What Everyone Should Read...The Results of 3-Hour Long PTS PvE Raid: Healer Role At Risk?

Nefas

Managed to get a roster together for PTS raiding (which is very hard compared to getting a raid together on Live). Really appreciate everyone who came to raid to gather data/feedback for the devs: @RebornZombie @Weps87 @Bojingle @Eon-King @code65536 @xSparrow @Sarah_Flare @mentalyentil @ApocalypseFalcon @Torael_Valdis @Gaggin @Disturbed125

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoAvIlJ_9eA&feature=youtu.be

Too long;didn't watch:

1) The Healer playstyle regardless of class is simple, straightforward, boring, there is not much room for skill-play nor a semblance of a skill ceiling any more as the playstyle is too generic.

2) The new playstyle opens up new possibilities, new raid-play, new builds and compositions for healers or raid teams who wish to completely forgo traditional healers.

3) Healer role further excluded from content if changes as is go live.

4) Orb Change (multiple synergies off of one orb)/Other Changes (such as Budding Seeds, Barrier, etc) are absolutely fantastic.

5) Healing is still fine for most content except two fights (vHoF HM execute, vSunspire Lokkestiiz HM)...but the level of healing needed for most content doesn't need to be delegated to actual healers...and you won't really need actual healers to do serious healing as of the PTS Week 3 which only exacerbates #3

ESOLogs: https://www.esologs.com/reports/CV6ZazcKgbTvjk3X (Ignore Dummy Parse)


Full VOD:

Kryser

Thank you for your time sir.

This is a great break down of the changes.

Saril_Durzam

Indeed, thanks for posting it. Just strenghens what many of us were thinking/saying. The ones who, as me, have healers as main characters, will probably have to adapt and know that apart from some trials, wont see much playing or utility.

On the other hand, selfhealing gets so powerful that the tank + 3 DDs will work great even on hardest DLC vet HM dungeon fights. I mean, greater than now which are good. Healers role will only exist thanks to Group Finder. For custom parties? a tank with good selfhealing (like NBs), and 3 stamina DDs with Echoing Vigor. Maybe an " hybrid" magicka DD as Templar or Sorc with burst heals slotted. And that´s all.

Narvuntien

Perhaps the Healing staff passives need a boost, I feel like that is a way to encourage actually being a healer.

I mean a DD with a healing staff is just an off-healer which I feel like is fine 0but a DD just using a class heal is not.

Saril_Durzam

The consequences and implications on all this could be:

1- The health pool of characters is too low, meaning dying comes fast and healing has either few time of response, or its not necessary.
2- everyone can selfheal very efficiently. Takes just one skill slot (okay, Sorcs need 2), its cheap, it can even be attached to a damage skill so the GCD waste is minimal.
3- Restoration skills aren´t good enough. Don´t change the issue, classes or general skills are as storng or even stronger. Restoration equipping is what creates a healer (i know, in pvp some mag classes use as backbar weapon) and has not that great impact.
4- While healers can create good buffs/debuffs, on a trial you can get them off a DD with not much hassle. There are TOO MANY DD skills which gives buffs and debuffs, even group ones.

How could we change all this?

1 - Short the selfheals the DDs have at their arsenal. Less quantity healed and way more expensive. For soloing, make unefficient selfheals or DD skills that selfheal, but with less overall damage than true DD skills.
2 - Take all group buffs/debuffs to DDs: leave them to healers. Make the class worth it. Create just new group buffs and debuffs and give them to healers.
3 - Just cleanse the healer spec. Make characters DD or tank, and leave Resto staff as a backup utility weapon for both stamina and magicka characters.

Tanis-Stormbinder

Well the easy fix to ensure we still need a healing role in ESO would be to nerf self heals (which no one wants to see) and buff a few healing skills enough in order to be able to heal those two or three instances where needed. Zos what a fine mess you have created.

Saril_Durzam

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

Well the easy fix to ensure we still need a healing role in ESO would be to nerf self heals (which no one wants to see) and buff a few healing skills enough in order to be able to heal those two or three instances where needed. Zos what a fine mess you have created.

We can nerf selfheals that are just that, heals (like Vigor), stop creating group heals outside Resto skills, and make some selfheals added to some DD skills so in solo content DD classes were viable, but not too powerful to be able to act as a standalone self heal.

