Cyrodiil Healing Nerf!!

ArctosCethlenn · January 13

MincMincMinc wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

It is almost unbelievable to me that a change like this was proposed, and nobody at ZOS stopped to think about the consequences, both for pug healers, and for all the ways this can be abused to deliberately reduce someone’s, or an entire group’s, healing.

......

Finally, I have been a ball group player for a long time, and I am not blind to the fact that ball group power creep, especially in 10 to 12 player groups, has gotten out of hand. A nerf is needed. I just think the current version is overtuned, and if the out of group interaction is not fixed immediately, it is also inherently exploitable.

Yeah really this 50% cut is just a dummy switch for anyone not smart enough to avoid being hit. 1vX solo and smallmans have a workaround already to avoid the heal cut entirely. All ball groups need to do is bypass the hots that trigger the issue. If anything this can be to the benefit of a ball group, cuz now zergs that were bad at healing to begin with suddenly have half the heals you do.

Correct, pretty sure all the balls already know how to adjust their comps to avoid the reductions from sticky hots, so while we may see a slight drop in efficiency, that isn't gonna matter when fighting zergs that lose half their healing.

Look at how quickly balls adapted to plaguebreak, one of the support roles in ball used to be a dedicated purger to spam efficient purge, that set released and everyone dropped the role from comp instantly. Zone/yells spent months yelling at people to stop purging before the knowledge really spread; not because people were bad, but just because they didn't know about the new danger.

The same will happen with this change in its current form, balls will just drop sticky hots and pugs/etc will spend ages trying to catch up while yelling at people to stop using hots.

But cleanse was a fairly niche case, new players weren't immediately jumping in going 'I wanna spam that to help my team!'. Hots are ubiquitous in pve and as a general healing tool. It'll take years for the knowledge that hots are a debuff to spread because it makes zero sense for hots to be a debuff, who would predict that?

Nerf hot stacking with a cap or diminishing returns on the hots instead.

Radiate77 · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

THANK YOU.

heimdall14_9 · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

wow this is the way it should be done THANK YOU TO THE TEAM for understanding this missed the mark and revert it now not later

Prax3des · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Sad to see this change is already in the bin because even though it IS imperfect, and would absolutely need adjusting to avoid HOT trolling and the other logistical issues regular PVPers have raised, it still showed a movement and willingness toward breaking up healstacking and other problems with raids being uncrackable. And any change in that direction is a good one for me, honestly, because it's been too busted for too long.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Whilst its nice that you guys are taking on board feedback and making adjustments - the communication is great. It is a little sad to see that it's just going to be simply removed with no attempt to adjust it.

As you commented healing, especially in large groups within PVP is one of the most requested adjustments from PVP (along with group set power reduction, high health scaling skills - especially shields, and speed reduction to allow for better ability hit registration) so it's a shame that an adjustment can't be attempted for this patch even if it is subsequently removed in later patches.

For example putting the change to be 3x the same HoT causing the healing reduction instead of 3x any HoT.

p.s. recovery convergence is so broken in pvp for recovery in groups its kind of amazing it's not nerfed to the ground yet lol

MincMincMinc · January 13

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

It is almost unbelievable to me that a change like this was proposed, and nobody at ZOS stopped to think about the consequences, both for pug healers, and for all the ways this can be abused to deliberately reduce someone’s, or an entire group’s, healing.

......

Finally, I have been a ball group player for a long time, and I am not blind to the fact that ball group power creep, especially in 10 to 12 player groups, has gotten out of hand. A nerf is needed. I just think the current version is overtuned, and if the out of group interaction is not fixed immediately, it is also inherently exploitable.

Yeah really this 50% cut is just a dummy switch for anyone not smart enough to avoid being hit. 1vX solo and smallmans have a workaround already to avoid the heal cut entirely. All ball groups need to do is bypass the hots that trigger the issue. If anything this can be to the benefit of a ball group, cuz now zergs that were bad at healing to begin with suddenly have half the heals you do.

