7 replies to this topic

[Segal]

I am looking at the healer abilities as I work to level my character and start to have some real questions. I am hoping that someone can fill in the blanks and correct me where I am wrong. I have outline the abilities below and my opinion of them, please correct me if I am wrong. Im looking for some education here.

Channeling

Purity of Soul - Increases Soul Statistic by 1%. I am not exactly sure what 'Soul' does but my base of 46 soul (at level 29) was increase by 2 points for 5 ability points. Assuming better gear and higher levels coming in to play, seems that the 5% bonus is okay dependent on exactly what functions Soul has. Dud.

Deep Trance - Reduces Threat by 6% while tranced, 30% with 5 ranks. Now Trance can only be used every 2 minutes and has a duration of 15 seconds. Personally I havent used Trance much at all for soloing though it might come in handy later. Possible useful when grouping is common but has no benefit at all for soloing. Dud.

Channeled Vitality - Increases Endurance gained from Word of Vitality by 5% per rank. At Level 29, I get 290 HPs from the spell without the ability and 360 with it. a 70 HP difference on a spell I use constantly is a winner. Definately worth taking.

Improved Idol Carving - Inceases the amount of focus your recover by 10% per rank. I have never cast Idol of Focus or felt a need for it. Dud.

Critical Soul - Increases the Critical Strike chance for all actions by 1% - I assume this include Wrath spells so any increase is a good thing.

Force of Life - Increases the benefit of Touch of healing and touch of life by 4% per rank - 20% bonus to healing, sounds good.

Word of Balance - Doubles Wrath and Essence resistance for 1 ability point - That works

Focused Will - Reduces spell casting interrupts by 70% for 2 ability points - That works

Neutrality - Reduces the cost of Neutralize by 25% per rank, 50% total. Neutralize only costs 83 focus and I have never cast it. Assuming its commonly cast at higher levels, I still cant justify 2 ability points to save 40 focus per cast on a situational spell.

Lasting Faith - Increases the duration of Shield of faith by 6%. Hmm, why? It already lasts 30 seconds and only absorbs 96 points at level 29 thats 2 attacks. I would like the shield better if it only lasted 15 seconds and absorbed 192 damage. Dud.

Second Sight - Increases Accuracy and Critical Strike by 1% while tranced. At this point, Im not taking anything that only works during a trance. Dud

Contrition - Reduces cooldown of Shield of Faith by 2 seconds per rank - So I can get shield of faith down to 20 seconds for 5 ability points but its still only absorbing a marginal amount of damage. The only real benefit of Shield of Faith is that its instant, otherwise I can just heal through the damage.

Relaxation - Reduces cost of spells by 3% per rank, 15% total. Another stance only ability. 15% reduction for 15 seconds, hmm, no thanks Dud

Shield of Vengence - Returns 10% of the damage Shield of Faith absorbs as essence damage, 50% at 5 ranks. Hmm, thats 5 ability points to do a measly 48 damage at L29. Dud

Embrace of Benediction - increase damage healed by Healing Embrace by 2% per rank, 10% at rank 5. Lets see, at level 29, thats an increase of 6 points but it consumes all the divine favor. That doesnt seem like a value proposition to me.

Improved Warding - Increases resistance bonus from word of warding by 2% per rank. Why is this at the top of the tree. For 1 ability point I got a 100% increase from Word of Balance (granted thats self only). Serious Dud

Idolatry - Another Idol of Faith ability but it extends focus gain to party members - Im going to refrain from trying to determine if this is any good until group content is common but definately a no-go for soloing.

Must Haves:
Focused Will
Force of Life
Critical Soul
Channeled Vitality
Word of Balance

Lots of duds and some of the other trees have even more.

Thoughts?

[Jaede6]

Purity of Soul - Increases Soul Statistic by 1%. I am not exactly sure what 'Soul' does

As far as I can tell, soul is your regeneration of focus.

Deep Trance - Reduces Threat by 6% while tranced, 30% with 5 ranks. Now Trance can only be used every 2 minutes and has a duration of 15 seconds.

Second Sight - Increases Accuracy and Critical Strike by 1% while tranced.

Relaxation - Reduces cost of spells by 3% per rank, 15% total. Another stance only ability.

Improved Idol Carving - Inceases the amount of focus your recover by 10% per rank.

Using Deep Trance is how I noticed soul was focus regeneration. In 15 seconds, I used ALL my focus with this spell active.

The Idol would probably be useful directly after using Deep Trance. Burn through your focus with extra spell power, use the Idol and your focus is back to full, or close to it. Adding Second Sight and Relaxation to increase your burn power in Deep Trance while using less focus will make for quite the burst of dps.

I haven't had a chance to experiment with much of the other things you mentioned.

Jaede

[Eldaran]

Good info Jaede... looks like I have a lot of studying to do!

[Mhantra]

Nice list, Segal, I can see the work you put into it. I have long since wondered if the channeling tree has an identity crisis.

The Divination tree was stated (and I can see it, even though it has a few duds also) as being the raid healer line.

The Sprit Mastery is clearly the DPS line.

