is a trash game or whatever. I have spent the better part of 15-20 years playing all sorts of MMOs and games, from ancient Anarchy Online, to WoW, to Warhammer Online, to Guild Wars (1 and 2). I am no stranger to change, and I understand nerfs and buffs. I may not always like them or agree with them, but I generally dont get particularly upset. So I am not raising pitchforks and torches. I have played ESO since its beta and persisted through the awful content drought pre-console launch. So, I have considered things and decided that right now, there are other things I would rather spend my money on, now that the identity of my preferred class has changed so drastically.

Now, on to the meat of the Why. I started as a magblade dps, but the more I played, both solo and in groups, the more I found myself gravitating towards healing and support. I might take a slight personal hit to damage or toughness, but I could keep my group alive better. Que times were faster, dungeons were more fun, and I actually enjoyed splitting my attention between healing my team and killing enemies and dealing damage.

Sure, I didnt bring much in terms of group utility like a templar or buffs like a warden, but I could play aggressively and pretend I was a dps, while actually being responsible for my group. Not by standing to the side and waving a hand to heal them, not for me blessings and prayers. No, I got to heal my friends by hurting my enemies, and even myself with Offering. We killed things quicker and I got to use cool blood magic. And if I just wanted to solo some difficult content, I could do that too without changing morphs and with minimal gear swapping.

By cutting the damage of Health Funnel, now I have to choose between being a dps and being a healer, and if I am going to dps, I might as well use Force Pulse or Crushing Shock like literally every other mag dps, since it can proc three effects, and weaves easier. If I am going to heal, I might as well use a restoration staff skill, since there are plenty that are useful and provide buffs. Neither morph is particularly powerful and both lack comparable utility. What made them useful and interesting was their hybrid nature. You could deal decent damage and support the group.

Then you have Path of Darkness. This is the worst change, almost laughably so. Unmorphed Path of Darkness does nothing but give the group 4 seconds of major expedition... if they run through the narrow area of affect. Compare that to Rapid Maneuvers, which grants everyone movement speed for longer, with none of the positioning needed.

Morphing it to Twisting Path makes it a worse Wall of Elements. It deals less damage, has no secondary effects except again, 4 seconds of speed if you move in it. It doesnt proc elemental effects or have any synergy.

Morphing it to refreshing path gives you a worse Healing Springs. It is harder to aim, heals for less, and it's built in secondary actively encourages players to *leave* it. Positioning for it is awkward and ungainly and any healing you could get out of it is countered by how narrow and slow it is.

Both changes also undercut the identity and unique feel of nightblade healers, that is aggressive healers. Dealing damage while healing the group. The skill was split in half "in order to allow classes to bring something unique to the group". I find that curious because it made the skills completely generic. Pure damage, or pure healing, with arguably a useless, unintuitive secondary effect, a secondary effect that encourages peoe to get OUT of the spell quicker.

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Now, it EITHER deals damage OR heals. But not both. Yes, it acts quicker than Ritual of Retribution, but it is a narrow column that affects a much smaller area and does not last as long. The changes made to it boggle the mind and completely remove any sense of hybrid "heal by hurting" trait. It worked well before because it could be combined with Wall of Elements or Blessing of Protection to have some overlapping synergy, but now you get so little it isnt worth using as a damage dealer or a healer. And that isnt even considering the enormous advantage Ritual lf Retribution has with his cleansing synergy.

So now, because the two core class skills that made Nightblade Healers unique, interesting and different from traditional healers have been converted into generic abilities that feel like unmorphed skills, I am faced with a choice. The choice the design team seemed deliberate to force players to make. Either be a healer, or be a damage dealer. In an effort to make healers more relevant, they took away one of the more fun, unique ways of being a healer.

Surely I am not the only one who doesnt think being a healer MUST mean being a pure supporting caster, standing back and using righteous holy magic and never getting their hands dirty. Surely I am not the only one who enjoyed being able to heal, while having gameplay like a damage dealer. Surely I wasnt the only one who enjoyed the versatility of not being useless outside of a group. But now that is all gone. If I want to heal, I might as well go templar.

Nightblade Healers traded the utility of pure healers in the form of damage shields, buffs, resource restoration and purges for a little more damage, and I was okay with that. But now, we lost that damage, that unique niche, but we didnt get any of that utility we traded away for damage.

