I originally posted this in response to the below quote in another thread. Greezt, I'm not trying to call you out so my apologies for any appearance of such--rather, you point out something worth discussing that I believe deserves its own thread.

Not all classes deserve self-heals, ans most don't have them.

Shadow -- All specs

Utilities: None.

Built-in: Batlte readiness, 2m cooldown, instant heal for 15%, lasts 15 seconds, saber charge ability procs a 1% heal up to 1x per second. Battle readiness also gives significant damage/rotational buffs for the duration. So guaranteed heal 15%, possible heal up to 30%, realistic heal 20-24%, every 2 minutes.

Shadow/Sin also has combat-breaking stealth, phase walk, and the highly spammable force speed, so they can easily remove themselves from combat for a full heal, if necessary. Tons of CC to be able to make certain of an escape too. In addition, Kinetic is (obviously) tanky, and Serenity gets several damage-procced self-heals.

Sage:

Do I really need to say anything? -- Edit: Okay, in contrary to something I say below, their self heal utility is a heroic but 1) why do they need it? and 2) the return on it is frigging amazing.

Guardian:

Utilities: 10% heal that procs off of CC break DCD, also reducing CD of said DCD to 90 seconds. So guaranteed 20% every 3 minutes.

All specs: Focused Defense, 12 charges that trigger a self heal on any damage, no timer restrictions on charge proc. CD 2 minutes, or 90 seconds w/(good) util. Enure: Temporary 30% max HP buff. 1 minute CD, 20 second duration.

Scoundrel:

Utilities: 5% instant heal tied to a 30s CD 10s duration damage shield. Procs on shield collapse.

Built in heals on every spec as this class has a dedicated heal spec; in other words, see Sage (just not as nuts).

Gunslinger

Built in/all specs: No heal, per se, but has a built in damage shield usable every 30 seconds -- shields are basically "proactive heals" assuming you have any incoming damage at all. Several utilities buff this ability. 10s duration, procs on any damage, no timer on proc (it's a damage shield).

Utility: 1% health every 3 seconds while in cover. Great recovery over time, and you ideally should be fighting in cover as much as possible. The cover DCD lasts 23 seconds and has either a 1 minute or 45 second CD, so assuming you can stay in cover, 7-8% heal a minute (closer to 10% if specced for 45 second CD). Requires no proc other than staying in cover.

Commando:

Has a heal spec, so has numerous built in self heal/bubble abilities and utilities that buff them (see Sage, Scoundrel).

Vanguard

Utilities: Healed 5% of max HP per Shoulder Cannon missile. Shoulder cannon gets 1 instantly, so thats 5% instant assuming you use it, and another 3 missiles over 20 seconds -- so 20% over 20 seconds. Tactics/AP gets mo' missiles (3?). CD is 90 seconds.

All specs: Adrelaline Rush, lasts 60s, CD 3 minutes. When below 40% health, healed up to 40% over 8 seconds -- or if health goes over 40%, 2% HP every second over the 8 second duration. So minimum HP gain over 8 seconds without a proc is 16%, and realistically I think at least 25% can be expected in most scenarios.

And finally, Sentinel/Marauder:

Combat/Carnage: NONE

Concentration/Fury: NONE

Watchman/Annihilation: The Zen/Berserk and crit procs are useful over time, helping counteract the excessive time needed to stay in combat for the spec to be DPS effective. The Zen/Berserk also has a small but nice return to party.

Utilities: Tied to 3 minute CD DCD with no cooldown reducers. Important to note that this DCD is important to save for periods of high focus/incoming damage or its usage is inefficient. Duration 12 seconds, 3% max HP heal that procs on being attacked, and can only proc 1x per second. It is also worth noting that with the exception of the (Amazing) Vanguard utility, this is the only heal utility that is Heroic tier--all of the other save Scoundrel's (masterful tier, and they have other self heals) are Skillful tier.

