Devs: Please make EoF Recovery line useful for healing-focused Furies

[Catsy]

I implore the dev responsible for the EoF Fury AA tree to reevaluate the abilities in the Recovery line. One of the problems furies face is a stereotype that we are not effective healers, that we're more about trying to be a second-rate dps class than about focusing on keeping a group or MT alive. The Energy line is fantastic and enjoyable, and does an extremely effective job of enhancing a fury's offensive abilities for those furies who want to take that path. There are abilities in that line that enhance every single one of the fury's nukes and dots, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. The Recovery line, however, does nothing of the sort. There are no enhancements for the fury's single target or group heals, the ones we use in every single fight, all the time. We have nothing to enhance our cures. Nothing to enhance our role as a healer in any meaningful or significant way. Compare this to templars, who get an amazing array of cure and reactive enhancements, or to wardens, who also receive considerable cure and healing boosts in addition to two amazing healing-related end-line abilities. Defilers and Mystics get an absolutely stunning set of warding enhancements. Only Inquisitors seem to be quite as poorly-off as furies when it comes to healing AAs. Let's take a look at what we get, ability by ability, and I'll explain what I mean and offer some recommendations for improvement. <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Enhance: Brambles</b> This reduces the recast timer on our only dehate spell. When maxed it reduces the 5m recast timer by half, which is somewhat useful, but doesn't really enhance our healing except indirectly, in that it allows us to dump hate more often and thereby potentially heal harder without worrying about agro.</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Add a component to this ability that forces it to not apply the stifle effect to mobs who do not currently hate the fury. Right now it is impossible to use this spell in certain areas for fear of actually generating hate and pulling adds--the most glaring example of this is in Unrest, but it happens in Crushbone, Nek, Stormhold, and any other "building" area where it is possible for a blue aoe to pull mobs through walls. The reduction in recast timer is nice as it is, but adding this effect would make this a "must-get" ability for me.</span> <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Enhance: Emergency Healing</b> This increases the amount that your emergency heal spell heals. If you max it, it buffs this spell considerably--but the recast timer is still 15 minutes, which means that this ability is still only going to make a difference in a very small percentage of your fights.</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Add a component to reduce the recast timer on this spell. This should be a significant reduction--it's just not worth it to invest points into something I can only use every 15 minutes.</span> <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Enhance: Pact of the Cheetah</b> This ability increases the run speed buff of Pact, and adds a safefall component--and it is completely useless in raid. It might come in handy from time to time in a group, but it is largely a waste of points. Adept III Pact buffs speed by 48%, and the Master I buffs it by 64%. Add in the 40% from sprinting and your ICRS is already capped; more is wasted. Unless your group is in the habit of jumping off cliffs when training, the safefall component is wasted as well.</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Remove this ability and replace it with something useful. If that's not an option, then perhaps add a HOT or elemental resistance component to Pact instead of Safefall. This would make the investment of points good for something other than training from one place to another.</span> <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Enhance: Vicious Feast</b> This ability reduces the recast timer and casting speed of Feast. Now, I am a big fan of the Feast line of spells, so don't get me wrong. It comes in very handy in groups for keeping the group topped off and enabling chain pulling. But come on--how many times do you need to recast feast more often than every 9 seconds? I could see an argument for this being made if it were useful in raid, but it's not--Feast is bugged in raid and only procs when a member of your group lands the killing blow. It has been this way for a long time, and this bug relegates this skill to only being used in raid when I am in between recast timers on everything else.</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Fix Feast so that it works in raid regardless of who lands the killing blow. Instead of reducing the recast timer of Feast, have each point enhance the group HOT amount and stat buffs.</span> <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Enhance: Feral Tenacity</b> This ability reduces the recast timer of our death prevention emergency skill. With five points into this ability, the ten-minute recast timer becomes... eight minutes. If every point into this ability brought the timer down by a full minute, this might be worth investing points into. Most of the time, though, it's useless in raid, because this spell can only be used on group members. Furies are seldom placed in the MT group if a Warden is available, which means that the person who needs this ability 9 out of 10 times--the MT--cannot benefit from it.</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Have this ability add a component to this spell that allows it to be used across raid. This would turn it into an ability a raiding fury would spend points to get to. Increasing the trigger amount and the recast reduction is another possibility.</span> <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Enhance: Hibernation</b> This is actually a pretty good ability, when it works. It turns Hibernation into sort of an emergency "smart" heal.</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Keep this. :D A possible improvement would be, instead of a flat five points into this to get the early trigger ability, have each point add a 20% chance to trigger early and a small improvement to the heal amount. So with 5 points in, it would work as it does now, with a modest increase to the heal amount. </span> <span style="color: #ff0000"><b>Pact of Nature</b> I would nominate this as the worst end-of-line ability of any class I have played, without question. For investing 21 points in an AA line that does almost nothing to enhance our healing abilities, we are rewarded with an ability that...<i> takes away</i> one of our healing abilities and gives it to someone else. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? For the most part, what this ability does is take away one of my most basic heal spells and give it to a character who should be doing something other than healing. How does this enhance our ability to keep the group alive? How is this worth the investment of 21 points? And how is this an appropriate end-of-line enhancement to the Recovery tree, which nominally should be about emphasizing the healer role of a Fury who's chosen to take that route?</span> <span style="color: #00ff00"><b>Recommendation:</b> Eliminate this entirely and replace it with something that enhances our healing ability in general. Perhaps a buff that procs a small group heal whenever we cast a spell, or a "frenzy" mode that significantly reduces the recast timers on all our heals for a short time in exchange for health, or some such. If replacing this ability is not an option, then change it so that it grants your "Salve" heal to another player WITHOUT removing it from you. This would improve the ability of a group to stay alive, instead of harming it by taking a heal away from the person who knows how to use it and has time to do so, and giving it to someone who should be doing something other than healing.</span> I understand that tearing down the fury's Recovery tree and remaking it from scratch probably isn't an option. I'm sure that after posting this there will be at least one person to come out of the woodwork to say that in X situation Y ability is useful. I don't wish to debate the merits of situational usefulness. Hopefully this comes across as constructive, and out of a sincere desire to improve the viability of healing-focused furies.

