Healing and Spell Power

[Carkolda]

You can clearly tell who are divine/healers and who are not. You can tell who the tanks are, and who are not. A lot of times people don't realize how much work goes into keeping an entire group alive, or tag-teaming raids, especially pugs. People only care about having a full hit-point bar and don't really care about what it takes to make that happen.

Over the updates, we have been seeing HP, DPS, and Offensive spellcasting getting buffs. We have seen people max hit points going from upper 300's was good and well to now people over 1k. And what has happened to healing? It's remained static or gone down. How does this make sense to anyone? I have seen my heal spells' effectiveness dropping, both on a literal sense (losing 50-100 or more hit points per cast) and a figurative sense (I now heal a percentage of their health instead of all of it). Why are we seeing that healing spells (in particular, the bread and butter "Heal") are getting suppressed?

I don't understand why healing has been targeted, and why our SLA's are being debuffed when arcane SLA's are being amped up. Are you trying to force us to buy SP pots? Or trying to get us to quit playing divines? Because that's what it feels like. I love my clonk, but it's getting old how everyone's power level is ramping up exponentially (Really? 10,000 temporary hit points???) and we're still stuck back at our pre-U13 levels. No love, indeed. And don't get me started on FOM or the light spells/SLA's.

Here's an easy fix: Remove the level caps. Period. A level 11 throwing a heal down would restore 110 HP, just like a level 25 cleric would restore 250 hp, base. Just like a level 11 fighter isn't going to have 800 hp, but a level 25 fighter would. Or, as another option, just turn it back into D&D 3.0 version of heal: All but 1d4 hp. Problem solved, no need for spell power at all!

[bigolbear]

I suspect the latter. I've seen no evidence that any divine offensive spells other than the one named in the original post of this thread (Summon Archon) gains reduced benefit from Spell Power. All my testing has shown they're all spot on for the 100% that we have them set to.

I think this is just a case of the one person who tried to test it actually used Summon Archon to do so, then the "light spells are getting half also" word just spread around, despite being inaccurate.

im not sure about the light spells - i have a feeling a lot of that comes from searing light being replaced witrh silver fire - which acording to its description has a much higher damage range - i think the descriotion just got borked.

However regarding blade barrier, comet fall, flame strike, firestorm, glyph of warding and all the NON light divine spells:

These have DEFINATELY been nerfed - sure there getting 100% of applicabe spell power BUT that spell power can only come from items, there is no enhancement lines for divines to buff these spells.

condsidering most divines had maximise, and many had empower for these spells before.

old system:
15d6((1(base) + .5(sup pot 6)) * 2.5(max and empower)) = 15d6(avg ddo dice 15 x 5) x 3.75. = 281.25

new systemwith the gear they had)
15d6((1(base) + 0(enhancements) + .40(potency 40) + 1.5(max and empower)) = 15d6 x 2.9 = 217.5

217.5/281.25 = .773 ie a typical divines offensive spells are 77% as effective as they were. This gap can be narrowed slightly with better gear but its still significant.


As i stated above the short term solution is to give divines access to the force enhancement line, the logn term anc correct solution come the enhancement pass is to give all mcharacters access to all spell power lines via multiple enhancement selectors.

[Flavilandile]

[snip]
TLDR Version: (Quick Summary)
• Some spells gain reduced benefit from Spell Power.
• This is because they are not affected by one or more metamagics.
• This keeps them approximately the same or a little better than they were before the expansion.
• This maintains the preexisting balance between those spells and other spells.
• If you want your spells to be as strong as possible, use an item that boosts that specific type of Spell Power.

Thank you for the long explanation...