So our heal utility has the worst proc/trigger, has the longest cooldown of any of the self-heal utilities thanks to the DCD it is tied to, and necessarily requires regular incoming damage for the entire 12s duration of the tied DCD to heal to its potential (at least 1x attack for 12 seconds is not going to be insignificant, even with the defensive bonus of Saber Ward). Additionally, it's stuck in heroic tier--the only other one stuck in heroic tier is a damned amazing utility. This is also one of the only utilities (or self heals in general) that does not have ANY guaranteed healing.

Meanwhile, 2/3 of our specs are the only 2 specs in the game that do not have ANY built in bubble or heal.

Conclusion:

We are utterly shafted on self heal compared to every other class, with 2/3 specs having no HP gain and the worst self-heal utility in the game. Based on averaging other specs, focusing more specifically on the "squishy/high DPS/burst" specs like ours, we should be able to see something like 30% healing every 3 minutes, with at least 20% of it very easily procced if not guaranteed. We should have -some- sort of regularly/semi-regularly usable bubble or self heal on all of our specs (anywhere between 30-90) separate from our utility. Our self-heal utility, based off of other DPS specs, should be skillful tier. Finally, our self-heal utility should be tied to something that is desirable to do/something our class should be doing by default--in our case, this should be either 1) while attacking, or 2: while under the effect of zen/berserk, which is usually done simultaneously to 1. Not being hit constantly for 12 seconds, something we should avoid outside of 1) PvE emergency offtanking, or 2) when we already have guaranteed/likely healing support for the duration of that 12 seconds).

Meanwhile, as we are melee DPS that specializes in dealing with backliners, we are expected to be extended and exposed to both potential periods of high bursts and regular/incidental damage and have a reasonable risk of being temporarily extended beyond support. Our self-sufficiency, if appropriately balanced, should be somewhere between Gunslinger and Guardian. Right now, it's the worst in the game (excepting Watchman, which is arguably the most exposed DPS spec in PvP).

Finally, I include a link to an image that represents my opinion on this state of affairs/balance:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895_FAIL.jpg

As I hate not contributing, perhaps our utility should return 1% health per charge of Zen/Berserk (so 6% from each, assuming we use all of our charges). I think this gives us a reasonable return of around 10% per minute, with possible increasing returns based off of being active/effective in melee--which should be encouraged for our class (and also carries an increased amount of risk/likely damage taken to offset the potential returns). This could replace Zealous Ward/Blood Ward altogether, because screw that utility--give the names like Tranquil Zen and Blood Lust/Blood for the Blood God/For the Emperor/something

Meanwhile, if we add a non-utility self-heal (or bubble) ability to the 2 non-Watchman specs, which I also suggest (to be in line with every other spec in the game), it could be something like a minor bubble or 1% heal off of use of precision/gore, so 5-6% return per minute assuming you are constantly active in melee, and probably something similar for Conc/Fury (based off of some sort of instant crit ability proc, for instance).

I also feel the need to point out that the purpose of DPS self heal is not to make us immortal or tanks--rather, it is to be able to self-recover over time from the normal "nicks and scrapes" acquired over the course of normal combat: the minor damage from stuns/cc's, passing through the occasional AoE, a quick in-passing burst, minor fall damage. Good use of DCD's and proper engagements are still necessary to survive in the short term; 30% health return over 2-3 minutes isn't going to significantly add to short term survivability when facing a focus, hard burst, stacked dots, heavy AoE, standing in fire, etc. As stated numerous times above, all classes/specs except Sent/Mara have a reasonable means of long term recovery like this.

Thoughts?

Jug: the unleash utility shouldnt ever be taken regardless of spec, its crap.

Vg: they got kolto/missiles, they dont need as much utilities, again they're our problem

Sages: same

Operative: speccing into healing utilities: you're a noob, so doesnt count

Sniper: same thing

Sin dmg reduc + heal proc IS ONLY ON TANK CHARGE????? Jeeze get your stuff right before trying to sound all mighty. Surging charge: 15% heal (needed, they have absolutely nothing else and are squishy)

Madness charge: procs dmg, even squishier

Tank stance having a self heal + dmg buff is part of how their tanking role is designed.

