Healing ward is useless now in PvP ... I’m just gonna run Ward Ally with the Blackrose set now

Kadoin wrote: »

To be fair if I had healing ward on live + that resto staff I would be able to spam ward on my templar and never die. Well, it wound be like that on my DK and warden too...

Well, I’m talking about PvE mostly but you’re right. Maybe the only issue is that you couldn’t be the player with the lowest health. I have HW in my pvp build now and many times is going to another member of my group but in PvE with my warden healer is a life savior

ManDraKE wrote: »

healing ward is the most broken defensive skill in the game, it has always been, i can't think in something more frustrating that fighthing a player clutching on healing ward, is harder to kill than a 50k HP permablock tank, and it doesn't require investing in anything except having a restostaff in the backbar. The only way of kill a good player clutching in healing ward in a 1v1 is by bursting him from 100 to 0, or doing some shenanigans like baiting him into an offensive combo.

I would probably made the change different tho, instead of removing the initial health i would increase the cost and reduce the shield scaling at low health. Seems like ZoS really want light armor builds to slot a heal

Yeah that initial 2k heal was extremely overpowered.

ManDraKE wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

ManDraKE wrote: »

healing ward is the most broken defensive skill in the game, it has always been, i can't think in something more frustrating that fighthing a player clutching on healing ward, is harder to kill than a 50k HP permablock tank, and it doesn't require investing in anything except having a restostaff in the backbar. The only way of kill a good player clutching in healing ward in a 1v1 is by bursting him from 100 to 0, or doing some shenanigans like baiting him into an offensive combo.

I would probably made the change different tho, instead of removing the initial health i would increase the cost and reduce the shield scaling at low health. Seems like ZoS really want light armor builds to slot a heal

Yeah that initial 2k heal was extremely overpowered.

if you actually take the time to read my post, you will see that i said that the problem with healing ward is not the heal, but the insane scaling of the shield size at low health. The 300% scaling is absurd, to the point where even spamming executes with a high damage build won't kill the target.

No I read it I just felt like being salty towards the changes.

ManDraKE wrote: »

if you actually take the time to read my post, you will see that i said that the problem with healing ward is not the heal, but the insane scaling of the shield size at low health. The 300% scaling is absurd, to the point where even spamming executes with a high damage build won't kill the target.

Multiple executes scale to 300% damage based on missing health. Steadfast ward was a direct counter. Nothing "insane" or "absurd" about it all.

ManDraKE wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

and now you will be able to crit against the shield, which cannot crit. seems fair.

that's something i probably need to test on PTS before giving my opinion, i'm not sure that's going to make a big difference in this particular case.

katorga wrote: »

ManDraKE wrote: »

if you actually take the time to read my post, you will see that i said that the problem with healing ward is not the heal, but the insane scaling of the shield size at low health. The 300% scaling is absurd, to the point where even spamming executes with a high damage build won't kill the target.

Multiple executes scale to 300% damage based on missing health. Steadfast ward was a direct counter. Nothing "insane" or "absurd" about it all.

Anyone who actually plays PvP can instantly say is bs. If the guy manages to CC break and apply healing ward, fight is reset, you won't kill a good player clutching on healing ward.

A big thing about the ward at least on classes like mag nb and mag sorc was that it needed to be stacked with other shields to go off.

What i thought was strong was when it was used on classes like mag dk/ mag templar who threw on the ward when at low hp and then took the time to heal because you couldn't take the ward off in time to do that. Classes with actual heals made ward so clutch and strong.

Now with the pts changes this is only going to get stronger, good luck killing a magplar who throws on a ward which now has 25-30k armour. Great change.

Zos managed to nerf glass cannon type classes like light mag nb/ mag sorc who were already weak open world yet somehow have buffed heavy magplars which are already a real struggle to kill.

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

"The goal of Steadfast Ward and morphs is to protect low health targets while other sources of healing are restoring their health. The Healing Ward morph was too powerful because it was providing both a strong shield and healing to the target."