[morticianjohn]

However, we felt some spells and abilities would be unbalanced if they received the full amount of Spell Power, so we made some exceptions, in order to maintain the current balance of the below listed spells:

The following spells currently receive reduced benefit from Spell Power:
• The Heal spell: 50%
• The Mass Heal spell: 50%
• Necrotic Touch (Pale Master): 50%
• Necrotic Bolt (Pale Master): 50%
• Necrotic Blast (Pale Master): 50%
• Arcane Bolt (Archmage): 50%
• Arcane Blast (Archmage): 50%
• Summon Archon (Favored Soul): 50%
• All Runearm Shots: Between 50% and 80%

Why these spells?
These spells are not affected either by Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, or both, and never have been.

is this the whole list of spells getting less than 100% spellpower? I believe reconstruct also was not affected by maximize or empower so does that also get a 50% hit from spellpower items?

We set the percentages of your Spell Power for the above spells to ensure that a character, upon the release of the expansion pack, at the same level and with equipment appropriate to their level, would see similar results with those spells.

That will depend a lot on which items they were using. For example if someone was using a superior ardor clicky to boost heals they would see a significant decrease. from level 1-19 there aren't enough decent non-weapon devotion items that could make up for the loss of those ardor clickies for any healer who utilized a melee weapon.

If they did not receive reduced benefit from Spell Power, those spells would have been too powerful, since Spell Power amounts on items and enhancements now eclipse the old Spell Damage Amplification bonuses.

In other words- Metamagics were not as big of a factor in making those spells good. These spells would have gained the benefits of buffing spellpower on equipment and enhancements, but would NOT have had to worry about the decreased importance of metamagics: resulting in a huge buff to these spells.
Note that those spells still get full benefit from the metamagics that can be applied to them- Empower Healing when used with the Heal spell still provides the equivalent of 75 Spell Power, for example.

The fact that empower healing still gives the full 75 spell power only makes it more complicated. Just look at those threads where they were trying to figure out what was going on and how they had to test over and over again with different metamagics on and off and see what was applying full spellpower and what wasn't. I wonder if in the new updated description did you put that "this spell receives 50% spellpower from items and enhancements but not metamagics" or did you shorten it to "this spell receives 50% spellpower"? It just seems like you keep adding complications to a simple system for no reason.

I fail to see how heal would be too powerful anyway. You could always adjust it via cooldown, base HP healed, spell cost etc.... why ruin a perfectly simple system with exceptions.

Also given the huge buff to everything else in the game why would you nerf a healer's primary spells and then NOT SAY ANYTHING for weeks. You say that the focus was to keep the power level equal to how it was prior to the expansion but with everything else getting a buff this is a nerf (specifically for those <21 running epic content).

Why not just let them get buffed?
Answer: For the most part, they didn’t need it.

We are always watching the performance of groups in content, and will make further changes if needed.

For most players, Heal and Mass Heal are functioning approximately the same as they did before the expansion pack, and characters who use level appropriate gear have also seen small increases in the power of those spells. That small increase would have been a large one if we had done nothing, and we made the decision to maintain the current balance of the Heal and Mass Heal spells.

If we observe that Heal and Mass Heal are not performing sufficiently in Menace of the Underdark, we’ll address that.

Going forward, if we alter the Spell Power coefficient of a specific spell, we intend to update the tooltip to reflect either “This spell receives reduced benefit from Spell Power” or “This spell receives increased benefit from Spell Power”. This will allow us more control to boost “weaker” spells as needed without over-boosting already powerful ones.

Fix things at their root. If they are overpowered and you feel the need to do something about it then change the base. It keeps the spellpower system simple (since we have to calculate spellpower for ourselves and there isn't an in game tool for calculating spellpower) Now after I calculate my spellpower I have to split into metamagic and not metamagic spellpower and then I have to halve the non-metamagic spellpower. The more spells I have which gain or lose a percent of their spellpower means more and more calculations. For something that is supposed to be simplifying things for players this seems like an awful lot of calculations.

