PTS Update 23 - Feedback Thread for PvP Healing

Iskiab

I was theorycrafting some stam healer builds and noticed something odd.

Stamina healer abilities scale better then mag abilities due to weapon power buffs in how stamina characters are built.

This will throw off all your itemization for stamina healers. The best way to build a stamina healer is the same as stamina dps - stack weapon power. It creates a situation where +healing modifiers are underpowered and orcs are the best stamina healers (a lot stronger then argonians) due to having the most damage buffs.

As others have mentioned a good solution would be to reduce mag and sp scaling of healing abilities and double +healing done modifiers on equipment which will force players to choose between healing and damage.

Stibbons

Healers should be able to SELF heal more to be competive in pvp.

Seraphayel

@Iskiab

To make healing not scale anymore with max Magicka/Stamina or Spell/Weapon power and to give them a new, unique type of scaling is imho the only way to fix the mess we see now with massive self-healing and DPS being fully capable of healing a lot of content due to stacking max damage which results in max healing as well.

I don’t know if it’s possible for ZOS to come up with a new stat to achieve this, the entire itemization of the game needs a major rework then. But the problems caused by max damage = max healing are severe and hurt the game in the long run...

Iskiab

I don’t see anything wrong with dps self healing with the low TTK the game has tbh. Just double +healing and reduce the values of heals a bit and voila, someone can spec for healing.

Stamina healing is a lot stronger then I thought already on live. Like spores for stamwardens in a pure dps build (orc + DW daggers for crit) heals for more then breath of life, I was really surprised. Nirnhoned is also better then powered, by stacking weapon damage you can get some crazy tooltips in viable pvp builds.

I think sets like powerful assault stack with other weapon damage buffs too (wasn’t able to test it). Meaning I’m surprised there aren’t stamhealers in trials already to max raid dps.

jbjondeaueb17_ESO

Nobody want to address the elephant in the room ?
The Master Resto Staff on PTS give around 700+ Stamina back on his first tick, meaning a healer spamming Grand Healing can give 1.4/1.5k Stamina regeneration while blocking to players inside.

Cinbri

Purifying Light still didn't got its bug fix and reliability improve since last Update.
Its healing pool effect still can be cleansed before it even proc and wasting purge slot. Now when it heal is even lower than Cleansing Ritual it should get some adjustment.
And since even 1 caster can stack multiple PL healing pools that unavailable with other ground HoTs - make healing pool attached to caster, not to enemy and proc on initial cast of PL.
1. So spamming multiple PL will just refresh healing pool on caster and wont allow to stack multiple of it.
2. It will increase reliability of healing and will make it smth like small AoE HoT around caster. So caster won't loose healing ticks when fight in range.

Qbiken

Healing ward and Blackrose restoration staff needs to be significantly tuned down before live.

Thraben

Thraben wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for PvP Healing changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

1. general: I think self- healing is overtuned. People should avoid damage, not heal through it. I like the general direction that favors reactive healing, though.

2. PvP raids: You probably know that most groups will reduce the amount of real healers, whose main task will be burst heal in phases when barrier/ boneshield is down. Please consider that such a new Meta greatly favors Stamwarden groups (who will neither be CC-able nor negatable): Those wardens that don´t have an Ultimate ready will switch to a healing role.

Since most people aren´t organized enough to use the counterskill (Inevitable Deto), I suggest the implementation of a Stamina Negate (Disarm), or a huge buff to the HEALING MAGE (in the range of -2000 weapon damage) set, so that Magicka Healers have an additional purpose, and a group spot.

3. Templar: Reintroduce the old Healing Ritual, with its cast time, and its low costs. A powerful, interruptable heal allows for a great deal of counterplay.

4.Magblade: The healing Ulti´s duration is too short. Additionally, reintroduce the old Refreshing Path so that it can compete with the Templar Ritual of Retribution.

