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

[Bradegor]

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?

Well, EftA can help with such situation. The thing is, in the same time, you can put 2 MVs, with close as much healing in the short term and more in the long one. You will be healing 1500-2100 on the EftA, and around 800-1100 for both MV initial pulses, plus around 180 of the first pulse that will tick in those 4 seconds, and then, around 1500 more healing with the ticks. So, the advantage, if there is one, is marginal. I believe the total healed is more on twice MVs. Not really worth the legacy/trait spent for having such a situational heal.

Damm, i shouldn´t write this. Now the MV will get more and more nerfs so ZC forces us to use EftA and tell us he was right

In anyways, i thank you for the effort ZC. I wish the RK beta testers were better healers; probably they´re better DPSers. I should blame myself for not trying to get into the beta, but had no pc right in the beta invitation time.

[AkhorahilEvernight]

Not really worth the legacy/trait spent for having such a situational heal.

This is fairly crucial -- you can easily make do without EftA (saving trait + legacy), but you can't make do without MV. Since even traited + legacied EftA is decidedly underwhelming, there's hardly any reason to spend those resources.

Damm, i shouldn´t write this. Now the MV will get more and more nerfs so ZC forces us to use EftA and tell us he was right

Hasn't this been going on for a while already?

(It should tell you something that even after multiple heavy nerfs to MV, EftA still isn't being used.)

[Belaeren]

In my humble opinion ... the recent posts decrying the usefulness of EftA are barking up the wrong tree. I feel we have a bigger concern: the major change coming to our bubble, specifically.

First, a word on usage of EftA - I will admit, I have used it relatively recently. I do also admit it's a very rare situation that calls for it, however. I used it successfully when main healing the Disease wing of OD on T2 Challenge mode. We ended up using a Hunter to range tank each tree, since the tree ranged attack hits less hard than their melee attack, but even still the Hunter took a lot of incoming damage. I would start with Mending Verse and Writ of Health, swapping them back and forth to tier up WoH while stacking MV, until I had done each 3 times. I'd throw in the bubble as needed, of course. Once I had these HoTs in maintenance mode, I would throw in an EftA as needed to spot heal the Hunter back to max health - knowing that the stacked/tiered HoTs had him mostly safe during the long EftA induction. I wouldn't dare use EftA without a bubble or stacked/tiered HoT on a tank first. I would note that the recent change to Terse Narrative to encourage back-to-back EftA usage is very misguided, since using a pair of these skills will mess with our HoT + Calming Verse refresh cycle.

Now to my main point - the pending bubble nerf is unacceptable! Per input from beta testers (I'm not in beta), changes to the bubble include replacing the flat 40% damage mitigation with a temporary morale boost plus a lesser 10% mitigation shield.

As everyone knows, skills based on percentages scale far better than skills with flat ratings. The prime need for the bubble was when a tank was taking a significant amount of damage, and I worry that a flat addition of morale with just 10% damage mitigation will mean far less protection than a full 40% (50% traited) damage shield. IMO, this is the skill everyone should be complaining about - not EftA!

[Gedachtnis]

The bubble is 110% damage mitigation during the time it's up/absorbed for practical purposes. It's alot of things, nerf isn't one of them. The tank taking 0% damage > them taking 60% damage.

My testing with the bubble so far shows it an improvement.

edit; I do agree %'s scale better and the skill will now require more dev attention to keep it up to speed with any lvl increases or damage increases in content.

[Lestache]

In my humble opinion ... the recent posts decrying the usefulness of EftA are barking up the wrong tree. I feel we have a bigger concern: the major change coming to our bubble, specifically.

First, a word on usage of EftA - I will admit, I have used it relatively recently. I do also admit it's a very rare situation that calls for it, however. I used it successfully when main healing the Disease wing of OD on T2 Challenge mode. We ended up using a Hunter to range tank each tree, since the tree ranged attack hits less hard than their melee attack, but even still the Hunter took a lot of incoming damage. I would start with Mending Verse and Writ of Health, swapping them back and forth to tier up WoH while stacking MV, until I had done each 3 times. I'd throw in the bubble as needed, of course. Once I had these HoTs in maintenance mode, I would throw in an EftA as needed to spot heal the Hunter back to max health - knowing that the stacked/tiered HoTs had him mostly safe during the long EftA induction. I wouldn't dare use EftA without a bubble or stacked/tiered HoT on a tank first. I would note that the recent change to Terse Narrative to encourage back-to-back EftA usage is very misguided, since using a pair of these skills will mess with our HoT + Calming Verse refresh cycle.

