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Healing Classes are down right unenjoyable now
winteranesti
Member Posts: 135 Arc User
As it states, all the healing classes really suck now. No matter what class, they all feel horrible. I tried several tests and at times gave 0 heals on cleric and warlock. I abandoned my paladin, debating on deleting him at this point. To me, I feel this is down right a slap in the face to long term healing players. Broken mechanics, messed up bugs, you really know how to destroy a game at this point. This is worse than mod 16. Mark my words...more players will leave and all you will have is Barbies online. Better give them a heal spec so that all you need is one class does all. Wait and see cryptic, you never listen to players on concerns and it will cost you in the end.
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I've been playing since 2013 as a cleric main. I've been through ups and downs and these changes, are by far, the biggest let down.
Inefficient and not enjoyable.
Cleric: Marquis Elmdore - Current Main
Wizard: Iamblichus
Fighter: Anna the Titan
Barbarian: Anann Valkyrja
Ranger: Minerva Cory'phaia
Warlock: Suri Coralyne Reid
Guild: She Looked Level 18.
Alliance: Imperium
And we got no response or acknowledgement from them.
Wait and see what the next two weeks bring. I'm refusing to play heals in most content for now.
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
I know several healers who are just going to focus on being DPSers and tanks for now.
I still find TAB MECHANIC HEALING clunky, but yeah, manageable. not great, but not super useless.
Soulweaver: The Lovely Red
Minstrel: The Rose Troubadour
This is the worse Healer update ever. Introduce complicate mechanics is the dead of gameplay, a developer should knows it. The last dungeons like Tomm or Tic are very complicated for everyone, many player refuse to play them for the great difficulty, and now the Healers will be forced to "play better" they will touch the tab for exactly 3 seconds meanwhile many events are happening around them. In generally an update should semplify the life of players, let them to play easily, no frustrastion. The consequences will be that the Healers that not master this new "wonderfull" technique will be banned from the party because they will be accused of responsabilty of the party fail. They made changes to mechanics and they have not set a respec, this is the final "icing on the cake".
I went into the new area to test my heals on people, I slotted cure wounds and divine shelter for heals and bane and divine fulmination to try and attack if enemies attacked.
The heals did not heal a lot had to use multiple heals on several people and the damage on the bane and divine fulmination did not do hardly any damage and if you use bane or smite to kill enemies you can not use divine shelter because you run out of divinity.
The power divine fulmination is a very slow attack and when you fire it you can not move so if red surrounds you you can not stop the attack. I tried to block but took full damage when I was in the red. you can move faster with the only other at wills valorous strike and the Radiant damage both are very low hitting powers
Having a healer I understand you can have damaging powers or heals but my point is at this moment the pally seems to have neither one. I was in the new area 20 min and had to use 5 health stones
Pally heals was part heal with a shield when the shield went away we have lower heal numbers to begin with.
The tab targeting is frustrating to use for many healers because it takes time to mark the target and if you heal the targeted person you are left defenseless you can not move so if you get attacked you may get one shot or if the tank gets hit they may be dead before you can get them healed
Completely reverting these changes would be the best thing that can be done, it's done nothing beneficial for the healing experience in this game! I'm going to retire my healers at this point and go back to my old ranger and be done with it unless these mechanics seriously change again for the better. This is just unbearable.
And it was supposed to be one of the reasons for the change: making it more enjoyable.
In the not many tests of healing with my paladin that i have done (allways with my guild, i wont heal anyone else right now) it was boooooring.
I dont need anymore to stay in melee because critical touch now does not need a fast at will attack. So I stay away, standing still, ocasionally using fulmination for divinity generation, just waiting for someone to get hit.
3 people get hit hit. Oh thats my time to shine. I hit one key for divine shelter. I do it again, and again, and again. back to waiting.
wait
wait
fulmination, sacred weapon
wait
wait
wait
fulmination
wait
wait
wait
fulmination
wait
oh tank is hit, mantain tab for like an eternity
fulmination, sacred weapon
wait
wait
wait
fulmination
wait
wait
.
.
.
By the way im standing still ON THE SAME PLACE I have been since the begining...
This is veeeeeeeeeeeery boring. Much more boring than before where i could use my time in generating critical shields and had to be in melee.
