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Kinvore

03-06-2010, 04:30 PM

Is there any way we could get a faster recast on this ability? I would think 60-90 seconds base resuse would make this far more useful without it being overpowered. Be a lot cooler if ya did.

Banditman

03-08-2010, 04:38 PM

I doubt it happens, but I'd love to see it. With only one way to replenish HP across a group, Shaman could sure use the help.

StaticLex

03-08-2010, 05:52 PM

While they're at it I'll take a fat group ward that I can use every few minutes as well.

Hene

03-08-2010, 07:08 PM

<cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite><blockquote>While they're at it I'll take a fat group ward that I can use every few minutes as well.</blockquote>You do realize how many group oriented heals wardens have right? You also realize how many group oriented heals shaman have? as well as their effectiveness?

StaticLex

03-08-2010, 08:09 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite><blockquote>While they're at it I'll take a fat group ward that I can use every few minutes as well.</blockquote>You do realize how many group oriented heals wardens have right? You also realize how many group oriented heals shaman have? as well as their effectiveness?</blockquote>You do realize how many group orientated wards wardens have right? As well as their effectiveness?

Hene

03-08-2010, 08:29 PM

<cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite><blockquote>You do realize how many group orientated wards wardens have right? As well as their effectiveness?</blockquote>Okay, now look at the combined potential of a shaman's group wards + group heals versus a warden's group oriented healsEdit: oh, and don't forget to include Cyclone

Tehom

03-19-2010, 01:52 PM

This ability does not need to be any more powerful than it is. An uninterruptable more-or-less-guaranteed full heal for 2 seconds that's nearly instantly cast is incredibly good. I actually scoffed at the idea of a group heal in beta, but I didn't realize at the time it was effectively an emergency ability that puts every other group emergency spell to shame.Wardens are a heck of a lot better this expansion than previous, but believe me, shamans have nothing to complain about.

Hene

03-19-2010, 04:20 PM

<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>This ability does not need to be any more powerful than it is. An uninterruptable more-or-less-guaranteed full heal for 3 seconds that's nearly instantly cast is incredibly good.</blockquote>It only lasts 2 seconds, btw<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I didn't realize at the time it was effectively an emergency ability that puts every other group emergency spell to shame.</blockquote> Cyclone can be argued to be better. On average 1 second per minute of complete, uncontested invulnerability; versus 0.6667 seconds per minute of near invulnerability. The only thing is Ancestral Channeling can be used for sort-of-emergencies.<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>shamans have nothing to complain about.</blockquote>Except crit bonus

Tehom

03-20-2010, 06:32 AM

I don't think the halving of crit bonus on wards is that big of a deal. It's not like any other healer contributes as much to group survivability as we do right now, so I have trouble thinking of us as underpowered. If they nerf our other tools and/or items, maybe, but right now we're doing really well.

Hene

03-28-2010, 01:55 PM

<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't think the halving of crit bonus on wards is that big of a deal. It's not like any other healer contributes as much to group survivability as we do right now, so I have trouble thinking of us as underpowered. If they nerf our other tools and/or items, maybe, but right now we're doing really well.</blockquote>once you get end-game gear and get close to '100% crit bonus' or beyond you'll see what I'm talking about, relative to other healersEdit: as crit bonus increases, our heals fall behind in potency compared to other healers, this fall-behind is quite significant, too

Tehom

03-28-2010, 09:46 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't think the halving of crit bonus on wards is that big of a deal. It's not like any other healer contributes as much to group survivability as we do right now, so I have trouble thinking of us as underpowered. If they nerf our other tools and/or items, maybe, but right now we're doing really well.</blockquote>once you get end-game gear and get close to '100% crit bonus' or beyond you'll see what I'm talking about, relative to other healersEdit: as crit bonus increases, our heals fall behind in potency compared to other healers, this fall-behind is quite significant, too</blockquote>I'm usually around 90 crit bonus, which I didn't think was too awful, and would be higher except that I prefer to make sure my potency is capped even when I don't have a coercer - I'll probably swap to go the other way before long. I really think that the nature of wards generally makes it very difficult for them to give us the full benefit of crit bonus without making us massively overpowered. With a fury you can already have 19k group wards, after all, and it's not hard to have around 14-15k group wards without one, even without it being mastered (curse you, RA reset bug).My point is that if we suddenly started having 30-40k group wards, it wouldn't last. I think the outcry from other healers would be so extreme and it'd be so jarring to attempt things that are hard without 4 shamans that people would insist we be nerfed into the dirt in some other way, which could lead to us being a heck of a lot worse off than we are now. I think we're already the strongest priests in the game, by a modest margin. I'd rather not tempt fate by trying to make us better.

