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healer balance thoughts-pvp
Anarchy23
Member
So AoC isn't balancing for 1v1s, They are focusing more on large scale battles. So I'm curious on peoples thoughts for how with that in mind, that's going to translate over to smaller scale fights. Obviously skill selection, augmentation, skill point allocation, gear, and skill are all going to play a factor. We don't have all the info and I'm just speculating. A lot of games have trouble balancing healers for all content. Do you think the average pure healer(cleric/cleric) will/will not/should/should not be nearly unkillable in a 1v1? Please try to stay unbiased.
In a 1v1 if they are unkillable while they have mana and have enough ways to gain mana back that could cause them to be over powered. On the other hand if they are just unkillable for 45 seconds until they run out of mana they could potentially be under powered and lose every 1v1. Or maby they will be struggling to stay alive for 45 seconds until they are killed or they run out of mana and die. Which way do you think would be the better direction if any of those? You don't want healers to be to strong in small scale fights but at the same time I wouldn't want them to feel weak in larger scale fights. They need to be able to heal pve content and have enough mana to get through boss fights. If you were a healer focused on staying alive and you couldn't even do that in a 1v1 situation, would that feel unfair/fair for you? If you were a damage dealer and couldn't 1v1 a healer would that feel unfair/fair for you?
If the "average healer" is to strong, what about a cleric/tank wearing full plate + shield focused on survivability. With 8 classes, 64 possible combinations, and any class wearing any armor/weapon type, small scale fights could go in any direction. Any other builds you think could transition poorly into small scale fights?
In a 1v1 if they are unkillable while they have mana and have enough ways to gain mana back that could cause them to be over powered. On the other hand if they are just unkillable for 45 seconds until they run out of mana they could potentially be under powered and lose every 1v1. Or maby they will be struggling to stay alive for 45 seconds until they are killed or they run out of mana and die. Which way do you think would be the better direction if any of those? You don't want healers to be to strong in small scale fights but at the same time I wouldn't want them to feel weak in larger scale fights. They need to be able to heal pve content and have enough mana to get through boss fights. If you were a healer focused on staying alive and you couldn't even do that in a 1v1 situation, would that feel unfair/fair for you? If you were a damage dealer and couldn't 1v1 a healer would that feel unfair/fair for you?
If the "average healer" is to strong, what about a cleric/tank wearing full plate + shield focused on survivability. With 8 classes, 64 possible combinations, and any class wearing any armor/weapon type, small scale fights could go in any direction. Any other builds you think could transition poorly into small scale fights?
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But I would not call that a "poor transition" more of part of the design.
To answer your question though, assuming equal skill and equal level for a healer vs DPS:
Survivable until out of mana is my opinion but certainly not for 45 seconds. Maybe 15 seconds max, 45 seconds is a lifetime in PVP. 15 seconds gives them time to find their friends, 45 seconds they can have a smoke and then go find their friends.
For a true trinity type feel however, the healer should be able to outlast the damage output of a tank and have mana that regenerates fast enough to kill off the tank after a long drawn out pillow-fight.
And then to come full circle the tank should be able to handle the damage delivered by the DPS in order get in enough whacks and kill the DPS.
This keeps everyone in their place with a rock-paper-scissors type concept. It means that any party with different classes will be better than a party of all the same class.
In reality however there will always be variables in skill, levels, gear so it will almost NEVER actually work out this cleanly.
All just my opinion and stated as such.
But I think it always depends of who fight the (cleric/cleric) If you put a pure (dps/dps) it would be much easier than (dps/support - dps/tank - etc ...)
Also healer so be able to deffend themselve in 1v1 situation otherwise it mean their dmg is too low to even quest in solo properly. Not saying they should kill the dps/dps in 2 second but to have a good mix of both healing so they have few opening to dps also not just spam heal to hope someone will save them
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP#Time_to_kill
With everything being balanced on a group of 8 vs 1v1 and also based on rock - paper -scissors everyone should have a hard counter. and depending on what dps vs the healer this could vary a lot. Depending on interrupts and mana drain, ranged vs melee LOS and so forth. Will be interesting and fun to see what small unit fights look like a year after launch.