Correct, pretty sure all the balls already know how to adjust their comps to avoid the reductions from sticky hots, so while we may see a slight drop in efficiency, that isn't gonna matter when fighting zergs that lose half their healing.

Look at how quickly balls adapted to plaguebreak, one of the support roles in ball used to be a dedicated purger to spam efficient purge, that set released and everyone dropped the role from comp instantly. Zone/yells spent months yelling at people to stop purging before the knowledge really spread; not because people were bad, but just because they didn't know about the new danger.

.....

Plague now is probably worse for the game because it is the reason ball groups moved away from purging off effects and strain on the server >>>> now ball groups are leaving the effects on them and keeping hots/buffs rolling nonstop.

Mojey87 · January 13

i cant believe you just revert back this once those ball groups and overhealing runners start to cry, those groups just enter cyrodil wipe everything out and leave without single death of them,
whats the point of playing if those overpowered are not nerfed?
cyrodil is as toxic as IC from those players.

YandereGirlfriend · January 13

MincMincMinc wrote: »

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

It is almost unbelievable to me that a change like this was proposed, and nobody at ZOS stopped to think about the consequences, both for pug healers, and for all the ways this can be abused to deliberately reduce someone’s, or an entire group’s, healing.

......

Finally, I have been a ball group player for a long time, and I am not blind to the fact that ball group power creep, especially in 10 to 12 player groups, has gotten out of hand. A nerf is needed. I just think the current version is overtuned, and if the out of group interaction is not fixed immediately, it is also inherently exploitable.

Yeah really this 50% cut is just a dummy switch for anyone not smart enough to avoid being hit. 1vX solo and smallmans have a workaround already to avoid the heal cut entirely. All ball groups need to do is bypass the hots that trigger the issue. If anything this can be to the benefit of a ball group, cuz now zergs that were bad at healing to begin with suddenly have half the heals you do.

Correct, pretty sure all the balls already know how to adjust their comps to avoid the reductions from sticky hots, so while we may see a slight drop in efficiency, that isn't gonna matter when fighting zergs that lose half their healing.

Look at how quickly balls adapted to plaguebreak, one of the support roles in ball used to be a dedicated purger to spam efficient purge, that set released and everyone dropped the role from comp instantly. Zone/yells spent months yelling at people to stop purging before the knowledge really spread; not because people were bad, but just because they didn't know about the new danger.

.....

Plague now is probably worse for the game because it is the reason ball groups moved away from purging off effects and strain on the server >>>> now ball groups are leaving the effects on them and keeping hots/buffs rolling nonstop.

This is a well-observed point and one that demonstrates the behavioral implications of mechanical changes, which are often no less important for gameplay and performance.

Which, to circle back to sticky HOTs, if you give players a mechanical reason to, say, spam Echoing Vigor because it stacks infinitely with itself, then players will do that. But if you take away that reason, such as limiting sticky HOTs to only a single copy per morph, you simultaneously remove the behavior of groups spamming that skill as well.

So for the folks talking about area checks being a significant strain on performance, that specific change would both reduce the number of healing tick calculations AND reduce the area check spamming behavior of players because multiple people casting it in a raid would no longer be a beneficial use of GCDs and resources.

gariondavey · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I've been saying this for years.

Keep it really simple. Only 1 copy of each heal over time spell per character. They overwrite if another is cast.
Do the same with shielding too (and potentially if you have more than 3 damage shields on you, reduce all shielding by 50 percent, or something like that.
If you wish to reign in ballgroup powercreep (which you should), disable pve sourced support sets in PvP. Rallying cry doesn't work in pve.

These changes would be a massive reduction in power, and would be way less work than what you had initially proposed.

Other things to consider are healing scaling with max stat instead of spell/weapon damage and buffing defile.

Thumbless_Bot · January 13

The process works. This is a good day.

MincMincMinc · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

SHE SAID THE BUZZWORD!!!!

