Afflictive Module: Healing.

[Burzuk]

Clerical Advantages

As I've mentioned in my Afflictive Module Introduction, healing is the reverse of afflictive spells and thus they're also being looked at during the same change module. When we talk about healing though, we're really first and foremost talking about clerics, which have long been my personal favorite classes on AR (and on other muds before we founded AR). There are tons of reasons to like playing clerics. Some of them off the top of my head are:

* Leveling: Let's face it, nobody levels like a cleric does. Sanc, heals, 0 exp penalty, it just doesn't get any better than this. If you want an easy level 50 character, you pick a cleric.

* Forced enemy saves: Every time a cleric fights another target (and this is especially true for shamans), the cleric is already at a huge advantage even before the fight has begun. Fighters lose big hit/dam and mages lose big hp switching to saves -- and that's assuming they're smart, instead of choosing to die from getting dispelled and/or eating some pretty mean mals.

* Obtaining equipment: With locate object, sanc, heals, etc, clerics can obtain equipment from mobs better than any other class. Back when Eldorian was playing morts, he took out Mordun and Daryth solo using divine retribution -- at level 36. (Took him two hours, but still.) We've had level 50 clerics solo Winter before. Combined this with the fact the clerics are good at staying alive, and you wind up with clerics having huge eq advantages in combat.

* Self-sufficiency: While clerics may not have OMG RAGE or bye-bye-hide, they don't lack for anything that can really be exploited. They have better defenses than mages with parrying maces and a fairly small shield block penalty (compared to invokers), can recover from a fight faster than any other classes, have the full suite of mage utilities like detect invis, identify, and pass door, and heck, healers can even stay alive indefinitely with their food/water spells. Because of this, playing a cleric and playing a mage are night and day, and it shows with how grossly clerics outnumber mages.

* Sanctuary: At level 50, this deserves its own entry.

* Group combat: The best classes for group fights, bar none. Sure, it's easy to talk about being able to sanc/heal groupmates, but even more valuable (and deadly) in group fights are summon and dispel. A cleric's own credible defenses and quick healing also ensures that they're nowhere as vulnerable as mages in a group fight. Group combat has always been one of my specialties as a player and it's no surprise my favored classes have already been clerics, before AR and especially after AR. Before you even discuss how good clerics are one-on-one, you can't forget that they're the best group fighters -- therefore, you'd expect that clerics should not also be very strong one-on-one fighters.

* Versatility: Some clerics play aggressively, allowing their hp to wear down while spamming offensive spells, and saving their mana instead for in case they need to run. Others keep their health topped off and focus on using the huge recovery advantage that clerics have to methodically catching ticks and outchasing their opponents, wearing them to death. Some clerics go dispel. Some go maledictions. Some go hit/dam/murders. Those with good enough equipment wind up doing all of these. Whereas you expect the big rage from a berserker or know a thief's going to try to catch you off-guard, there's a lot of different ways to fight with a cleric, and they're all reasonably effective -- and thus hard to always be able to anticipate and defend against.

So. Why that list? With all that clerics have going for them, let's look at a couple of other advantages clerics have that have never been the main attraction of the class for me:

* Afflictive spam: If I wanted to play a char to spam afflictive spells all day, I'd play an invoker, not a healer or a shaman. And this issue has recently been addressed via dependency: if you want to aff spam, pay the hp price and wear some affbreaks. Simple. And before you complain about the lowered hp, as a cleric you still get to heal it back easily. How about the mages who are slowly needing to wear savebreaks as well (see the vamp touch change, for instance)? Yeah, clerics have it easy in comparison, since lowered hp for mage is much harder to gain back. If you're not wearing affbreaks as a cleric, I have zero sympathy for your aff spells. And setting aside lethality for a moment, wearing enough affbreaks makes divine retribution is exactly as strong as it used to be, and actually makes flay health stronger than demonfire used to be. So if your aff spells aren't doing enough damage as a cleric, it's your fault for not wearing affbreaks. Deal with it. Or stick to hit/dam/regen-based tactics if you prize hp survivability above all else.

* Healing spam: Clerics already have a huge recovery advantage with healing, but having healing spam being used as an offensive strategy is overkill. (As in, stand there and let your hit/dam/divine do all the work while you spam heals.) The worst offender here? Cure crit. And now here, here we've finally reached the crux the problem, and, and the changes we've made to address this.


Clerical healing

There are just two major variables involved with healing: how strong (i.e. fast) it is, and how mana efficient it is. The strongest healing spell, heal, also had the worst healing efficiency, so even healers rarely used it except in emergencies. Cure crit, however, was not just the second strongest healing spell, but it was also the most mana efficient spell by far (which lends itself to endless and mindless spamming), and was widely available to all three major healing classes to boot. Under the old model, when you talk about cures, you're really talking about cure crit, period. And nobody (myself included) bothered using anything else under that skewed model.

