Feldon Xelgad has posted a flurry of responses to specific class issues today.
This one, in regards to Critical Heals which have been removed from all fighters. For some fighter classes, critical heals might have been overpowered, but for Paladins (joshingly referred to as Healadins), losing all crititical heals has had class altering effects not only in solo situations (which this nerf was intended to fix) but in group and raid setups.
At Fan Faire, we were provided with a response on this issue which was more placating than prescient. Fortunately, it seems a few Paladins have planted a bug in the right ear and there may be some movement yet to sort this issue out.
From the EQ2 Forums (in response to a lengthy, detailed list of suggestions to fix the class by Boli32), Xelgad had this to say:
First, let me reiterate that it’s very important to us that abilities scale at a balanced rate. As I posted in the test feedback forum, that was really the primary reason for the heal crit change. It’s a waste of time for us to balance abilities for a certain gear level if better gear next expansion is going to benefit some abilities more than others. Overall, I think the change has helped the situation to a degree, but we are still working on fine tuning it.
It’s very likely that Lay on Hands will become percent based in the future, and we’d like to change some of your other heals as well. However, instead of shifting to more damage reduction/mitigation abilities, we would rather increase heal amount, increase cooldowns, and, perhaps, reduce the casting time of your heals/ward. If we made those changes, casting your heals and ward every time they’re up would result in lower total heals per second, but the abilities would be better for countering spike damage.
Feedback on this general idea would be appreciated.
Our interpretation of the changes he’s talking about would be big emergency heals on longer cooldown timers.
You can discuss this issue further, and provide feedback to Xelgad on the EQ2 Forums thread Critical Healing taken away… because?.
No wonder the pallies are crying (and tank heals got nerfed), they have as many heals (not counting wards) as a mystic, with-crit they were probably doing some impressive healage, especially as the cast times are shorter than the equivelant healer spell by a 1/3 to 1/2, with similar recast and ammount(compared spells on broker). post-crit they still have some very fast casting heal spells (as for power cost, they are no different a healers).
Add a myth/buff with 10% mele damage reduction, plus the 10% heal reactive from anything that does go through (sk’s have to spend a red adorn for a reactive 100-150 heal proc) and thats a lot of survivability. The avenger lifetap clicky-pet I have no idea about.
Even #now# they seem to be the most well-rounded class, buffs that any class would be jealous of, passive survivability that other tanks would love, plus 8? blue ae’s (5 class, plus aa granted ones). . .
Before patch they must have been a sight to behold.
I do not understand here though how the class balancing works with critical heals, they already have decent DPS, superb mitigation and taunting abilities, adding healing power equivalent to a dedicated healer is completely overpowered.
I’m really hoping that after all this messing around with F2P that the devs can put in some quality time to fixing the gameplay, things like green content being trivial and not dangerous etc (if its green it should have a chance to kill you).
The very definition of the Paladin class has been that their own heals are required to make up for less mitigation or less defensive capabilities than a Warrior. If in a difficult group or raid situation, a Paladin doesn’t need their own heals along with those of a typical healer setup, to stay up, then the problem is not their heals, but that their defensive capabilities are overpowered.
Taking away heals from a class that has not only been a hybrid tank/heal class for 5 years, but throughout the lore of this and other games, is just wrong.
My first RPG was Final Fantasy IV (marketed in the US as Final Fantasy II) and it’s still my favorite RPG game of all time. The central storyline revolved around a shadowknight type questing to become a paladin. This was before all Final Fantasy games had to center around an angsty young blonde rebellious kid.
I agree, loosing their heals would be a class-fubar, but the announcement says #some# heals will become emergencies (and lay becoming % will win a few ppl over).
It think its a fair call to say pallies are still the best defensive-tank in game. Mostly down to that twin damage reduction (having a solid aggro syphon don’t hurt either), IMO it’d be easier to give the other tanks a similar skill but sadly, thats never been the MMO’s way (any mmo not just eq2).
Nerf/patch 1st, re-balance. . . . later, probably, maybe.
I doublechecked the other tank myths, sk’s alone didnt get any damage reduction (the hate buff is awesome, but a de-hate toggle’d be handy0), the guardian one is tied to their dps proc, the monk one is a leather mitigation boost to chain standards (maybe 5% boost?), zerkers only had 5% but also had that sweet 100% ae auto attack, bruiser one is same as pallies, but w/o the extra 10% damage-> heal thing). Make what you will of the info, i’m trying hard not to go into my myth’s were a dumb idea, rant mode. :p
That said the linked forum thread has some well written counterpoints and even the ocasional sound of sense from neutral’s/advocates.
Mentat you must be joking? to try to put the Paladin on the same level with a Mystic or for that matter any healer. The reason they did all the healing is the uber gear they have and they deserve every bit of it. I have a level 90 Paladin all mastered spells I have 2 heals with low recast but the heal is not very good I have one ward which is only 3k now thx to the nerf that isnt even one hit from a healer in pvp. The other 2 heals have 1min 39 sec to 5 minute reuse how can you possibly compare that to any healer?
The fact is I can beat any SK or Paladin on my warden in pvp and I dont care what gear they have on, they just don’t have enough dps to kill through my heals. I can kill any SK or Paladin on my Assassin so fast its not even funny. Why would you nerf a class that sucks at pvp anyhow? So now I have stopped playing the pally I’m not sure I’m even goin to play eq2 much more why in the world would I want to bust my butt to get something this month and have it taken away next month? This is one of the biggest reasons people quit this game — crybabies that think they should be as tough as a person that has avatar loot on.
Like I say to the devs at Sony that thought taking away heal crit from the tanks was a good idea it just proves how out of touch with this game you are. I just want to say to you Devs at Sony thanks for all your hard work but we see that you have been overpaid so we have to lower your check by 75% because other employees think they deserve more. Have a nice Day!