5. Sorcerer: Sorcerer healers need more bar space. The pets should work like the Nightblade´s shade. The increased costs for resummoning would balance it.

6. Wardens: The StamWarden´s healing abilities are a problem. If you won´t rework the damage of SubAssault along the lines of other AoE dots, then let it apply an outgoing healing and damage shield debuff of 50% to the caster (like equilibrium). MagWardens will be fine.

7. Necro: The spirit Mender`s heal is far too low: Compare it with the Warden´s Nature´s Grasp.

8.DK: Increase the radius of Ash cloud to 8m. Combined with its slow, it might be a unique asset. Change Fragmented shield´s buff to Major Vitality. Apply the single Dot/ Hot standards to Inferno.

Update for the third week:

1.) Maybe you should have read the "MagWarden healers will be fine" sentence. For now, after the Healing Seeds changes, they are utterly dominating all the other healing classes, followed by their StamWarden cousins. Seeds is at least 50% too cheap, and far too powerful compared to the Nightblade´s path (cannot compete due to a lack of AoE Burst heal, and yes, I tested it in combination with Sap Essence), or both the Templar´s Ritual of Retribution and Healing Ritual (who, together, have the same purpose for, like, 10k Magicka cost).

2.)

Qbiken wrote: »

Healing ward and Blackrose restoration staff needs to be significantly tuned down before live.

This. If you want it like that, make it overwrite every existing damage shield (so it buffs the Magblades), but for Heaven´s Sake, DO NOT ALLOW MagSorcs to abuse the mechanic. AGAIN.

3.) Announced MagSorc healing changes: As one of the very few MagSorc healers left, I cannot appreciate your idea. We told you again and again that bar space is our problem, not HoT- power. I can easily solve our non-existing HoT- "problem" with enough bar space which you took from us when you deleted our Overload bar one year ago. Now that pets have been nerfed into oblivion there is literally no justification left to keep them on 2 bars.

Get finally serious with your "homogenization" attempts.

Make them work like the NB´s shade.

Thraben

Update for the fourth week:

1) Healing Ward: It think it´s okay now.

2) Vigor: the self- healing one is too strong still. If the group healing one does no longer stack, it means that certain classes (StamDK, Stamblade, StamNecro, maybe even Stamplar) are definitely excluded from PvP group content, because they would be parasites requiring cross healing without providing one.

3) Templar: I understand the role change from HoT- healer to Emergency healer/ buffer. The tools to do it are too costly, though: Either re-introduce the old Healing ritual with its cast time but low costs, or buff Repentance so that it provides a strong group heal followed by a normal group HoT after an enemy has been defeated within a 15m radius, and get away with this "corpse" thing which should belong to the Necro healers. After all these years, Repentance feels so much less awesome than the skill "Rallying cry" from the Lord of the Rings Online game Captain class, which it probably inspired, and which would make frontline emergency healing a source of unending fun.

4) Magblade: reintroduce the old Refreshing path to be on par with the Templar´s Ritual of Retribution, and the Sorc´s new Surge.

5) Sorcerer: The viability of the new Surge will exclusively depend on its radius: 5m would be too few for PvP, 8m would only benefit ball groups, and 20m would be too much. Still, the double barring of Pets ought to be abolished to make Sorc healers and StamSorc tanks viable again.

6) Necro and DK: you gave up on them apparently PvP-healing- wise, so I won´t waste words here.

Rianai

Soul Siphon (NB heal ult:)

Unlike other ultimates that got a cast time added, Soul Siphon is a purely defensive skill. As such it is used when under high pressure and in those situations it is absolutely crucial to be able to dodge, weapon swap and block cast unhindered and without having to worry about a skill not going off. Putting a cast time on a skill like this undermines it's whole purpose as emergency heal, which is the only use this skill has (the duration is too short for preemptive use or to open up an offensive window).

Cast times on offensive ultimates are bad enough already, on defensive ones it is even more detrimental. Aesthetics - the only reason for adding a cast time to this skill - should never (negatively) impact functionality!

