Balancing Monk Healing Elites

Hi folks.

When i looked at the 3 elites: Word of Healing, Healing Light, Healing Burst.
I saw those elite are very close to each other in kinds of casting time, reload time.

What I thought was to balance these elite's in such way that those 3 in particular would compete each other on the players bar based on conditional healing (if target is <50%, if target is enchanted, if there are nearby allies).
To compare these elites i made sure they all had 14 healing prayers, the maximum what is achievable in pvp monking.

Lets have a look at it.

Word of Healing:
Casting time: 3/4 s
Reload time: 3s
Energy: 5
Normal Healing: 94
Conditional: 109 (if target <50%)

Healing Burst:
Casting time: 3/4s
Reload time: 4s
Energy: 5
Normal Healing: 122
Conditional: +19 on target and adjecent of target

Healing Light:
Casting time: 1s
Reload time: 4s
Normal Healing: 96
Conditional: +3 energy back if target = enchanted.

Now suggest ill put those data in a graph, what would i get?
extension, 1st table.

What do I notice. I notice that Word of Healing and Healing Light are tremendous close to each other. Healing Burst is way behind because its used on a single target (for the sake of discussion). But it has an good normal healing.

What do i want to do?
Rebalance the skills a bit so they will compete each other. The choose of the player depends on his experise in using these skills.

Word of healing:
- Increase recharge time to 4 seconds. To even with the other 2 elites. Also Word of Healing is still the elite of Choose in RA, GvG and AB. This might help to tune it down. Or decrease the reload time of the other 2 elites to 3 seconds.

Healing light: Decrease casting time to 3/4 seconds.
- This elite it to interrupt sensitive. To make it slightly better and not interrupt sensitive for rangers (interrupt spammers)/mesmers.
- Decrease energy gain by 2. This is to avoid Patient spirit + healing light.
Those 2 in combination = 210 healing for 7 energy otherwise, what comes very close to Zealous Benedict with only 30 more healing.

Healing Burst:
Increase the conditional healing slightly to +25-30. To even out the efficiency a bit.

Now what would be the efficiency after the balance?
Data1 2nd table:

What is the result in this.
This will result in what the players will choose. Pro players will still pick Word of Healing. But Healing Light + Healing Burst is now very attractive for the casual players to pick the other 2 elites.

What is your opinion about this idea?

So you want to make skills more similar and remove any variety from the game?

As dumb as Word of Healing is, there's one very good advantage to having it being the premier healing elite. It stacks terribly; two WoHs are more likely to end up hitting each other and one of them missing out on the 50% bonus. Again patient spirit being so stupid powerful, is slightly checked by being an enchant that stacks poorly. (To the point that rangerspike dual-healer's boon backline only brings one copy.) This is opposed to the latter days of LoD where people started running dual-LoD backlines.

Of course WoH is so hideously powerful people still run woh flaggers and woh illusion on the same team, but if you adjusted that and patient slightly while still keeping them as the optimal option, is probably the best choice for competitive play.

With one strong and two weak skills to choose from, who would bother taking one of the weak ones? Where's the variety in that?

The skills all do their healing in different ways. Toning down WoH and bringing the other two to be a little bit stronger makes those weaker skills more useful, and it will really be a choice between three relatively equal skills instead of just having one that is obviously the best choice.

They unfortunately made WoH too powerful when it was changed. Simply in allowing it to be casted on yourself. Make it on "other ally" and it will be where it should be.

Healing light should have its cast time decreased in my opinion, otherwise it sits nicely where it is.

Healing Burst should have a Shockwave sort of effect in my opinion. X healing if in area, X if adjacent, X if near -- or whatever the 3 location based restrictions are. That would make HB extremely useful in PvE, in PvP it is still questionable since most builds you want to spread out so you aren't as susceptible to AoE effects.

Wow, this is a very interesting and enlightening post.

Prior I would have said that WoH should receive a small nerf and the other healing prayer elites a small buff so that they are about equal in power, but now I think it's best to simply nerf WoH a litte bit, but leave it as the most powerful healing elite.

Some skills serve PvE better and some serve PvP better. If you have not noticed, Guild Wars is severely divided between those two areas. The amount of healing for these skills are relatively similar, given the WoH can seem op but like it was mentioned it does not stack well given the conditional healing.

Each of these elite skills has a context that they work best in. However, as i am getting at, some skills are more for PvE whereas others are more likely seen in PvP. Some skills are better for large parties and others small parties. They are specialized is what i am trying to say.

Aside from the oh so wonderful healing hands and healer's covenant, all healing elites do exactly the same thing.

Furthermore all healing skill do exactly the same thing: push bars up. As long as they are doing the exact same thing then the game will always gravitate towards whichever one does it most effectively. As long as healing skills just heal (no matter the 'conditional' you put on the healing), the game will gravitate towards the most efficient.

