The answer to overpowered healing in U33

MentalxHammer · February 2022

As everyone knows, having access to both stam and mag heals offers an excess of powerful healing options to every spec, resulting in a dramatic increase in survivability across the board. ZOS has stated their plans to hybridize almost every stat, the only stat that is not going to be hybridized is maximum resource pool, magicka and stamina.

A simple yet effective implementation to prevent every class having access to vigor plus regeneration etc. is to make healing abilities scale exclusively with their respective maximum resource pool with wd/sd not part of the equation. This would prevent full damage builds from gaining massive survivability from healing, and would prevent the full hybridization of healing that has proven to be overpowered.

rauyran · February 2022

I like the idea but it would reduce the utility of many sets used by healers that buff spell damage. SPC for example, gives you stronger heals plus buffs your DDs.

jaws343 · February 2022

I don't disagree that something probably needs to happen before this patch goes live.

But scaling healing to max stats is a surefire way to basically make Sorc godlike. Most already stack mag for shields and damage, and have very pitiful healing. Buffing healing on them would not be a good idea.

rauyran · February 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

I don't disagree that something probably needs to happen before this patch goes live.

But scaling healing to max stats is a surefire way to basically make Sorc godlike. Most already stack mag for shields and damage, and have very pitiful healing. Buffing healing on them would not be a good idea.

Would it be a buff if the spell damage scaling was removed, leaving the resource scaling as it is today?

jaws343 · February 2022

rauyran wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

I don't disagree that something probably needs to happen before this patch goes live.

But scaling healing to max stats is a surefire way to basically make Sorc godlike. Most already stack mag for shields and damage, and have very pitiful healing. Buffing healing on them would not be a good idea.

Would it be a buff if the spell damage scaling was removed, leaving the resource scaling as it is today?

Yeah, a major buff.

You would essentially nerf healing across the board for most classes, because most classes stack spell/weapon damage. While essentially changing nothing for magsorcs. So they would maintain healing power while everyone else lowered theirs. It would help a lot, because players outhealing sorc burst is a huge issue right now. But it would make it so much easier to survive on a sorc by changing very little for them, while also increasing their potential to do damage against opponents.

jaws343 · February 2022

The thing is, I actually think the new scaling, if it goes live like this, is also going to be a huge buff to magsorc.

I am already planning on dropping my shields and dropping dark exchange. In favor of running Vigor and Crit Surge, alongside rapid regen. Basically just layering passive healing. All while using a few of the new sets and some existing ones to stack spell damage and resistances (thinking of running Markyn, BSW Front Bar, Incarnate, and Rallying Cry back bar) . With vigor added to the healing rotation and no reliance on shields, sustain will be much better.

MentalxHammer · February 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

I don't disagree that something probably needs to happen before this patch goes live.

But scaling healing to max stats is a surefire way to basically make Sorc godlike. Most already stack mag for shields and damage, and have very pitiful healing. Buffing healing on them would not be a good idea.

You’re right, this crossed my mind shortly after posting this.

This might make the implementation a bit more extreme, but what if they made it so healing scaled with max stat, and they removed max stat from the damage formula, this way you need to be more considerate of how you split max resource and wd/sd. And this way magsorc would no longer benefit everything just from pumping max mag.

jaws343 · February 2022

MentalxHammer wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

I don't disagree that something probably needs to happen before this patch goes live.

But scaling healing to max stats is a surefire way to basically make Sorc godlike. Most already stack mag for shields and damage, and have very pitiful healing. Buffing healing on them would not be a good idea.

You’re right, this crossed my mind shortly after posting this.

This might make the implementation a bit more extreme, but what if they made it so healing scaled with max stat, and they removed max stat from the damage formula, this way you need to be more considerate of how you split max resource and wd/sd. And this way magsorc would no longer benefit everything just from pumping max mag.

You would have to completely redesign how shields work. Sorcs are already in a tough spot defensively. Forcing them to choose between defense or damage would basically kill them entirely.

Honestly, the better solution to all of this is to just remove healing from this scaling change. Keep it the way it is for healing, continue with the changes to damage scaling.

This would allow damage to be flexible in scaling, while tying healing still to your max stats.

So a mag player could stack spell damage, and use stamina damage skills effective, but still only be able to effectively use mag healing skills. And vice versa.

VarisVaris · February 2022

This is just another terrible idea to fix an issue by slamming a sledgehammer onto it.

Healing is only a problem in specific situations.
Those situations are fuelled by overperforming skills like intensive mender, living darkness and radiating regen.

When it comes to crossheals which is what makes most ballgroups untouchable and makes magicka group compositions in PvP way more favorable than stamina.
There is an easy fix that leaves PvE unharmed and that is capping the amount of Hots you can have on you is limited to 2 per each hot.
This means one can only have 2 radiating regen on them which significantly reduces the passive healing people can stack and forces people to invest gcds into active healing.

