Curse

Lordhelmos · Feb 14, 2008, 10:39 PM // 22:39

To high end players, or simply experienced PvP'ers in general, this is common knowledge. Raw healing in the current meta sucks, namely because the damage being done from most sources is simply outrageous. The analogy I like to use in the argument of raw healing vs. prot, is that trying to utilize healing prayers in order to save a team against hard pressure is like trying to put a 2 liter bottle underneath a waterfall and catch it all.

On average, pvper's are running about 550 minimum HP. The shift to minor runes and survivor's insignias in the meta is a response to the ridiculous amounts of damage skills have been outputting since day one, a factor that was bolstered by the addition of NF skills. To bring any sort of superior rune setup or attempt to drop health underneath 500 against a spike team is pretty much suicidal; unless your team is carrying heavy prot.

Larger pools of HP boosted by runes and survivors armor (around 600) are barely enough to handle the waterfall of pressure damage coming from attacks like Executioner's Axe, Eviscerate, EC spike, Shatter Enchantment, etc. The limited health max of each player in Guildwars is simply too small to handle the overload of damage prevalent on the field; and it's the overflow of what your health bar can't handle that kills you, even when you are being pumped with raw heals.

When you are averaging about 550 health and attacks are hitting you for 110 damage to 200 from a single source, mind you there are 6-7 guys hitting you at once, the limitations of your life bar simply can't withstand the pressure. On a heavy spike, it wont be unusual to see a player be killed 3 times over within a 3-5 second time period when going by raw numbers.

Shatter Enchantment, as an example, deals 100ish damage. Thats already nearly 1/5 of a players health bar from one skilll. This coupled up with deep wound, which lowers a players already handicapped life max by an additional hundred, makes players in Guildwars extremely fragile.

When you have a 500 health max and attacks are dealing over 100-200 damage a pop, raw heals aren't going to do much. This is because of the fact that even if you fill someones HP all the way to the top, the can still be killed relatively easily by additional spike pressure. On top of this fact, healing prayers can be wasteful. When you pop a 200 HP heal on someone thats at 400 health, you are completely wasting half your heal. Even at full life, a player is still killable within a single coordinated spike.

In relation to damage, health bars in Guildwars are EXTREMELY tiny and limited in comparison to damage output. This makes the healing prayers line extremely weak because no matter how many times you heal someone, their max health still isn't enough to survive the outrageous triple digit attacks that are being slung around like candy at Halloween in Guildwars.

Players running raw heals find themselves pushing redbars all the way to the top, only to find out a single spike still kills their ally relatively easily. On top of this, skills designed to boost max health and make a player more spike resistant are extremely limited in terms of reliability. This is namely because if players rely on skills like defy pain, endure pain, or vital weapon, they run the risk of becoming extremely fragile if their health boost is negated or removed. These skills are further hampered because they cannot be effectively maintained on a whole team without prolonged effort or energy problems, which always allows a team to choose a non-buffed character to spike.

The flaw of having a max health bar unable to handle the large sources of damage flying around Guildwars has resulted in the Protection Prayers line being one of the most overpowered and de facto lines in all of guildwars. Because max health bars can't handle damage output on the field, the only way to keep people alive is to migitate damage. Protection prayers is so powerful because it throws damage into a void that stands apart from a player's health bar.

An example is reversal of fortune. On a 128 damage critical scythe attack, the damage is completely negated without having any interaction with a player's health bar. On top of this, the player also gets a +30 hp bonus from divine favor and a large HP swing. In essence, compare the amount of damage in raw numbers prevent from reversal of fortune to a spell like Heal Other. Reversal of Fortune is clearly superior in preventing a large amount of damage, while Heal Other can be wasteful when it rams it's head into the roof of what is the player's max health cap. In a situation where a player is taking over 800 damage from a coordinated spike, raw healing such as Heal Other will have little effect on preventing the player from dying. However, a spell like Spirit Bond, which can prevent almost 500-600 damage on its own through negation, becomes extremely powerful.