As a Mageblade DPS, I started falling in love with the Nightblade healing aspect recently... and now don't even know how to morph the Funnel Health skill, due to not being able to decide. I like being able to switch between DPS and healer with my sets... now it isn't allowing me to be fluid in my choices. REALLY disappointed with the direction they've taken with a lot of things this patch, not even to mention any of my thoughts and detriments the Refreshing path skill does for my tanky Nightblade builds I've created.

We need you, a solid, good player, though in our community still. Don't get too far away from us, Crashen. Your inputs are extremely valuable.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Okay, look. You can not compare these. They are superficially simlar but in actual game play, you will not see a magplar dps running ritual of retribution. Look at all the builds, the skil simply does not do enough DPS to slot. Meanwhile, the old refreshing path did great DPS, while healing like crazy, meaning it was on both magblade dps and healers bar. There was simply no reason to run twisting.

Truth be told, I want them to revert Cleansing Ritual, that is to make the morph choices the way they were. either 12 second hot with 5 purge or a 24 second hot with a 2 purge, having a damage ablity in a healing tree makes no sense to me.

. I like being able to switch between DPS and healer with my sets... now it isn't allowing me to be fluid in my choices

Choose funnel, for when you are a healer, then use force pulse/elemental weapon when you DPS. Simple.

SirMewser

Eldritch Mender says;

• Twilight Matriarch (ofc).
• Bound Aegis (…)
• Inner Light (My slots !!!)
• Dark Deal (What?)
• Bolt Escape (Nice joke.)
• Now use all resto staff abilities.

What really erks me;

• I guess I cast dark deal (should be dark conversion ) for the moments I hate myself to provide everyone minor prophecy.
• I guess I could slot more abilities on my overload bar... Oh right.
• Minor intellect? Why would I use empowered ward on a pet in group content now? The skill doesn't even protect them in overland anymore.
• Absorption Field? The cost... Just for the heal or a bad minor prophecy uptime. Forget about the stun in PvE, it doesn't even work on most mobs nor all bosses.
• This class is a mess and when it was functioning, it was still outright boring regardless if you're a healer or a DPS (simply little flavor and few key presses thanks to toggles and passive "skills").
• There are no useful passives for healing besides the passive "skills" occupying slots.

I deleted my Sorc healer.
Need a break from the game.

kypranb14_ESO

I know the Nightblade Healer changes suck, so I just morphed Strife to Swallow Soul, and threw Healthy Offering on the back bar. I cast Mutagen at the beginning of combat, and renew it as necessary. Throw out Healthy Offering when someone gets low enough to justify the cast.

I can maintain my healer role with a few changes. Sure it sucks, I won't argue with that.

RIP Funnel Health, we'll miss you. IMO if they really wanted to reduce the damage and make Funnel Health a dedicated healer ability, they should have returned it's third target for healing.

Silver_Strider

@crashen17b14_ESO pretty much nailed everything for NB Healer on the head.
Damage was our utility but that damage is now gone and with nothing really to offer over a Templar or Warden Healer, what's the point? We can heal sure, but without any real utility to offer, what group is really going to choose a NB Healer over a Templar or Warden Healer now when they can heal just as well but offer extra utility on top? Major Expedition on Path just means that people are getting out of the heal quicker, being completely counter intuitive of what you'd want a Healing skill to do that it's just not worth running it at all anymore. The nerf to Funnel was just the nail in the coffin at that point since it now barely tickles enemies, really taking away from the whole Bloodmage vibe of NB Healer, stealing health from enemies (and ourselves) to heal our allies.

Don't even get me started on PvP because these changes all but killed NB Healers in groups there too since Funnel isn't worth running as the damage is even more pitiful, Refreshing Path can no longer be used to reveal stealthed enemies and Piercing Mark is completely worthless with only a 5 second reveal that I'm better off using Revealing Flare. I've honestly never felt more useless than I do now in either PvE or PvP that I've just stopped bothering to heal with my NB all together, there's just no reason to.

Psyonico

Healing is fine
The drop to DPS is a sad, sad state

TheStealthDude

I tried playing my NB healer after the patch but wont be playing it any more in its current state. To note, I only play 4-man PvE content and play with a few friends. One of my friends plays a Templar healer and we compared notes after the patch. Turns out that his Templar is pulling MORE damage than my NB healer, on top of providing more utility to the group (non-existant for a NB healer) with comparable healing power.

