The curious NB siphon nerfs and possible rebalance to make healers more attractive

db0ssman · September 2018

Generally speaking, I like to make off-meta builds and what I make ends up being a thematically coherent build that performs fine with PUGs in all NM dungeons and non-dlc vet dungeons. Unfortunately, meta tends to favor Templars or making your build as templar-like as possible. This really begs the question if you are going to go meta, why use anything other than a templar? The thought process I use while deciding what abilities to slot in my dual bars is just trying to figure out when is an ability useful, does the ability add some utility that other abilities can't, what limitations does it have, how versitile is it? This tends to make most abilities fall into one of two categories: the OP one trick pony, or the weak(er) but versatile. In the context of the NB red mage healer (off-dps & hot healer) an example of OP one trick ponies would be Impale (only good for executing bosses) and Sap Essence (mostly only good for burning groups of mobs). Weaker but versatile abilities are Funnel Health & Refreshing path. Examples of usefulness breakdown for Funnel Health and Refreshing path:

Refreshing Path

Usefulness
Often - Added DOT to bosses
Sometimes - Added DOT to groups of mobs
Sometimes - Extra HOT to Tank & melee DPS
Rarely - Movement speed bonus
Rarely - group heal

Limitations
-Small area of effect
-mostly useless passive buff
-short duration outside of path
-hard to see during mobile fights

How it fits in - Although it is a small effect while killing mobs compared to dropping a Veil of Blades & spamming Sap Essence, it adds a small DOT to bosses while overhealing tanks & melee dps. Good to use while VoB is on cooldown. Fits well with the theme of a damage dealing healer. No clear replacement in NB skill set that can do both.

Funnel Health

Usefulness
Often - Good spammable single point DPS
Often - Adds HOT to caster & Group Member

Limitations
-doesn't scale to large groups
-only ticks every 2 seconds
-needs at least 4 casts to cover dungeon party

How it fits in - Great ability for sustained DPS during low intensity fights. Adds reliable HOT for high intensity fights and can proc Chokethorn on each cast. Fits in great with a damage dealing healer.

I'm sure everyone already figured I was going to go here, but if you do the same assessment for these two abilities after the nerfs for murkmire it looks kind of like this:

Refreshing Path

Usefulness

Sometimes - Extra HOT to Tank & melee DPS
Rarely - Movement speed bonus
Rarely - group heal

Limitations
-Small area of effect
-mostly useless passive buff
-short duration outside of path
-hard to see during mobile fights

How it fits in -Adds a decent heal to tanks & melee dps. Occasional healing springs could perform same role, making this redundant. Blood Alter fits theme better despite obvious limitations. Other non-thematic non-NB abilities work better such as healing orbs.

Funnel Health

Usefulness
Often - Adds HOT to caster & Group Member
Sometimes - Weak spammable single point DPS

Limitations
-doesn't scale to large groups
-only ticks every 2 seconds
-needs at least 4 casts to cover dungeon party
-low dps for the casting cost

How it fits in - OK ability for sustained DPS during low intensity fights. Adds reliable HOT for high intensity fights and can proc Chokethorn on each cast. Fits in alright with a damage dealing healer. May need to be replaced during low intensity dungeons/fights.

I think the main issues with the incomming nerfs is that it was mainly done to try and differentiate the two morphs, but they ended up making the abilities way less useful while not adding any more utility to them. With the changes Refreshing Path would become a morph that only sees play if you are in a dungeon with multiple melee dps or in a trial like nAA where people tend to be stacked on top of each other for damage phases. Funnel health might see some play in a few vet dungeons, or mutagen would be mostly redundant and have to be taken off the bar giving the NB no negative status removal outside of slotting in purge for certain fights. Given the changes to evasion, the NB is kind of set up to be thematically a good damage mitigator in dungeons, if having a NB deal damage & heal is really causing that much of a problem elsewhere in the game. Some examples of the changes could be:

Refreshing Vista

This Morph turns the ability into a circular casting area instead of a short rectangle, removes the 2 second extra (so you have to be in the circle to get healing & buffs), keeps same amount of healing as refreshing path now instead of proposed increase and adds Major evasion.
Usefulness

Often - Group HOT
Sometimes - 25% Damage mitigation to AOE attacks
Sometimes - Movement speed bonus

Limitations
-bound to AOE

How it fits in -Adds a decent HOT that ticks every second. Lowers AOE damage for group members. Speed boost over a large area will help members avoid damage while conserving Stam from running.

Safe Path

This morph keeps same amount of healing as refreshing path now instead of the proposed increase and adds Major evasion. Still has limited range/shape, but once you touch the path you recieve bonus until path disappears instead of 2sec. Resets on recast.