In all seriousness. When you come up with the new proposed solution.
1. How does this prevent stackable sticky hots from being abused?
2. How does this impact the server performance? Just like AoE, if you cant apply AoE caps, how are we going to prevent all of the spammed hots from adding 10x the calculations through the server?
3. How does this only impact abusive parties vs nonabusive parties? (How is this affecting coordinated ballgroups abusing hots while NOT affecting casual and solo parties?) The main problem with your 50% cut was that ALL parties in pvp were going to be affected, and only the smart ones would completely avoid your proposed system.

For example as a solo and smallscale player, my group already had pale order builds lined up where we changed all our group hots into more buffs and other group tools. With pale order we would have been able to bypass your system all together by not accepting any outside heals.

Several ball group players in here also already expressed their workarounds, inevitably leaving the casuals hung out to dry. Which the casual pvp playerbase is already in ruins. It isn't like the old days where the vast majority of the pvp server was casual pugs running keep to keep solo. The pvp server feels like you are either in full 1vX setup, You are in a 12 man robotic ball group, or you are in a semi coordinated guild zerg.

The_Meathead · January 13

I can't say how much I appreciate the fact you guys have Ballgroups and Heal/Shield stacking on your radar and are really trying to do something about how absurd it's become, and how vocal you're being with letting us know the intent, reasoning, and direction.

Even more, I'm impressed and happy to see you listening to PTS feedback again and responding so quickly and definitively.

That said, I hope VERY much that "in a future update" means one that's coming on the PTS in a few weeks, and not one that's coming in a few months+. You have me feeling renewed optimism I didn't expect, and I hope some of the suggestions in this thread soon find their way to eyes who can make appropriate use.

Thumbless_Bot · January 13

The process works. This is a good day.

The_Meathead wrote: »

I can't say how much I appreciate the fact you guys have Ballgroups and Heal/Shield stacking on your radar and are really trying to do something about how absurd it's become, and how vocal you're being with letting us know the intent, reasoning, and direction.

Even more, I'm impressed and happy to see you listening to PTS feedback again and responding so quickly and definitively.

That said, I hope VERY much that "in a future update" means one that's coming on the PTS in a few weeks, and not one that's coming in a few months+. You have me feeling renewed optimism I didn't expect, and I hope some of the suggestions in this thread soon find their way to eyes who can make appropriate use.

100,000,000 percent. Ball groups have sucked literally every ounce of fun out of cyro.

MXVIIDREAM · January 13

My concern here is the extra calculations for the server but let’s see first great to see this getting addressed

React · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Super disappointing to see the team cave to complaining coming primarily from the people that benefit from HOT stacking being so absurdly overpowered, without having a backup solution in mind. I mean there is one offender in particular who has posted 65+ comments in this thread alone...

This issue has gone unaddressed for years now. You have to start somewhere with adjustments. This solution may not have been ideal for a number of reasons, some of which I even agree with - but letting the issue continue to go unaddressed is arguably worse than just testing this out and seeing how things change.

Really hope we get some clear paths forward laid out to target this issue in the very near future. You cannot continue to allow these balance issues to remain if you want the game to make a comeback in 2026.

ShadowProc · January 13

Making it so less auto play and be killable again? This is a great change. Ball groups and small groups are clearly over powered and have been for a long time. You should have to be more active then pressing a button and staying immortal. Nerf snow treaders as well plz.

MXVIIDREAM · January 13

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

It is almost unbelievable to me that a change like this was proposed, and nobody at ZOS stopped to think about the consequences, both for pug healers, and for all the ways this can be abused to deliberately reduce someone’s, or an entire group’s, healing.

From the clarification in this thread, if a player has 3 or more Heal over Time effects active on them, then all healing they receive is reduced by 50%. Even if the intent is “sticky” HoTs only, this is a huge problem if out of group players can affect that count. If a random pug can put a sticky HoT on someone outside their group, and push them into the 3 plus threshold, then this becomes griefing on demand, and Cyrodiil will be ruined for everyone. I am assuming this part will get changed quickly.

