Healers need help! An idea to make them better without making them mandatory

Secret World Legends General Discussion
133

Meta-Moth, enough with the preaching please.

The game has issues, big ones such as allowing unbalancing mechanics to eliminate part of the experience.
We are discussing how a whole role is made redundant due to an op build and you are telling me that sustain tanks should choose what to build to play? What?
What about those people who like to 1 hit kill enemies in games. Should they get a dedicated build and a Activity Finder, too?

You are now talking complete nonsense. We are discussing that balancing is necessary one way or another. The playerbase dying with each day is a proof of that.

And your insights about financial reports and what not is exactly what I mentioned previously. Nobody besides you and few others care about that.
The MMO community is not going to be “OMG, I have to look at Funcom’s financial reports! Yes, this makes sense and I am now going to play this broken game and pay for it for no reason.”

Reality is this - the game’s player base is getting lower. This thread could be part of the problem or it may be something completely different. I don’t and I don’t care. I don’t work for them.

I do love both TSW and SWL and that’s why am bothering posting and trying to help identifying potential problems. I want this game to succeed. But this is not my responsibility. I play the game and I pay for it. I paid for TSW, too. Now it’s up to Funcom do to their part of the deal and deliver a good experience.

If Funcom does not wish to get this game dead, they will have to do something, because regardless of who is right or wrong here, results are not positive for them.

Gameplay is crucial for an MMO and fixing the tanking / healing is major part in it.

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You won’t get a fix - it’s that simple - there is no staff to do it and no budget either because all the work is done as far as they are concerned. Not only that - but according to whatever figure FC want to pull out it’s always that the dungeon circuit people are of low priority just like the PVP crowd and the % of players who do these are so low - it does not matter to them to even want to contemplate it.

The dwindling playerbase is because they are done with content until new stuff comes out, they are sick of rinse and repeat and then on top of that the rest of the folk have had to deal with utter nastiness from other players who have made it difficult. What we have left is those who are willing to stay through the crap.
It’s that simple.

If you want to join the others who have left because of the borked … everything. Then that will happen through your own choice. i’m still here - thick or thin. So are many others.

The thread is about how to make healers roles more valid as an option and the only way that can be done is if all roles are accepted. The addition of Sustain option onto the AF nullifies the need for any sustain tank to belittle or demand the healer who can only heal, joining their group by chance and circumstance because they can’t help themselves but be hideous towards other players (not all - but some have) Failing that - it is up to the community to defend and fight their corner - which is where we are at presently.

you are forgetting one thing
They relaunched this as a shared world experience
Not an MMO

There is no sharing if you want to exclude and that has already been done enough to the healers as it is.
Start promoting the use of a healer via the already given options discussed here in this very thread.
What are your proposals on that? What are your ideas to make it better with what we have now while we wait for the supposed nerf or buff? because all you are doing is calling for nerfs to something that actually works.
Healing also works - yeah, remember - healing with regular tanks? - as we have discussed with regular tanking - this needs promoted more often if you want it to survive in this manner. Promote, promote promote!

Understand that it starts with you - the player.
The sustain tanks have already done their work and come forth with their knowledge and number crunching facts and figures and builds - where are the rest? Where are the healers and regular tanks with their knowledge? It’s not talked about often enough - especially in game. Do not allow it to dwindle that’s what i am calling for - but allow them to do as they please also. We can only remind them of how un-necessary sustain is in lower tiers of PUG groups. And remind often.

it may be OP but it’s not the be all and end all.
What is - is dismissive natures and petty squabble.

If Funcom can not be relied upon in this effort then it HAS to be You and I and everyone else who cares for the trinity roles.
That in itself will do more than ANYTHING Funcom can do, whether they have the gumption, the inclination, the facts, the budget the staff etc … or not.

If you and I do not preach it - then who the bloody hell will?

As for this ^ Give me the name of a person who can one shot a boss in a dungeon and they can quite happily have their own role selection on the AF because they would deserve it for being able to do it.
Otherwise do not come out with ridiculous facts, sidelines or statements said in anger to derail the topic at hand and cause upset with silly argumentative points. That actually have - no point.

