You can only have 1 orb active at a time: Why this should NOT go live

Sanguinor2

sorcmag01 wrote: »

Lets get real. The healing orbs nerf is too stupid of an idea to implement.

We thought the same About some very questionable changes that went to live only to be nerfed or reverted soon after, so I´d be careful with that assumption.

sorcmag01

True, your assumption may be right. Well see won't we. I do hope I am right though.

kpittsniperb14_ESO

I'd like to see some developer notes posted this week to give an explanation. I think it will be helpful to provide quality feedback on these changes if we understand what they are trying to accomplish here. Some changes seem good and reasonable while others feel like they are coming from left field and still others give me a wtf moment. I'd like to think there is a master plan but I really know better after 5 years.

ClawOfTheTwoMoons

Donnasnowheart_ESO wrote: »

Then cast it once its been popped.....this won't throw resources out of control stop treating it like it has some sort of cd for casting. Not to mention simply throw spears at the tank if no temp healer simply temp DD even stam DD has spears in there kit. Not to mention a crap ton of skills had their costs lowered. It's a 20 sec cd per person for the synergy with bubble you have 2 healers add in spears from a healer or DD, between new lowered costs, Pots, new armor sets, if even needed and minior buffs ppl will be fine especially if another healer is added into the mix.

What if there's no other Templar in your group aside from the healers? I've seen it. What if there's no Templar in your 4 man aside from yourself, the healer? If they made it 3 orbs at a time it would be a little better. Even better what if both healers aren't Templar, or you're a non Templar healer in 4 mans and there's no other Templar?

Varana

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

I've seen a lot of discussion about why this change is bad, and the people saying it give good examples as to why it's bad, but for the people defending the changes, all they say is that the changes are good. Why are they good?

All your examples are endgame PvE.

People who agree with the changes don't care about that or have no idea about that.
Mostly because they only care about very specific parts of PvP.

ClawOfTheTwoMoons

Varana wrote: »

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

I've seen a lot of discussion about why this change is bad, and the people saying it give good examples as to why it's bad, but for the people defending the changes, all they say is that the changes are good. Why are they good?

All your examples are endgame PvE.

People who agree with the changes don't care about that or have no idea about that.
Mostly because they only care about very specific parts of PvP.

I can see why these changes are good for pvp. It just sucks that Zo$ wont balance each apart form one another. It causes problems like this and pits the community against each other, when we really should be directing our anger towards Zo$ and not pvp or pve communities.

kpittsniperb14_ESO

Varana wrote: »

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

I've seen a lot of discussion about why this change is bad, and the people saying it give good examples as to why it's bad, but for the people defending the changes, all they say is that the changes are good. Why are they good?

All your examples are endgame PvE.

People who agree with the changes don't care about that or have no idea about that.
Mostly because they only care about very specific parts of PvP.

Not all pvp centric folks like these changes. If you're running a heavy magicka comp in pvp these changes are crippling. Most of the support for these changes from the pvp side are coming from stamina players....this is a great stamina patch.

Aznarb

KatySpirit wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Well if you're only providing one person with the synergy then sure, 20s down time is fine, but in a trial with 8 hungry dps between you and the tank as a non-templar healer you have no chance getting resources to them where-as before you could cast enough orbs to at least sneak one by.

THIS is the biggest concern. The tank needs to get an orb, and there is no way the DPS are letting that orb crawl by. Orb (since it is no longer Orbs, that implies more than one at once) needs to have unlimited 20s-cool-down synergy uses for its duration. It can crawl by and everyone can use it and then it can crawl to the tank and they can use it too. Can't spam it and won't need to.

Communication.
That already how we do it with my group.
When I send the 1st orb I always announce on the discord "1st for tank" and no one use it but tank.
With PU... well, gl

I'm not that worried for Orb, I'm more with Healing spring. Lot of HM trial are gonna be almost impossible to do for most healing class.
So, what, we need 4 healer now ? I don't know, but outside of warden I don't know how to build after the change to run hard content with all other healer.

Donnasnowheart_ESO

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Donnasnowheart_ESO wrote: »

Then cast it once its been popped.....this won't throw resources out of control stop treating it like it has some sort of cd for casting. Not to mention simply throw spears at the tank if no temp healer simply temp DD even stam DD has spears in there kit. Not to mention a crap ton of skills had their costs lowered. It's a 20 sec cd per person for the synergy with bubble you have 2 healers add in spears from a healer or DD, between new lowered costs, Pots, new armor sets, if even needed and minior buffs ppl will be fine especially if another healer is added into the mix.