As a long-term goal, we also hope to be able to improve the player’s Character Sheet to show Spell Power for each spell damage/healing type, as well as to show other statistics that currently do not appear on it, such as increased or decreased threat, healing amplification, and others.

are you going to break it down by what items and effects are granting the spellpower because at the moment it's not a straight 50% off of the total so unless you give us a breakdown then we'll be back at square one with the calculations. For heal I could just subtract 75 and then half the remainder and then add the 75 back in to get the spellpower but if I have to do this calc for many other spells and (god forbid) adding 125% spellpower for certain other spells which need balanced upward it will just make the whole system more annoying than ever.







I really don't think heal/mass heal will be relagated to uselessness however, as everything else has gotten much better I think a significant bump in the power of those spells to preserve the simplicity of the system and to help preserve the abilities of melee healers knowing what the system would do for them would have been a much better option than trying to balance heal/mass heal against the cure spells. Keep in mind that in level 25 content HEAL is still the best option and it's no better than it was when we were level 21 and only a slight buff (for some builds) from when we were level 20 last update.

[Algulcz]

Just a small off topic, but healer hirelings need some love. This change hurts them too. Andaro 20fvs/4epic, highest level healer hireling and his heal hit me for 355HP with 10%+20%+30% healing amp = base ~205HP. That is laughable. Especially when my barb sit at ~1000HP.

[Thorin2001]

First of all: Thank you for this detailed explanation.
I really appreciate the decision to post this.

I just want to add one thing:
From what I am experiecing on the live-servers and from what I can tell from doing some calculations (which might be wrong, of course) I am sure that the heroic enhancement "Warforged: Healer's Friend" is not giving the advertised 15/20/25% benefit from healing spells but 7.5/10/12.5%.

Reading through the answers in the Working on Patch 2-Thread I would assume, I am not the only one seeing this.
I'd really like to see this put on the Known Issues-List and be fixed soon (Patch 2).
Alternatively help me to improve my math...
... or please explain why this change was made, if WAI.
Thx

[voodoogroves]

I think the real issue with heal and spell power is how it scaled before with level 6 potency / devotion items.

Whether or not it performs the same on some benchmarks does not mean it performs as people are used to using it on all benchmarks. The previous system created some sweet spots for gear with the availability of potency 6, devotion 6, ardor 6, etc. You could get the largest boost in game possible to a level 6 spell relatively early, etc.

I TR'd my cleric and two FVS prior to the update, so I didn't have a character I could compare before and after; same with my bard (a max level 6 caster).



I'm not sure what the actual impact to numbers are IF you gear X versus Y; I mean I can do some maths but clearly, heal used to be a very easy-to-gear for great effectiveness at an early level, and it's definitely different now.


Plus, you know, monk-centered and WF-amp hijinks are generally making **** frustrating anyway.

[idle1]

Seems light spells (and other spells like blade barrier from what people say, through I've recently tred my highest divine so cant test the high level spells right now.) are getting the 50% spell thing rather than the intended 100%, since reading this thread and dev replies it sounds like a bug. Just thought I'd make that plain and clear for devs to test or explain to us why.

[Missing_Minds]

Seems light spells (and other spells like blade barrier from what people say, through I've recently tred my highest divine so cant test the high level spells right now.) are getting the 50% spell thing rather than the intended 100%, since reading this thread and dev replies it sounds like a bug. Just thought I'd make that plain and clear for devs to test or explain to us why.

Best to show what you are talking about.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=383449

[Auralana7214]

I believe reconstruct also was not affected by maximize or empower so does that also get a 50% hit from spellpower items?[/b]

This was my question too, but so far, crickets.

[eden2760]

This was my question too, but so far, crickets.

I would assume reconstruct has a smaller umbrella of affect. It only affects one race out of all the races in the game.

It's been my experience that there are very few instances where an arcane is playing a healer, especially not in high-end guild raids/epics. They're there to nuke, insta-kill, or crowd control. In those higher-end quests, WF usually know enough to stack extra healing amp to help compensate for their initial 50% effectiveness.

I certainly don't think arcanes (especially sorcs) would go around with anything less than repair critical damage on top of that. So WF healing that doesn't receive a racial penalty is coming from one or two primary sources at best.

