The Orb isn't good for healers anymore? Obsidianchill made a video and said transformation artifact is better for healers now. I put my transformation artifacts into my purple healing ray for all my healers(have 3). Should I now put my orb artifacts into my transformation cards now? Really don't know. It will be a waste of catalysts smh
I guess it will depend on playstyle. I didn't watch OC video but he would need to give very powerful reasons to get rid of my 100k priority heal with a 12 second 18k hot.
Orb has been the lesser choice ever since transformation card came out, trans is basically orb without the ridiculous power cost and hot, plus you can use trans for dps and heals, so there’s another benefit
That's a nope from me. I'm staying with orb. Too clutch for that tank getting smooshed and ghost guy is handy while I have mechanics to do. On my sorcery toon anyway. On my celestial alt, trans/strat/eog purely for the ease of only doing 3 arts that can dual role. Not expecting that toon to come close to my sorcery toon on either role tho
As I said it comes to playstyle. You lose the HoT, which I love very much being electric, plus a good bit of resto. And I know that not everyone can have 8 artifacts at 200 so yes, probably the last point is the best reason.
Chill's video is very informative and helpful. I always watch anything he's got posted and often refer back to them for something I need. But it's information I take into consideration in building my rotation, not something I follow always. I suggest to do what works for you and your playstyle. Transformation is a good deal as it works for both heal and dps; it saves you a lot in xp and cats. But remember that it works with your criticals AND has % reduction based on its rank. At 160, you have 2% resto added, max is 3% at rank 180. Orb has a very high cost but it will cast your priority heal 6 times at rank 160 and 5% resto; 8 times at rank 200.
When you watch Obsidian's videos, the first thing you should understand is that his video is based on the experience of playing with a very specific circle of friends and acquaintances. A circle where the majority will have 200 artifacts, where the majority will have 500 SP and OP equipment, where players play with voice chat, where the group has specific synergy and level of play ... you can continue to list, but I think it's already clear where the dog is buried ... and if you rush to take his builds and tips without first adapting to your play style, to the play style of your friends and your group ... then you will end up upset ...
Great points. And completely right. I think we all watch his vids and everyone should but yeah, take his advice and do some extra homework. Almost every art I use, he has said not to. And I know why but I built to them and they do work. But I also mostly league run, we all discuss our builds, choose direction together and know how we play. Pug life, I run orb purple page and I sleep thru raids while solo healing anything
For pure healing, Trans, PHR, Page is the clear better setup. A decent argument could be made for Strat, Page, PHR but it would depend on your powerset. Orb is not a bad artifact, I still have mine but its marked and sitting dormant as of now for 2 reasons, its not doing what it says and for most situations Trans is better.. If you use it, the Spectral Acolyte is not doing even close to what your normal base priority heal does, its doing a "approximation" as Batuba put it in a PM because pet/player stats are calculated different. Where your healing is calculated off of your stats (obviously), the Acolyte's healing is calculated from CR. All in all, Orb is not a terrible artifact, it still has its place. I maintain that if you have a tank that is taking heavy hits and getting down to sub 50% health on a constant basis due to heavy damage, Orb can easily bounce his health to full. Their may be a "optimal setup". But at the end of the day, if it works for and your group and you're doing great healing, then whatever floats your boat. If I have a healer in my group was using Tetra, Cog and Starheart, I'd wonder what the heck was going through his brain at conception of that setup, but if hes doing great healing in the elite, then good for him and ofc he'd do better with better artifacts, but still. Yes I know that example of artifacts was ludicrous for healers, but it goes with "whatever floats your/groups boat" and its what I use .
Orb has not been needed for awhile now, especially now that Purple Healing Ray has been released. Orb was just a security blanket that you will use situationally throughout an entire instance encounter but Purple Healing Ray is something you'll use successively every movement of the instance. Transformation card gives the increased crit chance and magnitude on your heals which will proc the Purple Healing Ray even more. Also Claw controllers are much more prevalent in the game now and if you think you can use your Orb back to back when required you will be starved for power completely until you have a soder or a supercharge ready. Where with Purple Healing Ray you will have 20% power return with the reset of the cooldown on the two abilities. Page of Destiny's usefulness speaks for itself and I don't think running that artifact needs to be defended but you can look over footage of any of the FGSE runs for no death or any elite completion and you won't see a spectral acolyte floating around.
I asked for reasons, and even if your post is not directed to me, I appreciate you give them. Now let's analyze your reasons to see if I change my mind. First of all, I want to note I have been using Orb, Page and Trans since last XP event, and I switched now Trans for PHR. I still have Trans, so it's just a matter of swapping, no investment needed. I don't see it that way. The enhanced priority heal, even if it does not crit, heals almost half of a tank's health. Maybe because I run with ice tanks. The pet can be seen as situational, but if your team is rotating supplies you can have it permanently out, for a full boss fight. Now, after this analysis, I am going to agree with you to one point. I see no point in using Orb outside of boss fights. I will swap it for Trans in hallways. On the couple of days I have been using PHR, I am pretty surprised about how easy it is to charge it. Keep in mind I am Electric and Galvanize heals NPC for high amounts. And it charges almost automatically if I cast my enhanced priority heal. I don't see a reason here for switching Orb. This is not my experience, maybe because of the server, or who knows, but I don’t find a lot of Claw trollers in PUGs, and we don't have any on my league, so I am fine with the power. But again this analysis makes me think about how a big idea it can be to swap Orb for Trans when the troller is not good. I will have to try it and see how it goes. This is so far the only advantages I found on using PHR. In fact, I am a bit disappointed, I will to keep working with it because it synergices pretty well with Page, which I agree is a must, but I may end turning back to Orb, Page, Trans.
So many of you make great points . My heal uses PHR,Page,and trans and strat but mostly the first three. The last XP week we had I got rid of my rank 200 orb because for me and my friends/league it wasn't needed. In puggy groups with tanks your not sure of or others that could change obviously definitely when they take damage and as for my troll I use my claw artifact at rank 200 it's definitely a force to be reckoned with . I will say to when I was farming a low level heal in the group had orb on and kept spamming there priority heal LIKE NO lol what are you doing your using it wrong ugh but anyway luckily we got a 2nd heal who didn't use orb and knew what they were doing. The last I will add is the synergy with the claw at rank 200 and heals using trans at 200 is undeniably powerful . I always look forward to watching ObsidianChills videos . I sometimes don't agree on certain things because of my friends and league and on what works for us but most of time his thinking I'm already there lol and I'm glad he talked about the claw troll art I myself have been seeing more of it and it is powerful when used right. As for the orb it does really come down to personal preference and actually reading the description lol . I still see heals spamming there priority heals and looking to the trolls to power them back up like ughhhh REALLY . When that happens I also now also see other players in the group would call that healer out because you can't blame the troll for that but yourself. But I do like the orb it's useful when used RIGHT but again if it works for you and your group then go ahead.
In your example of boss fights what about a fight like Clocktower or Fractured God Sphere where the entire group is taking damage at the same time, how can you ensure that enhanced priority heal isn't stolen from the tank? you can't you just have to hope for RNG that the priority lands on the tank because just the Spectral heals alone won't be able to bring the tank back up to full health that quickly. Even if you don't find yourself running with claw trolls, which is a shame because those controllers you do run with are forced to be unneeded power batteries and are hindering your group, now that double XP is here you will also have more players leveling the Lernaea's Amulet because they see it used by all the top dps and now you definitely are in a situation were dps could steal priority heals from reaching 10 stacks of damage. In that case you have Orb which you can't spam unless you want to sit in Sorcery's Abritor SC or you have PHR which you will be able to charge off cooldown because of the dps taking that extra damage where you have alllll the other benefits of PHR at the same time. If you wanted proof here it is, it doesn't get much harder in the game for the past 8 or 9 months than when Fractured God Sphere Elite final boss was broken and there was only 3 leagues in the game that beat it and you'd find Purple Healing Ray on each and everyone of those healers. Electric Heal POV 9:26 onwards if you want to really see the point
On boss fights where the whole group is taking damage, maybe you can't spam priority heal, you just save it for the right moment. In the video you provided, there are a few moments when I would used priority heal, on Happy and Nuqueu. And specifically at the 13:01 mark, when Stratos dies, after a priority heal from Elu filling only half bar. So I am not still convinced on taking Orb out. By the way, this evening after my last post I ran FGSn as healer with a PUG group. There was a Claw troller and I only needed my Soder once in the full run. You may think that running normal is not the same as the run in that video, which I agree, but I had a tank who turned a corner to pull a group of adds and died. He rage crashed five times before Grail. He died 3 times in the AoE from Hive Leader (6 group mates died once or twice too, so imagine how this was). So I can say I had a good chance to test. I love more the Page/PHR the more I run them. But I can't find a reason to drop Orb for Trans. The priority is too useful. Maybe if I find myself running with a lot of Laerna users and experiencing the scenario you painted, I will think about it again and keep your advice in mind. Thank you.
The answer is probably it depends on which healing power you are using and your individual playstyle. Just because one artifact group is the best for your power type does not mean it will match your playstyle or the available stat bonus' you have from the various other areas of your complete build. Personally I've never used the orb. The power cost increase was counter to my design goals of being able to keep solo healing a raid for significant length of times when the Controller was not present which is a concern as Sorcery Healers put zero SP into Might/Power. (Artifacts & Generator Mods is how this is achieved) It's worth considering if you want to change out the artifact now as you would have only the catalysts lost instead of all the xp.
I remain 100% sold on the Orb, and I will continue rocking mine at 200. I listened to what Obsidian had to say. I still will be rocking the Orb. I believe that Obsidian's numbers are correct from a theoretical standpoint; I do not believe those numbers necessarily reflect accurately the actual gameplay experience. Much the way that a loadout, rotation, or artifact set-up that performs well on a target dummy may see somewhat different results in practical application (you know, when Power is an issue, or when staying mobile is required, or when mechanics regularly break things up), the way things look on paper is not always going to be the experience in actual endgame content. The Orb is not just a generic increase to healing; the Orb is a change of playstyle. I am a Nature Healer who's been going since Beta. Nature Healing is what I do. In my experience, there are only three statuses that I may find a teammate to be at: Full Health, Almost Dead, and Dead. That is it. In my endgame gear, with my over 400 skill points, maxed augments and maxed artifacts, I perpetually have three very powerful Heal Over Time's going at all times on all teammates. There is just an absolute truckload of constant, steady regen. That means there is never a condition of "Just hurt a little bit", because if you were just hurt a little bit, you are basically instantly full again. Looking at the practical application, the first and third status effect have nothing to do with me. If you're full, then my Heal Over Time phermones are doing their job. You're fine. Nothing to see here, folks. And if you're dead... well, I can't heal stupidity, and sometimes people refuse to block that one-shot. I won't worry about that one nearly as much either. So we're going to focus in just on the final status effect. The guy who is ALMOST dead. He took that huge one-shot and survived, or the group got hit with one of those scripted attacks that takes everyone down to 15%, or maybe he should have died but my Page of Destiny activated for him and kept him hanging on. Cool. Now I have this guy who is almost dead, while we are in the middle of a challenging fight. And my goal is to get him back to #1 - Full, before he instead moves down to #3 - Dead. And while Nature has an awesome amount of Heal Over Time, Nature has one of the worst performances for burst healing. When the Tank is at "Almost Dead" status, I cannot simply allow my Heal Over Time to tick for a few seconds while hoping that his incoming damage doesn't finish him off. I can hit Blossom and get a small burst heal, but often that is barely a drop in the bucket for a well-equipped tank. I need a way to pump that Health Bar back up to full immediately. Enter the Orb. By using the Orb, I instantly get a 300% Priority Heal. That isn't enough to top off some of the Tanks I know, but it at least gets them to that 80% range where the Heal Over Times can be trusted to finish the job. But more importantly, it does it INSTANTLY. Without the Orb, I have to mash that Blossom three separate times in order to put out that much healing. That is 1.5 seconds worth of global cooldowns. When the Tank is knocked down to 10% life from that big hit, he needs the healing NOW, not 1.5 seconds from now. Those 1.5 seconds can result in a raid wipe. And therein is why Orb is such a game-changer. Look at something like the Strategist Card. It applies an extra Heal Over Time. But as a Nature Healer with 3 powerful Heal Over Time abilities already applied, that 4th Heal Over Time is almost always just going to result in overhealing. It increases an already massive amount of constant regen, which is not the area where Nature needed help, but it doesn't add to the burst healing, which is what Nature actually DID need help with. Imagine your child comes to you with their report card. They are getting an A+ in math, and a D+ in history. The school has an above average History Tutor that you could hire, or for the same price you could hire a Nobel Prize winning Mathemetician to tutor them in Math. The Math Tutor is the better Tutor... but a Math Tutor isn't what you need. You need a History Tutor. So you get the History Tutor, even if everybody tells you that the Math Tutor is obviously better. That's the Healer Artifacts. Strategist and Transformation Card are great. But Strategist and Transformation Card largely increase those Heal Over Time performances; the more ticks the better. If that's not what you need, if you need the Burst Healing, then the Orb is still going to be your best option. As a final commentary on Artifacts in general, rather than specifically about the Orb, unless you are willing to sink large amounts of money into them, do not chase the Meta. I will repeat that: Do Not Chase The Meta. Chasing the Meta might mean that Artifact B outperforms Artifact A when they are both maxed, but without spending large sums of money, that will rarely be the case. Instead, it will be people turning a 200 Artifact A into a 120-140 Artifact B. And that 120-159 Artifact B is just nowhere near as good as the 200 Artifact A. You're downgrading based on the promise of future increase. But without spending money on getting those increases soon, you're simply living with the downgrade, eventually getting to the breakeven point, and then all too often swapping yet again to another new Artifact before you ever reach the point of seeing any sort of tangible increase. If you have three Aritfacts at 200, and you aren't going to purchase large amounts of Nth Metal and Seals, then you're almost always better off sticking with the ones you have, instead of cashing them in to chase the Meta. Chasing the Meta only is beneficial if you're going to be chasing at a speed necessary to actually catch it.
Sums up pretty much everything in this game. The game if flexible enough to find a million ways of doing things differently and successfully. If you have the orb and like it, why no flaunt it? You don't have to follow every video posted on the internet. If the videos were true then i've grown my deek to 12 inches by now by following one simple trick
It’s to my understanding that he doesn’t even play the healer role; how his opinion on the role and what in entails can be the end all be all for some of you is quite jarring. While he can have a well informed opinion on the matter like anyone else, analytics don’t exactly account for preference. To deny the art has validity in challenging content is a weird stance to have, since it’s just not the case. As useful as trans card seemingly is, having the luxury of FULL healing a tank from any amount of HP without having to pray to all that is holy for a crit, is a luxury that the orb affords you. In summation, take anyone’s opinion on the matter lightly (especially those who don’t even play the role) and try it out for yourself and see what you might like.
If any of your toons are water, then you don’t really need Transformation. Water has high tide, a buff power that will crit your group heal way more often than Transformation can. And it can increase your priority heal almost as well as the Orb. With water, as long as you have Page and PHR, you’re good to go.
Every endgame healer on the EUPC, as I have more experience this dlc with their healers did not use the Orb of Arion, I can ask the Success healers on the USPS but if they didn't either that would represent all the top leagues from the past DLC and not a single one of them used Orb. That would seem to move from the theoretical and into the practical realm. I think people are remembering that 1 time in a raid where the 180k proc saved the tank and share Orb's praise but don't take into account that Purple Healing Ray would be benefiting them through the entire instance rather than just unique scenarios. Orb also doesn't take into account when the priority heals will be stolen by other players in raids where there is raid wide burst damage where PHR would help to compensate for that and also increase heals running with 2 tanks. Also this whole well lets rely on the 2nd healer in the group to run HOTS and i'll run Orb isn't really valid considering how often content is solo healed now.
