My thoughts on the bodyguard tree criticism wanted

[polopopoo]

Body Guard

 

A few talents I find rather weak

 

Cure mind--How many mental effects in this game can we actually dispell? It no longer seems to work on force choke. I don't see this as a very useful talent in pvp or pve. "The heal" portion is a joke i hope.

 

Power Insulators--2 points for 4% damage reduction. I haven't seen a pve fight where there is a continuous incoming damage, where this would add up and actually account for any real mitigation. Currently in pvp, Well geared warriors ravage for roughly 9k if you cannot get out of range quick enough, so this talent would reduce it to 8.6k. I would much rather see a talent that decreases our KB cool down or energy shield cool down in its place.

 

Critical Efficiency--3 talent points to lower the heat cost our most expensive heal by 8 after using a 9 second cool down ability. It seems kinda pricy for something that only helps during supercharged gas. Which will ultimately lead us to heat starvation. Adding something else to the talent i think could make it a little bit more worth it, by adding a 5-10-15 sec reduction in our Thermal Sensor Override ability.

 

Heat Dampening-- Nice idea to add a talent that makes our cc free, but since the initial cost of those abilities is so low it is not really a talent I've seen many people bothering to take. Instead I would like to see something that reduces cast time of concussion missile or cool downs of our cc.

 

 

PvE-- has definitely become more of a challenge, I am no longer able to play minesweeper on my other monitor while healing 80% of the hard and nightmare mode fights. The supercharged gas nerf was the only serious nerf to our PvE healing. So we now have to weave in a rapid shots every time we HS/RS combo. Kolto missile is now a beast of a heal and are not quite as reliant on others AoE to cover us. I had feared that we would be replaced in all situations with 2 sorcs, but they seem to be having a harder time adjusting than we do. Over all I don't really don't have complaints about healing PvE at all.

 

PVP--We recieved a n overdue nerf along with sorc hybrids. I could go games without dieing and laughing while protecting nodes or acting like Jim Brown with the huttball, those days are gone. If left unchecked we can still dominate games though.

 

I've gone back to the days of pillar humping and for the most part it works. My biggest concern is that when a melee wants you dead. You better have numbers to back you up. With 1 KB and 1 defensive cool down a good smuggler or knight will absolutely eat you alive. The other healing classes all have various escape tools and our invulnerability was ours. We can no longer tank a melee dps nor escape from one. When 1 class can completly lock down another your team is now 7 vs 8. Without 2 dedicated players to assist you with either taunts or peels their is just no surviving a strong melee class in this game anymore.

 

I had my fun with god mode pvp, but there should be some kind of compromise so that 1 dps doesn't trump a healer in a matter of 8 seconds. Healers dps should be low and survivability in the medium, tanks high survivability and dps low. The problem is the complete lack of survivability with the exception of a few classes which happen to be dps. Any ability that makes one invulnerable are bad (see bodyguard bubble pre 1.2) the only time it works is when its used a defensive cool down not to continue onslaughts of damage.

 

 

 

Just what I've seen since 1.2. Welcoming anyone to comment who thinks I'm just a complainer or has better ideas then what Ive presented. THANKS

[americanaussie]

I was never left unchecked in PVP. As soon as they saw me coming, I'd have 4 or 5 enemies immediately focus on me and take me down. I think every time I played the opposing team was very well organized.

[TempestasSilva]

I'll respond from a PvE - non-Nightmare POV.

 

Body Guard

 

A few talents I find rather weak

 

Cure mind--How many mental effects in this game can we actually dispell? It no longer seems to work on force choke. I don't see this as a very useful talent in pvp or pve. "The heal" portion is a joke i hope.

Agreed, although one of the debuffs on Toth & Zorn is clensable, maybe more are. No idea if the point is needed tho. Thing is, we are not short on points in PvE, so there's no harm.

Power Insulators--2 points for 4% damage reduction. I haven't seen a pve fight where there is a continuous incoming damage, where this would add up and actually account for any real mitigation.

Agreed

Critical Efficiency--3 talent points to lower the heat cost our most expensive heal by 8 after using a 9 second cool down ability. It seems kinda pricy for something that only helps during supercharged gas. Which will ultimately lead us to heat starvation. Adding something else to the talent i think could make it a little bit more worth it, by adding a 5-10-15 sec reduction in our Thermal Sensor Override ability.

Expensive for sure, still but mandatory in PVE I think.

Heat Dampening-- Nice idea to add a talent that makes our cc free, but since the initial cost of those abilities is so low it is not really a talent I've seen many people bothering to take. Instead I would like to see something that reduces cast time of concussion missile or cool downs of our cc.

I think this is a PvP talent, so I have no input.

 

PvE-- has definitely become more of a challenge, I am no longer able to play minesweeper on my other monitor while healing 80% of the hard and nightmare mode fights.

Agreed

Kolto missile is now a beast of a heal and are not quite as reliant on others AoE to cover us.

Its improved for sure, but a beast? I dunno. It still heals people that don't need it and misses people that do. If you can hit at least 2 people with it, its probably worth casting.

 

I had feared that we would be replaced in all situations with 2 sorcs, but they seem to be having a harder time adjusting than we do.

I still think Sorcs put out more healing. With the new meters and spltting responsibilities in an 8-man raid, the best I have hit is 1200 HPS. Usually averaging 900-1000. Both of our sorcs are frequently hitting 1600-1700. The only thing is that there is no way to trask over healing so I don't know if their effective healing is significantly higher. Sometimes I am only 35% of the total healing. Again though, w/o knowing how much of that healing is revivification ticking on people at full health, its hard to judge.