Apples to oranges, unless it's a matter of "My class/skills got nerfed, so I demand that others get nerfed", in which case I don't think anything more needs to be said.

[Auralana7214]

I would assume reconstruct has a smaller umbrella of affect. It only affects one race out of all the races in the game.

It's been my experience that there are very few instances where an arcane is playing a healer, especially not in high-end guild raids/epics. They're there to nuke, insta-kill, or crowd control. In those higher-end quests, WF usually know enough to stack extra healing amp to help compensate for their initial 50% effectiveness.

I certainly don't think arcanes (especially sorcs) would go around with anything less than repair critical damage on top of that. So WF healing that doesn't receive a racial penalty is coming from one or two primary sources at best.

Apples to oranges, unless it's a matter of "My class/skills got nerfed, so I demand that others get nerfed", in which case I don't think anything more needs to be said.

My question is based on the fact that these spells that get only 50% spell power from items and enhancements, are spells that do not work with Maximize or Empower. I am asking from a purely curious place as to why Reconstruct is not on this list.

Unless I am wrong about the similarities between Reconstruct and the other spells on this list, I believe it to be a valid question. That belief has been confirmed to me by others asking the same question.

[eden2760]

My question is based on the fact that these spells that get only 50% spell power from items and enhancements, are spells that do not work with Maximize or Empower. I am asking from a purely curious place as to why Reconstruct is not on this list.

Unless I am wrong about the similarities between Reconstruct and the other spells on this list, I believe it to be a valid question. That belief has been confirmed to me by others asking the same question.

Understood. It's definitely similar as a restorative spell... I had just thought that the reason it didn't get the nerf was because of the relatively little impact it had to things.

Anyways, sorry I had misunderstood ya.

[morticianjohn]

Understood. It's definitely similar as a restorative spell... I had just thought that the reason it didn't get the nerf was because of the relatively little impact it had to things.

Anyways, sorry I had misunderstood ya.

They keep talking about how they can adjust a spells "performance" by adjusting how spellpower affects the spell. If a spell is peforming well then no need to adjust it but if a spell is underperfoming or overperforming they are going to adjust it via spellpower. As you say reconstruct isn't overperforming in the way heal was with all of easy to acquire healing amp in the game for the best players. There are 2 problems with this mentality that keep coming up.

1.) adjust the spell at the base because it's simple. I respectfully disagree with varusso when he says this will negatively impact newer players. The same reasoning was given for keeping the HP bar hidden because it would negatively impact newer players. I think that overall showing player HP has helped new players understand how to get a significant HP and while some players have taken it too far (gimping their toon for HP) the overwhelming majority have benefitted from this change. In the same way if a player doesn't have the right gear/enhancements to play a cleric properly don't try to hide the fact. The reason heal is Overpowered is at the core of the spell and needs to be adjusted up or down at the start. Anything you do beyond that point singles out certain builds and classes for a nerf rather than an across the board nerf on the spell. For example: We all agree that these changes hurt melee healers harder because they have to choose between a higher devotion item or implement bonus or a melee weapon in hand. It hurts those builds who did not have empower healing prior to the update as now they might need the feat to keep their heal spell at the same power it was prior to the update. If you change the spell at the base then all of these builds are equally affected.

2.) Even for the most talented developer these adjustments will be arbitrarty at best. Really, arcane bolt and necrotic touch needed a nerf? No matter how much data you gather on the use of spells etc... you can't balance every spell against the other and make them all great. There are always going to be good and bad spells if there weren't the game would be boring. The reasoning for altering heal/mass heal is because maximize and empower didn't apply to them before the update but the same was true for reconstruct and that didn't get nerfed. It just goes to show how arbitrary this change is and what we can look forward to in the future as more arbitrary adjustments are made to spells based on how they are "performing". Data gathering and analysis is all good however, depending on how the data is gathered and who analyzes the data could skew the end result to something other than the good intentions.

