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Ugle wrote: ↑Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:27 pm
After testing the changes on my AM and shammie, both more or less BIS geared, my conclution is that it is still not worth juggeling the mechanic as a healer because BM/ITT does not enough heals to be worth using as opposed to ignoring mechanic.
If you are lucky you might get a 1k heal from BM/ITT. This is not enough to make it worth it. Considering you need to go a lot closer to the enemy, disrupts, tanks etc.
Proposed solution to make it worth it would be as follows;
1. Make lifetap heals crit ( you would need to slot both heal crit and magic crit tactic and renown for it to be effective and get double crit, and would not be OP)
2. Add +dmg compnent to BM/ITT with first speccable tactic from right tree (cant remember name, I would see this as a bandaid fix as opposed to no. 1)
for healing AM, most important change is possibility of moving heal.
I guess it's same for shaman.
dead healers can't heal.
snare pool + detaunt and moving heal = you can survive and heal more.
In response to Dabbart, I think it would be a very wonky change that would have a bunch of DPS AM/Sham running around spamming on-the-move life-taps that do quite decent damage, cast very quickly, cost virtually no ap and heal for 700-1000. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me at first glance because of this
But yes, I have to agree that while running a healer setup in a dps spec, my maximum crit turned out to be around 1500. The reason why this happens is because Divine Fury adds an additional 25% damage on top of searing touch, and then when you cast it consuming a heal mechanic point, it recieves an additional 25% damage bonus, which considering you can essentially stack enough stats that your intellect with a pot will be basically more than a regular AM means that you'll actually do more damage. Apply 4 dots, each at 50% extra damage from tactic+mechanic and then use searing touch. I've seen my dots crit for 650 damage easily, and the only time I get that kind of number as a pure intellect-based dps AM is on choppas with built up mechanic with no guard, debuffed spirit resistance and no resistance buff. It's kind of balanced, because you would have to be a healer that slots divine fury, which means you voluntarily decrease your healing done and in order to do that kind of damage you have to heal first, but on the other hand it really isn't very balanced considering you can also be much MUCH more tanky xD I honestly hope intellect-based DPS AM/Sham recieve some additional incentives to be that playstyle in the future. It's not unplayable, but it does feel lacking when you make a comparison.
Also, I second the wounds/initiative talismans, that does seem to be the most effective setup if you're trying to max out your stats for the stat contribution mechanic.
Do bonus from item sets (like +62 willpower in the case of annihilator) counts as a stat from items? And if so, does it also count for the 0.7 formula?
live4treasure wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:22 pm
In response to Dabbart, I think it would be a very wonky change that would have a bunch of DPS AM/Sham running around spamming on-the-move life-taps that do quite decent damage, cast very quickly, cost virtually no ap and heal for 700-1000. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me at first glance because of this
...
Also, I second the wounds/initiative talismans, that does seem to be the most effective setup if you're trying to max out your stats for the stat contribution mechanic.
Technically, you can already do that in DPS spec. You just need heal mechanic points to do so. Note, I haven't worked on the specifics, so "700-1k low AP quick cast" hits is based on how it works currently, not how it "could" function. Just brainstorming, but if the only benefit to casting with DPS stacks was a damage increase(which didn't increase healing amount), and to get the cast-on-move you'd need the tactic(which increases AP cost), then I don't see it being broken. Whereas Heal mechanic points could increase Healed amount by a static number, and again cast-on-move would require a tactic. Basically, it would open up Life-taps for both spec options, and attempt to assist in what you are "speced for". It does nothing to help with disrupt rates, nor would this "fix" life-taps inherently. But it would go a long way to helping with the Mechanic dance issue.
And I always go wounds/ini. If I can get armor to over 2k I will, after that it isn't worth it imo. Too many things blow you up that ignore armor entirely...
live4treasure wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:22 pm
In response to Dabbart, I think it would be a very wonky change that would have a bunch of DPS AM/Sham running around spamming on-the-move life-taps that do quite decent damage, cast very quickly, cost virtually no ap and heal for 700-1000. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me at first glance because of this
...
Also, I second the wounds/initiative talismans, that does seem to be the most effective setup if you're trying to max out your stats for the stat contribution mechanic.
