Rebalanced heals and froob doctors

[Saavick]

With the 18.7 patch, the three highest non-SL heals for doctors had their requirements and healing output changed. While I understand froobs are not the main consideration for the rebalance, I still would like to describe the effects and make a suggestion that would allow froobs to benefit from the changes as well. With limited or no impact on non-froobs, I hope it won't be boo'd away

One of the most important differences in equipment between froobs and non-froobs, is the use of implants instead of symbiants. Support symbiants buff every nanoskill in every available slot, while with implants you have to choose one out of several clusters that occupy the same spot.
In practice this means that doctors don't end up with equal amounts of BioMet and MatMet. The old nano's required more BioMet than MatMet to account for this.

As an example, this is the (pre-rebalance) setup of my level 200 solitus doctor: http://auno.org/ao/equip.php?saveid=201769. With this setup I could selfcast all the important nano's, with the exception of UBT. It results in the following nanoskills:

• BM: 888
• MM: 815
• PM: 756
• SI: 702
• MC: 824
• TS: 818

After the changes from the 18.7 patch, I can no longer chaincast Complete Healing and I don't have the skills to cast the updated heals, so my healing power decreased significantly.
The updated heals seem intended to compensate for this loss, but their requirements are based on wearing symbiants.
To use Emergency Medical Response (850 BM/MM), I implanted shiny MatMet instead of Time&Space, whichs leaves me unable to selfcast Superior Omni-Med Enhancement. Compared to chaincasting CH, my healing power is still weak, but in most situations it's acceptable. By going all out on nanoskills with a reanimator robe, buffing weapons and towers, I could use Recuperative Respite (950 BM/MM), which appears to be roughly equal to my old healing power, but at the cost of a lot of AC, HP and damage.

I would like to suggest to change the requirements of the rebalanced heals to be in line with the old heals, so that they require less MatMet than BioMet. The original Lifegiving Elixir had a BM/MM ratio of 1.10. Applying this to the new heals would give requirements of 850/773, 950/864 and 1050/955. Doctors with symbiants would probably not be affected much by this. Doctors with implants would gain some viable options to be about as good as they used to be when selfbuffed, or better with mochams.

Please share your thoughts

[Legendfluf]

They should make two requirements for nanos: One that checks if you have expansions or have no expansions. If you have no expansions, it would be be one set of skills whereas those who are paid would have higher requirements.
Most likely something of this caliber would take a long time to implement, as most things (I would say just start with nanos) would need it as this community would whine and complain so much about it, because only the paid characters and pvpers *should* only be the people that need these changes they say.

[Odeleder]

Discriminating paid chars by giving them different requirements seems like a suicidal idea at best.
Readjusting these three doc heals to the same nanoskill ratio as the other ones seems like a good idea however and I fully support it!

[Legendfluf]

Discriminating paid chars by giving them different requirements seems like a suicidal idea at best.

They already do it with MP pets: https://aoitems.com/item/125746/calling-of-belamorte/
Have paid characters with perks? Get better stuff with these froob items.

[Cratertina]

I had same problem on my froobl33t doc. Then I equiped miys nano sleeve and solved it, to get 850 mm selfed.

Arguably all these changes make froob game more fun, heals are infact better than before, even if you cannot cast top one.... And if you give up ubt you can cast 950 one.. 1050 with Mochams.

So, have fun, tweak your setup... As always sacrifice to reach your prefered goal.

[Tsuniko]

I don't like this whole same nanoskills thing either, I know it's trying to encourage people into SL but it screws over froobs too much

[drainbamage]

By going all out on nanoskills with a reanimator robe, buffing weapons and towers, I could use Recuperative Respite (950 BM/MM), which appears to be roughly equal to my old healing power, but at the cost of a lot of AC, HP and damage.

I don't see the problem.

[Cratertina]

Also consider one thing... UBT now lands everywhere... So doc needs less healing power.

[Saavick]

I had same problem on my froobl33t doc. Then I equiped miys nano sleeve and solved it, to get 850 mm selfed.

Arguably all these changes make froob game more fun, heals are infact better than before, even if you cannot cast top one.... And if you give up ubt you can cast 950 one.. 1050 with Mochams.

So, have fun, tweak your setup... As always sacrifice to reach your prefered goal.

I agree with you that it's a good thing to have to make sacrifices for your preferred setup. I like having different options and I think it's perfectly reasonable that you can't use the best heals unless you build your equipment around them.

However, before the rebalance I could chaincast Complete Healing and Lifegiving Elixir and get a certain amount of healing. Most raid encounters you can do as a froob, e.g. Mercenaries, Hollow Island, Dust Brigade generals, are designed to be healed by multiple doctors chaincasting CH.
Now I can only cast CH once every 30s and have to use Deep Tissue Repair, which heals 97.9% of what the old LE did, and significantly less than CH. I feel that choosing to disregard the changed heals is not a viable option and that these changes do not give us more choice, but force us into a nanoskill buffing setup. I think it's also important to emphasize that my experience is with a level 200 solitus; an atrox or a level 160 would have even less of a choice.

