Pet heals on Test aren't looking good

[Bengali]

They've merely shifted the problem away from cast time and over to efficiency.

EXACTLY.  This wouldn't be an issue if the cast time was justified in the first place.  But the whole point was that it wasn't.  Let me use an extreme example to illustrate the point.  Suppose Mikkily was 2730 hps for 531 mana, with a cast time of ten minutes.  No one would use this heal ever.  So beastlords do feedback and say, "um, that 10 minute cast time is beyond ridiculous.  The heal is totally unusable.  Please give it a reasonable cast time that makes sense in light of the way we actually play the game."

So the devs look at the spell, say, "yeah, that's hella stupid" and change Mikkily to 2730 hps, and a 3.75 second cast time.  But then they say, "wait we reduced the cast time by 99.3%, so we need to balance that by increasing the mana cost by 99.3%.  So now Mikkily is 2730 hps, 3.75 seconds, and 1058 mana.  The end result is a spell that is just as unbalanced as before, but for a different reason.  It makes zero sense to try to transform the long cast times into a different kind of downside (in this case, efficiency) without first being certain that there was a reason for the original downside.

Well, that's exactly what is happening here.  We're taking a hit in efficiency because we're gaining extra healing/second, when the whole point we've been raising for years now is that our healing/second  was totally skewed because of the unworkable cast time, and never should have been that high in the first place.  Obviously the devs disagree, which is their right, but I proclaim it as silly nonetheless.  This is supposed to be a "fix," not a reworking of the heal into something that is dumb for a different reason, complete with a total borking of all the heals that actually were working just fine.  It's a lose-lose situation in my view.

Here's what the heals used to look like up to level 55:

Herikol's Soothing: 300 hps, 75 mana, 3.75 cast time -- a.k.a. Greater Healing, for less mana.
Yekhan's Recovery: 583 hps, 125 mana, 4.5 cast time -- a.k.a. Superior Healing, for less mana.
Vigor of Zehkes: 910 hps, 250 mana, 4.5 cast time -- a.k.a. Divine Light, for less mana.
Aid of Khurenz: 438 hps, 125 mana, 3.0 cast time -- a.k.a. Remedy, for less mana.
Sha's Restoration: 1250 hps, 300 mana, 7.5 cast time -- a.k.a. our first messed up heal.

Really, it doesn't take Encyclopedia Brown to figure out where things go awry.  Everything follows a simple progression of pet heals being more efficient than comparable player heals, and just as fast.  This causes no issues with beastlords eclipsing clerics because well, the damn heals are pet-only.  Beastlords have a niche (such as it is) of being very efficient and capable pet healers -- it's actually more efficient to let a beastlord heal his own pet than to have a cleric or druid or shaman do it.  Then, out of nowhere, Sha's comes in with a cast time of a fortnight, right about the time that players are continuing to get spells that are big and fast (i.e. Ethereal Light=1600 hps, 525 mana, 4.75 cast).

But the problem isn't really that they broke from the progression of following cleric heals (I can live with different heals) but that they designed a bst-only heal that doesn't address the needs of beastlords in any way, shape or form.  And they continued to make it worse with every "upgrade".

Flash forward to now, where they are going back to modeling our heals on player heals, but instead of following cleric ones, we now follow the shaman line, and instead of having a small advantage on paper (which is negated in game, but more on that), we get a carbon copy.  The problem as I see it is that there are a bunch of reasons why shaman heals look the way they do, and a lot of it doesn't apply to beastlords.  The first thing that people will say is that shamans have crappy heals because they have slow, but that is a complete red herring, imo.  Clerics and druids are healing against slowed mobs almost as often as shamans are, since groups almost always grab a slower.  In any event, to the extent that this does play a factor, it would play less of a factor for us since our slow is worse.  Moreover, shamans have much better mana regen, which allows them to compensate for inefficient heals much more easily than a beastlord can (canni is 100+ mana/tick, minus whatever heal over time spell is used to compensate for the hp loss).  Finally, shamans have specialization and spell casting mastery, which give a 20% mana savings on all their heals when maxed (cause they will basically spec alteration).  This means that even without mana preservation, a shaman is only paying 552 mana for Yopppa, while we have to pay 691 mana for the same heal, and it's pet only.  The new Mikkily isn't designed for beastlords any more than the other heal was.

[Rhoam]

Why is it that the devs cant see it that clearly? I mean it is so damn simple to see your point. Where is the breakdown in communication? /bangs his head on his keyboard in unison with Mahes.

[Strigori]

Any form of nerf on any of our heals is an attack on us. Every other heal in the entire game is getting boosted on its total amount healed, and the hp to mana ratio....Except our pet heals which are getting hit with a nerf bat.      The one thing we have ever had as 'ours'(however measily that is) was having the best pet heals, and that is apparently going away to apease the whiners elsewhere in the game.   These changes have a much much worse healing efficency than what they were at.  With how Ae and mob dps has increased boosting healing is called for with regards to pets, but this nerfing the opposite.  Big deal, the heals cast faster, but now smaller, and what good does that do if it isnt larger than an incomming AE, or 1 round of a mobs dps off something like AE ramp.   It Still remains absolutly pointless to  use once content in the PoP and beyond area is started to be accsessed. 