snowli

03-28-2010, 10:52 PM

Wards are by their nature much more effective than direct heals, afterall it's healing that responds 100% to damage, and of course they increase effective HP temporarily. Most of the potential of direct heals are lost in moments when the healing happens but is a split second too early too late too whatever. Wards shouldn't be in the position of making up ALL the healing however, the shaman's own direct heals should have their place and uses aswell.On a related note overall I think the growing creep of item based wards is a bad idea, they increasingly marginalise all direct healing, but also compete with shamans speciality which is warding. Item direct heals like empowered/overloaded heal etc seem a much better way to go than the item ward procs.

Hene

03-29-2010, 03:36 AM

<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm usually around 90 crit bonus, which I didn't think was too awful, and would be higher except that I prefer to make sure my potency is capped even when I don't have a coercer - I'll probably swap to go the other way before long. I really think that the nature of wards generally makes it very difficult for them to give us the full benefit of crit bonus without making us massively overpowered. With a fury you can already have 19k group wards, after all, and it's not hard to have around 14-15k group wards without one, even without it being mastered (curse you, RA reset bug).My point is that if we suddenly started having 30-40k group wards, it wouldn't last. I think the outcry from other healers would be so extreme and it'd be so jarring to attempt things that are hard without 4 shamans that people would insist we be nerfed into the dirt in some other way, which could lead to us being a heck of a lot worse off than we are now. I think we're already the strongest priests in the game, by a modest margin. I'd rather not tempt fate by trying to make us better.</blockquote>A 30 or 40k group ward may sound overpowered, but you have to look at it relative to other healers, there should be a big outcry from shamans everwhereSituation 1: 0% potency and 0% crit bonus)wardens' group heal with 0% potency and 0% crit bonus: average tick of 594.5, 6 ticks, 594.5*6=21402after ability mod of 1784*6/3 and a crit: 32461 potential health points restoreddefilers' group ward with 0% potency and 0% crit bonus: 3869 baseafter ability mod of 1935 and a crit: 6675 potential damage preventionRATIO: 4.86 to 1 this ratio can be seen as the 'expected heal waste' counterbalance, to offset for the fact that HoTs are wasteful and not everyone in the group will be taking damageSituation 2: 0% potency and 100% crit bonus)wardens' group heal with 0% potency and 100% crit bonus: 21402, after ability mod and crit: 32106*2.3= 57429defilers' group ward ...: 9577RATIO: 6.00 to 1So there you go, as crit bonus increases linearly between healers, the gap in heal potential also increases, while it is logarithmic, it is still significant and kindof sad; reactive ability mod needs adjusting and ward crit bonus needs adjustingThe same thing applies to ST heals and reactives versus ST wards, btwEdit: darned smilies, and the spells referenced here are the old t8 master, and fixed ability mod

Hene

03-29-2010, 03:40 AM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Wards are by their nature much more effective than direct heals, afterall it's healing that responds 100% to damage, and of course they increase effective HP temporarily. Most of the potential of direct heals are lost in moments when the healing happens but is a split second too early too late too whatever.</blockquote>That is what the aforementioned 5.5 to 1 ratio is for; the 7.7 to 1 ratio is an unwarranted low-blow

Banditman

03-29-2010, 09:51 AM

30k to 40k Group Wards are overpowered. Without a doubt. Honestly, Group Wards are borderline overpowered right now. The real problem is their nature. While they "technically" protect the entire group, in a situation where everyone is taking damage they really only protect one or two people.You see, in a tanking situation, where only the tank is taking damage, those Group Wards are incredibly effective at helping even out spikes in damage. Unfortunately, in the current content, there is so much damage coming from AE's that those Group Wards are just being destroyed. Thus, while the tank may wish he could own that entire Ward, and frankly he probably should, the fact is that the first time an AE hits, that Ward is gone.The only viable solution would be to completely revamp the Shaman class and instead of having a "Group Ward" that is shared, you'd need to hav each person get their own Ward. The balance implications of a change like that however are just staggering.I think we're pretty much stuck with Ward mechanics as they currently exist.In a perfect world, I'd give Shaman a "Ward Stance". In "Tank Group" mode, Ward mechanics would remain exactly as they are. In "Group Heal" mode, Ward mechanics would split the Group Ward up into individual Wards for each member of the group, albiet at a lesser value.Thus, current content balance could remain, as a Shaman could choose to use his "Tank Group" mode. However, the Shaman could also find a place as a somewhat more effective group healer. They still wouldn't have all the fancy tools Druids have . . . but they would be able to fill in as a Group healer in a pinch.