Nightingale707

sooo I rewatched part of your stream and glanced over your logs... some thoughts on that are following:

-) according to your 2 remarks of healer playstyle being boring and orbs changes being great: you are aware that orbs changes are the main thing, that will make the healer playstyle boring? we do not get more barslots but still need all our skills but cannot cast them anymore ^^

-) you had 1 stamDD and 1 tank on echoing vigor - the best heal in the game atm that is also strongest when on a DD specced for WD since it scales with WD and not with max stats - that is your ticket to getting through beam phase (without testing, just looking at healing numbers) I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

-) you did not use a defensive ultimate to give you major protection (NB veil, warden northern storm) wich would have taken away 30% of the incoming damage thus reducing the healing needed, you also didn´t have your DDs run maditate, wich also would give them the major protection + a heal - once again, I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

-) I do agree, that healers got gutted a lot, I was one of the ppl voicing my concerns on the forums. but I do not think not adapting is the way to go. a lot of groups will adapt and shuffle things around, and Lokke HM will totally be doable imo, but things will change, you will not go in there with the same setup that you use now.

-) the things that will make healers redundant in a lot of content imo:
-) changes to orbs: with only 1 being needed for everyone to synergize you do not need a healer to provide them, tank(s) can sustain this just fine
-) echoing vigor is the strongest and cheapest heal in this game, and it is stronger the more you build for damage
-) circle of protection is a close secound, being superior to springs since it lasts a lot longer

@Nefas

Merlight

Saril_Durzam wrote: »

... a tank with good selfhealing (like NBs), and 3 stamina DDs with Echoing Vigor.

What if Vigor didn't stack, just refreshed?

WuffyCerulei

I wouldn't say nerf self-heals, as a lot of people actually don't do end-game group stuff like trials, and they shouldn't be forced to use a resto staff to just stay alive. But definitely have healers do a little more than just heal. I honestly can't say what should be given though, as I don't heal that much.

code65536

When talking about healing changes, I think the point at which we need to start is looking at what the purpose of the healer role is.

Support roles exist to do things that are impractical or impossible for damage dealers to do.

For tanks in group PvE content, this is fairly straightforward. Enemies, particularly those in vet DLC content, do a lot of damage. You have bosses whose light attacks can hit for 40K and whose heavy attacks have base damage values well in excess of 100K. A player needs to invest a lot into defense in order to reliably survive this damage. For example:

• Sacrificing resource pools for a larger health pool
• Sacrificing weapon/spell damage for block cost reduction
• Sacrificing weapon choice by using 1H/S
• Sacrificing armor choice by using heavy

And these sacrifices prevent them from being effective damage dealers.

But can we say the same about healing? This game's content has long lacked good "heal check" mechanics. For example, you can't clear Scalecaller HM without a tank. But you can clear it without a healer. And with more DPS from having a third DD, you can skip mechanics and bypass incoming damage and the content actually becomes easier without a healer. There are very few proper "heal checks" in this game, and they are found mostly in trials, which is the content where the classic MMO role specialization is most strongly felt.

So currently on Live what are the things that make the healer role unique in a way that makes it hard for non-healers to do the same job?

• Providing synergies/sustain from orbs required "orb spam", and healing through intense damage required "spamming" of healing skills. This "spam" consumes GCDs that can't be used for other tasks.
• The aforementioned "spam" also consumes resources that force healers to sacrifice spell damage in favor of magicka sustain.
• Springs being a vital tool for healing through things like Lokkestiiz HM static and vHoF HM execute meant the sacrifice of weapon choice.

How much of this has changed on PTS?