Marauders don't need heals, they need to not be kited. Learn to *********** play

Jug: the unleash utility shouldnt ever be taken regardless of spec, its crap. -- In PvE? Absolutely. I wholly disagree in PvP, where Jugg/Guard struggles more than any other class in terms of being kited and CC break, and a significant cooldown reduction on their hard CC break is invaluable. The 10% health bonus, while not worth taking alone, is just that--nice bonus. In particular, I like it for Vig/Ven.

 

Vg: they got kolto/missiles, they dont need as much utilities, again they're our problem -- They sure as hell don't need it, but they get it. Particularly in the case of AP/Tactics, but I think most people realize that **** is broken right now.

 

Sages: same -- See above. Regardless, not taking the util in PvP is silly--up to 56% HP return over 12-13 seconds while immortal, uncontrollable for part of it, and uninterruptable for the rest? Patently absurd.

 

Operative: speccing into healing utilities: you're a noob, so doesnt count The utilities that buff their self-heals and damage shields contain significant DR increases and interrupt immunity that are both invaluable in PvP.

 

Sniper: same thing -- This one is admittedly the one I am at least inclined to take and it is not great; however, I pointed it out to note that if you were to take it, it is still leap years ahead of Zealous Ward. And at least it's a skillful tier spend and not a heroic if you do take it for some insurance. GS/Sniper has known huge survivability issues in 4.x.

 

 

Sin dmg reduc + heal proc IS ONLY ON TANK CHARGE????? Jeeze get your stuff right before trying to sound all mighty. -- I said nothing about damage reduction, which is tank exclusive. The heal proc, last I checked, procs for all specs when surging charge hits for damage. Granted, I haven't specced my assassin DPS for a month or so. That said, in regards to the comment about DR, if you're going to criticize, make sure you're actually reading.

 

Madness charge: procs dmg, even squishier -- Madness gets a (minor) self heal from AoE (that got nerfed harder than it should have), and doesn't have quite as strong of escapes as Deception/Infiltration. Sentinel/Mara having issues and other classes having their own issues are not mutually exclusive.

 

Tank stance having a self heal + dmg buff is part of how their tanking role is designed. --Indeed, they get additional survivability. I considered this obvious and did not discuss the specific abilities of the tank spec further.

 

Marauders don't need heals, they need to not be kited. -- As stated above, this is for (minor) long term recovery from (minor) long term damage that is present in every class except Sent/Mara. This is not intended for and will not have anywhere near the effects on short term survivability as learning DCD, CC, and interrupt management. Learn to *********** play -- Not from you.

Wow, some anger issues here, but I have addressed your points regardless.

Not sure if you're talking PVE or PVP, but the whole mentality of a sent/mar is to kill it before it can kill you. Personally Id take more dps over the couple seconds a self heal would keep a sent alive

I mostly intended this for PvP. On the one hand, I agree with you about DPS--or at least in regards to the fact that certain healers (and by that I mean Sage/Sorc) need to die easier. On the other hand, why should Sent/Mara stand alone in this regard? Not like we're the only glass cannon class/specs out there.

I originally posted this in response to the below quote in another thread. Greezt, I'm not trying to call you out so my apologies for any appearance of such--rather, you point out something worth discussing that I believe deserves its own thread.

 

Shadow -- All specs

 

Utilities: None.

Built-in: Batlte readiness, 2m cooldown, instant heal for 15%, lasts 15 seconds, saber charge ability procs a 1% heal up to 1x per second. Battle readiness also gives significant damage/rotational buffs for the duration. So guaranteed heal 15%, possible heal up to 30%, realistic heal 20-24%, every 2 minutes.

 

Shadow/Sin also has combat-breaking stealth, phase walk, and the highly spammable force speed, so they can easily remove themselves from combat for a full heal, if necessary. Tons of CC to be able to make certain of an escape too. In addition, Kinetic is (obviously) tanky, and Serenity gets several damage-procced self-heals.

