Proposed Changes for 18.7 for MA's

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Ok guys, I'll say it again because it's clear nobody is thinking about the MOST obvious:

If healing/nanocost/whatever is screwed while NOT IN ZAZEN then MA's are screwed. Period, end of story.

Nobody cares about whether Zazen works or doesn't work - for now, we JUST want to get MA's working.

You , I, or anyone else can not POSSIBLY think that MA's will function with a heal that drains your nanopool in 2 casts.

WTF people. Get with it.

If you can't play MA as a DPS prof, then every one of the 10000 MA's that have been rolled to date have just been invalidated, because everyone who rolled MA's didn't effing roll them because they wanted the slowest DPS in the history of mankind. They rolled them because they want to hit aliens with crits that make the ground shiver.

But if you can't play your MA because you can't survive 2 aliens, then WE ARE SCREWED.

[Chewy1]

Ok guys, I'll say it again because it's clear nobody is thinking about the MOST obvious:

If healing/nanocost/whatever is screwed while NOT IN ZAZEN then MA's are screwed. Period, end of story.

Nobody cares about whether Zazen works or doesn't work - for now, we JUST want to get MA's working.

You , I, or anyone else can not POSSIBLY think that MA's will function with a heal that drains your nanopool in 2 casts.

WTF people. Get with it.

If you can't play MA as a DPS prof, then every one of the 10000 MA's that have been rolled to date have just been invalidated, because everyone who rolled MA's didn't effing roll them because they wanted the slowest DPS in the history of mankind. They rolled them because they want to hit aliens with crits that make the ground shiver.

But if you can't play your MA because you can't survive 2 aliens, then WE ARE SCREWED.

BUMP! I don't care about zazen. Long as I can still play my MANY MA's the same way.

[Thor84]

Agreed. The nano cost is too high. I have a paid ma, I couldn't imagine having this high of nano cost on a froob. Like McKnuckle said, it would kill the MA class.

[Le-Quack]

great support for 220 ma, but nobady cares for the 2nd largest playergroup tl 5 that much obviously. tl 5 will be killed anyways it seems like to funcom. they made so many nerfs and some wont feel a thing and totaly butcher the nerfed ones like a enf, they heal a little less on mongo i heard but thats about it, their dmg and evrything is the same

[McKnuckleSamwich]

great support for 220 ma, but nobady cares for the 2nd largest playergroup tl 5 that much obviously. tl 5 will be killed anyways it seems like to funcom. they made so many nerfs and some wont feel a thing and totaly butcher the nerfed ones like a enf, they heal a little less on mongo i heard but thats about it, their dmg and evrything is the same

making broad criticism while not offering solutions won't win you any friends.

I've already offered the obvious fix:

1. make all MA heals cost the same as (or slightly more) than they do on live
2. reverse the sign on zazen cost to make heals cost MORE while in zazen.

small heals <--> small cost
big heals <-->big cost
huge heals with hots <-->huge cost

[Gimpeline]

There is a third solution.
Drop the idea with zazen. No one I know rolled an MA to play a second rate doc.
No evades, no crits, no damage. is this what MAs signed up to?

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Actually, zazen works quite well - as long as what you want to do is heal like a mother*cker.

Seriously - the evades debuff, the lack of crits/damage... ya sure they are a bit annoying...

But on test I went to inferno, went straight to creepy spider, pulled about 8-9 adds, and just sat there and tanked all of them while slowly whittling down creepy HP.

I could never do that on live. I pull 2-3 adds and things get a bit crazy, especially if the fight lasts longer than ES. In this case I didn't even pop ES.

While it "works" now... it's not great. There's issues that need to be dealt with.

* MA heals have ridiculous nanocost (at endgame it's possible to solo for a little while but you don't have any nano for fist buffs or MA attacks, and you're ALWAYS counting down until first aid pops.)

* at mid levels MA heals aren't worth casting.

* at low - mid levels... basically MA's pay 5-8 x more PER HEAL than advy/trader/doc - and that basically equates to MA's becoming unable to play/level/solo/function

* Zazen debuffs are too severe - personally I think -50% crit, is probably sufficient, and lose the add dmg.

* Matrix of Ka has 500 higher nanoskill reqs tan the next highest heal (soul of Rubi-ka is 1370 now, and matrix of ka has 1870 ??????????????) No reason for this, and it doesn't work, nobody can cast these.

* the most obvious problem is the cost of heals out of zazn vs cost of heals IN zazen. These need to be reversed.

Once these minor /major issues are sorted I think it'll be a great, and highly utilitarian adjustment for MA's.