• Yes, removing "orb spam" simplifies the healer's job. But it also means anyone can do it. Providing orb synergies for half the group required too many resources and too many GCDs for a DD to do, but now a tank or anyone else can toss a single orb with the cost of just one cast and GCD.
• To compensate for the nerfs in healing output, the healers in this PTS run had spec'ed for spell damage. With less ability spam, they don't need the resource sustain. This further erodes the differentiation between damage specs and healer specs.
• The group healing potential of stamina DDs have been increased
  • From my esologs of the Lokkestiiz HM pull, Echoing Vigor from stamina DDs had average ticks (so this accounts for a DD's much higher crit chance) in the ballpark of about 5-6K raw healing. EV ticks every 2s, so that's about 2.5-3K HPS.
    • EV from a tank is about half that strength; while tanks spec heavily into Healing Done in their CP, that does not come close to compensating the loss from low crit rate and low stamina/WD.
  • From my esologs of the Lokkestiiz HM pull, Ring of Preservation from stamina DDs had average ticks of 1-1.3K raw healing. RoP ticks every 0.5s, so that's about 2-2.6K HPS.
    • RoP from a healer had an average tick of <500, and RoP from a tank had an average tick of <700. While healers and tanks spec heavily into Healing Done in their CP, that does not come close to compensating the loss from low crit rate and low stamina/WD.
  • For comparison, from the esologs of the same Lokkestiiz HM pull, Illustrious Healing from the healers had average ticks of around 3K. It ticks once per second, so we're looking at 3K HPS.
  • These are three multi-target AoE HoT abilities. Echoing Vigor lasts for 10s. Ring of Preservation lasts for 20s. Illustrious lasts for 12s. EV and RoP can be freely equipped without restriction and require no sacrifices from a player except for a single bar slot and a single GCD every 10s or 20s. In contrast, Illustrious requires the sacrifice of weapon choice. The EV/RoP figures are from players in full stamina DD spec, whereas the Illustrious is a healer in a spell damage spec and healer CP.
  • This, however, does not extend to magicka DDs because magicka DDs must either sacrifice weapon choice to equip a resto staff or morph choice. For example:
    • Using Energy Orbs means not having Mystic Orbs (which now do a pretty decent amount of damage).
    • Magicka nightblades using Funnel or Refreshing Path can no longer effectively do damage with those skills.
    • Magicka dragonknights using the Cinder Storm morph are sacrificing their class ground DoT

So what's the point of the dedicated healer when multiple stam DDs casting a RoP every 20s (yes, the healing from multiple players' RoPs do stack) provides more group healing than a restoration staff ability? What's the point of the dedicated healer when a tank could sacrifice just one bar slot and one GCD to provide the synergies that in the past required multiple GCDs and thus a player dedicated to shouldering that burden?

This is the problem with balancing by "power budgets", which I had in the past derisively called "balance by spreadsheet". The problem is that this sort of balance does not take into account gameplay considerations that cannot be easily quantified. For example, why do resto staff abilities have the same kind of "power budget" as an easily-accessible guild ability? One requires the sacrifice of weapon choice and is thus build-restrictive, whereas the other requires no sacrifice except for a spot that could be on either bar. How does that fit into a "power budget"? How do "power budgets" account for things like my initial premise of "Support roles exist to do things that are impractical or impossible for damage dealers to do."? They don't.

This "power budget" approach is why we have this ridiculous homogenization in Update 23 where everyone's using the same non-class DoTs and non-class spammables. How does "power budget" account for things like "unique class identity and feel"? It doesn't.

The justification for removing multiple instances of Grand Healing was for consistency with AoE DoTs. You can't have Endless Hail in two different places, so you shouldn't have Grand Healing in two places. Again, this sounds straightforward from a "power budget" and "standardization" standpoint. But healing isn't damage-dealing. Why do the two have to behave the same and feel the same? Healing is utilitarian and doesn't follow the same use patterns as damage-dealing.

So, for example, let's say you have two enemies in two locations. Unless there is a specific mechanic that require that they die at the same time, it's generally better to focus one down and the kill the other one. An enemy at 1% health does the same damage as an enemy at 100% health. But for healing, if you, for example, have the tank on one side of the boss and DDs on the other side, they both need to be healed. It's nonsensical to say, "I'll focus healing on one until they're not dead and the focus healing on the other." The old short-duration multi-placeable Grand Healing offered healers the kinds of tools for exactly that sort of thing. They could throw circles down at two locations. I died at one point last night because I received literally no healing from the healer, whereas this in the past was handled simply by having the healer drop one Spring on the tank's position.

How does this "consistency" and "standardization" balance take into account these sorts of gameplay considerations? As far as I can tell, it doesn't. Since ZOS doesn't really share what their final vision is or go into specifics about their thought process, it's really hard to not come to the conclusion that these are all decisions borne of a naive approach to combat balance that eschews gameplay considerations because those kinds of considerations aren't quantifiable and don't fit neatly into a spreadsheet or chart.

Anyway, the next problem is that ZOS has publicly stated that they are open to adjusting content to accommodate healing nerfs. And I strongly disagree with this. As I've already argued, there is already a lack of "heal checks" in this game. People who defend the healing nerfs point to the large amount of overhealing in this game. And they're absolutely right: there is a lot of overhealing because there just isn't that much incoming damage in PvE, which is why the healing nerfs were not really noticeable most of the time last night.

