gamerbunny9910_ESO wrote: »I wanted to take a sec to offer some possible input on how to provide a unique identity for some of the off-meta healers, while increasing their viability in endgame content, as it seems this patch will cause any non templar or warden healer to struggle a bit with this.
I am not a game designer by any means, just wanted some discussion on it.
From what I can see, post PTS changes, there are three viable end game healers. Templar, Warden, and Necromancer (necro might be a controversial opinion). DK and NB are close, but tend to fall a little short, and lack a real identity with the current PTS changes. Sorc is in the same boat as DK and NB in terms of class identity, but don't have the extra class heals to push them up towards viability.
I won't talk about Templar and Warden here, as they each have a strong identity and healer presence.
Necromancer has a strong identity, but is very clunky in actually utilizing it - the corpses. Their heals are very strong, but necro healers do not have a reliable way to quickly generate corpses without slotting blastbones - a dps skill. My suggestion - make their burst heal cause allies healed by it to shed a corpse after a few seconds delay. With the morph that consumes a corpse to heal two allies, necro healers can use it as a corpse generation tool while still putting out strong heals.
DK is right on the edge of viability for one major reason, they can have 100% uptime on major mending with just a single skill, no need to heavy attack during high healing phases, allowing them to keep up the constant healing. There's only two real changes I can think of for the DK - Make fragmented shield scale off of magicka as well as give the major mending buff. This would help solidify the DKs as a "Mitigate, not react" type of healer, similar to old school discipline priests in WoW. I would also suggest a healing morph for Inhale. Either allowing Draw Essence to heal allies around you, or reworking one of the morphs entirely to purge a single negative effect on allies on the inhale, and heal allies with the exhale. This would give DKs a strong class-based burst heal, and bring them in line a bit with Templar and Warden, in my opinion.
Nightblades, to me, have always been more HoT focused than other healers, and I think in order to give them their own place in endgame content, we should lean into that. Funnel health is a major pain point for nightblade trial healers, imo. It's an iconic class skill, but is totally useless in most high end content. My suggestion would be to increase the frequency of the healing ticks to every 1 second, without reducing the healing, and vastly increase the duration of the heal. This way, nightblades would have a version of the old regeneration that is themed to their class, and would be capable of blanketing the trial with constant healing. Additionally, I believe Refreshing Path should have a lingering healing component, allowing the healing to persist for 4s after leaving the area of the path, to match the major expedition buff. this would solidify the nightblade healer as a sustained, mobile healer. In theory, they would be the healer of choice for any content that isn't "stack&burn", as they would have the strongest on-the-move healing.
Sorcerers were the most difficult to think of an identity for without overhauling the class. The only things I could think of for them was creating an identity for them as a "support healer". Add minor vitality to Empowered Ward. Allow the Major Vitality from the Encase morph to affect allies hit by it. Have the Twilight Matriarch give you minor mending while active. This should give the sorcerers the ability to contribute greatly to group healing without overhauling the class, and could likely make it a solid pick for any lower-end group that might be struggling with healing.
What do you guys think about healer identity this patch? Any ideas on how it could be helped going forward?
HaemaMagus wrote: »Funnel Health's issue for me is less that it heals every 2sec and more it covers too little people. Maybe it'd be a little strong, but I'd like to see it hit 3 people at a time and scale off of healing instead of damage leaving Swallow Soul alone and for mNB to use.
gamerbunny9910_ESO wrote: »HaemaMagus wrote: »Funnel Health's issue for me is less that it heals every 2sec and more it covers too little people. Maybe it'd be a little strong, but I'd like to see it hit 3 people at a time and scale off of healing instead of damage leaving Swallow Soul alone and for mNB to use.
That's actually why I suggested upping the duration. It would basically be like regeneration is currently on live. It would do twice as much healing, ticking twice as fast for the same amount as on live, but with a greatly extended duration you could use it as a semi-spammable to spread the HoT around to your group members, without it falling off in 2 or 3 casts and only being able to cover a small number of people.
HaemaMagus wrote: »gamerbunny9910_ESO wrote: »HaemaMagus wrote: »Funnel Health's issue for me is less that it heals every 2sec and more it covers too little people. Maybe it'd be a little strong, but I'd like to see it hit 3 people at a time and scale off of healing instead of damage leaving Swallow Soul alone and for mNB to use.
That's actually why I suggested upping the duration. It would basically be like regeneration is currently on live. It would do twice as much healing, ticking twice as fast for the same amount as on live, but with a greatly extended duration you could use it as a semi-spammable to spread the HoT around to your group members, without it falling off in 2 or 3 casts and only being able to cover a small number of people.