The above examples show why raw healing sucks as a dependable form of party survival in Guildwars. Healing prayers will always have a place simply because something needs to push red bars up, but in terms of effectiveness, because of the flaw in max health vs. raw damage, protection prayers will always be the superior line. Protection prayers have become so de facto only because it's the only way that a player can bypass the limitations of max health in Guildwars and effectively deal with the outrageous numbers coming from opposing damage sources.

This is why ritualists and their raw heals are ineffective when compared to monk healers. In fact, the simple flaw in HP max in Guildwars is what prevents any class other than a monk primary from becoming an effective and dependable healer in this game. Protection prayers is basically the only thing stopping the huge amount of damage from offensive skills in Guildwars from one shotting teams. In short, if a character cannot run Protection Prayers, they suck as a healer.

This problem is apparent when looking at what healing prayers skills are seeing the most use in higher end games. Heals that prove effective are super huge heals like infuse health and word of healing, only because they barely provide the raw numbers to deal with 400-800 damage spikes. Sometimes a player will still die through an infuse, and thats just ridiculous. In terms of effectiveness, it would be even safe to say that Spirit Bond is superior to Infuse Health as a spike saver. Healing prayers simply lacks the raw power to save players and is restrained by low health maxes, and is thus deemed largely ineffective as a dependable attribute line to primarily specc in. Healing prayers is instead reduced to a weak secondary line that cleans up what the mighty power of protection prayers is unable to cast into the never ending black hole of damage negation.

I hope this sheds some light to newer players trying to understand the weakness of healing prayers, or those befuddled on why players are so dependant on prot builds for survivability. Maybe this information might prove useful in future skill balances in which healing prayers and ritualist/non-monk support are looked into.

However, I do think at this point, it would be impossible to change to metagame's dependency on protection prayers. This is mainly due to the fact that protection prayers has become the backbone of guildwars, the only true force keeping players alive. If protection prayers were to be weakened too much, the entire of balance of the game would go to hell. It would be like ANET attempting to move the bottom piece from a Jenga tower stacked 33 levels high. Unless damage in that game were to be cut by extreme amount (like 33%) then protection prayers will always need to remain dominantly powerful or else players would be dying faster a room full of rocket launcher toters in an FPS.

I think the best way to fix healing prayers would be to give healing prayers/non-prot healing more damage mitigation-esque skills. There could also be skills that effectively boost a player's max HP while still offering a mediocre heal in order to resist overwhelming spike attacks. Boosting max HP in Guildwars makes no sense if its not going to come with a supporting heal that prevents the player from dropping to nearly no life once it ends. It wont matter if vital weapon protects a player against a spike then ends, dropping him to 10 hp where he dies from a wand. Of course, such skills could not be introduced without first balancing protection prayers so that both lines could not be combined to make a team virtually unkillable (Paragon Holdway anyone?). But then again, any sort of meddling with protection prayers threatens to derail the entire balance of the game.

Another interesting idea would be to allow players to gain more HP by upping the amount of health mods, vitae runes, and survivor's insignia's add. Superior runes could also be toned down to reduce less health. Then again, to maintain game balance, protection prayers would need to take a hit in order to prevent invinci-teams if any change of this sort were to be applied.

Damage in Guildwars is simply too high, lifebars are way too small, and protection prayers is just way too effective in migitating damage. The end result is a game where players have become used to clinging to protection prayers as the backline of their survival. Increasing max health and reducing damage would be an interesting change to Guildwars, but it would not reduce the effectiveness at which protection prayers sucks damage up into a void. A combination of fixing health max issues without touching protection prayers would result in a disastrous meta in which players would simply just not die.

However, this does not change the flaw that is blatantly obvious in all aspects of Guildwars. That damage is simply rampant and players have fallen back on one super-effective primary line that has come to dominate all other aspects of party survival to be the most used, most overpowered, most de facto, and most unchangeable attribute line ever created. It is a rough mistake that is difficult to go back and change; since the very nature of the game has been built on the flaw: that is without protection prayers you gonna get your ass kicked by overwhelming damage.

As overpowered as protection prayers are, they are needed because of a flaw in damage and health bars. Unfortunately this has lead to a problem in class stagnation, that because of this flaw no other character other than a primary monk is usable for dependable party survival. This flaw in game design is the sole reason why the monk class has been the pinnacle of party survival and the core of the team in both PvE and competitive play. People use monks because they can prot, and without prot your just going to get your head bashed in.