[sierf]

hehe thought i was the only one that noticed chloroblast.

[jitathab]

I hate to see these discussions about things on test, and despite the requests on the official boards, there is no other way to push the developers in the right direction. There are posts here that clearly show a disparity in the curve yet something different is done, but sure mistakes are made.

But the problem is as a community we have had enough of getting crap upgrades in relation to everyone else OOW spell line is a total joke and has not been addressed, hence we are now redcued to doing exactly what SOE asked is not to do and comment on every change on a test server :/

BTW did you read the Lore on why no BST's in EQ2?

" The beastlord's warders lost thier respect for thier master due to thier inability to look after them, the resulting loss in companionship drove many beastlords to wander the wilderness alone. Unable to function as a useful member of society the beastlord trainers were outcast and left there posts never to return "

[Grbage]

Now I know why the pets are not scaling properly, we are getting set up by SOE. The warders will rebell and leave us.

[Strigori]

well well, looks like they might actually be getting the idea.  Milliky on test had the following added today

05-05 22:58     Changed Mana cost from 691 to 610
05-05 22:58    Added Slot 4: Decrease Curse Counter by 28
05-05 22:58    Added Slot 3: Decrease Poison Counter by 28
05-05 22:58    Changed Slot 1 from "Increase Hitpoints by 2428 (L66) to 2468 (L70)" to "Increase Hitpoints by 2810"

curse and poison counter removeal added to all levels of the heals too. 

[Tastian]

I sent some more information along to ry about possibly adding counters and how our efficency took a hit earlier.  Healing really was one of the things beastlords were built on and along the way we've lost it.  Content forces us to not use it often so I really hope that when the situation actually does call for it these new changes will allow us to step up.  *shrugs*  It's on test, who knows how it will turn out.

[jitathab]

BTW just to clarify I wrote

<quote>
BTW did you read the Lore on why no BST's in EQ2?

" The beastlord's warders lost thier respect for thier master due to thier inability to look after them, the resulting loss in companionship drove many beastlords to wander the wilderness alone. Unable to function as a useful member of society the beastlord trainers were outcast and left there posts never to return "
</quote>

That is something I wrote not SOE to highlight the point people have been making on the state of the proposed heals, unable to heal effectively = no pet = low dps = low use = obsolete.

[janabell]

New on Test

Healing of Mikkily  Detail | History | Raw Data 

 
Slot Description
1:  Increase Hitpoints by 2810
2:  Decrease Disease Counter by 16
3:  Decrease Poison Counter by 28
4:  Decrease Curse Counter by 28

 
Mana: 610 Skill: Alteration
Casting Time: 3.75 Recast Time: 2.25
Fizzle Time: 2.5 Range: 200
Location: Any Time of Day: Any
Dispellable: No Deletable: No
Interruptable: Yes Target Type: Pet
Spell Type: Beneficial Category: Heal [Own Pet]
Source: Test 05/05 

Now thats a nice heal and verry well blanced i could live with this

[Bengali]

Yes, that heal looks much better.  Wonder why it's only 16 disease counters, though.

[Strigori]

becuase it was always 16 and they probly didnt think to chnage it when they added the others.

[Mahes]

Call me greedy, I still want to see a 3.5k pet heal at the high end.

[Khayden]

New on Test

Healing of Mikkily  Detail | History | Raw Data 

 
Slot Description
1:  Increase Hitpoints by 2810
2:  Decrease Disease Counter by 16
3:  Decrease Poison Counter by 28
4:  Decrease Curse Counter by 28

 
Mana: 610 Skill: Alteration
Casting Time: 3.75 Recast Time: 2.25
Fizzle Time: 2.5 Range: 200
Location: Any Time of Day: Any
Dispellable: No Deletable: No
Interruptable: Yes Target Type: Pet
Spell Type: Beneficial Category: Heal [Own Pet]
Source: Test 05/05 

Now thats a nice heal and verry well blanced i could live with this

I'd actually mem that spell, it's exactly the sort of change we needed, although more HP (even with a higher mana cost) wouldn't hurt so we don't have to cast it as often and lose dps.

Khayden

[Dancolen]

Imagine we'll be very happy if it goes live.... 

Tho I think mag/nec will want our heads on a platter and scream nerf all the way to the .. well nm.


I was thinking an upgrade via Vigor of Z...

2100 heal
3.75 sec
575ish mana?

This here is a good bit more, and will be nice.

However there are times.... when people still solo...  yes I know.. soloing is all but extinct... but some people still do it...
Where something like this might be useful...

3600 heal
9 sec
700ish mana?

Those 2 heals were about what I was looking for...  though wed need new spells obviously, or at least another for  the quickie heal

The new HoM is most adequate for quick healing, and even isnt too bad on the mana....  every beastlord should be in heaven with this...
Only anguish/etc bsts would have an issue id imagine, just because of the lvl of damage there.

Hmm

Ancient something
3800 heal
3.75 sec
920 mana

nah.... /shrug
ok I'll hush now.