Potential changes to healing amplification

[GWolfe]

I'm happy with the proposed change. Looks like a solid net positive. It simplifies the heal amp system.

Also good move putting hamp into barb trees. I hope this means you will be keeping the class unique (and not too similar to fighters) and give them no or minimal self healing in return for the biggest melee DPS in the game via a buffed rage. I'd love to see group play actually be a competitive playstyle again as oppossed to everything always being BYOH. Hopefully big heal amp for barbs means some nice group synergy with divines.

This.

In your "most fun" times, with a dedicated healer, were you the one playing the dedicated healer?

Personally, I prefer to play melee classes. Always. But not everyone does! Three of my guildies have their main as a healer two of which are actually specced for healing. Why? Because they enjoy it.

I dont claim to be a super/master/expert at game balance, but when every other class except yours can do something like self healing, that sort of makes your class weaker. Normally that would come with signicant power in other areas to compensate, but right now every class is more or less out performing the barb.

If you don't see a problem with that, then maybe you need to reconsider your point of view.

Taking away build diversity is the opposite of what we should do. If you wanna make Barbs able to solo self heal through EEs like a Paladan can then you might as well just keep playing Paladin.
How about you reconsider your point of view? When I fell in love with this game every class had a different role and feel when you played it. I know that it isn't all because of Enhancements ED's helped to kill class diversity, but that doesn't mean they should make it worse by turning Barbs into raging monks.

[SilkofDrasnia]

They are nerfing massive amp builds
Keeping moderate amp builds on level
Give a massive buff to those with next to no commitment to healing amp.

Honestly though that seems to be a side effect of just changing the system to something that is a bit easier to deal without the fear of crazy multiplicative stacking.

Eh if you read my post that is exactly what I have been saying, I just didn't bother to break it down other than say "all out amp" to avoid debates on what low mod and high tiers start and finish.


I do not think it is a side effect though as it seems to be in tune with other system changes like for example the changes to armor and how prr, mrr and ac works. Now all these changes which seem to follow the same pattern seem to me to indicate they are getting the game ready for something which I do not want to go into as it is off topic.

[jtoa]

I have a solar phoenix build that will be decimated by the nurf. I have TR'd 3 time just for healing amp. I ground hours and hours to get every single healing amp and vampirism item only to have my healing amp destroyed from 759% down to 500%. sure 500% is still quite a bit but if you ask anyone "hey how would you feel about loosing 250% healing amp without a choice in the matter"?. they WILL be ****ed. especially when so much time and effort was spend to TR and gain all those items and destinies ect.
I don't like it at all. if everyone with very little healing amp is getting a buff, and the people who have made an effort to get a high healing amp are getting screwed, that's just not fair.

[Seikojin]

This.



Personally, I prefer to play melee classes. Always. But not everyone does! Three of my guildies have their main as a healer two of which are actually specced for healing. Why? Because they enjoy it.





Taking away build diversity is the opposite of what we should do. If you wanna make Barbs able to solo self heal through EEs like a Paladan can then you might as well just keep playing Paladin.
How about you reconsider your point of view? When I fell in love with this game every class had a different role and feel when you played it. I know that it isn't all because of Enhancements ED's helped to kill class diversity, but that doesn't mean they should make it worse by turning Barbs into raging monks.

Then provide good feedback when it is on lamannia. I think the idea of recurving it so high end see a decrease, while low ends see an increase is not a bad thing. It just opens up more options to fit somehting like healing amp in.

[Violith]

Well, consistency is good. So I will also be consistent with my feedback made on the last update's system changes.

Overall, from a player vs player perspective this change is great. Lessening the gap between healing amp builds is definitely a good thing. Well designed change and consistent with other system formulas.

From a player vs monster perspective, again, just like the armor and melee power changes, the numbers are absurd. A completely unnecessary buff, again, to help struggling builds become overpowered, rather than just tone down the problems.

Fact: A 1000 hp paladin with 100+ PRR/MRR and "only" 200% healing amp is virtually unkillable in 99% of content in this game. And that 1% is never going to be from damage alone (more likely from CC, stat drain, antimagic, etc..). There is no reason why a build like this needs more buffs (even if the goal is to help other struggling builds).


