Curse

diabiosx · Oct 06, 2010, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Should Healer's Boon be changed to
"healing prayers spell that target an ally"
So Heal party doesnt get the benefit?

FoxBat · Oct 06, 2010, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by diabiosx

Should Healer's Boon be changed to
"healing prayers spell that target an ally"
So Heal party doesnt get the benefit?

This would completely kill the skill in all (non-codex) formats. If that's your goal you might as well just 'boon it.

mathiastemplar · Oct 06, 2010, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Why the hell would you want that?...

Explain why it should be nerfed that hard... please.

Reverend Dr · Oct 06, 2010, 05:18 PM // 17:18

They should kill that skill completely.

Maver1ck87 · Oct 06, 2010, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Tbh, this isnt a bad suggestion, HB flaggers are OPed in GvG and this would be a fix. However as mentioned before it would kill it in HA and PvE as well. When nerfing HB flaggers ideally one should attempt to preserve the function of HB in other areas of the game!

Master Fuhon · Oct 06, 2010, 07:03 PM // 19:03

Healer's Boon is one of the better designed monk skills in the game. The most powerful direct healing monk skills should be nerfed [Patient Spirit 25..85..100, Heal Party 15..51..60, Word of Healing 16..67..76, +15..83..94 conditional] while creating a Core healing buff required to get the full functionality out of healing prayers spells. [Mending: 5e, 1/4 cast, 10 recharge, Healing Prayers spells heal for +5..29..35% health, make Watchful Spirit 3 pips to replace Mending].

Looking at all the things this does:
-If you just kill Healer's Boon, an E/Mo can run a specced GoLE and Ether Prism, and all monks would be forced to go Word of Healing.
-Word of Healing monk can trade one skill slot for improved bar pushing with PS, WoH, Infuse, Cure Hex.
-This is a buff to Healing Light, Glimmer of Light, Healing Burst, and Light of Deliverance. (I'm probably most worried about Glimmer after this, because LoD does not have the recharge to make it as effective as any form of double heal party, and the Glimmer bar compresses PS and WoH).
-Horrible skills are automatically improved due to the existence of a new synergy.
-It's a loss of a skill slot likely not abusable by a dps class, and it doesn't make smiters more viable. Skill design similar to this is less abused by a dps class running it as secondary, because it does nothing on it's own.
-Healing skills will have a reason for being as poweful as they are in relation to damage dealing skills, because in fact, a healer has to waste a slot to be a full healer. This is good, because it removes the skill balancing assumption that assassins need buffs (dealing with double stance monks) or hexes need buffs (dealing with double removal monks). This is a nerf to most of the double counter bars.
-Using a double strip bar on Healer's Boon generates pressure, without the need to create stupidly overpowered party wide damaging or energy denial skills that harm every class but barely put a dent into a monk.

As a side note, I'm not sure the Ritualist can keep up with Blood pressure builds anymore, given that there are two spirit killers (Gaze of Fury, Signet of Binding) available when teams know they are facing a spirit Rit. I'd also be worried that spikes (MoI, Mind Shock, Rodgorts, Surge-Wrack) might require better bar pushing than what the rit offers since weapon spells are anti-pressure oriented. At the very least, a buff to Aegis (25 sec) might be good, because I don't expect Reverse Hex to get taken over veil on a prot with hexway around.

*lemming* · Oct 06, 2010, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

Healer's Boon is one of the better designed monk skills in the game. The most powerful direct healing monk skills should be nerfed [Patient Spirit 25..85..100, Heal Party 15..51..60, Word of Healing 16..67..76, +15..83..94 conditional] while creating a Core healing buff required to get the full functionality out of healing prayers spells. [Mending: 5e, 1/4 cast, 10 recharge, Healing Prayers spells heal for +5..29..35% health, make Watchful Spirit 3 pips to replace Mending].

Looking at all the things this does:
-If you just kill Healer's Boon, an E/Mo can run a specced GoLE and Ether Prism, and all monks would be forced to go Word of Healing.
-Word of Healing monk can trade one skill slot for improved bar pushing with PS, WoH, Infuse, Cure Hex.
-This is a buff to Healing Light, Glimmer of Light, Healing Burst, and Light of Deliverance. (I'm probably most worried about Glimmer after this, because LoD does not have the recharge to make it as effective as any form of double heal party, and the Glimmer bar compresses PS and WoH).
-Horrible skills are automatically improved due to the existence of a new synergy.
-It's a loss of a skill slot likely not abusable by a dps class, and it doesn't make smiters more viable. Skill design similar to this is less abused by a dps class running it as secondary, because it does nothing on it's own.
-Healing skills will have a reason for being as poweful as they are in relation to damage dealing skills, because in fact, a healer has to waste a slot to be a full healer. This is good, because it removes the skill balancing assumption that assassins need buffs (dealing with double stance monks) or hexes need buffs (dealing with double removal monks). This is a nerf to most of the double counter bars.
-Using a double strip bar on Healer's Boon generates pressure, without the need to create stupidly overpowered party wide damaging or energy denial skills that harm every class but barely put a dent into a monk.