There is really no point to running a NB healer now. The one advantage we had over Templar Healers was DPS, but thats gone now.

My suggestions:

1) Revert the Path changes, and add a buff to Twisting Path to make it more desireable for DPS players. In its current state, Refreshing Path is not worth slotting on a NB healer, much less any other role. I have at least 2 other abilities I would rather use now in its place (and probably more if I really want to dig around for utility).

2) I understand that the purpose of the Strife/Funnel Health change was to remove the off-heals that DPS NBs were providing. I can live with that idea, but I think 50% less damage is a bit much. I think it should be closer to 70%, if this idea is to stay. The unmorphed Strife ability really should have full damage too, as this is supposed to be the spammable ability for the class while leveling up.

SickDuck

Joosef_Kivikilpi wrote: »

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

As a Nightblade Healer, how do I feel about the healing changes? Bad. So bad in fact, that I am no longer a healer. So unhappy with the decision that I am unsubbed and focusing on other games. Now, understand that I am not whining or going to engage in hyoerbole. The sky is not falling and I dont think ESO is a trash game or whatever. I have spent the better part of 15-20 years playing all sorts of MMOs and games, from ancient Anarchy Online, to WoW, to Warhammer Online, to Guild Wars (1 and 2). I am no stranger to change, and I understand nerfs and buffs. I may not always like them or agree with them, but I generally dont get particularly upset. So I am not raising pitchforks and torches. I have played ESO since its beta and persisted through the awful content drought pre-console launch. So, I have considered things and decided that right now, there are other things I would rather spend my money on, now that the identity of my preferred class has changed so drastically.

Now, on to the meat of the Why. I started as a magblade dps, but the more I played, both solo and in groups, the more I found myself gravitating towards healing and support. I might take a slight personal hit to damage or toughness, but I could keep my group alive better. Que times were faster, dungeons were more fun, and I actually enjoyed splitting my attention between healing my team and killing enemies and dealing damage.

Sure, I didnt bring much in terms of group utility like a templar or buffs like a warden, but I could play aggressively and pretend I was a dps, while actually being responsible for my group. Not by standing to the side and waving a hand to heal them, not for me blessings and prayers. No, I got to heal my friends by hurting my enemies, and even myself with Offering. We killed things quicker and I got to use cool blood magic. And if I just wanted to solo some difficult content, I could do that too without changing morphs and with minimal gear swapping.

By cutting the damage of Health Funnel, now I have to choose between being a dps and being a healer, and if I am going to dps, I might as well use Force Pulse or Crushing Shock like literally every other mag dps, since it can proc three effects, and weaves easier. If I am going to heal, I might as well use a restoration staff skill, since there are plenty that are useful and provide buffs. Neither morph is particularly powerful and both lack comparable utility. What made them useful and interesting was their hybrid nature. You could deal decent damage and support the group.

Then you have Path of Darkness. This is the worst change, almost laughably so. Unmorphed Path of Darkness does nothing but give the group 4 seconds of major expedition... if they run through the narrow area of affect. Compare that to Rapid Maneuvers, which grants everyone movement speed for longer, with none of the positioning needed.

Morphing it to Twisting Path makes it a worse Wall of Elements. It deals less damage, has no secondary effects except again, 4 seconds of speed if you move in it. It doesnt proc elemental effects or have any synergy.

Morphing it to refreshing path gives you a worse Healing Springs. It is harder to aim, heals for less, and it's built in secondary actively encourages players to *leave* it. Positioning for it is awkward and ungainly and any healing you could get out of it is countered by how narrow and slow it is.

Both changes also undercut the identity and unique feel of nightblade healers, that is aggressive healers. Dealing damage while healing the group. The skill was split in half "in order to allow classes to bring something unique to the group". I find that curious because it made the skills completely generic. Pure damage, or pure healing, with arguably a useless, unintuitive secondary effect, a secondary effect that encourages peoe to get OUT of the spell quicker.

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Now, it EITHER deals damage OR heals. But not both. Yes, it acts quicker than Ritual of Retribution, but it is a narrow column that affects a much smaller area and does not last as long. The changes made to it boggle the mind and completely remove any sense of hybrid "heal by hurting" trait. It worked well before because it could be combined with Wall of Elements or Blessing of Protection to have some overlapping synergy, but now you get so little it isnt worth using as a damage dealer or a healer. And that isnt even considering the enormous advantage Ritual lf Retribution has with his cleansing synergy.

