<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>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.</p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p>the problem with balance is the discrepancy between raid and heroic healing.</p><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>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.</p></blockquote><p>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</p><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p>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.</p><p>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.</p></blockquote> <p>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)</p><p>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 <strong><em>because of the nature of Wards vs. Reactives vs. HoTs</em></strong>.</p>

<p>I'd actually like wardens to be better for raiding via:</p><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><p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">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?</span></p><p>Your SF endline with the massive group heals does seem like 1 step in that direction.</p>

<p>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" /></p>

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>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.</p></blockquote><p>Ahh, I did not realize you meant this.</p><p>But this is the same as a shaman's group ward:</p><p>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 <em>effective </em>duration is very short.</p><p>Overall, the <strong><em>only</em></strong> benefit a group ward brings AE heal-wise is <em>sometimes </em>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...).</p><p>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.</p><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>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.</p></blockquote><p>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.</p><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">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?</span></p><p>Your SF endline with the massive group heals does seem like 1 step in that direction.</p></blockquote><p>Ancestral Channeling is a great step toward helping shamans AE heal.  But I think you fail to see my original point: <strong><em>I do not want wards made stronger than other heals, <span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">I want them to</span></em></strong><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;"> <strong><em>not get weaker than they currently are</em></strong></span> with respect to other heals.</p><p>Here is a more clear illustration, using shaman versus druid single target heals (for simplicity I am using the <strong><em>average</em></strong> value of a warden's HOT as its actual value, and ignoring the MIN_CRIT_VALUE=MAX_NON_CRIT_VALUE+1):</p><p>With 0% crit chance and 0 ability mod.</p><p>A <span style="color: #00ffff;">druid's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #00ffff;">single target HoT</span> heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks.  This means, it can heal for a <span style="color: #00ffff;">maximum of 3501 hp</span> assuming complete utilization.</p><p>A <span style="color: #ff0000;">shaman's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #ff0000;">single target ward</span> can prevent up to <span style="color: #ff0000;">2100</span> damage.</p><p>Because HoTs are less efficient,<span style="color: #00ff00;"> the druid's heal does 67% more</span>.  This means that HoTs are less efficient and gain an extra 67% in maximum healing power to offset this. </p><p>Now consider two equally geared healers who have 100% crit chance and 0% crit bonus:</p><p>A <span style="color: #00ffff;">druid's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #00ffff;">single target HoT</span> 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 <span style="color: #00ffff;">maximum of 4551.3 hp</span> assuming complete utilization.</p><p>A <span style="color: #ff0000;">shaman's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #ff0000;">single target ward</span> can prevent up to 2100*1.150 = <span style="color: #ff0000;">2415</span> damage.</p><p>Now, for some reason, <span style="color: #00ff00;">a druid heal does 88.5% more</span>.  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.</p><p>Now, with the addition of crit bonus, consider equally geared healers with 100% crit chance and 100% crit bonus:</p><p>A <span style="color: #00ffff;">druid's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #00ffff;">single target HoT</span> 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 <span style="color: #00ffff;">maximum of 8052 hp</span> assuming complete utilization.</p> <p>A <span style="color: #ff0000;">shaman's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #ff0000;">single target ward</span> can prevent up to 2100*(1.150+0.500) = <span style="color: #ff0000;">3465</span> damage.</p><p>Now, with 100% crit bonus, <span style="color: #00ff00;">a druid heal does 132% more</span>. 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.</p><p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p><p>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.</p>

<p><cite>Odys@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>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.</p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p>If you think there is a big gap in HPS now, just wait till both your healers pass 100 crit bonus</p>