 

I main a shadow in PvP, so I feel quite confident talking about it. Battle readiness is a joke heal, and anyone who's ever played a shadow knows it. Bashing your saber on some other enemy for ~1000 HPS max is useless. It mitigates a small amount of damage (generally not noticeable unless your opponent is braindead), but you'll definitely not see any heals from it. The ability only becomes useful with an adrenal+ medpac, or with a DCD. That should tell you everything you need to know about it. Serenity's damage heals are a joke. the only worthwhile one is Serenity strike, and that one gives you ~1000 health once every 12 seconds... so certainly not that good. It's nice, but that's it. Also, let's not forget that serenity exchanges a whole bunch of passive defensives for those pitiful heals. That's why infiltration is considered less squishy, even WITHOUT self heals (except for battle readiness).

Sage:

 

Do I really need to say anything? -- Edit: Okay, in contrary to something I say below, their self heal utility is a heroic but 1) why do they need it? and 2) the return on it is frigging amazing.

Sages are a healing class, and as such they get heals (just like mandos and scoundrels). At the moment they are way overtuned though, and they certainly aren't a good example. Balance has stronger HoTs from its DoTs than serenity, in addition to having all the heals of an offheal class. Yes, they have them, but that doesn't mean they're ok right now. They're not.

Guardian:

 

Utilities: 10% heal that procs off of CC break DCD, also reducing CD of said DCD to 90 seconds. So guaranteed 20% every 3 minutes.

 

All specs: Focused Defense, 12 charges that trigger a self heal on any damage, no timer restrictions on charge proc. CD 2 minutes, or 90 seconds w/(good) util. Enure: Temporary 30% max HP buff. 1 minute CD, 20 second duration.

The 10% self heals are nice, but what's 10% heals every 1.5 minutes? Let's be real, that utility is taken only for the CC break CD reduction. No one has ever said "That guardian beat me because he had that 10% extra heal".

Focused defences is only good vs DoTspecs, and anyway it's a DCD (as is enure). Guardians don't have 20% DR for 30 seconds out of 60, nor do they have transcendence. Enure isn't even a heal... Any guardian knows that if they can't finish the fight in 10 seconds they might very well be dead.

Scoundrel:

 

Utilities: 5% instant heal tied to a 30s CD 10s duration damage shield. Procs on shield collapse.

Built in heals on every spec as this class has a dedicated heal spec; in other words, see Sage (just not as nuts).

5% heals every 30 seconds is basically 5% more damage the shield can absorb, that's all. Again, like you said this is an offheal class and as such they will have heals.

Gunslinger

 

Built in/all specs: No heal, per se, but has a built in damage shield usable every 30 seconds -- shields are basically "proactive heals" assuming you have any incoming damage at all. Several utilities buff this ability. 10s duration, procs on any damage, no timer on proc (it's a damage shield).

 

Utility: 1% health every 3 seconds while in cover. Great recovery over time, and you ideally should be fighting in cover as much as possible. The cover DCD lasts 23 seconds and has either a 1 minute or 45 second CD, so assuming you can stay in cover, 7-8% heal a minute (closer to 10% if specced for 45 second CD). Requires no proc other than staying in cover.

First of all, the HoT utility is horrible. 1% every 3 seconds? Tying yourself to one location for heals that can be negated by an autoattack. You are confusing "hunker down" with cover. They actually get the heals even when hunker down is on CD. Anyway, it doesn't matter. No slinger ever takes that utility who knows what he's doing. The shield mitigates very little damage, but yes, it's one of their cooldowns (again). Each class has different ones, and they got a shield. I'm pretty certain they'd be glad to exchange it for one of the sents' cooldowns.

Commando:

 

Has a heal spec, so has numerous built in self heal/bubble abilities and utilities that buff them (see Sage, Scoundrel).

Nothing to add here.

Vanguard

 

Utilities: Healed 5% of max HP per Shoulder Cannon missile. Shoulder cannon gets 1 instantly, so thats 5% instant assuming you use it, and another 3 missiles over 20 seconds -- so 20% over 20 seconds. Tactics/AP gets mo' missiles (3?). CD is 90 seconds.

