83 replies to this topic

[Finraziel]

If you are going hybrid, get your damage skills 1st to help you grind faster, then max Aspersio next.
...

Syn already kind of said it, but since he's talking FS, I'd stress again to max Asp before your attack skills. As an acolyte, HL is your main damage tool and Asp makes it godly, most regular targets are close to death already after three HL crits. Oratio by itself is just a nice supplement to your HL spam, not like when you're a priest and the other two DoTs join in and they can kill targets on their own.

Interesting bit that I found surprising myself when I started leveling a DPS aco/priest after my hybrid slanted to the healside, is that I actually found myself killing quite a bit faster than my mage and thief I did before that (don't really recall how fast my archer was). The actual damaging was pretty close (though I think the aco still wins, I did a rough comparison on my mage and aco killing stone spiders when I got there, mage killing 5 in two minutes, aco killing 6 or 7... although sidenote, the mage was cold/lightning, not fire), but the fact that you have no downtime makes you pull ahead massively. Leveling an FS makes you slower obviously, but at least as an aco it should still be pretty good (it's just that going HL HL HL HL HL is boring so it may come across as being slow anyway).

[Suska]

There isn't ever a case that Heal is your only option because you always have Rennovation, that isn't an emergency solution I know, but emergencies demand bigger solutions than Heal anyway. If Heal is fast it's weak (no ASP), if Heal is slow (ASP) HH is superior by far.

You are free to be a fan of Heal, my position in the case that you absolutely must have it (or have it already, which most people do - this is the reason I posted here) would be to not have any attack skills and use those points to try and increase its effect. So ultimately my argument against Heal is an argument for an attack capacity not against other healing skills - for which Heal is CLEARLY inferior. There is absolutely NO other healing skill I would sacrifice for Heal, It is another line of heal and that's never going to be a bad thing, but my point is that in practice it is irrelevant, whereas being able to level on your own is utterly critical.

Edited by Suska, 16 June 2013 - 09:48 AM.

[Ballantin]

There isn't ever a case that Heal is your only option because you always have Rennovation, that isn't an emergency solution I know, but emergencies demand bigger solutions than Heal anyway. If Heal is fast it's weak (no ASP), if Heal is slow (ASP) HH is superior by far.

You are free to be a fan of Heal, my position in the case that you absolutely must have it (or have it already, which most people do - this is the reason I posted here) would be to not have any attack skills and use those points to try and increase its effect. So ultimately my argument against Heal is an argument for an attack capacity not against other healing skills - for which Heal is CLEARLY inferior. There is absolutely NO other healing skill I would sacrifice for Heal, It is another line of heal and that's never going to be a bad thing, but my point is that in practice it is irrelevant, whereas being able to level on your own is utterly critical.

Why you try to make heal look like useless?

If HH is not available, Renovatio AND Heal. Why I need to choose? I can have both!

If you don't want to use heal, go ahead and play as you wish, let the others decide for themselves.

Thanks.

[Suska]

Heal is useless.
Are you saying that I'm forcing people to do something by saying so?
Address my reasoning or stop talking.

Edited by Suska, 16 June 2013 - 03:53 PM.

[Ballantin]

I already did, but you keep saying that it is useless because it is IN YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE. And you think this is an absolute law of the universe.

You can't find a use for heal. That's fine. But this does not mean that others can't as you.

[synesthetic]

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. If a reader disagrees, they don't have to follow it.
The game is easy enough for plenty of differing builds to succeed, depending on group dynamics. And I think that's fine, as long as everyone's having fun.


For a pure support build, leveling Heal would make a lot of situations easier. But is it absolutely essential like Aspersio, Blessing, or Sanctuary? No. Other healers can heal, various classes can use defensive skills, anyone can (and should) have potions ready, etc.

The way I see it is that the more capable a support/healer is, the better everyone else can focus on their own roles. But due to the mechanics in this game being designed to keep everyone on their toes, it's still everyone's responsibility to help take care of themselves too if they need to.

[Suska]

"you think this is an absolute law of the universe"

You read way too much into what I'm saying. The only sour note here is yours Ballantin, let's move on.

"as long as everyone's having fun"

I agree with you syn, that's the correct approach, we're all just doing what we can and it ought to be fun. I don't mean to take your thread over, I had more to say than what I expected.

In my view Priest is something different in game-play terms, but also it's a lot harder and there's some extra responsibility riding on it. I love it, the priest can help people. Also, if we can't have different styles this is a very poor venue for roleplaying.

