Shaman/Archmage Experimental Mode Rebalance

[Sulorie]

All CC still scales with intel, so heal spec healers get disrupted and basically waste their CC too often.

[Thayli]

Note that Fury of Da Green and Energy of Vaul will get a range increase to 100ft when the patcher is available, and a corresponding reduction in efficiency.

I forgot to point this out as you mentioned it before, so thank you for highlighting it again. Either way, while this change will definitely help to some extent and makes the class more consistent and less clunky. However, in large scale warband play this won't make much of a difference. The problem there is not so much the range as the ability to pick a proper target in a huge blog with 5 fps with line-of-sight problems. I assume that you will continue changing RVR as a whole to promote splitting up, which I honestly see as the only solution to this problem, to make the lifetap spec work in large scale.

What you are identifying here is nothing more than, what an upside and a downside is, you have a theorical "sweetspot" if you are not working towards it, you will suffer. I really dont know what the issue is, you have 150 feet skills than are less powerful than the 80 and 100 feet variants, well, as they should be.

The problem is that this "sweet spot", or any spot really, is often unattainable. While you could argue that this is a trade-off like any other, I much rather see both sides of the coin being roughly as viable (not the same in numbers, mind you), instead of one being blatantly too strong and the other being blatantly too weak.

Maybe we should delay this discussion until changes Azarael talking about will be introduced?

As far as I know, the range and numbers tweak on Fury of Da Green and Energy of Vaul are the only things confirmed so far. Hence I felt it was a good time to point out the problems with the class since experimental mode.

I think the main issue is the Perception that Healing abilities should provide more than Life-taps. This arguement was well covered in the initial AM/Sham changes as well as the WP/DoK changes. Casting a heal from 100-150ft away carries far less Risk and Chance than any Lifetap. If I am in range to cast on them, they can do the same to me. They can disrupt/block/absorp the ability. Not to mention how innately squishy the AM is, having them agro casting SHOULD provide more heals than spamming Grp heal hiding behind a tree out of LoS of everyone.

I'm not disagreeing with this. Lifetaps should very well heal more due to the inherent risk-reward tied to that particular playstyle. To me the issue is that lifetaps are god-tier if you can hit, whereas the normal heals are trash-tier if you cannot hit anyone to juggle. Equalizing the two a bit more is basically my suggestion in a nutshell. But they should indeed not be equal in amount of healing done.

[bloodi]

The problem is that this "sweet spot", or any spot really, is often unattainable. While you could argue that this is a trade-off like any other, I much rather see both sides of the coin being roughly as viable (not the same in numbers, mind you), instead of one being blatantly too strong and the other being blatantly too weak.

I am sorry but this is not true at all, you have a cast time on your group heal equal to what Dok/wp have, you are not "too weak" when you cant lifetap, you are still a great healer if you have mechanic points to boost your heals and even when you dont, all you go back to is the level of power we had before the changes, which is not really anything strong but still did the job for the most part.

And they are both viable, specially if as others pointed out, we finally get an item that lets us change our mechanic points.

I seriously cant figure where is this problem you talk about, you say we are too weak and i would like to know why you think so.

[Dabbart]

Trash-mode heals=fast grp heal crit for over 2k each? It's not like AM/Shams HAVE to have a target to provide heals(like melee WP/DoK).

Also saying that increasing Vaul to 100ft range won't make a difference is highly ignorant. That extra 20ft is the difference between enemy staying in range and people dying.

OP needs to show some math to quantify his statements. My AMs spike heals even without life taps attains higher heal crit #s than my Z across the board. My Z has other helpful abilities and tactics to make up for it.

There is nothing about AM heal numbers that are Garbage. It's the lifetap mechanic that makes you feel this way, but a feeling isn't proof of an issue. Since the mechanic doesn't operate in a vacuum.

Also, to those wanting int/WP and mag/heal crit "swapping" RP/Zs entire class mechanic is based on that, no you don't get that as well. I was a little upset that WP/DoK got it with STR/WP, but seeing as it might be the only way to get em to work, meh.