 

All specs: Adrelaline Rush, lasts 60s, CD 3 minutes. When below 40% health, healed up to 40% over 8 seconds -- or if health goes over 40%, 2% HP every second over the 8 second duration. So minimum HP gain over 8 seconds without a proc is 16%, and realistically I think at least 25% can be expected in most scenarios.

So vanguards can spec into getting 30% (tactics) or 20% (others) every 1.5 minutes. It adds a DCD to their meager list of DCDs. other than that, they have Reactive shield (25% DR for 12 seconds, on a 2 minute CD), adrenaline rush (up to 40% health except for tanks, on a 3 minutes CD, and can be specced into a CC break), neural surge (2.5 seconds AoE stun, on a 45 seconds CD), and (for tanks only) battle focus (35% defense chance for 15 seconds, on a 2 minute cooldown). As you can see, sents have a much more extensive list of DCDs, not to mention shorter cooldowns on many of them.

And finally, Sentinel/Marauder:

 

Combat/Carnage: NONE

Concentration/Fury: NONE

Watchman/Annihilation: The Zen/Berserk and crit procs are useful over time, helping counteract the excessive time needed to stay in combat for the spec to be DPS effective. The Zen/Berserk also has a small but nice return to party.

 

Utilities: Tied to 3 minute CD DCD with no cooldown reducers. Important to note that this DCD is important to save for periods of high focus/incoming damage or its usage is inefficient. Duration 12 seconds, 3% max HP heal that procs on being attacked, and can only proc 1x per second. It is also worth noting that with the exception of the (Amazing) Vanguard utility, this is the only heal utility that is Heroic tier--all of the other save Scoundrel's (masterful tier, and they have other self heals) are Skillful tier.

 

So our heal utility has the worst proc/trigger, has the longest cooldown of any of the self-heal utilities thanks to the DCD it is tied to, and necessarily requires regular incoming damage for the entire 12s duration of the tied DCD to heal to its potential (at least 1x attack for 12 seconds is not going to be insignificant, even with the defensive bonus of Saber Ward). Additionally, it's stuck in heroic tier--the only other one stuck in heroic tier is a damned amazing utility. This is also one of the only utilities (or self heals in general) that does not have ANY guaranteed healing.

 

Meanwhile, 2/3 of our specs are the only 2 specs in the game that do not have ANY built in bubble or heal.

 

Conclusion:

 

We are utterly shafted on self heal compared to every other class, with 2/3 specs having no HP gain and the worst self-heal utility in the game. Based on averaging other specs, focusing more specifically on the "squishy/high DPS/burst" specs like ours, we should be able to see something like 30% healing every 3 minutes, with at least 20% of it very easily procced if not guaranteed. We should have -some- sort of regularly/semi-regularly usable bubble or self heal on all of our specs (anywhere between 30-90) separate from our utility. Our self-heal utility, based off of other DPS specs, should be skillful tier. Finally, our self-heal utility should be tied to something that is desirable to do/something our class should be doing by default--in our case, this should be either 1) while attacking, or 2: while under the effect of zen/berserk, which is usually done simultaneously to 1. Not being hit constantly for 12 seconds, something we should avoid outside of 1) PvE emergency offtanking, or 2) when we already have guaranteed/likely healing support for the duration of that 12 seconds).

 

Meanwhile, as we are melee DPS that specializes in dealing with backliners, we are expected to be extended and exposed to both potential periods of high bursts and regular/incidental damage and have a reasonable risk of being temporarily extended beyond support. Our self-sufficiency, if appropriately balanced, should be somewhere between Gunslinger and Guardian. Right now, it's the worst in the game (excepting Watchman, which is arguably the most exposed DPS spec in PvP).