Conclusion, it's far better to nerf something overpowered at the root of the problem rather than tagging a nerf at the end of the calculations.

[chyribdus]

I just did a little bit of testing with rune-arms. I was using Devourer's Hunger (tier 3 ice). With maximize and empower spell feats active, I was doing an avg of 83 dmg for each of the 3 shots. After disabling maximize and empower spell feats, I did an avg of...83 dmg! I would have to test this more thoroughly to verify it, but from the looks of things, this nerf was actually unjustified. The justification of it was that the metas didnt affect it before so we'll nerf it so that they do affect it now but the damage will be about the same. However, from memory, i do seem to remember this doing approx the same damage pre-U14, though will not be able to say with more certainty until i'm able to use my Lucid Dreams since it was my primary rune arm pre-TR.

Also, on the note of the feats themselves, in the case of empower, we were trading a 50% increase in spell point cost for a 50% increase in damage/healing. With the system that was explained by MF, we will be giving a 50% increase in spell point cost for approx a 10% increase in damage/healing now. This tells me that the feats themselves probably need to be re-evaluated with the change to their mechanics. (Disclaimer - the % based increases are approximations based on the figures that MF gave, not a result from mathematical calculations.)

In the case of Maximize, it used to double damage/healing for 25 more spell points. Now, it has the same spell point cost but only increases damage/healing by approx 20-25% vs 100%.

In the case of empower healing, it used to increase healing by 50% for a 50% higher spell point cost. Now, it is approx the same as empower with the %'s. This entire system needs to be re-evaluated and the nerfs/boosts recalculated to bring back balance.

Personally, I would be satisfied if the spell point costs of the feats were adjusted (maybe down by 25%) with a slight increase to the healing from the spells that were affected (maybe from 50% to 60-65% to put them back on par to where they were). Between these 2 adjustments, it should re-balance the spell system while satisfying the people who have issues with the way the system is working after the change.


***edit*** - just saw that the empower spell was changed from a % spell point increase to a static 15, though, considering it was barely more than that for double, I still consider it excessive.

[Auralana7214]

They keep talking about how they can adjust a spells "performance" by adjusting how spellpower affects the spell. If a spell is peforming well then no need to adjust it but if a spell is underperfoming or overperforming they are going to adjust it via spellpower. As you say reconstruct isn't overperforming in the way heal was with all of easy to acquire healing amp in the game for the best players. There are 2 problems with this mentality that keep coming up.

1.) adjust the spell at the base because it's simple. I respectfully disagree with varusso when he says this will negatively impact newer players. The same reasoning was given for keeping the HP bar hidden because it would negatively impact newer players. I think that overall showing player HP has helped new players understand how to get a significant HP and while some players have taken it too far (gimping their toon for HP) the overwhelming majority have benefitted from this change. In the same way if a player doesn't have the right gear/enhancements to play a cleric properly don't try to hide the fact. The reason heal is Overpowered is at the core of the spell and needs to be adjusted up or down at the start. Anything you do beyond that point singles out certain builds and classes for a nerf rather than an across the board nerf on the spell. For example: We all agree that these changes hurt melee healers harder because they have to choose between a higher devotion item or implement bonus or a melee weapon in hand. It hurts those builds who did not have empower healing prior to the update as now they might need the feat to keep their heal spell at the same power it was prior to the update. If you change the spell at the base then all of these builds are equally affected.

2.) Even for the most talented developer these adjustments will be arbitrarty at best. Really, arcane bolt and necrotic touch needed a nerf? No matter how much data you gather on the use of spells etc... you can't balance every spell against the other and make them all great. There are always going to be good and bad spells if there weren't the game would be boring. The reasoning for altering heal/mass heal is because maximize and empower didn't apply to them before the update but the same was true for reconstruct and that didn't get nerfed. It just goes to show how arbitrary this change is and what we can look forward to in the future as more arbitrary adjustments are made to spells based on how they are "performing". Data gathering and analysis is all good however, depending on how the data is gathered and who analyzes the data could skew the end result to something other than the good intentions.

