This healing amp bug...it is bad

[protokon]

completely unacceptable. healing amp has been broken for quite a few weeks now - one second I throw a heal scroll on someone for 400, next I throw a heal on them for 160 with empower heal on and the whole nine yards. I don't know the root cause of it, but I do know it seems to be a very common/persistent problem with half-orc characters specifically.

Please fix it soon.

[mystafyi]

its related to yet another bug turbine is unable to fix. If your target drinks a potion or swaps anything that could effect umd, the caster will have their spell power nerfed till the target swings a weapon. Also related to the unfixable umd bug and the bug where spell power effects some scrolls.

[Brennie]

This new thing, it is.... actually no wait, i completely agree with you!

What seems to be the case, from reading more edumacated forum posts, is that players are managing to make all incoming healing spells hit them as if those spells had ZERO spellpower. It is unrelated to healing amp in any way. The most likely suspect as the cause of this seems to be potions. Any kind of potion drunk by a player seems to cause them to be anti-healing-spellpower black holes. Supposedly something to do with weapon swapping and taking a swing of your weapon can fix this, but I haven't done enough testing to confirm.

Fun story: This seems to be affecting Paladin Lay Hands too! But here is the fun part - Normal spellpower doesn't affect Lay Hands. So what does this bug do? Well, in my completely uneducated guesstimation, it seems as if it is treating the Lay Hands power as if it was being used by someone with *zero* Paladin levels, causing it to hit the ability floor which is, apparently, 1 point of healing. It has sucked pretty royally for the paladin in my TR group who tries to save the teammate who is chain-chugging pots to stay alive, only to hit them with a whopping 1 point of healing...

[redsparkle]

It would be very helpful if you were able to get some screen captures or video of this bug, as well as details on what causes or prevents the bug.

I am not sure if scrolls can crit or not, so that might be how you can see a difference. Are you able to produce this problem with the heal SPELL, or just the heal SCROLL?

[Archangel666]

It would be very helpful if you were able to get some screen captures or video of this bug, as well as details on what causes or prevents the bug.

I am not sure if scrolls can crit or not, so that might be how you can see a difference. Are you able to produce this problem with the heal SPELL, or just the heal SCROLL?

I can replicate it on my pure Ranger with a friend anytime.

Cast Cure Serious Wounds on friend and look at what it heals em for.

Have friend drink a pot, any pot.

Now cast Cure Serious Wounds, after you've finished crying at the complete waste of Spell Points, look at how much it healed them for.

Cast it again and observe the same soul destroying pathetic numbers.

Now have your friend swing their weapons at the air, just once.

Cast Cure Serious Wounds on them and breathe a sigh of relief as it actually heals them for a decent amount and doesn't waste Spell Points for almost nothing.

[badbob117]

This new thing, it is.... actually no wait, i completely agree with you!

What seems to be the case, from reading more edumacated forum posts, is that players are managing to make all incoming healing spells hit them as if those spells had ZERO spellpower. It is unrelated to healing amp in any way. The most likely suspect as the cause of this seems to be potions. Any kind of potion drunk by a player seems to cause them to be anti-healing-spellpower black holes. Supposedly something to do with weapon swapping and taking a swing of your weapon can fix this, but I haven't done enough testing to confirm.

Fun story: This seems to be affecting Paladin Lay Hands too! But here is the fun part - Normal spellpower doesn't affect Lay Hands. So what does this bug do? Well, in my completely uneducated guesstimation, it seems as if it is treating the Lay Hands power as if it was being used by someone with *zero* Paladin levels, causing it to hit the ability floor which is, apparently, 1 point of healing. It has sucked pretty royally for the paladin in my TR group who tries to save the teammate who is chain-chugging pots to stay alive, only to hit them with a whopping 1 point of healing...

I been noticing the pally bug for lay on hands as well. It is very bad. I rezzed my dead friend and tried to throw him a lay on hands and got the 1 hp. It was one of those facepalm moments where you just wanna log out and go play something else.

This healing bug is probs the worst bug i have encountered in awhile. Healing someone is just so random now. You never know what you will hit em for. They got to swing, you got to swing. Its a royal pain in the butt.

Been like this for over a friggen month now! Cmon devs! Work that magic and fix this ASAP!

[taurean430]

Yep, it's drinking pots. The irony in this is hilarious.

I have to remind my guildies to swing their weapon when I am about to cast healing spells.

[Cauthey]

This new thing, it is.... actually no wait, i completely agree with you!

