Dakinara
Legacy Supporter 6
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2013
I feel like a few minor changes to existing hero skill numbers could greatly increase the fun of team fights, with better balance and team diversity. Here are changes i suggest, with an overlapping role discussion specific to each archetype (support, mage, rogue, warrior)
1) Support. Straight to the point, all group heals need a big nerf. Lets look at a typical single target heal vs group heal to see differences in mana / cooldown etc.
Cleric - 33 wisdom
Single Target Heal - Sacred Touch - 330.25 healing, 140 mana, 16s cooldown
DivineBlessing - 227.25 healing, 240 mana, 15s cooldown
So, right off the back, if we are only healing one person, sacred touch is a better choice. Healing two people, it is close to break even - divine blessing heals more and faster, but at a little less mana efficiency. Three targets - not even close, divine blessing is better in speed, amount of healing, and efficiency. But group sizes go up to 10... at that point group healing just becomes insane to the point where stacking 4+ healers is a good strategy. This is apparent in the current status of 10 man fights, where frequently no one will die... ever.
So i recommend significantly increasing the mana cost of group heals (~double mana cost), while greatly reducing the cooldown of single target heals. In addition, we will need to either increase the self heal penalty, or separate single target heals into self only and ally only to prevent healers from becoming even more tanky in small fights. I would prefer separating them but either way could work. Here is an example of what i think would be reasonable under new system
Cleric - 33 wisdom
Self heal - sacredword - self cast only, 200 healing, 150 mana, 5s cooldown. No self heal penalty. This would be the only single target heal you could use on self - could also heal self with group heals in emergency situation.
Ally heal - sacredtouch - 330.25 healing, 140 mana, 3s cooldown. Ally only, cannot cast on self
Divineblessing - 227.25 healing, 450 mana, 10s cooldown. Lower cooldown, but much higher mana cost. Still more mana efficient than single target heals if healing for full ammount on 5+ targets, but not something you would ever use when only one or two people need healing, which is the idea.
Use single target heals when few people need healing, group heals when everyone needs it or in emergency for self healing but with heavy mana cost so fights dont go on forever. Also reduces the value of stacking healers, because if lots of people are taking damage, healers are likely to all shoot off group heals which simply arent going to be sustainable for long and the other group with more damage and 2-3 dedicated healers will ultimately overcome them.
2) Rogue / light armor melee. These classes (ninja, ranger, runeblade, pyromancer) currently have little to no place in team fights. They are squishy and do not have substantially higher damage than warriors in most team fight situations, and therefore are basically always replaced by warriors. So i think each of these classes should specifically get an "anti-kite" skill that inflicts a short duration heavy slowness on a target but only has an effect when striking a target in the back. These could be melee strikes, or ranged projectile toss (like icebolt), but the key is they would only work when hitting a target in the back (so for example, ranger could not kite someone better, only chase someone down better). I think this will help cement a role for these classes in team fights, as kiting has always been somewhat insane due to minecraft mechanics, and it fits well with the light armor melees generally being considered anti caster / healer.
3) Warriors - Generally, most of these are in pretty good shape but i think all warriors should have some form of single target taunt / provoke with a short cooldown in order to protect squishier targets in the group. Paladin should have the only aoe taunt as it is generally the most defensive tank, but i think every warrior needs some kind of provoke / taunt skill to help protect healers / mages given the proposed healing change above.
4) Mages - i actually think mages would be in a pretty good spot if group healing was nerfed. They would be the main source of aoe damage, which would be much more valuable when you knew it wouldnt just be insta healed off by endless group healing. Possible could use slightly more crowd control in some places depending on the exact implementation of light melee anti kiting.
5) Bard - ultimately, for mana to matter in fights, mana song has to be nerfed. Mana song should have its mana return value cut in half to basically match beguilers mana regen. To compensate, bard obviously would need mana cost of all abilities reduced, and also either have increased melee damage, new single target damage song or a short duration mezmerize type ability - any of those could be cool to keep bard valued in groups and small fights alike. Even with reduced mana regen return, i think both bard and beguiler would be much more valued if group healing wasnt so mana efficient.