Hi, today while playing monk i really realized that there's noway of playing anything else in arenas than woh or zb with a big advantage for woh. And how long will survive a Mo/E, Mo/Me? I think the pvp meta has become really boring. We'd need so boost for a lot of skills which're used nowhere in the game...
Tell me what you think of those modifications.

One of the skill who'd need the most a boost is Blessed Light, its cost is quite horrible to play whereas it could be a really nice skill. A good Change would be:

Cost:10, Cast:3/4 Recast:3
Elite spell. Heals target ally for 10...140 and removes 1 Condition and 1 Hex. If a condition was removed you gain 2 energy, if an hex was removed, you gain 3 energy.
That would be a ZB like skill who'd be useful against hex/condition spam

Alternative:
Cost: 5, Cast:3/4 Recast:3
Elite spell. Heals target ally for 10...140 and removes one Condition and one Hex. If a condition was removed you lose 2 energy, if an hex was removed, you lose 3 energy.
That'd become a skill who'd make you pay only what you use

Another skill that would be interesting to play is healing burst, that needs a boost.
Cost: 5 Cast: 3/4 Recast:3
Healing Burst Elite Spell. Heals for 5...81...100. Also heals all party members for 5...41...50 in the area of your target. That'd make this skill useful for a nice amount of non conditional healing + some extra zone healing.

Healing light is to change as well, i think that should be more spamable or we'd gain more energy. A big deal would be like that, keeping the 1 sec cast which makes it easy to rupt

Cost: 5 Cast:1 sec Recast:2 secs

Elite Spell. Heals for 40...88...100. You gain 1...4...6 Energy if target ally is enchanted. That'd make the skill interesting because for the moment it's quite useless.

Boon Signet has been nicely boosted but it's too long to recast so I'd reduce recast to 5 secs.

Cost: 10 Cast:1 sec, Recast:20
Air of Enchantment Elite Enchantment Spell. (6...20...25 seconds.) Protective prayers enchantments cast on allies cost 5 less Energy (minimum 1 Energy).
That'd make this skill useful for prots and would introduce some skills like protector guardian who're for the moment unused and the caster wxould be vulnerable to disenchantment and keeps it easy to interrupt


Cost:5 Cast:1/4 Recast:20
Aura of Faith: Elite Enchantment Spell. (8...13...18 seconds.) All party members are healed 50% more by your protective prayers. Would work like a prot HB.


Cost:5 Cast:1/4 Recast:10
Mark of Protection (PvP): Elite Enchantment Spell. (1..3..4 seconds.) Each time target ally takes damages, it's reduced by 5...20...25. Final effect: target ally is healed by 25...70...80 and loses 1 hex and 1condition.


Defender's Zeal Elite Hex Spell. (5...21...25 seconds.) You gain 3 Energy whenever target foe hits with an attack or cast a spell on your allies.

Scribe's Insight Elite Enchantment Spell. (10...30...35 seconds.) All signets activate and recast 33% faster and whenever you use one an ally, it's healed by 20...50...55 and you gain 3 energy.

Tell me your reactions about those modifications who'd make the current meta funnier in arenas without really affecting other pvp games.

While I do agree that most of the mentioned skills need a change, the problem withHealing is - it's only Healing, all skills do same thing, except some have a little bit different effects.

Your version of Aura of Faith is quite useless, since it's "by YOUR protective spells", and protection prayers don't heal, they prot (duh).

Hi Nerf Me Haha, at first thanks for have answered so fast.
As you said, protective prayers are meant to prot and not to heal but i'm talking about arenas and skills who're not used anywhere for the moment. You cant hold in arenas without healing your allies. That's why my version of aura of faith whould be great cause your dismiss condition whould heal by ~100 +divine and that'd make ur reversal heal more than the taken dmgs. I think that's better that ur skills heal more than having a 10 nrj zb with a 4 secs recast.
And about my "little" changes, in my point of view there's no need to totally change those skills cause their main goal is fine but there're too much confines for the moment so that they're useful for the moment.
For example boon signet is a great skill but 8 secs is too long, dunno if you've tried but for the moment that's impossible to hold a long battle cause your great heal is too long to come.
See ya

Alot of these changes actually aren't bad. I'd be up to try them out in RA with the functionality that you guys listed

I think its a good idea and the listed skills are decent they way you modded them

The changes appear pretty thought through as opposed to most random suggestions.
Whether they'd potentially have an effect on other modes I'm more sceptic off.

Moving to Sardelac

Except that's really not true at all. Healing hands isn't like WoH at all. Covenant isn't either, and lod is way different. Glimmer would be chosen for completely different reasons than efficiency as well. Now admittedly they're terrible, but they're not at all the same, and that is the point suggesting buffs to other healing skills. Buff glimmer, e.g., by 20 and it becomes a viable alternative to WoH because it really cannot be interruptable. But sometimes people will choose WoH for the efficiency. Buff it by 30 and people will use it all the time despite it being less efficient.