Hene

03-29-2010, 10:13 AM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>30k to 40k Group Wards are overpowered. Without a doubt. Honestly, Group Wards are borderline overpowered right now. The real problem is their nature. While they "technically" protect the entire group, in a situation where everyone is taking damage they really only protect one or two people.You see, in a tanking situation, where only the tank is taking damage, those Group Wards are incredibly effective at helping even out spikes in damage. Unfortunately, in the current content, there is so much damage coming from AE's that those Group Wards are just being destroyed. Thus, while the tank may wish he could own that entire Ward, and frankly he probably should, the fact is that the first time an AE hits, that Ward is gone.The only viable solution would be to completely revamp the Shaman class and instead of having a "Group Ward" that is shared, you'd need to hav each person get their own Ward. The balance implications of a change like that however are just staggering.I think we're pretty much stuck with Ward mechanics as they currently exist.In a perfect world, I'd give Shaman a "Ward Stance". In "Tank Group" mode, Ward mechanics would remain exactly as they are. In "Group Heal" mode, Ward mechanics would split the Group Ward up into individual Wards for each member of the group, albiet at a lesser value.Thus, current content balance could remain, as a Shaman could choose to use his "Tank Group" mode. However, the Shaman could also find a place as a somewhat more effective group healer. They still wouldn't have all the fancy tools Druids have . . . but they would be able to fill in as a Group healer in a pinch.</blockquote>you are using the term overpowered to describe "situationally advantageous"the same could be said about druid group HoTs; in any situation where AEs are in effect, they are "overpowered" (not really, just situationally advantageous; druids are AE healers, shaman are not)

Banditman

03-29-2010, 01:32 PM

No, I'm not. I'm telling you flat out that a 40k Ward would be RIDICULOUSLY overpowered.You have to decide what problem you think you are trying to get addressed.If you are trying to make Shaman better at healing a group, great. It's a worthy cause. Increasing the size of their Group Ward is not the way to do it, and frankly you'll never get any support for it. With a Ward that big why would you even take other healers? You certainly wouldn't need them.The alternative of course would be to simply make the mobs hit harder. That would not go well. Raid mobs hitting for 30k regularly? That's not very attractive. It would also mean that group content would be COMPLETELY trivial for a Shaman to SOLO. I mean, why not just put in /iddqd?The mechanic of the Group Ward is the reason Shaman are weak at healing (or protecting from harm) an entire group. If you want to fix that you need to change the mechanic. Having some sort of "stancing" for Wards would be a huge step in the correct direction. Anything else would require re-balacing of all the existing content.

snowli

03-29-2010, 02:42 PM

Hene I suspect there's an oversight in your figures: the ability mod 1784*6 you are quoting, are you allowing for the fact that ability mod is applied at 1/3rd of it's value to the warden group regen, and only applied to the 1st tick, not all ticks?

Banditman

03-29-2010, 04:03 PM

Same for Group Ward. Pretty much like any group heal.While mod is only applied to the first tick of a Regen, it is computed based on the value of all ticks. Thus, you get the full impact on the very first tick. This can be good or bad situationally.

