State of selfhealing after Vigor changes and several magicka heals nerfs
Saril_Durzam
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Greetings all. As some posters have explained in several threads, the new Vigor and other "changes" in this new patch will leave some mag class without a reliable heal or real bad heals compared with Vigor. Looks logical to me that an aspect so important in the game –selfhealing – should be more balanced.
My point of view.
HEALING AND ESO.
Healer magicka class has a wide array of healing skills. That´s fine, as its role, they can/must dedicate skill slots to healing skills. Remember, this is not WoW or other MMOs where you have infinite skill bars so you can place many skills to choose what´s best in every moment: in ESO due limited skill slots, each skill must bring a lot of advantages, making skills worthy in quality, not quantity.
No healer builds, like tank or DD, has few room for healing/sealfhealing skills. Those are very needed, though, in any content, as you can´t reliable wait there will be a healer always healing you (with the probable exception of very organized trial groups which are a small minority of the player base). So if you are going to use a slot for healing, that must really fulfill its role.
THE HEAL.
Gonna write the aspects that a good heal must have for a DD (we could include tanks aswell, I guess).
Please, if you feel there should be one or more points, be feel to add them.
1- Instant cast: so it doesn´t take more than one GCD and waste DPS
2- Flexibility: be able to slot it on every bar, with any kind of setup/weapon, with no restrictions.
3- Cheap: so it doesn´t take resources used by dealing damage.
4- Bursty: usually used when the players health goes down and need to get back asap for being out of problems.
5- Potent: as we dont want to spam heals and lose efficiency/DPS, should be potent enough to heal the majority of the health lost in one single cast.
6- One slot: we want to ocupy just one slot so we have room to equip more DD/tank skills.
THE CONTENDERS
Gonna add the two magicka classes I play, Templar and Sorcerer. I invite other players who play them to post here and compare their class heals following the points I wrote about.
VIGOR (STAMINA)
THE GOOD - a heal that fulfill all the points above except maybe part 4. After patch, though, it will tick as strong that we could half call it bursty. It will act in just 5 seconds. We have to take in consideration that having stronger armor type, stamina players will receive less damage and due that, heals will be more effective than in magicka characters.
THE BAD - not really more options for stamina players. If any player would prefer just a single direct heal, he wouldn´t get it unless Warden or Templar or Sorcerer, and not in the best circunstances (aka leaving many points above not fulfilled). Some NB and Sorc skills also heal so it would be a good complement to Vigor but unless they do DPS aswell, we would not want them as wouldn´t fulfill point 6 above.
RAPID REGENERATION (MAGICKA).
This looks like the only general Magicka heal that could be comparable with Vigor. Let´s say how fares:
THE GOOD - it fulfills points 1, 5 and 6 above.
THE BAD - it doesn´t fulfill points 2 (need Resto staff, unaceptable on tank and PVE DD), 3 (not too cheap) and 4.
Opinion – doesn´t get even close as a single heal for DDs. Maybe just in numbers on the paper, but not in the real game. It´s still a fine skill on a healer role.
TEMPLAR HEAL: HONOR THE DEAD (MAGICKA)
THE GOOD - it fulfills all the points but maybe 3 and 4, explained below.
THE BAD - it´s not really cheap, but can be in circunstances, and it´s half as potent as Vigor.
Opinion - The magplar DD or tank covers self healing with this skill, which can be comparable to Vigor, although not as good. Stamplar will get better covered slotting Vigor. Nerf on Puncturing Weep damage also won´t help regaining health using this skill.
SORCERER HEAL:MATRIARCH (MAGICKA)
THE GOOD: -it does damage for just being slotted, even with some issues. Help/hindrance on Pvp by blocking LoS when retreating. Fulfills points 1 and 4. Heals 2 more targets.
THE BAD: -it doesn´t fulfill points 2 (need to slot in both bars and depends if pets is alive and not CCed), 3 (altough not too expensive either), 5 (half potent as Vigor) and 6 (2 slots). After new patch, DPS will be negligible so not so much of advantage.
SORCERER HEAL: DARK PACT/ EXCHANGE (MAGICKA OR STAMINA)
THE GOOD: -gives resources apart from healing. Fulfills point 2,3 and 6.
THE BAD: -it doesn´t fulfill 1 (channeled), 4 (channeled means no burst), 5 (heals for about 1/3 of Vigor).
THE UGLY: takes the other resource to cast. It´s ok in case of stamina but as magicka takes stamina as that´s kinda valuable because stamina will be needed to block, dodge, break free or run. Pvp wise implies to use tri stat food –mag regen drink is better and cheaper in most cases.
