Why the nerf to Heal?

[SirValentine]

From the Beta release notes:

"The Heal spell is no longer flagged to accept the Heighten metamagic."

This might have been a reasonable compromise at one point in time. However, did these guys ever hear of Update 11? From THOSE release notes:

"Metamagic feats can now be applied to specific spells. Players can select a spell on a toolbar, click the right mouse button, and set the metamagic feats that apply to that spell."

U11 gave us the perfect solution! You would NEVER waste unneeded spell points on Heighten, by using a slot set to "never Heighten". And you would NEVER have a crappy offesnive DC, because for offensive use you could use a separate slot set to "always Heighten".

Now, they have decided to nerf using Heal to nuke undead by forcing our save DCs lower. Was this an overpowered tactic or something? If not, then they have done nothing but take options away from players for no good reason I can see. Why the nerf?

[voodoogroves]

From the Beta release notes:

"The Heal spell is no longer flagged to accept the Heighten metamagic."

This might have been a reasonable compromise at one point in time. However, did these guys ever hear of Update 11? From THOSE release notes:

"Metamagic feats can now be applied to specific spells. Players can select a spell on a toolbar, click the right mouse button, and set the metamagic feats that apply to that spell."

U11 gave us the perfect solution! You would NEVER waste unneeded spell points on Heighten, by using a slot set to "never Heighten". And you would NEVER have a crappy offesnive DC, because for offensive use you could use a separate slot set to "always Heighten".

Now, they have decided to nerf using Heal to nuke undead by forcing our save DCs lower. Was this an overpowered tactic or something? If not, then they have done nothing but take options away from players for no good reason I can see. Why the nerf?

Good question

[Hokiewa]

Why not? Change the mechanics of virtually everything (exaggerated slightly) and staples always feel the burn. I'm not disagreeing with the OP, in fact, I find it amazing that this is what the expansion is boiling down to. A total revamp of the game. Sure, some new shinies but at what cost?

Really?

[DeafeningWhisper]

Well... It's obvious that... You see... Nope, I got nothing.

[sweez]

Would not surprise me at all if there were some devs at Turbine that have no idea that selective metas are actually in game on live lol.

[LiquidShadow]

Would not surprise me at all if there were some devs at Turbine that have no idea that selective metas are actually in game on live lol.

yea... some of updates are so ridiculous that i wonder if they actualy seen the game on their own eyes or only heard stories about it

[Scalion]

I get what you guys are saying, no idea how much this is actually used to damage undead though.

Seems to me like the perfect middle ground would be to either disable heighten when heal is used to heal and not damage (probably complicated to code this though) OR simply set the Heal on default as to have heighten disabled (of course 'noobs' would likely turn heighten on expecting it to increase their heals).

[DeafeningWhisper]

I get what you guys are saying, no idea how much this is actually used to damage undead though.

Seems to me like the perfect middle ground would be to either disable heighten when heal is used to heal and not damage (probably complicated to code this though) OR simply set the Heal on default as to have heighten disabled (of course 'noobs' would likely turn heighten on expecting it to increase their heals).

That's the thing, they removed a rarely used, very situational option for no apparent reason other then "we can".

[PNellesen]

That's the thing, they removed a rarely used, very situational option for no apparent reason other then "we can".

I think this is what's so frustrating - they make these kinds of changes without saying WHY they make them. It would be a lot easier to take if they would put the reasons in the release notes: "the Heal spell no longer accepts the Heighten metamagic BECAUSE ..." Would it really be that hard or time consuming?

[Flavilandile]

Because..... We have Empower Healing.

( and any cleric worth his/her spell will have it as it's mandatory for Radiant Servant )

Now went Divine Sorceror ( read : FvS ) well that's what it comes for quicker spell casting, more mana and such, you have to make tough decisions.

Seriously compared to other changes in the game this one is really minor and not worth raging over.

[garlor]

there are 2 questions to answer

Q:what good comes from this change?
A:none

Q:what bad comes from this change?
A:very little

well, they accomplish nothing good and they do something slightly bad, then, why the **** touch it?

it works?, y, don't touch it!