Even if you restrict it to sticky HoTs from your own group only, a 50% healing reduction is still way too much. It basically makes those abilities feel useless, and it hits small coordinated groups the same way it hits full 12 player ball groups. A 3 to 4 man squad should not be punished as hard as a 12 man.

Also, even with the restriction, organized groups will adapt. They will stack more shields, keep sticky HoTs at two, and lean harder on AoE HoTs and burst heals. That is still a nerf, but it does not solve the main problem, which in my opinion is shield stacking and overall defensive power creep.

If the goal is to nerf organized cross healing without breaking the game for everyone else, here are two better options.

1. Cap each sticky HoT type per target

Instead of punishing someone for having multiple HoTs, cap how many of each specific sticky HoT a player can have at once. For example, allow only 1 to 2 Echoing Vigors, 1 to 2 Radiating Regenerations, 1 to 2 similar sticky HoTs, etc. If a new one is applied past the cap, it replaces and refreshes the oldest one, or it overrides the existing one of the same type.

This hits the actual issue, which is stacking the same high value sticky HoTs from many different players at the same time. It also avoids nuking small groups for doing normal coordinated play.

It also helps performance. If the goal is to reduce server strain, limiting how many HoT ticks can be active on one target is a direct way to do it.

This assumes one important safeguard, out of group players should not be able to override, replace, or refresh your group’s HoTs. If they can, then any system like this can still be abused.

2. Add a group size scaling heal and shield taken debuff

A more balanced approach is a Battle Spirit modifier that scales with group size, starting at 3 players and scaling up to
12. That is where cross healing starts to matter, and where the power gap starts to get out of hand.

For example, starting at 3 players, apply a 2.5% healing taken and shielding taken reduction (similar to minor/major defile) per extra group member, up to 12. That puts a 12 man group at 25%, while smaller groups take a much smaller hit. A 3 to 4 person group gets a light penalty, a 6 to 8 gets a real penalty, and a 10 to 12 gets hit the hardest, which is the point.

This also hits shield stacking more directly than the current proposal. Right now the PTS change mainly pushes groups to rely even more on shields, because shields become the obvious workaround. If you scale both healing and shielding together, you are targeting the whole defensive package that makes large organized groups so hard to kill.

Yes, this adds a group size check, but the current PTS approach already adds conditional logic when healing happens anyway. If we are doing extra checks, it makes more sense to do them in a way that is fair across group sizes, instead of a flat 50% penalty that treats 3 players like 12.

Finally, I have been a ball group player for a long time, and I am not blind to the fact that ball group power creep, especially in 10 to 12 player groups, has gotten out of hand. A nerf is needed. I just think the current version is overtuned, and if the out of group interaction is not fixed immediately, it is also inherently exploitable.

This if the server could handle it is definitely worth trying. 1 of each skill effecting you should be a thing for sure I feel like the reduces a lot
But group checks has been said for a long long time
The fact the are now really focusing on feed back is brilliant for the games health

Radiate77 · January 13

React wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Super disappointing to see the team cave to complaining coming primarily from the people that benefit from HOT stacking being so absurdly overpowered, without having a backup solution in mind. I mean there is one offender in particular who has posted 65+ comments in this thread alone...

This issue has gone unaddressed for years now. You have to start somewhere with adjustments. This solution may not have been ideal for a number of reasons, some of which I even agree with - but letting the issue continue to go unaddressed is arguably worse than just testing this out and seeing how things change.

Really hope we get some clear paths forward laid out to target this issue in the very near future. You cannot continue to allow these balance issues to remain if you want the game to make a comeback in 2026.

Yeah we should have just rolled through with a universal 50% heal reduction on 90% of solo players, but you’d be fine on your Nightblade, right?

WaywardArgonian · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Thanks.

If other solutions prove too difficult, simply adjusting the healing values of common HoT abilities such as Vigor and Radiating Regeneration would already go a long way towards hitting the layer of healing that HoTs by themselves provide. The ultimate goal should be to reward groups for relying on real-time, direct healing input rather than high uptimes on stacking over-time abilities.

