Curse

JR · Mar 08, 2007, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

IMO Mend Aliment could use a 2 second recharge. It's not like that would still be overpowered now that Boon is gone.

Except it would then out-class both Dismiss and Mend Condition?

Thomas.knbk · Mar 08, 2007, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Except it would then out-class both Dismiss and Mend Condition?

Mend condition has an unconditional heal, Mend Ailment needs 2 or more conditions to trigger the healing part.
Dismiss....yeah, pretty much. I could say something about the healing part being almost unconditional with Aegis Chains etc. being so popular, but actually you're right about that.
I do feel it could use a buff though

Falconer · Mar 09, 2007, 12:52 AM // 00:52

Mend Ailment: Mend ailment is perfect as is... mend ailment has a unique mechanic in that the MORE condition heavy the metagame is, the more it rewards you for using it.

Part of the problem w/ mend ailment was you'd see conditions where a monk would intentionally stand in lava w/ constant burning simply because the condition stack was so large that mend ailment by itself was a huge heal, and the constant -7 degen from burning was a non-issue. And it was more effective to simply stand in the lava. The skill was often good for a 200 point heal sans divine boon as contended before.

Also the other reason has to do w/ the game as a whole. No matter how many direct damage conditions I stack... the magic number is -10. -10 is 20 damage per second... the best you can do is spread that across an entire team. If that's the case, that's just meat for heal party... you end up w/ a situation where bulk other (not self) removers remove the crippling defensive but non-degenerative stuff like blind or cripple from melee, and heal party/light of deliverance simply overpowers the degen.

Heal party spam works out to about 7 pips of health regeneration to everyone on your team w/ a reasonable spec. Light of deliverance a bit less w/ it's recharge, but it can still easily counter the degen caused by say spread disease. Also, self heals like troll/healing signet/etc... are at their strongest when used to simply offset spread light pressure like this and relieve pressure from the monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Thom correctly points out that Mending Touch is stronger than other self-removals, but I could just as easily point out that Crippling Shot and Melandru's Arrows have been eclipsed by their stronger Nightfall equivilants. Arenanet introduced a lot of power creep in Nightfall, and it hit both sides. It's difficult to predict the effect a Mending Touch nerf would have on the meta, but skirmish templates that are already good would immediately get a lot better.

Incidentally, anyone who's saying the heal on MT is irrelevant hasn't played it enough on a warrior. When I play MT warrior I usually drop my strength to as low as 3 or 4 so I can beef up my prot prayers and tactics. With that spec, MT can easily give you a 70-80 point heal when removing two conditions, which is quite powerful in skirmish play.

This is an interesting point which I largely agree with, but not for the reasons you give. I think the reason conditions are a bit more prevalent has more to do w/ the nature of the dervish and the paragon. The paragon can spread conditions like a ranger at range, or he can shout out buffs to his teammates who can spread them for him or enhance their natural ability to inflict them faster. Dervish have an innate AOE which is custom made for spreading conditions and many of their skills are keyed around spreading conditions, then reaping the small bonuses for doing so.

But most of those reasons given above are more prevalent at the central locus of battle, and less in the skirmish. And they proceed to make a skill like draw conditions, or mend ailment top notch in that situation as opposed to packing a skill like mending touch on the self. Let alone, martyr or it's relatives.

Again the game can easily punish you for going too condition heavy if you're not carefull.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Edit:
The problem with this nerf is that the skill will still cost an effective 5 energy (less if you're a ranger.) The other cost can only be applied if you already have that energy in your pool.

To illustrate - I use MT when I'm at 15 energy and I'm reduced to 5 (net loss 10.) I use MT when I'm at 5 energy and I get the full effect, but I'm only reduced to 0 (net loss 5.) That nerf just makes me want to keep my energy pool at a low point so I can be ultra-efficent with the skill, then swap into a higher set when I need to spam other stuff. It would reduce the skill's effectiveness a little and add more weapon micromanagement, but I don't think it's the change people are looking for.

This is an item which I hadn't considered. And it's quite a valid point. But I still don't think it's too problematic. I'm still considering the ramifications of this... it's an interesting problem. EG: a blinded/crippled warrior... zealous is worthless to him (being one way to bring a warrior up to 3-4 pips of energy regen easily), but overspamming it means he'll need 7-8s to remove the blind starting from 0 energy... in that much time the blind can be reapplied. The energy has limited the recharge whether he likes it or not. Warrior's have traditionally been the biggest offenders of abusing tight energy situations so they should be a good test case.

Generally a character running on regen is someone who's not in a great position to begin with... I don't see someone intentinoally trying to keep themselves in that condition so that mend condition works as strongly as possible.

But back to that concept. The problem w/ most of the comparisons is that I believe they compare the skill to the wrong skills. The skill is most akin to purge signet, purge conditions, and the pre-nerf CoP. Among the singletons, the closest competition is Remedy signet, and if I had both paragon and monk, there's really no contest, I take mending touch. And agian, the singletons cannot deal w/ a buried condition... but this one can.

Why is this so, what is mending touch's single biggest feature over other self-condition removals (especially for skirmishers). So to me the skills biggest feature is it's ability to nail a buried condition in one go, instead of needing 3-4s to wait for it to be covered up again. Get into the fact that you can also use it on nearby allies like the guild thief is just gravy on top of that. So I think that the cost of using the skill should be better tied to it's ability to 'dig deep'.

So using the example of mend ailment... lets say the skill had a 5s recharge per condition removed. Mend ailment will have 3s worth of activation time and aftercast... this one would have 1.5. Both skills would have rough the same raw ability to remove conditions (1 per 5s). But as a touch skill it would have the mend condition benefit of an assured heal for each one while still being self and other targettable.

Both of those skills have some pretty high costs... purge signet has a 2s cast time, and also has a -10 energy per condition removed (also gets hexes...). 20s recharge. Purge conditions is closer in function, but again you're looking at a 20s recharge. So this is a reason I have a hard reason seeing this skill getting away w/ it's measly 4s right now.

Other random thoughts: Still trying to think of other ways to deal w/ it. Maybe instead of making it work like mend condition. Make it like mend ailment (since it's self targetable). EG: it heals for every condition left on the target. I don't think this addresses it well, as there's little reason to spec in it then, so all those who bring it unspecced are still roaring along.

Here's an oddball question to ponder? What is the drawback of using mending touch in most builds which use it? (I can't think of any, it's targettable, it's works great w/ no spec, it works even better w/ a spec, it gets buried conditions, it's cheap, it's spammable... only the oppurtunity cost of fitting it on the bar).

Riotgear · Mar 09, 2007, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Mend Ailment: Mend ailment is perfect as is... mend ailment has a unique mechanic in that the MORE condition heavy the metagame is, the more it rewards you for using it.

In a condition-heavy meta, you just take RC, and then it'll both heal for more than MA and it'll burn the condition stack too.

Mend Condition has less than half the recharge, and only heals for less if the target is suffering from THREE or more conditions. The only advantage MA has is being able to self-cast it, and there are better options for that as well.

Patrick Smit · Mar 09, 2007, 05:20 AM // 05:20

I'm not sure on that Thomas, a draw character could be healed very easily. It would maybe even be better then RC as only one condition is removed and the stack remaining will contribute to the next mend ailment.

TheLordOfBlah · Mar 21, 2007, 02:03 AM // 02:03

/sign on nerf. Basically are never bothered with conditions... balanced? I dont think so.