So, initially I agreed with most of the comments here a few days ago about how healing was horrible and how difficult healing was to do.
But after a couple of days of working at it and getting over my overpowered outgoing healing loss, I have found a comfortable pace for healing and have done many dungeons (excluding TIC & ToMM) and group oriented with guild and alliance members with minimal disastrous results. It was not perfect as I have become accustomed to but we saw that Cleric healing can still be done well.
1 RELEARN you Class and mechanics!
2 The keyboard spam healing needs to stop.
3 Understanding your specific encounters, feats and features and how they interact with each other.
4 Learning how to time specific encounters and TAB mechanics (yes the TAB mechanic is not the best by far) needs to be relearned by many players.
5 Trying something new and thinking outside the box instead of cookie cutters builds and complaining nonstop should be readily adopted.
Hate on me and yell at me if you want cause I am telling it like it is now.... get over yourselves and make it work better.
Enjoy or hate this post but deep down any of you that are true healers in any MMO know this is right and you should be disappointed in yourselves for not really working it out.
Side note 1: I TRULY do hope this same kind of Nerf stick gets thrown and hits the DPS classes in the face that have ignored defensive stats or wear those godforsaken boots...
Side note 2: I am in NO WAY affiliated with Cryptic and was not paid or prompted to say any of this, it is by my own free will and desire to see healers become great again.
Thank you.
Outcasts of Neverwinter
80 Devout Cleric
...because now 90% of all healers are a liability. They do nothing, do not tank damage, do not deal damage, do not heal as much as a healing potion.
I really have no idea - the high end might now be in the right place. The problem is the rest - anyone outside the fully geared and adequately skilled players. Before the changes the healers in random queues were often under-performing. Now they are hindrance. I do not see it as an improvement.
@twidget72 you make a long post about your opinion, but offer no Actual advice beyond generalities like "Relearn your class and mechanics" and "Trying something new and thinking outside the box instead of cookie cutters builds and complaining nonstop should be readily adopted." You sound more like a politician trying to rile people up instead of offering actual advice on a specific situation. No one needs to hate or yell at you, pointless waste of energy. And btw, I specifically wear two different sets of boots, and before my ToMM run, I switched to Fiend Forged from Rusty, a move I recommend for dps who run ToMM atm to help the healers out.
You bring up a valid point about splash damage. for Melee classes this is a defensive (or lack of defensive stats) issue in my opinion.
I see what you mean by your second point about we provide little else (except healing), which may seem low now; it can be overcome with some stat readjustments. I am not specifically endgame in the normal sense (not all BIS or full decked out Runestones and enchants) but I have done all the content on my healer cleric to this point (just haven't gotten the time to get into TIC yet (might be able to today...).
I see plenty of really good heals and see really big heals with the tab mechanic combined with Gathering Light 480k+ as well as 100k+ heals on soothe. I made an effort to use it and sound it working well. I shifted my mindset of the power crit ratio and actually went over by 25% ish in power with typical buffs (potions, elixir, event foods and guild foods). once a fight geets rolling I can reach over 202k power regularly.. this is healing power and additive with outgoing healing with class features, feats at will buffs to reach about 55% OH. So it can be done.
I also agree that while highly geared and skilled players can make the best of it and make it work with a little foresight, the lower geared player base will struggle a lot and will make them go to DPS classes more than likely.
@unknowndrama Thank you
I hear you and have seen that since the I started playing. Unfortunately potentially good healers will leave for other classes because it is can seem really difficult at the moment to get through content.
Outcasts of Neverwinter
80 Devout Cleric
I completely agree, I think as a healer we need to drop the idea that we must always keep everyone at full life or heal from 5% to 100%, it's just not a balanced thing to be able to do and it spoils people, it gives an expectation that that's what a healer should do but no, you are responsible to dodge red areas, you are responsible to time your powers and potion drinking, hell everyone has possibility to use the boons to improve the efficiency of potions but most have gotten so comfortable and rely solely on healers keeping them alive.
I do hope though that people realise this sooner or later because no one will gain on blaming the healer for not succeeding in a dungeon.