What if there's no other Templar in your group aside from the healers? I've seen it. What if there's no Templar in your 4 man aside from yourself, the healer? If they made it 3 orbs at a time it would be a little better. Even better what if both healers aren't Templar, or you're a non Templar healer in 4 mans and there's no other Templar?

If theres no temp in your group at all then your going to have to take sets that focus on resource return more often its simply a harder choice now. The new monster helm is most likely going to be a heavy pick for DDs now (Grundwulf) honestly it may be the go to for almost all DDs if the resource issue is even that bad which I honestly really doubt it will be.

For 4 man its a non issue especially if its a pug some don't even know to interact with them. It's really just going to be a semi issue for trial groups that run no temp at all DD or Healer but again the new Monster helm is insane for resources plus the new body set that's essentially an orb.


People are going insane about the orb changes when it's really the Healing spring change that should have people concerned .

Bherdani

I also disagree with the changes.
Here is what I see happening in PvE as a result: Healers can mostly only provide reactive heals (an uhoh button) plus one orb, one Spring, one Regeneration...
Basically, why even have healers in raids? If magplar DPS can do Ritual of Retribution, shards, and BoL, magsorc has twilight... Might as well have 10 DPS so the fight goes faster.

Trinity_Is_My_Name

I would like to see the ZOS team do a Vet Trial with all these changes. Heck, they cannot do them now. They sure as heck won't be able to do them with all these healing nerfs.

Bherdani

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

It just sucks that Zo$ wont balance each apart form one another. It causes problems like this and pits the community against each other, when we really should be directing our anger towards Zo$ and not pvp or pve communities.

This^

Sanguinor2

Trinity_Is_My_Name wrote: »

I would like to see the ZOS team do a Vet Trial with all these changes. Heck, they cannot do them now. They sure as heck won't be able to do them with all these healing nerfs.

Yeah that would be funny to see.

ClawOfTheTwoMoons

Donnasnowheart_ESO wrote: »

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Donnasnowheart_ESO wrote: »

Then cast it once its been popped.....this won't throw resources out of control stop treating it like it has some sort of cd for casting. Not to mention simply throw spears at the tank if no temp healer simply temp DD even stam DD has spears in there kit. Not to mention a crap ton of skills had their costs lowered. It's a 20 sec cd per person for the synergy with bubble you have 2 healers add in spears from a healer or DD, between new lowered costs, Pots, new armor sets, if even needed and minior buffs ppl will be fine especially if another healer is added into the mix.

What if there's no other Templar in your group aside from the healers? I've seen it. What if there's no Templar in your 4 man aside from yourself, the healer? If they made it 3 orbs at a time it would be a little better. Even better what if both healers aren't Templar, or you're a non Templar healer in 4 mans and there's no other Templar?

If theres no temp in your group at all then your going to have to take sets that focus on resource return more often its simply a harder choice now. The new monster helm is most likely going to be a heavy pick for DDs now (Grundwulf) honestly it may be the go to for almost all DDs if the resource issue is even that bad which I honestly really doubt it will be.

For 4 man its a non issue especially if its a pug some don't even know to interact with them. It's really just going to be a semi issue for trial groups that run no temp at all DD or Healer but again the new Monster helm is insane for resources plus the new body set that's essentially an orb.


People are going insane about the orb changes when it's really the Healing spring change that should have people concerned .

Symphony will probably be seen a lot more now, sentinel too. Don't get me wrong, I'm concerned about the spring changes too, it just seemed like such a jump form unlimited orbs to just one, the same could be said for springs too though. It's so heavy handed, but I guess we'll just have to hold on and see how it goes.

roksolana_sowa

Dear, zos, do u actually imagine how ure own game works? Do u have any idea how look like pve teamplay in ure own game? Couse changes what u typed in pts patch notes actually ruining all teambuilding atm.
As leader of pve group I have no idea what to tell my supports now. Couse how group need to proc sets (as alkosh and lokkestis), sustain themselves and yep actually how healers need to heal now?
Do u actually listen to players who playing ure endgame content or its not so important comparing to 90% of other part of comunity who coming here to play skyrim online with beer and chips?
Pls listen to community who actually playing and closing content.

radiostar

iirc they nerfed orbs before. so, yeah, I believe they do think they heal too much or "more than intended".

Varana

Donnasnowheart_ESO wrote: »

If theres no temp in your group at all then your going to have to take sets that focus on resource return more often its simply a harder choice now.

But that's the point of the criticism - why would you have to?
The Holy Trinity exists for a reason - healers are there so tanks and DDs don't have to bother so much with healing and sustaining themselves. Saying "well, then just self-heal and self-sustain" defeats the purpose of organised group play with different roles...