On a side note, I just managed to get my Zombarian to level 20 without using a single consumable for healing (Elite streaking solo). I would like to see how you plan to make this build overpowered as well. (please dont, the lengths I'm going to to find challenge in this game are getting to desperate levels)

guessing your zombarian is a multilife with twink gear? kinda hard to build a challange around what a twinked out character can do compared to new players, and yes even new players should be allowed to play elite especially if they're subbed. another difficulty setting would be the easiest solution for that, one above elite made for multilifers.

a difficulty pass would be appreciated as a whole once they finish up making their systems more simple and less breakable. the current set up is rather bad by design anyway. the +1/+2 for hard and elite heroics is alright, although monster AI could be reworked to be better, and some different tactics in elite would help with challange, the change from hard waterworks, to elite waterworks is a good example. on hard even a first life toon wouldnt have too much problems, but with the addition of lightning bolt and such (I know its more of the level of the shaman then a quest design that allows that) but the difference in difficulty is more then the mere extra level normally would allow, still completable but it does force people to rethink their strategy.

and then there is the mess of a +5/+20 for eh/ee which really throws things out of whack since they then needed to give power to actually complete EE on a semi-maxed build, which then after the changes to the battle system as a whole basically made them able to be completed/soloed by even suboptimal builds. so yea. a difficulty pass would be nice after everything is worked out, although there is still some systems that would probably need worked out before then

[BananaHat]

Here is the actual change for my current build:

Before:
Level 20 healing amp monk with 3 paladin past lives, equipping finger necklace as early as possible and getting old ship buff
[1.15*1.05^6*1.1^3 + .1]*1.1*(1.1*1.2)*1.3*1.25*(1.03*1.03*1.04)*1.1 = 6.16 so 616% healing amp
[Pal. PL * Monk shintao * human H.A. + finger necklace]* old ship buff * DT armor with 10%/20% * 30% such as PDK gloves * Jidz-tetka in fire stance * Twisted purity of essence * Unyielding or Divine crusader

And in case the devs didn't know, the old ship buff and new ship buff work differently. The old one is multiplicative, the new one is additive like the Finger Necklace. Please don't accidentally break something when this update inevitably goes through.

After:
1 + 2*(.15 + .05*6 + .1*3 + .1 + .1 + .1 + .2 + .3 + .25 + .03 + .03 + .04 + .1) = 5 so 500% healing amp

So I'll have about 81% of the healing amp I currently do if I'm in full healing amp mode. More realistically I'll be able to tick over the 400% mark vital to making puny abilities like Fist of Light and Vampirism worth using. Is this a ridiculous nerf? Not really, though it is really really frustrating as I'm just now finally getting back to my full monk life to really wrap up this build and I will be disappointed in not being able to enjoy it for longer. I'll state again as I have before in agreement with others, this build is not super crazy powerful like paladins now are and certain builds will be even more powerful going forward with this healing amp change. This monk build is fine for Epic Hard, but then again, most builds can perform in there pretty well with a competent player. I certainly wasn't soloing Epic Elite like a lot of more heavily armored players are able to do, which will be even easier with these changes.

All that said, I'll agree that this will make the game simpler and more consistent. The consistency is a good thing as not everyone is as enamoured with numbers as I am.

However, I will say that this change mostly hurts flavor monk builds who try to use Fists of Light and Vampirism. Practically everyone else is getting a huge buff. You probably need to tone it down while giving back to specific builds that were actually using this active defense/regeneration fighting style.

What I would propose would be 1 of 2 choices:
1) Have Fists of Light scale with monk level. Grant it +1 to die type for every 5 monk or epic levels. This allows it to scale for monks more than splashes and also continue into the epic levels.
So, when you get it at level 3, it does 1d2 (avg 1.5)
lvl 5 - 1d3 (avg 2)
lvl 10 - 1d4 (avg 2.5)
lvl 15 - 1d5 (avg 3)
lvl 20 - 1d6 (avg 3.5)
lvl 25 (with 20 monk) - 1d7 (avg 4)
lvl 30 (with 20 monk) - 1d8 (avg 4.5)

With the above healing amp changes, that means at lvl 28 currently it would change from 6's or 12's (avg 9 per hit) to getting an average of roughly 20 per hit. Too much? Maybe, but the numbers can be changed to whatever is felt is the appropriate scaling. The ability could not scale into epics, scale slower, or something else to make it feel right. Truthfully, Vampirism provides 4/7's of the active healing portion of my current build (6's, 12's, and 18's: avg 12) while in full-out healing amp mode so buffing Fists of Light is only a partial fix.

