Let's talk about utility [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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KingOfF00LS

11-12-2005, 04:03 AM

Please check the arrogance and condescension at the door. I'd like legitimate discussion here. Ok, so I hear a lot of people saying our lotto heals are our utility. So basically, we're still the top healers because we have our main heals that are balanced with the other priests, but we also have our additional "utility healing" spells such as Glory of Combat, Involuntary Healer, Mark of whatever, and so on. So basically what we're hearing is that our healing isn't just our healing it's also our utility. So, what do you all think. Do you want your extra healing spells to be your utility? Do you want your utility to be something not heal related? Is having healing as utility ok as long as it's something that heals more dependably than our lotto heals? One thing that I always though was well balanced among the priest classes in EQ was utility buffs. Cleric had the best HP/AC buff, Druid had an HP buff that gave less HP but it stacked with cleric symbol and it also offered mana regen bonus. Shaman had an HP buff that was smaller than cleric's, but they also had buffs for raw stats like stamina, strength, agility, and the like. I always felt that was a good way of balancing little extras that each class offered. Could a better arrangement of buffs be our utility and make us happy? What do you think our utility should be? <div></div>

zorbdan

11-12-2005, 04:13 AM

I think having the strongest buffs would give us something that fits our role and might even make us a more viable option in a wider range of circumstances. We of course would still suck at soloing unless one of the buffs was a massive damage shield :smileywink:

Kayle

11-12-2005, 05:16 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> KingOfF00LS wrote: Please check the arrogance and condescension at the door. I'd like legitimate discussion here. Ok, so I hear a lot of people saying our lotto heals are our utility. So basically, we're still the top healers because we have our main heals that are balanced with the other priests, but we also have our additional "utility healing" spells such as Glory of Combat, Involuntary Healer, Mark of whatever, and so on. So basically what we're hearing is that our healing isn't just our healing it's also our utility. So, what do you all think. Do you want your extra healing spells to be your utility? Do you want your utility to be something not heal related? Is having healing as utility ok as long as it's something that heals more dependably than our lotto heals? One thing that I always though was well balanced among the priest classes in EQ was utility buffs. Cleric had the best HP/AC buff, Druid had an HP buff that gave less HP but it stacked with cleric symbol and it also offered mana regen bonus. Shaman had an HP buff that was smaller than cleric's, but they also had buffs for raw stats like stamina, strength, agility, and the like. I always felt that was a good way of balancing little extras that each class offered. Could a better arrangement of buffs be our utility and make us happy? What do you think our utility should be? <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> This is the discord, KoF. They say it's not EQ1, yet everything you just described for druid and shaman is in accord with EQ1's spell line-up, except the templar. 1. Root - Templar is missing a solid root spell. This pacify and soothe doesn't compare and it distracts from the job of a cleric due to their short durations and long timers. Harmony has too long of a timer. That's 3 spells I'd be willing to give up for a decent root spell that lasts, none of this 30s crap. 2. Celestial - Single target and group. We have mainly reactives. They have mainly heal over time. It's situational healing. Contingent vs. Constant. Give us back a solid celestial line that pumps up health quickly and take away amelioration, reverence and divine arbitration - (that's one direct heal and 1 contingent upon something happening heal, and 1 equalization heal that's too precarious anyway). 3. Avoidance/Mitigation - Horrible for a Templar if you're going to give them healing aggro now. It needs to be fixed for them so that plate means something instead of telling them to go accumulate something another class wears. Who wants to hear that after months of getting what worked? It's not all about utility. It's the overall feel of the class that's bugging people. I don't think dps is the answer or MORE crap spells to play with and more hotbars to add. There is no replacement for spells of substance that make the class worthwhile to play. I don't think they'll do it though. I've already asked for it. That's my 2 cents.