GreatGildersleeve

As a tank, I am looking forward to the orb change. I’ve seen too many tanks that rely on orbs/shards for resources instead of an Alkosh proc (different argument, don’t get me started 😂). Tanks need to learn how to manage their resources instead of relying on their healer as a buff/resource bot.

If I also end up throwing orbs onto my bar, it’s about friggin time. I’ve tried to do that for a couple years now but been shot down by raid leads. Why can’t tanks be more useful with orbs (and now Circle of Protection which I can see being a must have)?

This just means healers will have to heal now.
Oh the horror 😱

roksolana_sowa

If u think that it will help to fix perfomence maybe just fix ure servers (special EU) and ure game (i really enjoy all this rain in ss and its fps drops) instead of ruining gameplay?
Or u really think that it will solve problems wits zergs in pvp?
How killing group pve will fix ure problems in cyro?

WrathOfInnos

Agreed, these changes combined are very limiting for healers. I could almost understand the change for a single Healing Springs, since pretty much every AoE HoT or DoT in the game already works like this. However, without being able to stack them, the HPS of one cast needs to increase, not get cut down to barely half of its former strength (or about 1/7 the healing of stacked Illustrious).

The single orb change is definitely worse. Orbs are effectively projectiles, and should be allowed to exist in any number the caster can create. Things like Swarm, Vamp Bane, and Poison Injection can be cast on multiple enemies without disappearing. Seems only natural that we should be able to cast healing orbs toward multiple allies. They already have a synergy cooldown, so the amount of resources given to any one ally is capped.

This change will be most detrimental to any non-Templar healers thinking they could be competitive (and doing so pretty effectively IMO). Now, from a sustain support point of view, Templars are vastly superior once again. Considering Orb travel time and small activation area, Shards will be much more reliable and easily make up more than half the synergies used by the group (up from maybe 20% before). In other words, Templar healers can adapt to this change by alternating orbs and overcasting shards, but 5/6 classes of healers will be ineffective at providing resources for the entire group.

Kimundi

While I'd like to see how the changes actually look like on PTS and tested by good groups, I'm also afraid of the direction they are aiming at.

Clearly, changes to Grand Healing, Orbs and Regeneration are aimed to nerfing the overhealing in PvP. In the meantime, you are gutting PvE healing.

I'm not as experienced as some of the player who posted in there, but I had the opportunity to learn and improve a lot being a "endgame healer" (vCR+2, vAS HM, vHoF HM speedrun, vMoL HM...). More than a year ago, I started like most healers, spamming springs and BoL and not understanding what was happening, slowly learning the encounters and adapting to healing when it's needed, supporting always. Stileanima said it too well: we are not JUST healers, we are supports. We buff, debuff, sustain. We even start using Sets providing utilities to our group outside of providing better heals.

Our heals will be getting weaker, our synergy offers harder and scarcer.

While I know the groups I raid with will adapt - we are good enough to optimize and change. I don't see how social guilds, new progression groups etc will progress, even in base game Trials.

To come back to the topic at hand, the Orb nerf. I share Stile's opinion. Yes, the heals from Orbs is a nice byproduct, and maybe it should be toned down. But why are Orbs so popular? Sustain. Synergies.

You have been promoting synergies with changes to its mechanic and sets relying on them. Synergies promote teamplay, cooperation, coordination and some theorycrafting. You are gutting one of the core skill to this mechanic.

Please reconsider this changes, listen to class reps, to your community. There's a way to reach your goals without gutting what being a healer is about.

irswat

@Gilliamtherogue you were with me the first time I completed vdsa and I got my masters restoration staff. It was you and @Bevinski and I. Now you want to take my master restoration staff from me :-(

akl77

Combat prayer uptime will no longer be ass, but then we’ll see up coming combat prayer spam and warden mushrooms spams and blood alter spam in trials like VSO, that’s the only solution I have to deal with the situation, which will drain healer resources dramatically to use bursts heal as HoTs. Or they die left and right in trials.
To test it, simply take off spring and orb from your bar, and try heal VSO, then post your results for us.

Donnasnowheart_ESO

Varana wrote: »

Donnasnowheart_ESO wrote: »

If theres no temp in your group at all then your going to have to take sets that focus on resource return more often its simply a harder choice now.

But that's the point of the criticism - why would you have to?
The Holy Trinity exists for a reason - healers are there so tanks and DDs don't have to bother so much with healing and sustaining themselves. Saying "well, then just self-heal and self-sustain" defeats the purpose of organised group play with different roles...