Technically, you can already do that in DPS spec. You just need heal mechanic points to do so. Note, I haven't worked on the specifics, so "700-1k low AP quick cast" hits is based on how it works currently, not how it "could" function. Just brainstorming, but if the only benefit to casting with DPS stacks was a damage increase(which didn't increase healing amount), and to get the cast-on-move you'd need the tactic(which increases AP cost), then I don't see it being broken. Whereas Heal mechanic points could increase Healed amount by a static number, and again cast-on-move would require a tactic. Basically, it would open up Life-taps for both spec options, and attempt to assist in what you are "speced for". It does nothing to help with disrupt rates, nor would this "fix" life-taps inherently. But it would go a long way to helping with the Mechanic dance issue.
And I always go wounds/ini. If I can get armor to over 2k I will, after that it isn't worth it imo. Too many things blow you up that ignore armor entirely...
Sorry for derail.
No problem at all, this is an AM mechanic discussion after all. I get what you're saying here, just that if the healing aspect of a lifetap wouldn't be worth casting, then a DPS AM will always prefer Radiant Lance instead as it does about 100+ extra tooltip damage, unless it's a deep life-tap spec with Energy of Vaul and lots of points invested. It's an interesting thought, I just don't see why you would bother. For DPS spec, life tap currently works quite fine as a self-healing option, it's just that you would rarely have Tranquility stacks available outside of extreme cases where you had to cast Lambent Aura, Cleanse, Shield of Saphery on a target as a bit of emergency support.
I would say single target life taps are certainly less reliable unless you find a particularly squishy target to leech off of, in which case I can easily get 1500 healing and 1000 damage, which is by no means bad. What's really worth getting in life tap tree is Energy of Vaul, because even if you don't do immense damage with it, as long as you land it, it will most likely aoe heal your entire group for at least 1.5-2k. In a tight bombing scenario I've actually gotten upwards of 3k healing every 2 seconds on my group while bombing essentially tanks, dps tanks and guarded melee dps.
I think if you'd want to make lifetaps viable, the best way to do so would be to, for example, add say 300 base healing which scales with willpower on top of the current amount. Perhaps reduce the normal lifetap amount as well, or perhaps even not. They're not exactly overpowered as the are now.
live4treasure wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:59 pm
No problem at all, this is an AM mechanic discussion after all. I get what you're saying here, just that if the healing aspect of a lifetap wouldn't be worth casting, then a DPS AM will always prefer Radiant Lance instead as it does about 100+ extra tooltip damage, unless it's a deep life-tap spec with Energy of Vaul and lots of points invested. It's an interesting thought, I just don't see why you would bother. For DPS spec, life tap currently works quite fine as a self-healing option, it's just that you would rarely have Tranquility stacks available outside of extreme cases where you had to cast Lambent Aura, Cleanse, Shield of Saphery on a target as a bit of emergency support.
I would say single target life taps are certainly less reliable unless you find a particularly squishy target to leech off of, in which case I can easily get 1500 healing and 1000 damage, which is by no means bad. What's really worth getting in life tap tree is Energy of Vaul, because even if you don't do immense damage with it, as long as you land it, it will most likely aoe heal your entire group for at least 1.5-2k. In a tight bombing scenario I've actually gotten upwards of 3k healing every 2 seconds on my group while bombing essentially tanks, dps tanks and guarded melee dps.
I think if you'd want to make lifetaps viable, the best way to do so would be to, for example, add say 300 base healing which scales with willpower on top of the current amount. Perhaps reduce the normal lifetap amount as well, or perhaps even not. They're not exactly overpowered as the are now.
This proposal basically does just that by adding base heals to each Life-tap. I'm attempting not to bring Proposal discussions into a non balance-forum however. But I am in agreement with you there.
Yea, EoV can be decent. Unless you get disrupted, or you end up hitting Guarded target, Guarded target, Tank, Tank and receive all of 500 health back... The kiting potential for life-taps with on-the-move casting makes them awesome I agree. And I lived in the .ab ex when it was around(the .ab ex was why I started a Sham in the first place). And I understood and utilized the mechanic juggling to great effect, but I am also aware that there were times that I just burned recastings of HoTs just to get a heal point so I could life-tap again. With cleanse giving points now, that is less of an issue I guess.
As it stands, the potential for Life-taps is heavily outweighed by the results of basic heals over a period of more than 2-3 casts. This is all w/o worrying about breaking Staggers or Detaunt(more-so for shams with auto-detaunt on though). A 2s cast that Might give 1.5-2k grp health as it stands, though theoretically "good" situationally, just isn't worth speccing for. EoV means the AM has to be rr60 before you can get Wild healing, Magical Infusion, and puddle. And that's w/o the life-tap tactic(who knows what/if anything it will be needed for later down the line).