 

Over all I don't really don't have complaints about healing PvE at all.

Overall, I think we probably needed nerfed, but it was done the wrong way. To me, instead of a healing class where I am making choices of what, where, and when...I now pretty much use a DPS-like rotation and instead of targeting the enemy, I target the lowest health bar. I think especially the nerf to SCG screwed the play style because before it was a great burst mechanic. Now I have my doubts as to whether it is worth casting ever. You give up 3% healing to get 5% healing for 13 seconds, but then you have 0% healing until you rebuild your stack. That may be a net loss of healing. For that, you vent 8 heat and get to apply a 5% dr? Not impressive. Probably still useful under an AoE damage situation, but not what it was.

 

Now the difference between a good healer and a great one is who pushed the buttons in the right order, not who make the best decisions.

Edited April 17, 2012 by TempestasSilva

[polopopoo]

Thanks for the reply, wasn't sure if i was taking 1.2 with clear eyes or not.

[napeh]

The sorcs *should* have a higher HPS then us, as we focus more on single target.

 

I am finding that in most fights where the op/grp is organized healing is just as easy, but any mistake and lots of damage to the op kills heat way to fast and leaves us useless. Kolto missile is not beast imo, what above said about it still hitting wrong people renders it mainly useless.

 

I think there should be a skill that reduces CD of vent heat, that would counter massive aoe heat gains while still keeping out heals as they are now (since they want to balance pve and pvp..)

 

In pvp I average around 100k less healing, mainly because I die 10x faster now. If left 'unchecked' I can still help, but most groups are smarter then that and just insta kill me. We definitely need a revamp on pvp.

Edited April 17, 2012 by napeh

[TempestasSilva]

I think there should be a skill that reduces CD of vent heat, that would counter massive aoe heat gains while still keeping out heals as they are now (since they want to balance pve and pvp..)

 

I am probably doing something wrong, but in 1.2 because of the heat nerfs I pretty much stick to a heat neutral rotation constantly. I would actually take points out of improving it if there were somewhere significant to put them.

 

I'd much rather see something added that maybe had a 5 minute cool down that was fun. Like a 5 second 100%DR or maybe a threat drop or maybe a something where for 5 second someone'e health could not drop below 5%. Or maybe the ability to use concussive missile on a friendly target and they could choose when to click it off. Or maybe a resource booster where for 5 seconds everyone hit w/ Kolto missile would have 50% increased resource generation. I don't know, but it needs something fun that would take using your brain to make good use of.

 

Oh and while we are at it...can they make it so Rapid Shots can heal us too, PLEASE?!

[polopopoo]

Thank you for the reply. I don't think they will lower the rate we build up heat, seems that healing will be the benchmark for how hard fights are instead of mechanic based. So I do not expect any kind of reload reduction unfortunately.

 

Even with Kolto not hitting 8 people and not a smart target heal, I find that it is one of the more important abilities we use now. I'm fairly happy with it.

 

The pvp survivability is one of my bigger concerns atm. It's getting rough with alot of other healers and tanks moving toward dps. I cannot come up with any way they can increase our survivability without recreating pre 1.2. Healiing in pug wz's all day has led me to believe that if a melee wants you dead, you no longer have the ability to disagree with him.

 

 

Oh and while we are at it...can they make it so Rapid Shots can heal us too, PLEASE?!

 

That idea I really love. It would really help with the lock out of rapid scan.

Edited April 17, 2012 by polopopoo

[Ehlin]

This is all purely from a PVP perspective, I don't pve raid.

 

Just the other day I was looking over the bodyguard tree and was thinking just how badly setup it really is. Specially with the 1.2 changes.

 

I use to have a point into cure mind, even though I wasn't sure what the hell it also removed, but once 1.2 came it just wasn't worth it.

I agree that critical efficiency really shouldn't cost 3 points to cap and it does feel somewhat like a waste. Though what feels like the biggest waste of points is that warden requires 5 points to cap.

I use to dislike heat dampening, but with the heat changes in 1.2 I respeced and put a point into this. It helps a lot. (Purely from a PVP perspective)

In regards to Powered Insulators I actually also put points into this after the 1.2 patch, I find it helps.. but not really enough. One of my bigger issues with the bodyguard tree really is that hired muscle is one of our tier 1's. I would love for this to be replaced with something else. 3 points for 3% is crap.

I'd like it if Integrated Systems and Custom Enviro Suit were swapped with Hired Muscle and Critical Reaction. That way we can still reach emergency scan easily, but also get more defensive stats so we don't die as fast. Cause as it stands now our survivability is horrible.

I love how you mentioned, which I think a lot of people don't really consider, that our ability to take hits was our survivability tool. Unlike sorc/sages we didn't have force speed or anything to quickly get away. Which in my opinion made sense, I mean our healing tree is called Bodyguard after all.

 

I suggested a while back that a possible option to help our survivability would be to lower Warden and beside it place an escape tool which could just be an in-combat version of the jetpack/rocket boots from the legacy. Or a move that jet packs us back behind us, like another community member suggested. Though I would prefer to have more defensive capabilities that let us take a hit again.

 

But again, I agree that the bodyguard tree needs some work as well as some more retweaking of the changes they did in 1.2 Kolto shell nerf and supercharged gas nerf was just overkill imo.