[Soliartist]

If Zazen had an off/def version as well as a balanced stance then maybe it'd be a lot more useful than it currently is.

Yow Mista, does the healing eff. provided by Zazen also affect healing items 'n perks?
If not, it should also affect these, as it already affects our perk dmgs because of add. dmg decrease.
OR Zazen should lower our MA attacks/perks recharge time.

The nanoskills requirements are ridiculous when it comes to MoK and I totally fail to see how it would make sense for us to have such penalties regarding our last (and probably sole TL7 or rather 215+ viable) healing. Not even talking about TL5 MAs, they're so gonna suffer from that change!

[McKnuckleSamwich]

TL1/2/3/4/5 MA's with the current proposed changes are completely screwed for heal cost.

As for heal eff affecting perks etc, yes they do. Disharmony heals for about 650.

It's very good self healing and nice for tanking tonnes of dmg but it's kinda unusable since an MA can't do enough damage to warrant all that healing (agg wise) and you'd never use Zazen to solo because damage wise you lose about 60% of your DPS; and you can't kill anyone in PVP in Zazen so there's little reason to use it in other than a support role.

I'm not sure what the appropriate fixes are for this, but it seems the obvious thing would be to make a couple of the MA perk heals into team heals either all the time or in zazen.

[Kazeran]

Not going to lie, jealous of the heal+hot combo you guys got with Zezan.

For the nano skill cost of MoK I agree that its much to high, Its about a 3.5k heal difference for 500 more skills. I don't know about MA nano skills but 1.5k seems much more reasonable, 1550 max.

The best fix for this would be to restore the nano cost back to the original and just have zazen increase the cost of healing. Else Zazen would need a separate heal line for itself with increased nano cost and the -nano cost mod left alone. Anything else seems to break MAs of every other title level.

The only other option I could possibly see is by FC making MAs keep a -nano cost buff from MPs or NTs running constant, which is unreasonable in itself and even more so if they dont drastically reduce the NCU cost. Its just not a good alternative.

As for Zezan itself its seems intended to replace a doc or support other healing classes. Its use in raids should be fine as nano reduction and regain tools will always be there for you. Possibly the same for a single team environment depending on future changes. It seems however that most people want to use it as a solo tool to increase healing with minimal hit to DPS.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Not going to lie, jealous of the heal+hot combo you guys got with Zezan.

For the nano skill cost of MoK I agree that its much to high, Its about a 3.5k heal difference for 500 more skills. I don't know about MA nano skills but 1.5k seems much more reasonable, 1550 max.

The best fix for this would be to restore the nano cost back to the original and just have zazen increase the cost of healing. Else Zazen would need a separate heal line for itself with increased nano cost and the -nano cost mod left alone. Anything else seems to break MAs of every other title level.

The only other option I could possibly see is by FC making MAs keep a -nano cost buff from MPs or NTs running constant, which is unreasonable in itself and even more so if they dont drastically reduce the NCU cost. Its just not a good alternative.

As for Zezan itself its seems intended to replace a doc or support other healing classes. Its use in raids should be fine as nano reduction and regain tools will always be there for you. Possibly the same for a single team environment depending on future changes. It seems however that most people want to use it as a solo tool to increase healing with minimal hit to DPS.

Precisely.

Zazen is meant to be played in a pure support setting. In a group setting, there will be more nano regain available, more nanocost available.

But based on HP per nano point cost while not in zazen it doesn't work currently.

/agree about MoK nanoskill requirement. 1500-1550 is totally reasonable.

[Le-Quack]

the new patch will kill tl 5 ma's, they arent that well built like a tl 7. i dont like zazen at all for that matter so why not ask to get it removed if its going to work like they patched it on testlive?
i think its wrong to only discuss your tl 7 ma's and forget the 2nd largest playergroup tl 5.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

the new patch will kill tl 5 ma's, they arent that well built like a tl 7. i dont like zazen at all for that matter so why not ask to get it removed if its going to work like they patched it on testlive?
i think its wrong to only discuss your tl 7 ma's and forget the 2nd largest playergroup tl 5.

My testing to date includes a 150 MA set up for S10 farming, and a 220 endgame MA.

most of the specific faulting I see with the changes are a direct result of my experience with 150 MA's.

Please read the posts, but just whining about stuff without reading the thread history is stupid.

The reason Zazen was introduced is because the ENTIRE community has been asking, for YEARS, to reduce the dependency on the pillars of AO: doc/enf/crat.