Tommy_The_Gun · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

This screenshot is floating around for like a couple of years, but I do believe this is the source of "a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs"

It only happens in one specific environment - PvP Group environment. This is the only place in the game where it should be adjusted.

MXVIIDREAM · January 13

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

It is almost unbelievable to me that a change like this was proposed, and nobody at ZOS stopped to think about the consequences, both for pug healers, and for all the ways this can be abused to deliberately reduce someone’s, or an entire group’s, healing.

From the clarification in this thread, if a player has 3 or more Heal over Time effects active on them, then all healing they receive is reduced by 50%. Even if the intent is “sticky” HoTs only, this is a huge problem if out of group players can affect that count. If a random pug can put a sticky HoT on someone outside their group, and push them into the 3 plus threshold, then this becomes griefing on demand, and Cyrodiil will be ruined for everyone. I am assuming this part will get changed quickly.

Even if you restrict it to sticky HoTs from your own group only, a 50% healing reduction is still way too much. It basically makes those abilities feel useless, and it hits small coordinated groups the same way it hits full 12 player ball groups. A 3 to 4 man squad should not be punished as hard as a 12 man.

Also, even with the restriction, organized groups will adapt. They will stack more shields, keep sticky HoTs at two, and lean harder on AoE HoTs and burst heals. That is still a nerf, but it does not solve the main problem, which in my opinion is shield stacking and overall defensive power creep.

If the goal is to nerf organized cross healing without breaking the game for everyone else, here are two better options.

1. Cap each sticky HoT type per target

Instead of punishing someone for having multiple HoTs, cap how many of each specific sticky HoT a player can have at once. For example, allow only 1 to 2 Echoing Vigors, 1 to 2 Radiating Regenerations, 1 to 2 similar sticky HoTs, etc. If a new one is applied past the cap, it replaces and refreshes the oldest one, or it overrides the existing one of the same type.

This hits the actual issue, which is stacking the same high value sticky HoTs from many different players at the same time. It also avoids nuking small groups for doing normal coordinated play.

It also helps performance. If the goal is to reduce server strain, limiting how many HoT ticks can be active on one target is a direct way to do it.

This assumes one important safeguard, out of group players should not be able to override, replace, or refresh your group’s HoTs. If they can, then any system like this can still be abused.

2. Add a group size scaling heal and shield taken debuff

A more balanced approach is a Battle Spirit modifier that scales with group size, starting at 3 players and scaling up to
12. That is where cross healing starts to matter, and where the power gap starts to get out of hand.

For example, starting at 3 players, apply a 2.5% healing taken and shielding taken reduction (similar to minor/major defile) per extra group member, up to 12. That puts a 12 man group at 25%, while smaller groups take a much smaller hit. A 3 to 4 person group gets a light penalty, a 6 to 8 gets a real penalty, and a 10 to 12 gets hit the hardest, which is the point.

This also hits shield stacking more directly than the current proposal. Right now the PTS change mainly pushes groups to rely even more on shields, because shields become the obvious workaround. If you scale both healing and shielding together, you are targeting the whole defensive package that makes large organized groups so hard to kill.

Yes, this adds a group size check, but the current PTS approach already adds conditional logic when healing happens anyway. If we are doing extra checks, it makes more sense to do them in a way that is fair across group sizes, instead of a flat 50% penalty that treats 3 players like 12.

Finally, I have been a ball group player for a long time, and I am not blind to the fact that ball group power creep, especially in 10 to 12 player groups, has gotten out of hand. A nerf is needed. I just think the current version is overtuned, and if the out of group interaction is not fixed immediately, it is also inherently exploitable.

This if the server could handle it is definitely worth trying. 1 of each skill effecting you should be a thing for sure I feel like the reduces a lot
But group checks has been said for a long long time
The fact the are now really focusing on feed back is brilliant for the games health

Though I’d like to see something more like 4x reduction per member after 4 members

Danse_Mayhem · January 13

Thankyou @ZOS_GinaBruno for looking at this and taking on the feedback!