thesilverf

11-12-2005, 06:34 AM

<DIV> Ok Utility…. There are more than these, and some are really cool but the ones I’ll go inot seem to be the hot topic lines. And Kaylena, I totally agree it is about the overall feel of the class. Caveat: This is on the supposition that the spells work per their description, and has nothing to do with other classes. Mark of Kings line: Mark of Kings Adept I has a 20% Chance to heal the attacker for 125 over 8 seconds. And a Divne debuff of 552. Well, the heal is nominal at best, at all levels, and the debuff is only good for priests, and maybe crusaders? Not many classes use Divine Damage right? So the benefit is minimal. I see it as a Solo Spell mostly. Room for Improvement: Reduce the cast time from 2 seconds. Maybe 1 second. It would help in a solo fight to get cast on a mob quicker. A short cast time would give us a chance in a group to up our damage as well. Involuntary Curate Line: The recent adjustment to this is very nice. At Adept I, a 1 in 5 chance to heal the mobs target per attack for ~150, during the 72 second duration. In theory, against a melee mob, let’s say the mob has an attack delay of 3 seconds. That could go as high as 3600 HP healed on your tank, in a very best case scenario mind you. In multiple target fights, solo or group, I cast it on as many off targets as I can afford to, since the main target gets dropped so fast. Room for Improvement: I think this is just fine. Sign of Infirmity line: At Adept I, Pacifies a target for 16 seconds. I use it to pull encounters solo, and I use it on adds of course. But on top of that, say your group pulls two ^^^ mobs. Cast it on the off the target. If it really prevents AoE, and no one breaks it, that is 16 seconds of damage prevention, 16 seconds of no AoE stuns, poison, trauma… Take a mob that has 100 DPS (A weak Mob), you just prevented 1600 damage. A healer mob? You just prevented him from healing the main target. Room for Improvement: Seems valuable to me. Maybe a shorter casting time, given the long cast times on our pure heals. Then you have Faithful Salvation, Beneficence, Greater Harmony, Radiance, Soothe (alright that’s a weak one), Atoning Fate, Shielding Faith!!! and Odyssey (Ok a little weak too). One more note on Forced Submission.. I use this in small groups against healing mobs. You really want to see it work, go use it on the Shimmering Wisps in Shimmering Citadel. Use it when they are down to 30% health and watch them go down fast. They can’t heal themselves…. I’ll be the first to agree that our Utility is far from sexy, far from having a conspicuous effect on the outcome of a fight (in fact it largely goes unnoticed.) All healers can relate to this. I’ll also say, that in an ideal group situation our base heals our more than adequate to cover the encounter, rendering our utility useless. But I will staunchly disagree that our “Utility” is useless overall. With some creativity, it makes my groups able to take on far more challenging encounters. Well, my two cents. I just wish we could all focus on a way to make interrupts manageable and find a reasonable way to boost our DPS. Rays of Faith line!!!! Look at it. That is a huge waste of a hotkey slot atm. </DIV>

Takeo1

11-12-2005, 08:35 AM

Aye - I like the heals being our utility, but I loathe the procs. I could settle for a wipe of the other crap, and a group of solid 100% "it lands you got it coming" spells. Having a bit more to buff a group with and maybe a single target no-conc ac/buff for a tanker would be nice too, but just a 10-15% increase on existing would be okay for a whirl. And yes - healing should be our utility. Lates.