What seems to be the case, from reading more edumacated forum posts, is that players are managing to make all incoming healing spells hit them as if those spells had ZERO spellpower. It is unrelated to healing amp in any way. The most likely suspect as the cause of this seems to be potions. Any kind of potion drunk by a player seems to cause them to be anti-healing-spellpower black holes. Supposedly something to do with weapon swapping and taking a swing of your weapon can fix this, but I haven't done enough testing to confirm.

Fun story: This seems to be affecting Paladin Lay Hands too! But here is the fun part - Normal spellpower doesn't affect Lay Hands. So what does this bug do? Well, in my completely uneducated guesstimation, it seems as if it is treating the Lay Hands power as if it was being used by someone with *zero* Paladin levels, causing it to hit the ability floor which is, apparently, 1 point of healing. It has sucked pretty royally for the paladin in my TR group who tries to save the teammate who is chain-chugging pots to stay alive, only to hit them with a whopping 1 point of healing...

If you see 1 HP of LoH, swing your weapon first next time. Or, if you're throwing a quick emergency heal for a caster, you'll need to ask them to swing their weapons first.

It is known: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=389697

Essentially, just about EVERY weapon or gear swap is causing a situation where healing and healing spell power becomes glitched.

In the thread above, I shared some details after performing some testing. It highlights mainly a Radiant Servant cleric, and the RS Aura. If I swap to my Ardor clickie, click my Ardor clickie, and then turn on my RS Aura, the spell power factor will be borked until I swing my weapons. The same is true for other players standing in the aura if they also swap gear.

This is a bug that is well known by the players.

[Cauthey]

I been noticing the pally bug for lay on hands as well. It is very bad. I rezzed my dead friend and tried to throw him a lay on hands and got the 1 hp. It was one of those facepalm moments where you just wanna log out and go play something else.

This healing bug is probs the worst bug i have encountered in awhile. Healing someone is just so random now. You never know what you will hit em for. They got to swing, you got to swing. Its a royal pain in the butt.

Been like this for over a friggen month now! Cmon devs! Work that magic and fix this ASAP!

Your best bet, or so I have been told, is to fill out a bug report, citing the painfully tedious details. That is, if the bug reporting tool is working today.

[Brennie]

If you see 1 HP of LoH, swing your weapon first next time. Or, if you're throwing a quick emergency heal for a caster, you'll need to ask them to swing their weapons first.(...)

While i generally think this is good precautionary advice, the biggest problems we have with this are, 1) Our paladin doesn't like to use voice chat (shyness issue i think), and typing "Swing your weapon plz" midcombat when an emergency heal is pending is... not efficient, 2) In our four person party we have a monkcher (me!) a rogue/monk, a druid/monk, and a paladin. The monkcher hardly ever swings a weapon, and between chain chugging pots to stay alive and the ridiculously difficult means of changing from an auto-attack bow to any kind of melee weapon just to swing at air and swap back is... ugh, i don't even wanna think about it. And the rogue is usually lining up an assassinate or something, 3) Timing this would mean one would have to stop chugging pots, which could result in death.

So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to convince our paladin that for the time being, lay hands might be a self-only ability, since she is only really goign to be able to coordinate "Swing weapon then lay hands" with herself. And not in a dirty way.

[Cauthey]

While i generally think this is good precautionary advice, the biggest problems we have with this are, 1) Our paladin doesn't like to use voice chat (shyness issue i think), and typing "Swing your weapon plz" midcombat when an emergency heal is pending is... not efficient, 2) In our four person party we have a monkcher (me!) a rogue/monk, a druid/monk, and a paladin. The monkcher hardly ever swings a weapon, and between chain chugging pots to stay alive and the ridiculously difficult means of changing from an auto-attack bow to any kind of melee weapon just to swing at air and swap back is... ugh, i don't even wanna think about it. And the rogue is usually lining up an assassinate or something, 3) Timing this would mean one would have to stop chugging pots, which could result in death.

So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to convince our paladin that for the time being, lay hands might be a self-only ability, since she is only really goign to be able to coordinate "Swing weapon then lay hands" with herself. And not in a dirty way.

I feel your pain.

All of the above is critical information that needs to be brought to the attention of those developing the game so that they may understand exactly how much impact this bug has on play.

As of late, I just haven't felt that the community has any reasonable avenue of getting a dialog going with the devs, unfortunately.

[protokon]

... Are you able to produce this problem with the heal SPELL, or just the heal SCROLL?

both.

