Rune-keeper Q&A with your host, Zombie Columbus

[Mandura]

3. make it heal 300 every 1 second for 10 seconds with 1 minute 30 second cd.

so u seriously want to stop healing any other player in those 10 seconds of channeling?
i'd rather make it 500 every 1 second for 5 seconds

7. this skill (with class trait and legendary trait) will heal 500 every 1 second for 10 seconds, 1 minute cd, power cost 200 and place a 1000 morale bubble at the end of channel.

e'd increase it to 700 every 1 second for 5 seconds
also, the 1k bubble is op imo

[interactii]

I found this in a different thread and it made me curious. Do RKs get anything cool like that with rifflers or chisels?! I must have picked the wrong healer class to play :P

We got a -66% Tat offense on our chisels, and got 924 crit on one and 250 ICPR on another on the 75s. The rest are utility, the healing ones are useless: Pulses PTH (meh), and 100% increase in initial pulse size for PTH. I mathematically proved that the 924 crit gives more healing output than the 100% increase, on the order of 3x for typical raid players.

That 924 crit sounds nice until you realize we lost 3% base crit, and that doesn't make up fro it. 250 ICPR is nice, but at the cost of 1000 crit?

Short answer: No.

[Daemyr]

Epic for the Ages suggestions that I haven't seen in this thread yet (I may have missed it):

To give the skill some more utility in line with RK healing philosophy (predict where damage will land and "prepare" the target for it) - add a buff to the target with traited EftA. Some ideas:

1. Incoming Healing Rating
2. Crit defense
3. Mitigation Ratings
4. B/P/E
5. Resistance
6. icmr/icpr (ooohhh - RK's able to help other classes regen Power! Just thought of this one)

Duration, magnitude and stackability can all be tweaked and/or scale with level.



Another functionality could be to remove pending cooldown on other skills (this is added in RoI for other classes): Every casting of EftA removes a chunk of cooldown on Glorious Foreshadowing, Essay of Exaltation, Distracting Winds, That Which Does Not Kill Us, Steady Hands - anything/everything with a 60 second cooldown or longer should be on the table for consideration; I'd even put Frozen Epilogue in that bucket.

[spiderwort]

My vote is with the channeling of EftA, so when slotting the trait it's a 6 sec channeled skill, with a much larger cd. One could argue that the length of a channeled heal and a longer cd would be undesirable, but I disagree. It's a large heal on a single target that incrementally gets moraleover time, starting with the beginning of the channel. (i.e. your target is very low on health, but unlike the current iteration of EftA, the target will be more likely to live, as their morale is steadily increasing with the channel.) I think a skill like this holds better with the way RKs heal, and I know it would become a treasured part of my healing rotation.

[DavyMark]

I'm not sure a 10 second channeled skill would be more attractive than a 4 second induction skill...

Yeah you're probably right, I'm only just having my first cup of coffee now. But I do like the channel idea, maybe a 5 second channel with shorter cd.

[Bradegor]

My vote is with the channeling of EftA, so when slotting the trait it's a 6 sec channeled skill, with a much larger cd. One could argue that the length of a channeled heal and a longer cd would be undesirable, but I disagree. It's a large heal on a single target that incrementally gets moraleover time, starting with the beginning of the channel. (i.e. your target is very low on health, but unlike the current iteration of EftA, the target will be more likely to live, as their morale is steadily increasing with the channel.) I think a skill like this holds better with the way RKs heal, and I know it would become a treasured part of my healing rotation.

Again. We´re not solving much. A long induction skill, may be channeled or not, means you´re not doing anything while. I´d rather prefer a long CD, short induction big heal that will heal on very strong damage spikes, while letting RK healers do their stuff (spamm hots). A HoT class needs to live with short induction skills as we need plenty of time for putting our hots to work, specially considering they don´t heal too much on their first pulse.

[Runesi_EU]

The channelled skill idea would be an improvement but I'm just not sure how usefull it would be in reality, I'm just not sure how it would fit it, especially when we already have Rousing Words.

I would prefer perhaps a short induction or even instance cast, big single target heal, that costs a lot of power and generates a large amount of threat with a long cooldown. Make it a real emergancy skill that you would only use as a last resort with a significant penalty (threat and power cost).