Conclusion, it's far better to nerf something overpowered at the root of the problem rather than tagging a nerf at the end of the calculations.

I completely agree.

[danotmano1998]

I'm just really curious why my avenging light SLA went DOWN by 50% of it's power from U14 to U14.1..

I really, really, really, hope that it's just a bug. I loved that spell, it's what my cleric needed. A halfway decent single target damage spell that cost very little. A divine SLA, if you will.

Now it's 50% less effective than it was just last update, but I don't see anything in the known issues or release notes about it.

[danzig138]

Appreciate the in-depth explanation. Still a bad decision, and a poor way to alter things, but better a detailed reason than what some others provide.

[honkuimushi]

Thanks for the more detailed explanation. Having different abilities recieve different multipliers is kind of annoying, especially with runearms having varying, unlisted multipliers. I think I would agree that it may be easier to adjust the base damage and give all lowered spell power values the same reduction.


But I think this may be a bigger issue:

I think the real issue with heal and spell power is how it scaled before with level 6 potency / devotion items.

Whether or not it performs the same on some benchmarks does not mean it performs as people are used to using it on all benchmarks. The previous system created some sweet spots for gear with the availability of potency 6, devotion 6, ardor 6, etc. You could get the largest boost in game possible to a level 6 spell relatively early, etc.

I TR'd my cleric and two FVS prior to the update, so I didn't have a character I could compare before and after; same with my bard (a max level 6 caster).



I'm not sure what the actual impact to numbers are IF you gear X versus Y; I mean I can do some maths but clearly, heal used to be a very easy-to-gear for great effectiveness at an early level, and it's definitely different now.


Plus, you know, monk-centered and WF-amp hijinks are generally making **** frustrating anyway.

The level based system led to some sweet spots for certain classes and builds. A Ranger or Paladin was usually fine a Superior Devotion IV item. Bards were pretty happy with a Superior Devotion VI item or a Superior Potency VI item. Some, especially multiclasses, may have found a Superior or Graeter Potency IV or V sufficient. Artificers were generally fine with a Superior Potency VI item and the Challenge ring with Superior Reconstruction VII was a nice sweet spot. Melee Clerics and Favored Souls could get a lot of mileage out of a Greater or Superior Potency VI.

But now, you no longer have those sweet spots, and it's more of a slow climb as you level. On problem with that is that there is less leveling gear. At level 20+, it's easier to get good items, but in any case, most of the really good items are quarterstaffs, espcially the way the implement bonus has been implemented. For a caster/ healbot, it's not so bad, though you will most likely have to do more switching. For an Artificer, melee divine, Ranger, Paladin, Bard, or dragonmarked halfling-- it's pretty crippling. If you plan on doing weapon damage, you have to either switch every time you want to heal, or accept drastically lowered spellcasting damage and/or healing.

I'm not so sure that sacrificing a weapon slot is a greater sacrifice than sacrificing a body slot. It seems like a very small sacrifice for a caster based character, but a large one for a character who uses weapons to inflict damage. Perhaps you could include a implement bonus on some named non-weapon loot? Maybe give runearms an implement bonus equal to their crafting potential? As was pointed out items like the Devoted Wraps were created for a purpose. Superior Devotion I gave you the highest possible equipment boost to Fists of Light. Converting that to spell power really reduced the usefulness oth those items.

It just seems like the new system still need a bit more polish and that healing took the brunt. It was already a pretty thankless task and getting less of a boost just seemed unfair. The way it was anounced was the worst. While this post explained the reasons very well, I think that some of the assumptions made about gear may have been off. I would appreciate it if you would consider the issues of gearing and healing a little more closely going forward.

[Hendrik]

TYVM MadFloyd for your time in making this detailed and needed post to explain what most of us already knew and saw happen in the Live game on our Healers.

/respect.