As a bonus, this would allow you to be more party friendly (which is the Light Monk's Thing) by providing a larger healing curse for the party melee's to leech off of. I view this as a huge benefit to updating Fists of Light to not be so hard to use effectively.

2) Have Shintao tree provide bonus healing every time you are healed.
So, for each core ability of the Shintao tree, you get an additional point of healing from all sources of healing. Depending on desired scaling, this could be affected by your healing amp, your positive energy spellpower, or your melee power*appropriate scaling. This would allow those to focus on the "tank" tree for monk to get some benefit from one of the monk's defensive abilities Fists of Light while allowing the healing amp to be toned down. I think this option is less party friendly but may be more viable than having Fists of Light scale and not somehow break. The unfortunate part of this fix would be that I can't think of any other mechanics in game that trigger off of being healed, so there might be additional work to implement this. Plus, Shintao really needs something besides "I make Earth Stance awesome" since capstones like Meditation of War don't stack with a lot of other better abilities (Earth: insight bonus to max HP doesn't work with Unyielding Sentinel, Fire: bonus DC's to tactical abilities does not stack with the Spare Hand)

So all that said, I understand the desire for the change, but without some other exchange to help out the very specific builds you are hurting while giving everyone else a massive boon, this sucks the fun out of one of my builds which isn't even a flavor of the month or super overpowered monster build, so I don't really understand what the point is since the point of a game is to have fun.

[Robai]

Sadly this is not a nerf!
Actually this a big buff to most builds (and a tiny nerf to overpowered builds).

Since in the new system all hamp items (with different values) will stack then I see no point in giving them double the value.
What's the point of increasing the power creep?
Buffing barbarians was a good idea though.

Will the Healing Amp and Repair Amp now show on the character sheet like SP/MP/RP? (YES it should be there)

A character sheet update is not slated for this update. (Though we agree it should be there.)

Sev~

Yes, it should be there.

[SilkofDrasnia]

guessing your zombarian is a multilife with twink gear? kinda hard to build a challange around what a twinked out character can do compared to new players, and yes even new players should be allowed to play elite especially if they're subbed. another difficulty setting would be the easiest solution for that, one above elite made for multilifers.

a difficulty pass would be appreciated as a whole once they finish up making their systems more simple and less breakable. the current set up is rather bad by design anyway. the +1/+2 for hard and elite heroics is alright, although monster AI could be reworked to be better, and some different tactics in elite would help with challange, the change from hard waterworks, to elite waterworks is a good example. on hard even a first life toon wouldnt have too much problems, but with the addition of lightning bolt and such (I know its more of the level of the shaman then a quest design that allows that) but the difference in difficulty is more then the mere extra level normally would allow, still completable but it does force people to rethink their strategy.

and then there is the mess of a +5/+20 for eh/ee which really throws things out of whack since they then needed to give power to actually complete EE on a semi-maxed build, which then after the changes to the battle system as a whole basically made them able to be completed/soloed by even suboptimal builds. so yea. a difficulty pass would be nice after everything is worked out, although there is still some systems that would probably need worked out before then

I have a problem with the whole difficulty pass idea as it seems every year or so someone complains, no matter from what side of the line, that we need a new pass because xyz to xyz and it just seem to end up with them just going round n round n round.


For example things were fine when we had just "EPIC" level quests but then *whine, cry, tears etc etc* we got EN/EH and EE. More *whine, cry tears* and we have power creep and easing up in EE, now more *whine cry tears* and peeps are proposing YET ANOTHER BLOODY difficulty pass or even level.

Haven't we chased our tails enough as it is? Why not just accept how things are now and lets be original and stop refixing over and bloody over the same thing. I do not want to get into why XYZ would be good or not as we have seen this numerous times in numerous threads so much so it has become one long tired and boring diatribe no matter what side of the line you are on.

Sadly......

Since in the new system all hamp items will stack then I see no point in giving them double the value.
....

Eh no not all items will stack, from what I understand what stacks now will still stack. What stacks now is different values which will become different types.

As to what is the point well take a look at all the recent system changes and then step back and take a minute to think what happens after games usually do changes of this nature.

[Tilomere]

Can I suggest a different system that would be more versatile for players?

Convert Healing Amplification to an additive spell power that is used on all healing effects (necro, reconstruction, positive, divine, potion) at a ratio of 1 HAMP = 3 Spell Power. Allow different types to stack.

Remove or tweak spell coefficients. Currently, higher level and epic healing abiilties like the Heal Spell or Consecrate-Sacred Ground have coefficients <1 because they are too powerful when multiplied by both large amounts of HAMP and Positive Spell Power.

