What EQ Needs to Do: Idea Thread Summer 2016Follow

I suppose. But that's kind of a distinction without a difference. The paladin spell lines that do this aren't things you'd ever likely want or need to target any way other than through the mob. That's basically their selling point, that you can drop a heal/buff on the tank without having to take your target (and melee damage) off the mob. If I'm actually targeting the other player, I'm not going to use either of those spells for their heal effect. I'm going to use any of a number of much faster/better/bigger heals I have instead. The fact that they are less efficient, or less powerful, or slower casting (or all three) is part of what's balanced against the utility of not having to swap target to the tank to drop a heal.

And honestly, they're already pretty situational as is. I only load them if I'm in a group or raid situation where I'm very sure that I wont be tanking at all, and I'm more or less doing patch heals on the tank, AE heals on the group, and occasional cures when needed. If I could use my other heals through the mob I'd never load them at all.



Again, in the case of the two paladin spells I'm thinking of, they effectively do. I get that for other classes, being able to target either a player and drop a nuke that'll hit that players target, or a mob and drop a heal that'll hit the mob's target is really useful and something you'd want to use all the time. But for a paladin, the first case isn't something that is needed at all. So the fact that the paladin spell lines don't work in reverse isn't really an issue. But that's kinda my point, it would damage the relative value of those spells to the point where they would be effectively useless. I literally have 8 other better heals that I'd use before either of those two spells if they could be cast through the mob.

And that's where it gets a bit complicated. Paladins actually get three spells of this type, but they're all slightly different. Not all of them have effects I'd label as a recourse either.

1. Target mob. Spell hits the mob with a nuke and recourses a twinheal on the paladin.
2. Target mob. Spell hits the mob with a nuke and casts a heal on the mobs target.
3. Target mob. Spell hits the mobs target with a heal and a melee guard.

Ironically, number 1 might actually see much greater use with the proposed change. I rarely load that spell simply because if I need a twinheal, I probably need it *now*, and don't have time to first cast a nuke on the target, and then a heal on the person who needs healing. And frankly, the number one reason it's not terribly useful is because the other two spells that cast heals through the mob aren't terribly efficient heals. So if I want to get the most bang for the buck, I want to use one of my bigger/better heal spells. Which now requires hitting the mob with this spell, then targeting whomever I want to heal, then hitting them with a heal. If I could just click this, then click any heal without having to re-target, it would actually be a much better spell.

The negative is that when you add up the casting time and the mana cost, you'd have been just as well off just casting two heals instead. Hence, why I rarely load it up.

Number 2 is hit or miss. As you say, it does two things. Again though, I have better nukes and better heals. I always have at least 2 other heal spells loaded (and often 3 or 4), and always have my combo nuke spell loaded (does X to regular mobs, but more to undead with a chance of a debuff). So I'm better off just not loading this spell, and just use my regular nuke for damage and regular heals for healing. It's not a great spell right now. It would be even less so if the selling point (healing through the mob) is shared by all heals. Doing two things with one spell sounds great on paper, but in practice you often find yourself in a situation where you really only need to do one of them. I find myself waiting to cast this until the tank's health is low, thus "wasting" a slot that could have another nuke spell in it. In a lot of group content, the tank's health kinda bounces around between 70-100%. The cast time on this spell also isn't great, so it's not uncommon for the tank to get healed between when I start the spell and it lands, effectively making it a very very inefficient nuke.

Number 3 is the real problem here. It's not a recourse. It does nothing to the mob itself. All the spell does is allow you to cast a heal/buff on a PC without having to change target from the mob. This is a spell I actually use for spot healing on a group/raid all the time. Precisely because it has the ability to heal the tank without me having to change target. If every heal/buff had that ability, it would have to be adjusted in some way since its "unique" ability is now shared by every other spell in the game.

I'll point out as well that I don't load up *any* of these spells when soloing/moloing. They're all too slow casting to use if I'm tanking and healing myself. And again, too situational. I don't have time to use them if I'm tanking. I'm stun locking the mob, and tab healing myself. Obviously, not having to tab to heal myself would be a great thing. But it would make these spells even less useful (well, except maybe number 1 for reasons stated above).




Lol. Yeah. I know that story well. But in game terms, I actually do like the idea of this change. I don't think there are that many spells that would need to be adjusted to make it work. I just felt the need to point out that there are some that do and they should not be forgotten. On balance it would be a net positive IMO. It's not my intent to come off like Negative Nelly here. I don't think very many people are even aware that a spell like that exists in the game, and has as its sole benefit the very fact that it can be cast through the mob to its target. But for that benefit, it's a less effective spell on total. Bump up the heal a bit (or better yet, remove the heal and significantly increase the guard effect to make it actually useful by itself since I can now use other heals through the target), and it would be just fine. Right now, it's a heal that isn't terribly mana efficient because it's tied to a guard that is situationally useful at best (often overwritten by other effects, and lasts like 5 seconds against current content even if not). Literally the only reason I load it is for its "target through the mob" function.


Eh. There's actually a few others that might be questionable as well, now that I think about it. Paladins get a combat ability that basically does some damage to the mob and a pretty beefy heal to the entire group. It's like a 12 or 15 minute timer, so it's more or less the button I hit if I lose agro and a caster is getting banged on. I usually don't actually need to heal the whole group (I have several other group heal spells for that which have more normal recast times and are thus more useful for raid targets), but it's an instant click ability that's not tied to spell gems, so it's a very fast "save the day" ability. Oh. And I actually forgot another one. We have a second AA ability that is on the same timer as LoH. What does it do? It does a LoH on the target of the mob we're fighting. So again, an ability that exists solely so that I don't have to take the time to target the party member I'm healing.

I suppose you'd just eliminate that ability entirely (since LoH would presumably just target through the mob now). Um... But do we get something else for that? Fair or not, adding abilities like that is part of class balance. Other classes got some other ability added to their set at the same time that Paladins got this added.

Hmmm... Ok. So maybe it's more problematic than I thought. Dunno though. I still like the idea in concept. And maybe it's just Paladins that would get hosed by it, since it looks like as the "healing tank", they're the class that already gets stuff like this as part of their class lineup. Granting that to everyone would require some changes to Paladins at the very least IMO.

Edited, Aug 31st 2016 4:31pm by gbaji