But yeah, Heal is for chumps =P

Edited by Suska, 16 June 2013 - 08:31 PM.

[synesthetic]

You can't escape having Lv.1 Heal, chump.

[Ballantin]

It is clear that you will not convince me and vice versa, so lets end it.

Anyway, It is not sour for me Suska, I always enjoy some arguing about skills and mechanics

Thanks.

[Fold]

But yeah, Heal is for chumps =P

I would really be interested in seeing you attempt to keep a tank up without using Heal once on Hardmode Baphomet.

[Jargous]

I would really be interested in seeing you attempt to keep a tank up without using Heal once on Hardmode Baphomet.

It's easy, he'll go into a crack and use Sanctuary.
Or use a Lv 1 Coluseo
Or use renovatio as that can beat a Death Mark x3
If the person is dead, the 5 minute resurrection is more than enough. And if that is on cooldown, use a leaf.

[Suska]

You guys keep saying this stuff like you're reasoning with me, but it's meaningless if you can't address the reasoning.

I will try to reiterate.

Without ASP, Heal is no better than HH - HH does Heal's job better than Heal does as a one shot because it's all the same except with HH you can keep moving.

With ASP HH adds a HoT, some amped up Heal spam may be nice, HH could be doing that same job for you.

It defeats the purpose of being second line, a quick heal between other stuff may be nice but it's not as nice as your other skills.There are serious problems with Heal as a main gun. You still have to ASP (it's not quicker), and you have to stay put. and stay on a single target.

I suppose if you're so specialized that you only want to work raids where there's as many healers as tanks, and you don't mind being toothless on your own... Maybe then you could really crank up heal usefully, but ya you know what that makes you... And it makes you a chump because you've gained nothing for all you've sacrificed.

Edited by Suska, 17 June 2013 - 11:37 AM.

[Finraziel]

I havent healed raids or even gotten to the high level normal dungeons yet... but I just keep asp on all the time so it's ready when I need it, I'm not waiting until I have an oh moment before casting it...
As for asp HH versus asp heal, asp HH does a little bit more healing than 1 asped heal on a single target and then HH does the same again over 10 seconds. I don't see how you can claim that asp HH does the same job when three asped heals do way more healing, and then you can continue with regular heal5s when you're still waiting for HH to come off cooldown.
Of course, if your HH actually hits three targets that all needed heals then it wins, but I find often my partymembers will be all over the place and HH loses its effectiveness. One time I've even had to run around because I couldn't reach everyone with my reno at once (that was fun...)

[Suska]

"I don't see how you can claim that asp HH does the same job when three asped heals do way more healing"

Because 3 asped heals takes a lot longer (between 2 and 3 times longer would be my guess, and it's staged as well, only these are active stagings so you don't even get the benefit of putting other fires out) than REN>ASP>HH which does the same job to that single target with added neighboring hits. HH is potentially three times better than Heal not even accounting for the fact that HH leaves you free to do other things that may need doing.I've conceded, and I'll say it again, If you build for Heal spam, assuming what I'm hearing is good info, fine, that's one way to be a healer, I followed syn's guide, that's why we're talking here, and I learned that if you're maxing Coluseo, Assumptio, and Sanctuary you might as well throw Heal off your presets. The advantage of Heal is that you don't have to juggle to seem to be doing your job, but I seriously doubt there's any build capable of making ASP>H>H>H faster or more powerful than ASP>HH>ASP>HH. That's my experience, Heal is underpowered.

Edited by Suska, 17 June 2013 - 01:50 PM.

[Ballantin]

And some times, it is better 6k between 10 seconds than a single burst of 3x3k plus a 4 seconds HoT. Because I don't like to wait to get 1, 2 or 3 of my party members half life to cast the HH.

If you can do fine not relying on Heal good for you. Rest of priest need to. Period.

PS:

[Finraziel]

Well, as I said, I don't have the experience to say you're wrong or not, I can only really talk about lower level healing... but your logic seems flawed at times.
If you're just saying that in your experience you find you never need heal, fine, thank you for sharing this with the rest of us.
However, if you mean to be saying that an aspersio'd highness heal beats out a level 5 heal, WITHOUT using heal 1 in the cooldown* (since you seem to be saying you never use heal), then that just can't be right. Of course you should always be casting reno as well, but if your tank is being hammered and noone else is being hurt (or they're being taken care of by your sorc...), then heal will win in restoring the most HP in any given timeframe, there's just no question, it's math.

