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My Cleric's healing word should be a "smart" heal IMHO
gezzer52
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 4 Arc User
I'm posting here on the off chance that someone that can fix this will actually read it. It'd be nice if there was a suggestion section (just a suggestion, lol) 
I'm still in the process of leveling my cleric, mostly solo, so this isn't meant to apply to endgame or PvP.
While I do enjoy the positional combat/heal system over the more common click/hotkey target then use rotation, like WoW uses, I'm running into a problem. It's mostly soloing, but sometimes in parties as well, wasting a charge of HW on a totally healed player/companion when I mean to target myself or someone else. Since there's not a lot of feedback on which target I've hit, those little blue crosses are easy to miss in the heat of battle, I've wasted 1, 2 or even all 3 on my companion when I meant to hit myself, especially when the ******* just decides to walk in front of me as I cast it. :mad:
I know that having hotkeys to select our targets for heals defeats the purpose of positional game play style, but for that reason any single target heals need to be smart IMHO. What do I mean by that? They shouldn't attempt to heal anyone at full health. It's a simple check before the spell goes off. In fact there could even be a sputtering noise/light to indicate the heal didn't go off, if wanted, over simply healing the caster instead. Either that or a hotkey for casting on self, but I'd prefer it be a smart heal to be honest, self cast makes it a bit too easy.
Truth is I'm getting really frustrated over this, and the one thing about FtoP it's also easier to move on from.
Just saying.
I'm still in the process of leveling my cleric, mostly solo, so this isn't meant to apply to endgame or PvP.
While I do enjoy the positional combat/heal system over the more common click/hotkey target then use rotation, like WoW uses, I'm running into a problem. It's mostly soloing, but sometimes in parties as well, wasting a charge of HW on a totally healed player/companion when I mean to target myself or someone else. Since there's not a lot of feedback on which target I've hit, those little blue crosses are easy to miss in the heat of battle, I've wasted 1, 2 or even all 3 on my companion when I meant to hit myself, especially when the ******* just decides to walk in front of me as I cast it. :mad:
I know that having hotkeys to select our targets for heals defeats the purpose of positional game play style, but for that reason any single target heals need to be smart IMHO. What do I mean by that? They shouldn't attempt to heal anyone at full health. It's a simple check before the spell goes off. In fact there could even be a sputtering noise/light to indicate the heal didn't go off, if wanted, over simply healing the caster instead. Either that or a hotkey for casting on self, but I'd prefer it be a smart heal to be honest, self cast makes it a bit too easy.
Truth is I'm getting really frustrated over this, and the one thing about FtoP it's also easier to move on from.
Just saying.
Post edited by gezzer52 on
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lol, heals so little on self that its easy not to notice but non-divine form is still problematic
At high level with 200 adds moving around you and red circles everywhere so you gotta keep moving it is quite impossible to target individual players and only reason people use it is to build divinity if they are unable to do it with other means at boss fights.
There is also the fact that 1 add can hit for more then HW heals in it's entire duration.
How this gets handled is critical.
Blizzard dropped the ball a few years back in this regard and for all intensive purposes it changed the games entire dynamic and not in a good way.
It all boils down to the "Immersion" factor. In order to have high immersion then character control needs to be fluid and seamless. Those with fast reflexes can get around a dodgy character control interface and dominate over those that don't have the same reflexes.
In incorporating a truly seamless interface it takes out some of the need for exceptional keyboard and mouse control skills which rubs some people up the wrong way(those with lightning fast agile reflexes).
When it comes to healing I believe there is no debate, healing should be as "Seamless" as possible such that a combat healer is able to fight toe to toe with an enemy while moving reactively according to the situation(Dodge this, walk away from that, swing mace here) while still being able to heal the highest priority target with the right spell for the occassion.
A simple solution is character health thresholds, combat indicators and spell selection all finely tuned such that when selecting a heal ability it will auto target the highest priority recipient with no furthar user input needed. However with a hotkey over-ride the spell can be targeted manually and if there are no viable recipients then it needs to be targeted manually.
This level of control allows the player to "get into" the battle rather than sit back looking at little green and red health bars while clicking buttons then having to watch the fight later on youtube because you missed all the action.
Reducing the power of healing spells can maintain balance easily enough.
Note: A few simple class quests to teach the player the scripted healing process and when to interrupt it and take manual control over the heals and you would have the ultimate battle healer.
World of Warcraft had this option via the user programmable lua interface but the option was removed due to only programmers being able to take advantage of it and thereby dominate all opposition in PvP...I speak from experience here.
Blizzard failed to recognize the value in it and rather than take over the scriptwriting themselves and make the added functionality available to all players they removed it alltogether.
If Neverwinter gets this right and makes the code available to all players then it will set a standard of combat immersion unparelled at this time.
with healing word not stacking or increasing duration that would help to explain why I can never come close to healing myself with it as I'll triple cast it upon myself sometimes in divinity mode and still at times barely budge my health... so if you critical healing word and then cast again and not critical it would then heal for less than the initial critical cast?
But as I said my problem has to do with solo leveling more than endgame or 5 man, and the fact my twit companion is intercepting my HW heals meant for myself when he's at full health as well. I guess I could turn away from him every time, but then I'm not hitting the mobs at all while I do, so I'm pretty sure it's just another way to end up dying or burning a few more of those expensive stones. Yeah! More stuff to spend Zen on.
As for going for the lowest HP, again it's not what I'm suggesting at all. Just a check for full health so I'm not wasting a cool down. Say if the target is at full health then it self casts instead even if the caster is at full health. So if using HW for a DP builder, as another poster suggested, this really wouldn't affect it, doesn't matter if it's casting on the caster at full health or another player at full health. But as I suggested it's a pain when wasting a cool down on a full health target, especially when I'm the one that needs the heal. As I said a self cast hotkey would work too, it's just a bit less elegant than having a full health check IMHO.
Maybe you missed the above post, but i'll point it out again...
Healing word ALWAYS heals you AND the person you are targeting. Your companion can't "intercept" it, because it will ALWAYS cast on you plus your target.