But that's what heal-check mechanics are for. There isn't that much overhealing in vHoF HM execute or in Lokkestiiz Static. Nerfing their damage will make content clearable with the healing nerfs. But it will simply reinforce the erosion of the healer role.

As I've argued in the past, PvP and PvE balance cannot happen with the same brush. PvP enemies think and react and the challenge in PvP is outplaying your opponent. In PvE, the enemies are, well, dumb. They follow specific rules, and the challenge is in understanding those rules (mechanics) and in dealing with the vastly amped up damage that they throw at us. Where in PvP do you encounter sustained 10K/s damage? Where in PvP do you have opponents with 100K instant-damage tooltips that require dedicated mitigation to survive? PvE needs amped incoming damage because that's the challenge of endgame PvE, and so that players are forced to specialize into support roles to deal with that amped incoming damage.

And how do progression groups adapt? ZOS is asking that DDs not spec balls-to-the-wall in damage. But that sort of thing only exists in top-tier groups. For the mid-tier that make up the bulk of the vet trials player base, there is already a lot of defensive play. There are groups that use Nova in vHoF execute even though top-tier groups haven't used Nova in vHoF execute in years. If the goal is to lower DDs' damage output, why not just do it directly?

Finally, on the topic of the feel of healing. In this run, I was just a tank, but I did hear mixed reactions from the healers. On one hand, it was relaxing, because there wasn't much to do. But that also meant that it was boring and bland. Even if all the other concerns are addressed, this point still remains. It's just not fun being a healer next patch. Full stop.

code65536

Nightingale707 wrote: »

-) you did not use a defensive ultimate to give you major protection (NB veil, warden northern storm) wich would have taken away 30% of the incoming damage thus reducing the healing needed, you also didn´t have your DDs run maditate, wich also would give them the major protection + a heal - once again, I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

As I commented during the run, Lokkestiiz Static is a cheap budget version of vHoF execute. Similar incoming damage and spreading-out requirements. But much easier to get to and test. And much shorter in duration.

While the things that you suggest could work for Lokkestiiz HM, they would not work in vHoF. Execute duration is much longer. Veil, storm, Nova, etc., are all too short in duration. Execute is also a DPS race. You can't kill the boss while meditating.

Runefang

code65536 wrote: »

snip...

Single best post on this forum I’ve ever read. Well articulated and considered.

Nightingale707

there is one difference between Lokke and vHoF execute: Lokke has the potential one-shot (the hit from the beam) upfront, healing through the DoT should be zero issue if you stack spring + flowers/ritual + vigors + combat prayer

vHoF execute has a damage increase the longer the fight lasts, and if you add vigors to a combat-prayer-spam + ritual + flowers you should have zero issues healing that (you can already heal it on live with spamming combat prayer ^^) especially since damage has gone up again this patch!


the players that will get f*cked are the ones that do not have access to organized good groups. because not stacking will mean death, being out of position will mean death, being unexperienced will mean death

basically what I see from the healing changes: good groups will find other things to occupy their healers with apart from the few situations where they are still needed if you can make 95% of the fights "stack-and-burn" but the mid-tier groups, the ones struggling to clear HMs or are happy to clear vet/HM with considerable effort and time commitment will get to a point where they simply cannot clear any more, because they have much less margin to adapt

Svenja

Thank you so much for the video, Nefas. Definitely great to see you in the ClassRep-Program now.
And thanks to you too, Code, for the additional details in your post, good read.

As a healer main, this is the saddest thing I have ever seen in ESO so far though. The playstyle really looks quite boring with not much to do. Sure, I can cast PotL and I am responsible for Crusher and Aether uptimes, that's how it is on the Live server, and that won't change. It will become much less "stressful" though, because there is not much else to do. No layering Springs, no need for several orbs.
What makes a good healer on Live at the moment is good uptime of said buffs and debuffs (olorime, aether, potl, combat prayer, crusher..), while at the same time keeping the group alive and providing enough synergies for sustain and gear procs (Lokke, Alkosh). That's skillfull and challenging gameplay and I am very sad to see that "dumbed down" so much.

And if the actual healing is worse than what an average DD can do, I really don't see good raidgroups running with two healers anymore. 9 DDs and a "buffbitch", that's it.