As a side note, I'm not sure the Ritualist can keep up with Blood pressure builds anymore, given that there are two spirit killers (Gaze of Fury, Signet of Binding) available when teams know they are facing a spirit Rit. I'd also be worried that spikes (MoI, Mind Shock, Rodgorts, Surge-Wrack) might require better bar pushing than what the rit offers since weapon spells are anti-pressure oriented. At the very least, a buff to Aegis (25 sec) might be good, because I don't expect Reverse Hex to get taken over veil on a prot with hexway around.

None of that has anything to do with HB runners.

Master Fuhon · Oct 06, 2010, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

None of that has anything to do with HB runners.

The Healer's Boon bar encompasses what is entirely necessary to play Heroes Ascent and any split/skirmish pvp arena (healing overextenders). You can't kill it at this point because the mistake has already been made about balancing around too high healing power and mass removals (i.e. caster damage that ignores prots and condition stacks). It's grandfathered in with the last few rounds of buffs, because things weren't tweaked proactively enough.

I will say one thing that the HB bar does best. Burst party healing outside of disruption range is the most effective form of party healing. You can let pressure build and build, you can screw around twirling the flag while dancing, and then you can be completely reactive by chaining several heal parties in a row and be completely safe as you do it. The flagger survives by bleeding off single NPCs, as long as he does not give up himself or the pit, so that is the extent of single target healing required. I said I think it's doable as a Prism with the same bar, but no longer as a Ritualist outside of about 3 flaggers left in the entire game. My personal bias is that a shadow stepping Assassin splitting with ranged support is what makes the two most effective builds in the GvG meta (triple melee and triple elementalist).

The extended range on party support skills is entirely necessary for healing frontliners. Add to that, it used to be viable to fall back when pressure became overwhelming to stay in range of party support. A team that falls back in the modern game against a good opponent is guaranteed to never retake the stand area due to Water Eles and double knockdown melee.

But when it comes to the GvG flagger, it isn't Healer's Boon doing everything anyway. Mending Touch and Cure Hex make dedicated damage split better than any casual flag pushing strategy, because the monk can break casual crowd controlling, and Patient Spirit counters the fact that interrupters have lower damage. And then there's guardian, anti-physical that stacks with anti caster. Three characters full of Primary monk skills has always been bad for the game no matter what elites they take.

Errant Venture · Oct 06, 2010, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by diabiosx

Should Healer's Boon be changed to
"healing prayers spell that target an ally"
So Heal party doesnt get the benefit?

Change HB but drop heal party to 10e/1s cast.

diabiosx · Oct 06, 2010, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Errant Venture

Change HB but drop heal party to 10e/1s cast.

I say make less than 80%HP requirement 15e/1s cast

gremlin · Oct 06, 2010, 10:49 PM // 22:49

I express my usual comment.

Every time a skill is altered in any way for any reason it causes a ripple and leads to more skill rebalances which in turn lead to even more and it never ends.
Alter the local environment of the pvp games to achieve the skill alterations you need.
Or have a whole pile of pvp only skills and balance them to your hearts content.

Its just not a successful strategy to alter a skill game wide every time a player finds a weakness and exploits it.
There are a never ending supply of player created exploits you will never ever plug all the gaps.

To be honest many of the problems with skills have been caused by skill creation and balancing which appear to have been done by an extremely nieve person who seems to have little grasp of how devious and exploitative the average game player is.

Errant Venture · Oct 07, 2010, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by diabiosx

I say make less than 80%HP requirement 15e/1s cast

With or without changing HB? If you don't change HB then that's fine. If you do then it makes HP too weak compared to rit lord flaggers (life + rejuv) and is too strong a nerf to tombs monks.

Sankt Hallvard · Oct 07, 2010, 03:46 AM // 03:46

Make the heal benefit scale with range. (ie. party, spirit, earshot, nearby) The current amount could for instance work in 'earshot'. Meaning the HP spam from base will be less effective, if you want max heals you need to push into earshot and risk interrupts etc.

At the same time pve and HA are mostly unaffected. It could even be considered a buff if the heal for area, nearby or adjacent is also increased, potentially rewarding brave play.