*actually aspersio'd heal5 spam would still win from aspersio'd HH assisted by heal1 spam. aspersio'd HH assisted by heal5 spam however is the best healing over 10 seconds.

[Suska]

"heal will win in restoring the most HP in any given timeframe"

I would say that I doubt "the math" but I dunno what you want, I've covered the matter as I see it several times in a variety of ways. Even if you find on paper that Heal is worth something I find in practice that it's not good enough to push other skills out of the way. Probably this view is not well explored because many people don't max Coluseo or Sanc or both and Assumptio thinking the cooldown is still high, in practice I don't find that to be the case. You're talking about being able to heal one person at a time like that's an advantage when point for point - even if you only have one target to heal - HH is better, but then again, I want high performance, not an easier job. You go on with your "Look Ma I'm an HoT!" tactic though, I'm not trying to convert anyone, but clearly there is an argument to be made - which I have made.

I'm only as persuasive as experience merits here, you might want to take another look. It's not like I'm really anti-heal though, and painting me an extremist is just silly.

Edited by Suska, 17 June 2013 - 05:16 PM.

[Ballantin]

"heal will win in restoring the most HP in any given timeframe"

I would say that I doubt "the math" but I dunno what you want, I've covered the matter as I see it several times in a variety of ways. Even if you find on paper that Heal is worth something I find in practice that it's not good enough to push other skills out of the way. Probably this view is not well explored because many people don't max Coluseo or Sanc or both and Assumptio thinking the cooldown is still high, in practice I don't find that to be the case. You're talking about being able to heal one person at a time like that's an advantage when point for point - even if you only have one target to heal - HH is better, but then again, I want high performance, not an easier job. You go on with your "Look Ma I'm an HoT!" tactic though, I'm not trying to convert anyone, but clearly there is an argument to be made - which I have made.

Well the fact is that you are not admitting that other's arguments can be true as well as yours. On the last posts you only keep saying that you already proved the superiority of HH.

I give up, it is starting to get boring. Thanks for the joy.

[Suska]

"I give up, it is starting to get boring"

Put yer chin up friend, I'm still waiting for you to make an actual argument.

[SolidJelly]

Again, going back to the situation I described:

Heal is for situations like these:

- Boss is pounding away at main tank ONLY.
- You cast Reno already, Coluseo still on cooldown, Sanctuary still on cooldown, you just casted HH.
- What do? Only option left is spamming Heal

When the main tank is bleeding truckloads, you've got no cooldowns left, Heal is the only spell that is still available to be spammed. This is where Heal Lv 5 outshines Heal Lv 1 after spamming it a few times.
You're comparing HH to Heal and saying it's better, but you're forgetting the most important point: HH has a 10 second cooldown during which you MUST rely on Heal if you don't have any long cooldown skills available

[Suska]

That is the strongest argument so far against dumping Heal, but I am not persuaded, what you're talking about is a fallback position which is what Coluseo and Sancturay are there for. Once you drop out of your ASP>H>H>H your tank is still leaking because you've left him no HoT, he may even be topped off but now you have at the very least to go for ASP again and you're doing that from a position of losing ground, when the tank really needs it being topped off is not enough, you must solve major hits decisively and Heal is weak sauce. It's a very different style of play you're talking about.

I spoke of a different strategy employing HoTs in all but the big emergencies and what I'm telling you is that is far more effective than Heal spam, Ideally everyone in your party that's under threat should be popping green, that is positive ground. What you're talking about is managing loss, but loss management needs to be decisive and Heal is not that.

People are talking about possible exceptions, what I'm talking about is mainly Dungeon PvE since that is the most intense form of battle I know of. Raid parties may ask for something different, but I wouldn't build for something like that - talk about being a submissive personality - I want to go where the hurt flies and do something dramatic about it, not specialize in reducing pot usage for Knights.

I would be interested in seeing the math comparison

ASP>H>H>H
v
REN>ASP>HH

Edited by Suska, 17 June 2013 - 07:46 PM.

[SolidJelly]

That is the strongest argument so far against dumping Heal, but I am not persuaded, what you're talking about is a fallback position which is what Coluseo and Sancturay are there for. Once you drop out of your ASP>H>H>H your tank is still leaking because you've left him no HoT, he may even be topped off but now you have at the very least to go for ASP again and you're doing that from a position of losing ground, when the tank really needs it being topped off is not enough, you must solve major hits decisively and Heal is weak sauce. It's a very different style of play you're talking about.