[Meattray]

<div align="left">I think there is a valid reason why we have the AA lines we have. But i do have to agree with most of your comments.<div align="left">the end line ability is stupid. give another player the use of a crappy heal.<div align="left"> <div align="left">You need to know the history of a Fury, from the start i mean.<div align="left">Fury was a crap class, i mean crap class to play.  Crap heals, agro magnets.<div align="left"> <div align="left">Then came the rebalance of all classes, furies got good dps and good heals, all healers got a rebalance so that our regen heals healed as much as reactives, we got fast small heals, others got slow bigger heals.  It all balanced out.<div align="left"> <div align="left">But the alot of people agree the fury is one of the most balanced classes now.AA's are a way of trying to rebalance the classes, Guards got better, serkers got not so good AA.</div>Furies got some good ones, but not good for heals. </div>Warlocks got a needed boost and so on.  (these are classes i know, i can not comment on many other classes)</div> </div>Furies do just fine, we are not MT group healers (raid), but i can tell you now, there is not another group healer for raids better than a fury, we are the best group healer.  And with a couple masters, and a couple adept3 spells i can heal through almost any situation group or raid.</div>I like to DPS more than heal so i am biased</div>Taylon Fury</div>Nukette Warlock</div>Sorann Guard - Najena</div>

[SpritRaja]

Your change to Deagro should be inbuilt in all healers deagro. It is something all healers suffer from and really should be fixed. For vicious feast I would prefer that the buff portion stay up for much longer.  Adding an extra heal tick per AA point sounds like a good idea to go about this. It would increase the buff portion to just over half a minute as well as increasing healing. The mechanics need to change that when the target dies it casts the regen and buff on the casters group.

[mellowknees72]

I agree with all of your suggestions and comments, OP (especially about the lame "Pact of Nature" end ability), except: Emergency Healing - 15 minutes is a fine re-cast timer. It's supposed to be only for emergencies. It's mana-free, instant-cast, you can cast it while running...I don't think the timer should be shorter (I'm not saying it wouldn't be NICE if it were, just that I don't think it NEEDS to be). Pact of the Cheetah - I use this a LOT when grouped and solo. I would not want to see it removed from the AA choices. Vicious Feast - Actually, I *do* cast this one very frequently when engaging a large encounter. I think it's fine that the AA just decreases the recast timer. I do agree with you that it shouldn't matter who lands the killing blow to trigger it, though. Overall, some excellent suggestions! I don't raid, I group only, so that's my perspective. I don't want to see the AA choices suddenly take a turn towards being raid-focused only.

[Catsy]

Pipes@Najena wrote: <blockquote>I agree with all of your suggestions and comments, OP (especially about the lame "Pact of Nature" end ability), except: Emergency Healing - 15 minutes is a fine re-cast timer. It's supposed to be only for emergencies. It's mana-free, instant-cast, you can cast it while running...I don't think the timer should be shorter (I'm not saying it wouldn't be NICE if it were, just that I don't think it NEEDS to be). Pact of the Cheetah - I use this a LOT when grouped and solo. I would not want to see it removed from the AA choices. Vicious Feast - Actually, I *do* cast this one very frequently when engaging a large encounter. I think it's fine that the AA just decreases the recast timer. I do agree with you that it shouldn't matter who lands the killing blow to trigger it, though. Overall, some excellent suggestions! I don't raid, I group only, so that's my perspective. I don't want to see the AA choices suddenly take a turn towards being raid-focused only.</blockquote> Thanks for the thoughts. In response: 1. I agree, 15 minutes is fine as a recast timer for an emergency spell. The problem I have is that I feel like spending AA points on something I can only use every 15 minutes is a waste unless those points reduce the recast timer or make the spell so good that I don't care if it's only every 15 minutes. Yet two of our Recovery AA abilities are for our "emergency" spells, and the one that reduces the recast timer does so by a negligible amount. It contributes to the feeling of being shortchanged on healing enhancements. If the other abilities were great, I wouldn't care as much. If the other abilities enhanced our core healing abilities, I'd even welcome these as an addition to the tree. 2. I absolutely LOVE Pact of the Cheetah, so please don't get me wrong here. I just think it's yet another ability in the so-called "Recovery" line that contributes nothing to our overall healing abilities. I'd rather this be included as part of the Animalism line, which is where it feels like it belongs. 3. I cast it frequently on a large encounter myself, I just don't see a point in casting it more often than every 9 seconds. If the mobs are dying that fast, it doesn't matter if each of them gets Feast on them or not; the effects don't stack. And if they aren't dying that fast, 9 seconds is time better spent debuffing, healing or nuking anyway. Disagree. I enjoy grouping quite a bit, and I don't want the Recovery abilities to be solely raid-focused. The problem is that right now they are raid-<i>useless</i>. There's really almost no reason for a raiding fury to spend AA points in this tree, when they could better help the raid by putting those points in Animalism and Energy, for group buffs and dps respectively. That shouldn't be the case for a healer who wants to focus on improving their core function: healing. Setting aside the raid issue, I do think that most of my concerns still hold up for grouping. Thanks again for the response.