I do really hope that this system is still replaced with some healing counter in cyrodil.

Day 1 player here and I remember the possibilities of stacking the old fasallas guile, with major and minor defile and the old CP that buffed them all, for a tail of like 70-80% heal reduction for anyone you focussed on. That was a great way to invest into a dedicated build that countered big healing. Unfortunately all of things were nerfed into the ground, and healing IS out of control. Ball groups, small scale and solo.

My suggestions;

1. Limit the effects of a healing to one type of skill. So if you already have a radiating regen or vigor active, it only gives one. This could either refresh with the newest cast, or replace if the newest cast is higher power, or whatever is easiest to code I guess. This stops people having 8x echoing vigor and 4x radiating regen. This would be a great change to ball groups.

2. Nerf healing soul. Wield soul should take a 10% healing nerf, and have the major vitality script changed to minor vitality. I know this will be an unpopular one, but the reason is because EVERYONE uses this skill. I speak to most pvpers (aside from dedicated healers or those who use restoring light) when I say that we don’t even think of specing into any kind of healing or use a healing subclass. The meta of assassination / storm calling / animal companions / aedric etc that’s killed variety, would actually be mixed up quite a bit if this skill was changed.
Being able to completely ignore the need for a healing subclass, because we can just add the best burst heal (with additional effects such as class mastery) to any build at any time, feels way overtuned. Scribing is a great thing that allows gaps to be filled and creative adjustments. It shouldn’t be a substitute for any and all class options by such a difference in power.
A change here would have a very big, and positive impact on the variety of builds in PvP.

3. Being back defile! Major defile is so weak, and minor defile is laughable. On fairly well tuned PvP build, I can spam 15k crit heals with healing soul - And even if someone is all over me with blighted blastbones for both defiles, I can comfortable just solo out heal everything they do. One of the things many loved about vengeance is that fights were progressive, and weren’t just locked into the meta of ‘burst your target in a 2 second window, or they are healing back to full immediately’
There’s no spammable damage attack that can keep up with a burst heal spam, by a long shot.
My suggestion would be to buff defile values again. It’s probably a long shot to ask for the defile CP again but that would be good too. Finally, the defile sets like fasallas could go back to unique values that can be stacked with major and minor. This involved heavy build investment so wasn’t broken at all, and in the current meta of insane healing, I think it would fit very well.

4. Be sure to include damage shields in whatever changes you make. One of the most effective ball group strategies at the moment is to run a dedicated shielder with chakrams skill. This will just become the new healing stacks of damage shields are ignored.

I think overall, we all want to see healing for ball groups countered, but I think many aren’t seeing the similar issues with smaller scale. Healing is completely out of hand right now and way overtuned. That either needs to be toned down, and / or previous counters to it reintroduced, in order to bring some balance back to PvP

Cheers!

Teeba_Shei · January 13

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

This screenshot is floating around for like a couple of years, but I do believe this is the source of "a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs"

It only happens in one specific environment - PvP Group environment. This is the only place in the game where it should be adjusted.

So limit the total number of sticky hots on a person to 6 or something. Nerfing healing by 50% on a majority of players was never a good solution.

Deimus · January 13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Sad to hear the devs are reverting this. I got excited when I read the change probably the best change I've seen from the dev team to actually make GH and BR Cyrodiil better. Only to see backpedaling on something that has been HIGHLY requested for years and would actually do something compared to another dead on arrival set that just takes up space.

The only thing that would get me to step foot in Cyro again outside of Vengeance is addressing heal and shield stacking with severe penalties like this one or getting rid of stacking shields and HoTs entirely.

MeridiaFavorsMe · January 13

React wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Super disappointing to see the team cave to complaining coming primarily from the people that benefit from HOT stacking being so absurdly overpowered, without having a backup solution in mind. I mean there is one offender in particular who has posted 65+ comments in this thread alone...

This issue has gone unaddressed for years now. You have to start somewhere with adjustments. This solution may not have been ideal for a number of reasons, some of which I even agree with - but letting the issue continue to go unaddressed is arguably worse than just testing this out and seeing how things change.