~Helmos

itsvictor · Feb 14, 2008, 10:49 PM // 22:49

This is absolutely true...Someone alert those 12 HP,12 DF monks to get some prot prayers >.>

mrmango · Feb 14, 2008, 11:03 PM // 23:03

Is it possible to copy/move this to the PVE forum, it would have a better audience there.

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 14, 2008, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajc2123

Id copy it, not move it. Just my opinion ^_^;;

Think everyone in this forum besides maybe the HA forum knew this years ago... Although I guess it could be stickied?

ajc2123 · Feb 14, 2008, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

I hope this sheds some light to newer players trying to understand the weakness of healing prayers, or those befuddled on why players are so dependant on prot builds for survivability.

~Helmos

Yes this post was partly meant for newer players, which I doubt knew this, so no, not everyone in this forum new this. Infact, many people who have played for years still believe pure healing is the way to go (my friend who got my into GW)

roxxas · Feb 14, 2008, 11:11 PM // 23:11

I honestly think its better this way for the game. Well pure healer rits get sort of screwed but honestly thats pointless. Healing prayer like trees aka 50 different ways to fill up red bar that are really just the damn same are common in games yet incredibly dull. You can only fill up red bars so long before it gets boring. The prot play style is alot more fun, complex, and allows room for skill. It isn't just spam generic heals if the red bars go down. For one you have to see the spike coming which makes you pay attention. Then you have to decide what to do about it. Guardian, protective spirits, spirit bond? Which is going to be most effective? Or it might be more helpful to remove hexes and conditions instead of just healing through them. Guild Wars healing is entertaining, interesting ,and a new spin on things that I absolutely love compared to most games.

Lordhelmos · Feb 14, 2008, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by roxxas

I honestly think its better this way for the game. Well pure healer rits get sort of screwed but honestly thats pointless. Healing prayer like trees aka 50 different ways to fill up red bar that are really just the damn same are common in games yet incredibly dull. You can only fill up red bars so long before it gets boring. The prot play style is alot more fun, complex, and allows room for skill. It isn't just spam generic heals if the red bars go down. For one you have to see the spike coming which makes you pay attention. Then you have to decide what to do about it. Guardian, protective spirits, spirit bond? Which is going to be most effective? Or it might be more helpful to remove hexes and conditions instead of just healing through them. Guild Wars healing is entertaining, interesting ,and a new spin on things that I absolutely love compared to most games.

I can agree with this, but my issue is that the most effective means of damage prevention and party survival have all been consolidated into ONE single attribute line. Because of this, party survivability and having an effective healing now forces you to bring a monk, because only a monk primary can fully utilize protection prayers.

What I believe should happen is that more protection and damage prevention skills should be scattered across a larger margin of player classes, which would allow more classes than just the monk to backline the survivability of a party in Guildwars.

As effective and needed as protection prayers are, having them ALL in one line is extremely one sided and has granted the monk class pretty much full dominion over the survivability of the party. In terms of game balance, this is simply unfair to other classes and bad by design. Let us hope this mistake is not repeated in Guildwars 2.

(I.E. Imagine if Spirit Bond was a Ritualist skill, then what meta look like?)

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 14, 2008, 11:30 PM // 23:30

What's the point of this thread?

Lordhelmos · Feb 14, 2008, 11:38 PM // 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

What's the point of this thread?

1.) To enlighten new players on how ineffective raw healing is when compared to the protection prayer line. That if you go into arenas with no prot your gonna get pwnfaced.

2.) To expose the flaws in Guildwars caused by forcing players to depend on a single attribute line to deal with outrageous damage and low max health bars.

3.) To note to the devs, that they screwed up by putting almost every single means of effective party survival into a single attribute line, thus overpowering monks in Guildwars.

4.) To underline my point in bullet #3 so that this sort of insane imbalance is not repeated in Guildwars 2 and a single class isn't given as much dominion as monks have in this game.

5.) Because I was bored and felt like writing something with substance.