Saril_Durzam

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I wouldn't say nerf self-heals, as a lot of people actually don't do end-game group stuff like trials, and they shouldn't be forced to use a resto staff to just stay alive. But definitely have healers do a little more than just heal. I honestly can't say what should be given though, as I don't heal that much.

As I said, every class should have a new selfheal attack skill which wasnt cheap and didnt do much damage, so Dds would use them just when heals were needed, but much weaker than nowadays self-heals. This way you would be able to solo content perfectly, but on dungeons you would need a healer with heavier damage incoming. We wabt healers to be useful and needed on group content.

Royaji

So, is it time for that sweet sweet "I've told you so" moment?

StamNecros stacking Vigor and Ring of Preservation is the future. Time to reroll your healers.

FrancisCrawford

It will probably be the case that every group should have at least one restoration staff, for Combat Prayer. Healing Ward will now also be the main remaining omnidirectional emergency "heal", for healers weak enough to care about that, which may be a large fraction of us.

So notwithstanding the other drastic changes, namely resto HoTs getting much worse and Force Siphon actually becoming an alternative to Elemental Drain, chances are resto staff wielders will still have places in about as many groups as they did before.

Cheezits94

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

It will probably be the case that every group should have at least one restoration staff, for Combat Prayer. Healing Ward will now also be the main remaining omnidirectional emergency "heal", for healers weak enough to care about that, which may be a large fraction of us.

So notwithstanding the other drastic changes, namely resto HoTs getting much worse and Force Siphon actually becoming an alternative to Elemental Drain, chances are resto staff wielders will still have places in about as many groups as they did before.

Well, yes, trial groups will probably bring a "buff ***", as a poster above you named it, with a resto staff for combat prayer. But a dedicated healer, oder even TWO healers? Nope. Big nope.
DDs can do the healing themselves, this frees up one of the healer slots for an additional DD, the last remaining "healer" will have to respec to the ultimate buffer and doesn't need to bother about healing anymore.
Trial group compsition: 2 Tanks, 1 Supporter ("buff ***"), 9 Stamina DDs.

No_Division

It also doesn't help that:
- passives in general are watered down of the passives from launch.
- and the game flattens targeting to either hard targeting with auto travel or smart targeting with auto travel.

The core of the game doesn't let us have interesting situations it should. Like a good example of an interesting melee ability is wrecking blow, a good example of an interesting ranged attack is the ground target CC's/AOE DMG. There really isn't an interesting heal; they all target the lowest health for you and even if we wanted to change that they would have to change the targeting in this game.

We might be stuck, unless a new game comes out or they actually redesign the heals to be more interesting than smart AOE/burst/hots.

ninibini

Nightingale707 wrote: »

...basically what I see from the healing changes: good groups will find other things to occupy their healers ...

I doubt that good groups will run 2 healers anymore, when dps can just vigor and tanks can throw the lonely orb...

RebornZombie

Nightingale707 wrote: »

-) you had 1 stamDD and 1 tank on echoing vigor - the best heal in the game atm that is also strongest when on a DD specced for WD since it scales with WD and not with max stats - that is your ticket to getting through beam phase (without testing, just looking at healing numbers) I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

We tried various things in different pulls, including multiple dps running Echoing, everyone running their own Resolving, stacking many Rings of Protection, etc. Multiple Echoing vigors do not stack with each other (getting hit by one has the same effect as being hit by 8) -- only ground-based aoe heals will stack, and so RoP with Resolving Vigor actually ended up working a lot better than Echoing.

-) you also didn´t have your DDs run maditate, wich also would give them the major protection + a heal - once again, I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

Meditate does give 30% mit from major protection, but it also prevents blocking which is 50% mitigation. The tradeoff does not make sense.

hedna123b14_ESO

Nightingale707 wrote: »

-) you did not use a defensive ultimate to give you major protection (NB veil, warden northern storm) wich would have taken away 30% of the incoming damage thus reducing the healing needed, you also didn´t have your DDs run maditate, wich also would give them the major protection + a heal - once again, I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

@Nefas

Cause that's for casuals:)

WuffyCerulei

Saril_Durzam wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I wouldn't say nerf self-heals, as a lot of people actually don't do end-game group stuff like trials, and they shouldn't be forced to use a resto staff to just stay alive. But definitely have healers do a little more than just heal. I honestly can't say what should be given though, as I don't heal that much.