Really hope we get some clear paths forward laid out to target this issue in the very near future. You cannot continue to allow these balance issues to remain if you want the game to make a comeback in 2026.

Yeah and in one of those comments the person brought to light one of the lies you said about a 4 man group being unkillable, which you never addressed because you knew it was a lie. When people go about discussion in this way, by attempting to lie to push their own narrative, it makes them look as if they don't actually care, they just want to punish ballgroups because they are upset they can't kill them as a solo player.

I am super proud of the team for realizing the issue with doing this and shifting on it quickly. I would like to see a small change and further ones if necessary, but a 50% is worse than no change in my opinion and I don't play in groups at all.

Thumbless_Bot · January 13

React wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

Super disappointing to see the team cave to complaining coming primarily from the people that benefit from HOT stacking being so absurdly overpowered, without having a backup solution in mind. I mean there is one offender in particular who has posted 65+ comments in this thread alone...

This issue has gone unaddressed for years now. You have to start somewhere with adjustments. This solution may not have been ideal for a number of reasons, some of which I even agree with - but letting the issue continue to go unaddressed is arguably worse than just testing this out and seeing how things change.

Really hope we get some clear paths forward laid out to target this issue in the very near future. You cannot continue to allow these balance issues to remain if you want the game to make a comeback in 2026.

Agree with this.

I haven't seen any suggestions better at targeting ball groups than mine.

HOTs from other players reduce healing from other players by 50% when you have 3 HOTs in total, including yours. Any additional HOTs reduce healing by others by an additional x percent up to 90 or so percent reduction from others.

This should apply to shields as well.

You can still heal yourself fully regardless of the number of heals on you.

There should probably be a limit on the number of ground based aoe heals that one can receive over time as well. This is where ball groups will go if needed.

This should make a dent in ball groups

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_Kevin

MincMincMinc · January 13

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to everyone for providing so much feedback in this thread, and especially for those that were able to hop on the PTS this week to try out this change in real time. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear – both from this thread and other sources – and we’d like to let you know we are planning to revert the Heal over Time on Battlespirit in next week’s PTS patch.

For additional context, the initial reasoning behind this change was to help with a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs. Transparently, we simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to fully change healing capabilities without significantly affecting future class reworks, which is why we landed with this option, but it clearly missed the mark.

We’ll explore other options to address concerns around healing and damage shields in PvP to be released in a future update, and we’ll share some ideas prior to it hitting the PTS so you can be more involved in the process. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here, and again, you can expect the revert to occur in next week’s PTS patch.

This screenshot is floating around for like a couple of years, but I do believe this is the source of "a common complaint we’ve seen over the years that healing feels too strong, most notably with stacked HoTs"

It only happens in one specific environment - PvP Group environment. This is the only place in the game where it should be adjusted.

So limit the total number of sticky hots on a person to 6 or something. Nerfing healing by 50% on a majority of players was never a good solution.

Randomly cutting someones heals by 50% in combat is terrible, we should have learned this back with the old CP system when people would pump the befoul cp and during combat you would bounce between randomly having and not having heals. No healing skills felt consistent on yourself.

Other than hard rules zos can also just limit healing skills to only affect 4 allies. Or replace aoe hots with more aimed single target hots. Maybe if healing in eso was less "smart" and automatic, more people would play healer. Why is breath of life a conal heal? It should just be an aimed single target heal. There are countless skills that are very over complicated code wise to achieve bypassing a simple player element like aiming.......if I can aim a dizzy swing in a moshpit of enemies, you can probably aim a heal.

React · January 13

MeridiaFavorsMe wrote: »

Yeah and in one of those comments the person brought to light one of the lies you said about a 4 man group being unkillable, which you never addressed because you knew it was a lie. When people go about discussion in this way, by attempting to lie to push their own narrative, it makes them look as if they don't actually care, they just want to punish ballgroups because they are upset they can't kill them as a solo player.