Gcha

11-12-2005, 12:02 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> thesilverfox wrote: <DIV> Ok Utility…. There are more than these, and some are really cool but the ones I’ll go inot seem to be the hot topic lines. And Kaylena, I totally agree it is about the overall feel of the class. Caveat: This is on the supposition that the spells work per their description, and has nothing to do with other classes. Well, it's late Friday evening, so this means I should probably just shut up and go away for the night, but, of course, I won't. Mark of Kings line: Mark of Kings Adept I has a 20% Chance to heal the attacker for 125 over 8 seconds. And a Divne debuff of 552. Well, the heal is nominal at best, at all levels, and the debuff is only good for priests, and maybe crusaders? Not many classes use Divine Damage right? So the benefit is minimal. I see it as a Solo Spell mostly. Room for Improvement: Reduce the cast time from 2 seconds. Maybe 1 second. It would help in a solo fight to get cast on a mob quicker. A short cast time would give us a chance in a group to up our damage as well. The Mark line should either be improved SIGNIFICANTLY or ditched. My **subjective** non-pseudo-scientific assessment is that it either does nothing worth mentioning, or it does so little that, well, it's not worth mentioning. Yup, that's subjective. I may have forgotten to mention that. The numbers nuts can run parses 'til the cows come home and it won't persuade me because if I need to show myself and others a spreadsheet to prove that something is working, well ........................ do I really need to complete this thought? Bottom line is I have experimented with it several nights now and I want to trade it in. Any offers? Won't take much. In short, ditch the Mark line and replace it with a nice DH or HOT ... or even a Summon Snowboard spell, or how about a translocate spell ... er wait, we have that, don't we. Involuntary Curate Line: The recent adjustment to this is very nice. At Adept I, a 1 in 5 chance to heal the mobs target per attack for ~150, during the 72 second duration. In theory, against a melee mob, let’s say the mob has an attack delay of 3 seconds. That could go as high as 3600 HP healed on your tank, in a very best case scenario mind you. In multiple target fights, solo or group, I cast it on as many off targets as I can afford to, since the main target gets dropped so fast. Room for Improvement: I think this is just fine. Is this the one where I cast Spell X and maybe effect Y happens if Event Z occurs? Dang, I love that one. I am a control freak. This one makes me feel like I am back at the tables at Luxor. Except I win more often at Luxor. Man I hope nobody dies tho. Well, when you get down to it I don't really care if anyone dies ... and if I did, what would it matter. Come on Lady Luck ! Sign of Infirmity line: At Adept I, Pacifies a target for 16 seconds. I use it to pull encounters solo, and I use it on adds of course. But on top of that, say your group pulls two ^^^ mobs. Cast it on the off the target. If it really prevents AoE, and no one breaks it, that is 16 seconds of damage prevention, 16 seconds of no AoE stuns, poison, trauma… Take a mob that has 100 DPS (A weak Mob), you just prevented 1600 damage. A healer mob? You just prevented him from healing the main target. Room for Improvement: Seems valuable to me. Maybe a shorter casting time, given the long cast times on our pure heals. Do I need to mez a mob for something? Isn't the chamter handling this? No?? Somebody IM me, would ya? Wait, I'm a cleric ... er no ... maybe not ... maybe I clicked the wrong button when I made this guy. OMG NO !?!?! What did I do! I didn't make a cleric, I made a ..........hmmm ... what was this again? Could somebody look it up and let me know please ... ........................anyway, do I need to mez something here? If so, could somebody please let me know. I've always liked to mez things. It's why I chose to be a cleric again. Then you have Faithful Salvation, Beneficence, Greater Harmony, Radiance, Soothe (alright that’s a weak one), Atoning Fate, Shielding Faith!!! and Odyssey (Ok a little weak too). Are you sure we have these spells? Maybe so ... maybe I just forgot. Could happen. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe I accidentally closed that spellbar. Hmm, you would think I would have noticed though. Guess not. Anyway, I will look into this some time when I have a chance. One more note on Forced Submission.. I use this in small groups against healing mobs. You really want to see it work, go use it on the Shimmering Wisps in Shimmering Citadel. Use it when they are down to 30% health and watch them go down fast. They can’t heal themselves…. I’ll be the first to agree that our Utility is far from sexy, far from having a conspicuous effect on the outcome of a fight (in fact it largely goes unnoticed.) All healers can relate to this. I’ll also say, that in an ideal group situation our base heals our more than adequate to cover the encounter, rendering our utility useless. I just love it when we don't need our useless utility. Reminds me of Data scanning for lifeforms ... Utilities, you crazy little utlities, where ... are ... you ........................ But I will staunchly disagree that our “Utility” is useless overall. With some creativity, it makes my groups able to take on far more challenging encounters. Yeah mon ... what he said. I'm down with that. Well, my two cents. I just wish we could all focus on a way to make interrupts manageable and find a reasonable way to boost our DPS. Rays of Faith line!!!! Look at it. That is a huge waste of a hotkey slot atm. </DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Well, I'd best sleep now, huh. Yeah ... no doubt about it. But before I go, do I need to mez something here or translocate anyone or maybe summon food? Message Edited by Gchang on 11-11-2005 11:12 PM

Buckelnase

11-14-2005, 05:59 PM

Silverfox, thanks for the analyzes - I agree with your evaluation of our current spells. There's another useful utility spell - "Sanctuary" (lvl 55 spell from the "Ancient Teaching" line). As I am too low level I haven't used it myself, but I have seen guildies using it and it looks very good. Unfortunately you need a pearl/vanadium for it... <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Gchang, you might want to browse through your Knowledge-book again and put at least the following spells on your hotkey bars: Shielding Fate (lvl 43, because of the short re-cast timer very useful!), Atoning Fate (lvl 48, very useful during group-encounters!), Faithful Salvation (lvl 55), Greater Harmony (lvl 55) - you might notice better healing capabilities when you use those. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

Orid

11-14-2005, 06:27 PM

I'm kind of stuck at the definition of utility and I think players are throwing spells into the utility bucket when they are really something else. To me, utility means that the spell makes the player's life easier while not having any combat effectiveness. Odessy, Water Breathing, SoW, Evac, Illusions etc are to me, utility spells. Mark of Kings, Involuntary Curate, these are debuffs / healing spells (all priest classes have a form of this "debuff"). Sanctuary, Glory of Combat, etc these are buffs. Sign of Infimary, Soothe, these are all CC.