Now let’s look at an extreme Human/Monk/Paladin hybrid build to see how high we can stack Healing Amplification currently.

Live:
Source Multiplier Product
... Unyielding Sentinel 1.1 897%

How this will effect the max HAMP build:
Source Multiplier Product
... Unyielding Sentinel +20 5.7

Since this is 50% larger at 3 spell power than 2 HAMP, this would result in 855 Spell Power for healing effects, or almost no nerf to HAMP self-healing that is not multiplied by spell power (weaker abilities).

Since this is additive to positive spell power, a 300 positive spell power say renewal SLA stacked with above 855 Spell Power would not result in a nearly 4000 spell power heal like it is on live. Instead it would be 1255, which is more in line with other players for balance. It will be far easier to balance healing spells and effects when they will be between 100% at level 1 to 1255% at max level extreme cases than if it is between 100% and 4000%.

Create yellow augments matching existing spell power for HAMP self healing spell power, and allow it to RNG on gear as a secondary affix. This also makes red slotting devotion or reconstruct on every weapon less mandatory, since it won't literally double to triple the effects of healing abilities.

TLDR: I guess i don't see normalizing healing and removing multipliers especially for classes without positive spell power (barbs) if healing amplification multiplies spell power.

Today we want to discuss healing amplification. Our goal is to adjust it to be additive rather than multiplicative,

[JohnWarlock]

I'm extremely tired after a very long day at work, so it's possible that in my muddled state I'm getting this wrong, but could someone who can think more coherently than I can at the moment translate what this means to my pure Monk main please?

20% Human, 10% and 20% DT vestments, 30% PDK Gloves, 25% Jidz, 3x Pally PL's, 10% Ship Buff All Tiers of Shintao (can't remember what that equals).

My gut reaction is that Turbine have just bent my main over and shafted it without the courtesy of a reach around, but as I said I'm exhausted and it's possible my mind is translating it poorly.

My main concern is that I use Fists of Light and Vampirism Wraps as primary healing sources and that if it's as bad as I fear they'll now be all but useless. Hoping I'm wrong.

I'm not sure about my math, but it would be:
1.0 base
.4 Human
.2 item 10%
.4 item 20%
.6 item 30%
.5 Jidz
.3 Pally PLs
.2 Ship buffs
.6 Shintao
=======
4.2 Total

Currently:
1.0 base
1.2 Human
1.1 item 10%
1.2 item 20%
1.3 item 30%
1.25 Jidz
1.15 Pally
1.1 Ship
1.3 Shintao
===============
4.232943

Holy losses Batman, you're loosing 0.032943 % healing amp or 3.29 Hit points for every 100 points of healing.

I hope that helps.

[Robai]

Eh no not all items will stack, from what I understand what stacks now will still stack. What stacks now is different values which will become different types.

As to what is the point well take a look at all the recent system changes and then step back and take a minute to think what happens after games usually do changes of this nature.

Yeah, I meant different values.
For example, 30% will stack with 20% despite the bonus type (I guess the type of the bonus won't be mentioned at all on items).

So if I understand the OP correctly then:
30% + 20% will stack and will give +100 hamp bonus,
30% + 30% won't stack and will give +60 hamp bonus.

My point was that:
30% + 20% should give +50 hamp bonus, not 100,
30% + 30% still shouldn't stack and give +30 hamp bonus, not 60.

I'm talking about bonuses on items, the bonuses from feats/enhancements/EDs/ship should stack ofc, and definitely don't need to double them.

[JohnWarlock]

Hopefully with the addition of new items, we'll see healing amp added to them, or possibly in different slots.

Now one thing I wish they did was, for it to truly be healing amplification. What I mean healing amplification really means it amplifies any healing the character receives, as opposed to positive amplification, or repair amplification or negative amplification... I mean healing is just how a character heals, despite the type of energy providing the healing. Which in making it universal it would make things a hell of a lot more balanced for all characters, whether they are Warforged, Flesh or undead.

[Yellowmace]

Seriously, this entire proposal is just LAZY DESIGN

[Sebastrd]

Do agree with Dev's - this is in the spirit of not nerfing but buffing weaker classes while fixing a major exploit (HAMPster builds)

Where do you come up with this stuff? I've never even heard of a "HAMPster" build, and I run with some of the best players on my server. If you keep using the word "exploit", especially calling it a major one, it begins to lose its meaning.