Usefulness

often -self heal & buff
Sometimes - Extra HOT to Tank & melee DPS
Sometimes - Movement speed bonus & DOT mitigation
Sometimes - group heal during mobile fights

Limitations
-Small area of effect
-hard to see during mobile fights

How it fits in -Adds a decent heal to tanks & melee dps. Prevents 25% of damage to tank during aoe heavy fights. During mobile fights, it helps the team as long as they touch, which means helping members cought near a lot of aoe circles escape.

Funnel Life Essence

Keep the same proposed changes as PTS, but adds minor protect (8% damage reduction) for the duration of effect.

Usefulness
Often - Adds HOT to caster & Group Member
Often - reduces incoming damage by 8%
Sometimes - Weak spammable single point DPS

Limitations
-doesn't scale to large groups
-only ticks every 2 seconds
-needs at least 4 casts to cover dungeon party
-low dps for the casting cost

How it fits in - Adds reliable HOT for fights and can proc Chokethorn on each cast. Lowers incoming damage which reduces chances of 1 sec deaths. Fits in well with damage prevention healer.

These changes would make the NB deal less damage as intended (maybe?), but would still give them a high amount of utility in any group. Between Consuming Darkness, Funnel Life Essence, & path morph, Tanks would consume far less stam blocking since they would only have to block 1/2 less aoe damage and 1/3 less rest of the damage (instead of just straight regen abilities like the templar). Those bonuses also would extend to the dps (greatly to melee dps which are underserved in PvE right now) and also to ranged dps. With the restictions eased on refreshing path, it would make it more versatile because people wouldn't have to just stand in one spot on the path to receive any benefit. It's quite possible that even though these changes would be great for making the classes more even in PvE, it might create imbalances in PvP. Lots of resource regen in PvP is not that helpful like in PvE, but stacking damage debufs and speed is pretty helpful there.

Oakmontowls_ESO · September 2018

*minor protection not toughness gives damage reduction

db0ssman · September 2018

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

*minor protection not toughness gives damage reduction

I changed it, thanks for the heads up

idk · September 2018

Normal dungeons and non DLC vet dungeons is not the gauge for determining what makes a good healer.

I tried to make sense but all I got was what OP things Zos is attempting via the magblade nerfs.

Zos is attempting to force NBs to decide between dps or healing because mag NBs are well suited for challenging content as a DPS because of their damage and significant off heals.

Unfortunately they are destroying the flavor of the magicka side of that quest in the process.

db0ssman · September 2018

idk wrote: »

Normal dungeons and non DLC vet dungeons is not the gauge for determining what makes a good healer.

I tried to make sense but all I got was what OP things Zos is attempting via the magblade nerfs.

Zos is attempting to force NBs to decide between dps or healing because mag NBs are well suited for challenging content as a DPS because of their damage and significant off heals.

Unfortunately they are destroying the flavor of the magicka side of that quest in the process.

Sorry.

The TL;DR is just that if ZOS wants to remove damage from NB healer, then they should add some kind of utility besides it.As is, Refreshing path will become worthless and Funnel Health will be much weaker and more situational. My suggestion is to incorporate the new changes to evasion and make a NB focused on HOTS & damage mitigation instead of HOTS & Damage. That way NB can have a flavor that isn't just chasing after being a crappy Templar.

Oakmontowls_ESO · September 2018

really all zos accomplished with this is instead of one of the 3dps not being a nightblade, they will just use 3 nightblades and a tank that doesn't need heals.

db0ssman · September 2018

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

really all zos accomplished with this is instead of one of the 3dps not being a nightblade, they will just use 3 nightblades and a tank that doesn't need heals.

That is true. Swallow Soul is still going to be an adequate self heal with higher dps and the one drawback is it won't stack on each other like funnels. It might be worth stacking refreshing paths with the 3 dps, which probably will only result in a 2 or 3k dps drop, but more than likely they can just replace it with twisting path and it won't make that much of a difference.

These changes more effect the off-dps healer than a dps self-healer.

If they think it is that necessary, they really need to make what is left more versatile. Like I said above, versatility is the key to setting up your bars and now the healing morphs will become far less versatile than they were.

db0ssman · September 2018

I saw the healer graphs that were created based on community feedback in the class rep post linked at the top of the page and thought that it was a good idea. I made a couple of my own. The graphs seemed mostly accurate with a few exceptions. The changes made to NB (specifically the changes to Healthy Offering) since then have lowered the NB's HoTs but drastically increased its burst heals. I also thought the sustain for a Sorc healer seemed kind of low given how much Sorcs are geared toward magicka. Maybe it was like that since the relatively few Sorc heals are expensive, but I bumped that up a little too. I also removed the ranged metric because as long as you are sufficiently far from the target the exact range doesn't matter. I actually lowered the synergy to 1 because despite playing it for 3 years I can't think of a time period where people actually ever used either of my ult's synergies. No NB abilities have synergies beside the alts (at least none that come to mind and none for a healer).

