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Simple Healing Depression change to keep Cleric Build Diversity?
furiusdisplay
Member Posts: 7 Arc User
PvP healing is something quite a few people enjoy (not I) and Healing Depression is just another nail in that coffin, so why don't we make healing depression affect self-heals only? That way cleric outgoing heals will still mean something while the nerf to unkillable, self-sufficient monsters stays in place.
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Now that we have Healing Depression, why does Righteousness still exist?
From what I understand from past Dev posts, Righteousness was implemented because DC was too powerful in PvP. This was also prior to Module 1, where we had a completely different playing field. Damage etc has since scaled much higher compared to healing
This.
(Before anyone starts in with how survivable DCs still are, let's just state that skating around indefinitely while 3+ players with no enchantments either above rank 7 or more powerful than "lesser" try to kill you does not count.)
I'm all for bringing back the viability of team healing, but leaving DCs unable to heal themselves even as effectively as before the patch doesn't make sense since DC healing was never the problem.
The problem that Healing Depression is intended to address was caused by too much sustain, mitigation, damage potential, and mobility being present in certain class builds, making them incredibly self-sufficient, difficult to kill, and still very lethal. It certainly wasn't caused by DCs building for survivability (which, funnily enough, became a thing because everyone realized early on that PvP DCs needed to be built more to overcome their inherent class weaknesses rather than to emphasize their natural strengths).
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Understatement of the year.
Ever heard of immortal DC before the patch? They were nicknamed immortal of a reason
Immortal DC is a myth outside of the context of a huge disparity in gear and skill. People on these forums keep saying it like it means something.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Nope. I've seen DCs that needed 4-5 well geared people focusing it down.
Immortal DC is a myth. Good joke. Tell me another one
Then they weren't nearly as well geared as you thought. Or they just didn't know how to play.
Anyone with this opinion clearly does not understand PvP. Probably the same people who think CWs are overpowered in PvP and that HRs are unkillable.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
The only problem I see in HD - Righteousness still exists.
CW OP in PVP? Ahahaha keep them jokes coming
Any class well-geared and well-played is king of PUG PvP, because most PUG PvP is far more about huge gaps in skill and gear than it is about class balance. Thus not very relevant to class balance discussions. This might change as the matchmaking becomes more accurate, but that's not the case yet.
Also don't forget that, with Healing Depression, players are experiencing a much greater reduction in heals received than they are in damage received. Tenacity allows for a lot of additional mitigation, but a flat 50% reduction to heals trumps that pretty soundly.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
You didn't get it, did you? I pug only 30% matches, usually I play as a premade (3-4 men mostly), I was matched against 5m premades without DC, and before Tenacity update I carried my team hard as a DC. Now overall damage is nerfed and you want that healing back? No and no. A single DC would make fights endless (they already are). HD should affect healing as it is now, I know it sucks, but no player should be allowed to tank 3 people only having critical HW hot.
If my self healing were buffed, I'd be fine with that.
Exactly what kind of premade matches are we talking about where one crit HW literally makes the difference between a player being able to tank 3 people vs. dying to them? I guess we need to be even more specific and limit the definition of pre-made for the purpose of these discussions to "full party of skilled players with good gear communicating with each other."
You're welcome to your opinion, but HD is too much even on party members. Only those of us who play otherwise strong DCs have the luxury of sitting here on forums debating the finer points of PvP mechanics while we continue to PUGstomp; I feel very bad for the average DC, and so should you.
At the risk of repeating myself, you don't seem to get that the healing nerf far exceeds the overall damage nerf. Is HW even on your bar anymore? I know it's not on mine. I ran it for the first couple of matches after patch thinking it could work...up until I went up against players of comparable gear and skill and realized just how ineffective it's become.
Also, is the concept of Shadowtouched something you aren't yet getting? Everyone and their mother uses this boon. So how many reductions to healing do you think are necessary? And how is nerfing one of the primary functions of an entire character class making the game more fun? This is my main objection to Healing Depression.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I hate HD to begin with and I fully agree with anyone who says that it sucks, but the thing is - Tenacity made fights last longer, the more you heal, the longer fights are. I hate long fights, I like heavy damage hits and gameplay based on timing and avoiding damage, now you have more room to mistake.
I don't want more healing for in this game damage is easily avoidable because
a) Dodge mechanics
b) Deflect
c) You can't attack while moving
d) Non-target
e) Everyone builds defense
If I could balance healing in PvP, I'd remove all the healing completely and give clerics shields, buffs and debuffs instead (not that crappy 10% junk, real buffs and debuffs that would matter). In all the games I played healers had: a lot of different CC, a lot of self saving abilities, a lot of strong party buffs and ofc healing. There's no game I played since 2006 where healer class could be killed in 1vs1 situation. This is the first game I see healers as a handicapped class that was nerfed all over and over again. And I'm tired of it. I don't want devs to buff PvP DC's healing because I know what way it would lead to - even more nerfs.
ding!!
