Curse

Master Fuhon · Oct 08, 2010, 02:42 PM // 14:42

I don't want to use the specific Healer's Boon build either, but this hate on the skill is ridiculous when Word of Healing exists like it is, and Heal Party has existed like this with energy management.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cantos

No it isn't. Healing Prayers is monotonously cretinous, and Healer's Boon is a fire and forget "it makes it gooder" buff.

Brainless as opposed to having no dependence on maintaining a buff at all like the current WoH (even RC monks), and being able to ignore positioning because you have the strongest single targetted heal in the game to recover from knockdowns? Strip an HB before he needs to heal himself with Patient Spirit, and at least he would have to think about the value of 20% enchant lengthening on specific skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cantos

Almost all the well designed Monk skills are in Protection Prayers, because they're about predicting where damage is about to fall

And some of the worst. Bonders, the old Aegis, mass removals like Restore Conditions and Divert Hexes, countering builds based on melee damage with Shield of Deflection, Zealous Benediction the clone of Word of Healing, and the worst stalemate mechanic in the entire game Amnity/Pacifism (cannot attack, ends if taking damage). The best prot skill designs are few: Spirit Bond, Shielding Hands, and the new Aegis (Spirit Bond with a minor flaw of being designed around 60AL); with the next tier of design being Shield of Absorption, Aura of Stability, and Guardian. Hard counters to certain builds, but too useless against other common attack patterns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cantos

and test your yomi and battlefield awareness.

I highly doubt any theory that more protection skills would mean 'more yomi' in the meta, as that kind of redundancy typically makes things easier. It also isn't the kind of "predicting" people want when they walk into a match facing nothing but melee hard counters because someone was biased away from the lack of glory in bar pushing. Infuse Health and Patient Spirit require more yomi than Restore Condition, and a Healer's Boon cannot survive as well as a Word of Healing without any prot skills used on itself.

Good players don't always need to mind read, but they can do things to increase the propability of an opponent reacting a certain way. How are you supposed to be on an equally competitive level if you have to always waste that prot at a specific time to play it safe? Or what about, "I think this knockdown is a decoy, let me red bar it instead of prevent it", rather than "knockdown incoming, have to prot, damn there goes my usage of that skill".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed U Man

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......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)

Comparing Healer's Boon to recharge reducing equipment, then to an elite recharge reducers like Mantra of Recovery, and then to the creation of something like perma Shadow Form is definitely a stretch. It does not affect Patient Spirit (enough), Guardian, or Mending Touch (primary self defense skills). If you really wanted to, you could run Heal Party and Light of Deliverance as well. So while it is shortening the casting time occupied by Heal Party casting, just watching observer shows that builds harmed most by HB Heal Party spam, it's due to either the time/distance window created by running the flag, or by moments where the flagger is not being contested.

As a side note, I would actually credit the range on Heal Party with killing the weak damage split (like Mind Blast, refering to the actual split tactics and not the plinkers), not really anything that Entourage did, so I worry about what a range reduction would do.

Reverend Dr · Oct 08, 2010, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

Strip an HB before he needs to heal himself with Patient Spirit, and at least he would have to think about the value of 20% enchant lengthening on specific skills.

Just because a skill can be interrupted/diverted/stripped/otherwise countered does not make the skill balanced. I thought we've been over this before.

Master Fuhon · Oct 08, 2010, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Just because a skill can be interrupted/diverted/stripped/otherwise countered does not make the skill balanced. I thought we've been over this before.

That general rule only applies to skills on offensive characters, because it's stupid to force people to utilize really specific linebacking abilities as part of a meta where you still have to kill people. If a build doesn't use any shutdown on a healer, it's truly is their fault for not understanding game mechanics (his heals are more efficient than your damage). If it isn't necessary to use any shutdown or split tactic on a healer, there is a really serious problem with the game balance.

Reverend Dr · Oct 08, 2010, 07:57 PM // 19:57

You always want to shut down your opponents most powerful skills. There is never a time that this isn't true. If the only way to deal with those skills is to shut them down, then there might just be an issue.

You see what happened was you didn't address HB being or not being overpowered. Instead of making an argument that compares HB to other existing skills of relatively similar power or creating an argument where HB in this form is necessary for play, you simply said "strip it." That isn't an argument about HB being overpowered or properly powered. And when the go to 'argument' for defending a skill is "counter it," then there is quite possible a larger problem.

Also how do I strip HB on the runner that is over a full aggro circle away and behind their whole team?

FoxBat · Oct 08, 2010, 08:19 PM // 20:19

The HB 50%+ heal and cast buff is still inferior to WoH for single-targets, even a prot-less WoH bar. The flagger even runs guardian which is the only prot WoH monks have even been running for quite some time now. Like I said Heal Party is the only reason HB gets used, the other aspects just compensate enough for the loss of WoH to be bearable.

Incedentially even this was worthless in GvG until both PwK and Recup got nerfed to the current point.