6.) To open discussion on plausible options for fixing this sort of imbalance.

wuzzman · Feb 14, 2008, 11:43 PM // 23:43

this game has always been about midline defense, monk protecting, then healing whatever got through after that.....but boy did we manage to screw that up.

neoflame · Feb 14, 2008, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

3.) To note to the devs, that they screwed up by putting almost every single means of effective party survival into a single attribute line, thus overpowering monks in Guildwars.

Because putting effective party survival in other classes is a totally awesome idea?

NamelessBeauty · Feb 14, 2008, 11:49 PM // 23:49

It's not all true for HA esp.

In HA, you have a pair of monks or even 3 monks working together (1 is a pure prot.) In some cases, you have even more protection such as stand on ground, Wards and such. So running a full healer in HA isn't a bad idea.

But for the most part, esp in GvG and TA or RA. It's all true!

In PvE it's even non-realistic. Ursan = + armor and Cons help for that. A pure heal with Healing seed as prot is a better idea.!

Syntonic · Feb 15, 2008, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

...
2.) To expose the flaws in Guildwars caused by forcing players to depend on a single attribute line to deal with outrageous damage and low max health bars.

3.) To note to the devs, that they screwed up by putting almost every single means of effective party survival into a single attribute line, thus overpowering monks in Guildwars.

4.) To underline my point in bullet #3 so that this sort of insane imbalance is not repeated in Guildwars 2 and a single class isn't given as much dominion as monks have in this game.
...

Do you happen to blame the monks when things go wrong? Seriously, you make it sound like the midliners do nothing for the party and I'm sure you realize that's not true. Well, at least I hope you do. Blindbots/shutdown/etc all lend to party survival as well though I admit blindbots aren't normally run any longer. I can understand this as a primer and to get people to stop running pure healing unless there is a build that uniquely calls for it but it's probably lost in the gladiator's section while perhaps serving better in Campfire.

Deathless Anthem · Feb 15, 2008, 12:14 AM // 00:14

rahter than buffing skills in healing prayers, it makes more sense to have a pvp environment effect either raising health or decreasing damage output slightly

wuzzman · Feb 15, 2008, 12:18 AM // 00:18

HA sucks...the deeply flawed n/rt still pwns lol...

Div · Feb 15, 2008, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmango

Is it possible to copy/move this to the PVE forum, it would have a better audience there.

I'd do that, but then PvErs would just say "PvE is different from PvP people don't spike you" and continue to run their 16 heal 15 divine favor builds with 400 health and 60 energy and 4 copies of the same heal. If the OP wants to target the PvE audience (which could use the experience), then the post would have to be tailored towards them. Even then, they'd argue for stupid stuff like pure healer+pure protter instead of hybrids.

The general nature of these spikes are more oriented towards GvG, so even HA doesn't apply well (since a good deal of HA involves nuking the shit out of the other team and then getting a nice caster+solo melee spike on a target). The thing is that, most GvGers already know this, but I suppose it'll enlighten the new ones learning to GvG or some of the newer monks.

Kaon · Feb 15, 2008, 12:21 AM // 00:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

1.) To enlighten new players on how ineffective raw healing is when compared to the protection prayer line. That if you go into arenas with no prot your gonna get pwnfaced.

2.) To expose the flaws in Guildwars caused by forcing players to depend on a single attribute line to deal with outrageous damage and low max health bars.

3.) To note to the devs, that they screwed up by putting almost every single means of effective party survival into a single attribute line, thus overpowering monks in Guildwars.

4.) To underline my point in bullet #3 so that this sort of insane imbalance is not repeated in Guildwars 2 and a single class isn't given as much dominion as monks have in this game.

5.) Because I was bored and felt like writing something with substance.

6.) To open discussion on plausible options for fixing this sort of imbalance.

2) What's wrong about relying on protection to keep your team up?
3) eh.. what? PwK, mending refrain, and self heals?
4) see 3)
6) I disagree with you, I think only a few damage sources are overpowered yet there are no fundamental problems.

