Add Heal Threat

[weyoun]

Say wouldn't heal threat be nice? At least with average intelligence mobs. With quickened mass heal completely OP a little heal threat could even things out? Oh and put a 2 min CD on mana pots too.

Thanks!

[grodon9999]

Though I'm not a big fan of heal-threat (my poor little halfling Cleric . . .) I LOVE the idea of an SP-pot cool-down. Sure it'd lead to more wipes, but if it does lead to a wipe you SHOULD have failed. Drinking your way through a quest shouldn't be a viable strategy.

[Nospheratus]

/signed for the pot cooldown


Realistically though, it won't happen because those are sold in the store!..

[weyoun]

Whether you're a fan of heal threat or not, its one of the things that makes the DDO AI flat. I mean, many of the monsters are supposed to be these uber war generals and yet they aren't smart enough to attack the healer? Doesn't really make a lot of sense does it?

[grodon9999]

Whether you're a fan of heal threat or not, its one of the things that makes the DDO AI flat. I mean, many of the monsters are supposed to be these uber war generals and yet they aren't smart enough to attack the healer? Doesn't really make a lot of sense does it?

Not at all, but the encounters as they are now are balanced around NOT having healing generating any threat. A change this big would require much greater changes than just that.

Let me rephrase . . . I'm against heal-threat in a vacuum. If encounters were re-tooled and this was a part of a much larger holistic change than I'd be fine with it.

[Samadhi]

Not at all, but the encounters as they are now are balanced around NOT having healing generating any threat. A change this big would require much greater changes than just that.

Let me rephrase . . . I'm against heal-threat in a vacuum. If encounters were re-tooled and this was a part of a much larger holistic change than I'd be fine with it.

Sensible. A flat change would be too drastic; or minimal enough to not even be worth bothering with.

[Illiain]

In general, I think this would be a horrible idea. The NPCs have odd movement patterns that the players can't prevent. They slide down the hall after getting tripped, they run around when blinded and stunned/danced/etc, they can sidestep around you after taking a full TWF flurry for 75% of their total hps in damage. Basically, if they want to get around you, they will get around you before your computer can react.

It would make preventing them from going after the healer almost impossible after their first mass cure/heal, not to mention overheals. How would that be dealt with? Would it tally damage healed or total heal? Hitting the human monk with past life paladin and critting for 1500-2k would be a huge about of hate, when they were probably only down 200-300hps. This leads to healers being stingy with their less efficient single target heals and a lot more party deaths.

Now personally, I would enjoy it. I'm currently reequiping my old revamped battlecleric into an intimicleric. Raid heals and tanking in a single party slot. But not everyone has a build that can deal with that kind of abuse and you'd have weenie healbots dead all over the place.

[grodon9999]

Now personally, I would enjoy it. I'm currently reequiping my old revamped battlecleric into an intimicleric. Raid heals and tanking in a single party slot. But not everyone has a build that can deal with that kind of abuse and you'd have weenie healbots dead all over the place.

LOL, that's AWESOME. We have a couple intimitank-FvS on Ghallanda who'd LOVE this change.

[Illiain]

LOL, that's AWESOME. We have a couple intimitank-FvS on Ghallanda who'd LOVE this change.

You've probably ran with my cleric a couple times, I tend to be a little secretive about his 61 intim. I know there's been a ton of raids I've done with your CC guys. When a PUG hears the 19cleric/1fighter has intim, he gets booted because they want a nannybot.

[JayDubya]

I'd go for this. We go after their casters and clerics first, why shouldn't they go after ours?

As painful as the pot cooldown would be, they are currently the games 'easy button' for almost any raid/epic.

[weyoun]

Not at all, but the encounters as they are now are balanced around NOT having healing generating any threat. A change this big would require much greater changes than just that.

Let me rephrase . . . I'm against heal-threat in a vacuum. If encounters were re-tooled and this was a part of a much larger holistic change than I'd be fine with it.

That's what I'm advocating. The complete lack of heal threat is silly, to put it lightly.

[grodon9999]

You've probably ran with my cleric a couple times, I tend to be a little secretive about his 61 intim. I know there's been a ton of raids I've done with your CC guys. When a PUG hears the 19cleric/1fighter has intim, he gets booted because they want a nannybot.

It'll be even better when the Dwarven Defender PRE gets released.

If they ever gave heal threat it'd be SO BADLY ABUSED it's not funny. We'd build legions of dwarven defender clerics/FvS/Clonks and have them tank everything.