Problem is, while Regeneration is fine in a dungeon, it's not in a trial. Hence why Funnel Health is such a pain point. I think having it be every second is fine, but what Funnel Health needs to be is better than live Regeneration. Not the same after PTS. I'd suggest more than 3 people, but as Funnel Health seems to be a spammable 3 or 4 feels to be a better compromise. Sap Essence, then, could fill the spot of a larger AoE HoT.
I think you heavily overrate healing power in your analysis. In the majority of circumstances, it doesn't matter if a class has major mending or not as it heals enough anyway and the deciding factor on class viability is support and buff redundancy.
gamerbunny9910_ESO wrote: »I was mainly speaking from the PoV of the viewpoint that seems pretty prevalent on the forums and reddit that putting out enough healing for vet trials post-patch won't be possible unless you're a templar or warden. IF this is the case, then healing power would end up being a somewhat important thing to take into account. I really only pointed it out for the DK, though, because compared to the templar they have the same number of HoTs (springs, orb, blood funnel, ash cloud/ritual), but DK doesn't have access to the same powerful direct AoE heal that templars do.
Ah, I see. Well, I don't see that as being the case. Don't get me wrong here, I'm very critical of the changes, but I don't think healing power will be a issue. It will more come down to convenience. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that offensive stats on healers will skyrocket as sustain will not be necessary anymore. Probably class healing skills will see more use, but I think support capability will still remain the primary factor in healer identity.
gamerbunny9910_ESO wrote: »
Ah, I see. Well, I don't see that as being the case. Don't get me wrong here, I'm very critical of the changes, but I don't think healing power will be a issue. It will more come down to convenience. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that offensive stats on healers will skyrocket as sustain will not be necessary anymore. Probably class healing skills will see more use, but I think support capability will still remain the primary factor in healer identity.
Alright, so talking from that point of view, and focusing only on class skills as everyone has access to the other stuff.
Wardens - Strong defensive support. Minor Toughness, group wide resolve and ward. Frozen retreat for utility if you choose to run it. Regen buffs to everyone with mushrooms. I think that's about it, unless I missed something.
Templar - Great offensive support. Spears, obviously (though less important now, realy just good for giving to tanks, I believe it shares a CD with orbs). AoE Magickasteal, on-demand purify synergy, Gives allies ult with AoE heal, increases group damage with backlash (which also gives minor sorcery).
Necromancer - Reanimate is the biggest, good thing to have for progression groups, though would probably be more at home on a tank in trials. Minor Protection from bone totem (and minor vuln). Can empower ally attacks, though would be nice if it was more than 1 attack per cast. Graveyard can provide AoE resistance debuff. Goliath is a huge damage increase, however. Possibility for good offensive support if played a certain way, but somewhat lacking imo.
Dragon Knight - Major and Minor Brutality, Major Sorcery to whole group, fire damage increase if you have allies that can take advantage of it, can slot talons I suppose but tanks usually have that covered. All in all, not a whole lot, as the major power buffs are usually covered already in vet content.
Nightblade - Biggest thing is the crazy fast ult gen, good for high uptimes on things like warhorn. Major Expedition for the group. Single target magickasteal. Can provide single target breach and fracture, but usually covered by the tank. Can increase crit chance to stam users IF running an assassination ability. I usually don't, not a whole lot there for healers. Not a lot offered that others couldn't give.
Sorcerer - Spell crit to nearby allies, magicka recovery, cheaper ults. That's about it. Great sustain though.
Did I miss anything? Seems like the warden/templar pairing is still the strongest by far, the other classes are lacking a bit on support outside of necro, but necro is kinda limited by their empower only working on one LA. They have to spam the *** outta that skill to get any worth out of it.
The big thing with all of this is buff redundancy. A lot of those buff and debuffs are great for a healer if no other player of the same class in the group already, so what healer actually comes out on top here also dependes a lot on the group. But yeah, I agree Templar + Warden is a very likely combination, with Templar + Necro if you have a tank Warden.
RogueShark wrote: »It's not even just support/utility. I can heal beam in Lokke HM with zero issue right now on my sorc. How do I combat that insane dot with no stacking aoe heals to "spam" come patch? Right now they get circle of protection, altar, then healing springs. Circle of protection healing can help a bit... but it's a friggin STAM heal. Barrier is eaten almost immediately.
I don't have class aoes to lay own.
I wouldn't be against having more utility for the group, at all. Give me some better inbuilt minor buffs to provide my group. Sure. I'd love it.