Also a question for ZC. Any chance of a dread removal skill?

[interactii]

While its great to talk about EOTA, I would urge everyone to take this opertunity to look at the whole picture and make sure all the other important questions are asked. The lack of any EOTA change is minor compared to some of the very serious changes made otherwise.

[ANewMachine]

While its great to talk about EOTA, I would urge everyone to take this opertunity to look at the whole picture and make sure all the other important questions are asked. The lack of any EOTA change is minor compared to some of the very serious changes made otherwise.

Gotta agree. Lots of spilled electrons going to a skill that all of us profess that we never use and don't quite miss, to the point it's not even on our skillbars...

[Fin.]

Moving away from EftA.

As was mentioned before, what about dread removal skill. Maybe tied to blue traits.

Currently, you can't setup a group for 65 raid without atleast 1 minstrel, but you certainly can without runekeeper. Noone wants to wait around 10min for dread, or use DP.

[ifreborn1]

with respect to EftA what about just having the curent consumable make the skill insta cast when you are healing attuned. EftA on the run would be a win skill, truely epic and worthy of a 3 min cool down. ZC this is how you add a new skill without tecnicly adding a new skill.

Simple fix now go back to playing AC


PS>>What's the ETA on 2 handed clubs for burgs?

[interactii]

Moving away from EftA.

As was mentioned before, what about dread removal skill. Maybe tied to blue traits.

Currently, you can't setup a group for 65 raid without atleast 1 minstrel, but you certainly can without runekeeper. Noone wants to wait around 10min for dread, or use DP.

I 100% agree with this. You can't consider RKs to be on level with Minis as healers when one of the most important functions in end-game play is limited to one class.

[Once_of_Bree]

But I can't let go of your early beta story. How was the skill changed and what were the names of the complainers so I can kill them?

Glad it wasn't just me thinking this as I thought the alleged change to EotA was best suggested so far.
Anyway moving on I really like the idea of the frost debuffs being available (without damage component) whilst healing, throw in a dread removal skill (although possibly tricky to come up with a RK rationale) and RKs would be in a much better place to be wanted as a group healer.

[Syntastic]

As it's obvious that the developer's desire is to make Mins and RKs perform the healing roles in different ways (which i completely agree with), instead of purely removing dread, as minstrels do...how about giving us a +5 hope buff that stacks, lasts 10 mins, and can only be used on someone who has dread? With same cooldown/restrictions as the minstrel's dread removal skill.

Edit: or tie in the buff duration with the dread debuff. When dread goes away, so does our buff.

[skadi]

Wish I was joking. It's got arguably better HPS then BC, yet is despised. The only thing I can think is that honest, number crunching potency is not what 99 people out of 100 base their decisions on. The "feel" of the skill is just bad, because it is a slow induction on a class that heals with mostly instant skills or short inductions.

Anyways, bedtime. Will post more tomorrow.

I feel like this answer sums up a lot of the problems between the devs and the players.

You are unquestionably right, ZC. The heal per second and heal per power are both GREAT on EefA. What you're missing - and what people have been trying to point out - is that while the NUMBERS on EftA all look great, the skill doesn't actually play particularly well. It's not the 'feel' of it - it's that the ebb and flow of battle don't really allow for a skill like that to be effectively used.

Think about it this way. A skill that, for 200 power, gave the entire group a full heal would be immensely powerful, right? In most cases, tons of healing per second, tons of healing per power. But if it had a ten second induction, it would never be used. Not because people don't pay attention to the raw numbers, but because the raw numbers don't tell the whole story about how skills are actually used in the game.

I - and I would imagine anyone who looked twice - will grant without a second thought that EftA isn't weak from a raw numbers perspective. You're going to have to take our word that, from a real world perspective, the raw numbers are only one part of what makes a skill powerful.

[Flico]

There are two real reasons that EFTA fails as a heal and not just in our heads.

The first one, a poster before me already mentioned. The hot portion of mending verse provides prehealing if everyone is fully healed. Say you line up a big EFTA on a tank before he's going to take a big hit and the big hit never comes (you were trying to precast it to make the long induction less of an issue). You have just overhealed and wasted healing and time. In the case of mending verse, you have raised their morale by 500 (traited), and given them a hot in case they get hit in the future. Not to mention that you can spread it out more for group healing or if two people are taking heavy damage.