Now to my main point - the pending bubble nerf is unacceptable! Per input from beta testers (I'm not in beta), changes to the bubble include replacing the flat 40% damage mitigation with a temporary morale boost plus a lesser 10% mitigation shield.

As everyone knows, skills based on percentages scale far better than skills with flat ratings. The prime need for the bubble was when a tank was taking a significant amount of damage, and I worry that a flat addition of morale with just 10% damage mitigation will mean far less protection than a full 40% (50% traited) damage shield. IMO, this is the skill everyone should be complaining about - not EftA!

Very solid point, and I wish that I'd brought up this point myself. I use the bubble a lot, as does every talented RK healer I know. While the morale bubble might be a neat idea for Glory Champs, I'm not a huge fan of it as a primary tool for main healers.

But yes - very good point.

Complaining about skill that we generally don't use remaining a skill that we generally don't use seems much less important than complaining about a skill that we use a lot that is seemingly getting nerfed.

Edit: Maybe I shouldn't wander away from a post for 30 minutes before submitting it. If it truly is an improvement like Gedachtnis says, than cool.

[DickerHund]

I think the change to the bubble will make EftA quite usable. If it really works we'll find out dying in Isengard.
To make people happy, change it to three pulses with 1/3 of the healing and everybody will think it's imba.
We'll make nice DPS as well.

The only thing I'm worried about is the increased penalties for using neutral skills, perhaps ZC could elaborate on that a bit.

[shazbaat]

EftA isn't terrible, it's just worse than MV in every way. MV has better HPS, HPP, and less time to that all important initial heal.

Yes, you can heal many boss fights using EftA. Yes you can use it when you have someone bubbled. Yes EftA spam may be approximately equal to BC spam. It doesn't matter since MV is even better than EftA in all these situations.

On top of all this, I already have 7 blue traits and the red linnod that I would like to use when healing. I already can't slot one. Giving up another one of those for the EftA trait will make me less effective overall, and EftA still won't do anything that MV can't. I also don't have extra points on my satchel to put into a heal which isn't as good as MV.

If you want people to use EftA, you need to give it a worthwhile aspect that isn't served by another heal.

My idea would be to put it on a cool down, and make the target get a -50% damage bubble for the duration of the induction. Feels like it fits well with the RK scheme to me.

[Rouven]

(...)

The only thing I'm worried about is the increased penalties for using neutral skills, perhaps ZC could elaborate on that a bit.

You mean this part from his edited OP:

In practice, RKs can get up to max atonement very quickly, especially with the change to Fiery Ridicule. The momentary bumps in peak damage or healing that the utility skills charge was a bit too low. The consolidations of stats that RoI introduced has let us do a pass on the utility skills, buffing up a few. With that pass, we decided to make the attunement cost of them go up a bit, especially on skills that are highly potent (Self-motivation, Calming Verse.) Some skills I know are a little weak after this change, and I will keep my eye on them.

Well that's all I've seen in regards to it, I think?

[skadi]

bingo

7890

I'm bookmarking this post, so that whenever someone asks me why I think Turbine's community relationship is so terrible, I've got something to point at. At least when Orion does this kind of ridiculous thing on the champ forums - ignore pages and pages of well-thought out, well-meaning criticism to cherry-pick the one post that agrees with him, even if it's only vaguely - he has the respect to gussy it up with a few paragraphs.

The fact that Turbine devs don't know how to play the game IS NOT a virtue, no matter how many times you say 'bingo'. I don't expect you to be an expert raider, and it's not necessary that you be... but by making a virtue out of your purely theoretical understanding of your own game, you wind up ignoring people who might have more insight than you do into an aspect of this. (I say this as a moderately new RK, who a week ago was making the exact same arguments you are about EftA. Then I got some actual healing experience under my belt, tried to put my theory into practice, and learned that EftA's power isn't as impressive in-game as it is on paper.)

The best games of this type have devs that listen to the community - not slavishly follow it, but understand that the players will often know the systems underlying the game better than the devs do, in practice. A great example of this is Kingdom of Loathing, a brilliant web-based game with probably the best dev-community interaction I've ever seen. The devs openly admit that they aren't the best players of their game, and they have a team of high-level players acting as playtesters/advisors as they create new content. Sometimes they follow community feedback, sometimes they ignore it, but you always get the feeling that they're listening to what the players are saying.

[timmyloo22546]

Now to my main point - the pending bubble nerf is unacceptable! Per input from beta testers (I'm not in beta), changes to the bubble include replacing the flat 40% damage mitigation with a temporary morale boost plus a lesser 10% mitigation shield.