If you can see how silly this looks then you will soon start to understand that the only way forward is to know that what you are asking - is dangerous for everyone else.

Be constructive at least.

Do you honestly think that nobody has asked for nerfs, buffs and re-balancing since Beta? Because they have - where is it? Nowhere.
Look at yourself first and how you are making this and yourself look.
I can only go so far in defending the healer class - but i can not and will not go so far that it excludes another just because it was done to me and the rest.

This is the last time i will engage with yet another “new account” to the forum of less than a month old.

135

I think once again you’ve read a lot and you’ve misread everything.

Sustain Tanking is NOT a role, it’s a tank build, one of many options, that is simply the best option of all, that excludes the need for healers.

Applying changes to it (nerfing) is to make sure it’s balanced compared to other builds.
You keep talking of exclusion and you keep proving you do not understand what exclusion means - if you have 1 build that is better than all other builds, you are basically excluding all of them, because you’re forcing everybody to play that best build if they want to be as successful as possible. Yes they have a choice - to either be sustain tank or suck. What an amazing choice.

When I started as a tank in E1 I had a tank build that I came up myself - I kept dying on boss fights because of random 1 hits and what not.
Then a player came to me and said “Dude, go sustain tanking or you’ll keep dying”. I did and all of a sudden I started rolling through content with ease.

Some people in this thread claim that regular tanking works, but I would say that it really doesn’t if you and your healers are not geared enough. It may work once you have good gear or you have a very deep understanding of the mechanics, but not in the beginning for sure.

So, once again, do you understand where is the exclusion of having 1 BUILD that dominates all others? Are you sure that the best way to handle this is to put Sustain Tanking in AF (as if it’s a 4th role), rather than actually nerfing the power of that build?

Haha, what a hypocritical exclusion to a new comer of the forum! But yes, please, ignore my comment.
I prefer if other people join and share their feedback, than us getting back and forth.

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So what about those peeps who are just hitting E10’s? Regular tank wont survive there and there might even be DPS issues with 3 DPS. Same starts to apply to E9’s already (some dungeons). How about E10 NY raid? On the first seconds you take around 18k dmg in a second. But sure your healer can keep up while placing filth too, right? Let me tell you, he cannot. I once fat fingered my CD and didnt have anything running, I was dead in 2 seconds even tho we did have healer in our group.

You see, what Meta has also been trying to say is that for some content sustain tanking is the way to go, before you outgear it. Funcom cannot just nerf sustain tanking, but they would have to change some higher tier dungeons and raids incoming damage too.

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137

Just IMO but most of the excessiveness of sustain is 1 ability, Pain Suppression. If it’s gonna remain a mitigation ability at all it needs multiple bugs fixed (no heal on glances, double heal if twist fate’s barrier is up)

I think it’d be better to retune it so it performs its intended job - solo heal for hammer users. Maybe make it so you get 4-5 charges and each time you’re hit, you heal for 0.5 of your combat power and consume a charge. Then have the passive add a real mitigation instead of healing - for example, 10% damage reduction per charge.

Without Pain Suppression’s 8 seconds of immortality you’d need to have self-healing at some point in the rotation instead of living purely off barriers and immortality, so sustain would be possible but not infallible.

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You may as well delete that “starts to”. In a PUG E9 group you will never beat the dps checks if you dont have 3 way overgeared dps.
Also I happened to heal good, wellknown almost capped out tank in E9 and, becouse of a misunderstood, he told me to go full heals while he traditional tanked all Polaris . Believe me it was HARD and after I failed a couple of times on last boss he switched to sustain. It was the first time I healed him and I politely asked in /tell if he wanted me to heal or dps, the answer was something like " I did not think it was possible at all, but since you are such a godlike healer lets try it !" :stuck_out_tongue:
Granted my healing gear was right on lvl, he probably was dps glyphed and used very few CDs, but to make the experience confortable he should have used enough CDs that he was already sustaining .