Hello,
I'm sorry, I didn't know Saderlac because I'm new in GW Guru

I'm not sure why people want a variety in healing elites as the line as a whole is a one trick pony.

Since it's pretty much all the same subject,

Merged.

hurf durf that is exactly what I said, I started with the exceptions and the exceptions are both pretty terrible skills.

Other than that all other healing elites push bars up. BUT LOD IS DIFFERENT !!!!!!1 No it pushes bars, it is exactly the same. Whichever healing elite is the most effective at pushing bars is the only healing elite that will see play. It doesn't matter if it heals all targets, one target, the top half of the party order, or what, the most effective healing elite is the only one that will ever see play.

So I guess Reversal of Fortune doesn't heal? Or Draw Conditions, Extinguish, Life Sheath, Mark of Protection, Mend Ailment, Mend Condition, or ... I could go on.

There is no such thing as variety possible in Healing Prayers because it is by default a redbar line. A different picture =/= a different playstyle, which is all that actually matters.

has any1 else has had a look on my updates for monk skills?

The trouble with Healing Elites is that, though it's quite clear what they are trying to do to differ from WoH, it is not enough...

Balance WoH making WoH functionally Orison of Healing unconditionally, while keeping it's potency while your target is below 50%. Though the trouble is that still is that people favor protting a target to prevent damage, and healing when they get low enough to trigger WoH's healing. While not a bad tactic, the trouble is it's the ONLY tactic these days, because, while healing prayers is only red-bar-up skills, Protection also has the ability to heal pretty well considering how you mold your build.

Healing Burst is a flawed skill. Though good on paper, the conditional heal isn't really worth it to the point where it makes or breaks deciding wether to take the skill or not. It's just a sub-par side effect of a heal that will always be a worse choice than WoH. Soo, Functionality change. I would either shake things up and make it a reverse Shockwave, or hell, since Prot has an elite like Zealous Benediction, give Healing Burst a prot-like effect. something like "For two seconds, target ally takes 5...41...50% less damage. When Healing Burst ends, ally is healed for 5...105...130". Rough idea, honestly, but the gist is an elite Patient Spirit with a strong prot-like effect.

Healing Light, while good, is a joke while Soothing Memories exists. It's essentially the same skill, but Healing Light is Elite. Energy gain is ok, but I'd like to see other things on an elite Healing skill.

Glimmer of Light, while an awesome idea and spot heal, is definitely outshined by WoH in most cases. Simple solution is to up the recharge to 2 seconds, and raise the healing accordingly. No one should need to spam this skill on a one second recharge, so few people will miss the upped recharge, but everyone can appreciate it doing about a 120-140 heal at it's highest levels.

I'd like to see skills like Heal Other be a bit more useful. Monks can't generally handle a 10 energy healing skills. I'm looking at Karei's/Heal Area, Healing Ring, Healing Ribbon. I'd like to see a bit more slack given, if not by changing the skills themselves, by adding some sort of synergy among other skills to make it more useful.

The main trouble I see overall, however, is that although prot skills can heal, healing skills can't prot. not saying they're supposed to, either.

I use this skill, a LOT on my monk. It is apart of my main healing build, for any PvE in Normal Mode and Hard Mode, and low end PvP such as Alliance Battles and FA or JQ. It is my favorite skill because of its spamability. I can quickly cover everyone's health if they start to drop all at once. I do not rely on just this skill of course, but it is my primary heal in a tight situation.

I'm just saying, the general consensus in PvE seems to be prot over heals when above 50% health. Some good prioritizing and well placed prots, and WoH will outshine GoL. I do agree that I indeed love GoL as well, but throwing some prots, and using WoH is generally more energy-safe and efficient, A two second recharge isn't going to kill the spam-ability of the skill, honestly.

The whole point of GoL is to use the Inspiration line (Channeling, Power Drain, etc.) from mesmers to gain energy and spam it like crazy. The only thing though is that you'd require a backline for utility and support to help you with pressure reduction like WoW, their prots, etc... so that you don't get raped. In other words, rolling a Mo/Me GoL with Channeling, power drain, etc. in a 4v4 setting, especially in Random Arenas, is like asking for a death wish! You need to have your own block and anti-kd in order to survive, otherwise you're doomed if your 1 second cast Guardian gets disabled (which is fairly easy and common to happen).

That's not the -point- of the skill, that's just it's synergies.

the point of the skill is a very quick casting, fast recharging kill. In PvP it's pretty much Diversion-fodder I'd assume (since I don't play PvP), in PvE it's ok, but WoH trumps it in every way.