Heal proc mechanic changes (COMBAT PHYSICIAN)

Darkblade_305 · July 2020

A couple of weeks ago if I remember correctly I was doing tests with this type of sets. Since I often play I only use them for Worl bosses or PvP, also in a group with a templar healer. One of the errors reported by me "in game" was the synergy between this type of sets and the skills that minor lifesteal grants. They completely broke the mechanics, they made every player who benefited from minor lifesteal and healed when they doing damage counted as an active healing of the player who carries this type of heal procs sets.

For me the best thing about this set in particular is the strategic use of who is the beneficiary of the shield (A SINGLE AND HIGHT VALUE SHIELD). This is the most important fact to keep in mind. know when the shield goes to yourself or another player who needs it the most. By changing the mechanics to reduce the high value of the shield and sharing it with other players, you developers are destroying the reason why this set is valuable.

Today we already have sets that has this characteristics with more or less similar mechanics (NOT LARGE BUT GROUP SHIELDS). For example Prayer Shawl, his 5 bonus does exactly this: "When you heal a friendly target, you have a 6% chance to grant them a damage shield that absorbs 2425 damage for 6 seconds". In this PTS is Increased the damage shield size to 4997. So what's the point of having two almost equal sets?. I'm going to remember the Combat Physician set change in PTS: Combat Physician: Reduced the shield size of this set to 4308, down from 9506. The cooldown is now per target, rather than overall. I'm not saying that it is exactly the same, but similar mechanics to reach the same goal.

I really hope that you developers think about the change in mechanics of the Combat Physician and continue to maintain it with its characteristic of a single shield and of high value but fixing the bug of the skills that grant minor steal life, so that only the healer's active heals count. I'm not against ballance changes, but such a radical change and a halving of the shield value is for me to completely ruin a very competent set and I think it would be a great loss to the gameplay.

the1andonlyskwex · July 2020

Combat Physician shields people after they take damage (because it procs on critical healing), while new Prayer Shawl shields people before they take damage (because it procs on overhealing). I think this is a sufficient distinction between the two, personally.

Previously, Prayer Shawl was just useless because the shield was too small and the proc chance was too low (particularly because it didn't proc from overhealing), while it appears that Combat Physician may have been stronger than ZOS intended for solo play (because of the shield size). For actual group healing the Prayer Shawl changes are a huge buff, and the Combat Physician changes are a buff for situations where more than 2 people are taking damage.

In general, I think I like the changes, although (as a PS4 player) I'll have to wait until they go live before I can say for sure.

the1andonlyskwex · July 2020

Also, I already liked Combat Physician proccing on lifesteal on live because it only procced if someone was actually taking damage (and lifesteal was a good way to ensure lots of critical healing opportunities), and now that it can shield multiple targets it will be even better.

Darkblade_305 · August 2020

As I said in the post: "I'm not saying that it is exactly the same, but similar mechanics to reach the same goal."

Give group shields of a similar value based on heals proc. And I still do not see the advantage that the player who wears the set is not the one who can choose who benefits from the shield. That breaks the strategy. Of course it is easier to put a lifesteal skill and forget. It seems to me the least worked solution possible.

Do you want a set that works like this, the new Combat Physician? Well, what I find most consistent is that they implement it new, without making changes to the current one, which is already a useful set.

Edit: Now you can carry shields close to 10K in a group overlapping the two sets. For example only using Blood Altar skill for all players in 28 radius metres with both set conditions active every 6 seconds. And I don't take into account shield size bonuses like the bastion of champion points. I don't know until that point it will impact the gameplay of group PvP game modes.

Dusk_Coven · August 2020

I'm really mind-boggled by the changes to Combat Physician. It changes the play pattern established by clever, strategic use. People can use it solo or can use it in small-group. It has a niche. You can see assorted feedback from players here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/537703/6-1-0-combat-physician-set-shielding-reduced-to-less-than-half

But now they're going to let a single person wearing the set passively give everyone a shield. And an apparently unlimited number of people, not just a trial group -- in overland it's going to be everyone who gets a heal from them.
And they're going to do this after they nerfed Iceheart, which gave people a shield only when they were wearing that set. How does that make sense for their internal audit criteria?

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

As an intermediate solution to completely switching this set from single-target shielding to group shielding, they could scale the shield according to the group size:
- Bigger groups get smaller per-person shielding.
- Smaller groups/solo get more shielding.
- No one outside a group gets any shielding.
None of these would require much on-the-fly calculations since group sizes are unlikely to constantly change.