[Tsera]

I've been kind of afraid of mentioning this because of what might come of it, but. I presently have the Recovery line, all the way down to Pact of Nature.  (I actually find the Emergency Heal AAs pretty useful and the Hibernation AA spectacular; the rest is just there to get to those.)  Pact of Nature, presently, is broken, but in a good way (for us).  As it is right now, it gives someone else our salve spell but DOES NOT take it away from the fury. I've been playing like this for some time, typically casting PoN on the conjurer or ranger I usually group with - both are all for playing healer every once in a while.  It's given my group a very modest heal boost, but nothing particularly spectacular and certainly not game breaking, as I normally have heals completely in hand; the time it's most valuable is when things go horribly wrong and having someone else spot healing, even for a small amount, helps while I'm frantically changing targets. We've been toying with the idea that maybe it's working as intended because it hasn't been adjusted and no mention of it's been made, but the text on PoN hasn't changed since EoF was released.  I'm waiting to see if it will, or if PoN will take my salve away from me... in which case I may need to consider a respec.  We'll see.  But as is, it's presently a decent ability.  Probably not as awesome as Energy Vortex (which isn't my thing, but I can see why people love it) or Animal Form, but it holds up quite well. Edited to add: I'm primarily a grouping fury.  Just realized that'd be important to put in here!

[mellowknees72]

Sotanyavejin@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Thanks for the thoughts. In response: 1. I agree, 15 minutes is fine as a recast timer for an emergency spell. The problem I have is that I feel like spending AA points on something I can only use every 15 minutes is a waste unless those points reduce the recast timer or make the spell so good that I don't care if it's only every 15 minutes. Yet two of our Recovery AA abilities are for our "emergency" spells, and the one that reduces the recast timer does so by a negligible amount. It contributes to the feeling of being shortchanged on healing enhancements. If the other abilities were great, I wouldn't care as much. If the other abilities enhanced our core healing abilities, I'd even welcome these as an addition to the tree. 2. I absolutely LOVE Pact of the Cheetah, so please don't get me wrong here. I just think it's yet another ability in the so-called "Recovery" line that contributes nothing to our overall healing abilities. I'd rather this be included as part of the Animalism line, which is where it feels like it belongs. 3. I cast it frequently on a large encounter myself, I just don't see a point in casting it more often than every 9 seconds. If the mobs are dying that fast, it doesn't matter if each of them gets Feast on them or not; the effects don't stack. And if they aren't dying that fast, 9 seconds is time better spent debuffing, healing or nuking anyway. Disagree. I enjoy grouping quite a bit, and I don't want the Recovery abilities to be solely raid-focused. The problem is that right now they are raid-<i>useless</i>. There's really almost no reason for a raiding fury to spend AA points in this tree, when they could better help the raid by putting those points in Animalism and Energy, for group buffs and dps respectively. That shouldn't be the case for a healer who wants to focus on improving their core function: healing. Setting aside the raid issue, I do think that most of my concerns still hold up for grouping. Thanks again for the response. </blockquote><p>1.  Good points - and I agree about feeling shortchanged on healing in the AA lines.  I still wouldn't trade the points I put into my emergency heal, though...having it "bigger" has saved my husband's zerker butt on many occasions! <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>2. Ah - agree with you here that Pact of the Cheetah makes MUCH more sense in the "animalism" line.  Good thinking.</p><p>3. You're probably right that every 9 seconds isn't necessary - but when you're in a group that's killing things super fast, it's helpful to be able to cast it quickly.  Even if it doesn't stack, the new occurance of the spell overrides the previous one (doesn't it?) so the effect can last "longer" because it's happening multiple times...at least, that's my perception of how it's been working...am I wrong?  If it's not overriding itself, thus refreshing the countdown timer, then I haven't noticed and I'm wasting power...ugh!  Pls. post if this is the case! </p>