[Nekojinn]

I saw some discussion about healing on the other thread so I wanted to give my opinion on it, and also make a thread for it... I don't know if there's any older threads already on it, but here goes!

Currently, healing is in a weird state imo. While we now have !!THE CROSS!! which helps a lot and has definitely made me able to focus down on someone in team fights/reduce someone's healing in 1v1s. The person can still guard or just kite until it wears off, plus it gets me -3 momentum which can be detrimental in the damage race.

On top of that, with Druid's release, another of healing's biggest counter: Interference, feels really weakened right now. A lot of phys attacker will use Fulgur of Flight, as well as any healer spellthief, so:  Despite THE CROSS being really helpful, it is still a item-belt that needs to be crafted, so not that many people will have access to it, while Fulgur of Flight is in a pretty popular class and can be stolen by spellthieves.

And as it stands, the more DR you have the more effective each point of HP will be, making a spiral in which tanks+healers are really good! Which I don't think is a bad thing, the problem comes only when the tank is also the healer and then you've an unkillable machine, especially if they're pacifist.

Anyway, reaching the point which I want to make with this thread:

My suggestion is: Decrease healing over time.

Healers should still be able to make a fight longer just by existing, If they didn't then that would simply kill their archetype, so the problem of longer fights can't be simply killed, but it can be decreased.

For every 100 HP healed, your healing reduces by 2.5%, up to a max of... if possible Round Number x 3? Meaning at round 5 it would be 15%

On top of this, making it so instead of reducing healing spells cooldown, pacifists get to maybe ignore half of this number, meaning if someone has -15% healing, the pacifist's healing would only be reduced by 7.5%

This idea mostly comes from a certain MMORPG I played, called Wakfu... Where if you healed 2% of your max HP, you'd get -1% healing for the remainder of the battle, and the game's best healing class could ignore up to 20% of that.

This isn't a perfect solution, especially since- tanks still have the best HP effective due to DR, this would hurt evadies getting brought back to life more than tanks, but I also think it's impossible to solve this issue without hurting evadies by a lot. If healing is reduced in any way, shape or form- the ones getting less HP effective will always be the evadies, that is just how it works.

I also think a few things like potions, vampirism, bard/dark bard healing and some things like that should completely bypass this healing reduction, would make it so these less trust-able healing options gain certain niches.

Anyway, my idea is probably too crazy to be implemented anyway. What are your ideas and criticisms about healing currently?

[Fern]

Normally I don't comment on these kind of threads but I just wanted to say that "you heal less the more you use heals on people" is something people have talked about and leaned towards before, and I personally don't think it'd be that bad so long as non-healing spell stuff isn't affected by the healing reduction.

Since most of the big healing from the game is Mercalan domain it could probably be easier to have the status be tied to it, so that other classes don't get shot in the foot because of Priest's shenanigans. Could probably make it cleansable so there's a bit more incentive to use Cleanse Potion in PVE as well. I can see why people wouldn't want it to be cleansable though, I just think it'd be fine because of having to use up turns specifically to do that.

I also think the reduced healing status shouldn't be permanent, but should be something like 5 or 6 rounds.

The way I see it is the main problem with healers is that they make fights take TOO long, specially when there's two of them in one team.

Otherwise interference/healing down sources being more accessible could also work. Just try to make sure other classes mostly unrelated to this stuff don't get a stray shot from whatever nerf happens IMO (i.e make sure to let Rebound still heal Ghosts a bunch, let Performer and Dark Bard do their healing things normally cause that's not nearly as good as Priest healing, etc.)

EDIT: Honestly a potential safe change to avoid ruining anything else would probably be to have this only apply in PVP/when fighting player characters since that's where healers lasting too long shows the most and is most wack anyway. PVE/Event PVE generally have their own fixes to this sort of thing.

[Poruku]

The issue with healing is two-fold. One, having super tanky healers be unkillable, and two, aoe healing making fights last really long. I do think a nerf to mercalan healing over a long fight would be good (second set is also quite powerful still), but to be honest I don't feel like the proposed change would be enough. One idea is the nerfing of aoe healing so that you can't be throwing out 1200 health worth of value with a single button.

Personally I'd favor a small nerf aoe healing, and a nerf to healing across the board, because it only makes sense considering that healing is inherently stronger than damage due to the existence of DR and many strategic factors. Often in 1v1 a single big heal is enough to drastically turn the tides, especially if one of the players disengages.

[Trexmaster]

Most of these super tanky healers can't do much by themselves other than spam heals, at least very little in the offense department beyond Shine Knights. Outside Luminary Element Light builds.

Many tools exist to take enemies out of range if not the healer themself, or dealing enough burst damage to kill them before they can recover, sometimes both at the same time.