So now, because the two core class skills that made Nightblade Healers unique, interesting and different from traditional healers have been converted into generic abilities that feel like unmorphed skills, I am faced with a choice. The choice the design team seemed deliberate to force players to make. Either be a healer, or be a damage dealer. In an effort to make healers more relevant, they took away one of the more fun, unique ways of being a healer.

Surely I am not the only one who doesnt think being a healer MUST mean being a pure supporting caster, standing back and using righteous holy magic and never getting their hands dirty. Surely I am not the only one who enjoyed being able to heal, while having gameplay like a damage dealer. Surely I wasnt the only one who enjoyed the versatility of not being useless outside of a group. But now that is all gone. If I want to heal, I might as well go templar.

Nightblade Healers traded the utility of pure healers in the form of damage shields, buffs, resource restoration and purges for a little more damage, and I was okay with that. But now, we lost that damage, that unique niche, but we didnt get any of that utility we traded away for damage.

As a Mageblade DPS, I started falling in love with the Nightblade healing aspect recently... and now don't even know how to morph the Funnel Health skill, due to not being able to decide. I like being able to switch between DPS and healer with my sets... now it isn't allowing me to be fluid in my choices. REALLY disappointed with the direction they've taken with a lot of things this patch, not even to mention any of my thoughts and detriments the Refreshing path skill does for my tanky Nightblade builds I've created.

We need you, a solid, good player, though in our community still. Don't get too far away from us, Crashen. Your inputs are extremely valuable.

My advice on Funnel Health is to take the Crushing Shock morph...

Haven’t really played NB healer but very gutted how all NB playstyles lost being fun. Seems like getting back to the worst surviabilty on this class with the nerfs on class healing abilities (not to mention shields). Path is pretty useless but I can’t really find replacement. Dropping Path may result losing the major defense buffs from passive too - it was my only self-source anyway. Funnel Heath is laughable and Swallow Soul is sub-par compared to CS/FP. Resource management getting worse each release while on other classes it get more relaxed. Rotation is the hardest on NBs but we all get nerfed because the top 0.0000000001% manage to pull 1-2k more on a dummy than other classes.

Oh, and almost forgot... we got -3% crit nerf from CP passive while magblade provides 6% weapon crit now to the group. I know it is not a unique problem to magblades but it gets to a point where I find it a bit unfair that some setups miss out on a significant passive meant to be a signature of the class.

kaithuzar

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Okay, look. You can not compare these. They are superficially simlar but in actual game play, you will not see a magplar dps running ritual of retribution. Look at all the builds, the skil simply does not do enough DPS to slot. Meanwhile, the old refreshing path did great DPS, while healing like crazy, meaning it was on both magblade dps and healers bar. There was simply no reason to run twisting.

Truth be told, I want them to revert Cleansing Ritual, that is to make the morph choices the way they were. either 12 second hot with 5 purge or a 24 second hot with a 2 purge, having a damage ablity in a healing tree makes no sense to me.

. I like being able to switch between DPS and healer with my sets... now it isn't allowing me to be fluid in my choices

Choose funnel, for when you are a healer, then use force pulse/elemental weapon when you DPS. Simple.

IF you're going to split up the damage & healing of refreshing path then DONT NERF BOTH!
If I cast the healing version it better be a damn good heal otherwise it's not worth slotting aka they've gutted it!

If I cast the damage version it better do damn good damage because I can't heal from it!
They split the two up & as far as I can tell nerfed both the damage & the healing.
#UncalledFor

kaithuzar

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Lets compare Refreshing Path to a similar skill. Ritual of Retribution.

Ritual of Retribution deals 840 magic damage, and restores 840 health every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. It is a player based aoe effect, that also provides the Purify synergy, which removes a debuff and heals for 3438. 12 meter radius.

Refreshing Path (old) dealt 590 magic damage every second and healed 674 for 10 seconds, and granted major expedition. Frontal column.

Okay, look. You can not compare these. They are superficially simlar but in actual game play, you will not see a magplar dps running ritual of retribution. Look at all the builds, the skil simply does not do enough DPS to slot. Meanwhile, the old refreshing path did great DPS, while healing like crazy, meaning it was on both magblade dps and healers bar. There was simply no reason to run twisting.

Truth be told, I want them to revert Cleansing Ritual, that is to make the morph choices the way they were. either 12 second hot with 5 purge or a 24 second hot with a 2 purge, having a damage ablity in a healing tree makes no sense to me.