Hene

03-29-2010, 05:42 PM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>No, I'm not. I'm telling you flat out that a 40k Ward would be RIDICULOUSLY overpowered.You have to decide what problem you think you are trying to get addressed.</blockquote>Keeping heals proportionally balanced.I still don't think you see my point. When a shaman's ward will do 25k a druid's group heal will be doing OVER 25k PER PERSON. Look at this handy graph:<img src="http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4112/critbonusandgroupheals.png" />This shows that with 0 crit bonus, shamans' group wards are about 1/5 the potential healing power.With 100% crit bonus, they drop to less than 1/6 the potential healing power.So as crit bonus increases, shaman wards become less effective in terms of heal ability.<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you are trying to make Shaman better at healing a group, great. It's a worthy cause. Increasing the size of their Group Ward is not the way to do it, and frankly you'll never get any support for it. With a Ward that big why would you even take other healers? You certainly wouldn't need them.</blockquote>You could take 1 of any healer with the same stats, because their group heal will do significantly more than a shaman.E.g. a templar's reactives can 'focus' in the same way as a shamans' group ward, if only the tank takes damage, he has a shield of nearly insurmountable reactives.If the mechanics changed to effect wards in the same way as heals and nothing else changed, at the point where a shaman will be doing 40k group wards, a druid will be healing for nearly that per person (~77% or 31k). Yes I know HoTs are less efficient, but it has always been that way, and druids' group HoTs have never been known as being good for ST healing.What is happening now, is shamans are losing ground as crit bonus increases.<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>The alternative of course would be to simply make the mobs hit harder. That would not go well. Raid mobs hitting for 30k regularly? That's not very attractive. It would also mean that group content would be COMPLETELY trivial for a Shaman to SOLO. I mean, why not just put in /iddqd?The mechanic of the Group Ward is the reason Shaman are weak at healing (or protecting from harm) an entire group. If you want to fix that you need to change the mechanic. Having some sort of "stancing" for Wards would be a huge step in the correct direction. Anything else would require re-balacing of all the existing content.</blockquote>Making us better a group healing is a fine idea, but what Im trying to prevent is making us worse at healing in general, compared to other healers.

Hene

03-29-2010, 05:42 PM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hene I suspect there's an oversight in your figures: the ability mod 1784*6 you are quoting, are you allowing for the fact that ability mod is applied at 1/3rd of it's value to the warden group regen, and only applied to the 1st tick, not all ticks?</blockquote>and I /fixed that

Pyra Shineflame

03-29-2010, 05:44 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hene I suspect there's an oversight in your figures: the ability mod 1784*6 you are quoting, are you allowing for the fact that ability mod is applied at 1/3rd of it's value to the warden group regen, and only applied to the 1st tick, not all ticks?</blockquote>and I /fixed that</blockquote>There is a dev post that the benefits applying to first tick alone is "working as intended" and is very much planned.

StaticLex

03-29-2010, 05:46 PM

It doesn't really matter what the ward amounts are; the mechanic itself is lopsided. I wouldn't be surprised if I crushed (HPS) even a 30-40 K warding defiler as a warden.

blaiddur

03-29-2010, 06:02 PM

wow ive never heard of wards being underpowered before. even with the 6 to 1 ratio there is a massive amount of wasted heals on regens. at least a ward gets its full use. yes fights where theres a massive aoe hit the regens are better equipped to deal with bringing the groups life all the way up, thats if other healers arent throwing in their heals as well. and shamans can get their wards back up. If not for that group ward the entire group could have been dead. especially if your looking at a druid as the second healer as they would have no way to ease that blow as effectively as your ward did. Once that ward is back up and the groups health is stabalizes the druid is back to essentially sitting on their thumbs waiting for the next time they can be useful or casting wasted heals or dpsing both of which is a big use of power. this is why unless theres alot of group healing, or someones life is spiking constantly, or theres alot of cross healing going on in a raid druids will be at the bottom of a heal parse.yes cyclone is nice but its just as situational as any emergency spell. throw it on the tank when hes in bad trouble, bring his life up. you get your ward back up and its back to waiting for me. or you can cast that big emerg heal you got and i can still sit and wait.If your group ward was 40k there would not be much need for other healers especially in group zones. the ward mechanics are fine they way they are especially when you consider wastage potential of regens, directs and reactives. A ward will never be wasted unless it times out ,or the mob dies, before its used up. Either way its done its job. everything else can be wasted in entirety if the wards are handleing what damage is being done. druids will fall behind clerics if thier reactives are handleing the damage

Tehom

03-29-2010, 06:58 PM

I understand what you're trying to do, Hene, and I think you have a valid concern as the crit bonus becomes the sole measure of improvement to us over time. I just think that changes right now may be premature before other healers are capping potency, and would lead to some unnecessary nerfs to us to compensate for our sudden and massive increase in power. In other words, just give it a while. If we start losing ground in six months when every healer is capped on potency and we're all pushing 200 crit bonus or whatever, then we should push for changes. But I think it's too early to do it now, when other healers may scream about how overpowered shamans are and we could wind up with fundamental changes to ward mechanics we may never recover from. That's my fear, personally.