Doctors with symbiants can use Recuperative Respite without changes to their equipment. This is not as good as chaincasting CH, but it's better than the old Lifegiving Elixir and you can cast CH inbetween cooldowns, so I think it's a workable compromise.
It appears to me as if Recuperative Respite was intended as compensation for the loss of the old heals, but the effect on froobs was not considered when deciding on the requirements. This seems more plausible than an intended balance change to drastically reduce the healing power of froobs alone.

My suggestion would allow froob doctors to choose a tanking build such as mine with decent healing, a damage-oriented build with decent healing, or a nanoskill buffing setup for better healing. Doctors with symbiants would cast these heals at the same level as they do now, allowing them all the choice they enjoy now, without affecting their healing power.

[Ophiuchus]

There's a reason my 200 froob doc lies in pieces and ignored. Saavick has just summed it up.

Froob encounter design aimed at chained CHs have not been touched now CH can't be chained. Huge nerf to froob doc healing throughput. It's not even the case that you can get back to your old healing throughput with more sacrifices. You can sacrifice everything and still not be back to where you were. That is the problem.

[Lazy]

if froobs want to heal as well as paid players they can pay for expansions.

[Saavick]

if froobs want to heal as well as paid players they can pay for expansions.

All I'm asking for is to heal as well as a doctor in 2002, or as well as I could before the rebalance. Froob content is balanced around this amount of healing.

[Vinkera]

Obviously adjusting things around froobs doesn't get the most attention.

However, I wondered about those new heal reqs and how they would affect froobs. I don't think there's any good reason froob docs shouldn't have near as makes no difference the same healing capability as before, with the same setup as before. I'd say they should get a little tweak if you can't cast LE in a nanoskills setup, even.

[Ophiuchus]

if froobs want to heal as well as paid players they can pay for expansions.

That's not what anyone is saying at all, and you know that.

Froob docs not being able to do what froobs docs used to be able to do.

[Dollcet]

My 2 Cents :

Owner of a 186 Solitus Doctor with Phats like GPH & Azure . Also Owner of a 220 Doc and a 200 Sec7 Twink-Doc.

That the requirments had to get higher isnt the Main Problem , that they got upped to even BM/MM Requirements is a major Mistake.

Like Saavik allready said a uneven BM/MM would be better (looking at my 220 Docs Equip i see more BM than MM there too ! ) , having the need to Implant MM in Chest kills the Option to use Psychic in that Location for better Nanodelta.

Yes Froobdocs can selfcast the Heals but if you wanna cast them before 200 and Chaincast them you need Equip thats out of reach for a genuine New Player / only obtainable with seasonal Events / if you know a good handfull of Paid Players that help you Raid / if you buy from Multibox Lootsellers and thus finance the Cancer that kills AO .

Besides the Cast-Requirements i really dont like how much Nano gets used now , i recently was lucky enough to get invited to Biodomes ( Neutral Wolf Brigade raided with Paids ) and backuphealed..... with 47% NCR & PNH & Stims my Nano wasnt looking good after 5 Minutes.

[Lazy]

That's not what anyone is saying at all, and you know that.

well you know what they say, neverr let the facts get in the way of trolling

[Dustfly]

well you know what they say, neverr let the facts get in the way of trolling

Thanks for your input, Lazy. You always provided great insight to froob related topics.


Maybe, to actually dump some additional facts here: Team heals. Team Health Plan, which got added actually later, requires 874 BM and 787 MM. Conglomerate Health Plan, the orginal top RK doc team heal, requires 856 BM and 772 MM. Both heals need more BM than EMR, but significantly less MM. If you look at Saavick's nanoskills, this fits perfectly into the setup. Changing EMR to 850 BM, and MM close to what CHP needs would fix a good deal of issues with froob docs already.

I could also start rambling about Rapid Palsy being moved to LE VP store, a decision I just fail at to comprehend. Especially in froob doc context this is just f*cked up. As far as I know this is the only nano that you actually *require* to get (out of all professions); all the others are nice additions, but optional. But, well, lets do one thing after another, i.e. focus on these SL centric BM==MM reqs on the changed top RK heals.

[Psikie]

All I'm asking for is to heal as well as a doctor in 2002, or as well as I could before the rebalance. Froob content is balanced around this amount of healing.

I have no problem with this suggestion, and cant see how it is a bad idea. It literally has zero effect on paid players experience with symbs. I dont see any reason to make life more difficult on froobs. +1

Thanks for your input, Lazy. You always provided great insight to froob related topics.

Lazy also has great insight on neutrals as well, very enlightened.

[Lazy]

Lazy also has great insight on neutrals as well, very enlightened.

and don't get me started on froob neutrals!

[Psikie]

and don't get me started on froob neutrals!

I actually did laugh out loud at that~