As I mentioned I under stand all that. But there will still be small scale fights open world as well as arenas. Since they are balancing for large scale fights/raids and not balancing for small fights there could be large power gaps in 1v1s. Not complaining, just discussing which classes people think may be above average in smaller scale battles. IMO healers that are balanced for large scaling fights/raids tend to not scale well with smaller scale fights. Generally Stronger then you might want them. Healers need strong enough heals to top off a tank with double their own hp, as well as the other 6 party members, and enough mana or mana recovery to outlast long raid battles. Just my opinion.
edit:spelling
Everyone is always concerned with "Who beats who" at max level.
The truth is, at max level, factoring in equal gear AND equal skill (i.e. super computers who make mistakes less than 3 times in a million opportunities) nobody should win a 1vs1, it should be a stalemate.
The tank and the healer look at each other and say "are we really doing this"?
The tank and the damage dealer both know, the DD can't outpace mitigation, and tank shouldn't have enough CC to contain the DD when he tries to juke and away.
And the Damage Dealer again should not be able to burn down a healer, but the healer should not be able to pursue the damage dealer when he tries to escape and disengage.
Meaning: a party of all tanks will lose to a party of tanks, healers and DPS.
If all classes were equivalent in 1v1 then it follows that 3 tanks would be equivalent to 1 healer, 1 tank and 1 DPS.
Or to put it another way: if a healer could stare down a DPS 1v1 there would be no reason for the healer to run when the DPS is after his hide, if the healer has no reason to run why would we need a tank for him to hide behind?
That first statement made me laugh:)
I also agree, for the most part. The times I died as a healer was when I would focus to much on damage let my health drop and they would get a nice combo/stun/interrupt. Or a skilled dps that just outplayed me. The times I could win were when they were forced inside a "containment area" like a duel. Or id bait them to stay engaged keeping my health slightly low. But a lot of the time it was a stalemate and we just went separate ways.
When you have multiple damage dealers, multiple cc, and stun its much harder for any class to stay alive. they need peels when you focus a target. Or they might just CC the healer until they kill one of his teammates. A healer may potentially stare down a dps in a 1v1, but 3v3s completely different. You can't just face tank and expect to come out on top.
That is true depending on in combat life regen, or if the non cleric can heal or not, If they can't they may have to retreat or slowly be whittled down. The most basic heal could keep them alive against a cleric/cleric indefinitely.
As a Healer I expect Mitigation classes to lose to me eventually if I take Damage over Time stuff or can stay in melee range, and Burst Damage classes with higher cooldowns to beat me because I can't heal fast enough. I only expect the 'are we really doing this?' from High Priests and other Shadow Disciples, even with other Cleric/X combinations I generally have some expectations based on what the X is supposed to help them do (whether it pushes them closer to Mitigation, where I expect to win, or Attrition, where I would probably lose)
In 3v3 I expect protection or distraction to force the enemy Burst Damage classes to have no damage available left to face off with others if they insist on killing me. That is, some of their time or power goes toward someone else or is prevented, giving me a chance to heal everyone and live either because buying me more time lets me get more healing done, or distracting the enemy forces them to use mana or abilities that were then not used to damage me.
So since I'm choosing to play heavy Mitigation with only a little Attrition, I don't think that as a healer I should be able to survive 1v1 against Cooldowns builds, assuming they do their damage dump fast enough before all my Mitigation kicks in.
In Open World I believe this means I would always be gank-able because the ganker gets to do the initial big damage, then keep at it while I rush to heal. The correct action from my end would actually be to carefully stagger and time my non-healing Mitigation according to what Class they are, and hope that I survive long enough to get all my good stuff up without CC, but I would expect to always be disadvantaged enough to lose in even fights.
Intrepid's stance around basing balance around group fights and not solo or 2-4 man groups, is that yes some classes will be better in 1v1 or 3v3 open world fights and they're ok with that. And frankly that's how many MMO's do things. Some classes are good small scale, some are better large scale. Every spec has it's strength and that's a core idea of MMO's.
