PTS RP/ZEAL changes from Update 2024-08-18

[SadiStick]

I think this patch is a step in the right direction, but fails to address the fundamental issues with heal RP/Zeal. I won't comment on the DPS changes.

RP/Zeal shine in smaller scale gameplay where you can use your entire kit to its fullest and is most engaging.

However in oRVR, a lot seasoned players find them tedious and underwhelming in large scale combat. Too much time is spent manually buffing your party, and a typical big fight is tossing some hots, dropping your rune/ritual and spamming aoe heals until the fight is over. Other healers have more active gameplay and win the mini game of top heals in a WB. Its impossible for RP/Zeal to keep up with other healers due to their strong out of WB healing, even if you factor in their protection contribution.

Part of other healers numbers is due to blessing of grungni/blessing of chaos giving a fairly reliable 25% healing buff to everyone in their party. This makes having a RP/Zeal in each party mandatory or optimal in an organized WB. I don't think its ideal for the game to have "must-have" classes.

Here are some suggestions:

Oath Runes/Marks: Add a group version of each ability to potentially lessen the amount of casts needed. There is nothing worse than buffing your party and then getting moved to another group or changing zones and having to do it all again. Maybe you get lucky and 5/6 people need ini buff and 1 strength, thats 2 casts vs 6. Huge for QoL.

Rune of Serenity/Leaping Alteration: Rework to be the rune of battle for healing. Cast it on a friendly target to pulse heal 24 targets around that person for X amount for X number of ticks. We would want to keep the CD low enough so that you want to keep as part of your rotation, not a cast it once per fight ability. This will help close the healing gap between the other healing classes. Classifying it as a direct heal or not is debatable because of the potential passive buffs that can be applied.

Blessing of Grungni/Blessing of Chaos: I would suggest removing this tactic. As I stated prior, this makes RP/Zeal mandatory. I would suggest increasing the base heal for all classes to compensate (unlikely) or increase the scaling willpower has on healing. Increasing the scaling of willpower also opens up the opportunity to spec into that stat more than it is today and give experienced healers a risk/reward option for talismans.

[Aluviya]

Here a brief summary what has been added into the game:

rp buff: lasts 60 secs (so you can actually use it again in the meanwhile with the tactic reducing it to 30 secs CD) and applies a dot that is cleanseable (ailment) it additionally snares 20%, in total less damage than (roughly around -20 dmg)- effect stacks on 1 target several times from different sources, debuff can crit depending on your crit chance scales and currently scales with crit modifiers (assuming this is a bug)
zealot buff: lasts 10 secs, buff procs every 1 sec, procs of any hit (channel, ability aa), non shatterable own "buff" type

3) Both buffs seem to scale of your targets first path rather then rp/zealots path (assuming this is a bug)


Now some extreme scenarios that soon will be normal reality in small scale games and orvr alike:
order: this ability could potentially apply instantly 6 ailments that stack on 1 target making cleansing entirely pointless for 5 secs to around 10-15 secs considering that you can reapply the ability again after first proc hit in the beginning of the match. Additionally on every offense phase from order side its entirely pointless trying to cleanse anything ailment related which are practically most malicious debuffs like healdebuff, snares etc. Proc hits approximately for 90 without additional debuffs which gives the group 2700 dmg (90dmg x6x5s) this number assumes crits are not intended.
destru : this ability deals on a target with Talon around 140 proc damage each second = 704 in total, now take it for the whole group makes it 4,2 k damage in 5 secs (140dmg x 6x 5 s) purely as proc damage from an additionally brought healer. In a scenario together with Shaman (double proc tactic for morale pump) this would be insane targeted proc damage in a very small time window just from two healers. And same scenario also with DoK as individual celerity procs actually deal twice or triple the damage of shaman proc (and DoK also has higher probability for covenant vs order).

Draw your own conclusions why these kind of abilities can't be healthy for the game as a whole. And I did not even review yet the cleansing rune and the meta gaming with it. Neither reviewed the snare component in the long run for both small scale and Orvr. Meanwhile want to mention also, there is no 3rd proc on order on a Healer.

[Paxsanarion]

Here a brief summary what has been added into the game:

rp buff: lasts 60 secs (so you can actually use it again in the meanwhile with the tactic) and applies a dot that is cleanseable (ailment) it additionally snares 20%, in total less damage than zeal it seems (around -20 dmg)- effect stacks on 1 target several times from different sources, buff can crit depending on your crit chance scales with crit modifiers
zealot buff: lasts 10 secs, buff procs every 1 sec, procs of any hit (channel, ability aa), non shatterable own "buff" type

3) Both buffs seem to scale off your targets first path rather then rp/zealots path


Now some extreme scenarios that soon will be normal reality in small scale games and orvr alike:
order: this ability could potentially apply instantly 6 ailments that stack on 1 target making cleansing entirely pointless for 5 secs to around 10-15 secs considering that you can reapply the ability again after first proc hit in the beginning of the match. Additionally on every offense phase from order side its entirely pointless trying to cleanse anything ailment related which are practically most malicious debuffs like healdebuff, snares etc. Proc hits approximately for 90 without additional debuffs which gives the group 2700 dmg (90dmg x6x5s) this number assumes crits are not intended.
destru : this ability deals on a target with Talon around 140 proc damage each second = 704 in total, now take it for the whole group makes it 4,2 k damage in 5 secs (140dmg x 6x 5 s) purely as proc damage from an additionally brought healer. In a scenario together with Shaman (double proc tactic for morale pump) this would be insane targeted proc damage in a very small time window just from two healers. And same scenario also with DoK as individual celerity procs actually deal twice or triple the damage of shaman proc (and DoK also has higher probability for covenant vs order).

Draw your own conclusions why these kind of abilities can't be healthy for the game as a whole. And I did not even review yet the cleansing rune and the meta gaming with it. Or also what the snare component will do in the long run for both small scale and Orvr. Meanwhile want to mention also, there is no 3rd proc on order on a Healer.

Hmmmm so battles will be over even faster than before if this is accurate i’m not sure that we needed healers doing a lot more damage. It would seem better to make healing more fun and more rewarding and interesting rather than turning them into massive AOE damage dealers?