. I like being able to switch between DPS and healer with my sets... now it isn't allowing me to be fluid in my choices

Choose funnel, for when you are a healer, then use force pulse/elemental weapon when you DPS. Simple.

You won't see a magplar running that skill because it sucks, but refreshing path is worse!
That's what the dev's need to understand, "if it's worse than a similarly crappy skill that nobody uses, why would you think someone might use it????"!!!!

Starlock

Patch hasn't dropped on console, but from reading patch notes, it'll switch up a few things for me. My warden healer is too much of a work-in-progress for me to have much to comment on, and I do not have a sorc healer.

As for nightblade healing, there's something of a storied background on that front for my ne'er do well kitty cat. A healing role is something I added to her character towards the end of her main story arc. It wasn't something I planned on. As a player, I found myself liking the style of hurt-to-heal, and it fit the character in its own twisted and disturbing way. It has never been her primary role, though, and with these changes, I'm really thinking about gutting healing from the character entirely. She's a murderer at heart, a bad cat at core, and now that two of the nightblade skills force you to choose between healing and hurting? Yeah, she'd go with hurting. Refreshing path? Nope. Funnel health? Nope.

If it was the intention of the developers to divorce the healing and damage dealing roles for magicka nightblades, I would say they succeeded. Not a fan of that change, though.

crashen17b14_ESO

I compare ritual of Retribution to refreshing path not from a dps perspective (twisting path WAS bad, and needed to be made more appealing for a dps), but from a healing/support/theme perspective.

Both provided an area of healing/damage. Ritual of Retribution may not have provided the raw damage of Refreshing path, which makes it unappealing to dps (which is fine) but it provides two enormous benefits that Path never did, on top of its superior size and shape. It cleanses debuffs and has a significant up front heal via synergy.

Twisting Path SHOULD get a buff that makes it more appealing to damage dealers, as should Swallow Soul. I can normally understand nerfs to bring balance, even if I dont like them. These changes though dont just "bring balance" or "encourage class diversity". They also certainly dont help the healer situation since they make one-fifth of the classes extremely unappealing as healers.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

I compare ritual of Retribution to refreshing path not from a dps perspective (twisting path WAS bad, and needed to be made more appealing for a dps), but from a healing/support/theme perspective.

you cant do this, becuase EVERY magblade that had a clue was running refreshing, twisting simply was not worth running, even from a dps perspective.

Both provided an area of healing/damage. Ritual of Retribution may not have provided the raw damage of Refreshing path, which makes it unappealing to dps (which is fine) but it provides two enormous benefits that Path never did, on top of its superior size and shape. It cleanses debuffs and has a significant up front heal via synergy.

all this is true, now acknowledge that i said that no magplar dps run it. that refreshing was the only thing magblades ran, if they know what they where doing. also acknowledge that i said that i would prefer the old cleansing ritual and morphs back, damage in a healing skill line makes no sense.

Twisting Path SHOULD get a buff that makes it more appealing to damage dealers, as should Swallow Soul. I can normally understand nerfs to bring balance, even if I dont like them. These changes though dont just "bring balance" or "encourage class diversity". They also certainly dont help the healer situation since they make one-fifth of the classes extremely unappealing as healers.

twisting got a buff by nerfing refreshing. you may not like that but it did. you can not keep buffing everything all the time. sometime things need to be nerfed, i am a templar main, have been since beta, i know this, if you buffed everything all the time, that way lead to power creep.

Tasear

SirMewser wrote: »

Eldritch Mender says;

• Twilight Matriarch (ofc).
• Bound Aegis (…)
• Inner Light (My slots !!!)
• Dark Deal (What?)
• Bolt Escape (Nice joke.)
• Now use all resto staff abilities.

What really erks me;

• I guess I cast dark deal (should be dark conversion ) for the moments I hate myself to provide everyone minor prophecy.
• I guess I could slot more abilities on my overload bar... Oh right.
• Minor intellect? Why would I use empowered ward on a pet in group content now? The skill doesn't even protect them in overland anymore.
• Absorption Field? The cost... Just for the heal or a bad minor prophecy uptime. Forget about the stun in PvE, it doesn't even work on most mobs nor all bosses.
• This class is a mess and when it was functioning, it was still outright boring regardless if you're a healer or a DPS (simply little flavor and few key presses thanks to toggles and passive "skills").
• There are no useful passives for healing besides the passive "skills" occupying slots.