But right now, my biggest concern is actually being able to heal the content. Being carried by my stam dps vigoring is not a "fun" solution for healers.
The idea of Sorc healer being a support healer is very good, I think. It could be played as sth similar to Necromancer in Diablo 2, where the core lines were summons and curses. Dark Magic is a nice candidate for buffing/debuffing morphs of skills, I think. Keep in mind, that Sorc is the only class that has no debuffs, so some changes will be needed. But I think it is fully possible to push this class into support healer.
gamerbunny9910_ESO wrote: »I wanted to take a sec to offer some possible input on how to provide a unique identity for some of the off-meta healers, while increasing their viability in endgame content, as it seems this patch will cause any non templar or warden healer to struggle a bit with this.
I am not a game designer by any means, just wanted some discussion on it.
From what I can see, post PTS changes, there are three viable end game healers. Templar, Warden, and Necromancer (necro might be a controversial opinion). DK and NB are close, but tend to fall a little short, and lack a real identity with the current PTS changes. Sorc is in the same boat as DK and NB in terms of class identity, but don't have the extra class heals to push them up towards viability.
I won't talk about Templar and Warden here, as they each have a strong identity and healer presence.
Necromancer has a strong identity, but is very clunky in actually utilizing it - the corpses. Their heals are very strong, but necro healers do not have a reliable way to quickly generate corpses without slotting blastbones - a dps skill. My suggestion - make their burst heal cause allies healed by it to shed a corpse after a few seconds delay. With the morph that consumes a corpse to heal two allies, necro healers can use it as a corpse generation tool while still putting out strong heals.
DK is right on the edge of viability for one major reason, they can have 100% uptime on major mending with just a single skill, no need to heavy attack during high healing phases, allowing them to keep up the constant healing. There's only two real changes I can think of for the DK - Make fragmented shield scale off of magicka as well as give the major mending buff. This would help solidify the DKs as a "Mitigate, not react" type of healer, similar to old school discipline priests in WoW. I would also suggest a healing morph for Inhale. Either allowing Draw Essence to heal allies around you, or reworking one of the morphs entirely to purge a single negative effect on allies on the inhale, and heal allies with the exhale. This would give DKs a strong class-based burst heal, and bring them in line a bit with Templar and Warden, in my opinion.
Nightblades, to me, have always been more HoT focused than other healers, and I think in order to give them their own place in endgame content, we should lean into that. Funnel health is a major pain point for nightblade trial healers, imo. It's an iconic class skill, but is totally useless in most high end content. My suggestion would be to increase the frequency of the healing ticks to every 1 second, without reducing the healing, and vastly increase the duration of the heal. This way, nightblades would have a version of the old regeneration that is themed to their class, and would be capable of blanketing the trial with constant healing. Additionally, I believe Refreshing Path should have a lingering healing component, allowing the healing to persist for 4s after leaving the area of the path, to match the major expedition buff. this would solidify the nightblade healer as a sustained, mobile healer. In theory, they would be the healer of choice for any content that isn't "stack&burn", as they would have the strongest on-the-move healing.
Sorcerers were the most difficult to think of an identity for without overhauling the class. The only things I could think of for them was creating an identity for them as a "support healer". Add minor vitality to Empowered Ward. Allow the Major Vitality from the Encase morph to affect allies hit by it. Have the Twilight Matriarch give you minor mending while active. This should give the sorcerers the ability to contribute greatly to group healing without overhauling the class, and could likely make it a solid pick for any lower-end group that might be struggling with healing.
What do you guys think about healer identity this patch? Any ideas on how it could be helped going forward?
It is about you begin able to make it work. Yes, it might be more challenging for some classes but we also do not want homogenization of the classes either.
RogueShark wrote: »It is about you begin able to make it work. Yes, it might be more challenging for some classes but we also do not want homogenization of the classes either.
Yes, but no healer class should be relying on their DPS to 'help' them heal or 'help' them mitigate if it's not an issue for other healers. Because why would you ever bring a healer who cannot actually do their job like a templar or warden can?
There's a difference between 'homogenization' and crippling the viability of a class for a role.
I guarantee you I can "make" my sorc healer work after patch... but at what cost to my group? At what point is it just no longer fair to them that I am bringing the entire group down so much more by being a sorc healer?
RogueShark wrote: »Wow. Chill.
I simply said that I would rather see some homogenization across the board for healers to some degree (as in, make them all viable for all content) than make some basically obsolete by "making it work"... since atm to make it work, you either put your responsibilities as a healer onto your DPS or more on the other healer.