...but I don't have other sources of healing. Does ZOS think there's some third morph of Vigor that costs magicka? Or do they think I'm about to put two shields and three HOTs on my backbar when I can just respec to stam and get by with Vigor and Troll King alone in heavy armor?

you still don't get it do you ? This is not a solo game ! YOU as dps are not supposed to have AND all the healing AND all shields AND all tankiness. This is a multiplayer game. You're supposed to be working together with a healer who has multiple sources of healing and if implemented correctly in the game you will come to love healers for just that. You can put an emergency shield on yourself but the healing comes from the healer which is another person. Right now that basic principle of mmorpgs has been in a defective state for way too long.

You really want to duke it out 1v1 with another dps ? Fine, dps eachother till your shields and health points run out but don't expect 10min fights where you both have all the healing powers on top of that to keep going on forever until 1 slips up.

Just look at the new gear and let it sink in. They clearly boost that exact intended principle of the healer emergency shielding the dps which gives him just enough breathing room to patch him up and even boost exactly that:


Mender’s Ward

2: Steadfast Ward applies Major Vitality to your target for 3 seconds, increasing the healing taken on your target by 30%.


Naga Shaman

2: Healing Taken
3: Healing Done
4: Max Magicka
5: When you cast a damage shield ability, you gain Minor Mending and Minor Vitality for 6 seconds, increasing your healing done and healing received by 8%. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds


only a dedicated full healer role is capable of patching you up fast enough to counter burst dmge. It not your job role as dps.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

"The goal of Steadfast Ward and morphs is to protect low health targets while other sources of healing are restoring their health. The Healing Ward morph was too powerful because it was providing both a strong shield and healing to the target."

...but I don't have other sources of healing. Does ZOS think there's some third morph of Vigor that costs magicka? Or do they think I'm about to put two shields and three HOTs on my backbar when I can just respec to stam and get by with Vigor and Troll King alone in heavy armor?

you still don't get it do you ? This is not a solo game ! YOU as dps are not supposed to have AND all the healing AND all shields AND all tankiness. This is a multiplayer game. You're supposed to be working together with a healer who has multiple sources of healing and if implemented correctly in the game you will come to love healers for just that. You can put an emergency shield on yourself but the healing comes from the healer which is another person. Right now that basic principle of mmorpgs has been in a defective state for way too long.

You really want to duke it out 1v1 with another dps ? Fine, dps eachother till your shields and health points run out but don't expect 10min fights where you both have all the healing powers on top of that to keep going on forever until 1 slips up.

Just look at the new gear and let it sink in. They clearly boost that exact intended principle of the healer emergency shielding the dps which gives him just enough breathing room to patch him up and even boost exactly that:


Mender’s Ward

2: Steadfast Ward applies Major Vitality to your target for 3 seconds, increasing the healing taken on your target by 30%.


Naga Shaman

2: Healing Taken
3: Healing Done
4: Max Magicka
5: When you cast a damage shield ability, you gain Minor Mending and Minor Vitality for 6 seconds, increasing your healing done and healing received by 8%. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds


only a dedicated full healer role is capable of patching you up fast enough to counter burst dmge. It not your job role as dps.

But solo/small scale pvp and vMA.

as far as I see it small scale pvp also falls under multiplayer, just like 4 man dungeons in pve.

The only exceptions in the game are 1v1 duelling/pvp and vMA which is solo content indeed but still dependent on your chosen role's limitations. As a dps role type (for example sorc in this game) you are supposed to overcome the solo content by killing stuff before it kills you with minimal healing support. Your big dps -compared to tank or healer role- makes it possible.

As a pure healer the same solo content is overcome with alot of healing powers to stay alive but you don't have the dmge to kill stuff fast.

and even then, 1v1 duelling/pvp and vMA are the big and only exception in between all the vast multiplayer content this game is built around. There are 5 complete Elder Scrolls Offline games to choose from. This is not that game

ManDraKE wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

and now you will be able to crit against the shield, which cannot crit. seems fair.

that's something i probably need to test on PTS before giving my opinion, i'm not sure that's going to make a big difference in this particular case.

katorga wrote: »

ManDraKE wrote: »

if you actually take the time to read my post, you will see that i said that the problem with healing ward is not the heal, but the insane scaling of the shield size at low health. The 300% scaling is absurd, to the point where even spamming executes with a high damage build won't kill the target.