MA's are, perhaps not the ideal second doctor, but it opens a vast new support role for us.

The only problem, is not quite perfectly balanced implementation. It's not rocket science, zazen isn't the issue. The issue is the pre-zazen condition of ramping up the nanocost of MA heals while simulataneously reducing nano recharge.

The relevant question is this:

Is the reduction in nano recharge enough to balance multiplying the cost of healing by 4.5 times?

The obvious and resounding answer is no. So THAT is what needs balancing.

It has nothing to do with zazen at this point.

[Dollcet]

I know a thing or two about PvM-MA having a 220 MA and a 150 MA and this tremendous increase in Nanocost like it is proposed now is going to effectively kill any Fun playing the MA-Profession .
How are new MA supposed to level up without permanent PNH+Web+Lend Nano ?
Why should anyone group us as Healers if there are Docs and Advies availible that still can do the Job better and also make more Dmg than a MA in "Zazen Stance" ?

But I see one way to fix the whole Issue in a for both Sides satisfactionary Way :

- Split the Nanos into two : Old Version which still is gonna work/cost and look like allways + the Zazen Version with a big bright Z in the Icon , using those places the MA in Zazen for 2 Minutes
- MA Players can make seperate Hotbars : Regular Play with the old Nanos + Healer with the Zazen Nanos

[Chewy1]

I know a thing or two about PvM-MA having a 220 MA and a 150 MA and this tremendous increase in Nanocost like it is proposed now is going to effectively kill any Fun playing the MA-Profession .
How are new MA supposed to level up without permanent PNH+Web+Lend Nano ?
Why should anyone group us as Healers if there are Docs and Advies availible that still can do the Job better and also make more Dmg than a MA in "Zazen Stance" ?

But I see one way to fix the whole Issue in a for both Sides satisfactionary Way :

- Split the Nanos into two : Old Version which still is gonna work/cost and look like allways + the Zazen Version with a big bright Z in the Icon , using those places the MA in Zazen for 2 Minutes
- MA Players can make seperate Hotbars : Regular Play with the old Nanos + Healer with the Zazen Nanos

Bump for this! good idea

[McKnuckleSamwich]

too much work.

My idea accomplishes the same thing with about 1/10 the effort.

You got to realise that FC has very little work effort to be allocated. Therefore, the simplest, most robust method to fixing something will have the greatest chance to get implemented.

My idea requires only changing one number, whereas this idea requires rebuilding ALL MA heals.

[Dollcet]

I kindly disagree about "too much work " , if i am not mistaken its like this :

-Keep all old heals as they are
-Renumber the 18.7 Heals and add a brightyellow Z to the Icon , set additional Effect of triggering "Zazen" ( after first Time just Copy&Paste )
-Change Duration on "Zazen " to 2 Minutes and have the Nanodrain trigger 30 sec AFTER "Zazen" has run out .


If Funcom really cares for "how much work " ..... then please keep all Heals on old Standart and gently pour "Zazen+higher Nanocosts " down the Drain .......

[McKnuckleSamwich]

ya, fine, same thing. As long as someone from FC chooses either idea, as long as regular MA heals have the same cost as they did prior ... I'll be happy. The rest is just details.

[Le-Quack]

s10 for farming wth?
go test for pvp and duels.
this game is ment for pvp and not farm and grind, so why the hell you test for sector10?
zazen is atleast useable for tl 7 pvp while in tl 5 we have absolut no chanse to do dmg with it on.
also pre zazen we are indeed useless since heals will pwn nanopool.

so i say it agein, i dont want zazen and the nanochanges for ma. but you keep argue that we ned to keep it becose it is a change. well who cares if the change makes us worse?

and i think its 100 times easyer to tell dev team to not give us anything at all and let us remain how we are than saying hey we want this changed and this changed, becose it will never happen becose evryone has opinions.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Lequack, you drive me nuts but I'll try to say this in a way that even you can understand:


You said: "you didn't test on TL5"

I said: "Yes I tested on TL5"

You said: "you didn't test it right"

I say: "If you cast heal 2x standing still, or 2x in PVP, or 2x while killing mob x, it doesn't effing matter, because nanocost doesn't change according to venue. if 2 heal casts drain your nanopool while fighting aliens, 2 heal casts will drain your nanopool fighting in PVP. IT DOESN'T MATTER. It's broken either way"

I'll say it again because I feel like you don't listen: Zazen is good. Period. The heal cost adjustment is NOT GOOD. Period.

If FC can adjust the cost of heals in Testlive, MA's will be sorted. PERIOD.