[Discussion] Healpets and how to make them useful.

[Dancingrage]

This thread is here to discuss and bring out ideas to make our healpets better. From simple things like having the heal be insta-cast to more exotic ideas, this is the thread to put it out. This thread, the Utility Pet thread and the Attack Pet thread will be worked into the Wishlist once I feel I have enough feedback on what the player base wants.

This thread is, of course, for the healpet line. With the developers looking to split the Utility Pet line, and the players doing some heavy thinking along the same lines on the Attack Pet line, it only serves as right to do the same for the healpet.

My concern is that we as a player base have a lot of hope riding on the 'Percentage bonus heal' idea and if that doesn't fly with FC, then we're out of ideas, and I'd like to have a few extra aces in the hole for ideas to present to FC if they decide to put the kibosh on the first one we came up with.

So I'd like to see id

[Klod9003]

For starters, I would be more then happy with a pet that can actually stick with me when I'm running around (AoE heal + casting while running would probably do the trick), a pet that can actually have the same chance to counter nanos like I do and pet that can't be killed/disabled as easily as it can be now.

[Xtremtech]

If the static + %age heal doesn't get accepted by FC, I think it would be nice to see an "if target = attack pet" condition added to the heal nanos, with a larger heal for the pet. Something like double the normal heal when healing an attack pet maybe? I think it should be combined with an increase to the normal base heal too, as MPs have lost enormously in healing compared to other professions since SL was introduced.

This would at least address the difficulty with healing pets with very large HP - especially as pet defences are improved (and taunts are added?) and the pets may be used more to take aggro.

On a more general note, I'd like to see the design template for the MP built to make them the best Single-Target healer after Docs, in combination with our damage debuffs.

X

[Dancingrage]

I concur, at the very least we will need to have a tag on our healpet heals from this point forward stating "If target = Pet" to give the healpets a healing boost when healing our pets, and especially our attack pet. Unlike doctors and other healing profs, our only method to healing our pets (aside from Healthy Manifestation which probably would be just as good as a new healpet) is to put 'em on /follow while praying the HD won't be OD'd by the incoming damage (since our pets currently don't really evade anything in pvm)

Another thought I had, and this is pretty dependent on coding, is to have a secondary line of healpets that would be focused on healing the team, probably with either AOE heals for friendlies in the area (would be not unlike a crat aura in that regard, popping out an AOE heal every so often regardless of damage incurred.) While it wouldn't give as much healing per stroke as the primary heal pet, it would be nice to add to our perk healing (and would stack with MPs in team/raid for a nice little healing setup, possibly) which is looking pretty sunny in the rebalancing.

[Metafly7]

About the rendering the pet unable to heal...

It would be good if the pet would atleast attack the target its healing so that the for instance Advy heal wouldnt land as easily as it does now. Or even fix that nano so they cant loose aggro for a split second to be able to land the mezz/calm.

As for the healpet a similar idea as the Malpractise nano would be fun;

It would be a HoT, that with each next heal becomes larger, with a max of up to 4 maybe 5 heals, that HoT would heal next to the normal heal that specific healpet would be doing.
Problem with it going that way would be that a second healpet would again only heal the normal heal next to the already excisting heal + HoT.

Another idea would be similar to what they already plan (DtP) but with a heal it lands, it also lands a defence nano that makes the healpet take a part of the damage from the person its healing untill its for instance 50% hp at which point that nano goes poof. Also the nano would only last like 4 seconds, so there is a little space between heals where damage would land on target to full extent.

[Starrfyre]

I wouldn't mind seeing a Short HoT added, much like the fixer one, however it lasts the entire duration the pet is bouncing about, that way when the pet casts the next one it simply continues the healing , just refreshing it. The result would be a sustained healing amount that could be based on % of health, or just a simple number of healing/second.

% based would solve the pet HP problem, and even help with large HP targets such as Enforcers with their big ess on, making that heal pet look a lot better in the main tank's eyes, not to mention a sort of "growth" with your character since its only natural that your health is increasing with your progress. I also remember a small complaint about how the heal pet will trigger with the most insignificant damage dealt, ie if someone hit the poor MP with a whopping 5 damage, that's an entire cast wasted. No phun thar.

I don't know how OP that could become in the long run but it sure sounds pleasant in my head in the direction of making MP's more group friendly and self sufficient in a few aspects.