The next step is to balance the overperforming heals I mentioned above and that means significantly reducing their healing power I have outlined how to do this for each skill in a separate post.

By having all heals scale with max resources only you are asking for a huge meta shift that renders countless of sets useless in PvP while having multiple negative and unwanted effects on class balance as outlined above with sorcs while also having negative effects that can't even be calculated for yet.

katorga · February 2022

MentalxHammer wrote: »

As everyone knows, having access to both stam and mag heals offers an excess of powerful healing options to every spec, resulting in a dramatic increase in survivability across the board.

That is your subjective opinion. Not a fact.

My opinion, healing combined with specific class/build attributes can create some very, very tough opponents. But more often than not I just wreck people, they cannot keep up with the damage. Conversely, playing a class with arguably the most powerful healing available, I get wrecked plenty of times. So no, I don't see healing as excessive or overpowered.

The second way to look at it, next patch the classic stamina builds will have access to the same healing power a classic magicka build had. For example, stamsorc can use Matriarch for massive burst heals. Is this unbalanced? I'd say no. If it was OK for classic mag builds to have, it is OK for future hybridized builds to have. Our job is to adapt to and create the most powerful builds possible with the tools provided.

High TTK builds seem limited to a few classes/builds and work regardless of skill level. For the other class/builds TTK is too low; I'm not certain a one-size-fits-all nerf is valid.

(fwiw, we have been through every meta, proc, burst, healing, tanking, multiple times now over the past 7 years. Complaining about the meta never, ever fixes anything, it just pushes shifts to the next meta to complain about. I think its easier just to roll with the cycle. It is what it is.)

Maggusemm · February 2022

its not overpowered, hybrid healing, e.g. with warden was always a thing. Its good that more combinations exist.
Its not overpowered at all.

xylena_lazarow · February 2022

katorga wrote: »

Complaining about the meta never, ever fixes anything, it just pushes shifts to the next meta to complain about.

There hasn't been a major shift in the group PvP meta for years, rather they keep increasing the power of the optimized heal stack + aoe bomb group strategy, while further nerfing solos/randoms/pugs (that's exactly what OP's suggestion would continue to do btw). This contributes to toxic gameplay patterns such as faction stacking, pug stomping, and indefinite stalemates, so it absolutely should be complained about, given the dwindling PvP population.

katorga · February 2022

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Complaining about the meta never, ever fixes anything, it just pushes shifts to the next meta to complain about.

There hasn't been a major shift in the group PvP meta for years, rather they keep increasing the power of the optimized heal stack + aoe bomb group strategy, while further nerfing solos/randoms/pugs (that's exactly what OP's suggestion would continue to do btw). This contributes to toxic gameplay patterns such as faction stacking, pug stomping, and indefinite stalemates, so it absolutely should be complained about, given the dwindling PvP population.

ball group builds are not really the "meta", but fall into the proc category, imo. Talking to friends in ball groups, it seems like they have very defined, mandatory builds for each class in the BG. Those shift too with new DLCs, but appear to be on an entirely different track than the normal meta.

Metas can change at each DLC/Chapter, so about every 3 months. It doesn't mean they have to change. The current proc meta with DC/Plaguebreak has been going for 2 DLCs.

I can remember at least 4 distinct "tank" metas over 7 years. At least 3 pure proc metas, a couple of "bash/bash weave" metas. There are more than that going back to release. They don't last years, usually 1-3 DLCs.

Its too much work to go back and try and match those to their DLC's, and I'm probably missing both metas and the counts are probably off. Google searching the pvp forum for broken and sorting by year gives you a good feel for the changes.

xylena_lazarow · February 2022

katorga wrote: »

ball group builds are not really the "meta", but fall into the proc category, imo. Talking to friends in ball groups, it seems like they have very defined, mandatory builds for each class in the BG.

Are you trying to say that optimized group builds look different from optimized solo builds? Yes, this is true, but the optimized group meta absolutely still revolves around the strategy of staying together rolling around in a "ball," stacking heals until you're nigh unkillable, then basically stalling the fight out in between ult dump aoe bomb attempts. Same for 4-person BGs or 12-person Cyro raids, and the only way to "counter" it is to do it yourself.

nihoumab14_ESO · February 2022

ZOS needs to invest into healing specific stats. So long as investing into stats that improve damage also improves healing, this will always be a problem. I don't think it is something that would be done this update, but next update ZOS should focus on separating healing out, and on healing focused sets rebalance them to focus on a healing focused stat, like +healing% done, instead of having healing sets that also give bonuses to damage. This doesn't mean that self healing needs to necessarily suffer. Self healing abilities should be balanced separately from heals intended for group play. Dragon Blood for example should not scale based on healing specific resources but other considerations to allow for self sustain. But people shouldn't be relying on something like radiating regen as a form of self sustain either, as that's intended for group play

Hybridization is great, but balance should always maintain that specialization is stronger.