I deleted my Sorc healer.
Need a break from the game.

Have you tried any different builds for Sorc healer? Also I know one Sorc healer who loves bolt escape (not I) but they find it adds more moblity.

Silver_Strider

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

I compare ritual of Retribution to refreshing path not from a dps perspective (twisting path WAS bad, and needed to be made more appealing for a dps), but from a healing/support/theme perspective.

you cant do this, becuase EVERY magblade that had a clue was running refreshing, twisting simply was not worth running, even from a dps perspective.

Both provided an area of healing/damage. Ritual of Retribution may not have provided the raw damage of Refreshing path, which makes it unappealing to dps (which is fine) but it provides two enormous benefits that Path never did, on top of its superior size and shape. It cleanses debuffs and has a significant up front heal via synergy.

all this is true, now acknowledge that i said that no magplar dps run it. that refreshing was the only thing magblades ran, if they know what they where doing. also acknowledge that i said that i would prefer the old cleansing ritual and morphs back, damage in a healing skill line makes no sense.

Twisting Path SHOULD get a buff that makes it more appealing to damage dealers, as should Swallow Soul. I can normally understand nerfs to bring balance, even if I dont like them. These changes though dont just "bring balance" or "encourage class diversity". They also certainly dont help the healer situation since they make one-fifth of the classes extremely unappealing as healers.

twisting got a buff by nerfing refreshing. you may not like that but it did. you can not keep buffing everything all the time. sometime things need to be nerfed, i am a templar main, have been since beta, i know this, if you buffed everything all the time, that way lead to power creep.

If we're going to go off the tangent of the topic of Healer vs Healer and go DPS vs DPS, let's bring Tank vs Tank into the mix. Templar Tanks can use Ritual of Retribution because it does the exact same thing that Refreshing Path used to do for NB Tanks which was a HoT+AoE aggro generation, on top of all the extra utility of a Purge for yourself and group mates AND a slight snare effect from the Sacred Ground passive, making it a much better Tank tool than Refreshing Path ever was. Now, NB Tanks either have to choose between losing a HoT but keeping their AoE aggro generation or losing AoE aggro to keep the HoT, whereas a Templar Tank doesn't have to make that choice and gets both with several added benefits on top. You can argue about DPS all you like but the fact is that it was a poorly executed nerf to try and balance NB DPS but at the cost of NB Healers and Tanks losing out on a very valuable tool in their kits while Templar DPS didn't lose out on anything because they don't use Cleansing Ritual (which is BS because its everywhere in PvP) and Templar Tanks and Healers get to keep the skill fully intact. It's not balanced, plain and simple.

GrigorijMalahevich

OP should get ban for baiting.

Obviously the healing is worse.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

.If we're going to go off the tangent of the topic of Healer vs Healer and go DPS vs DPS, let's bring Tank vs Tank into the mix.

All right. There is absolutely no reason for a tank, either NB or temp, to use either skill for threat generation. With silver leash and time freeze in the game, you do not need either for that. You could make an argument for refreshing in a tank, for the passive major buffs.

And I have already stated, I would like the damage from ritual of retribution to go away. As I have said many times, it makes exactly zero sense to have a damage skill in a healing tree. And it would stop this stupid comparison.

Silver_Strider

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

.If we're going to go off the tangent of the topic of Healer vs Healer and go DPS vs DPS, let's bring Tank vs Tank into the mix.

All right. There is absolutely no reason for a tank, either NB or temp, to use either skill for threat generation. With silver leash and time freeze in the game, you do not need either for that. You could make an argument for refreshing in a tank, for the passive major buffs.

And I have already stated, I would like the damage from ritual of retribution to go away. As I have said many times, it makes exactly zero sense to have a damage skill in a healing tree. And it would stop this stupid comparison.

Time Stop doesn't offer anywhere near the AoE aggro generation that Refreshing used too since it doesn't continuously hit enemies like Refreshing. Besides that, RoR is much larger than both Time Stop and Refreshing Path and while not a stun like Time Stop, it does generate a lot of threat in a much bigger radius for a much longer time than Time Stop could ever hope to match on a Templar Tank. Hell, you should realistically be using both RoR and Time Stop, RoR to draw enemies towards you and Time Stop to keep them in place once they're close enough, using Silver Leash sparingly to grab those stubborn archers/mages in for AoE damage to kill everything.