Opinion –although Sorc has also a “lifesteal” in form of healing off crits in Power Surge, being so conditional and not on demand I wouldn´t put it as a true heal. You cannot just go with Surge unless you slot shields aswell, which has been nerfed, this heal would take 2 slots and a HEAVY investment in magicka, which coupled with horrible sustain of the class, would mean a big waste of resources. Also, the other benefict of Surge, Major Sorcery, is now covered by Degeneration which is by miles a better skill.
Right now Sorcerers are out of any kind of magicka good heal, being a serious issue. DDs won´t use Matriarch anymore, and doubt it will slot any other heal.
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CONCLUSSION
So, that´s it. Right now the selfhealing being magicka is an issue unless you play a magtemplar. Balance between Stamina and Magicka character is overtuned, already got more DPS and sustain, and now have better survability and selfhealing.
SOLUTIONS. Is there anything we can do for balancing this? I don’t beliebe on nerfs, I feel changes on Vigor are fine, but magicka characters need better heals. It could be in form of new heals similar to Vigor, or in changes on class heals already existant. My sorcerer change would be to make Dark Exchange instant. It would be still a worse heal than Vigor but sustain gain would balance it.
My point of view.
HEALING AND ESO.
Healer magicka class has a wide array of healing skills. That´s fine, as its role, they can/must dedicate skill slots to healing skills. Remember, this is not WoW or other MMOs where you have infinite skill bars so you can place many skills to choose what´s best in every moment: in ESO due limited skill slots, each skill must bring a lot of advantages, making skills worthy in quality, not quantity.
No healer builds, like tank or DD, has few room for healing/sealfhealing skills. Those are very needed, though, in any content, as you can´t reliable wait there will be a healer always healing you (with the probable exception of very organized trial groups which are a small minority of the player base). So if you are going to use a slot for healing, that must really fulfill its role.
THE HEAL.
Gonna write the aspects that a good heal must have for a DD (we could include tanks aswell, I guess).
Please, if you feel there should be one or more points, be feel to add them.
1- Instant cast: so it doesn´t take more than one GCD and waste DPS
2- Flexibility: be able to slot it on every bar, with any kind of setup/weapon, with no restrictions.
3- Cheap: so it doesn´t take resources used by dealing damage.
4- Bursty: usually used when the players health goes down and need to get back asap for being out of problems.
5- Potent: as we dont want to spam heals and lose efficiency/DPS, should be potent enough to heal the majority of the health lost in one single cast.
6- One slot: we want to ocupy just one slot so we have room to equip more DD/tank skills.
THE CONTENDERS
Gonna add the two magicka classes I play, Templar and Sorcerer. I invite other players who play them to post here and compare their class heals following the points I wrote about.
VIGOR (STAMINA)
THE GOOD - a heal that fulfill all the points above except maybe part 4. After patch, though, it will tick as strong that we could half call it bursty. It will act in just 5 seconds. We have to take in consideration that having stronger armor type, stamina players will receive less damage and due that, heals will be more effective than in magicka characters.
THE BAD - not really more options for stamina players. If any player would prefer just a single direct heal, he wouldn´t get it unless Warden or Templar or Sorcerer, and not in the best circunstances (aka leaving many points above not fulfilled). Some NB and Sorc skills also heal so it would be a good complement to Vigor but unless they do DPS aswell, we would not want them as wouldn´t fulfill point 6 above.
RAPID REGENERATION (MAGICKA).
This looks like the only general Magicka heal that could be comparable with Vigor. Let´s say how fares:
THE GOOD - it fulfills points 1, 5 and 6 above.
THE BAD - it doesn´t fulfill points 2 (need Resto staff, unaceptable on tank and PVE DD), 3 (not too cheap) and 4.
Opinion – doesn´t get even close as a single heal for DDs. Maybe just in numbers on the paper, but not in the real game. It´s still a fine skill on a healer role.
TEMPLAR HEAL: HONOR THE DEAD (MAGICKA)
THE GOOD - it fulfills all the points but maybe 3 and 4, explained below.
THE BAD - it´s not really cheap, but can be in circunstances, and it´s half as potent as Vigor.
Opinion - The magplar DD or tank covers self healing with this skill, which can be comparable to Vigor, although not as good. Stamplar will get better covered slotting Vigor. Nerf on Puncturing Weep damage also won´t help regaining health using this skill.
SORCERER HEAL:MATRIARCH (MAGICKA)
THE GOOD: -it does damage for just being slotted, even with some issues. Help/hindrance on Pvp by blocking LoS when retreating. Fulfills points 1 and 4. Heals 2 more targets.