Multiple executes scale to 300% damage based on missing health. Steadfast ward was a direct counter. Nothing "insane" or "absurd" about it all.

Anyone who actually plays PvP can instantly say is bs. If the guy manages to CC break and apply healing ward, fight is reset, you won't kill a good player clutching on healing ward.

... You can crit wards now... If you couldn't kill a player in execute range before it's a bit of a L2P issue

Dr.NRG wrote: »

Reverb wrote: »

Whoa, this is NOT an ok change.

I disagree, its geat and long needed change. HW has been so annoying, especially when your are a vamp cause with undeath passive unless you get bursted to death when your at a low health pool you become way to hard to kill. It sometimes takes 4-10 executes on a high dmg build to take these HW spamming people out to a point where you are better off to just walk away to next target instead of trying to punch through that and wasting your resources.

Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE it’s “just vamp undeath + healing ward” & not those + 25k resistances + blocking + 3.4k(+)crit resist

Because that’s what I run so if you think it’s solely healing ward + undeath you’re likely wrong.

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

"The goal of Steadfast Ward and morphs is to protect low health targets while other sources of healing are restoring their health. The Healing Ward morph was too powerful because it was providing both a strong shield and healing to the target."

...but I don't have other sources of healing. Does ZOS think there's some third morph of Vigor that costs magicka? Or do they think I'm about to put two shields and three HOTs on my backbar when I can just respec to stam and get by with Vigor and Troll King alone in heavy armor?

you still don't get it do you ? This is not a solo game ! YOU as dps are not supposed to have AND all the healing AND all shields AND all tankiness. This is a multiplayer game. You're supposed to be working together with a healer who has multiple sources of healing and if implemented correctly in the game you will come to love healers for just that. You can put an emergency shield on yourself but the healing comes from the healer which is another person. Right now that basic principle of mmorpgs has been in a defective state for way too long.

You really want to duke it out 1v1 with another dps ? Fine, dps eachother till your shields and health points run out but don't expect 10min fights where you both have all the healing powers on top of that to keep going on forever until 1 slips up.

Just look at the new gear and let it sink in. They clearly boost that exact intended principle of the healer emergency shielding the dps which gives him just enough breathing room to patch him up and even boost exactly that:


Mender’s Ward

2: Steadfast Ward applies Major Vitality to your target for 3 seconds, increasing the healing taken on your target by 30%.


Naga Shaman

2: Healing Taken
3: Healing Done
4: Max Magicka
5: When you cast a damage shield ability, you gain Minor Mending and Minor Vitality for 6 seconds, increasing your healing done and healing received by 8%. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds


only a dedicated full healer role is capable of patching you up fast enough to counter burst dmge. It not your job role as dps.

But solo/small scale pvp and vMA.

as far as I see it small scale pvp also falls under multiplayer, just like 4 man dungeons in pve.

The only exceptions in the game are 1v1 duelling/pvp and vMA which is solo content indeed but still dependent on your chosen role's limitations. As a dps role type (for example sorc in this game) you are supposed to overcome the solo content by killing stuff before it kills you with minimal healing support. Your big dps -compared to tank or healer role- makes it possible.

As a pure healer the same solo content is overcome with alot of healing powers to stay alive but you don't have the dmge to kill stuff fast.

and even then, 1v1 duelling/pvp and vMA are the big and only exception in between all the vast multiplayer content this game is built around. There are 5 complete Elder Scrolls Offline games to choose from. This is not that game

So if I play Templar that means I shouldn’t be able to get a speed achievement or high leaderboard time on solo content because I “don’t have the damage to kill stuff fast” as you put it?

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

"The goal of Steadfast Ward and morphs is to protect low health targets while other sources of healing are restoring their health. The Healing Ward morph was too powerful because it was providing both a strong shield and healing to the target."

...but I don't have other sources of healing. Does ZOS think there's some third morph of Vigor that costs magicka? Or do they think I'm about to put two shields and three HOTs on my backbar when I can just respec to stam and get by with Vigor and Troll King alone in heavy armor?

you still don't get it do you ? This is not a solo game ! YOU as dps are not supposed to have AND all the healing AND all shields AND all tankiness. This is a multiplayer game. You're supposed to be working together with a healer who has multiple sources of healing and if implemented correctly in the game you will come to love healers for just that. You can put an emergency shield on yourself but the healing comes from the healer which is another person. Right now that basic principle of mmorpgs has been in a defective state for way too long.