[gimpmasta]

One idea that comes to mind with the %health healing is that you could add a nano cost the better the heal is. So if it heals the mp after said 5 whole dmg was done it will use hardly any nano, but when it's healing an enforcer with high hp the nano will get used up faster. This way the pet would not be too overpowered, but could still provide backup healing if, for exampe, the doc dies. I'm not opposed to there being some sort of nano/perk that recharges the pets nano to some degree, but I do think that being able to give an enfo a more powerful heal than the current top advy heal (depending on the scaling...morty does like 1.2k atm iirc) would be a bit overpowered, especially without drawbacks.

[Dancingrage]

@Starrfyre and Gimpmasta: I do like the % heal concept but I'd also like alternative solutions to it because as Gimpmasta pointed out, that would be a lot of healing you'd be dumping on a high HP target (such as an enforcer), while I like it personally, I'd like other options around in the event FC decides that having 1.2k-1.6k+10% of target's HP is too OP to put into play, we'll need other options for suggestions.

@Gimpmasta: At Soothing Spirits 10, the healpet nano costs all of 1 nano to execute, versus 47 for Soothing Spirits untrained. You'd have to pump the nanocost by the hundreds of percent in order to see even a bump in the SS10 nano, say, 4700% just to get to the nanocost the untrained healpet enjoys (which is low enough to perma-spam it's heal for the whole 2 hours it's in existence, if it's nanodelta is anything like it's healdelta out of fight) As to tweaking the nano so it'll cost more for more healing, I'm ok with it but won't address the 'wasted healing tick' problem, I think...it'll be hard to say how to work around that when Morti is effectively a walking HoT.

[gimpmasta]

Yea given the way pets are done I imagine it would take quite a bit of coding anyway to do that...I personally think the Soothing Spirits is a good direction to take in that area. The pet becomes more effective with more perks trained in it, and you need higher levels to get more perks. I also like the use of creation weapons to augment the pets' abilities, but it just appears that at the moment neither really helps to a large enough extent. Of course having the heal pet heal a larger amount on some static variable (like amount of perks trained) leaves opportunity for low hp setups in pvp, but in that case there might be some way around the low hp setup, like having SS add enough hp that you can't have low hp AND max heal, or have a creation weapon that adds alot of healing for pet but doesn't have much use in pvp.

[Cryfreman]

@Starrfyre and Gimpmasta: I do like the % heal concept but I'd also like alternative solutions to it because as Gimpmasta pointed out, that would be a lot of healing you'd be dumping on a high HP target (such as an enforcer), while I like it personally, I'd like other options around in the event FC decides that having 1.2k-1.6k+10% of target's HP is too OP to put into play, we'll need other options for suggestions.

Full % heal on pet is what is needed, sure it will heal a good amount on a Enforcer, the side effect being a MP might actually be a wanted member in a raiding party. We are no longer a DD class..not a healing one,calming or pretty much anything anymore.

One aspect of us being good would be nice.

[Starrfyre]

If the % heal just seems too overpowered, put in an offset that MP's would have to sacrifice for it. The first thought that comes to mind is the 2hb buffs that are unusable with Bow, make the % heal a buff that only our support weapons can use. The only catch with that I can think of is Zset would be buffed even more by this.

It would just be nice for MP's to have something no one else does, currently EVERYTHING a MP has can be done better by something else. Even NSD has lost its value in most cases, traders can drain a good chunk of nano so that it's not even needed. Desecrations are the only thing I can find that I miss about a MP. As far as anyone else is concerned, MPs have just become the 8 hour Mochies stick.

Note: this is mostly a PvE perspective, MPs are frikkin OP in pvp and we all know it.

[Cryfreman]

MPs are frikkin OP in pvp and we all know it.

I am guessing you aint being serious here

[Metafly7]

If %heal were to only be obtainable by a specific weapon choise it should be the other way around or ud have to be saying Bow goes entirely, cause less evades and less heals makes bow entirely obsolete.

As for a different approach on heals, next to the normal heal a perk attached heal could be added, one that flows through the healpet but gets started by the Mp. Due to the perk flowing through pet it could be larger than the other perk heal. Tho this kinda sounds evasive and silly, its the only other way of changing the current way heals work for healpets besides %heal, HoT next to normal heal or %heal next to normal heal. More varieties than that are just not there in this game i think.