Hene

03-29-2010, 08:16 PM

<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>I understand what you're trying to do, Hene, and I think you have a valid concern as the crit bonus becomes the sole measure of improvement to us over time. I just think that changes right now may be premature before other healers are capping potency, and would lead to some unnecessary nerfs to us to compensate for our sudden and massive increase in power. In other words, just give it a while. If we start losing ground in six months when every healer is capped on potency and we're all pushing 200 crit bonus or whatever, then we should push for changes. But I think it's too early to do it now, when other healers may scream about how overpowered shamans are and we could wind up with fundamental changes to ward mechanics we may never recover from. That's my fear, personally.</blockquote>Exactly this.I don't want this change to occur now. But as we all know, SoE tends to take about, forever when reviewing and applying changes; so I thought it was a good idea to bring this up now. Right now crit bonus gear is good, but I have a feeling that as more content is explored and even as new content is released, shamans will be fighting a losing battle when it comes to healing.Though, I will have to say, the new content has proven ridiculously easy so far. I was able to solo heal all but 1 fight of heroic content in T3 armor at level 88 using only t8 spells. I just know that when we get farther into raid progression it will be no longer be easymode and crit bonus could pose a problem

StaticLex

03-29-2010, 09:45 PM

<cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>But as we all know, SoE tends to take about, forever when reviewing and applying changes; so I thought it was a good idea to bring this up now.</blockquote>Ah-ha, so is this is the latest trend in EQ2onomics.. pre-emptive complaining about class suckage? Brilliant!

Banditman

03-30-2010, 11:04 AM

<cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Hene wrote:</cite><blockquote>But as we all know, SoE tends to take about, forever when reviewing and applying changes; so I thought it was a good idea to bring this up now.</blockquote>Ah-ha, so is this is the latest trend in EQ2onomics.. pre-emptive complaining about class suckage? Brilliant!</blockquote>You do realize that Shaman get only half the value from crit bonus that other classes get, right?

StaticLex

03-30-2010, 05:28 PM

I know I know, the comment was simply tongue in cheek. Although.. you won't see any sympathy from me since my heals are all ****blocked by shaman wards. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

snowli

04-01-2010, 08:57 AM

It's worth keeping an eye on the balance and I'm not saying there might not be an issue, however there are quite a wide range of issues coming out of SF mechanics for healers.Half the time raiding as a warden I barely feel like I can do any healing with all the wards, item procs wards (bad design direction, items should not marginalise direct healing) and reactives infront. Leaving us with cures that don't have any speed/recovery enhancements, no debuffs, our buffs that are a lot of single target/useless to most of the group like shield effectiveness II (woohoo), crit mit that's already capped and of course personal (melee) dps if that's suitable.Raw figures don't show how little regen healing is actually useful in a raid context. Yes if the stars, moons and planets align perfectly the warden group regen can produce a lot of healing, if the entire group takes a ton of damage but just enough to not die right before it's finished it's casting and continue taking damage steadily without spiking dead over it's 6-7 second duration and no further wards, item wards, reactives etc to block it - then just maybe you have the holes in people's health bars to actualy apply the regen to. Often in practice people are spiked to death way before they are able to reliably soak up the entire warden regens, and perhaps only 1 or even none of the ticks even land on a damaged period.I did want to address the wardens with all their extra fancy group healing tools type comments. I don't see extra group healing tools for my warden as opposed to my mystic or inq. A group heal, a group speciality regen in warden's case, similar to the ward or reactive specialities for shaman and clerics, and the fluff "healpets" that most healers have which die to a passing breeze. Furies do have 1 extra group heal with hibernate, which is sort of a group reactive with aa's (triggering if someone 1 drops below 15%) perhaps you are confusing that. Wardens group regen is up for 7seconds and has base 12sec recast 3 sec cast time - I think people easily miss that unlike a ward or reactive it's down long before it's recastable, and people are rarely damaged perfectly over the course of it's duration and then not damaged afterwards. It's a burst of healing ticks, not something ticking constantly. It could be argued that dogdog wards, tribal proc wards, group buff regenerating wards are all more of an extra group healing bag of tricks, particularly as two of them don't need the priest to melee, and they're wards, efficient, fully used etc unlike for example natural boon option.SF has a ton of itemisation problems for everyone and it certainly isn't very well geared to wardens so far. The amount of casting speed in SF is probably around 10% more effective an increase for a slower casting healer than a fast casting one, because casting speed doesn't affect recovery. Wardens need more +amount for their heals than most healers, but +ability amount in SF is a mage thing apparently. No/few wis/priest gear with any melee blue stats - dps, haste, flurry, trample and most of all almost no ability reuse, but loads of spell reuse etc is an issue for all priests with a melee flavour, unfortunately wardens don't have any useful debuffs to cast when heal load is light.