DisgracefulMind

Would very much like my healing ward to prioritize ME. It's not cheap, and when I need my healing ward, I should get it. It shouldn't float off who-knows-how-many-meters behind me to someone else. There are times where I'm out in my duo somewhere and another small group comes up and my wards go to them because they're taking more damage than me, even if its only slightly more, and ward is just like, nope. That leads to really frustrating deaths, and is why a lot of people have had to use ward ally instead. It's always been an irritating issue, and it still is.

Iskiab

Thraben wrote: »

Update for the fourth week:

1) Healing Ward: It think it´s okay now.

2) Vigor: the self- healing one is too strong still. If the group healing one does no longer stack, it means that certain classes (StamDK, Stamblade, StamNecro, maybe even Stamplar) are definitely excluded from PvP group content, because they would be parasites requiring cross healing without providing one.

3) Templar: I understand the role change from HoT- healer to Emergency healer/ buffer. The tools to do it are too costly, though: Either re-introduce the old Healing ritual with its cast time but low costs, or buff Repentance so that it provides a strong group heal followed by a normal group HoT after an enemy has been defeated within a 15m radius, and get away with this "corpse" thing which should belong to the Necro healers. After all these years, Repentance feels so much less awesome than the skill "Rallying cry" from the Lord of the Rings Online game Captain class, which it probably inspired, and which would make frontline emergency healing a source of unending fun.

4) Magblade: reintroduce the old Refreshing path to be on par with the Templar´s Ritual of Retribution, and the Sorc´s new Surge.

5) Sorcerer: The viability of the new Surge will exclusively depend on its radius: 5m would be too few for PvP, 8m would only benefit ball groups, and 20m would be too much. Still, the double barring of Pets ought to be abolished to make Sorc healers and StamSorc tanks viable again.

6) Necro and DK: you gave up on them apparently PvP-healing- wise, so I won´t waste words here.

Great feedback, not much for me to add except I disagree with the cross healing group comment about those stam classes and the impact of echoing vigor.

I also disagree on Necro pvp healing. I don’t do it but some people are effective at it, their main issue will be sustain, they’re at risk for becoming uncompetitive purely because they’ll have to spec for more sustain then other classes. DK healing is on life support, if it’s not already dead.

Templars having strong emergency heals can be balanced if the cost is high enough. Wardens will likely remain the preferred pvp healing class without some tweaks because of easy access to major mending, so there’s some room to buff Templars without making them OP.

Iskiab

Some additional feedback. I’ve been playing with healing ward a lot on live and think Rapid Regen and Ward Ally will have issues after all.

The issue is glass canon specs in pvp. Doing some BGs and trying to rely on single target healing really changes the dynamic of pvp. In random queues glass canon builds significantly weaken the group because smart healing tends to target them, so they cause TPKs.

I think if the changes go live as is you’ll see a lot more premades to exclude these players from groups.

I’m not sure if there’s an easy fix, but rapid regen being self only will help. Otherwise it’s very difficult for players to heal themselves with squishy ranged on their team, so people will go out of their way to exclude them.

I generally solo queue, and I’d be one of these players who feels forced to premade with healing changes as is.

Zer0oo

Please overall limit the crosshealing in pvp if they are not in your grp. This should help with lag with shorter fights, punish stacking grp and reduce calculations since the server has only to check grp mates.

It is currently to easy to keep random close by players alive by just spamming heals even if you did not even intend to heal them. Next patch this may even get worse with the buffed aoe hots. Place one hot around you and the players will get insane healing. Now think about if more players will place aoe hots which will create an almost unkillable stack if they do it right. e.g. 10 sorcs using crit surge or templer ritual or the op fighters guild ground heal ....

All this will make extreme stacked grps hard to kill but even worse it will keep every random person in the area around them alive.

Please make heals only target grp members.