Pretty much all of these changes could be implemented with just tweaks to the numbers on existing hero skills. Would make for better fights IMO.
1) Support. Straight to the point, all group heals need a big nerf. Lets look at a typical single target heal vs group heal to see differences in mana / cooldown etc.
Cleric - 33 wisdom
Single Target Heal - Sacred Touch - 330.25 healing, 140 mana, 16s cooldown
DivineBlessing - 227.25 healing, 240 mana, 15s cooldown
So, right off the back, if we are only healing one person, sacred touch is a better choice. Healing two people, it is close to break even - divine blessing heals more and faster, but at a little less mana efficiency. Three targets - not even close, divine blessing is better in speed, amount of healing, and efficiency. But group sizes go up to 10... at that point group healing just becomes insane to the point where stacking 4+ healers is a good strategy. This is apparent in the current status of 10 man fights, where frequently no one will die... ever.
So i recommend significantly increasing the mana cost of group heals (~double mana cost), while greatly reducing the cooldown of single target heals. In addition, we will need to either increase the self heal penalty, or separate single target heals into self only and ally only to prevent healers from becoming even more tanky in small fights. I would prefer separating them but either way could work. Here is an example of what i think would be reasonable under new system
Cleric - 33 wisdom
Self heal - sacredword - self cast only, 200 healing, 150 mana, 5s cooldown. No self heal penalty. This would be the only single target heal you could use on self - could also heal self with group heals in emergency situation.
Ally heal - sacredtouch - 330.25 healing, 140 mana, 3s cooldown. Ally only, cannot cast on self
Divineblessing - 227.25 healing, 450 mana, 10s cooldown. Lower cooldown, but much higher mana cost. Still more mana efficient than single target heals if healing for full ammount on 5+ targets, but not something you would ever use when only one or two people need healing, which is the idea.
Use single target heals when few people need healing, group heals when everyone needs it or in emergency for self healing but with heavy mana cost so fights dont go on forever. Also reduces the value of stacking healers, because if lots of people are taking damage, healers are likely to all shoot off group heals which simply arent going to be sustainable for long and the other group with more damage and 2-3 dedicated healers will ultimately overcome them.
2) Rogue / light armor melee. These classes (ninja, ranger, runeblade, pyromancer) currently have little to no place in team fights. They are squishy and do not have substantially higher damage than warriors in most team fight situations, and therefore are basically always replaced by warriors. So i think each of these classes should specifically get an "anti-kite" skill that inflicts a short duration heavy slowness on a target but only has an effect when striking a target in the back. These could be melee strikes, or ranged projectile toss (like icebolt), but the key is they would only work when hitting a target in the back (so for example, ranger could not kite someone better, only chase someone down better). I think this will help cement a role for these classes in team fights, as kiting has always been somewhat insane due to minecraft mechanics, and it fits well with the light armor melees generally being considered anti caster / healer.
3) Warriors - Generally, most of these are in pretty good shape but i think all warriors should have some form of single target taunt / provoke with a short cooldown in order to protect squishier targets in the group. Paladin should have the only aoe taunt as it is generally the most defensive tank, but i think every warrior needs some kind of provoke / taunt skill to help protect healers / mages given the proposed healing change above.
4) Mages - i actually think mages would be in a pretty good spot if group healing was nerfed. They would be the main source of aoe damage, which would be much more valuable when you knew it wouldnt just be insta healed off by endless group healing. Possible could use slightly more crowd control in some places depending on the exact implementation of light melee anti kiting.
5) Bard - ultimately, for mana to matter in fights, mana song has to be nerfed. Mana song should have its mana return value cut in half to basically match beguilers mana regen. To compensate, bard obviously would need mana cost of all abilities reduced, and also either have increased melee damage, new single target damage song or a short duration mezmerize type ability - any of those could be cool to keep bard valued in groups and small fights alike. Even with reduced mana regen return, i think both bard and beguiler would be much more valued if group healing wasnt so mana efficient.
Pretty much all of these changes could be implemented with just tweaks to the numbers on existing hero skills. Would make for better fights IMO.