As I said, every class should have a new selfheal attack skill which wasnt cheap and didnt do much damage, so Dds would use them just when heals were needed, but much weaker than nowadays self-heals. This way you would be able to solo content perfectly, but on dungeons you would need a healer with heavier damage incoming. We wabt healers to be useful and needed on group content.

Atm, I can’t think of much for self heals that do both a lot of damage and heal a lot, besides the Twilight Matriarch and maybe that DK skill, searing flames? However, Matriarch’s damage is getting nerfed into the ground next patch, and magDKs don’t have the best self heals anyways. No hot heals.

Saril_Durzam

I meant there should be. Add Sweeps to the selfheals that you asked, plus there are some that heal through damage (as many in NB, or Flurry morph for example).

The idea would be to have DDs selfheal with such kind of attacks but moderate enough that group content would make such heals inefficient.

Maybe, and just maybe, we should go back to "healing power" items. DDs stack Weapon/Spell power which helps casting greater heals.

Jaimeh

code65536 wrote: »

So what's the point of the dedicated healer when multiple stam DDs casting a RoP every 20s (yes, the healing from multiple players' RoPs do stack) provides more group healing than a restoration staff ability? What's the point of the dedicated healer when a tank could sacrifice just one bar slot and one GCD to provide the synergies that in the past required multiple GCDs and thus a player dedicated to shouldering that burden?

This is the problem with balancing by "power budgets", which I had in the past derisively called "balance by spreadsheet". The problem is that this sort of balance does not take into account gameplay considerations that cannot be easily quantified. For example, why do resto staff abilities have the same kind of "power budget" as an easily-accessible guild ability? One requires the sacrifice of weapon choice and is thus build-restrictive, whereas the other requires no sacrifice except for a spot that could be on either bar. How does that fit into a "power budget"? How do "power budgets" account for things like my initial premise of "Support roles exist to do things that are impractical or impossible for damage dealers to do."? They don't.

This "power budget" approach is why we have this ridiculous homogenization in Update 23 where everyone's using the same non-class DoTs and non-class spammables. How does "power budget" account for things like "unique class identity and feel"? They don't.

The justification for removing multiple instances of Grand Healing was for consistency with AoE DoTs. You can't have Endless Hail in two different places, so you shouldn't have Grand Healing in two places. Again, this sounds straightforward from a "power budget" and "consistency" standpoint. But healing isn't damage-dealing. Why do the two have to behave the same and feel the same? Healing is utilitarian and doesn't follow the same use patterns as damage-dealing.

How does this "consistency" balance take into account these sorts of gameplay considerations? As far as I can tell, they don't. Since ZOS doesn't really share what their final vision is or go into specifics into their thought process, it's really hard to not come to the conclusion that these are all decisions borne of a naive approach to combat balance that eschews gameplay considerations because those kinds of considerations aren't quantifiable and don't fit neatly into a spreadsheet or chart.

As I've argued in the past, PvP and PvE balance cannot happen with the same brush. PvP enemies think and react and the challenge in PvP is outplaying your opponent. In PvE, the enemies are, well, dumb. They follow specific rules, and the challenge is in understanding those rules (mechanics) and in dealing with the vastly amped up damage that they throw at us. Where in PvP do you encounter sustained 10K/s damage. Where in PvP do you have opponents with 100K instant-damage tooltips that require dedicated mitigation to survive? PvE needs amped incoming damage because that's the challenge of endgame PvE, and so that players are forced to specialize into support roles to deal with that amped incoming damage.

Finally, on the topic of the feel of healing. In this run, I was just a tank, but I did hear mixed reactions from the healers. On one hand, it was relaxing, because there wasn't much to do. But that also meant that it was boring and bland. Even if all the other concerns are addressed, this point still remains. It's just not fun being a healer next patch. Full stop.

So many good points, I do hope ZOS devs are taking notes. If we are moving towards an era where DDs will have to be heal/damage hybrids for trials, because it's ineffective to have a pure healer anymore, then that's not something I'd be looking forward to, and it's completely opposite of making healers feel more useful, which has been a longstanding complaint of the community.

Buffing non-weapon specific healing skills, and then nerfing resto staff skills, is paving the way for an uphaul of an entire playstyle. ZOS has been consistently trying to make skills that are not as popular, more useful, which is a good idea in theory, but like Code mentioned above with the example of hail and grand healing, balancing skills on paper like that, is a problematic approach, because even though both are AoE skills, they do not have the same function, therefore shouldn't receive the same treatment. The same thing goes for PvP versus PvE: changes that are due to balance concerns for PvP will not work well when translated to PvE, and vice versa.