Hene

04-01-2010, 11:27 AM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>It's worth keeping an eye on the balance and I'm not saying there might not be an issue, however there are quite a wide range of issues coming out of SF mechanics for healers.Half the time raiding as a warden I barely feel like I can do any healing with all the wards, item procs wards (bad design direction, items should not marginalise direct healing) and reactives infront. Leaving us with cures that don't have any speed/recovery enhancements, no debuffs, our buffs that are a lot of single target/useless to most of the group like shield effectiveness II (woohoo), crit mit that's already capped and of course personal (melee) dps if that's suitable.</blockquote>the problem with balance is the discrepancy between raid and heroic healing.<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Raw figures don't show how little regen healing is actually useful in a raid context. Yes if the stars, moons and planets align perfectly the warden group regen can produce a lot of healing, if the entire group takes a ton of damage but just enough to not die right before it's finished it's casting and continue taking damage steadily without spiking dead over it's 6-7 second duration and no further wards, item wards, reactives etc to block it - then just maybe you have the holes in people's health bars to actualy apply the regen to. Often in practice people are spiked to death way before they are able to reliably soak up the entire warden regens, and perhaps only 1 or even none of the ticks even land on a damaged period.</blockquote>there are very few situations where your group will get one shotted from something that is not preventable, and it looks like quite a few encounters in SF are a LOT easier with a warden regenning everyone, because of the incurable DoTs that have moderate overtime damage as well as the AEs that hit leaving most everyone in the red-orage-yellow area waiting for their healer to get them back up asap<cite>snowline wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I did want to address the wardens with all their extra fancy group healing tools type comments. I don't see extra group healing tools for my warden as opposed to my mystic or inq. A group heal, a group speciality regen in warden's case, similar to the ward or reactive specialities for shaman and clerics, and the fluff "healpets" that most healers have which die to a passing breeze. Furies do have 1 extra group heal with hibernate, which is sort of a group reactive with aa's (triggering if someone 1 drops below 15%) perhaps you are confusing that. Wardens group regen is up for 7seconds and has base 12sec recast 3 sec cast time - I think people easily miss that unlike a ward or reactive it's down long before it's recastable, and people are rarely damaged perfectly over the course of it's duration and then not damaged afterwards. It's a burst of healing ticks, not something ticking constantly. It could be argued that dogdog wards, tribal proc wards, group buff regenerating wards are all more of an extra group healing bag of tricks, particularly as two of them don't need the priest to melee, and they're wards, efficient, fully used etc unlike for example natural boon option.SF has a ton of itemisation problems for everyone and it certainly isn't very well geared to wardens so far. The amount of casting speed in SF is probably around 10% more effective an increase for a slower casting healer than a fast casting one, because casting speed doesn't affect recovery. Wardens need more +amount for their heals than most healers, but +ability amount in SF is a mage thing apparently. No/few wis/priest gear with any melee blue stats - dps, haste, flurry, trample and most of all almost no ability reuse, but loads of spell reuse etc is an issue for all priests with a melee flavour, unfortunately wardens don't have any useful debuffs to cast when heal load is light.</blockquote> Really, you think wardens have no extra group healing? Go solo heal PoF on your warden, then do it on your Mystic. (additionally wardens make group content in general practically trivial, but now go and solo heal WoE or some raid zone on your mystic, then try it with your warden; I'm sure you'll see who has the advantage where)You cannot make druids more desirable in raid by giving them better heals; until a shaman and cleric can not longer suffice duo healing the MT/OT/whatever, druids will fall behind in raid healing because of the nature of Wards vs. Reactives vs. HoTs.