 

Finally, I include a link to an image that represents my opinion on this state of affairs/balance:

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895_FAIL.jpg

 

As I hate not contributing, perhaps our utility should return 1% health per charge of Zen/Berserk (so 6% from each, assuming we use all of our charges). I think this gives us a reasonable return of around 10% per minute, with possible increasing returns based off of being active/effective in melee--which should be encouraged for our class (and also carries an increased amount of risk/likely damage taken to offset the potential returns). This could replace Zealous Ward/Blood Ward altogether, because screw that utility--give the names like Tranquil Zen and Blood Lust/Blood for the Blood God/For the Emperor/something

 

Meanwhile, if we add a non-utility self-heal (or bubble) ability to the 2 non-Watchman specs, which I also suggest (to be in line with every other spec in the game), it could be something like a minor bubble or 1% heal off of use of precision/gore, so 5-6% return per minute assuming you are constantly active in melee, and probably something similar for Conc/Fury (based off of some sort of instant crit ability proc, for instance).

 

I also feel the need to point out that the purpose of DPS self heal is not to make us immortal or tanks--rather, it is to be able to self-recover over time from the normal "nicks and scrapes" acquired over the course of normal combat: the minor damage from stuns/cc's, passing through the occasional AoE, a quick in-passing burst, minor fall damage. Good use of DCD's and proper engagements are still necessary to survive in the short term; 30% health return over 2-3 minutes isn't going to significantly add to short term survivability when facing a focus, hard burst, stacked dots, heavy AoE, standing in fire, etc. As stated numerous times above, all classes/specs except Sent/Mara have a reasonable means of long term recovery like this.

 

Thoughts?

Ok, conclusion time. All self heals mentioned above (excluding offhealing classes) are not better than defensives, because they replace them. I could go over all the DCDs again, but I already did so in the original post (for shadows, at least). Suffice to say that sents have some of the best DCDs in the game, and many (force camo, rebuke, transcendence) are either on a short cooldown or have a VERY long uptime. Self heals don't equate better survivability, except when paired with good DCDs (sages spring to mind). So yes, sents don't get self heals. They get other things, like the best burst in the game, a whole bunch of DCDs, and good passive defensives. That is why they don't deserve self heals. They certainly don't deserve them because "other classes have them". Would you ask for more ranged attacks, because shadows have 10-30m attacks and sents only have one? No. The same goes for self heals.

I hope I'm not coming off here as obnoxious, I did my best to explain my point of view.

Snip..

Snipping this only because I want to address a particular issue/concern at the moment rather than any individual point. Suffice to say I enjoy your counterpoints and agree with several of them, and on the whole appreciate intelligent discussion.

As to the objective of adding self-heal, it's not a matter of short term durability. Everything I've proposed isn't going to make a significant difference in surviving a focus/burst/etc. This is long term pressure relief/nag recovery, and at should be treated as supplementary.

Why? Because I think Sent/Mara needs a little more ability to lay down consistent damage in PvP. Outside of Conc/Fury, which is just bad outside of its burst and gravity vortex, the solution to this is not to add more damage or DPS--that would overtool us for PvE the same way that Sage is overtooled for PvP now. Rather, some long term recovery/pressure relief in turn means we can stick around that much longer to crank out offense where it's needed. The solution is not to modify or add to our DCD's either, because that would add to our burst/focus/short term survival, which again also risks overtooling us.

I think sometimes we get a little too obsessed with seeing "big numbers right now" and selecting the utilities that solely modify that (this applies to any spec). It's not that I don't think some utils suck; quite the opposite, just check my utilities thread. Sent/Mara has a lot of stinkers. At the same time, sometimes that extra 5-10% health recovered or preserved, as little as it seems from a numbers-without-context perspective, is the difference between life and death--and how much DPS did you lose out on in the, say, half a minute that you were dead, waiting for forcefield to drop, and running back to whatever engagement?

The fact is, there's not a single correct answer to this--nor should there be! Ideally, there should be a time and a place for both--sometimes the immediate damage is desirable and sometimes the staying power is desirable. I've got a little past my own "big numbers" obsession and found that even if I'm doing less total damage per game, sometimes extra durability means I'm sticking around long enough to do damage where it's needed, when it's needed.

In the end, I'm in agreement with the camp that says we need a little more DPS in PvP--but I think adding to our theoretical DPS capability is the wrong way to go due to PvE balance. Likewise, adding to our (already solid) DCD's will end up being destructive (the nerf usually hits harder than the buff). Thus, the solution, in my opinion, lies in pressure relief/long term sustain, which generally = limited self heal capability.