[Telen]

The problem is the mechanic is heavily weighted to advantage a single use of it. To weave a heal then lifetap. No other use of the mechanic comes close. Personally I think Mythics original planned rework where abilities from Vaul only use up mechanic points from either balance but dont build them was better. So to make full use of the mechanic you have to pure heal then pure dps which is getting full mechanic benefit by weaving between roles. Whereas heal/lifetap or dps/lifetap weaving where you are staying within a single role you only get half benefit.

[Thayli]

All right, let me give a practical example.

Guild warband day. I'm in a now full premade warband as a Shaman. One or more times a night, we are on the bottom floor in a keep and making a push up a ramp. We hit an order group, with 2 or more warbands being on the screen at once. We fight over a BO that has a lot of obstacles and a flag that breaks line-of-sight. I understand that people who do not play this way do not see it, but you CANNOT lifetap this way. I've tried, others in my guild have tried. It does not work. 20ft range increase will help in smaller scale, not in large scale RVR where targets die before you can even tab to them while having 5 fps. The only reason Shamans even get a spot in a premade warband is because of morale pump and maybe instant-rez. Nothing else. If we have enough other healers I'm asked to log on another class, and I can't really disagree with the logic behind it.

EDIT: I know this is more an RVR problem than a class problem, as I mentioned in an earlier post. My point about the core/healing tree underperforming still stands, however.

As for healing numbers. Yes, group heal is capable (until Shatter Limbs/Dazzling Strike/Concussive Mine hits, then you might as well log off) yet the ONLY thing we have for group when unable to lifetap. Even our group buff is overshadowed by Chosen's aura. I'd also like to point out that Archmage has it easier than Shaman with healbotting thanks to Wild Healing, which we do not have.

I never said group heal was not doing what it needs to do, I said that the entire healing tree is too weak and not geared towards group or utility, despite being the only meaningful tree in warband play, and that Gork'll Fix It is total trash. The lifetap tree is, ironically, more geared towards group yet the best tree in small scale by miles. I ask you then, why is the healing tree even there?

[Azarael]

I expected this example to come through, so I'll add to my previous comment that I consider zerg (and 48v48 in compacted situation is zerg) and lag RvR issues and not combat design/balance ones.

[Dabbart]

Spoiler:

All right, let me give a practical example.

Guild warband day. I'm in a now full premade warband as a Shaman. One or more times a night, we are on the bottom floor in a keep and making a push up a ramp. We hit an order group, with 2 or more warbands being on the screen at once. We fight over a BO that has a lot of obstacles and a flag that breaks line-of-sight. I understand that people who do not play this way do not see it, but you CANNOT lifetap this way. I've tried, others in my guild have tried. It does not work. 20ft range increase will help in smaller scale, not in large scale RVR where targets die before you can even tab to them while having 5 fps. The only reason Shamans even get a spot in a premade warband is because of morale pump and maybe instant-rez. Nothing else. If we have enough other healers I'm asked to log on another class, and I can't really disagree with the logic behind it.

EDIT: I know this is more an RVR problem than a class problem, as I mentioned in an earlier post. My point about the core/healing tree underperforming still stands, however.

As for healing numbers. Yes, group heal is capable (until Shatter Limbs/Dazzling Strike/Concussive Mine hits, then you might as well log off) yet the ONLY thing we have for group when unable to lifetap. Even our group buff is overshadowed by Chosen's aura. I'd also like to point out that Archmage has it easier than Shaman with healbotting thanks to Wild Healing, which we do not have.

I never said group heal was not doing what it needs to do, I said that the entire healing tree is too weak and not geared towards group or utility, despite being the only meaningful tree in warband play, and that Gork'll Fix It is total trash. The lifetap tree is, ironically, more geared towards group yet the best tree in small scale by miles. I ask you then, why is the healing tree even there?

Correct. That's because the vast majority of the abilities are dedicated towards ST and sustained spike heals with great emergency situationals. My disagreement is if they need anymore grp healing ability than they already do. You're not supposed to be the only healer, increasing AM/shammy grp capability ignores the balancing towards any other healer.

But I've made my point, and wont try to disrail this thread any more.

[Miszczu5647]

I have feeling that this discussion is going in wrong direction. Are we trying to solve all the shaman problems in one topic?