If a person wants to spec into being a Cleric with great survivability, yes they'll be good at surviving small scale because that's the point of the class, and they're giving up damage, so they will have a hard time soloing mobs and will never kill another player - 1v1 vs a Cleric like that would be a standstill, nobody would die. On the other hand a Cleric could aim for more dps at the cost of healing, and that build would look different as well. All of that is ok.
Not everything will be perfectly balanced and it's not intended to be. If you prefer small scale, try making a class and build that works better solo. You have the freedom to do that with the extent of builds in this game, so take advantage.
Not everything will be perfectly balanced and it's not intended to be. If you prefer small scale, try making a class and build that works better solo. You have the freedom to do that with the extent of builds in this game, so take advantage.[/quote]
I completely agree. There's going to be so much diversity in builds I'm looking forward to it. Can't wait until we get more info just to theorize builds.
I honestly don't know how much resources companies put into it. Do most companies have a dedicated team or 1 person always checking balance of classes or do they just focus on it when there is a problem. As long as every archetype has a place where it shines or at least contends(whether that's buffing/healing/damage output, crowd control or w.e, as well as not completely overshadowing every other class to the point every group is demanding 12/16 party members be range/summoners. I personally won't care about balancing every little thing. If say a Rogue/duelist is just one shotting people they should be debuffed. I just hate when they overdo it and go to the other side of the spectrum and make classes go from overpowered to underpowered.
Healers can always get mana back if they have a mage in their party or raid.... When it comes to group dynamics running out of mana shouldn't be a problem if you have good teammates
Sorry bro.... Balancing is group focused 😂😂
No it doesn't. People still take damage, including the tank, and need to be healed up. Not everyone is going to avoid every mechanic, even a good person messes up from time to time. All I've seen it do is allow good groups, ones who know how to avoid damage, to take healers who can contribute other things to the group.
Also, it's Cleric that is the Primary Archetype; not healer.
So...mcstackerson is on point and not saying anything controversial about Ashes game design.
Yeah but if you plan raid and dungeon according to mage giving maa back its bad design. Yeah its cool they can help. But healer mana regen shouldnt be based on other class. And if you run out after 45sec it mean its badly designed for longer fight such as Raid /Dungeon boss or world boss
To me its not really broken since the whole purpose of fighting together is to rely on each other, so it does make group dynamics more of a team than players soloing together and I'm sure there's mana regen so one would just have to wait a bit and rely on his teammates to help, that's the joy of working in a group.
Those that gank generally come in three flavors: 1. stealth solo gank build, 2. stealth gank squads, 3. Roll teams .
First one is self explanatory, it's a front loaded single target burst damage type. It's almost always a stealth class. Sometimes it's a broken flavor of the month/week. Survival is based around whatever skills you have available. In this case, the healer tries to outlast, area denial, disrupt and outpace them with self sustain or dots or whatever weird thing your second archetype gave you. That being said, the ganker is usually built to be only good at this one thing: killing a solo target quickly. The character itself usually is super narrow in scope otherwise. So... best of luck.
In the second case, you get jumped by multiple said gankers. Well... nice knowing you.
The third case is a roll squad, usually of higher skilled pvpers patrolling a territory or a dedicated rpk guild. Again... nice knowing you.
The problem right now is that we have no idea what the second archetypes will add to our builds. The other consideration is that any class is supposed to be able to wear any armor. There's no hard evidence on the trade off for that yet, but, we've all played similar games where such restrictions were lifted. Will these two factors allow us to make very solid solo characters? I would say yes. Will they be as good in group builds? I would think in some cases yes, some cases no. We just don't know enough yet.
We know with all this stuff that there's going to be a meta for whatever you want to build and that's pretty fun. I mean, it is great when a ganker thinks you're an easy target and you melt them into a pile of guts and viscera.
They're usually carrying good stuff too... the spoils of their previous marks.
However it all turns out, I think it will be interesting.
The second and third though 😂😂