THE BAD: -it doesn´t fulfill points 2 (need to slot in both bars and depends if pets is alive and not CCed), 3 (altough not too expensive either), 5 (half potent as Vigor) and 6 (2 slots). After new patch, DPS will be negligible so not so much of advantage.
SORCERER HEAL: DARK PACT/ EXCHANGE (MAGICKA OR STAMINA)
THE GOOD: -gives resources apart from healing. Fulfills point 2,3 and 6.
THE BAD: -it doesn´t fulfill 1 (channeled), 4 (channeled means no burst), 5 (heals for about 1/3 of Vigor).
THE UGLY: takes the other resource to cast. It´s ok in case of stamina but as magicka takes stamina as that´s kinda valuable because stamina will be needed to block, dodge, break free or run. Pvp wise implies to use tri stat food –mag regen drink is better and cheaper in most cases.
Opinion –although Sorc has also a “lifesteal” in form of healing off crits in Power Surge, being so conditional and not on demand I wouldn´t put it as a true heal. You cannot just go with Surge unless you slot shields aswell, which has been nerfed, this heal would take 2 slots and a HEAVY investment in magicka, which coupled with horrible sustain of the class, would mean a big waste of resources. Also, the other benefict of Surge, Major Sorcery, is now covered by Degeneration which is by miles a better skill.
Right now Sorcerers are out of any kind of magicka good heal, being a serious issue. DDs won´t use Matriarch anymore, and doubt it will slot any other heal.
--
CONCLUSSION
So, that´s it. Right now the selfhealing being magicka is an issue unless you play a magtemplar. Balance between Stamina and Magicka character is overtuned, already got more DPS and sustain, and now have better survability and selfhealing.
SOLUTIONS. Is there anything we can do for balancing this? I don’t beliebe on nerfs, I feel changes on Vigor are fine, but magicka characters need better heals. It could be in form of new heals similar to Vigor, or in changes on class heals already existant. My sorcerer change would be to make Dark Exchange instant. It would be still a worse heal than Vigor but sustain gain would balance it.
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Urzigurumash✭✭✭✭✭
✭Surely the buff to Vigor is intended to make Medium easier to use in PvP, since many felt Heavy was overrepresented in PvP. I do not believe considerations about survivability in Light were necessarily pertinent to this contemplation.
Death Match may not be the best mode to assess balance, but on Xbox NA, Mag characters appear to consistently have the best KD ratio in Death Match.
Additionally, do not Mag characters continue to push the best scores in VMA? This indicates survivability in Light is plenty sufficient, no?Xbox NA AD / Day 1 ScrubDK / Wood Orc Cuisine Enthusiast1 -
Saril_Durzam✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »Magicka has a shield option, while stamina doesn't have it.
Ahh Shields.i knew I had to talk about them before. Shields are damage preventers. You place one expecting more damage incoming and then heal the damage taken. They present two issues: one being shields are overcosted. They can prevent just 9k damage and cost around 4k magicka. And you still didnt heal a single damage, so now you have to heal.Lets say you cast RR. You have used 2 GCDs, around 65k magicka to get around the sale quantity of damage healed/prevented than a single Vigor cast. After patch shields will be VERY innefficient. Still will have their uses, ofc, like stacking in pvp and on certain mechanics in trials, but usually nothing you cant do with blocking which is more effective on stamina caracteres.
If shields in U23 is the way magicka balances, we're spoiled.0 -
MartiniDaniels✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Saril_Durzam wrote: »MartiniDaniels wrote: »Magicka has a shield option, while stamina doesn't have it.
Ahh Shields.i knew I had to talk about them before . Shields are damage preventers. You place one expecting more damage incoming and then heal the damage taken. They present two issues: one being shields are overcosted. They can prevent just 9k damage and cost around 4k magicka. And you still didnt heal a single damage, so now you have to heal.Lets say you cast RR. You have used 2 GCDs, around 65k magicka to get around the sale quantity of damage healed/prevented than a single Vigor cast. After patch shields will be VERY innefficient. Still will have their uses, ofc, like stacking in pvp and on certain mechanics in trials, but usually nothing you cant do with blocking which is more effective on stamina caracteres.
If shields in U23 is the way magicka balances, we're spoiled.
Overall magicka PVE self-survival was not nerfed (with exception of magsorc, but magsorc was OP in Elsweyr in magicka department. Elsweyr literally nerfed anti-sorc playstyles and brough all the possible tools useful to sorcs, nerf was imminent). What changed is that healers were nerfed, and stamina self-survival buffed. So it's not even question of top guilds and their score runs. I don't see any point in magicka toons even in more casual runs. It's not about elitism or esologs, it's simply common sense - why run something which does less damage and has worse self-survival. Range? Stamina runs bow/bow just fine.