KingOfF00LS

11-14-2005, 06:51 PM

Sorry about not being able to get back to this thread until today. Wife and I were busy all weekend. <blockquote><hr>Kaylena wrote:It's not all about utility. It's the overall feel of the class that's bugging people. I don't think dps is the answer or MORE crap spells to play with and more hotbars to add. There is no replacement for spells of substance that make the class worthwhile to play. I don't think they'll do it though. I've already asked for it. That's my 2 cents.<hr></blockquote>I agree that there's more at play than just utility, but I kept hearing certain people saying "our healing is our utility" and it seemed like nobody was really addressing what our healing *should* be. I agree that having utility spells that are based on luck of the draw (involuntary healer and the like) don't really inspire me much. I think heals should be heals, not tricks. I think non-heal based utility is a good thing. Things like the pseudo-mez line, while definitely not what I would choose for a CLERIC, could still be made more usable if they weren't gimped by short durations, long recasts, and limitations of single targets. Slightly off the topic of utility, but I will say one thing about heals....I *HATE* that slow heals this class is stuck with. Where is my high mana cost, fast, one to two second cast time, one second recast, "try to save a life in a hurry" heal spell? Getting my "Supernal Remedy" back from EQ would make a big difference to me. <div></div>

Aleph

11-14-2005, 11:03 PM

I like having the extra heals as utility. I also don't mind procs so much, although I do think they should happen more often. 1. The Involuntary line is okay. With 2-3 mobs receiving this buff, it goes off a lot and can almost be counted on. It's hard to parse, but if it cures a trauma, that can easily net several hundred hps over a fight without casting multiple cures. 2. The Mark line is a little weak. The 125hp heal on AdI proc of Kings isn't much. If the proc percentage was increased, it would work better at topping off casters. As it is, I only usually see melees getting the heals because they hit so much more often. I'd like the proc rate increased to 40% or 50%. It isn't like doubling the healing value of this spell would be overpowering, but it would allow those not autoattacking to get some of the benefits. I also wouldn't mind seeing the AC buff on the Mark line put back. 3. Leave the fate line alone. It's the most valuable utility spell I have. Furies get one almost just like it, I think. 4. Sign line. You have to communicate if you're using this spell. I use it in small groups when fighting multi-target encounters. It works better now that AOE damage doesn't break it, but you have to let the group know you are using it or they'll break it. If the tank is switching targets to build aggro, they might break this one, so you need to work out a system. A particle effect would be nice, but tab switching tanks will still break them, just like they do mezzes. The spell only takes a second or so to cast, so it isn't a big deal to put it on an encounter mob then assist back to the MT. As long as the mob has the MT as its target, you can still refresh reactives on the tank. This will save you some reactive ticks and will cut the incoming damage significantly. I think of battles these days as a race between damage and healing. The mobs are putting out X dps, and I can put out Y hp/s of healing. On tougher battles, X is greater than Y--the mob damages faster than I can heal, so the mob will win, even if I don't go oop, unless we kill it before it kills the tank. In these cases, every little bit helps. An extra 20-30 hp/s of healing and the dps decrease from a 16s pacify could give the time needed to kill the encounter if I'm waiting on recasts, and it could save mana blown on spot heals if I'm not. Alephin

ADW123

11-15-2005, 05:44 PM

1. Involuntary is now somewhat useful, but still provides little benefit to bother casting in most cases. Usually only cast this on named when I want my full load of debuffs up that I need the extra little healing. 2. Mark is horribly underpowered. Over the duration of the spell, it heals only 125 hp, (adept 1). The average tank at that level has about 6k hp. On average this is only healing about 2% of the tanks life. A heal this small is not even noticeable. This needs to be atleast doubled to be worth casting whatsoever. 3. Agreed, fate line is the best utility we have. If they ever touch this line, I will be really [Removed for Content]. 4. I never use sign as a mez, it is too short and too much work to bother with. It is excellent for pulling with though. <DIV> Curaga 55 Templar Unrest</DIV>Message Edited by ADW123 on 11-15-2005 04:45 AM

Kayle

11-16-2005, 10:07 AM

<DIV>n/t .. making a new thread with a separate idea.</DIV>Message Edited by Kaylena on 11-15-2005 11:14 PM

Xerxess

11-16-2005, 12:09 PM

<DIV>we don't need more utility!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We are working as intended... :robotsurprised:</DIV>