Curse

Aria · Mar 27, 2005, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneDust

Please accept my most sincere apology. I shouldn't have put my text in italics, because at one point a few months ago that was really my thought: Skills should be dependent solely on their respective attributes. For example, you do not need a bow for apply poison or traps. Why ignite arrow? The question then became "why is this skill in wilderness survival?" I do not appreciate being forced into considering attribute B while looking at attribute A. I am sure you feel the same when looking at healing touch. It is not useless for any secondary classes who have no access to divine favor. These skills do not promote diversity! At the end, it just seemed like another shortcut out of the skill balancing mess.

Whether or not it promotes diversity can be argued both ways. I tend to agree with Ensign on the fact that healing touch was a very rarely used skill. With healing, time is often too important to neglect, and well, those extra two seconds of running to your target often means that the target will die. Why? As a wa/mo, I would tend to think that your first priority is attacking, not healing. To me, it would take a pretty big spur for me to turn away from my primary objective (attacking) to try something that a healer can do much better (healing). And, in situations that would constitute such a "big spur," the target is probably under focused, heavy attack -- probably with at least half health gone. To have to spend those two seconds running, before actually "touching" the teammate would probably mean that the teammate is dead before I get there.

And.. situations where you're -right- next to the person needing that touch are highly conditional. Unless you're a build made specially to protect the monk, I don't see it happening all that much, as the first targets are usually casters, and like Ensign said, casters stay in the back. I don't mean to beat the horse anymore, Cleocatra, but my point (in response to LoneDust) is that I highly doubt that Healing Touch was a common skill.. at all. It might have been useful in terms of resurrect.. but that takes a skill slot that another far more useful skill could've occupied, as again, use of Healing Touch after a resurrect also presents a highly conditional situation.

This said, by making it more accessible and attractive to primary monks, you can very well argue that the diversity of skill choices increases. Again, why? In its old form, Healing Touch was pretty much obsolete when people picked skills -- whether you're a primary or a secondary monk. Now, people actually consider it. Whether or not it's a monk primary doesn't matter in this case, as now the skill actually seems to have a much greater use, and can actually hope to compete with some of the other healing spells out there. Sure, it lowers the diversity of options for non-monk primaries.. but how many non-monk primaries actually used that skill?

With this skill buff, unless someone has a counter to this argument, I do think that the total diversity of option increases based on the number of people who can actually benefit by using this skill. A monk now can opt to use Healing Touch instead of a generic healing spell as a self-heal, without feeling like a total failure for picking it, and well, that -does- raise skill diversity.

Nudge · Mar 27, 2005, 02:47 AM // 02:47

There are enough skills that support diversity. Now there have to be ones to distinguish the spell line between "your" Me/Mo and "my" Mo/Me. You shouldn't be able to heal as well as I do if we both have 10 points in healing prayers. I should get the bonus for being a monk and having divine favor. You get to cast all my healing spells, and faster, so lay off you lousy Me/Mo! This spell is for me!

mostro · Mar 27, 2005, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Anet probably should have moved Healing Touch from the healing prayer line to the divine favor line with the change. People who wants to use this skill need to invest in divine favor anyway. For primary monks, the change to the skill is welcomed because we don't have a big heal spell for ourselves; most of the better healing spells can only be used on target other ally.

Cleocatra · Mar 27, 2005, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneDust

Please accept my most sincere apology. I shouldn't have put my text in italics, because at one point a few months ago that was really my thought: Skills should be dependent solely on their respective attributes. For example, you do not need a bow for apply poison or traps. Why ignite arrow? The question then became "why is this skill in wilderness survival?" I do not appreciate being forced into considering attribute B while looking at attribute A. I am sure you feel the same when looking at healing touch. It is not useless for any secondary classes who have no access to divine favor. These skills do not promote diversity! At the end, it just seemed like another shortcut out of the skill balancing mess.

Besides, I still think I should be able to use ignite arrow with hundred blade.

Whoops! Sorry about going off on you like that; I thought your first post was sarcastic.

Aria: You would be surprised. I personally found Healing Touch in its original form to be highly useful for my build, and I think most people probably looked at the skill the way you just did and never actually tried it out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aria

This said, by making it more accessible and attractive to primary monks, you can very well argue that the diversity of skill choices increases. Again, why? In its old form, Healing Touch was pretty much obsolete when people picked skills -- whether you're a primary or a secondary monk. Now, people actually consider it. Whether or not it's a monk primary doesn't matter in this case, as now the skill actually seems to have a much greater use, and can actually hope to compete with some of the other healing spells out there. Sure, it lowers the diversity of options for non-monk primaries.. but how many non-monk primaries actually used that skill?

I'm trying not to get into the whole attribute line thing again, but I have to say that the actual healing per cast of Healing Touch was not really changed at all. The main reason people are considering it now is not because of its link to Divine Favor, but because it is now castable on self. Had they simply taken Healing Touch in its original form and made it castable on self I believe people would be taking it just as much as they are now. I have no dispute with the new self-casting ability.

As for the rest of this conversation, thanks for your input, but I think I'm done now.

No one else seems to think this is unusual for a skill in a secondary line to be based on a class primary.