The second reason is that mending verses induction flows really well with writ of health's cooldown. You can cast these two skills one after the other and not skip a beat. In my groups I try to always have 3 tier 3 writs on the most likely targets for damage (sometimes 4, or spreading it out more). It will oftentimes be the tank, the champ, and myself (the healer). But if you're casting EFTA, you're casting less writ of health on people or less preludes.

As for my experience, my raiding group has me healing quite a bit in tier 2 OD. I've been one of two healers for beating Gortheron Challenge mode (our raiding group uses a healing rk and mini oftentimes for that fight). I haven't cast EFTA in 5 months literally. The last time was in one of the newer 3 mans. I removed my healing satchel (so as not to have mending legacies) to test EFTA vs Mending. Mending verse wins hands down. Believe me when I say that EFTA has no purpose in this game.

[Beldacar]

Wish I was joking. It's got arguably better HPS then BC, yet is despised. The only thing I can think is that honest, number crunching potency is not what 99 people out of 100 base their decisions on. The "feel" of the skill is just bad, because it is a slow induction on a class that heals with mostly instant skills or short inductions.

Anyways, bedtime. Will post more tomorrow.

It's still number crunching. Due to the long induction, this skill's healing lands much, much later than the Minstrel's Bolster Courage. A lot of things can happen in that short period of time. Just as players prefer front-loaded damage (because the enemy will be dead a second or two sooner, hence doing a second or two less damage to the player/group/raid), so they also prefer front-loaded healing. Because if you're spamming a healing skill, you need that healing =now=.

Besides, while a Minstrel might be able to be "efficient" by spamming the best heal, a Rune-keeper loses far too much by doing so. So the RK will be recasting Runes, refreshing Preludes/Writs, and doing all the other things needed to be effective. Interrupting that routine in order to cast the long, slow, painful EftA induction just isn't going to happen most of the time.

Frankly, I don't even bother having it on my hotbars. It's just that useless to me and the way I play my Rune-keeper.

Short version: HPS is never the "final word" when it comes to healing.

[Gedachtnis]

...

and comments from the new raid that a Captain made a better healer than an RK.

So given ZC's answers, I'm getting a bit concerned...

(Also, is this the same Lorebook that maintained for the longest time that RKs are an advanced class? I wouldn't quite trust it, then. )

...

The cappies had an easier time healing on T1 than the RK did on T2, you mean. That makes perfect sense, because T1 is 24-man and T2 is 12-man and still harder on top of that.

Just to address this;

Cappys make better healers for the Head tank on both T1 and T2. This is due to several factors;

1) This tank is not taking a ton of damage most of the time and the large potential burst can be mostly avoided.

2) Mini's with their AoE Rez are better utilized down in the tunnels to help recover from accidental multiple deaths from fire in the tunnels or slow retreat from the floor.

3) The dynamics of the fight have the raid going in and out of combat constantly making Attunement management a real issue, esp. for healing RK's. (it does allow times for OOC rez's, eating etc. on the upside)

4) If things are going correctly little damage is being taken in the dps groups. Healing Spec RK's are better used to provide additional dps, keep stones down, using MoW, and spot healing, if needed, after a combat drop during phases 1 and 2, then going healing for phase 3.

The point is the raid dynamics themselves are unique to the space and don't reflect on the RK class. Rk's are actually very strong in the dragon raid, if they adapt to a unique space.

.....

While EotA does have a strange feel for a HoT healer, it is far from a useless skill, but rather a specialized tool in our arsenal. It is highly suited for use in conjunction with the bubble. It is not, nor do I think it should be, something meant to be in our regular rotation for every situation.

I would say this ZC. If you want to make EotA more attractive with the current RoI changes, tie in a Neutral Attunment reduction to the Terse Narrative buff. While the Buff is up reduce the Neutral Attunement costs by 1 or 2.

AFE could use some work helping to maintain it, glad to see you're looking at it.