HEALERS will have to take sets that focus more on returning resources is what I meant if you didn't get that theres a new set that gives an orb theres monster helms that return resources.

ForgottenEntity

Both as a PvP main and a PvE Tank for vet trials I 100% agree with the OG here.....I absolutely love the look of this patch, but the Orbs change has got to go IMO, it’s just plain detrimental to both endgame PvE and players who are just learning to heal.

efster

Absolutely agreed, particularly on the orb changes. I really don't understand the attitude of players who are crowing that "real" healing can now happen and meta players have to put up or shut up. Meta players have always been the first to adapt to changes, with the goal of fast, efficient clears of difficult content. This will hurt the bleeding edge endgame community only until they figure out how to make orbs plentiful again (for example, already people are talking about having the tanks slot orbs) or find another way to sustain without too much of a DPS loss. They will figure out how to deal and move on, like they always do.

But the mid-tier, the progression groups, and particularly all non-Templar healers are going to be severely impacted by this -- superior sustain is often the only way to ensure DPS stays on point enough to clear a difficult fight -- just clear, let alone do it with any sort of speed or efficiency. If orbs were reworked to function more like shards do, with an orb materialising at its target location instantly after cast, it would be a workable change. As it is now, it's just monumentally stupid and disappointing.

Lazy_Voyager

I've been at this game for a few years now and one of the appeals of ESO, hell Elder Scrolls as a series was that you didn't have to conform to "class" norms as you would in other fantasy settings. Want to level melee skills as a wizard? Knock yourself out. Want to be able to snipe as a meat-head? Go for it.

Since playing ESO I've only ever played non-Templar healers. Why? Because it's f***ing fun. Anyone can heal-bot, the real fun is managing a horrifying web of bleeding HoT's and buffs as a nightblade or arranging corpses and AoE's as a necro. We atypicals have never been on the level of the Met-emplars due to lack of shards, but the saving grace has always been energy orbs. And after nightblade healers have already been bludgeoned with the nerf-bat for the past two years, we can't even have this any more?

The character I've sunk hundreds of hours into, my main from the start, may as well just be a crafting alt at this point. Funneling healers into a single class through increasingly ridiculous, restrictive nerfs goes against what made this franchise great. I hope you see that someday.

Cyantific87

Vortigaunt

stileanima wrote: »

In this thread, I would like to discuss this proposed change to Necrotic Orb from an end-game healer's perspective, and I invite other healers (and DDs and Tanks) from all playstyles to do the same. I'll be extremely forward-- if you can't already tell from the title, I think this is an absolutely horrible change, and I would like to offer my reasoning as to why. At the same time, I'd also like to hear others' feedback about this, be they for or against the change. Or to put it another way, if there is anyone out there who thinks that this would be a good, productive change to healing in ESO, please try to convince me.

Now, for me, this also directly relates to the Grand Healing change, so I will be discussing both here and will try my best to give true examples of how the two skills coexist together other on live, and how I think they might affect healing in the future, should the changes actually go live.

Firstly: There has been no Dev comment in the patch notes about why this change has been proposed. Does ZoS think that Energy Orbs heal too much? I'm not sure they do since "1 orb at a time" applies even to the damage morph, which hardly any healer uses in end-game PvE. That being the case, does ZoS think that they make sustain in trials too easy? I, and I'm sure many other healers, would like to know the answer to this/the reasoning behind it.

I would like to share with you the mindset of most, if not all, end-game healers regarding Energy Orbs and Grand Healing:

We use Energy Orbs primarily for the sustain and synergies they provide to our DDs and Tanks, and additionally for their healing done. We do not take the damage morph of Orbs because we use the healing morph as our primary HoT during less intensive moments/moments where we can be sure they will be enough to keep our team alive, and we use Grand Healing in addition to Energy Orbs as layered HoTs during moments where there is more intensive damage output. There are some exceptions to this, but generally what I have written here is the case for a large majority of encounters. Perhaps this isn't how all healers view their Orbs/Grand Healing, but in my opinion, using them in such a way is part of what sets skillful healers apart from the rest, and is a large part of high-end, REWARDING gameplay-- to be able to recognize the moments in every encounter where you will need to make healing output a greater priority, and understanding how to most effectively do this in a way that will also be most beneficial for the DDs and Tanks you are supporting.