[Brennie]

Question: do wraps count as a "Weapon" for swinging a weapon? Likewise, what about ranged attacks? (i'm assuming ranged attacks are a no, sicne I was pewpewing between drinking potions, but I'm not 100% sure how thw timing worked out on the lay hands)

[Archangel666]

Question: do wraps count as a "Weapon" for swinging a weapon? Likewise, what about ranged attacks? (i'm assuming ranged attacks are a no, sicne I was pewpewing between drinking potions, but I'm not 100% sure how thw timing worked out on the lay hands)

They do Brennie. My Monk has had bugged healing from this too and swinging at the air fixes it.

[Cauthey]

Question: do wraps count as a "Weapon" for swinging a weapon? Likewise, what about ranged attacks? (i'm assuming ranged attacks are a no, sicne I was pewpewing between drinking potions, but I'm not 100% sure how thw timing worked out on the lay hands)

I'm not sure. You're going to have to test that, I guess.

I believe that I have learned that swatting with a scroll does not dismiss the spell power glitch.

[ZeebaNeighba]

Yep, fun bug. Especially on my bard. When it happens, I watch helplessly as my cure critical, my strongest heal spell, hits for a whopping 40 hp and a loud "thud" noise. (Ok I could switch to a heal scroll and hit for ~160, but that takes longer, due to a different and much older bug known as "UMD lag")

Fun story: This seems to be affecting Paladin Lay Hands too! But here is the fun part - Normal spellpower doesn't affect Lay Hands. So what does this bug do? Well, in my completely uneducated guesstimation, it seems as if it is treating the Lay Hands power as if it was being used by someone with *zero* Paladin levels, causing it to hit the ability floor which is, apparently, 1 point of healing. It has sucked pretty royally for the paladin in my TR group who tries to save the teammate who is chain-chugging pots to stay alive, only to hit them with a whopping 1 point of healing...

It can't be zero levels, as the formula for Lay on Hands is a positive heal for (10+ paladin level)*(charisma mod) and a repair for the same amount. So even zero paladin levels would still be 10(cha mod). It could be treating it as if you had 0 charisma though, I guess...I've heard somewhere that the charisma mod thing is at a minimum of 1, but I don't know for sure and I never got curious enough to ever test it.

[protokon]

nice to know that it can be worked around by simply swinging your weapon - tested it a few times day seems to work out consistently.

however, this still needs to be fixed in a timely manner. as someone who primarily plays healers, its extremely frustrating to be doing epic elite content and suddenly have heal scrolls/heal spell hit for 90-110 on people.

[Chette]

This bug is absolutely crippling, especially since it targets the people who are actually trying to be helpful and self-sufficient (drinking hate, curse removal, cure potions, etc).

Yet there has be no dev response on either what is causing this bug or what they're planning to do about it.

I submitted a bug report some time ago and received a form-letter response from a dev thanking me for bringing it to their attention that that they would investigate. That's more than I've received for any other bug report I've ever submitted, so that's promising at least.

But if they know about it, and if they are actually working on it, it would be very nice to get a response regarding some a hugely damaging bug.

[Meetch1972]

I believe the bug is triggered by any non-combat related item use by the receiver of the spell (the castee) or effect - using pots, scrolls clickies, or switching armor, trinkets or weapons. Any weapon swing by the castee definitely fixes it, as does (I think) casting a spell the toon has learned.

Many are still not aware of the bug, as is evident from when I say "hey watch me gimp your spell power!" when they have an aura up and I switch weapons and drop the heal ticks from whatever double digit number it is down to middling-to-high single figures.

If this bug does indeed affect all spell power, it may also open up the potential for an exploit against bad things. Details left out to hopefully avoid being cubed, but I'm sure there are far more devious people out there who've already tried to or are actively using the bug to their advantage. That alone should be reason enough for devs to get worried and prioritise the fix!

[Cyndrome]

I believe the bug is triggered by any non-combat related item use by the receiver of the spell (the castee) or effect - using pots, scrolls clickies, or switching armor, trinkets or weapons. Any weapon swing by the castee definitely fixes it, as does (I think) casting a spell the toon has learned.

Many are still not aware of the bug, as is evident from when I say "hey watch me gimp your spell power!" when they have an aura up and I switch weapons and drop the heal ticks from whatever double digit number it is down to middling-to-high single figures.

If this bug does indeed affect all spell power, it may also open up the potential for an exploit against bad things. Details left out to hopefully avoid being cubed, but I'm sure there are far more devious people out there who've already tried to or are actively using the bug to their advantage. That alone should be reason enough for devs to get worried and prioritise the fix!

In other words, when you are on your sorc. drink spell power pots often and swing your weapons only right before you heal or reconstruct.