Faulgor · February 2022

The problem with nerfing healing across the board as a reaction to the U33 hybridization changes - e.g., that you can use RR and Vigor now - is that you will end up needing to slot RR and Vigor, because otherwise your healing won't be sufficient.

While I can see the issue with increased healing next patch, there's also an opportunity cost associated with slotting more heals. Especially multiple burst heals are largely superfluous, because you can only use one per global cooldown. If the issue is mostly with HoTs and HoT-stacking, this would be a more appropriate place to start adjustments.

katorga · February 2022

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

ball group builds are not really the "meta", but fall into the proc category, imo. Talking to friends in ball groups, it seems like they have very defined, mandatory builds for each class in the BG.

Are you trying to say that optimized group builds look different from optimized solo builds? Yes, this is true, but the optimized group meta absolutely still revolves around the strategy of staying together rolling around in a "ball," stacking heals until you're nigh unkillable, then basically stalling the fight out in between ult dump aoe bomb attempts. Same for 4-person BGs or 12-person Cyro raids, and the only way to "counter" it is to do it yourself.

Yeah, but ball group builds, at least right now, seem to be proc builds by and large. But I'm no expert on it, just based on what they tell me.

The way to really, really shake things up is making healing skills, ALL of them, anything that heals, scale off max mag or stam, or the sum of both (like shields), and make all pure damage skills scale off mag spell or weapon damage, or sum of both.
When I say all healing skills that includes burning embers, sweeps, and so on, because if any heals scaled off damage once that change was made, they would be instantly overpowered.

THAT would really shake things up, force players to build for the role they intend to play, and stop this "all classes can do all things at the same time" design ZOS has right now.

It is a lot easier just to scale everything the way they are now and just roll with the power creep inherent games that have long lifespans.

Iron_Warrior · February 2022

I have an easy solution for this problem:

Buff defile. 8% and 16% is not enough

VarisVaris · February 2022

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I have an easy solution for this problem:

Buff defile. 8% and 16% is not enough

No, defiles have always made a meta worse as people built even more tanky and had their offense carried by the defile

divnyi · February 2022

VarisVaris wrote: »

There is an easy fix that leaves PvE unharmed and that is capping the amount of Hots you can have on you is limited to 2 per each hot.

Hybrid healing issue is not about ball groups. It's about ability to stack vigor, radiating regen and class burst heals all in one character FOR EVERY CHARACTER (except wardens, because no burst heal lmao).

This changes make a perfect sense and meta shift is TOTALLY WARRANTED. Today, nothing stops PvPers into putting 64 attribute points into HP, and stacking regens instead of pools. Regens remove any sustain issues even with just tristats on armor. Then, you stack WD/SD which is hybrid and scales better than Stam/Mag, and voilla - you have everything. Toughness, healing, damage. No triangle needed.

Healing scaled from resource stat cuts healing from tough characters, so they either rely on healer to stay on the frontlines, or they need to escape after prolonged fights to outheal with weaker heals. It makes them vulterable to DPS - they can survive burst, but won't be able to outheal DPS now.

Which is absolutely fair, and opens Assassin > DPS > Tank > Assassin triangle. Which is what this game desperately needs, imo.

Iron_Warrior · February 2022

VarisVaris wrote: »

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I have an easy solution for this problem:

Buff defile. 8% and 16% is not enough

No, defiles have always made a meta worse as people built even more tanky and had their offense carried by the defile

Then make it a rare debuff that you have to build for it. Remove it from abilities (and compensate for it another way) and maybe even ultimates and then buff it. If someone wants to sacrifice two 5 piece sets for sets like fasalla's guile and ward of cyrodill instead of going for the tanky or damage sets, then he should be so damn effective against healers. I would like to see more counter building in this game.

MashmalloMan · February 2022

divnyi wrote: »

VarisVaris wrote: »

There is an easy fix that leaves PvE unharmed and that is capping the amount of Hots you can have on you is limited to 2 per each hot.

Hybrid healing issue is not about ball groups. It's about ability to stack vigor, radiating regen and class burst heals all in one character FOR EVERY CHARACTER (except wardens, because no burst heal lmao).

This changes make a perfect sense and meta shift is TOTALLY WARRANTED. Today, nothing stops PvPers into putting 64 attribute points into HP, and stacking regens instead of pools. Regens remove any sustain issues even with just tristats on armor. Then, you stack WD/SD which is hybrid and scales better than Stam/Mag, and voilla - you have everything. Toughness, healing, damage. No triangle needed.

