Why are heals improved by increasing damage?

ck37090 · April 2020

Why isn't all healing improved by increased healing only? Just seems odd that you improve your dps and you improve your heals. I get it, this is a big reason why really good players can take on 20 people at once but is that the goal? You can play anyway you want, but it is a RPG and shouldn't there be sacrifices, and roles? If you want to heal you use healing gear, you want to dps you get dps gear. DPS would still have self heals, but not at the level they are now and probably burst damage would need to be toned down. I just think it would give healers more of a role and balance the game. Maybe i'm completely off base, thoughts?

VaxtinTheWolf · April 2020

That works in other MMO's with stats specific for that. The usual Strength, Agility, Willpower, Hope, etc stuff. In this game you just have stamina/weapon damage or magicka/spell damage, and health for some skills in recent years. They would most likely have to have another stat specific for healing to do what you are requesting.

ck37090 · April 2020

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

That works in other MMO's with stats specific for that. The usual Strength, Agility, Willpower, Hope, etc stuff. In this game you just have stamina/weapon damage or magicka/spell damage, and health for some skills in recent years. They would most likely have to have another stat specific for healing to do what you are requesting.

but there is increased healing...its on allot of gear. Just adjust the percentages on the gear to make heals appropriate and still have like a base value on heals, so people can still heal themselves but not at the level they are able to reach with the high damage they also gain. That way there is a sacrifice to have healing and/or there is a need for healers.

idk · April 2020

I fail to see the issue. It certainly is not a problem since everyone has access to damage and heals equality.

Further, OP may have played some games that used totally different stats for healing vs damage but there have been major MMORPGs that used the very same stats for damage as healing. SWTOR is a great case in point. Not including tanking there are four stats players stack. Health, Main stat, Power, Crit. The difference is in the class builds that are extremely restrictive and becomes play as the devs want you to play.

VaxtinTheWolf · April 2020

I thought about it for a few minutes. I guess you'd want something like for a DPS, Vigor would them for a set amount, like 8k in 4 seconds but that can only be increased by healing modifiers instead of the current stats. Then for healer gear, it might be +Magicka pool, +Crit, and +10% healing for the 2-3-4 pieces, and an instant heal from them might be a base of 10k or something.

Probably better if the game itself was bumped in enemy difficulty, then many would like having a pocket healer with them for a public dungeon for instance. But then you'd get a lot of complaints from those that only want to solo, maybe they can't rely on always having a partner when they are playing or just like being a lone wolf.

I guess it technically could work but either way, it's a direction the game could have gone at some point but why change that now in this day.

ck37090 · April 2020

idk wrote: »

I fail to see the issue. It certainly is not a problem since everyone has access to damage and heals equality.

Further, OP may have played some games that used totally different stats for healing vs damage but there have been major MMORPGs that used the very same stats for damage as healing. SWTOR is a great case in point. Not including tanking there are four stats players stack. Health, Main stat, Power, Crit. The difference is in the class builds that are extremely restrictive and becomes play as the devs want you to play.

of course its even, anything they change is always going to be even because it is the same for everyone. However, as it is just my vigor alone on my stamina dps fully heals me in 4 seconds (not counting any other heal buffs i add). The problem is to build for healing in this game you build for dps, there is no tradeoff. The more you push your dps the more you push your heals there is no tradeoff, there is no real healer role as a result. DPS can take on 30 people at a time solo AND burst people down at the same time.

witchdoctor · April 2020

ck37090 wrote: »

... there is no real healer role as a result.

There it is.

You have come to the same conclusion as many, many before you.

The healer 'role' is needed in only certain scenarios by a great many players.

But your 'fix' isn't going to make the healer role needed. There are many reasons why. Incoming damage is often negligible, for one. Further, your fix is an attempt to pigeon people into healing and that won't fly in this game where 'role' is more synonymous with a 'task' in any given fight. Meaning, a healer who only heals - period - is far less useful than a position who does damage and heals when required.

Alucardo · April 2020

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

That works in other MMO's with stats specific for that. The usual Strength, Agility, Willpower, Hope, etc stuff. In this game you just have stamina/weapon damage or magicka/spell damage, and health for some skills in recent years. They would most likely have to have another stat specific for healing to do what you are requesting.

I believe in WoW healing done is tied to your Versatility, which also dictates how much damage you take (mitigation). I guess that would equivalent to healing being increased by the Armor bonus in ESO. Essentially what they could do is rename the Armor bonus to something like "Balance" or "Adaptability", and for every X Armor you have, give you a percentage of healing.
It'd be a rather large overhaul though, and probably not really worth it when there's more important things to focus on.

idk · April 2020

ck37090 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

I fail to see the issue. It certainly is not a problem since everyone has access to damage and heals equality.