In a similar vein is it possible to look at skills, esp. those requiring combat, to be looked at? Is it possible for skills that are currently in progress of being channeled or cast to be allowed to finish even if combat drops? If all conditions are met when the skill is begun it should be allowed to finish.

While I don't like the move of MoW to the Riffler, I can see where it will be useful esp. to soloing and situaltional DPS Rk's. Is there any plan to add a 3rd affect to Rifflers/Chisels to bring them in line with the new Mini instruments?

[MrTyres]

The idea was to make a fast and fairly big direct heal available (tier-1) for emergencies.

As a proud minstrel since Beta who has taken up the challenge of the RK for secondary raids (We need healers if we are alt raiding and I didn't want to level another mini.) this is the one thing that gets me everytime and leads to an early death. If the poo hits the fan quick on initial pull, with my minstrel, I can pop Chord of Salvation and a traited Raise the Spirit for 2k(non-crit) in a second. Really rough and I can hit my Hammerhand or Triumphant Spirit. I don't have that option on my RK. My attunement isn't high enough yet for a large initial emergency heal. So, all I can do is spam Prelude and MW till I get enough attunement to hit my bubble.

There are consumables to help push you higher in attunement faster, but I got lucky enough to buy enough Lime to make them this week on Brandywine. The AH had been empty for a while.

Learning the RK heal mindset was difficult for me, coming from a Minstrel. And that may be why I am more likely to use EftA, but I do feel like it is a gamble and I often use it in conjunction with my RK bubble.

[stock]

Argh, I wrote a nice wall of text and was logged out when I submitted it, lost the whole thing. I had a couple key points, I'll try to keep this one shorter:

1) Fall to XXXX / You Shall Fall to Our Wrath: How does the loss of -tac resist off the basic version affect our sustained DPS levels at 75? I'll settle for more / even / less, just a clue in would be nice. Also, is the rolling of -tac resist into the legendary only a way to keep healing RKs from debuffing mobs tac resist while healing? My kin used to have me do this alot, both skills on armors in BG for example when minstrel's are using Distraction. I want to know if this is still effective.

2) Do the changes to stats & caps, and the addition of Finesse, adequately compensate for the seemingly complete removal of +Tac. Crit. Multiplier, or are there just items with this stat we have not seen yet? This is THE bread & butter stat for storm-line RKs, removing it will hurt their output significantly.

3) EftA: I went into a full-on dissertation about EftA. Simply put, I came to the following conclusion: EftA vs. BC was never important to me, because what really matters is EftA vs. Other RK heals. The fact is, MV is and will likely remain a better point-healing/spike-recovery skill than EftA simply because of how each works. You can check out my math in "Mending Verse Pre/Post Nerf" from last November, there is also another one with a full chart breakdown by myself and another player showing which is more effective at each time assuming you could spam cast both side by side. This was before new Terse Narrative, but to save you all a search, in the first 8 seconds, EftA always wins (assuming no crits, max relevant legacies on stone/satchel) by around 550-650 morale, but MV does more than 3x that over the 10 seconds immediately following the 8 seconds of casting, in HoT form (less over-heal/less casting on that target for the duration).

I went on to explain that EftA is our only direct-heal skill, and should work in conjunction with MV to patch spike damage/save power/manage other HoTs effectively, rather than being completely excluded because of MV. The Dev response to our complaints on this issue has always been "The skill is fine, it is actually the 'best', and by the way, we're nerfing MV again," none of which actually addresses or corrects the real problem: that these skills are apples v. kumquats and one needs serious changes to make both worthwhile. I've agreed with every MV nerf up until this point, as the potency of MV totally eclipsed any chance you would consider using EftA.

