Overview - The previous report focused mainly on interrupts. Little has changed in 1.60 and 1.61 that has directly affected the healer class. This report will highlight the most urgently needed changes to the three spec lines, with a recap of bugs and realm ability issues. The previous report will be linked at the end of this report.
Old Issue: Healers (and other classes) are still waiting for the implementation of a system that awards Realm Points for mez, stun, root and debuff spells.
Mending -
Mending Quick Fix - Healer, Shaman and Druid Cure Disease/Poison spells have a range of 1000. Bard, Friar and Cleric Cure spells have a range of 1500. Please increase the range to 1500 for all classes capable of casting cure spells.
1.) Increase the efficiency of ALL Healing spells by cutting power costs. A 25% reduction in power cost would alleviate many of the problems all healing classes face in RvR.
2.) Rework the power cost of all spec heals so that higher heals are more efficient than lower heals. Specifically increase the efficiency of major and greater heals so that there is a reason to cast them. Currently the majority of healers are using Spread heals almost exclusively in RvR combat. There needs to be a reason to cast the single target heals.
3.) Color code the group (and mini) window so that it is obvious when group members have status ailments that can be cured. The suggestions on the Druid TL report are ideal -
Green for Poison,
Orange for Disease and
Yellow for Mez.
Augmentation -
Celerity. Arguably the most powerful spell in the Augmentation line. Unfortunately, there is one major drawback that prevents celerity from having widespread use. It has a 3.0 second casting time and 1000 radius. It is almost impossible to use in RvR combat. If this spell were made viable for use in actual combat it would greatly alleviate the current pain of speccing augmentation.
There are several ways that celerity could be fixed.
Preferred Solution: Turn Celerity into a power-draining chant. Leave casting time and radius the same.
Other Solutions:
1.) Increase the radius of celerity to 2000 and the duration to 30 seconds, leave casting time at 3.0s.
2.) Increase the radius of celerity to 2000, decrease casting time to 2.0s, leave duration at 20 seconds.
3.) Change celerity to a 30s duration shout with a 45 second recast timer, increase radius to 1500.
Suggestions on fixing celerity are listed in order of preference.
Pacification -
Recurring Issues:
1.) Change healer Mez spells to be on the spirit resist table, Root on the matter resist table, leave Stun on the body resist table.
2.) Either lengthen the duration of Hinder spirit spells as spell level increases, OR increase duration on all Hinder spirit spells to 1 minute. Currently the duration of the spell is 20 seconds. The power usage and end usage of the spell has not changed since it was moved from having a 4s cast time and long duration to an instant with a 5s recast and 20s duration. The duration NEEDS to be increased. This is a major component of a Healer’s ability to perform adequately in solo PvE, and the mana/end use from having to cast the debuff 5 times a fight is excessive.
3.) Move Purity of Movement run buff line to baseline Pacification. With the proposed additions to Augmentation this would free up space to move the run buff to baseline Pacification and balance the amount of secondary run buffers per realm.
Interrupts:
-Pets should be treated as the level of the pet when determining chance to interrupt.
-Spells that are resisted should not interrupt.
-You should not be interrupted by a spell that you are immune to.
-RvR interrupts should function identically to PvE interrupts.
Realm Ability Changes:
- Lower the cost for Perfect Recovery to 8 realm skill points.
- Lower the cost for Mastery of Concentration to 8 for primary healers
- Raise the value of Mastery of Healing from 3% to 5%
- Add Mastery of Pain as a trainable RA for Healers (Aug specced healers specifically)
Battery of Life - This ability is not worth 10 points for the small healing pool and the 30 minute timer. Ideally, the healing pool should be tripled. Or, the healing pool could be doubled and the timer cut in half. Or the timer could be cut in half and the cost lowered to 6. Or the RA could be completely redesigned:
Battery of Life - Three levels, costing 3, 6 and 9 points for each level. First level has same healing pool as currently, 1070. Second level would have 2140 hp, Third level would have 4280 hp.
Bugs -
-The Rez situation is still not completely fixed. Rez spells are using mana when the spell is cast. Mana should only be used when the player being rezzed clicksaccept.
-The addition of the percentage level of rez that you are receiving on the accept dialogue box is a nice addition, but the text spills off the edge of the box and is unreadable.
-Resists for spells are currently being checked against the level of the spell instead of the level of the caster.
-Realm points for rezzing are not updating on the char info panel until you log, zone or kill an enemy
-Pet level in RvR is being treated as Controller level for purposes of interrupts. A level 20 pet controlled by a level 50 character will interrupt as if the pet were level 50 - 100% interrupt rate. From testing it appears that level 35-36 players will interrupt a level 50 caster 40% of the time. Pets should be treated as the pet level, not controller’s level.
- A player dies when you have them targeted - they are still targeted but you have to retarget them to cast a rez on them
- instant attack speed debuffs are interrupting casting
Final Note: Resists are out of hand. The ability for groups to routinely have 50% to all magical resists, and for some groups to have 90% to all magical resists for a given encounter is absurd. The diminishing returns resist system proposed by the Magician Team Leads should be implemented as soon as possible. There is a great deal of balancing that cannot be done until resists (and interrupts) are brought down to a reasonable level. Before that is done, the majority of attempts at balancing will be futile.
Previous Healer Report