Let's focus more on what Thayli gave us in his first post. Azarael already solve one problem stating that FoDG will receive range boost with decreasing healing potential. Fair trade and I must said that should make shaman work easier (less attention on distance).
Thayli gave as great (IMO) proposition about Shrug It Off. And it's corresponding with Azarael proposition made some time ago in shaman build topic. So maybe we should talk about numbers? Because I don't think that 25% aoe buff to heal with 30 sec duration could stay. 10 sec duration with 30 sec CD? It's give shaman one more utility in healing tree. Combo this with Ain't Done Yet and you have +65% to your heal. I just check. With my current build (594 willpower) Gather Around heal for 1101 hp. 65% equal 715 hp. So 1816 hp. With crit around 2,7k hp. Value that your party should by rather happy. Even heal debuffed target will receive 15% more heal. Should it stack then?
On side note I must add that I love your version with choosing: you or your group. Shaman is hard to play and it should stay hard. I long run it only benefit this class.

Changing Gork Fix'd It tactic (your or mine proposition) should help with healing under pressure. I agree that is a problem and a little help here could help. Let's talk about numbers here.

Keep siege. hmm.. Shaman limbo. But maybe it should be that way? If we have very good healer on open field battles (small to middle scale) so maybe keep fight should by his soft spot? If we make him good (or at least average here) we would need to cut somewhere else. And we will have average healer on every field. And he won't be needed.

IMO Shaman should have his area of expertise and this is open field battles.

[zumos2]

The Problem: Shaman is overperforming if they can "juggle" their career mechanic. They are underperforming if they cannot.

This seems to be in line with the DoK/WP experimental mode, which had the same problem. If we can safely switch our career mechanic between a heal stack and a DPS stack ("juggling"), Shaman has access to what I believe is the strongest healing, both group and single target, bar none. However, this is dependent on two things:

• The ability to hit a target for single target lifetaps, or a group of targets for group lifetaps.
• Not receiving a large amount of focus damage.

If either of those 2 conditions are no longer fulfilled, Shaman is right back to being the worst healer in the game. Long cast times, expensive heals and a lack of a flash heal make it so when you cannot play the lifetap game, you are significantly worse than any other healer. While it is good that core healing is not even close to being as strong as lifetaps, due to the inherent risk versus reward trade-off of the latter, Shaman core healing is just not viable. The problem is actually twofold:

A couple of remarks here. First of all you do not need to juggle your mechanic per se. Having many healing stacks with result into being able to cast I’ll Take That and Fury Of Da Green several times for sick burst healing. It is only not good to use life-tap spells when you already have a dps stack (if you use Willpower as your main stat ofc). Then onto your two conditions, being able to hit targets or groups of targets for healing is obviously going to be part of your gameplay. And while in keeps this could become troublesome, in most other situations you should have no problem finding targets and quite honestly I think even in keeps you should most of the time be able to hit their front line. Next you list as a condition that you are not receiving focus damage. Do you realize how strong Shaman is right now when you try to focus him? The life-taps being able to cast on the run makes them do insane healing on the move, much more compared to a ZL and even much much more compared to shaman of live.

Problem 1: Lifetaps are simply too strong whereas the healing tree is just too weak.

We are in this weird situation right now where a lifetap spec is the strongest group play spec yet unusable in large scale because you cannot reliably hit targets. Naturally one would switch to the heal(bot) tree, yet the majority of this tree is geared towards single target healing, which has little to no use in medium and large scale group play.

I already mentioned that you should be able to hit targets in large scale. There is no way you are not within 80-100ft of any enemy melee train. Then I do not understand exactly what you mean by switching trees, I would run something like this in large scale most likely:http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sha ... :;0:0:0:0:
All of that with willpower as main stat.

Problem 2: Core heals are largely unviable when unable to lifetap or when under pressure.

