Curse

Chthon · Oct 24, 2010, 07:03 PM // 19:03

1. Agreed that the only situation where you should really be looking at HB or UA is when the heavy mitigation is being covered by someone else (probably ER or ST) and the job that remains is cleaning up the damage that gets past the mitigation.

2. To put some details on a point I raised awhile ago, look at the numbers on this resto build. Compare the long-term heal/sec to whatever HB/UA build you fancy. Compare the short-term total heal over the 5 sec that HP+GoLE+HP takes (per Ensign's post above). Also compare to the short term heal over the 2.75 sec it takes for HD+DH (which seems like it heals for more faster at some specs). Compare the modified recharge on Life to the recharge on HD, DH, and GoLE. The sum of those comparisons, it seems to me, is that the resto build is only marginally less responsive to large spikes (which shouldn't be happening under our assumption about mitigation) while being some +50% better at combating pressure.

I suppose that makes a roundabout argument in favor of UA over HB. UA has the super-rez while the resto build doesn't. HB seems to offer very little over the resto build.

3. In terms of finding a home for Gift of Health (where this thread started), I think perhaps the best bet might be in an AP monk build. My standard AP bar looks like: AP, DKiss, Patient, SoL, PS, Aegis, most apt removal, Selfless Spirit. One could make a reasonable case for changing DKiss+Patient for RoF+Gift and shuffling the attributes around.

Ensign · Oct 25, 2010, 09:21 PM // 21:21

UA / DH & HD positioned correctly gives decent party healing. My lament isn't so much that you can't build party healing guy, but that he's just terrible at everything else; it can't just be a job done by an otherwise decent character. It's a point of failure that needs to be supported and carried.

So yeah, you can only really talk about that guy in the context of the strong defenses already being in place; he brings to mind the Heal Party / Healing Breeze 3rd Monk I ran for several weeks when the game was new. It doesn't need to be strong, he needs to plug a hole. So the whole bar is in the context of the team really and can't be put in a vacuum; it just isn't a character you can build around.

Xenomortis · Oct 25, 2010, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Would the game be better off with good party-wide healing on a bar that could take other forms of support? Given how potentially mindless and powerful party-wide healing could be...

Or would you say it should be taken as a spot thing? That's largely what we have now; do you just want bigger numbers without it having to take most of your bar?

Chthon · Oct 26, 2010, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Would the game be better off with good party-wide healing on a bar that could take other forms of support? Given how potentially mindless and powerful party-wide healing could be...

It's a fine line to walk. Remember how broken LoD was? Everything was all-LoD all the time because of it. Not good. However, I do remember a time before Heal PArty got nerfed that you could almost splash it in a hybrid HB bar and make it work.

Ensign · Oct 26, 2010, 02:26 AM // 02:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Would the game be better off with good party-wide healing on a bar that could take other forms of support? Given how potentially mindless and powerful party-wide healing could be...

Well the problem I see is that you have a whole bunch of 'not enough' options or things that have been nerfed hard, and then a bunch of options that overkill the problem (Healer's Boon, UA, Life Rit) but cost you a character that is otherwise a pile. You'd really rather have a situation where you could get just enough from taking a couple skills spread over a couple guys and mitigating enough that it's sufficient.

LoD was too good, for sure, but nerfing it out of the game was one of the worst things they ever did; it left a huge void that created a lot of restrictions, both build wise and tactically.

I had high hopes for DH/HD personally, but they just suck too much without UA; then Kaolai got nerfed at some point. I thought double Kaolai combos, or Prodigy/Party guys, or even LoD were a whole lot healthier than the current set of twists you have to go through. But this is just yet another flavor of macro not being a scale replica of micro argument.

As for DH/HD: either the recharge needs to come down a bit (to make it semi-spammable, which would make it good during downtime), or the heal needs to go up so that you can use it during a crunch.

Time is a really big issue with party heals. If it's reasonably fast but heals for a lot, it's ok if it's expensive because you can use it when it is most effective; you make up the efficiency lost with optimal use. On the other hand, if it doesn't heal for a lot, then it's something you *can't* use when it's most optimal because it doesn't do enough to command the time. Thus the efficiency naturally drops as it goes into more of a heal per time role.

Either model is perfectly ok (ideally both would be viable) but the current crop of party heals fails on both counts without a dedicated character.

Jeydra · Oct 26, 2010, 10:49 AM // 10:49

You could try Glyph of Renewal + Breath of the Great Dwarf, or one of the (admittedly not very reliable) methods of boosting cooldown - the Wisdom Ward and Air of Superiority or maybe Assassin's Promise, or you have an ER Ele partner ask him to put LA on everyone in the party, or perhaps UA + Divine Healing + Heaven's Delight + Smiter's Boon + smiting skills (I like this on a hero actually - the hero doubles as a hard res and a bit of damage, while providing fairly solid bar push and removal).

Xenomortis · Oct 26, 2010, 01:42 PM // 13:42

I've considered AoS on my monk for the UA+HD+DH bar (and it's been suggested to me before). The main reason I haven't tried it is because I've only just recently (last night) obtained the skill for my monk.
AoS is fairly unreliable for the recharge though - it'd only be good in areas where you're killing a lot (e.g. DoA). I'm pretty sure the skill can't replace energy management like GoLE, so you're forced to burn another slot (likely your only removal skill).

GoR on BotGD seems worse though - you've still lost your elite and only really get something comparable to DH+HD.

Lanier · Oct 26, 2010, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

GoR on BotGD seems worse though - you've still lost your elite and only really get something comparable to DH+HD.

Well technically, you're losing your elite to boost DH/HD's effectiveness as well in a UA build. Still, GoR with BoTGD seems like a waste in my opinion. When it comes to party healing on a monk, Ill either use LoD, HB with GoLe on an HB build or I won't bother. While HD/HD are kind of nice with their low energy cost and semi-low recharge, but they are really only useful on UA bars due to their low healing per recharge rate, and UA is already a waste to bring imo when HB, WoH, and ZB are available for big heals.

Jeydra · Oct 27, 2010, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Well Glyph of Renewal is generally used with Divine Spirit, so it would double as energy management. BotGD also casts in 1/4s, which makes it possible for you to rectify "oh ****" situations faster than HB + Heal Party. Still I haven't played Monk in PvE, so I don't know how effective it would be; just putting the idea out there.

Ensign · Oct 27, 2010, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Breath of the Great Dwarf is at least fast enough to kinda be used as an emergency heal, but it isn't much bar push and 10 energy. Combined with another party heal you'd have a respectable emergency response.

Once you're commiting your elite and several skill slots to party heals, you're more or less all-in and might as well just run UA. It's more flexible and heals for more overall. I'd still only use it (or any other party heal character) if I already had a heavy lifter though.

Without committing an entire character you're pretty much stuck with LoD, which honestly isn't that bad. It's just kinda blah, good but unamazing bar push that blocks off good targeted heals and locks you into questionable attributes.