[Phidius]

I think this is what's so frustrating - they make these kinds of changes without saying WHY they make them. It would be a lot easier to take if they would put the reasons in the release notes: "the Heal spell no longer accepts the Heighten metamagic BECAUSE ..." Would it really be that hard or time consuming?

They did. And their explanation illustrates that they don't understand the game that they are modifying.

At least in this one case - I'm not sold on the big bag of DooooOOOOOoOoM yet.

...
Seriously compared to other changes in the game this one is really minor and not worth raging over.

No one's raging, we're just commenting on what the change says about the ones who made it.

[Rodasch]

Because..... We have Empower Healing.

( and any cleric worth his/her spell will have it as it's mandatory for Radiant Servant )

Now went Divine Sorceror ( read : FvS ) well that's what it comes for quicker spell casting, more mana and such, you have to make tough decisions.

Seriously compared to other changes in the game this one is really minor and not worth raging over.

What does empower healing have to do with heighten?

Maybe you misread the OP. This is about offensive DC's when using Heal spell to nuke undead, not how much it heals for.

[artistx]

they finally add more undead endgame content... but before that they hafta nerf divines are so that their not over powered in the one situation they are suppose to be... once again as a person who primarily plays divines... I'm not feeling the love in this update....

[oweieie]

Yes, it makes no sense at all. But neither does their AC changes, adding implements, the spell power changes, the epic destinies the silly melee spells they've made for druid or anything else they've done recently.

[Ryiah]

Why the nerf?

I don't consider something a nerf when the vast majority of people rarely, if ever, make use of something. Why would you Heal undead when you've got either light-based damage spells like Searing Light or DC-based spells like Blade Barrier? One of the only times I've ever seen this tactic used was against Garamol, using Mass Heal, as it doubled for keeping the party alive.

[WiseFreelancer]

I really think people could do with exercising some thought about changes like this before judging them.

I've seen the Dev justification for the change (can't remember where), but it's obvious: most players don't understand the complex mechanics here, and mistakenly think heighten will in some way increase healing OR don't realise it'll be heightened and cost them more mana. And despite having a multi-life FvS healer that I've been running epic content on for well over a year, I had no idea Heal was even heightenable. Of course if I'd know I'd have either toggled it or set it off permanently, but I didn't know. If I didn't, I can't imagine newer players pick it up that often.

So yeah, its lost utility. And yeah, in an ideal world they wouldn't. But this game is made for loads of people of many levels of skill and understanding, and in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal.

And in the broader argument about this update: I never had a problem with the spellpower changes (for which the initial hyperbole was overblown), I doubted the AC changes and I hated hard to kill. But I don't think any of these changes are as big as people are adamant to to make them.

[Phidius]

I don't consider something a nerf when the vast majority of people rarely, if ever, make use of something...

The rarity of usage doesn't change whether it's a nerf or not, it just changes the severity.

Yes, this would be an incredibly minor, insignificant nerf if it wasn't for the fact that it highlights that someone doesn't know that Meta's can be toggled for individual spells.

... Why would you Heal undead when you've got either light-based damage spells like Searing Light or DC-based spells like Blade Barrier? One of the only times I've ever seen this tactic used was against Garamol, using Mass Heal, as it doubled for keeping the party alive.

Well, gee... there's one reason right there. Perhaps it could be used on other undead bosses as well?

Here's a question for those of you who have Llama installed... are the Cure spells also "nerfed" this way, or are they inexplicably treated differently?

[Therrias]

There used to be a long standing known issue that the heal spell was not allowing a save at all (read: automatically doing full damage every time) when you cast it offensively.

Its possible that this issue has made a return in beta, and that the devs are simply going to label it working as intended instead of figuring out a new fix for it.

If this is the case, then consider it a feature that you will not be able to waste SP on a heighten that isn't doing anything.

[Zyerz]

Maybe it has to do with a druid healing me for 7000 HP... No joke lol.

Yeah yeah, no SS, happened too fast in the middle of a fight.