Um Yeah · Feb 15, 2008, 01:43 AM // 01:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

As overpowered as protection prayers are, they are needed because of a flaw in damage and health bars. Unfortunately this has lead to a problem in class stagnation, that because of this flaw no other character other than a primary monk is usable for dependable party survival. This flaw in game design is the sole reason why the monk class has been the pinnacle of party survival and the core of the team in both PvE and competitive play. People use monks because they can prot, and without prot your just going to get your head bashed in.

~Helmos

If you buff healing prayers as a whole, nothing will change. If you give people higher hp, people will still spike, because their pressure just won't get the job done. If you change a class, most notably rit, so that's it's comparable on its own to a monk, then it's either going to be inefficient compared to monk or over powered.

The fact is, that although prot prayers are necessary to efficiently and effectively monking, they are basically nothing without healing to back them up. You cannot have one without the other. If you do, you'll lose. This is, in my eyes, why monks are balanced in terms of prot vs healing.

In comparison to other classes, yes I guess you could say that monks are overpowered in terms of party survival. Perhaps that is just because leading up to factions, monks were relatively balanced and if you make rits better than them, then they're more than likely overpowered and would have to be nerfed soon anyway. Maybe the problem isn't that monks are completely overpowered, but simply that monks are perfectly balanced, while rits are sloppily designed and therefore suck in comparison.

LifeInfusion · Feb 15, 2008, 04:34 AM // 04:34

HEALING VERSUS PROT
If we're talking damagewise, it's not that Healing cannot outdo Protection prayers (with Healer's Boon/Word of Healing only). It is just too reactive to be viable and easy to capitalize on if you screw up. If you are waiting for the heal to not be wasted due to overheal it means you overexpose your teammates to a spikedown. If you miss a heal then the teammate gets dead in seconds.

Pre-prot and mitigation are better than either of these possible flaws (overheal/missing a heal). If you pre-prot accidently it won't be wasted most of the time (e.g Protective Spirit or Spirit Bond). Similarly, it is more effective to give a target 50% block with Guardian than to try to heal every 2 seconds with orison and this is raised exponentially of there are more than two foes. With caster damage, it is better to prot spirit a Rodgort's Invocation so that it does 50-60 and have it cleaned up in 3 cheap prots due to divine favor than to heal it with Heal Other every 5 seconds. Healing Prayers is generally a waste of energy as a result. Healing prayers is unsuitable for heavy pressure unless it is from hex degen and conditions that stick.

On the higher damage range, ~150 damage could just be healed by 2 orisons (~60+~20 from divine favor) or heal other ~140+~20 from divine favor if you run 14 heal and 8-10 Divine. The thing is if the target is being spiked down, you don't have the time to fire off two orisons and two orisons basically only have divine favor advantage over a large heal. So your other option is Infuse Health (1/4 second) or Heal Other (3/4 second or 3/8 under Healer's Boon) if you don't run the ubiquitous Word of Healing. Infuse is dangerous since it exposes one monk to an easy spike. Infuse will heal for 402 if you have full 600 HP and 14 Healing Prayers. In other words, Healing Prayers is also not suitable for spike without using an elite.

To top it all off, Gift of Health cannot be used on a Healing Prayers bar. At 9-10 spec it heals 100 or so which is good enough for a prot monk for when prots don't really help (degen/life steal and very few other occassions). This is as much as Ethereal Light, Healing Ribbon, or Healing Whisper on 14 spec.

Cure Hex fills the major gap in Healing breeze, dealing with hexes and conditions and Dwayna's Kiss brute forces its way through hex stacks which generally don't spike.

Healer's Boon is worthy of note since with 14 Healing Prayers then your orison heals for roughly 90 or so and your ethereal light becomes viable with roughly 140HP on a 1/2 second cast. If you're going to rely on an elite just so healing prayers becomes viable then that means you have a large problem with the attribute line. Other than the lack of Party healing when running prot, there's no reason to run Healing Prayers at all when you could slap Gift of Health with moderate spec (9-10 Healing Prayers) on a prot bar and still outperform all the single target healing prayers except Word of Healing.
14 healing Prayers + Healer's Boon:
-Cure Hex = 171 (basically 5 energy heal other and some extra HP)
-Dwayna's Kiss =86 + conditional heal 50 per hex/enchantment (not bad)
-Ethereal Light =143
-Healing Ribbon =156, 2 nearby allies 141
-Gift of Health = 212 (but you wouldn't use it on a Healer's Boon Bar!)
-Heal Other = 255 (you might actually save someone)
-Heal Party = 108 (powerful anti-pressure eh...you'll need Glyph of Lesser Energy)
-Words of Comfort = 150 (if under condition)
-Orison of Healing = 101
-Infuse Health at +603hp is almost pointless to use when your Heal Other does +255health
suddenly you might actually save someone (if you don't run out of energy or get Healer's Boon shattered).