So what, exactly, does the Channeling tree do for a healer besides a few buff-like benefits and some focus regen? Your list agrees with my assessment, that many of those are just not worth it.

I can't speak of the 1% (5% full ranks)soul increase, as it could increase at higher level. My guess is at lv 50, it may be a substantial increase to soul, so I may give that ability a pass.

I can see focus regen as more important if you are grouped, even in a duo. I have always seen the new method of using trance and deathwalk as being "flow-based" where you create a flow of actions and abilities that builds up to the maximum efficiancy of the use of trance, followed by deathwalk to recoup your focus, and I could see the whole Totem as a fallback if you need it fast. So maybe I can give that a pass (except solo, doubt the healer uses that much of trance or focus totem anyway).

Other than that, and those passes were being friendly to those abilities, I am not sure how much those benefit a healer over what the other trees can do. Again, it seems like it has an identity crisis and may need a complete overhaul.

Given that, I have tried to come up with some ideas for the identity, or role, of another tree. Honestly, I haven't been able to come up with a solid one, though some ideas on converting the healer into a more survivable, but less magically powerful class have been floating around.

Any ideas from others?

[Minuvo]

Ooo! Ooo! Pick me!

In all seriousness the Channeling tree is meant to be an "output" tree but it tends to get overshone by some of the abilities in Divination. We're not terribly happy with how the Channeling tree is functioning right now but there's other things we need to work on.

Do keep in mind that that the Infusion ability has no equal right now in game - it's the only way to get that buff.

[Mhantra]

Ooo! Ooo! Pick me!

In all seriousness the Channeling tree is meant to be an "output" tree but it tends to get overshone by some of the abilities in Divination. We're not terribly happy with how the Channeling tree is functioning right now but there's other things we need to work on.

Do keep in mind that that the Infusion ability has no equal right now in game - it's the only way to get that buff.

Our star student always raises his hand with the right answer!

Output tree. Fascinating. My brother and I will process that fully.

Goood point on the infusion. But again, as few people are grouped, it isn't being utilized as much as it might once, well, say, The Dawning is over.

[Segal]

Thanks for the replies all.

I must have missed the Infusion buff, don’t see it in any of the trees.

Strangely I currently have most my points in Channeling. Assuming that the limit is 50 ability points and there is no way to get more, I would tend not to spend any of abilities that are situational or in any way limited (i.e. Trance based). Of course, I haven’t experimented with the trances at all and maybe they are super duper. 15 seconds of super duper doesn’t excite me as much as something that’s pretty good 100% of the time.

In the Divination Line, I didn’t see anything at all on the first two lines worth spending points on with the exception of Prayer of War. Some of them I wouldn’t take if they were free Self-Shielding and Improved Word of Healing look good but you need to spend 10 points in abilities that are under powered (IMO) to get there.

Lots of these abilities really don’t do much at all until you are high level and max geared and that’s only assume the abilities buff you based on total stat and not raw numbers. Take Divine Grace, a 3% movement speed increase for 3 ability points? That’s 2 points of movement speed increase assuming percentages are rounded up. That’s 1/3 the increase I get from a Moole which I can buy for a gold.

I like the lower tiers of the spirit mastery tree but then you get to the 3rd tier and you have Woe and Envy which look marginal at best. Though maybe in practice they are worthwhile. Effectively I see it as a 5% damage increase for 5 ability points which I guess is nothing to sneeze at. But now I am a twisting spells (ala an EQ Bard) to get the effect I want, sounds like a bit too much work for a marginal increase.

I plan on cherry picking the best abilities because I don’t see an Endcap ability that is so good I am forced to spend points in a tree to get it. What I fear is having to reallocate ability points every time the situation changes (assuming that’s even a long term option). I guess that would be okay if we could save allocations in templates or something; here is my grouping set-up, here is my soloing set-up, here is my DPS set-up etc…

Maybe my biggest misconception is that I think ability points should be worth more than is reflected in the abilities you can buy.

[Mhantra]

Hey Segal. Interesting you like the channeling tree so much. I checked out a lot of healers on Myalgnon, and most seemed to go with spirit mastery, and I am assuming that this is because it is most conducive to soloing, which the game strongly supports right now.

I can see why Divination doesn't appeal to you, though it most certainly would if you were in charge of healing a full group of 6 and you were the only healer =D

I think the interesting thing about the healer and the soldier's ability trees are that they aren't as easy to pick out the secondary role that the tree creates.

The Magus is, to me, the most easy to spot, as far as a second role goes. My brother will be a frost magus in our duo, and he will be the tank. As we checked out build after build, since he's going with the tank role, almost everything in the tree felt important in some way, whether it was agro, damage (more agro) some self healing and physical resistance. Cherry picking just wouldn't seen to be an option if you truly want to go full magus tank role. Perhaps a few of the resistance raisers from the other branches would be reasonable, or the plus dodge, but overall, we figure all 50 points will be best spent in the frost tree, which is the tanking tree.

Since you aren't seeing a clear cut role like that playing a healer, I can see how cherry picking just might be your best bet, though again, if you are going to be a large group healer, Divinity will certainly play that role. and Spirit Mastery would definitely raise the DPS the most.