As everyone knows, skills based on percentages scale far better than skills with flat ratings. The prime need for the bubble was when a tank was taking a significant amount of damage, and I worry that a flat addition of morale with just 10% damage mitigation will mean far less protection than a full 40% (50% traited) damage shield. IMO, this is the skill everyone should be complaining about - not EftA!

I hate the bubble change more than any RK could imagine. When the targets I keep alive are taking (or will take) 10-30k damage, a 3k morale bubble will be pitiful. In a second it'll be gone and the next second my target is dead. With the -50% incoming damage, it allows for healers to keep that person alive throughout the whole duration of bubble.

[revoked]

I've used the bubble in beta, and honestly so far it's a lot better than it initially looks though it will take some adjusting to. Also, it scales with level (yes, if cap is raised again, attention will have to be given to making sure it absorbs an appropriate amount).

You'll probably need to use it a bit differently since it's going to shine after a big hit rather than as a damage preventer per se, though it can still be used that way.

In live I sometimes have HoTs stacked on a tank, bubble him, then spread HoTs around the group and when I go back to the tank he's still fine. I'm not sure that usage will be as effective because once the tank takes a big hit, the bubble will be gone and the damage mitigation will only be 20% if traited and you need to go back to the tank sooner (the bubble absorbs 3.2k, which is not uncommon in raids). But if a tank has taken a big hit and you bubble him then, he's now taking 0 damage, and your HoTs are working. Even if he takes a second big hit, a good portion will be absorbed. In those situations, it was really good.

I suspect we won't generally use it every time it is up, and will be more likely to save it for when it is really needed...but when it is needed, it will be very, very helpful.

I have some comments about EFTA and using it on bubbled targets (disease wing btw is easy enough to heal without Epic even with RKs tanking), but I'll try to leave this thread for questions about upcoming changes. Maybe we can start another EFTA thread.

[Chris91]

You know that the purpose of this Thread is Q&A about RK, not discussing whether or not you like EftA, don´t you

I know that many don´t like EftA as it is, me too, but the problem is, those 4 or 5 pages of EftA discussion could have been used to actually ask ZC something

He´s already responded 2 or 3 times concerning EftA, this is what we get, accept it and don´t waste his and our time by continuing the pointless discussion, but ask him something which he has not yet responded to

[shazbaat]

My concern/question for ZC has to do with the direction of the class and inductions. Newer boss fights are much more dynamic than older ones. In anything before DN, healers and ranged DPS were rarely required to move in boss fights. Since then it's rare to find a boss fight where anyone can just stand in one place for most of the fight. The other change is the dps race aspects of the fights, which is also a good thing imo. Gone are the days of auto attacking Barz while waiting for the next set of adds to spawn.

Lightning RK and short induction RK heals are ideal for these fights. Other induction classes are being moved in a more dynamic direction. Hunters are getting a no-induction quick shot. Minstrels got a beefed up RtS and many of their rooting problems were addressed.

RK's on the other hand seem to be moving in the opposite direction. From my tests on the beta server, fire is blowing away lighting DPS, and power is no longer sustainable in lightning.

While I understand that some people like fire, frankly induction based dps bores me to tears. I love the recent raids and the dynamic, always on your toes feel of the fights. I hated RK dps back when it was stand there and burn the turtle. I don't feel that these changes are going in the right direction. I don't begrudge the fire lovers their trait line, but I'm worried that both lines won't be viable, particularly with the recent proliferation of DPS race challenge modes.

[dietlbomb]

Passives are gone, but the bonuses they gave have migrated to stats. The net change at low level should be, well, almost nothing. So don't worry too much ^_^

Could you tell us what the new stats will give us? What's the breakdown for might, agility, vitality, will, and fate? I've seen some details about this on the hunter forum, but those stats seemed to be specifically for hunters. Will rune-keepers continue to be able to get 4% (?) evade without worrying about agility?

[DickerHund]

You mean this part from his edited OP:

Thanks, I must have missed that one.
Still leaves us with a legendary trait that is now worthless. Make it into a toggle that changes x attunement into x-y attunement and it would be usable.

[Zombie_Columbus]

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?

Maybe you missed me talking about in this thread a few posts back. Her's a link to make it easy.

Also, you can check the original post where there is a Q&A entry on it.
"Will Epic for the Ages be changed in something useful and more in accordance with the other skills? Like a single target channelled or HoT skill instead of a direct heal one with a huge powercost and cast time?"