Your personal opinion about RoR is irrelevant because the fact is that it DOES do damage and isn't even the only healing skill that does damage (That was NB Healers ENTIRE class toolkit, Winged Twilights are constantly attacking something and even Obsidian Shard, as awful as it is, does damage and heals). There is no reason the 2 have to be mutually exclusive and ESO is far from the 1st MMO that has Healing abilities that do damage. Using FFXIV as an example, White Mages have a skill called Assize. It's an AoE Heal AND damage attack, all mixed into a single skill. Astrologian have Earthly Star that does pretty much the same thing too. It's NOT a new concept only in ESO.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

. Your personal opinion about RoR is irrelevant .

If my personal opinion is irrelevant, then your opinion that refreshing path ought to be the way it was is irrelevant too, by the fact of the matter that it does not now.

Tryxus

Warden healing remained relatively the same, but there have been a few nice improvements such as the increase in Magicka return from the Blue Betty as well as the change to Evasion giving us a 15% AoE Damage reduction with Deceptive Predator.

Though Falcon's Swiftness def needs a cost reduction, considering we're spending that much Magicka on less than half of what it used to give...

Biggest change was ofc to Minor Toughness: War Horn no longer gives it, and Maturation has been improved (to up to 28 secs with Jorvuld's). I actually feel like I belong in a team now that I bring smth unique to the group with my Warden.

Overall, not much has changed but these improvements do make healing as a Warden more enjoyable

Silver_Strider

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

. Your personal opinion about RoR is irrelevant .

If my personal opinion is irrelevant, then your opinion that refreshing path ought to be the way it was is irrelevant too, by the fact of the matter that it does not now.

The difference being that my opinion is grounded as a balance issue between class skills vs Your opinion being just to change a skill because of personal feeling about the Restoring Light skill line. If we were to compare Cleansing Ritual + Morphs vs every other Ground Healing abilities from class skills, there's a very clear discrepancy in terms of balance.

Cleansing Ritual = 12 second long AoE HoT with a self purge+ally purge synergy. With morphs adding a DoT or more purging.
Healing Seed = 6 second delayed burst heal with an extra heal synergy. With Morphs making it a pseudo burst heal or a Defile area.
Path of Darkness = 10 second AoE Major Expedition zone. Morphs adding a DoT or HoT.
Ash Cloud = 15 second AoE HoT+Snare. Morphs are bigger heal or damage instead of healing

Cleansing Ritual has multiple effects, even before taking into consideration morph options, over every other class based skill of a similar nature to it and this isn't even taking into consideration of its massive size in comparison to all the others. Throw that in and there's just no contest on who the winner is. Prior to this nerf to Path, I'd say that Refreshing was on par to Cleansing in terms of overall usage. Cleansing was larger and had a group utility with its purge, Refreshing had a decent damage component to make up for the lack of other utility and its small radius but now, there's just no comparison between the 2.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

. Your personal opinion about RoR is irrelevant .

If my personal opinion is irrelevant, then your opinion that refreshing path ought to be the way it was is irrelevant too, by the fact of the matter that it does not now.

stuff and words

irrelevant as that is the way they are.

Silver_Strider

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

. Your personal opinion about RoR is irrelevant .

If my personal opinion is irrelevant, then your opinion that refreshing path ought to be the way it was is irrelevant too, by the fact of the matter that it does not now.

stuff and words

irrelevant as that is the way they are.

It's completely relevant because it's a clear balance issue with the game. I mean, both DK and NB have to choice if their ability does damage or heals. Templar does not. How is that not a balance issue?

Emma_Overload

Worse, because of the nerf to Healing Ward. Healing Ward needs to have a much shorter proc delay, like 3 seconds instead of 6.

VaxtinTheWolf

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Worse, because of the nerf to Healing Ward. Healing Ward needs to have a much shorter proc delay, like 3 seconds instead of 6.

Since it's a damage shield, I don't think they will shorten it's duration any more than it is. However, I just think it would be better to return the initial Heal as a HoT for the 6 second duration of the shield at a reduced value.

It would function like this:
- Apply Damage Shield + Healing Tick
- Healing Tick
- Healing Tick
- Healing Tick
- Healing Tick
- Remove Healing Ward and apply the remaining shield strength as burst heal

Vahrokh

Apparently, the patch to make healers relevant again, actually gutted some of them.