About Supporting the Healer Changes

TheNightflame · July 2019

In response to how healing springs oversimplified content and needs to be as is on pts:

I agree with how you can heal a majority of content with simply a grand healing spam is not ideal, but where skill comes into play is buff uptimes, debuff uptimes, and quick reactive burst healing. I agree that more should go into keeping groups alive than 1 skill doing the job in a lot of cases, but using that to justify the changes is grossly oversimplifying things.

Skilled gameplay, at present, involves knowing the fights, anticipating damage phases, cleverly layering hots when needed, and buffing and debuffing when it's not. Skilled gameplay after this patch will be "have you placed all your hots and buffs and things down? ok, time to combat prayer spam to heal through the mechanics that are still possible to heal through".

While the changes make it so one skill being spammed won't carry you through content anymore, it greatly reduces what skilled gameplay had the potential to be, and replaces one overly spammed skill by poor players, to good players too now spamming a skill, whether necessarily or not.

Note that this was all said without touching on DDs off healing. That, to me, is a separate issue/red-herring that, in my opinion, ZOS is falling for adjusting instead of adjusting healers themselves.

In response to they're good changes cuz we'll have something new to adapt to:

I'm sorry but I really don't see this as a thing of empowerment with adapting and making things work. Simply put, and with no explanation, healers lose A LOT of fun and A LOT of purpose.

little to no purpose + little to no fun is not something to overcome, it's something to move away from and on to the next thing.

A last thing: the above was taken from my recent comments on other threads. I encourage people to read various healer threads and develop opinions for themselves, many people such as stileanima, nefas, tabatta, code, have all given incredibly detailed responses and explanations about the implications of the changes, yet people still stick to their guns thinking "I know better than (literally the best players and healers in the game, quantitatively and qualitatively) them!!! arg! I don't even play a healer! teehee!"

Please put thought into your opinions.

In any case, if you disagree or have questions, pose them here and I'm certain people will engage in a constructive discussion.

kargen27 · July 2019

"Skilled gameplay, at present, involves knowing the fights, anticipating damage phases, cleverly layering hots when needed, and buffing and debuffing when it's not. Skilled gameplay after this patch will be "have you placed all your hots and buffs and things down? ok, time to combat prayer spam to heal through the mechanics that are still possible to heal through"."

You said the same thing using different words. Cleverly layering is another way to say spamming. Basically heal when you have to and buff when you aren't healing. People who spammed healing springs will be spamming something else. People who didn't spam healing springs will have a similar rotation to what they have now just different skills in a couple of slots.
I understand strategies now in some fights by necessity include stack healing. Strategies are going to need adjusting. The entire group is going to have to adjust.

I'm predicting groups that could clear hard mode before these changes will soon after the changes be able to clear that same content. The rest will continue to struggle.

danara · July 2019

For the context, i am a main PVE healer for 5 years now

The things that a lot of player (most of them dont play healer and dont even know what they are doing actually) misunderstand is that, each change individually is not that bad

Healing springs : this spell has too much healing burst potency for a low cost

Orbs : the change is actually quiet good, if you look your eso logs, many time this spell give a lot of over heals but we are not using it for the heal, we are using it to sustain ally (the new change, the one orb activable multiple time, not the "one orb one use at a time)

What is bad is this changes combine together PLUS the change to many self heal spell (mainly vigor) and others

even Circle protection doesnt make sense : they doesnt want us to stack healing springs but we can stack Circle of protection ? Wtf

This means that right Now, there is no point to have healers in your group because dd with vigor can self sustain the all group.

An other problem is that some fight (Best examples are vCR and vHoF execute phase) and some weapons (rip Master Resto Staff) are design around this abilities.

The last problem is the change they made for class :

Templar : ritual is now ridiculously over powered and will now be another step ahead other class

Warden : budding seed change look really great but once again, with templar, they are meta healer, and will stay the Best options for competitive group

And what get DK ? Nothing but a nerf (and honestly dk is quiet bad as a healer : bad magicka sustain, dont have enough synnergy for group, cinder storm to small,...)

And what get Sorc ? A really good change with Surge, but Again, the heal can proc on damage ! So what the point to have a healer Sorc if the magsorc/stamsorc can provide the same amount of healing ?

Nothing to say about necro thought. And i dont Know enough the NB healer to speak about it.

But, as a justification to the springs nerf, @ZOS_BryanW says : you can use ritual buff. Fine, where is my ritual with my DK ? My Sorc ? My NB ? My necro ?

A lot of People says it will bring more diversity, i am sorry but no it WONT. To be competitive now you ll be force to play 2 class, you ll be force to play some spell because the other are not worth it, and on top of that, your only burst heal viable tool is combat prayer, which force you to have à stztic placement. The fact that we dont have any rotation force us (on live) to know mechanics, to understand when we can buff our mate and when have to heal. This will reduce the healer role (if it still exist after scalebreaker) to a non dynamic/rewarding /fun role !
He also say that they want us to use more defencive ultimate / spell rather than damage buff oriented one... OK... How do you explain that right Now some of the Best guild are using this on the live and still cant get through some fight ? And How many People passed through vCR+3 on live ? How many personn Who passed it payed advanced group for it ?

A lot of progression group will suffer from that, and healer, thzt are curently useless in 90% of the game content will now be useless in the only content they are required : trial. And why ? Because dd can do our job better than we can !