You should also add to that Immutable healing part which can crit to heal you to full 40/50% of times and with a CD reduction signet can be used twice in one rotation …

While I may agree with you I also have to wish good luck to the ones who will heal some encounters like Kelin’s Dreaming Shroud in E10, I really don’t think it is possible without PS+AS immortality. That one comes to my mind but I am sure there are many others that would have to be rebalanced by far.

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This doesn’t sound like anything a sustain tank would do better than a regular tank. Regular tanks have just as much access to CDs as sustain tanks do, they just aren’t doing all their own healing. And a regular tank might evade a couple of those hits. The run in on NY Raid is always tank going in with mitigation up ASAP. That’s the same no matter what kind of tank you run, and there’s nothing special about crit glyphing that will make those first few seconds easier.

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I sometimes run with a tank that asks me to go heals in E10, so she is not technically sustaining, but she uses so many CDs to survive that she is already sustaining. It is just a matter of self-confidence, maybe she would need a few top ups here and there but not a dedicated healer at all. Without those CDs I would not be able to keep her alive, period.
What is the difference between a sustain tank and a tank who uses 3-4 CDs randomly ? Is it only that the sustain tank uses CDs in a specific rotation, timing them to be (almost) always covered ? Then he is only a tank who uses his skills at their best.
Solution maybe would be to take out all of the healing parts of tank skills and raise the mitigation parts accordingly.
But then bosses HP should also be reduced and many fights rebalanced ( and remove that stupid timer on HR6 !!!).

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There is something other than using CDs randomly. There is using CDs when they are needed, rather than on a rotation. Plus, sustain tanking uses crit glyphing because the tank heals can crit. Regular tank can use a lot of the same skills, maybe all of the same skills, maybe even exactly the same way a sustain does, if they are necessary, but they can’t heal sufficiently to sustain themselves. On the other hand, if all those CDs aren’t necessary because the damage isn’t that high, then a regular tank isn’t going to need them as much as a sustain is. I’ve seen crit glyphed tanks fumble CDs and get killed by things that just don’t hurt me that much.

And that brings us to the issue with sustain tanks that is the cause of this thread—it’s not the mitigation. Of course tanks should have lots of mitigation options. Tanks probably shouldn’t have so many sources of healing. Immutable heals me for ~10k after long moments of immortality. It would still be useful if it didn’t heal so much! I rarely use Pain Suppression, but when I do it is specifically for the heal component. A tank putting out more HPS than a healer is obviously going to impact the healing role.

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144

I never understood the part where you heal 113% of the damage you were dealt, when using Pain Suppressions passive. Immutable is locked at 40% … they can’t heal a full bar of HP on their own. On the flip side Pain Suppression doesn’t prevent a hit from killing you. That still doesn’t change the fact that Pain Suppression can heal you alone, while taking damage, so long as it doesnt 1Hit you. I mean even 90% would be a powerful number to make you die much slower, again granted no 1Hitting is happening.

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145

Can anyone also clarify if potions can crit heal? I know they say they heal 15% of your max health, but i’ve seen potions heal for 24k of a 30k hit point pool and that’s a bit more than 15% lol

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The difference IMO is that on its own, Pain Suppression leaves you with no more than (maxhp-last) hit worth of health. If you have 23k hp and are taking 20k hits, when it ends you’ll have 3k hp. Immutable leaves you with at least 41%, more like 80-100% if it crits. So after immutable you can tank the next attack without a cooldown depending on the fight.

In the sustain build I do overlap Thick Skin with immutable, because afaik you get immutable’s 50% hate increase on the barrier which is a free ~25k hate.

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So that is if you run a crit build, which i why i prolly don’t see it much. Personally one of the defensive tanks. Can’t the heal of Pain Suppression crit too though? Is it that these abilities maybe shouldnt be allowed to crit?

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Twist Fate and Immutable can crit, Thick Skin and Pain Suppression don’t seem to. I don’t think it would be useful on Pain Suppression cause most of the time you’re getting a full heal before every incoming attack anyway without it critting.

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I am almost positive they can. I have seen them heal for much more then usual but I did not check logs to see if it was a crit, which most probably was (can’t find another reason).