Further, OP may have played some games that used totally different stats for healing vs damage but there have been major MMORPGs that used the very same stats for damage as healing. SWTOR is a great case in point. Not including tanking there are four stats players stack. Health, Main stat, Power, Crit. The difference is in the class builds that are extremely restrictive and becomes play as the devs want you to play.

there is no real healer role as a result.

You are showing limited experience in the game. There is a real healer role in more challenging PvE content.

Further, ESO was designed from the ground up to rely less on healers. We can avoid and mitigate much of the damage that comes our way. Even in the toughest content if a DPS dies it was probably because they screwed up. Further, healers cannot reliably control their heals. The damage players take in both PvP and challenging PvE is both quick and abrupt requiring the DPS to be able to react quickly and reliably.

All this is why we have what we have. This is not a silly WoW clone.

Iskiab · April 2020

The system makes sense, it’s just different:
Spell power/Weapon damage = increases the tooltips of your abilities
Stamina or Magicka = increases your pool of resources and the tooltips of abilities
Armour = you take less damage unless it’s bypassed or can’t be mitigated
% damage reduction = self explanatory
Regen = self explanatory

The reason damage dealers generally have higher tooltips than healers in PvE is because healers are wearing support sets. Healers don’t have to, it’s just more overall damage in a trial from a group wide perspective from them doing it. In a dungeon it’s usually not optimal to wear all support sets.

It’s also balanced with healing abilities costing more than damage abilities so a damage dealer wouldn’t be able to sustain high healing output.

In PvE there’s no real need to buff your healing stats too much, in pvp there is because healing values are halved. If a healer spec’d for pure healing output they would easily heal for way more than a damage dealer could, for example cyrodiil group healers can pump out crazy high numbers. When I was a cyrodiil healer I usually put out 8-12k hps (excluding overhealing) for example, with 30k spikes.

GrumpyDuckling · April 2020

@ck37090 Heals are improved by increasing damage because ZOS has created a combat system where the strength of heals are not only determined by actual healing done/healing received, but are also influenced by attribute scaling (max stats) and weapon/spell damage.

I think it's a subpar system, and would prefer to see something more along the lines of:

- Attributes (health/magicka/stamina) = only governs your resource/how many times you can use skills
- Damage = exclusively determines damage and should combine weapon and spell damage
- Critical = combines weapon and spell critical
- Armor = defense
- Healing = healing

That is more clearly defined, and if players wanted balance with their builds, then they would seek to balance damage/defense/healing sets and buffs on their characters. Of course numbers would have to be tweaked so content like VMA (where you need to have damage and self-healing) would still be possible by a single player. Also, more healing based sets would need to be implemented, and sets and skills would need to be updated to account for weapon and spell damage and critical being combined. But, a system like this would discourage players from simply amping up a single max stat and single damage category while still accessing strong heals.

Assuming ZOS won't make significant changes, though, at the very least they should stop using the titles "weapon damage" and "spell damage," and instead use "weapon power" and "spell power." It would at least make a little more sense.

Narvuntien · April 2020

There are typically bar space limits and mana bar limits instead. The game is simiply balanced in a different way.

Personally I like having very simiple set of stats so I don't have to read a book to learn what they all do.

kalunte · April 2020

well, self healing need to stay as it is but heals to other ppl must be tweaked with the creation of another stat alongside "spell power" and "weapon dmg", let's say "cure power". this stat would only affect heals to others and that's it.

you may know that ZoS already considers self healing and healing to other peeps different regarding BGs stats (which doesnt include self healing). they are just too busy messing around with other things than making such a step in the game's health direction.

VaxtinTheWolf · April 2020

@GrumpyDuckling I think you forgot to include resource recovery in that list. Or would it start filling up at a set rate.

GrumpyDuckling · April 2020

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

@GrumpyDuckling I think you forgot to include resource recovery in that list. Or would it start filling up at a set rate.

Yeah, it's its own category. Just forgot to list it.

tsaescishoeshiner · April 2020

High burst damage in PvE is what makes ESO an action MMO. Not a stand-still-and-soak-up-heals MMO. Boss mechanics have consequences that can kill you fast. This requires self-heals for DPS/tanks, and makes the healer role more complex than just getting big number heals (although that is still really important in endgame content)

Keeping healing from benefiting from Spell/Weapon Damage and Max Magicka/Max Stamina would severely limit build diversity. If healers needed a separate stat for healing, they would only be able to wear the few dedicated healer sets. And they would have a lot more difficulty in solo content

There already IS healer gear separate from DPS gear, and healers can choose to wear buff/debuff support sets, heal-increasing sets, or hybrid heal/DPS sets. There's pretty good diversity there. If the stats were separated, all those options would probably vanish

CP and other sources already make a pretty big divide between healers and mag DPS. Heals aren't increased by bonuses to magic damage, direct damage, damage done, critical damage and whatnot. You can still hunt down plenty of Healing Done sources if you really don't want to deal damage

Stx · April 2020

The stats are fine how they are. You have +healing % for pure healing builds, you have spell/weapon power and magicka /stamina which effect all abilities, then you have penetration which effects only damage in a big way. There are also +damage % buffs and stats in some places as well.