I guess I'm off with the life-tap mechanic burn idea. I'll circle back to that another day. Maybe I/we need to determine if Life-taps should be a "viable" method of Healing, or simply a tool to utilize while Kiting to burn 5 stacks? Because they can be built for either, but I personally don't want to see life-tap become the cookie cutter build like it was during .ab ex.
If you use EoV you need to slot the 10% disrupt strikethrough tactic and be an intellect-focused build at the very least. Also, even if you gain back 500 health, you'll likely heal for about 1500+ (1300+ with Divine Fury) on your party members with your next aoe heal cast since you'll likely have force stacks to make use of, which even if it's not an immense amount will actually be an overall gain in healing per second because the aoe heal will be cast at only 1.5 seconds and cost only half of the AP. It's not bad, honestly, it's just a different playstyle with its ups and downs.
As for whether lifetaps are just something to burn or it's an actual viable healing method... Honestly, it has to be said that lifetaps do both damage and healing, and the fact that it gives you more value per second invested because of this shouldn't be understated. I've managed to pour in 3.5-4k damage and heal a tank from 10% to full in that short span of 5 seconds where you get to spam Balance Essence on the move, when used on an unguarded target. I think it should be mademore accessible for healers, but adding a bit of a base healing component with the current mechanic system will mean that on a squishy target you could heal for insane amounts, as a mechanic empowered Balance Essence will be recieving both the benefit from your main stat, be it willpower or intellect, and the benefit for 0.7 stat contribution. It might make it, once again, a spell so good that basically every AM will simply be spamming it in between every heal.
I think, overall, it's in a good place right now. Lifetap spec, if build around correctly, is by no means useless with the right setup, which would be either choppa for the 5s cooldown reduction (if I'm not mistaken of course) for sham or SM for the same effect with AM, which allows you to spam it. I think it's more of a largescale tool at the moment, rather than a 6v6 one, however, and has to be built around specifically. I haven't tested willpower-based lifetap, however intellect based bomb-lifetap has proven to be very effective so far, especially because it allows you to use your ap drain instead of Wild Healing + Restorative Burst for sustain.
Do they actually provide a better DPS/heal per second though? Running the math, using DoTs to simply decrease CT and add effectiveness to Heals would provide more healing per second. And using your channel as an instant can crit higher than the lifetaps. I know I’m arguing semantics here, but speccing for EoV and running INT build plus disrupt tactic severely limits your build and options. And AMs have 2 AP tactics to choose from, and sham has no strikethrough tactic. So for this argument, AM is the superior life-tapping class.
I guess my general theory is that unless the DPS you are applying is more than fluff, it’s not worth counting. Now if you add the Shatter tactic or have multiple Procs via your grp, then it is different. But in that case, you’d take more of a DPS slot imo. But even with my tanks, I don’t spec build or apply things based on DPS. My job is mitigation, debuff, and CC. Or as a healer, to heal.
Currently, I just dislike the awkwardness of the mechanic juggling atm. Say I cleanse/HoT/Shield an ally, I now need to cast 3DPS/lifetaps before I get any bonus to Healing spells again, this can be equally nice or annoying. Same for DPS. If you are in an intellect build, and drop your basic 2s/1s/channel DPS rotation, that’s 3 healing spells before you get any benefit to DPS. Again, Cleanse change will help with this.
Lastly, heal for insane amounts is subjective. Anything less than 2.5k for a “perfect” cast would be fine imo. You make good points though. I haven’t had the opportunity to run with a WW equivalent with the recent changes yet.
All I can say here is that the way to utilize one's mechanic is dependant on the situation. It's a bit complicated and I can't exactly lay out my own thought process when I play, but I wouldn't say my skills are top-notch either. Simply put though, juggling the mechanic isn't always what's needed. I'm completely fine with sitting at 5 stacks of Force, for example, because they will soon be needed to apply additional healing. Likewise with 5 stacks of tranquility as a healer (which I am less fine as because my instincts are that of dps am) is fine, if you're built as a dedicated healer. You hold those stacks waiting for the opportunity when you might need them to help your team burn down their target.
For shaman, instead of strikethrough you should probably apply Gettin' Smarter first things first, empowered by a heal stack, which will make your following lifetaps do more damage and be more likely to land. It's also worth noting that being in a group with a class that buffs your damage critical chance, like BG with Crimson death for example or SW with Leading Shots, will be beneficial to your lifetaps and can pick up the slack in your critical hit chance for damaging spells. Often times the really good heals you might get off a lifetap comes from critical hits even when you're DPS specced.