I hope ZOS takes heed of our concerns and formulates a long term plan to make balance changes, rather than these spasmodic nerfs we are seeing in every patch, and use both quantitave and qualitative information. Work with the representatives (and I'd also argue: play their own game at a high level) to effect better changes, that do not obliterate entire playstyles, keep combat interesting, keep end-game alive and competitive, and classes with their uniqueness and their own fun elements.

TheNightflame

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Just make the battle heart passive nerf aoe healing more....

we know you want to balance pvp first, and trickle down and tweak pve after, but it won't work for healing...

TheNightflame

battle spirit, whatever the cyrodiil thing is

Nefas

Nightingale707 wrote: »

according to your 2 remarks of healer playstyle being boring and orbs changes being great: you are aware that orbs changes are the main thing, that will make the healer playstyle boring? we do not get more barslots but still need all our skills but cannot cast them anymore ^^

The orb change is fine in actual gameplay though there are larger implications that stem from it, in addition it is not the only thing that makes the healer playstyle "fun" on live either.

you had 1 stamDD and 1 tank on echoing vigor - the best heal in the game atm that is also strongest when on a DD specced for WD since it scales with WD and not with max stats - that is your ticket to getting through beam phase (without testing, just looking at healing numbers) I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

We had a lot more than that going on. Minor Protection, all HoTs (with at least 500 more spell damage on healers compared to live), Igneous Shields, Major Ward/Major Resolve, Barrier, every stam DD using CoP/Vigor (the Resolving Vigor morph heals for an insane amount in a short time) + more, and even with all of that the Lokke beam was too much.

you did not use a defensive ultimate to give you major protection (NB veil, warden northern storm) wich would have taken away 30% of the incoming damage thus reducing the healing needed, you also didn´t have your DDs run maditate, wich also would give them the major protection + a heal - once again, I do not really understand why you wouldn´t try that

I do agree, that healers got gutted a lot, I was one of the ppl voicing my concerns on the forums. but I do not think not adapting is the way to go. a lot of groups will adapt and shuffle things around, and Lokke HM will totally be doable imo, but things will change, you will not go in there with the same setup that you use now.

As it is now, no pair of healers from Live can heal Lokke HM on PTS. Feel free to try on the PTS yourself

The point is not whether or not endgame raiders can adapt, they always have. The larger discussion revolves around the healer as a role in all content and whether the healing changes need to be reviewed again or if the direction is going to be "let's nerf the content to match the healing nerfs" which in itself is highly debatable as @code65536 eloquently put it.

idk

There are some experienced names in that group. The questions raises hit the average player even harder. To raiding groups have adapted to heavy changes time and time in this game but it is the challenge becomes even greater with each tier of player.

It is also part of the reason the groups of competitive raiders and those working on the newer trails has shrunk over the past few years. So to suggest adapting is the way to go seems to show a disconnect with the raiding community as a whole and the changes being made.

Edit: and thx for the information in the OP. Hopefully Zos heads this information as it has to be hard to ignore such a straight forward test.

Nightingale707

So what do you feel changed apart from orbs and springs being 1-at-a-time that makes healing not fun any more on PTS?

Well you could have run Ritual on both healers and given up a little bit SD for one infused recovery glyph to still sustain but get bigger heals. Also: you do not need to block the static, only the beam, so meditate is 100% viable.

I looked at your logs from PTS and our logs from our clear on live and our beam+static phases all had between 33-38k HPS in group
You have an average of 60k HPS during the same phases and you had healers dying in flame atro spawns like it is a dayjob.
So something seems really off. Since you had a LOT more healing that we did, you should have had no issues surviving.

I´ll test the changes once they are live, I am not surprised by how healing changed. I was trying to communicate this 2 weeks ago, but the biggest part of the community didn´t care.

The healer role gets pushed even more into a support/buff/debuff direction, actual healing will not be what a healer does next patch, or only in very select situations. We are gonna have to be smart about where we place our AoE HoTs and our DDs are gonna have to be smart about positioning.
We healers are gonna do, what we are doing in 95% of the content: support our group to reach their highest possible potential and keeping them alive in the moments where they need it.
A lot of trials will only see one healer.

If they adapt the incoming damage, a lot of trials will see no healers.