There really is no problem. You can stack weapon damage if you want your attacks and vigor to hit hard, but you wont be doing as much damage as the guy who also has high penetration.

AcadianPaladin · April 2020

As is often the case, it seems PvP and PvE are two completely different games as far as concerns.

The fact that spell damage (I think of it as spell power) boosts my healer's damage and heals both is why she is a healer. If she had to forgo damage to be a healer, she'd drop healing and become a dps. She loves being a healer but only if she is reasonably effective as a solo quester also. She will never match a pure dps for damage but that is not necessary. Tanks have to make a much more stark choice - tank or damage and that is why there are so few of them. The fix for tanks of course would be to have S&B damage scale off health but that would doubtless cause PvP concerns. To make healers chase a special stat to have potent heals would predictably bring healer numbers down to the same level as tank numbers. Really bad idea in PvE.

idk · April 2020

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Heals are improved by increasing damage because ZOS has created a combat system where the strength of heals are not only determined by actual healing done/healing received, but are also influenced by attribute scaling (max stats) and weapon/spell damage.

I think it's a subpar system, and would prefer to see something more along the lines of:

- Attributes (health/magicka/stamina) = only governs your resource/how many times you can use skills
- Damage = exclusively determines damage and should combine weapon and spell damage
- Critical = combines weapon and spell critical
- Armor = defense
- Healing = healing

That is more clearly defined, and if players wanted balance with their builds, then they would seek to balance damage/defense/healing sets and buffs on their characters. Of course numbers would have to be tweaked so content like VMA (where you need to have damage and self-healing) would still be possible by a single player. Also, more healing based sets would need to be implemented, and sets and skills would need to be updated to account for weapon and spell damage and critical being combined. But, a system like this would discourage players from simply amping up a single max stat and single damage category while still accessing strong heals.

Assuming ZOS won't make significant changes, though, at the very least they should stop using the titles "weapon damage" and "spell damage," and instead use "weapon power" and "spell power." It would at least make a little more sense.

This is an overly complicated system that is not necessary. We can look at other games for more direct solutions.

Further, you forgot to include stats for sustain. Since sustain stats compete directly with stats that increase our damage/healer any idea that neglects that is to complete for consideration.

Nick_Balza · April 2020

I think, the whole point is that PvP in ESO is optional thing and the game is about exploration, lore and questing. And it will be very challenging for healer to progress in quests without damage because he must kill mobs, bosses and etc.

VaxtinTheWolf · April 2020

That's the problem with tank characters that build for tanking from the start instead of allowing themselves some damage.

BXR_Lonestar · April 2020

ck37090 wrote: »

Why isn't all healing improved by increased healing only? Just seems odd that you improve your dps and you improve your heals. I get it, this is a big reason why really good players can take on 20 people at once but is that the goal? You can play anyway you want, but it is a RPG and shouldn't there be sacrifices, and roles? If you want to heal you use healing gear, you want to dps you get dps gear. DPS would still have self heals, but not at the level they are now and probably burst damage would need to be toned down. I just think it would give healers more of a role and balance the game. Maybe i'm completely off base, thoughts?

My understanding of how healing works in ESO is that the game looks at it as inverse-damage. So every time you cast a heal, you are dealing "damage" to your teammates, and that damage is multiplied by -1 (negative 1) to create a heal effect instead of doing damage. It seems to be a really easy way to make healing "work" in this game, but it is the reason why dedicated healers are basically marginalized in all but high-end endgame content. A DPS with high weapon/spell damage can heal just as effectively as a healer and they can also do damage. An off healer (basically DPS/Helaer combo) can maintain high DPS - around 30K while keeping their teammates alive simply adds more value to a team than a dedicated healer who can only maintain 10-15K DPS while also keeping teammates alive. It also makes it so that team DPS is high enough to bypass mechanics - or ensures that they have to run through mechanics less.

IMO, healing needs its own stat so that DPS cannot self-heal or group heal well enough to make a healer not needed. But if you look at how they design content, it often feels like it was basically designed for 3 DPS and an Off tank - one who can heal and tank at the same time. So I'm not sure they'll go the route of making a separate stat for healing so that there is a clear division of performance between what a DPS can bring to the group vs. a healer.

John_Falstaff · April 2020

I find it logical, really, not arbitrary. You're not increasing healing by increasing damage. You're doing it by increasing spell power. More powerful damaging spells, more powerful healing spells, don't see anything different here.

Luckylancer · April 2020

It is logical. A stronger mage can cast stronger spell, healing or damage. For balance perspective it is strange. You get more sustain and damage with same stat. But game is ok as it is so a major change would be bad for everyone.

Eifleber · April 2020

It's semantics. They just should have called it "spell power" instead of damage and nobody would post about it.
Calling it damage is wrong, semantically.