Imo only way of this is to rollback vigor changes and attach that heal back to some other stamina skill, which is not used in PVE.Edited by MartiniDaniels on July 14, 2019 5:25PM0 -
itsfatbass✭✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »Magicka has a shield option, while stamina doesn't have it.
Shields have been VERY heavily nerfed over the last several years, to the point where they are EXTREMELY weak now.~PC/NA~ Magblade, Tankanist, Healplar, Stamcro, Oakensorc, Healden, Tanknight ~PLUR~1 -
Unified_Gaming✭✭✭✭
Sword and shield now has a stamina shield that scales with health. You also have a stamina shield that is from the undaunted line. Both scale with health but with that said, the size of the shield compared to magicka isn't drastically different with all the magicka shield nerfs and when you couple this with stronger stamina heals it can make magicka users less useful in pve and especially in pvp as their damage is lower anyway. My thoughts on the matter so far.Unified Gaming - creating a shared and Unified Gaming community.
For some of the best and most up to date PVP builds around or useful tips and tricks from an experienced player for PvP and PvE, then check out my channel and consider subscribing if you want to see regular ESO content.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCorbta-fAHKJcxJ6ExbtPwg/0 -
MartiniDaniels✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭DanBeatYou_xD wrote: »
Sword and shield now has a stamina shield that scales with health. You also have a stamina shield that is from the undaunted line. Both scale with health but with that said, the size of the shield compared to magicka isn't drastically different with all the magicka shield nerfs and when you couple this with stronger stamina heals it can make magicka users less useful in pve and especially in pvp as their damage is lower anyway. My thoughts on the matter so far.
Given that OP is against restostaff, discussion is with focus on PVE, i think. Bonewall is notably weaker then harness magicka (if used on stamdps) and sword&board is obviously not an option at all.0 -
Saril_Durzam✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »
Sword and shield now has a stamina shield that scales with health. You also have a stamina shield that is from the undaunted line. Both scale with health but with that said, the size of the shield compared to magicka isn't drastically different with all the magicka shield nerfs and when you couple this with stronger stamina heals it can make magicka users less useful in pve and especially in pvp as their damage is lower anyway. My thoughts on the matter so far.
Given that OP is against restostaff, discussion is with focus on PVE, i think. Bonewall is notably weaker then harness magicka (if used on stamdps) and sword&board is obviously not an option at all.
Not that i want to focus only in PvE but i feel there are already many PvP discussions so yeha, let´s stick more in PvE thankyou ^^. Resto is a fine Pvp weapon, and the default Pve healer weapon. That´s it.Edited by Saril_Durzam on July 14, 2019 6:49PM0 -
Skander✭✭✭✭✭
✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »Magicka has a shield option, while stamina doesn't have it.
Magicka has shield options only if you use certain type of armor and staves. One shield won't do anything but depleate your resources. Two shields means you use a resto staff and light armor.
Also, stamina has now shields with S&BI meme, but my memes are so truthful they hurt
-Elder Nightblades Online
Want competitive pvp while being outnumbered? Tough luck, the devs clearly said you have to die in those situations0 -
zParallaxz✭✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »Magicka has a shield option, while stamina doesn't have it.
Stam players have access to aoe mitigation, better block, and better dodge roll while mag does not. I hate people like you who point out the obvious of stam not having shields
( although bone shield is and absorb magicka is pretty strong) but also will neglect to say that you have better access to dodge roll, shuffle, block, and a (1) shield.0 -
zParallaxz✭✭✭✭✭Let’s also not forget that a mag player I have to stack into having a high health pool, high mag pool, and resis to get a decent sized shield. As a stam player you only have to build into high health and resis, on top of medium and heavy armor having better resis than light armor so the job is much easier. Mag right now ( magdk perspective) has high cost skills, weakened shields, and has to chose between resto or s&b if they want competitive heals or enough defense to use an expensive class heal. It’s really Zos’s fault for not developing “1 handed” and “2handed” magic but we are so past that with the amount of performance issues and balancing issues we have right now.
I could see Zos in the far future adding more stam morphs to class skills and adding more mag based weapon skill lines. But the addition of these skills would require resources which would take money which
( apparently Zos doesn’t have?) takes away from DLC and crown store sales. I’m glad to say I have stopped playing this game entirely and may the rest of you enjoy it or abhor it.0