So many people just don't understand. It's sad.
Your reasons A through E are good ones, but there's a problem: they are the reasons why burst healing potential is already far more limited in NW than in other games of the genre that lack an action-oriented interface. In other words, all of that was already accounted for before HD kicked in. Besides, as noted before, HD's effect on healing far exceeds Tenacity's effect on damage output.
HD successfully helps prevent classes with extremely powerful damage-avoidance abilities combined with solid offensive potential (read: GWF, GF, and TR, mainly) from stacking enough HP and Regen that attacking them without both perfect timing and incredible burst becomes a complete waste of effort. No one ever complained that DCs were making teams unkillable; the only complaints in that direction came from undergeared people trying to fight BiS DCs and not being able to do much to them, which was still a tamer version of what happened to undergeared people trying to fight a BiS GWF (in that case, they not only couldn't kill it, they would all get killed).
If you personally don't like healing mechanics in MMORPG PvP, I can understand your reasons, but plenty of people actually enjoy the strategy of healing, especially in a game like NW where you can't just click on portraits and spam F keys until all the bars are full again. This is part of why HD feels like a very arbitrary handicap for DCs: "Have a bunch of powers that help restore HP for you and your team, but we'd really rather you didn't actually try use them in PvP, so take the rest of your kit and make the best of it, will you?"
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I play myself a 15k cleric with p/vorpal and a full power/crit cookie cutter faithful healing build, and can confirm this. I can keep people alive. Not forever, but i've played against many other 15k players using pure damage builds and so far I'm doing fine. Fine doesn't mean immortal but it means that yes i'm keeping party members alive unless they're derping. Basically I have never lost a 2 vs 2 match on a node, and in a 5 vs 5 situation, as long as the team follows the blue circle instruction, the red team will be on respawn before someone dies. That's the most common case.
The downside is that I'm not tanky and will die like anyone else if i'm excessively focused, but so far, power/crit/vorpal builds win hands down and can reliably keep the party alive long enough. I fully expect DCs investing in their own survivability not to be able to achieve anything but dancing in circles on a node until they die or get support. That's what they chose anyway. Healing depression is just making the now obsolete jack of all trade regen troll w/ 20% deflection build and still heal a lot not able to heal as much as i do and I can't complain about it. Now you keep others alive but can't tank or you tank and that's all you do. That's very similar to people using dps pve gear in pvp.
Now, remove or soften the healing depression debuff and my cleric will be a god among mortals in pugs. Matches will see no end, if you let me toss 550 AS ticks, 4k crit sunbursts and 20-22k crit healing words, while everyone is taking half the initial damage dealt via feated foresight and shield. Remove righteousness and the glass cannon cleric will stay alive a lot longer, and while it may not be that no HD god, it will be a serious pain in the butt and will require a lot of teamwork and precise timing on debuffs to kill.
You continue to make a lot of assumptions about others' play styles and builds. Did you really think that every PvP cleric except for you ran with a pure Sent-style build? Or that it wasn't possible to balance acceptable survivability with strong heals?
When I throw on my PvP gear and lose my companion bonuses, my DC's GS drops to 15k as well, and he, too, uses a P. Vorpal. He was never a blue-suit DC with nothing but defensive stats, and he had only modest Regen, but the combination of good dodge anticipation, decent defenses, and big burst heal crits with Divinity made that build fun and workable. Now all the crit severity and Divinity in the world fails to make healing very effective, even further pigeonholing PvP DCs into defensive builds.
Even if you are maximizing your healing potential with every passive ability in the book, you are not getting close to overcoming the effects of Healing Depression. Tenacity may reduce damage taken, but not nearly to the extent that Healing Depression reduces incoming heals.
I'm starting to think that players who compose arguments trying to explain why Healing Depression should be considered acceptable and desirable for DCs are trolling as the Iraqi Information Minister from the Gulf War ("There are no nerfs associated with Healing Depression; This is a lie! DCs are perfectly fine and do not need fully effective healing powers!"). Healing Depression isn't fun for the majority of DC players, it devalues the DC's role in PvP teams, and DC heals never unbalanced PvP in the first place. DCs really ought to be a pain in the butt to kill and require a little bit of intelligent play and coordination to counter; it's their trade-off for being a class with low damage potential, few CC powers, low mobility, no ability to break CC, and a very strong dependence on Divinity gain.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I guarantee those 4-5 people are terrible.