Using what is available in the system is not an "exploit", and especially something so benign as monster healing amp doesn't even rate.

[Violith]

Hopefully with the addition of new items, we'll see healing amp added to them, or possibly in different slots.

Now one thing I wish they did was, for it to truly be healing amplification. What I mean healing amplification really means it amplifies any healing the character receives, as opposed to positive amplification, or repair amplification or negative amplification... I mean healing is just how a character heals, despite the type of energy providing the healing. Which in making it universal it would make things a hell of a lot more balanced for all characters, whether they are Warforged, Flesh or undead.

could get behind this, but ultimately it'd be broken for the forged races. positive or repair? pure positive would allow them to get basically full benefit (only about -50rating compared to a fleshy, which can be about 350%) as well as repair line (30%+, more if there is more items/augments to get it eventually), and full repair would cause them to take a hit to positive healing (only being able to get slightly over 100% with destiny abilitys (unless those too become universal). yet get astronomical healing from reconstruct/repair)

[Impaqt]

Builds that currently have more than 600% heal amp are extreme outliers. The vast majority of players right now probably run with a total of less than 200%. Any characters who have more than that now have specifically made that a feature of their build. If these changes go in as proposed, having over 200% healing amp will be an afterthought.

yes, thats what makes this such a good system.

[Janitorman]

yes, thats what makes this such a good system.

Agree to disagree then. Imo this just seems to be funneling everyone to an average value that will be easy to obtain with no serious investment required, similar to prr and other systems.

On another note would like to hear about future plans for healing amp gear. If items with multiple stacking elements of heal amp become available I gain slot consolidation. If higher tiers emerge to scale with higher lvl loot and enough different bonuses types that stack become available (i.e. insight, profane, enh, luck, alchemical, etc.) I could see some potential upside for heal amp builds to regear and adapt and maybe eventually achieve similar values as old system.

[Krell]

Greetings,

[snip]

Sev~

I like the approach. A little boost for characters at the low end that could make some builds more viable, about even in the mid-range, and a little decrease for builds at the extreme high end. I also like that this will be easier to figure out and will open the door to more item and enhancement effects.

[Tuffgar]

As someone who's been an on and off player for over five years, I like seeing changes like this that provide a small boost to players like myself that aren't all that interested in super high-end play. But at the same time I can see the points those high end players are making. To them, they already dominating the highest difficulties with he game has to offer, and this change to healing amp is just going to make it even easier.

What I'd like to point out, however, is that the more changes that turbine makes to the fundamental mechanics of the game to bring it into a more standardized overall system, the easier it will be to create or modify the content to better suit all ranges of player skill. In the short term this means the game might get a little easier(and wreck a small percentage of VERY specialized builds). But the in the long term I think it will better for the overall health of the game.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Yeah, I meant different values.
For example, 30% will stack with 20% despite the bonus type (I guess the type of the bonus won't be mentioned at all on items).

So if I understand the OP correctly then:
30% + 20% will stack and will give +100 hamp bonus,
30% + 30% won't stack and will give +60 hamp bonus.

My point was that:
30% + 20% should give +50 hamp bonus, not 100,
30% + 30% still shouldn't stack and give +30 hamp bonus, not 60.

I'm talking about bonuses on items, the bonuses from feats/enhancements/EDs/ship should stack ofc, and definitely don't need to double them.

Items will have types, my guess is all 30% items will be type "x", 20% type "y" and 10% type "z". So in essence items will stack just like they do now except in a additive manner instead of multiplicative manner. From Sevs statements I am pretty sure the type will be indicated on the items.

The reason for doubling in the new system is that it would result in quite a huge nerf compared to what we had now. I also suspect they will not add new huge value hamp items.

For example the 10, 20 and 30% items would be 20,40 and 60 items, if they didn't double them it would result in items not worth wearing.

Like has been said it will buff low amount of hamp mid amount of hamp stay about the same and nerf maxed out hamp builds which seem to be the goal they have, I also suppose they will be making barb be able to get high amp really easy with just enhancements.

Personally I think hamp should stay like it is and they should find some other way to make barbs better and just reintroduce some hamp items like already exists, 10 20 and 30% items, as there is no need for higher hamp items but it is not going to happen.

Is it a bit of power creep sure but not as much as the last changes they did to armor and prr, mrr etc.

Frankly if they don't double hamp values they might as well just remove hamp completely cuase that is how useless it will be for most people.