Ancestral Channeling

[Kinvore]

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]

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]

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

[Hene]

StaticLex wrote:

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

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]

Hene wrote:

StaticLex wrote:

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

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?

You do realize how many group orientated wards wardens have right?  As well as their effectiveness?

[Hene]

StaticLex wrote:

You do realize how many group orientated wards wardens have right?  As well as their effectiveness?

Okay, now look at the combined potential of a shaman's group wards + group heals versus a warden's group oriented heals

Edit: oh, and don't forget to include Cyclone

[Tehom]

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]

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

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.

It only lasts 2 seconds, btw

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I didn't realize at the time it was effectively an emergency ability that puts every other group emergency spell to shame.

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.

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

shamans have nothing to complain about.

Except crit bonus

[Tehom]

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]

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

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.

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 healers

Edit: as crit bonus increases, our heals fall behind in potency compared to other healers, this fall-behind is quite significant, too

[Tehom]

Hene wrote:

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

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.

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 healers

Edit: as crit bonus increases, our heals fall behind in potency compared to other healers, this fall-behind is quite significant, too

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]

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]

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

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.

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 everwhere

Situation 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=21402

after ability mod of 1784*6/3 and a crit: 32461 potential health points restored

defilers' group ward with 0% potency and 0% crit bonus: 3869 base

after ability mod of 1935 and a crit: 6675 potential damage prevention

RATIO: 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 damage

Situation 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= 57429

defilers' group ward ...: 9577

RATIO: 6.00 to 1

So 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 adjusting

The same thing applies to ST heals and reactives versus ST wards, btw

Edit: darned smilies, and the spells referenced here are the old t8 master, and fixed ability mod

[Hene]

snowline wrote:

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.

That is what the aforementioned 5.5 to 1 ratio is for; the 7.7 to 1 ratio is an unwarranted low-blow

[Banditman]

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]

Banditman wrote:

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

Banditman wrote:

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.

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:

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.

Banditman wrote:

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.

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.

Banditman wrote:

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.

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]

snowline wrote:

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?

and I /fixed that

[Pyra Shineflame]

Hene wrote:

snowline wrote:

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?

and I /fixed that

There is a dev post that the benefits applying to first tick alone is "working as intended" and is very much planned.

[StaticLex]

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]

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]

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]

Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:

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.

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]

Hene wrote:

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.

Ah-ha, so is this is the latest trend in EQ2onomics.. pre-emptive complaining about class suckage?  Brilliant!

[Banditman]

StaticLex wrote:

Hene wrote:

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.

Ah-ha, so is this is the latest trend in EQ2onomics.. pre-emptive complaining about class suckage?  Brilliant!

You do realize that Shaman get only half the value from crit bonus that other classes get, right?

[StaticLex]

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. 

[snowli]

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.