The other possibility worth discussing is our limited CC break toolkit. We aren't Guards/Juggs, but we're pretty easily and effectively kited by someone that has a decent idea of our toolkit. If you have an opinion here, I've missed it--I'm curious what you think.

problem lies in getting kited. how is this so hard to understand? you can't improve the dps as it's astonishing, can't improve DCD's because they're perfectly fine. GETTING. KITED. get a 10m root.

We have one, it's just split between 2 utilities right now (1 heroic), which is stupid. I doubt you disagree on that point, though.

Adding self heals would require a nerf to survivability, because sents already have good passive defense and good DCDs. So that's not the way to go. Adding an anti-kiting mechanic to all sents is no solution, because concentration are already quite good at avoiding kiting, and watchman are less susceptible to it (being a DoTspec). The only spec that truly suffers from kiting is combat, because they are close-range, their burst relies on 3 second windows, and they only have one distance closer.

Right now, speccing transcendence into a root break is pretty much obligatory. That's fine in my opinion. Shadows have the same with egress. A small improvement could be merging just pursuit with reigning reach. Other than that, the main problem is that other classes have too many escapes. Sages have knock back, phasewalk, force speed, bubble stun, force slow... That's the real problem.

Edit: simply put, sents are balanced very well right now. Better than most other classes. That's why I'm against buffing their heals.

Adding self heals would require a nerf to survivability, because sents already have good passive defense and good DCDs. So that's not the way to go. Adding an anti-kiting mechanic to all sents is no solution, because concentration are already quite good at avoiding kiting, and watchman are less susceptible to it (being a DoTspec). The only spec that truly suffers from kiting is combat, because they are close-range, their burst relies on 3 second windows, and they only have one distance closer.

 

Right now, speccing transcendence into a root break is pretty much obligatory. That's fine in my opinion. Shadows have the same with egress. A small improvement could be merging just pursuit with reigning reach. Other than that, the main problem is that other classes have too many escapes. Sages have knock back, phasewalk, force speed, bubble stun, force slow... That's the real problem.

 

Edit: simply put, sents are balanced very well right now. Better than most other classes. That's why I'm against buffing their heals.

Maybe you could say we feel Sages being OP more than most as we have a rather strong obligation to deal with them?

That said, my problem with transcendence is it's an obligatory 2 utility spend, just like pursuit + reach (imo said merged util should be heroic). My opinion on transcendence is that the '30 seconds/no centering' should just be the default mechanic for the skill--I don't think I've ever seen it used otherwise in either PvP or PvE.

Another problem I have is that we do have another root break that applies to blade blitz that I'd really like to be able to take/use, but both of our root breaks are heroic tier, and the transcendence one is just blatantly better. Keep fleetfooted where it is and move cut loose to skillful tier. Then I would say we could have a build that looks like:

Skillful: Cut Loose, Debilitation, Unwavering Resolve

Masterful: Incisor/Pulse, Force Fade

Heroic: Fleetfooted, Reining Pursuit

The "Kite This" build.

And then, when all ranged specs will complain that sents are unkiteable, the nerfbat will land... No. Sents should be kiteable, like any melee spec. That's the main defense ranged specs have against melee.

Transcendence should not have the root break naturally. No class has root breaks naturally except for troopers (and vanguards are too mobile right now). Blade blitz shouldn't be a natural root breaker either. Shadow stride and holotraverse need to be specced into breaking roots too, and that's fine. We don't want more mobility. We have enough already.

Transcendence is a good team buff, for 10 out of 30 seconds. If you play GSF, I like to think of it as the pvp "tensor". Therefore, you should spend a utility point to get it without centering. It's for a longer duration than, for example, force speed, and it helps your whole team.

Like I said, sents are pretty well balanced right now. The fine tuning should be around sages, vanguards and guardians. Sents are fine.

Eeeeexactly. Sages, and vg's have "too much".

I'm glad to see someone else understands this.