snowli

04-01-2010, 11:56 AM

I'd actually like wardens to be better for raiding via:<ul><li>wardens & furies buffing a meaningful amount of percentile damage reduction, a mechanic that would work in concert with wards and reactives (as I suggested in aerilik's hot rollover thread a while back, we got 2% for 8aa's addable to 1 group 1 single target running regen which feels like why bother coding that? especially when templars get 7.5% permanently running reduction to elem, nox, arcane on their groupbuff now - it's like the dev's spotted a nice idea in the 'we know wardens need some raid help' thread and gave it to templars...)</li><li>HP buffswise warden really doesn't buff nearly as much as clerics with singles becoming groupwide or shammies with coagulate - turning our pointless animal mezz animal charm for 3 concentrations aa's into better groupwide hp buffage aa options, that's a win and good for furies too.</li><li>less items procing wards for everyone, more items procing direct heals so they don't marginalise all priest's direct heals.</li><li>better warden buffs to improve the group, alot of our stuff is single target (many are verging on fluff abilities by now with no attention for a long time) allowing our crit mit buff to go over cap would be a good start here. New instinct is less great when compared to buffs for all 6 people, 50agil and 30power regen woohoo, 7DA 10%acc added to our single target buff from a class red adornment (former T8-4x4) is weak etc.</li><li>better cure aa's that improved their speed/recovery/reuse and shockingly bad cure=heal values applying them to all our cures, giving us more to do when 3rd place healing not so required - I'd like all 31 aa's spent in warden cures to be even as good as 5aa spent by a fury - they really aren't right now.</li><li>possibly adding some relevant raiding debuffs to our root/snares taking these legacy of EQ1 but not relevant to this game skills into a position where their entire aa tree actually making some sense. Something like % accuracy debuff on snares and % chance to strikethrough on roots, those debuffs applying to epics without the root/snare portion.</li></ul>Overall giving us more to do than melee when our healing is superflous, and making us an equal option to that extra hate xfer scout who has real dps.

blaiddur

04-01-2010, 12:13 PM

you know the more you post snowline the more i like you <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. we seem to have similar views on the benefits and detriments of the warden class. You forgot top mention that 2% damage reduction only applies to 2 spells. which makes it even more of a meh ability. if it applied to all heals (and stacked) it would be way more beneficial. it would give us a reason to just keep spamming heals instead of either dpsing or doing nothing when the actual healing isnt needed.

snowli

04-01-2010, 12:34 PM

Hene I'm not denying that wardens put out a lot of raw hps, they are also awesome for duoing with a good tank. There are strengths and weaknesses to all classes, it's not just that so much regen healing is wasted it also that you have to look at the ful context of a class - the only way wardens prevent death is by healing a lot, we don't buff survivability, we don't temporarily increase hp, we don't increase hp by as much, we don't debuff mob output.Partly we had a language misconnect, I was saying wardens don't have numerically lots more individual tools to restore group hp, we have a group heal and a group regen that we need to use at just the right moment, used just perfectly it's really strong, if it's in recycle or the timing doesn't evolve right it does nothing often.I killed all raid mobs bar 2 in TSO, I've solo healed or duoed all the content around too. All classes have strengths, try preventing non-uber geared friends/alts from insta dying in GUK:OS from the aoe's, possible on a mystic, not possible on a warden for e.g.I agree the crit bonus issue of wards should be watched, but wouldn't giving shaman extra direct healing actually be a more inclusive route if the extra heal is warranted, rather than making the wards so strong other healers question their role?Your SF endline with the massive group heals does seem like 1 step in that direction.

snowli

04-01-2010, 01:16 PM

Blaidur, yes it's hard to get that excited about 2% reduction, especially when in practise it's only running around half the time on the group <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Hene