I am super proud of the team for realizing the issue with doing this and shifting on it quickly. I would like to see a small change and further ones if necessary, but a 50% is worse than no change in my opinion and I don't play in groups at all.

He just made a strawman argument essentially suggesting that I want to be able to 1vX comped groups, which isn't even worth replying to because of how laughably bait it is. Just like you're doing here.

Anyone who has played the game recently and is willing to be honest with themselves knows exactly how strong cross healing/shielding/buff sets have become, even in a 4-6 man setting. When this guy has posted 65+ times in this thread completely denying that the mechanics are over performing, while claiming to be arguing in good faith, it's pretty clear that he is one of the people benefiting the most from the current exploitative nature of these mechanics. Not worth arguing with someone like that.

Artisian0001 · January 13

React wrote: »

MeridiaFavorsMe wrote: »

Yeah and in one of those comments the person brought to light one of the lies you said about a 4 man group being unkillable, which you never addressed because you knew it was a lie. When people go about discussion in this way, by attempting to lie to push their own narrative, it makes them look as if they don't actually care, they just want to punish ballgroups because they are upset they can't kill them as a solo player.

I am super proud of the team for realizing the issue with doing this and shifting on it quickly. I would like to see a small change and further ones if necessary, but a 50% is worse than no change in my opinion and I don't play in groups at all.

He just made a strawman argument essentially suggesting that I want to be able to 1vX comped groups, which isn't even worth replying to because of how laughably bait it is. Just like you're doing here.

Anyone who has played the game recently and is willing to be honest with themselves knows exactly how strong cross healing/shielding/buff sets have become, even in a 4-6 man setting. When this guy has posted 65+ times in this thread completely denying that the mechanics are over performing, while claiming to be arguing in good faith, it's pretty clear that he is one of the people benefiting the most from the current exploitative nature of these mechanics. Not worth arguing with someone like that.

There was no strawman, and you still haven't addressed your claim of 4-6 person groups being unkillable. Maybe you just don't know what a strawman is? I didn't do anything to distort your own position on groups, I said most people have some issue with larger groups just being able to consistently kill groups smaller than them. This isn't a strawman, if you choose to include yourself in the majority that gets upset about this then that's on you, but even if you did there was still no gap in logic. Should an equally skilled 4 man group be able to beat a 12 man group all other things equal? That wouldn't may any sense.

Try understanding what a strawman is and not get frustrated with someone disagreeing with your point and at the same time pointing out the lies you try to tell to back it. Calling mechanics exploitative while you would obviously benefit from the changes you are petitioning for while saying I am protecting these is ironic.

xFocused · January 13

React wrote: »

MeridiaFavorsMe wrote: »

Yeah and in one of those comments the person brought to light one of the lies you said about a 4 man group being unkillable, which you never addressed because you knew it was a lie. When people go about discussion in this way, by attempting to lie to push their own narrative, it makes them look as if they don't actually care, they just want to punish ballgroups because they are upset they can't kill them as a solo player.

I am super proud of the team for realizing the issue with doing this and shifting on it quickly. I would like to see a small change and further ones if necessary, but a 50% is worse than no change in my opinion and I don't play in groups at all.

He just made a strawman argument essentially suggesting that I want to be able to 1vX comped groups, which isn't even worth replying to because of how laughably bait it is. Just like you're doing here.

Anyone who has played the game recently and is willing to be honest with themselves knows exactly how strong cross healing/shielding/buff sets have become, even in a 4-6 man setting. When this guy has posted 65+ times in this thread completely denying that the mechanics are over performing, while claiming to be arguing in good faith, it's pretty clear that he is one of the people benefiting the most from the current exploitative nature of these mechanics. Not worth arguing with someone like that.

Literally all of this. The only people I’ve seen upset with this healing change are the ball group players. I primarily play solo and I welcome this change. Just like React said above, 12 man groups and even the 4-6 man groups should not have such strong shields and heals. When a 4 man group can hold a enemy keep hostage with 3 bars trying to kill them and can’t, there’s a serious problem