There are many situations where you simply cannot hit targets to juggle your career mechanic. Large scale RVR with one or more warbands, keep sieges, objectives that have line-of-sight blockages, fights where framerate becomes an issue, etc.. In these cases, Shaman cast times and AP costs are straight back to bottom-tier and there's little to do about it. Instead of simply asking for a numbers buff here, I think this could simply be solved by solving a different problem:

When looking for a lifetap, Shaman needs to move. When under pressure, they certainly need to move. In fact, a lot of the class is geared towards being able to move and dance around threats. However, the 2 main heals, Gather Round and Bigger, Better An' Greener, require you to stand still. Which only leaves a single target HoT Ey, Quit Bleedin'! and a direct mirror of Zealot's Dark Medicine in the form of Gork'll Fix It as the remaining options, both of which are useless for anything but topping off and prehotting. So we have this strange choice at the moment between juggling the overpowerd lifetap and then standing still to cast our decent heals that are constantly set back and/or reduced, or keep moving but trying to stop ourselves from dying with a HoT. This is when the lack of a flash heal or decent heal-while-moving becomes very apparent and is the main thing holding Shaman back against skilled players.

There is a lot of repeating stating again you cannot hit targets when in most cases you should be able to. Understand that these lifetaps give you opportunities to reposition quickly while still being able to do AoE healing whereas ZL/RPs cannot AoE heal at all on the move, giving you quite an advantage over them. And when the Shaman is able to stand still for a moment and you juggle between Fury Of Da Green – Gather Round – I”ll Take That – Gather Round - Fury Of Da Green you have huge AoE healing potential, even much more than our beloved DoKs/WPs. Further again on the move Shamans have insane healing potential. Put on a HoT on someone then cast I’ll Take That or Fury Of Da Green on the move and repeat. You are much more survivable then ZLs/RPs with their flash heals and can even keep more people alive than just themselves.

Solution:

• - Slightly reduce the healing numbers on I'll Take That!
• - Significantly reduce the healing numbers on Fury of Da Green.
• - Change Fury of Da Green from raw healing to normal healing, so it can be heal debuffed and crit.
• + Change the Gork Fix'd It tactic to now slightly increase the flat healing portion of Gork'll Fix It, and have it apply to 3 people instead of 1, similar to the recently reworked Waaagh Frenzy!
• + Shrug It Off now can be applied to either your entire party except you, or just you but not your party. Moving it up one slot in the tree would be necessary to have it stay mutually exclusive with Fury of Da Green, for obvious balance reasons.

As I’ve mostly tackled your problem statement there isn’t much point in discussing solutions when I don’t believe much problems are present, but for the sake of the discussion I will. One of the problems I actually would have expected to see is AP management where Shaman is quite a bit behind AMs .So let us quickly talk about the changes you propose. First of all making Gok’ll Fix It the to go to AoE heal on the move seems like a huge nerf because that skill costs a lot of AP and is frankly, quite bad. If I had the choice between that tactic and WAAAGH! Frenzy I would still go with WAAAGH! Frenzy. (Also this will be much stronger for AMs because of Wild Healing and the AP cost being reduced by Wild Healing).

For the buff of Shrug It Off in its current state would most likely remove ZLs from large scale because the 25% healing increases do not currently stack (which is technically a bug). With shaman just being able to do better AoE healing AND having an AoE 25% healing increase up 50% of the time plus also having Sticky Feetz which is very strong for large scale, there is very few reason to still run a ZL or RP. Now if you make those two heal buffs stack with each other you open up Shaman/ZL and 50% more healing sounds very very strong to me, quite likely too strong. For order things would get even more crazy because if Magical Infusion stacks with the RP buffs, it should also stack with the KoBS healing buff of 15% for a total of 65% which is just insane. To make things ever crazier it should also then stack with Ain’t Done Yet! and Desperation which would mean 105% healing increase on targets below 25% health trolol.

Further it is mostly nerfs to the life-tap mechanic which would obviously be countered by hugely buffing Shrug It Off. Depending on what you do with Shrug It Off I could agree with this or not. I do think changing Fury Of Da Green to normal healing makes somewhat sense, because right now there isn’t much counter play indeed. It’s a kind of weird ability where the damage part, nor the healing part can crit. Also making it into normal healing means it will be effected by Shrug It Off plus it can crit heal and should be able to proc Restorative Burst. All of this should stand about equal to it being effected by heal debuffs, at least in small scale. Maybe for large scale it is actually quite a buff to the ability and in that case you could reduce the healing numbers a little bit to counteract this.