And then, when all ranged specs will complain that sents are unkiteable, the nerfbat will land... No. Sents should be kiteable, like any melee spec. That's the main defense ranged specs have against melee.

 

Transcendence should not have the root break naturally. No class has root breaks naturally except for troopers (and vanguards are too mobile right now). Blade blitz shouldn't be a natural root breaker either. Shadow stride and holotraverse need to be specced into breaking roots too, and that's fine. We don't want more mobility. We have enough already.

 

Transcendence is a good team buff, for 10 out of 30 seconds. If you play GSF, I like to think of it as the pvp "tensor". Therefore, you should spend a utility point to get it without centering. It's for a longer duration than, for example, force speed, and it helps your whole team.

 

Like I said, sents are pretty well balanced right now. The fine tuning should be around sages, vanguards and guardians. Sents are fine.

I agree, I just want to reshuffle the utilities.

Transcendence non-centering every 30 second use: This should just be merged into the ability. I can't think of a reason for that to 'not' be the default mechanic for the ability other than to give us a permanently locked in talent spend.

The root break + speed boost should be a utility and remain heroic. I have 0 problems with this.

The blade blitz root break should be moved to skillful, imo. Shares too much competition with heroic tier utils that give much more than just a root break on a 45-50 second CD ability. In skillful it'd be an interesting alternative.

If you move the rootbreak on mad dash to skillful for sents from heroics (completely jumping the masterful tier) what will you move from skillful to heroic? Would you also then give guardians that utility in skillful since it's basically the same after all. What about shadows and scoundrels now? Should be move the root break on trick move and shadow step to skillful for them? I guess the point I'm trying to make is 1) remember to gain that utility in skillful you need to lose one that's already there, do you want to take the risk that one of the good utilizes there is lost for that? And 2) is basically the point the poster above me made, if you start making classes unkiteable then the devs have to start adding in ways for the ranged to kite, currently it's roots/slows/speed boosts, if you keep adding easy root breaks then all ranged classes will start getting hindering effects they can apply (think that's the debuffs that e-net gives) to counter your root breaks.

As far as the self heals go my point has kinda already been made but since I'm already typing....

Mostly my point comes down to us already having good defensive cds. While I get your idea is to have minor self heals to cover minor damage from general fighting rememeber to think about the impact this can have on a 1v1. We are already a good class in single target fights do to our great cds and crazy damage. If our class gets to the point where we have great survivablity, great damage AND good self heals we will be where serenity/hatred was 3.0 and we all saw how far they fell.

Couple of your point I will address directly since they stuck out. As far as gunslingers go they have shield probe on a 30? second CD and usually protects for about 8-10k, would you honestly trade force cammo for it? Shadows get overcharged saber on a 2 min CD, would you honestly trade rebuke for it? Vanguards get kolto override on a 3min cd (other point the healing past 40% on this is only for tanks) , would you trade guarded by the force for that?

Let's talk.

 

 

 

I main a shadow in PvP, so I feel quite confident talking about it. Battle readiness is a joke heal, and anyone who's ever played a shadow knows it. Bashing your saber on some other enemy for ~1000 HPS max is useless. It mitigates a small amount of damage (generally not noticeable unless your opponent is braindead), but you'll definitely not see any heals from it. The ability only becomes useful with an adrenal+ medpac, or with a DCD. That should tell you everything you need to know about it. Serenity's damage heals are a joke. the only worthwhile one is Serenity strike, and that one gives you ~1000 health once every 12 seconds... so certainly not that good. It's nice, but that's it. Also, let's not forget that serenity exchanges a whole bunch of passive defensives for those pitiful heals. That's why infiltration is considered less squishy, even WITHOUT self heals (except for battle readiness).

 

I agree absolutely

 

Sages are a healing class, and as such they get heals (just like mandos and scoundrels). At the moment they are way overtuned though, and they certainly aren't a good example. Balance has stronger HoTs from its DoTs than serenity, in addition to having all the heals of an offheal class. Yes, they have them, but that doesn't mean they're ok right now. They're not.

 

Now that's not true. