Wards and Reactionary heals. Added to HoTs hey are gimmicks attempting to differentiate the three healer types that mostly do not correspond to original EQ play styles. The three heal types have often not worked well together, either. I get it, the devs were trying to do something different. A lot of games try to throw in a twist or two to differentiate their classes from others. The problem here is that SOE was notorious for not thinking things through or following things through so their ideas often fall apart in the long run. DBG seems to barely be able to allocate the resources for their devs to have time to tie their own shoes so it seems to me that expecting them to be able to just tweak the math and make things right is overly optimistic to say the least.
I'm not sure how the core differences between the healer types that have been in EQ2 from the start can be considered 'gimmicks'. They're not flash in the pan new things there to wow and distract people. Having played all 3 archtypes in group and/or raid content, I can attest that ward/reactive/hots have a significant impact on how the classes 'play'. More significant then the differences between any of the scouts I've played have. (I've played dirge, briggy and assassin in group content).
They were gimmicks when they were new. Now they're baggage. The impact the gimmicks have is part of the problem.
They were released as gimmicks, have never been properly balanced - with each other, or game content. That they provide different a 'feel' to each of the sub-priests makes little difference if the balance and maintenance of skills vs content isn't there - it's not there now. Nor has it ever been. It's not unique to the priest classes, but that's what this thread is about.
I think I didn't present what I intended clearly enough: It doesn't matter if the gimmick plays different. If it is not balanced to the other gimmicks, as well as game content, if it's not scaled, if it's not maintained, then it's not good. Like many other aspects of the game, the healing gimmicks started off with a lot of potential that was not well developed, and not maintained. Gimmicks can be both fun for players, and detrimental to the game as a whole.
so long as protective instinct is capped, it's not that helpfull. We cannot always count on it. If stoneskin or too much cmbt mit .. it can be hard to build it up. I remember on gearbox at first ... only ascensions allowed me to have an OK ward. And with 68m Hp .. my max ward is 21/22m On fights like the the twins in torden raid (T2), sometimes on most critical times where you'd need the ward, u whether cannot damage the mobs or aren't allowed to. So while it's handy .. u cannot just rely on it (and when u see the inc damage .. this ward isn't strong enough anyway) another way is to make heals/wards not affected by potency. maybe just by wisdom ... and see how it goes and balance through that. (it's like taunt, it's stupid that your taunts hit for more in off stance just because u get 10k more potency. Defensive stance should have the strongest taunts, not off stance)
We're aware that this has become an especially big issue over the past few expansions, particularly with respect to wards. The potency * critbonus multiplier has blown their size out of the water (in some cases people are rocking wards that are as much as 50x their max hitpoints). It's a complex problem, as several people in this thread have already pointed out, and as such we've had many discussions about how to best handle it. We'd prefer to come up with a long term plan and not just a temporary band-aid, so any changes we try will need internal testing well before they even get pushed to Test (meaning it may be some time before you see anything more from us on this topic). It is absolutely on our radar, however, and we will continue work on it even if you don't see us posting about it here.
I still maintain that the problem isn't 'wards'.. it's that hitpoints haven't kept up with the other stats. If our hitpoints had increased at the same rate our potency and crit bonus.. wards (and heals) wouldn't BE 50x hitpoints.. because our hitpoints would have kept pace with the other stats... *shrug* I'm not sure why so many people seem to go bug-eyed at the very idea of hps keeping up with the other crazy stat inflation.. but it being the ONLY one left out is the primary source of the healing potential vs healing usable imbalance.. and fixing that ratio doesn't require any funky mechanics like bleedthrough, funky ways of having heals (including wards) use potency and crit bonus, etc
I fail to see why it is a 'gimmick' with all the negative connotations, rather then simply a mechanic.
Any ETA on that (the first letter of that stands for "estimate") ? I'm going to tell you, people who are not willing to change from toons they love to the flavor of the month (or more accurately, the flavor of the last 3 years) are basically throwing in the towel.
I generally don't resort to quoting dictionary definitions, though in cases where there might be a fundamental difference in the use of a word, I will. gimmick: noun. an ingenious or novel device, scheme or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal. I use the word gimmick in this case because of the divergence from the norm, separate from the issue of poorly thought out implementation and maintenance. Fervor is another gimmick that is also a mechanic. Ascension is an entire 'alternate-alternate advancement system' that is also a gimmick. Not well implemented. Dungeon Maker, Mercenaries, Familiars. Not well implemented or maintained - the list goes on. In this thread, about healers, the gimmick is that instead of - heal or heal over time when you cast you spell - you have - gimmick mechanics that might sound good on paper, but in practice we're now dealing with fallout of how poorly implemented and maintained the system is. Regardless of a minor word choice, I think it can be agreed that the entire system - most clearly visible with healers and fighters - is in need of a massive overhaul.
simple really: Copy and paste the stat code from Rise of Kunark and patch it in. Club all stats back to normal and then spend a day on discord fine tuning it with the players. oh yeah, get rid off ascension classes. /giggle.
there are multiple ways to do it ... they just need to find the right one. at least we got an answer .. they slowly work on it.
and how would shaman do ? they'd still be so powerfull unless they give again 70% BT .. but it wasn't really fun. I checked KA and PoP raids. We still did trak and I checked my heal parse there and in any pop instance raid. My HoTs matter. It's not elemental damage but I'm still high on parse because my HoTs still ticked. In PoP .. on parse all I see is constant currents, SoD and reprieve top (followed by protective instinct which is a situational weak ward .. but still above my heals). Right now it seems if u want to balance for druids, u need to kind of screw shamans over with full BT. but u shouldn't end up by screwing one heal type or another ... because then just cry back and forth
Let me be sceptical after you have given Templar a huge non-shared permanent regenerative ward and have been refusing to remove Interrogation (several time smaller shared ward on 23 seconds cd) threshold for years. Not to mention giving Templar this ward and 15 Fervour in the first place - versus giving Inquisitor Combat Mitigation debuff (the mechanic that is abandoned already and substituted with Potency Mitigation) and autoattack buff that did little in KA and does less and less with every thousand of potency a character recieves. Two things that will always have positive effect on the class game play, on both healing and dps, and will scale and increase - versus a remnant of abandoned mechanic and quickly diminishing in power dps buff. Such things are not realy inspiring or show capability of fixing stuff.
Interrogation % restriction removal would anyway only be a band aid fix, but at least better than nothing. 3 years ago Inquis were crippled in a way that it was worth to take an add with you to have Interrogation ward also on the start of the fights up. Nowadays people do understandably not want to do that since the Inqui ward is not worth much anyway. I agree with Beyhe combat mitigation buff is actually mostly not even worth to cast it since the mitigation and potency levels are skyrocket but that is not really the topic of the thread here.
Several good suggestions in this thread but i suspect "pot mit" will find its way into this equation.