Glimmer of Light doesn't cut it because the heal power is barely enough to combat more than one 100 damage spike (actually it is exactly 108 on 14 Healing prayers). The 1/4 cast makes it comparable to Infuse Health but without any of the heal power.

Word of Healing doesn't get mentioned here because it is essentially Heal Other on 5 energy that can target yourself. On 14 spec, 122+94 = 216. Word of Healing is more or less the only healing skill that can operate to the efficiency that Protection prayers provides, provided you have damage mitigation some other way so that the spikes don't come in all at once.

The only efficiency to be had is Signet of Rejuvenation because it costs no energy. Word of Healing (122+ 94 if <50%HP) contends for efficiency as a self heal though.

Another thing is Protection Prayers does have heals via Blessed Light (Divine Favor) and Zealous Benediction (Protection Prayers), which while energy intensive as Heal Other, target self and have more than just a heal. Conditional Heals may come from reversal of Fortune, Dismiss Condition, Spirit Bond. Additionally, Divine Healing/Heaven's Delight (Divine Favor) partywide healing compensates for Heal Party and Light of Deliverance.

When not running Word of Healing or Healer's Boon, there's no reason to not run Gift of Health instead of the entire Healing Prayers line. Then Zealous Benediction or Blessed Light can fill the void of remedies for health degeneration and life steal.

TARGETTING
Note that most healing prayers spells target other ally. That means most of them won't save your monk (maybe Healing Touch but why waste a slot on that). Heal Other, Infuse Health, Healing Ribbon, Healing Whisper (bad), Gift of Health, Dwayna's Kiss, Healing Seed, Spotless Mind, Spotless Soul, Signet of Rejuvenation (additional heal doesn't trigger). Even Word of Healing was target other ally at one point.

ON PVP LEGAL DAMAGE

Few PvP-legal skills do >100 damage (not including base damage of weapon). I think Decapitate, Final Thrust (swordsmanship), Brutal Strike (beast mastery), Shattering Assault (2 strikes in 1/8 second due to being a dual attack), Jungle Strike, and Harrier's Toss are the only ones that do higher amounts of added damage than Executioner's Strike/Body Blow. Armor ignoring damage is most potent from Unsuspecting Strike due to its recharge, but it won't kill due to most of the damage only occurring when the target is above 90% HP.

Spellwise, Shatterstone is the only one to exceed 180 damage directly. Rodgort's Invocation comes around 190 damage or so after burning if you go superior for +10 energy from Mind Blast and around 150 damage if you run minor.

Power Spike is reactive, but the damage is 110 or so. Obsidian Flame is not sustainable and does roughly 110. Magnetic Surge does a conditional 120 or so. Inepititude is basically the only big damage and that's because of the 130 or so damage being made into 240 or so due to Frenzy. Backfire is unlike Ineptitude due to high cast time and the unlikelihood that it won't get removed.

Never mind that deepwound takes a chunk of 100HP on any 500-600HP character on top of whatever damage is done. That's why Impale, Eviscerate, Cruel Spear, Crushing Blow, Twisting Fangs, and Wearying Strike are so potent. To get the full power of a heal, you need to do 1.25x the heal (1/0.80) to compensate, and you cannot top off the health bar.

In short:
- Word of Healing
- Healer's Boon
- Gift of Health on Prot Bars
- Cure Hex/Dwayna's Kiss

yum · Feb 15, 2008, 04:42 AM // 04:42

Healing = red bar goes up.

And just looking at the red bar = bad monks. And Anet (hopefully) doesn't want to promote mindless red bar goes up monkeys.