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Healing to hate ratio is 0.5/1 so i guess you meant 12.5k hate.

Every single healing source in the game can crit (including healing potions) except Rock Hard, which is static and isn’t affected by Corrupted state either.

Yeah? Until the RNG works against you and you fail to glance or to evade? And until you get to play with maxed out DDs who will outaggro you on every single fight if you don’t use force provokes because of the fact you’re defense glyphed, so your aggro won’t be able to match the ridiculous DPS some people can output.

Let’s be clear: if the tanks you’re talking about get killed, it is because they fail their cooldown usage, not because they’re crit glyphed. It doesn’t guarantee that in the same situation, you would have been alive with your defense glyphing.

151

I am not sure about this as I never tested myself, but I am almost positive you can sustain with def glyphs as you heal less but you also get much less damage.
The main problem would be PS not healing you on glances, thats what would probably kill you, but that should be a bug and should be fixed.

Yes, as I admitted in my post, this reasoning brings right to this conclusion. (BTW Immutable 40-50% of times heals me from 0 to full as it can crit and with CD reduction signet you can use it twice in a rotation).

But taking out/limiting the healing factor of tank abilities will leave a LOT of balancing issues.
In the current state of the game I am not sure I am willing to face such an epic change.

Population is low, developing resources are scarce (if any at all) and the needing of tanks is more then ever, can you immagine the scenario if all at once AA tanks (like me :stuck_out_tongue: ) would be limited to lower Elite tiers and loads of fights will suddenly become (almost) impossible in lower tiers like E10 HR6 and the like are ?
I don’t think that would help the game health at all.

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sustain tanks impair dangerous casts as much as other tanks do, what are you trying to say ? :wink:

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What is the real point of a separate queue? The population is small and splitting it won’t help, especially so when the real limiter, as far as I’m aware, is still just tanks.

Heal and DPS gear is nearly identical to the point where switching from one to the other as the group wants should not be a real problem for the healer, and in fact there is no real loss just slotting full DPS gear as a healer. Signets can be annoying, but I’m not very sympathetic to complaints of having to level up 1 extra gear piece or simply a glyph to be able to go DPS.

Healing (and tanking) in this game is obviously very poorly balanced, even with a normal tank. I hated it because the pacing of it was absolutely insane, with long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of panic, meaning most of the time as a healer, I was useless, and trying not to fall asleep for the panic moments.

Its better to acknowledge the issue and deal with it yourself. That means being flexible when the group wants a fast run with 4 dps, and making friends with tanks that like a “proper” healer. Make your own groups, get friends that are fine with running with healer/tank roles. You can fix this yourself. You don’t need the devs to spend time on the queues, because its probably not at all as simple as you think it is, nor are the effects likely as clear cut as they seem.

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Yeah! It was on E5 NY Raid, and I and the other tank were roughly equally geared. They got punched in the face by the birds if they fumbled a CD (which didn’t happen often because they knew what they were doing) and I didn’t. Maybe on top of it they had their AA different, I didn’t pay that much attention.

I have almost never had an issue with aggro. I have played with high red geared AR grenade flingers and not had an issue. But I don’t anticipate ever playing with the cutting edgiest of the cutting edge DPS so it’s worked out so far! Regardless, sounds like a problem for Funcom to fix if tanks have to play DPS with HP to hold aggro.

It helps using two power moves though. I notice many tanks don’t.

That could be why I made sure to mention they fumbled their CD! However, the fact that they are crit glyphed means they have no defense if they do fumble their CD, whereas defensive glyphed tanks have a good chance of taking no damage at all. Not a guarantee, but you and I both know this.

I have tested unintentionally. Sometimes healers get bit by charging regional lair puppies. I can last long enough for the healer to get back, but not much longer than that. I’ve also played backup tank on Pigdor the Filthinator 2 when the other tank (who was sustaining) had either lag issued or just wasn’t that great at it…I can do that long enough for them to get back, too, but not much longer.

Frankly, I don’t enjoy that kind of play one bit.

Now, this whole post is entirely off topic, so I’ll leave it at that!