You really want to duke it out 1v1 with another dps ? Fine, dps eachother till your shields and health points run out but don't expect 10min fights where you both have all the healing powers on top of that to keep going on forever until 1 slips up.

Just look at the new gear and let it sink in. They clearly boost that exact intended principle of the healer emergency shielding the dps which gives him just enough breathing room to patch him up and even boost exactly that:


Mender’s Ward

2: Steadfast Ward applies Major Vitality to your target for 3 seconds, increasing the healing taken on your target by 30%.


Naga Shaman

2: Healing Taken
3: Healing Done
4: Max Magicka
5: When you cast a damage shield ability, you gain Minor Mending and Minor Vitality for 6 seconds, increasing your healing done and healing received by 8%. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds


only a dedicated full healer role is capable of patching you up fast enough to counter burst dmge. It not your job role as dps.

Which heals are able to heal through 1-shot mechanics?

Why are you searching for non-existent skills to fix your own survivability problem while completely ignoring the game's basic obvious mechanics that serve exactly that purpose (health attribute, resistances, health glyphs...) when designing a new build for your dps ??

Sure people building a dps role can keep gimping themselves with 0 points in health attribute, no health echants and then come complaint here like you that you get 1 shot and expect a healing spell from ZOS that will raise you from the dead in addition to healing you to full ?? Please tell me this was a troll question...

I am convinced that the people behind the scenes there that look into these sort of questions (Gilliam the rogue for instance) and all this in cooperation with the class representatives here on the forums are anything but ignorant so they do have a plan and know perfectly what they're doing but the total lack of transparency from ZOS towards the players is just staggering.

I really wish that everytime BEFORE making changes ZOS would communicate to the player community their vision, their combat balance plan and the resulting intended changes we can expect. Us players having to look at and analyzing their actions and mini notes and then 'guess' their global intentions and plan is soo frustrating.

And guess what ? After we succesfully 'guess' their intentions they eventually have to communicate them anyway by responding or elaborating in the patch notes.

the spoiler notes in some of the changes are super interesting but not enough. We want to know the big plans and shifts in combat and mechanics. We players need to hear the devs say things like for example: "We devs screwed up by making dps players way to selfsufficient, trivializing healers and now we're going to start a series of changes to fix that mistake". Then no one will have to question it and understand why some of these changes are intended.

As proof and illustration I've just picked 4 clear developer comments, 4 pieces that start to show the bigger picture to us players:



Developer Comment:

For the Swallow Soul morph, we wanted to retain the current functionality of dealing high damage, while also providing healing utility to yourself. The amount of healing provided to the group with Strife was so high that there wasn’t enough tradeoff with the morph choice. Now you can still get that super powerful group utility as before, but now it comes at a cost of reduced damage. This is the Funnel Health morph.

translation: you cannot have and huge dmge and huge healing, we devs intend it so that you must choose between biggest healing or biggest dmge


Developer Comment:

We want all classes to be intentional about when they land stuns on the enemy, and not have it coupled with an already highly damaging attack.

translation: you cannot have and big cc and dmge at the same time. You as a player need to choose between using cc or doing dmge.


Developer Comment:

Damage shields are very powerful because they can be used to instantly reduce incoming damage, and allow the user to stack offensive stats while also being very difficult to kill. Adding a cast time and increasing the duration makes this an ability to use proactively before damage happens, or at opportune times during combat.

translation: you cannot have maximized protection and doing maximized damage at the same time. You as a player need to choose which skill of those 2 you choose to cast.


Developer Comment:

Damage shields from multiple sources cannot be stacked. We want healing absorption to follow this same ruleset.

translation: we don't want players to become overpowered by stacking healing/shielding mechanics.



Edit: Announcing their plans for gameplay and balance would be a very nice section for ESO Live as well by the way. I don't know who we need to address for this but I'm hereby bringing it to the attention of the following persons:

@ZOS_RobGarrett

@ZOS_GinaBruno