04-01-2010, 05:02 PM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Partly we had a language misconnect, I was saying wardens don't have numerically lots more individual tools to restore group hp, we have a group heal and a group regen that we need to use at just the right moment, used just perfectly it's really strong, if it's in recycle or the timing doesn't evolve right it does nothing often.</blockquote>Ahh, I did not realize you meant this.But this is the same as a shaman's group ward:Once it is cast when a simple small AE hits, the group is left unprotected, with very little to help mitigate the inevitable incoming damage. While the maximum duration of the group ward is significantly longer, the effective duration is very short.Overall, the only benefit a group ward brings AE heal-wise is sometimes preventing 1 shots. However, this often does not happen as desired; as the nature of a group ward is to absorb the first occuring X damage from any group member(s), when a group ward is up, it is often depleted by the tank as quickly as it is cast (granted is several painstaking seconds...).Druids are much better suited at AE healing, as shamans fall behind in keeping groups up through repeated AEs or any situation where there are multiple group members taking damage.<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>I killed all raid mobs bar 2 in TSO, I've solo healed or duoed all the content around too. All classes have strengths, try preventing non-uber geared friends/alts from insta dying in GUK:OS from the aoe's, possible on a mystic, not possible on a warden for e.g.</blockquote>This is true, ward mechanics offer shamans help in preventing 1 shots, which is especially useful when pushing an undergeared friend through tough content. However, once the AE hits and the group ward is down, even with a group heal, the group (and the tank) is left naked and very vulnerable to the occasional second AE. So if the group is not 1 shotted by the AE (which happens when you are appropriately geared <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ), they are back up in no time from a warden's HoT, ready for the next AE.<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>I agree the crit bonus issue of wards should be watched, but wouldn't giving shaman extra direct healing actually be a more inclusive route if the extra heal is warranted, rather than making the wards so strong other healers question their role?Your SF endline with the massive group heals does seem like 1 step in that direction.</blockquote>Ancestral Channeling is a great step toward helping shamans AE heal. But I think you fail to see my original point: I do not want wards made stronger than other heals, I want them to not get weaker than they currently are with respect to other heals.Here is a more clear illustration, using shaman versus druid single target heals (for simplicity I am using the average value of a warden's HOT as its actual value, and ignoring the MIN_CRIT_VALUE=MAX_NON_CRIT_VALUE+1):With 0% crit chance and 0 ability mod.A druid's lv 78 master single target HoT heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks. This means, it can heal for a maximum of 3501 hp assuming complete utilization.A shaman's lv 78 master single target ward can prevent up to 2100 damage.Because HoTs are less efficient, the druid's heal does 67% more. This means that HoTs are less efficient and gain an extra 67% in maximum healing power to offset this. Now consider two equally geared healers who have 100% crit chance and 0% crit bonus:A druid's lv 78 master single target HoT heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks, multiplied by 1.300 for a crit, this is 758.55 per tick for 6 ticks. This means, it can heal for a maximum of 4551.3 hp assuming complete utilization.A shaman's lv 78 master single target ward can prevent up to 2100*1.150 = 2415 damage.Now, for some reason, a druid heal does 88.5% more. Okay, so with the introduction of criticals, druids gained a little edge over shamans heal wise, okay, I guess that is fine and dandy, but it would make sense to preserve the previous ratio, or at least introduce a new, consistent one.Now, with the addition of crit bonus, consider equally geared healers with 100% crit chance and 100% crit bonus:A druid's lv 78 master single target HoT heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks, multiplied by 2.300 for a crit, this is 1342 per tick for 6 ticks. This means, it can heal for a maximum of 8052 hp assuming complete utilization. A shaman's lv 78 master single target ward can prevent up to 2100*(1.150+0.500) = 3465 damage.Now, with 100% crit bonus, a druid heal does 132% more. As you can see, as crit bonus increases, shamans become less and less effective with respect to druids. So as their heal ability increases, shamans get practically nothing.As you can see, with the introduction of crits, the bonus percentage of a druid's heals gets significantly bolstered. And with crit bonus, it truly blows away wards.

Pyra Shineflame

04-02-2010, 11:44 AM

Truthfully, as the "main" healer in the OT group, I recently got a mystic and I can definitely see the weakness of group wards. Single wards on the tank are great, but once that AE hits, the next one is not blocked at all. Heck, on the Seeress in PoRT my mystic might as well not cast group wards as every tick, at most three people are protected, the rest eat it and have to be healed up to green again (which I do, inquisitors with the myth buff, get quite massive group direct heals). Not nearly as uber as some think.

Odys

04-20-2010, 03:55 AM

I play warden and mystic, and the balance between both is quite rigth now. My mystic is bad to heal a group and her HPS is abyssal compared to the one of my warden, depsite that whenever i go for a raid people ask me to come with my mystic.I have much more issues solo healing x1 content with my mystic but my warden cannot put the MT at 30 000 hp on the pull.

Hene

04-20-2010, 05:41 PM

<cite>Odys@Storms wrote:</cite><blockquote>I play warden and mystic, and the balance between both is quite rigth now. My mystic is bad to heal a group and her HPS is abyssal compared to the one of my warden, depsite that whenever i go for a raid people ask me to come with my mystic.I have much more issues solo healing x1 content with my mystic but my warden cannot put the MT at 30 000 hp on the pull.</blockquote>If you think there is a big gap in HPS now, just wait till both your healers pass 100 crit bonus