Sirius Bsns · Oct 07, 2010, 06:23 AM // 06:23

How about making Heal Party's range limited to allies within earshot? Or within the area? Why nerf HB to the point of uselessness? Nobody would use it then, I assure you. This'd probably just encourage a more over-defensive meta, where you'd have to break through even more webs of defense just to get anywhere.

Krill · Oct 07, 2010, 06:40 AM // 06:40

Why not take a look at GoLE and / or storm djinn's first? GoLE should have been nerfed for secondaries ages ago and I think most people would agree that storm djinn's is way too good as a low spec, maintainable IMS.

And if HB runners are nerfed you'll have to take a look at the spirit poopers too.

Reverend Dr · Oct 07, 2010, 06:54 AM // 06:54

HB is one of the worst designed skills in the game.

Monking is about mitigating damage (dealing with incoming damage, either through prot or red bar). Prot generally mitigates more, as well it should as it has to be applied before damage takes place. Red barring, though some red bar is always necessary, in most cases can be simplified to watch party menu, point, and click.

HB increases the efficiency of all healing prayers skills. Just like deadly paradox and the assassin caster trees, healing prayers skills are either underpowered without HB or overpowered with HB. Lets remove actually watching the field because this new skill increases the potency of all of the red bar skills. It is a terrible skill for the game.

Cantos · Oct 07, 2010, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

Healer's Boon is one of the better designed monk skills in the game.

No it isn't. Healing Prayers is monotonously cretinous, and Healer's Boon is a fire and forget "it makes it gooder" buff. Almost all the well designed Monk skills are in Protection Prayers, because they're about predicting where damage is about to fall, and test your yomi and battlefield awareness. Hope this helps.

Jeydra · Oct 07, 2010, 10:48 AM // 10:48

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/vi...=20271&start=0

I once played Monk flagger with Demigod playing Warrior on the other team ... wasn't fun.

Killed u man · Oct 08, 2010, 01:42 PM // 13:42

As Reverend said before:

HB is a bad mechanic.

For the people too stupid (pardon my language) to understand that any skill altering casting speed and/or recharge completely breaks the game, you should think "Deadly Paradox", "Mantra of Recovery" and some other broken skills from the past.

Skills are given a certain cast time, and recharge, aswell as effect, for a reason, that reason being that they -should- stand in proportion to eachother.

The second you start fcking around with one of those parameters, the game goes apeshit, and there's nothing more to be said really. Look at Shadowform in PvE, look at all the past PvP metas which abused some form of CT/R altering skill. (Castersin, Shadow form, Deadly Haste ice spear spam, FC mesmer abuse, 40/40 sets)

As a matter of fact, I think JR or Ensign argued a long, long time ago (when animals could still speak) 40/40 sets are one of the worst things in GW. Despite promiting weaponswapping, they bring a terrible random factor into the game. That being that overpowered skills (think domination, many necro spells) balanced by their cast time (often 2+) sometimes become uninterruptable, and thus completely breaking the game.

That's for the first effect of HB, which is make HP, rather than a interrupt fodder, a spell that does require a certain amount of attention by the interrupter to interrupt, because the difference between 2s, and 1s is monumental in GvG.

The fact that healers for +50% throws it off the sharts. The intire healing line is balanced around the damage-healing ration. That being that if the healing is too much, shit won't die, and if it's too low, Monks are useless.
Again here, Healer's Boon completely breaks the game because it allows monks to poop +106 party heals (partially due to glyph of lesser), a number so big you simply don't need any other form of support on that bar.

Assuming a team doesn't split, you could perfectly win a match with solely Heal Party and HB on a flagger's bar, thus illustrating it is these 2 skills which litteraly make or break matches.

HP on it's own, however, is completely underused. So is HB. (In HA again, only for HP spam in HoH) The solution would be to nerf one (or both) skills so that they become slightly better when not used in conjunction with eachother, and slightly worse (than now) when used in conjunction with eachother.

diabiosx · Oct 08, 2010, 02:33 PM // 14:33

What I really dont get is the thinking behind Anet's skill balancing. First this is a game mechanic on party healing which you would think that Anet has spent soo much time on addressing for the past 5years. They nerfed the shit out of Kaolai, Recup and other skills to keep them "balanced" so you would think that they would scale every other party healing skill to match those 2 skills. Now HP+HB is more OP then Recup+Kaolai at their prime. If Recup+Kaolai at their Prime was OP, HP+HB being more OP needs a nerf, oh wait, they buffed the shit out of hexes and necros blood line so now we need stronger party heals LAWL!