And Now there is a last point, now we have uptime on any of our skills because we dont have any "spammable" like springs and orbs, and i saw a lot of video where the healer dont have any thing to do, waiting for his buffs to finish... How is this fun ? It s a loss for the whole group because if you replace your healer with a dps he will heal as much as we do + do a lot more damage ! With these change healing is now boring !

I think is summarized every thing i have to say about pve healing in scalebreaker. Overall this patch is a Nice adjsutment for pvp healing, but it also shows that the combat team doesnt know any thing about pve problematics.

In my opinion :

1) buff grand healing : the hps should be equal at twice as it is now on live, this will result in a more persistent hot, but a 33% burst potency nerf (it s like if you have 2 grand healing stzcked instead of 3)

2) give other class similar tools to warden and templar. Best example : dks cinder storm (increase the radius + give it a synnergy for ally)

3) reduce the healing potency of any self heal spell

In my opinion these 3 points will help to make healer relevant again

If they cant manage to do that... Then... ZOS you have to separate pve from pvp or i dont Know increase the battle spirit effect... Find a solution, but i can assure you that if this goes to live, your problems about lag will be solved cause a lot of People will leave the game...

Thanks for anyone Who read this.

danara · July 2019

I also forget to mention that :

The fact you cant have more than one grand healing is a problem when your mates have to be separate from group (most of the Time the off tank), now you cant heal 2 places at the same time (at least you cant heal effectively).

And the orb movement slowmotion is a nerf to any non templar healer : if your tank need an orb fast then you have to rush on him to give him the orb fast enough.. An other example is on vAS how do you provide enough ressources to your group when you cant target more than 3 ally because the mechanics force you to Split the group ?
Bryan W. answer type in coming : templar have shards...

hasi · July 2019

kargen27 wrote: »

"Skilled gameplay, at present, involves knowing the fights, anticipating damage phases, cleverly layering hots when needed, and buffing and debuffing when it's not. Skilled gameplay after this patch will be "have you placed all your hots and buffs and things down? ok, time to combat prayer spam to heal through the mechanics that are still possible to heal through"."

You said the same thing using different words. Cleverly layering is another way to say spamming.

Not really. Layering doesn't have to mean that they will be put on top of each other. It can also mean, that you place a Spring on the people standing in the middle, then one right and one left. The ones in the side would then partly layer with the middle one.

BalticBlues · July 2019

Replacing Healing Springs spam with Vigor spam is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Magicka Healing with Stamina Healing is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Healers with DDs is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.

Sorry, but I see no excuse at all for the healing changes in the upcoming patch.

danara · July 2019

BalticBlues wrote: »

Replacing Healing Springs spam with Vigor spam is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Magicka Healing with Stamina Healing is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Healers with DDs is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.

Sorry, but I see no excuse at all for the healing changes in the upcoming patch.

I dont see any problem with stamina healing, the problem is that stamina healing spell are not hidden behind a weapon like magicka healing spell, they are accessible to any DD (AvA skills for viguor, warrior guild for Circle of Protection).

If they want to implément stamina healer they have to implément the weapon Who come with it and which can provide unique buff/debuff... With strength ans weakness... Maybe the Alteration Staff skill line ? This would be welcome compare to the horror they want to bring...

BalticBlues · July 2019

danara wrote: »

I dont see any problem with stamina healing, the problem is that stamina healing spell are not hidden behind a weapon like magicka healing spell.

Indeed, that class-less Stamina healing is less limited in ESO
than Magicka healing which requires a weapon makes no sense at all.

AcadianPaladin · July 2019

Magplar healer main here for several years.

After reviewing the PTS patch notes, I'm fully prepared (and expect) to transition my healer to dps. I'll wait till the update actually goes live and check things out first, but that is my tentative plan. My healer is what I call a 'pug healer' - that means she slots just a bit more damage (sweeps) and does not slot combat prayer (pug dps and 'positional discipline' too low to justify). She does slot mutagen and springs though. Two casts to cover the group for 20 seconds of HoT makes mutagen worth slotting. The nerfs to mutagen render it not worth slotting. In pugs, there is no real time (voice) comm and your group mates run all around. Springs really helped here since I could toss it to several members of the group in disparate locations as required. The changes to springs make the skill (for my purposes) not worth slotting. That boils down to no reason to slot a resto staff. My gut feel is that the fun factor will not justify continuing as a healer. That is how I plan to 'adapt and adjust'. I suspect that may not have been the intent of the changes but there ya go.

Again, I have definite ideas about what content I want to heal (mostly pug dungeons and open WB runs). Ymmv.

Zatox · July 2019

BalticBlues wrote: »

Replacing Healing Springs spam with Vigor spam is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Magicka Healing with Stamina Healing is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Healers with DDs is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.

Sorry, but I see no excuse at all for the healing changes in the upcoming patch.

Introducing healers role in game was AWFUL GAME DESIGN

snarkomatic · July 2019

Zatox wrote: »

BalticBlues wrote: »

Replacing Healing Springs spam with Vigor spam is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Magicka Healing with Stamina Healing is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.
Replacing Healers with DDs is just AWFUL GAME DESIGN.

Sorry, but I see no excuse at all for the healing changes in the upcoming patch.

Introducing healers role in game was AWFUL GAME DESIGN

I would genuinely love to hear your thoughts on why.