What we really love about our Energy Orbs is that they accomplish both healing and offering sustain at the same time, which allows us more time to buff our DDs and debuff our enemies. For example, in Sunspire during the Lokkestiiz boss fight, during the add phases in particular: this part of the fight involves a LOT of movement, so what I like to do, and also find extremely effective in terms of both healing and group support, is to throw Orbs toward the direction that my DDs will be running to when killing the Storm Atronachs, while also paving the way there with Illustrious Healing. Both of these skills working together ensures that my group gets the best of both worlds-- healing AND sustain during a movement-heavy fight. Having all these layered HoTs also means I have lots of time to buff and debuff, so long as I play intelligently. I know that my several casts of Illustrious will cover my DDs that are moving from point A to point B, so now I have time to apply Minor Vulnerability on the Atro we are focusing before my HoTs fall off. I know that my several casts of Orbs will float through the group and heal everyone enough so that I can focus on throwing synergies for my DDs to use to proc their Lokkestiiz set, apply Alkosh, etc.

How this proposed change will affect this part of the Lokkestiiz boss fight: I can only have 1 Illustrious healing down at a time-- Where do I place it? First I put it around the Storm Atronach that my DDs are currently killing. I see that it's about to die, so perhaps I should now place it at the next Storm Atronach that my group will be running to? What if some of my DDs straggle behind the rest-- What if one of them accidentally misses blocking a meteor and takes heavy damage from it plus the Storm Bound DoT at the same time? What if another DD does not follow the group because he wanted to dodge a different way through the Glacial Fist AoE to not get killed by it? Well, I've already placed my Illustrious on the next Storm Atro so, unfortunately, the DDs that fell behind/went another way have no HoTs on them. I could throw an Orb in the direction of the DD that took the meteor hit, but someone who needed it for sustain/the Major Slayer buff just popped it, so he loses out on that HoT now too. Then what about my DD who dodged the other way to avoid Glacial Fist-- what if he's got Storm Bound on him too, or perhaps some other kind of AoE damage is around him? I could put my Illustrious on him, but then my DDs killing the Storm Atro have no more HoTs on them. I could throw him an Orb, but what if it's immediately popped?

My thoughts on this are extremely jumbled at the moment, so I hope my fellow healers will be able to help me out here/people will understand the point I'm trying to make: We use Orbs and Grand Healing together for all our healing needs, not just one or the other exclusively.

We do not consider Grand Healing a "hybrid spammable hybrid HoT". We consider it a strong HoT that, if used intelligently and at the right moments, will provide consistent healing over time when and where we need it, perhaps in multiple places at once which is essential during movement-heavy fights. We do not use it as a spammable at all because it does nothing more than heal, and we as end-game healers are not JUST healers-- we are buffers, debuffers, and synergy providers. We are the ultimate supporters of our team, and we do this by using a multitude of skills in our kits, not just heal spamming.

Now, I really don't mind the change to Grand Healing and only being able to have one down at a time. What I do not like alongside this change is the "1 orb at a time" change, particularly for the reasons I mentioned above (in movement heavy fights, what HoTs are we supposed to provide our group then as we move from one location to the next, perhaps not all together?), though also because they play such a huge role when it comes to helping our DDs sustain.

How end-game healers currently use Orbs when it comes to offering sustain: We throw lots of them out at once because we know our DDs might not be in a position to take them right away, might be on Orb cooldown, might be saving the proc to perfectly time their Major Slayer, etc.

How the proposed Orb change will impact sustain: We can only have one Orb active at a time, which means we should no longer cast multiple Orbs in a row because this may not give our DDs enough time to synergize them. This means we will be throwing way fewer Orbs in total, and DDs will be receiving way less than before because only one may exist at a time. We also can no longer rely on multiple Orbs to provide the HoTs we need, which means we will have to spend more time casting pure-healing skills, and so will have even less time to throw Orbs.

In short, I think these changes will turn end-game healers more into "pure" heal spammers, and will greatly impact the other ways in which we can support our team. Regarding the proposed Grand Healing change in particular-- I think it would be fine on its own, but NOT if the "1 orb at a time" change makes it live alongside it. I also think that "1 orb at a time" will severely, negatively impact sustain in trials because we will not be able to provide our DDs with all that they need.

Again, my thoughts here are a bit jumbled, and I invite everyone, especially other end-game healers, to provide their own thoughts as well. Thanks for reading.

I see a lot of “I place my heal there, what if a dps messes up and does this what it a dps doesn’t do this what if a dps what if what if” which directly translates into L2P issue in my books. Get better dps. Don’t expect HM content to be a walk in the park where dps can afford to make mistakes. Sorry, but this is the truth.

AleTaras

@Vortigaunt if u talk like this maybe u dont know how healer role works. In some trials u have to move for mechanics, so it is not just "get better dps" , because some mechanics force to u to move. So pls dont say this type of things if u dont know properly how this things works. thx