I do not think the solution is to drop nerfs. I think people need to use the tools they're given, rather than taking tools away.

A compromise may be to introduce some sort of attrition mechanic that debuffs everything in combat every 5-10 rounds or so, so that fights don't drag on forever/to the 100 round limit as easily, if people are having so many issues of fights lasting this long.

Otherwise super healers are only oppressive if you don't have any tools to take them or their allies outside their safety bubble long enough to slap Certain Defeat on them or simply break their formation entirely ala Detogate.

I am certain in time we will likely get even more tools to break stalemates. Making it even harder on builds centered around supporting their allies will only push them toward other problematic setups if now a Ghost/Druid is as potent a healing setup as they used to have.

If someone's getting a lot of AoE heal value? Burst or separate them.

1v1s aren't really worth balancing around at all. They're always going to be extremely lopsided outside BK/Duelist 1v1s, with many setups hard countering others or having far more value in 1 on 1 fights. If someone wants to win their 1v1 they'll just equip what best counters your setup. They can't as easily do that in larger matches, hence why here it really isn't worth the headache outside having removed egregious offenders like Circle Ring and Red Letter. Yet somehow we still have Spirit Mirror. We'll get there eventually.

TL;DR

Let the healers heal. Plan around that. 1v1s are a lost cause.

Also @ Fern I do agree if this WAS to go through? It should only affect PvP. I like being able to let suboptimal builds enjoy events because I can heal them an absurd amount. Taking that away because people can't always circumvent it in every match up would be a bit frustrating. As all it's really doing is making it harder for those who don't power game.

[Autumn]

It's hard for me to define exactly where you should draw the line on healers given than their strength in the game can be a rather necessary thing, equally where there are situations where it can be frustrating to pump a hell of a lot of DPS into someone only to see them recover half their health instantly, it can also be frustrating to die to a coordinated assault before you've even had the chance to respond yourself, healers have a chance to give a buffer halfway through that so that you can't always just 2-3 man jump someone instantly and work systematically down the list.

Many additional tools have been made to try and counterbalance them as well, I prefer it when the healers have less up front healing and more useful tools to control a bad team situation with, as a single purpose to heal has proven to be easier to play against sometimes depending on their own tools.

Healers very commonly would run into issues facing interference, knockdown spam, displacement such as relocation and pulls and generally still being disadvantaged even if you revive teammates. This is why I think that Aquamancer and Druid are generally the more tame of the four curates to have to deal with, but they come with the ability to turn very bad situations around too so this is made up for quite heavily.

I do think almost all of the healers have a defining trait to them that makes them exceptional beyond their current healing capabilities, Priests have seriously good damage, Aquamancer has a mix of damage/team utility, Druid has probably the best utility out of all of the curates, and Lantern Bearer has PvE lol.

Back on topic, I the healer balance is pretty good, both in comparison to themselves and for a team vs team environment as well. I think we could have a little more anti-heal sprinkled around, like a weapon line with 15-20% heal cut on-hit or something, or more classes with heal cuts, they're a lot healthier to throw around than interference that's for damn sure, interference is seriously unbalanced too lol.

The idea of diminishing returns on healing is a good idea, but it does make pacifist's boon a little more contentious to run. Still it is worth considering at least.

My main thought is just that I think there is quite a bit of nuance that makes it hard for me to form a solid opinion, and changing healers is basically changing the game, I also think healers should feel good about healing too obviously, I don't think anyone argues against that, its just important to remember.

[Fern]

Also @ Fern I do agree if this WAS to go through? It should only affect PvP. I like being able to let suboptimal builds enjoy events because I can heal them an absurd amount. Taking that away because people can't always circumvent it in every match up would be a bit frustrating. As all it's really doing is making it harder for those who don't power game.

Exaaaaactly. People having fun in PVE or event PVE don't need to suffer for the sins of us sweaty PVPers.

Honestly the main issue is mostly PVP fights taking way too long (and that's kind of not really a big deal since PVP doesn't actually matter much to the game due to low conflict levels, it's just fun to throw hands with several people over and over in casual fights.) So I think an attrition mechanic is probably fine too.

At the end of the day, if nothing happens it's probably not too big of a deal IMO because most of the PVP in the game is casual/for fun (at least for the moment). I just hope that if something does that it's careful with not doing collateral damage to the people that don't really bother with that kind of situation to begin with!

[Ray2064]

I admittedly think these suggestions would've worked in a vacuum a little while ago, but now that damage numbers are kind of higher and easier to get than they used to be, with the Solbladers and Druids running around, critters in general being able to afford more damage, etc, with little actual builds being able to keep up reasonably, beyond dishing out their own damage (rocket tag, basically)

Now is just probably not a great time to nerf defensive options. I do agree with some of the general proposed options if some of the current damaj gets toned down though