I spoke of a different strategy employing HoTs in all but the big emergencies and what I'm telling you is that is far more effective than Heal spam, Ideally everyone in your party that's under threat should be popping green, that is positive ground. What you're talking about is managing loss, but loss management needs to be decisive and Heal is not that.

People are talking about possible exceptions, what I'm talking about is mainly Dungeon PvE since that is the most intense form of battle I know of. Raid parties may ask for something different, but I wouldn't build for something like that - talk about being a submissive personality - I want to go where the hurt flies and do something dramatic about it, not specialize in reducing pot usage for Knights.

You don't need to blow all 3 Asp Heals at once, you can do a combination like Asp > H > Reno > H > AA > HH > H, or find opportunities to save up your last 2 crit heals whenever you can.
The point is you blow your crit Heal at times you deem necessary, just having the crit Heals available is putting you in a situation that is MUCH better than blowing a Asp > HH then left with 10 seconds of level 1 Heal.
Even with the ASP>H>H>H combination, that alone is enough to justify getting Heal to Level 5.
Both HH and Heal have their uses, whether you use Asp with HH or Heal depends on the situation, but purely dismissing Asp + Heal or the Heal skill in general lacks consideration and thought.
In raids, as a main healer, there are many times where bosses hit main tanks like a truck continuously for a lengthy period of time, long enough that just blowing long cooldown skills + Asp>HH alone won't get you through it. Hence the need for strong Heals.

[synesthetic]

You should always have Reno active on a target that you know is going to get hurt, so I would leave that out of any comparison.

If you want raw numbers, ioflux and I just went over it recently.
But it's hardly a practical view of skill usage, since most situations don't have a target sustaining that kind of damage for that long.
But a shining example I can think of is when the Einherjar priest (PVE Arena raid) uses Oratio on someone. In Normal mode, Oratio will do around 1.5k/tick on a tank. In Hard mode, it'll do around 2.3k/tick on a tank. If it's on someone who's not a tank, and who has no damage reduction skills like assassins or wizards, heavens help them.

Pre-raids, most situations are fine with Reno and Asp+HH, since it's okay--even recommended--that people stand in groups either at melee or ranged.

In raids, however, everyone needs to be on top of their positioning and run as needed, so they won't necessarily be grouped together. And you have 10 people to worry about instead of 5. Obviously the tanks and healers take priority, and you can still get a lot of mileage out of using Asp+HH on the tanks. But while casting Reno on everyone else when they're hurt helps a lot, it isn't always enough.
In certain fights, Assumptio is ideally alternated between Priests on people getting targeted by high-damage skills.
In certain fights, Sanctuary and Deluge are coordinated before arena-wide boss AoEs to give everyone a max HP boost so they're more likely to survive, and heal them all up quickly afterwards.
Coluceo and Archangel are the only emergency skills you're free to use whenever you want.

Depending on how dynamics are between you and the other priests/sorcs healing in the party, maybe you'll be casting Heal a lot to top off everyone else. Maybe not.

[Finraziel]

I would be interested in seeing the math comparison

ASP>H>H>H
v
REN>ASP>HH

Well that's a bit of a silly comparison, but sure, if you want...
assuming all relevant skills maxed.

ASP>H>H>H:
takes about 7 seconds and puts out 258%

REN>ASP>HH:
takes 12 seconds if you want to count the full HH HoT and does 192 (asped HH) + 110 (5 ticks of reno) = 302%

But as I said, it's a silly comparison (since ignoring reno is stupid). What you should be looking at is how much can you put out in 20 seconds, which is the amount of time before you get another asp...
So, keeping reno up on your tank costs about 2 seconds, 1 second to cast asp, and you can cast HH twice. Since you don't want to cast heal and your other skills could be on cooldown, you'll be doing-_- all besides this as far as the tank is concerned (you could be keeping reno up on everyone else in the party, but we're talking about your tank being hammered and you need to heal him as much as possible).
So, you're healing your tank for 10 ticks of Reno (220%) 1 asped HH including DoT (192%) and 1 regular HH (64%). That's a total of 476%.