In addition to revising the model, we've introduced a third variable: concentration (i.e. whether you can concentrate enough to cast the spell while tanking or not). The new model, then, is as follows:

[Orsetre]

I was required to redirect what I said from another post to here, as to quell any offensiveness I might've said. So here it goes.

Yeah, good changes.

Ninjas were totally wiping the floor with other players! Making them lose cure light was a very nessisary change!

And the change the lay on hands. Omg, that makes total sense! Because laying hands on self, that's very logical. Even though in the original D&D games, lay on hand could only be used on other people, with very significant results (representing a paladins intrest in self-sacrifice, compassion, and healing others), the idea of laying hands on onself is so awesome. Hahah, I don't want, anybody else.. when I think about you.. I lay on hands.

Omg, anyone who has played a ninja before can tell you how effective cure light is at restoring hp. It's not just a "omg I'm going to use this because I have nothing else to spam" skill. It's their total life. A ninja's cure light totally pwns cure crit or heal. Everyone knows that. And burzuk clearly laid this down by saying that cure light is more mana effecient that cure crit. Omg, that's like common knowledge.

[Baer]

OMG.

(Reserved for when I have something worthwhile to say.)

[DarkFire]

Orsetre you need to calm down and know that the changes were made for reasons, there are more changes to ninjas and thiefs. I am sure that better things are in store for them so just shut up and wait

[Davairus]

I don't know about you guys but I don't give a hoot about how its done in D&D, furthermore, scripture-quoting like appeals to D&D traditions don't convince me their way is right. They just sound like bible thumping.

[E-ant]

[Erlwith]

The icky fact is this is just a heal nerf glamified. All the cure spells take the exact same amount of time to cast which means there is no time issue involved with each. Basically, cure critical remains the best healing spell in battle but does far less now (given I have -1 point of 24 con). There is cure serious and cure continual, but let's be honest, they heal even less then the now nerfed crtical in the same amount of time. Staying alive > energy efficiency, Health > mana.

I can understand the logic of heal spells all having a purpose but this gives all the spells a lesser value rather then giving each a distinct purpose. A better idea would be involving round time and mana vs healing. Healers should be able to heal for an immense amount, we are *healers* it's what we do. I recognize that we are still by far the best healers in AR, however to a fault, because now both our defensive and offensive capabilities have been lowered.

A better idea would be to make Heal a three round (battle-castable) spell that heals for an immense amount but for a great deal of mana. Say 100 mana for 150-200 points of healing depending on con. Give it a spicey name and make it a really high level spell - and have no affects with cure continual. Cure critical could be mid-to low level, would heal for a decent amount, but greatly affected by con (moreso then the other two spells) and be two round. With max con you could heal for maybe 75 hp for 25 mana and it casts in maybe 1 and 1/2 half rounds. Cure serious would be a mid-lower level spell and would cast super fast like .8 to 1 round (if you can do .8) depending on con and would heal for say 30 hp for 20 mana. Cure continual would be a low level spell and it could remain as it is (maybe longer).

That is all.

[Burzuk]

[E-ant]

[Resatimm]

Obviously for fighting bosses!

[kammkala6]

Is the gimping of healers done for now or will there be more?

[Burzuk]

[Burzuk]

[kammkala6]

Does cure critical now heal as much as it used to when you are at your max con for your race or do dwarves heal more with it than humans or drows?

[Burzuk]

The cure/heal spells heal the same amount for all races that are at max con. How much worse at lower con depends solely on the amount of con lost, not the actual con value.

[_Clifton_]

[marsd]

Talking about protection, can we have some pointer to make it clearer when we have it up? Like, if you're a lightwalker and you commune protection, it'd show "Protection Evil" in the affects list, and so etc..

[Davairus]

Clifton you have it wrong. The "target" is who the spell is cast on. Once you've got the affect, you're fine.

[Erlwith]

I want to start off by saying that I understand what you're trying to do here Burzuk and it's a noble idea. Balance out the Clerical classes, they were (a couple months ago) powerhouse classes. So I don't want you to think I'm saying what you're doing is stupid, because it's not. Just look at what I am suggesting and arguing with a neutral view, to realize that while this may seem like balance, it's just a decrease in power with no available increase. Now I know things are coming, and I'm willing to be patient for them. So I'm not saying the way things are now is WRONG without seeing it... but as things are now without anything else in addition it's not a balance act, it's a plain nerf.

[_Clifton_]

Healers were always gimped against neutrals, that log doesn't prove anything because 1) the running and curing was shody and 2) dependency anyone?