In general I think this is another case of ZOS trying to do too much at once. I completely understand that heals are overperforming and need adjustments. This approach is signature heavy handed moves by them.

SienneYviete wrote: »

Rustyfish101 wrote: »

akl77 wrote: »

I guess they are trying to change the scene of healing in eso, the two primary heal with spring and orbs are gone, in comes the combat prayer short distance heal and no much resources support where people have to self sustain, and heavy relies on blood alter cos no more cast time. It’s something very different indeed.

Spending all these years advising new healers to spam springs and orbs instead of combat prayer and BoL in their rotations and now i'm eating my words because of course it makes more sense to spam the buff heal and emergency heal! Silly me! sigh...

Why would you ever advise a healer to spam springs and not combat prayer.. orbs yeah but springs? it's been used as a crutch for far too long by terrible healers. This change to grand healing is fantastic imo the orbs change not so much.

in their rotation i had said i would never advise a healer to only use springs/illustrious

I agree with the changes to an extent - however at this point not sure why we're all wasting oxygen speculating and gnashing teeth on something that hasn't even hit the PTS yet.

Really how appreciative of groups - and even ourselves - with a healing partner that thinks they're awesome spamming springs - not illustrious even, but springs?! It was a silly way to learn healing for many people in this game resulting in sub-optimal readiness for trials.

I also use illustrious and there are few situations where there aren't alternatives - and having it stack up to 4 times has never been a thing outside vcr / vhof excute phases and I would like to see how this operates on the PTS. I suspect ritual and altar bonuses will help offset this and am wondering if the co-efficient, such as through HOT heal CP, may influence the final number in a way not stated in the notes as yet.

In a 4 man, even in vet dlc hm, the healer right now is better off using Master Architect and Mother's Sorrow really - I might use 2 orbs (1 for each dps), and honestly that already fits with the patch before adjustments. In a bad pug I end up doing 50% group dps + 88%+ heals - in a good group or with guildies sustain is not an issue anyway in the sense of synergising orbs every cool down (esp if you're doing 25k+ dps as healer as well with crescent sweep to proc MA).

Orbs will be an interesting change and it's hard to see how it will survive the ambit notes without adjustment - but then pretending we're more 'skillful' by spamming orbs over illustrious as a general rule is somewhat of a furphy, let's be real.

There are some parts that *are* challenging to heal, but by and large a healer right now can get through vet craglorn without really learning how to play the class to it's fullest potential, causing shock and gap realisation once they hit vhof, vmol, vss and vcr - addressing this isn't a bad thing.

I've always been a fan of using Luminous Shards for the return and placement, and have had disgreements with other healers who are like, "but tank should just use orbs'. Shards are there for a reason, and the main concern here is to make certain other healing specs are able to provide an equivalent return (such as in the form of resource recovery increases on mushrooms etc... - which already exists but comparative implementation now needs to be thought about).

Rotation based on the patch notes will be easier and prima facie we'll see roughly 60% overheal reduction across the board and higher off-balance / minor beserk uptimes (exo-jorvuld). Again, let's test before we swoon onto our beds please.

The last consideration right now too is the vss sets currently - any magdps should be rocking PFG right now and if self-sustain is already up noticeably as a result. Depending on stam I'm wearing hircine now (I'd like my tanks to hurry up and farm that so I can wear torugs XD ) and on some fights my bubbles get popped as soon as I throw them - which means the singular orb change may not be as significantly different as it seems.

Stamdps sustain? Well we have hircine and god forbid we start taking Master's Resto out of the closet. Spamming 3 orbs from behind them in insta-pop synergy? Sounds very much like the current status quo in some setups already.

TLDR - before we start ripping our clothes and wailing while clutching our pearls, let's do some empirical testing on the aptly named PTS please. Also, the full nuances aren't being factored in isolation - I'd like to think that healers, by their nature, are more nuanced and thoughtful - these values are bad, so let's see how it goes.

I'm also a healer main and this is looking kinda horrific. How can I heal the last boss of vHoF with only 1 spring at a time that's 44% weaker? How can I use that to heal Frostvault HM with that greasy defile? How about baneful in vCR? And imagine dps getting kicked from trials because they stole too many orbs from the Alkosh tank.

And when tank asked for an orb, and you casted it a bit off course, you gotta wait for the orb to dissolve then cast another one in the exact direction where the person asked for the orb. What a rip

As a healer I am very pleased with the changes. Finally the mindless Healing Springs / Orb spam comes to an end, it was always a PITA and they decided to end this, thank you ZOS.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like everything about it. But it’s a necessary change and good for the game. I wish they would offer another semi-spammable healing skill though to compensate, e.g. making Mend Wounds useful or something like that.

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

therift wrote: »

One orb at a time will cause a significant change in tactics. I'm going to have to slot Orb and Shards, maybe, or drop Orb, just to be sure I can get resource return to the tank. Going to have to think about this one.

What about the healers who aren't Templars?

I've healed on all six classes. Going forward I expect the count to be somewhere between 0 and 1.

So what is the problem ? No orbs ? Dps will have to build more for sustain. Not the end of the world

I feel like the Springs change will ultimately be good but in the near term it will be quite the sea-change.

The orbs change is a vastly different beast. It isn't quite a sustain nerf for dps/tanks but it isn't quite not a sustain nerf. Orbs will be awkward in PUGs to put it lightly. That said when pugging your orbs are probably not the difference between a wipe and a clear anyways.
Maybe an ability to cancel and recast an active orb w/o consuming another global cool down would help. Feels like it'd favor templar healers a bit too heavily as is. I doubt it'll hit live as is.

Wonders if raid dummy parses with lokestiiz and a spear synergy every 20 seconds are at all meaningful now.

tanks may have orbs as well. I think it will be new meta for them. At least for heavy mag regen tanks.

Orb needs to be outright reworked IMO. Change is fine in concept, but there have been times where I launched an orb in the wrong *** direction and that *** ain't ever gonna get synergized.

Point target ground hot with a floating bubble would be better suited - like a big green Lord Warden ball.

Raisin wrote: »

Edit: And the idea that DDs will have to build more for sustain may seem nice if you want THEM to rethink their build. But making them rely less on healers is like... the opposite of what we need. Why take away more utility from healers when they're already not needed for so much content? I already barely need to heal most content, now I can provide less sustain? I'm trying to play a support role here.

You see they’re trying to solve this riddle: healers are healers and not buffers or second DPS. By changing several healing abilities and the changes to resource generating skills healing will become more difficult, e.g. healers will have to do more healing. This results in DPS to self-sustain instead of rely on the healer OR there will be a completely new role of the supporting DPS / buffer / pure supporter.