Here is the chart after the PTS changes. It lowers the NB's sustain & damage while very slightly increases HoT/AoE heal.

Here is the chart for my proposed changes. It still has the same effects as the PTS changes but raises utility.

Keep in mind this is trying to play as a healer that can off-dps and NOT a dps trying to off-heal. TBH the way forward for anyone trying to play a NB healer might be to regear/respec as a dps, use swallow soul as healthy offering fuel and drop healing springs when necessary.

ccfeeling · September 2018

I think this is the cost of being top DPS in the game and this is what ZOS can do to respond endless complain daily from all non-NB players

ZOS nerfs NB all 3 roles in PTS

Thalidar · September 2018

Ekkk. My poor DK healer feels ill after seeing all the red on those graphs.

db0ssman · September 2018

Thalidar wrote: »

Ekkk. My poor DK healer feels ill after seeing all the red on those graphs.

Sorry man. I actually don't really know anything about DK healing so I left it exactly as the class reps made it. That's why it has a bunch of question marks for damage because I'm not actually sure how much damage it could put out while spamming resto abilities and the couple of small heals it has.

Silver_Strider · September 2018

Not sure about giving Major Evasion on Path and Minor Protection on Funnel. Feels like Minor Protection would be better suited to Path than Funnel since that way it's easier to give the buff to more players in End Game content as opposed to spamming Funnel for the same effect.

As for Major Evasion, why not have Blur extend this buff to allies as a Synergy? It would make sense for a skill that already grants Major Evasion to be able to pass it on to others rather than force it onto another skill, no? Not to mention adding it to another skill would render Blur somewhat pointless otherwise.

For Funnel Health, I'd rather see it go back to applying the HoT to 2 other people as well as the NB but that's just a pipe-dream. I'd settle for having its cost reduced at this point.

I'd also add Debilitate into the mix of skills that could be looked at to offer some utility since, currently, it's an underused skill offering nothing but a "free", albeit weaker, DoT than Crippling Blast. Having it apply Minor Lifesteal gives it at least some utility and could make up for some of the damage NB Healers will be losing from Funnel and Path nerfs. Not to mention, Cripple is currently the only skill in Siphoning that doesn't offer a heal in some capacity so why not fix that?

With those changes, we get some utility by having Minor Protection, Minor Lifesteal and Major Evasion via synergy as well as having a little bit of extra damage from Debilitate added in.

db0ssman · September 2018

For me at least, my bars are pretty tight as it is and having to add another ability like blur with an added synergy feels far to situational to be that useful. That's especially true when playing with pugs who may not even notice you keep using an ability that can be synergized since you can't stop in the middle of combat and tell them. It's true that blur would have to probably be reworked some to give it a reason to exist, but NBs, Sorcs, Wardens still need ironing out to be competitive healers with a templar. DK needs a reworking.

The reason I suggested to add evasion to path and toughness to funnel health is just that since path is a shadow ability and evasion has been in the shadow skill-line it worked thematically there. Currently, minor toughness is only applied to someone else using circle of protection from the fighters guild line. That is a stupid small area of effect and they have to be inside it. If path got a persistant toughness buff it would be too OP in trials where there are circumstances where you can hit the majority of the group and that would give the buff to a ton of people pretty cheaply. The evasion buff is a larger percentage, but it only effects certain types of damage which means there will be effective times to use it in trial and dungeon, but the buff will be dormant to the main healing aspect of it at other times. Adding toughness to funnel health adds a pretty useful buff to round out its utility, but at the expense of requiring (at least) 3 casts to get everyone in a dungeon and not being scalable in trials.

The debilitate change might work as a replacement to path, but I don't see it making it onto a bar just with minor lifesteal added. The main issue is just that NB healers can already put out a ton of HoT and adding in more healing when it isn't needed won't be that useful. Maybe if debilitate added something like minor magicka/stamina steal instead it could be worth it, but then you run into the problem i talked about before of chasing templars.

Something the blur could do if you want to add a synergy is using it on yourself grants major evasion for X seconds (makes it much longer than path), having blur slotted doubles the length of the bonus resolve added by casting a shadow ability, and anyone within Y meters can proc the shadowy accomplice synergy to give up to 8 allies minor evasion. That way it could be a situational flex ability for a healer and a tank would still use it if they wanted the damage mitigation for longer than the path and don't care much about an extra 2k hps from path.