Cause something like casting an absorb or reflect shield that lasts several seconds cant be seen as a heal anymore. Still options tho i guess

[Dancingrage]

The reason the percentage plus straight heal was considered was to both mitigate the problems straight and percentage heals would have in MP pvp and pvm play, without either overpowering the healpet (say 30% healing on an MP would be adequate, and would be beyond OP on an enforcer, while 5-6k straight healing would make MPs straight unkillable in pvp in many ways, etc.) while still giving the healpet a solid boost to healing that would make us more wanted in teams and useful in raids, etc.

The concept was instead of being bound to a weapon that it simply would be attached to Soothing Spirits, so when you'd get a new and improved healpet (that scaling needs fixing too) you'd also also get the percentage heal equal to however many perks trained in the line at that point.

As for the stacking heal idea, I think we had a similar one for an AOE debuff idea not long after I made Professional, I'll have to go dig that up and look at it again soon.

[kabulla]

for me at TL2 i would hope for double the speed, half the heal would allow me to survive alphas better

[DaviasI]

a possibly OP suggestion for pvp would be an anti-heal pet. A single target pet that looks like the heal pet but blocks the ability to be affected by nano-based healing. Not a debuff simple a heal blocker.

Otherwise I like the idea of lower powered team-based AOE healing, increasing the current single target healing ability of the pets or a pet sacrifice where the pet gives up its life to save its life to completely heal its master. While I think a pet sacrifice healing the team would be cool it seems like it could easily lend itself to abuse.

[Dancingrage]

Hm, so if target has this 'anti-heal' pet on it it can't be healed by Long HoT, Short HoT, Healing nanos, CH line, etc?

It could be interesting, but I'm not sure sacrificing our healing power for it would be worth it...hard to say, however. I remove my healing to get rid of yours....interesting thought.

[DaviasI]

There are situations where a high healing profession (doc, advent, etc) are involved in a a battle with another proffession and if you send in your mezz its instantly pwned, your attack pet is rooted out of range, your heal pet can't out heal the damage.

But an anti-heal pet if not pwned immediately will send them into full retreat or risk pwnage. In a big battle you can turn the tide of battle in an instant. They absolutely have to target the pet or risk complete pwnage.

Sure you sacrifice your hits but since your target can't heal...that AS or special means a lot more, even after any nerf reguardless of whether it caps or not.

[Dogtrauma]

Well, healing efficiency buff/debuff then?
Buffing a single target that gets better/worse use out of all incoming heals.
Would have great value for raids no?
Would be good to have if after the rebalance those poor 'trox docs have to be carefull with nano points.

[Kaitlain]

Perhaps the "Heal pet" should be widened into something a little more exotic, with say four types:


PvM #1:

Effect: Single heal (boosted by soothing spirits perkline)

Build: High HP, PvM AC / 0% resist to Snares / Nukes etc (or whatever the current pet has)

PvM #2:

Effect: AoE heal (boosted by soothing spirit perkline)

Build: Med HP, decent AC / NR


PvP #1:

Effect: Med term Medium scaled HoT + Blockers (i.e. slower casting than PvM, but gives X HoT & say 3 blockers) - note. These can have different level req's: e.g. level 150, 1 blocker + small HoT, level 200 2 blocker + med HoT, 217 3 blocker + large HoT)

Build: Medium HP, Medium resistance to Snares / Roots / Calms


PvP #2:

Effect: Short Term Large scale HoT + NR / Root / Snare Resists

Build: Low HP, High resist (i.e. immune) to Snares / Roots / Calms



For PvP, a HoT is an easier solution than either a fixed amount or %.


- note. These can have different level req's: e.g. level 150, 1 blocker + small HoT, level 200 2 blocker + med HoT, 217 3 blocker + large HoT or level 150 50% root / snare resist +200 NR, level 200 75% root / snare resist +350 NR, level 217 95% root / snare resist, +450 NR.

The idea is that the "heal pet" actually becomes a mini-support platform for us - still vulnerable to other players, but we can vary the support that it gives. Especially important 'cause SoZ is losing blockers! In PvP, you have a choice - either take 3 blockers + med HoT, and run the chance that your pet is rooted / calmed, or take the high HoT + NR / snare resistance for you + pet, at the cost if someone unleashes a FA / Burst + perk, its insta ganked. I'd also like to see some castable buffs for the support pets, or at least have it so that their nano skills are used, and are buffable by CM etc.


p.s.

If you look at the pet nanos atm, in particular the old RK ones, there are 100's of little meatballs - when in reality, everyone casts their RK200 demon @ level 90 these days - plenty of scope to prune those and replace with varying levels of these new heal pets.