Cantos · Oct 08, 2010, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

I don't want to use the specific Healer's Boon build either, but this hate on the skill is ridiculous when Word of Healing exists like it is, and Heal Party has existed like this with energy management.

Brainless as opposed to having no dependence on maintaining a buff at all like the current WoH (even RC monks), and being able to ignore positioning because you have the strongest single targetted heal in the game to recover from knockdowns? Strip an HB before he needs to heal himself with Patient Spirit, and at least he would have to think about the value of 20% enchant lengthening on specific skills.

And some of the worst. Bonders, the old Aegis, mass removals like Restore Conditions and Divert Hexes, countering builds based on melee damage with Shield of Deflection, Zealous Benediction the clone of Word of Healing, and the worst stalemate mechanic in the entire game Amnity/Pacifism (cannot attack, ends if taking damage). The best prot skill designs are few: Spirit Bond, Shielding Hands, and the new Aegis (Spirit Bond with a minor flaw of being designed around 60AL); with the next tier of design being Shield of Absorption, Aura of Stability, and Guardian. Hard counters to certain builds, but too useless against other common attack patterns.

I highly doubt any theory that more protection skills would mean 'more yomi' in the meta, as that kind of redundancy typically makes things easier. It also isn't the kind of "predicting" people want when they walk into a match facing nothing but melee hard counters because someone was biased away from the lack of glory in bar pushing. Infuse Health and Patient Spirit require more yomi than Restore Condition, and a Healer's Boon cannot survive as well as a Word of Healing without any prot skills used on itself.

Good players don't always need to mind read, but they can do things to increase the propability of an opponent reacting a certain way. How are you supposed to be on an equally competitive level if you have to always waste that prot at a specific time to play it safe? Or what about, "I think this knockdown is a decoy, let me red bar it instead of prevent it", rather than "knockdown incoming, have to prot, damn there goes my usage of that skill".

Comparing Healer's Boon to recharge reducing equipment, then to an elite recharge reducers like Mantra of Recovery, and then to the creation of something like perma Shadow Form is definitely a stretch. It does not affect Patient Spirit (enough), Guardian, or Mending Touch (primary self defense skills). If you really wanted to, you could run Heal Party and Light of Deliverance as well. So while it is shortening the casting time occupied by Heal Party casting, just watching observer shows that builds harmed most by HB Heal Party spam, it's due to either the time/distance window created by running the flag, or by moments where the flagger is not being contested.

As a side note, I would actually credit the range on Heal Party with killing the weak damage split (like Mind Blast, refering to the actual split tactics and not the plinkers), not really anything that Entourage did, so I worry about what a range reduction would do.

You're not very convincing. Can you explain why you think HB is a well-designed, interesting skill?

Master Fuhon · Oct 08, 2010, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Basically, Healer's Boon is good design because it means you can force a monk to sacrifice a skill slot. This initially qualifies it as one of the better designed monk skills in the game. Second, it encourages a monk to take a skill costing more than 5 energy to deal with pressure (whopping 15 energy). Third, the benefits of energy management make the monk reconsider using a defensive stance.

Which is why I said earlier, take away more healing from Heal Party, Patient Spirit, and Word of Healing, create a non-elite buff that boosts healing only, and see if you can get people to trade off yet another skill slot to be even weaker at defending itself. If it doesn't happen, you still have just nerfed the 3 strongest healing skills in every PvP domain. However, I also said there was a risk involving Glimmer and Light of Deliverance. But the other point, if you screw around with party heals too much, you could unknowingly bring back the party healing midline (really bad thing).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

You always want to shut down your opponents most powerful skills.

Which is the main party heal itself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Also how do I strip HB on the runner

This doesn't follow from your first statement. Heal party is a one second cast, meaning you could still prioritize shutting it down over HB. If an HB ever didn't take Heal Party, it would just be a poor man's Glimmer build, with 3 skills to basically do what Glimmer of Light already does.

But if you really want to strip HB, you strip (Assault) enchants shortly after a Guardian cast, while focusing him with a melee, because the monk will have to prioritize the single target skills on his bar over both healing his party or Healer's Boon. Or you could kill him with one ranged and one melee, since enchants fall off corpses. He dies fast without kiting, Guardian, and NPC/player assistance.

There's nothing to stop anyone from power running flags with Warriors to get more party healing in. The only thing you can count on is having a plan to get healers away from each other, or having a spike that punches through 3 healers. Asking to fix all the skills in the game won't fix the teams that run ultra-conservative attack strategies.

Sirius Bsns · Oct 09, 2010, 05:59 AM // 05:59

I think they should just reduce Heal Party's range to "within earshot", that way it'd inhibit the HB monk from splitting, thus enabling the opposing team to be able to interrupt and/or disable Heal Party since the HB monk is forced to stay within his team's range in order for it to be of any worth.

Fluffy Kittens · Oct 15, 2010, 10:08 AM // 10:08

/notsigned
terrible idea would ruin HA for sure, don't know about other PvP areas