[Ellery01]

A quick comment about the HPS of epic vs mending, epic is in fact less HPS and less power efficient. One epic will restore more morale than one mending, but the HoTs on mending can tick simultaneously, and if you look at how much healing you get over 10-12 seconds of using both skills, mending verse comes out significantly ahead as well as using less power.

As said before, if mini's had to wait 3.5-4 seconds to get any morale out of bolster courage, none of them would use it. The fact that you can cast epic repeatedly faster than BC is relatively meaningless simply because there is no situation where you'd want to. Not to mention how unreasonable it is to keep the buff from the epic trait up often enough that it'll only be 3.5 second induction when you actually need it to be.

[Eldrandir]

That is one of the most awesome dev posts I have seen.

More later! I'm home for the Labor Day weekend and rather drained from the Hunter boards. <3

Playing your two classes against each other are we?

[Chris91]

Why are there not Tier 7/Remarkable Relics with Tact.Offence and Morale on them..that´s actually what we need in PvMP? Why is there no gem that comes even close to Adamant Gem of Dreams? Best would be something like 1200 to all offences, 400 morale

How are we supposed to compensate the lack of around 22% tactical critical multiplier we loose from gear?

Our stats say fate increases tactical critical damage, how does that work exactly, could you give us the formula?

[Malephor]

those 4 or 5 pages of EftA discussion could have been used to actually ask ZC something

Pages in a thread on forums are not a scarce resourse, btw.

How are we supposed to compensate the lack of around 22% tactical critical multiplier we loose from gear?

With uncapped will. I'm pretty sure someone in this thread, possibly ZC, addressed this.

[D3str0yer]

I know this is not a RK specific question but why cant we get a real replacement for adamant gem of dreams!

[Ellery01]

ZC, from your updated post on the first page, could you clarify whether or not the Improved Rousing Words skill now works as described in the tooltip? IE channeled for 5+ seconds it'll place an additional teir of WoH on all affected targets?

[interactii]

ZC, from your updated post on the first page, could you clarify whether or not the Improved Rousing Words skill now works as described in the tooltip? IE channeled for 5+ seconds it'll place an additional teir of WoH on all affected targets?

That is correct. It will place an additional tier. My comment was around the fact that if it upgraded the tier, when that upgrade expired, it would not bump down, it would disapear(like you wern't traited). I'm very happy to hear this was not intentional

[elvenwarlord619]

Any explanation of what the intended use of the new bubble is. It was especially effective before and now seems to be less. It seems on multiple classes morale shields are being implemented instead of the older more useful versions of the skills. I like the concept but the amount of the morale shield is insignificant during a raid. And then were down to a 10 % reduction for the rest of the skill. I guess your intention is to make the rk even more of a secondary healing option to a minny because now we lost our second biggest advantage after stacking hots over a minny to go along with the fact that our burst healing sucks despite your feelings on Efta. Healing on an rk was repetitive before and now with the clear nerf to our bubble it will become even more of a mending/writ spam. I normally enjoy your updates zc but this update to the rk seems to be a step backwards. One of our better dps skill spike damage was reduced(EC) Our utility skills are being made even harder to use while minnies are becoming easier to use. Our buffs were already not as good as minnies and now they cost more of our attunement. Why should you take an rk over a hunter/champ? Our biggest advantage which was spike crits has been reduced by the change to ec and the phasing out of tact multiplier which was not a clunky stat. What it did was let us hit harder when we crit which is what kept us up at top dps. What is the direction of the rk. We will not be a top dps and minnies are becoming more useful while we are becoming less. What is your vision of of the rk. Because when I think about my rk i think i need to start brushing up on my hunter and my minny for RoI

[socom33]

A quick comment about the HPS of epic vs mending, epic is in fact less HPS and less power efficient. One epic will restore more morale than one mending, but the HoTs on mending can tick simultaneously, and if you look at how much healing you get over 10-12 seconds of using both skills, mending verse comes out significantly ahead as well as using less power.

As said before, if mini's had to wait 3.5-4 seconds to get any morale out of bolster courage, none of them would use it. The fact that you can cast epic repeatedly faster than BC is relatively meaningless simply because there is no situation where you'd want to. Not to mention how unreasonable it is to keep the buff from the epic trait up often enough that it'll only be 3.5 second induction when you actually need it to be.

It takes longer to get to the same HPS using Mending than it does using epic for the ages. Obviously stacking Mending on one target is easy but it limits you to only doing that and an occasional Writ. Try using EftA on your target like you would Mending verses. Start the induction early (just like you stack with mending verse earlier than necessary) (obviously this limits its use to tanks but its extremely effective when using it on them as I outlined earlier because it allows you to heal the group more easily)