I'm not saying that I don't see the problem with super spiky damage that almost one shots you but one needs to consider the fact that many players out there have no idea that defense has to be capped, crit avoidance has to be capped, that sometimes you need to prioritise HP over power and that maybe is time to drop rusted leggings and ebonized chainmail...
Sure, but even gearing up is a question of progress. You are supposed to run some content to get geared up for some other content. Capped defence is not exactly easy task for dps - and forget the crit avoidance. Put scaling to the mix and for most of us it is totally lost cause anyway.
There has to be some rewarding content to accompany you before you are a top notch showcase of legendaries. Lets say, forcing players to be fully geared up to able to run any group content - any at all - is a bad move.
Another thing is the skill - you need to learn somehow. It is impossible to learn to heal if your attempts contribute 0 to the total effort.
And even putting that aside, the problem is that random queues need functional healers. While before we had "somehow" functional healers, now even that is void. And as I said somewhere else: sure, healers need to re-learn to heal again, but for low to mid healers there is simply no available tool to compensate for the all the splash damage around.
You are right, I should have included some advise beyond generalities.
I must admit that I refer more towards clerics with my post. I made to a loosely general statement about it towards all healers and I should have been more specific towards clerics (I do have a Pally healer and a Warlock healer also @23.4k and 22.6k respectively with roughly about 50 boons each). I do see how they play differently and understand how the mechanics used to work and see how rough it is now.
What I mean by "Relearn Class and Mechanics": Taking a hard look at how your powers now interact with magnitudes and how they split those magnitudes among party members when you heal more than one person is something to be more aware of... the days of Bastion spamming are not an efficient use of Divinity. If using Healing word; giving it a real chance of ticking away for those 18 seconds instead of always trying to maintain the full duration or maintain everyone at full health. We can gain additional outgoing healing through our class features. Changing Feats that can help recover Divinity faster or learning how the new Tab Mechanic really works and using it more regularly instead of Healing Word, Bastion Cleanse or Intersession.
My current Encounter load out is:
DIVINE GLOW: divinity regeneration (it does work better than before and they have incrementally upped divinity regeneration in combat). You could use Exaltation in place of this for the additional outgoing healing bonus.
HEALING WORD: let it roll for max duration and let it do it's job. DPS may actually learn to remove themselves from the red or use potions if needed sometimes.
BASTION use as needed but only if needed and position it for ranged players instead of group melee heals on top of the target to maximize the magnitude healing output. Gathering Light will heal those melee party members for you.
I use INTERSESSION during Acturia. Additionally used for Boreworm or Bosses in TIC as needed.
At Wills:
BLESSING OF LIGHT: boosts next heal by 10%
SOOTHE: single target heal. Yes I hate using the target system but I have seem some really good healing compared to the older form.
Class Features:
DESPERATE PRAYERS: up to 20% more outgoing healing when your divinity is below 50% with a maximum when your divinity is depleted.
HALLOWED GUIDE : 5% increased healing when the target is within 15′. A small increase but it works.
Feats
REPEATED BLESSING: Increases the remaining timer on Healing word by 6 seconds when you use a healing encounter on a target. This cannot exceed the fixed duration (18 seconds) of Healing word.
or
EMPOWERED SOOTHE: Stacking buff that can increase the magnitude of Soothe. Consumes one stack of Empowered Soothe per heal and adds an additional 100 to its current magnitude heal. This can make it up to 350. (Don't forget you can use the item modification to improve that an additional 10%.) This makes soothe heal for roughly near the current floor of Bastion on a single target.
CYCLE OF PRAYER: increases divinity regeneration rate every 3 seconds. This effect stacks up to 4 times and is reset whenever any action consumes divinity. (This works in synergy with Divine Glow and you shouldn't really be chasing Divinity if you are timing your encounters instead of spam healing).
PERSISTENT GUARDIAN: Increased magnitude heal and healing count
GATHERING LIGHT: Heals the Marked target and nearby party members. Unfortunately there is no stated radius but it seems very small... maybe 8-10 feet??)
Dailies
HALLOWED GROUND
GUARDIAN OF LIFE: Use this for an uh-oh moment instead of spamming whenever it is up so you are not caught without a daily when you actually need it. This can be timed with big boss mechanics that happen to offset the amount of damage a party may take
As for "trying something new and thinking outside the box instead of cookie cutters builds and complaining nonstop should be readily adopted".