So enough QQ, here is my proposed change to EftA. I did my best to address the player concerns (takes too long, not worthwhile) while not adding anything crazy (though I liked alot of the buff-based ideas, it is simply too much for me to account for.)
Base Skill: 3 second induction, 30 second cooldown, healing possibly reduced 0-12%, power cost adjusted to compensate. Whether the power cost goes up or down, and by how much, I really can't judge. It should be cheaper if the skill is less powerful/longer CD, but higher for shorter induction, so I'm guessing just a small dip from live.
Reasoning: Players unanimously want a shorter induction, and we have to pay for this somewhere. Gate the skill behind a cooldown, limit the number of times we can use it / minute or fight. CD gate keeps the skill from being spammed, small healing reduction possible in-case it seems too powerful. The skill is already cheaper than MV to cast, I don't think anyone is too concerned with how much it costs.
Terse Narrative: Now applies a buff to the RK, similar to live. This buff has the following conditions:
1) Allows a second cast of EftA within the cooldown of the first. The CD is not reset or reduced, the skill may simply be cast one additional time. As a penalty, EftA is locked for 3 seconds after the application of the buff, but all other skills remain open. This buff has a 30 second duration (3 second lockout & 27 second use-duration).
2) The bonus cast has no induction, but you must remain stationary to use it. (Not necessarily stationary, but other skills like this in RK list [Frozen Epilogue/Epic Conclusion] have the same penalty)
3) The bonus cast costs 5-20% additional power.

A lot of our healing traits give bonuses to our group healing effectiveness, I tried to gear this towards tank healing a bit more. You don't have to cost the "Terse"-buffed cast on the same target, but the intention is to help cover gaps in group-wide damage/spike damage. The base skill is useful, the trait is worth taking for main-healing use, and you are given a much bigger window to utilize an effective direct heal, though at increased power cost.

Enough about EftA, I'm glad to see AFE is on the short list for fixing. I also love the new Winter-Storm trait, finally giving storm line some increased AoE! Changes look promising, thanks for getting in touch with us, ZC.

[Zombie_Columbus]

i rather suspect that we're using the bubble to keep the tank alive in those situations. May i suggest hitting efta while the tank is bubbled? That's pretty much the only time i use it, but it works nicely in that situation.

bingo

7890

[AkhorahilEvernight]

bingo

7890

So that's it? Jump on the single even somewhat positive comment about EftA?

Does that mean that you're discounting the rest of the input, then? The near-universal position that EftA is highly corner-case at best, useless at worst? The continued attempts at constructive criticism and ideas for how to make it into a power that people might actually, y'know, use?

[Unixbomber]

I'd like to hear about the reasoning behind changing Shall Not Fall This Day - it remains active for the duration of combat now; neat. The only problem is 95% of the time in combat, I'm not worried about having it on someone, because, you know, they're not dying. The skill previously gave 5% melee, ranged and tactical defense which when used in conjunction with a bubble could be very effective for saving someone's life... you know, the general idea behind the skill? Removing the protection aspect and increasing the duration, when the duration was generally never the biggest issue of using the skill isn't exactly improved.

[Chris91]

I´ve some questions for you ZC ;-)

1. Is my assumption correct that the nerfing of skills and the rebuffing via trait lines was necessary as the itemization changes (basicly putting Offence and Healing together) blurred the differences between Healing and DPSing RKs?

2. Why were the chisels/rifflers nerfed and why is the almost no tactical critical multiplier? Considering the fact that Lvl 75 chisels/rifflers are multi-use recipes, do you plan on creating superior chisels/rifflers from one-use recipes which could be raid drops? What balancing issues caused the need to nerf Chisels/rifflers? Are there any plans on more tactical critical multiplier gear or how are we supposed to fill the gap (lightning) DPS-wise?

3. Considering the new relics, for me there isn´t anything I plan/want to use. I (and I believe many other RKs to) would appreciate it if you could provide a replacement for the Adamant Gem of Dreams (something with >1000 offence), even if it is shop-only, and furthermore please add relics with tactical offence and morale (and maybe critical rating). Any RK out in the Moors desperatly needs any point of morale he can get, so while offence+power is nice for raiding and pve, Max.Power is completly useless in the Moors (considering the high Will we already have, which provides enough power)

Tank you very much in advance, I´m hoping to hearing from you, to bring some light into the dark


Oh and something concerning my fellow RKs, please stop the discussion concerning EftA, if you don´t like the skill, so it be, but don´t scare the poor ZC away with pages of discussions around EftA. It´s almost impossible to find the real questions here..

[AkhorahilEvernight]

the duration was generally never the biggest issue of using the skill

It sure was to me -- bigtime improvement, as far as I'm concerned!