If you ignore HH and use reno and heal, then that comes out to 2 seconds used to cast reno twice, 1 second for asp, leaving room to cast 8 heals or 9 heals if you count in the fact that you'll probably have some haste. That's again 10 ticks of Reno (220%), 3 asped heals (258%) and 5 or 6 regular heals (215-258%). Total 693-736%

Ok, so what about using HH as well and not shutting out any healing skills? Keeping reno up, cast HH when it's available and heal for the rest. We can either use asp for HH or Heal.
That's 2 seconds spent on casting reno, 1 second on asp, 2 seconds on 2 HH's, leaving room for 7 or 8 heals.
Asping HH: 10 ticks Reno (220%), 1 asped HH (192%), 1 regular HH (64%), 7 or 8 heals (301-344%), totals 777-820%
Asping Heal: Reno (220%), 2 regular HHs (2x64%), 7 or 8 heals with 3 forced crits which is basically 10-11 heals (430-473%), totals 778-821%

So, which one you asp doesn't matter much as far as total amount healed on a single target is concerned. That means you should just pick which one is better for the situation. Do you have 2 or 3 party members sitting close together all being damaged? Asp HH them. One target getting hammered and it might be better to burst damage heal or be able to save a few crit heals a little while? Go for asp heal.

All in all, if you get by without level 5 heal, then sure, enjoy your hybrid. But if you want to be the best healer you can possibly be then removing heal seems to me to be limiting yourself (and thus NOT being the best healer you can be).
Also, I get what you're saying that you can use colu and sanc for your emergencies, but what I mean is that being the best healer you can be also means that you shouldn't be caught with your pants down if you've already blown both of those and your tank is still being hammered.
Also note that I do in fact play a hybrid, so I sort of agree with you that it is worth it to sacrifice something to be able to do solo some. However, you are posting in a full support guide topic and are claiming that heal 5 has no added value in your opinion, that's what we're all arguing against. I actually started a second priest myself however that is going full DPS (as in, optimizing skills for solo play, with lots of DPS skills and enough healing to keep myself alive... solo'd IC at lvl 31 earlier today so think it's going pretty well) and might respec my first priest to full support at some point (though probably not before hitting lvl 50).

Edited by Finraziel, 18 June 2013 - 02:15 PM.

[synesthetic]

Since I probably won't be playing much longer, I figure I should post the build I settled on and explain why.
http://www.ro2skills...odDreqnaddBrBqA
PVE / Raid-focused.

Highlights:
- access to all emergency skills
- stronger and more frequent Heals / Asp+Heals

 

Why?

Healing tree

- Meditatio - I don't feel a need to level any of the other skills I have at Lv.1, and in CoA, I found myself spamming Heal frequently, or making more use of Asp+Heal on multiple scattered targets than Asp+HH on a tank.  So why not?

 

- Sacrament - I want all of my heals, and especially Reno, to be as large as they can be.  A 500 Reno feels bad compared to a 550 Reno on a target that's under consistent, heavy fire--it's tangible to me.

 

- Coluceo - I took points out of this to level Meditatio, since half the time, I'd be mashing Coluceo and a target would still die.  And then Coluceo would be on cooldown anyway.  It's still a good skill.  It's just the game that makes it unreliable.

 

- Assumptio - Coordinating Assumptio usage between two priests in a raid allows for more interesting tactics.  In the 1st-tier raids, at least.

 

- Sanctuary - Have never needed it to heal more.  And I only ever need to cancel it early if the boss decides to be an ass and use something like a ground-targeted AoE or tracking tornado immediately after I start Sanc.

 

Support tree

 

- Gloria - As I stated for Meditatio, in CoA I found myself spamming Heal frequently, or making more use of Asp+Heal on multiple scattered targets than needing to Asp+HH a tank.  Having Gloria Lv.3 felt significantly better than Gloria Lv.1 to that end.

 

- Recovery - I hardly ever used Recovery.  Ever ever.  I found the most use for it in Colosseum to unfreeze myself before Sorcs could use JT on me.  Being in good raid groups, I didn't need to use it in raids, aside from maybe once or twice if I had the time and positioning to try and unsilence another healer (which hardly happened either).

 

- Suffragium - I can't feel it.  And I can't stack Haste from crafted gear to try and make use of it because 1) I'm poor, 2) not all recipes to crafted sets per tier drop anyway, and 3) the Vigor from raid sets is enough to reduce the cooldown on Sanc enough to let you cover for someone else in a Sanc/Deluge rotation, sometimes.  The 3% Hit bonus from having 4/5 of a CoA set is pretty nice for Meditatio, too.

 

- Archangel - It's helped me more times than I can count.

 

 

If Angelus gave Defense Rate instead of Defense, I would move points out of Meditatio for it in a heartbeat.  Even better if it gave pure damage reduction unaffected by monster level, like Assumptio.