Check out different Gear, Boons, Companion Gear and even Companions that may work for you better. Currently all my defensive stats are capped at 90-94k.
With a total IL of 26.8k. Once buffed with Wild Storm Elixir, Flask of potency, Prime Rib and Watermelon Sorbet; I am at 173k Power, 147.5k Critical Strike, 52.3% Companion influence, 13.5 Recharge speed, 21.8 % OH and 118% Critical Severity.
I have been playing with Scattering Light (exchanged for Blessing of Light) to get some gear Perks running to increase my power. Ring of the Fallen, Infernal Boots...etc.
Healing Companion Bonuses: I have all the OH legendary companions. I exchanged my Sellsword companion ability for the Deepcrow (legendary) for the increase in power over outgoing healing. This equates to flat healing power. The other stat (ACC does not benefit me, and before you say it does... it DOES NOT! I will still hit the mobs, just a reduced damage output but I will still be able to proc the gear perks.
This was simply theory crafting and it actually worked as intended and I made a jump in power of almost 25- 30k. This equates to flat healing power. I still somewhat maintain the concept of the 25% Power/Crit ratio but I flipped it over so I see stronger flat heals (Power based and not Crit based but I also still see crits fairly often).
EXAMPLE-- in Avernus by the Docks theory craft testing multiple times on normal mobs
With Groups in Ascension Heroic and elite mobs throughout bottom area and it performed pretty well with very little trouble.
Mark Party member or yourself.
Once combat gets moving: Divine glow, Healing Word. I see power jump to roughly 188k, Defense to 103k (burnished Response) I start using Scattering Light to proc gear perks, companion perks and insignia bonuses 198k up to 205.3k (best so far at top end). Let healing word do its job, keep damage rolling, Soothe as needed and use Tab with a 1-1.5 second hold and release for self and full hold if really needing it. I don't use Bastion as often as I did before. Rinse repeat.
If it sounded like I was talking like a politician, my apologies if it was read that way. Maybe I was a little to sharp pointed and harsh...My apologies.
Hopefully this helps to answer your concerns and can give some insight or advice into doing things differently ...especially now that we are forced to as healers.
Final note for you @bigman99
I am sorry ToMM was so frustrating for you guys and your parties, I do understand and sympathize with how much it hurts to see all the time energy and AD almost all healers have wasted to get to bear appropriately geared out and have it all undone in one big screw you. It hurt me as much as any other healer, but I know deep down..just like every other change or nerf or whatever you want to call it...we as healers can make it work again and get better at it together. I am taking a stance of healers are being adjusted now so we can get our healing settled out and back to a reasonable level and then DPS are going to suffer the same fate we did.... the reduced defense stats a lot of them keep is going to be their own undoing and they will have to make adjustments accordingly. (That is my hope)
Thank you for your comments and pushing me to add some insight I have gained with this change and for having a forum to share this information with other healers.
Thank you
Outcasts of Neverwinter
80 Devout Cleric
Let the 1% (as some folks are saying) have their moment of fun too please.
As for the ECL (Everlasting Complain Legion) community... Keep working on improving your character (on all levels) and you might be fighting there too (by joining the 1% club).
I hadn't thought of a politician when I read @twidget72 but now that I think of it, spot on, full tilt PC.
I wasn't trying to be PC... I was trying to be POSITIVE and give some POSITIVE responses instead of just being part of the problem and just screaming about how much it sucked to try and heal. I, as well as others are working it out and have made the changes to our characters to make it work. Have done multiple LoMM and several IC runs and it has gone fairly well. Still some slight tweaking to be made for sure but all in all it is not as bad as people have made it out to be.
@ayleen
Valid points. I guess it just depends on play style (I am now tending to stay closer to the party members more regularly so I can maintain Hallowed Guide). mostly works for melee grouped dps on mobs.
I never really understood the hatred for Healing Word... it is just a heal over time (sure the reduced Magnitude sucks) but for me it is a centerpoint of my build as I use it regularly to keep a HoT going.
Everyone plays a little different and brings their own strengths to the party. Thanks for sharing some good ideas and I will have to look into some of them for a modification to my build as needed.
Outcasts of Neverwinter
80 Devout Cleric