That said, I LIKE the cool-down on SP-pot usage.

[Jamma]

Whether you're a fan of heal threat or not, its one of the things that makes the DDO AI flat. I mean, many of the monsters are supposed to be these uber war generals and yet they aren't smart enough to attack the healer? Doesn't really make a lot of sense does it?

I've been in many parties where the melees don't take out the healers, because they're in the back and not noticed, or the melees just figure they'll get to them eventually. Hmm, sounds like Turbine modeled the monster AI after player AI.

Seriously, if you want to talk 'smart' thing for the monsters to do, eliminate all hate mechanics. Just give them a pecking order:

1) attack all healers till healers are dead
2) attack all casters till casters are dead
3) mop up incidental melees, preferably before your break enchantment/ mass hold persons wears off on them.

[weyoun]

It'll be even better when the Dwarven Defender PRE gets released.

If they ever gave heal threat it'd be SO BADLY ABUSED it's not funny. We'd build legions of dwarven defender clerics/FvS/Clonks and have them tank everything.

That said, I LIKE the cool-down on SP-pot usage.

Would it be abused more than mass heal spams? Its hard to imagine it would. The game has so many easy buttons but the complete lack of heal threat is the most glaring of all of them. There isn't really a quest that you can't pot/mass heal through. ToD added the AoE stun and DoTs which were probably the most challenging mechanic that the game currently has to offer. Both, however are easily overcome by light monk and or a tank with a lot of HPs and . . . we come to it again . . . overhealing.

[grodon9999]

I've been in many parties where the melees don't take out the healers, because they're in the back and not noticed, or the melees just figure they'll get to them eventually. Hmm, sounds like Turbine modeled the monster AI after player AI.

Seriously, if you want to talk 'smart' thing for the monsters to do, eliminate all hate mechanics. Just give them a pecking order:

1) attack all healers till healers are dead
2) attack all casters till casters are dead
3) mop up incidental melees, preferably before your break enchantment/ mass hold persons wears off on them.

Again, we could exploit the hell of of this. If we know the pecking order you can shield-wall around it and beat the mobs down without taking any damage. it'd be worse (easier) than we have now. I'm not even gonna mention what you could do with BB-kiting if the divines have auto-agro.

[weyoun]

Again, we could exploit the hell of of this. If we know the pecking order you can shield-wall around it and beat the mobs down without taking any damage. it'd be worse (easier) than we have now. I'm not even gonna mention what you could do with BB-kiting if the divines have auto-agro.

Shield wall is another easy button mechanic that needs to go.

Edit: The funny thing about your posts is that you're identifying exactly what the easy buttons are and further illustrating my point. Saying we'll switch from one easy button to another is exactly what is wrong with the AI. We've all gotten really lazy and so have the developers.

[grodon9999]

Shield wall is another easy button mechanic that needs to go.

Not disagreeing with you. I personally would like ALL the cheap tactics that we use made impossible and the encounters balanced around that. If a tactic won't work against a human-DM controlling the mobs it shouldn't work in DDO. at the same time if mobs knew to AVOID firewalls and BBs the inflated HP wouldn't be needed and 1-shot nukes would be more useful, etc . . .

The problem is we're not there yet regarding the technology needed for the AI to be smart enough. Dumb AI is what we got with the challenge coming from inflated HP and other such nonsense. It'll get better in future games but it is the reality of what we have. Turbines come out and said smarter AI requires more CPU cycles thus creating more server-strain and more lag.

[Missing_Minds]

Whether you're a fan of heal threat or not, its one of the things that makes the DDO AI flat. I mean, many of the monsters are supposed to be these uber war generals and yet they aren't smart enough to attack the healer? Doesn't really make a lot of sense does it?

Play a bard. Tell me you aren't picked out first. *grumbles* 2 rooms back/hidden and I'm still targeted first!

[Missing_Minds]

Shield wall is another easy button mechanic that needs to go.

Edit: The funny thing about your posts is that you're identifying exactly what the easy buttons are and further illustrating my point. Saying we'll switch from one easy button to another is exactly what is wrong with the AI. We've all gotten really lazy and so have the developers.

AI change is needed. And logcially simple, but I"m not certain what results can be returned to make it work. Aka I don't know how their scripting language works to support simple ideas.

[weyoun]

Play a bard. Tell me you aren't picked out first. *grumbles* 2 rooms back/hidden and I'm still targeted first!

My toons are public, I have 3 bards.