Healing scaled from resource stat cuts healing from tough characters, so they either rely on healer to stay on the frontlines, or they need to escape after prolonged fights to outheal with weaker heals. It makes them vulterable to DPS - they can survive burst, but won't be able to outheal DPS now.

Which is absolutely fair, and opens Assassin > DPS > Tank > Assassin triangle. Which is what this game desperately needs, imo.

Idk about your example there. It's of course preference, but using anything less than 25k of your main resource is incredibly difficult, no matter how good your sustain is. There is ways to burst down your pools before your high sustain can account for that as it takes time to get those resources back.

For example, a Khajiit with 64 HP and Jewels of Misrule - the most popular way to get the bare minimum sustain on both pools, has 38k hp, but 15.5k stam/mag. Good luck with that, even a hybrid would find that difficult to manage imo. Thats like 3 burst heal skills or 2 roll dodges + CC break.

You could use Skulls to get around 20k stam/mag, but now you have no regen and would need a set like Wretched Vitality.

Either way, you're lowering your total damage by changing 1 of your sets or foods or jewelery trait/enchants. It's not as simple as stacking sustain, increasing health and lowering resources. At that point you're just becoming tank/healer.

In regards to OP, yeah I can see it eventually going that direction, but many skills in the game would need to be adjusted and hopefully, they could increase how much resources sets give as it's been outclassed for a long time now. Especially when they removed the +20% from CP, but also because of the changes to Racials being flat values instead of % multipliers.

We've gotten more and more free resources over time which has allowed us to build into damage and sustain more than before while still having a base pool that is reasonable.

divnyi · February 2022

VarisVaris wrote: »

There is an easy fix that leaves PvE unharmed

PvE is unharmed. PvE goes 64 into resource pools anyway.

Faulgor wrote: »

While I can see the issue with increased healing next patch, there's also an opportunity cost associated with slotting more heals. Especially multiple burst heals are largely superfluous, because you can only use one per global cooldown.

You didn't have burst heal in every stam class. Vigor isn't burst, Rally needs perfect timing, Boneshield is HP%. Only stam bust heal is stamden shrooms, and they are weak comparatively (buffed to be on par with AoE heals, still lower than single target).

So getting Vigor and Burst is a HUGE deal for stam. And getting reliable Vigor is huge deal for many mag bruisers, especially for ones that don't have strong heals outside of resto.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

group meta absolutely still revolves around the strategy of staying together rolling around in a "ball," stacking heals until you're nigh unkillable, then basically stalling the fight out in between ult dump aoe bomb attempts. Same for 4-person BGs

Idk 4mans can go very differently. They don't all stack radiating regens and echoing vigor, they generally have dedicated healer and 3 dds that run radiating / burst heal / solo vigor. But it all differs from group to group. Ball group meta tho is just brainded. But it's separate issue from hybrid heals. We need to prioritize here, fixing hybrid heals are more important than that. Hybrid heals make all sorts of PvP unplayable.

katorga wrote: »

But more often than not I just wreck people, they cannot keep up with the damage. Conversely, playing a class with arguably the most powerful healing available, I get wrecked plenty of times.

When they can't keep up with damage, they become immune to snares/immobilize and run out in their +75% movespeed and juggle around some wooden boxes or pillars. About 2-3 sec without damage reset char to 100%, even 30k+ one.

But that "when" only comes if you apply DK dots or apply crit build pressure, or apply jabs, or apply burst. You can't keep up pressuring with burst forever, and crit builds can't be bruisers, so DK/Plar meta.

divnyi · February 2022

MashmalloMan wrote: »

but 15.5k stam/mag. Good luck with that, even a hybrid would find that difficult to manage imo. Thats like 3 burst heal skills or 2 roll dodges + CC break.

Don't roll ofc. Short blockheal sequence when in bad position. Use snow treaders or skills with immobilize immune.

15k is absolutely ez to sustain on hybrids. You roll 1.2k+ regens of each type and use skills of both pools, or transform one pool into other pool if possible for your class. If you lack sustain still, roll Fish Eye Rye. If you lack sustain still, roll mundus. You would end up in 1.8k-2k range for main resource. That + tristats should be enough to never leave combat and spam skills almost nonstop.

Going up to ~17-18k reso and getting a bit lower on HP (still above 30k) is still an option.

At that point you're just becoming tank/healer.

Not if both sets are WD/SD + some proc set that absolutely slays.
Those builds hit very hard.

jaws343 wrote: »

But scaling healing to max stats is a surefire way to basically make Sorc godlike. Most already stack mag for shields and damage, and have very pitiful healing. Buffing healing on them would not be a good idea.

^ this is the most legitimate concern. Magsorcs in heavy and matriarch will make everyone immortal in BG pvp (they are immortal enough themselves already).

It should not be linear. To simplify math, it can be x3 till 25k, x2 till 35k, x1 up from that.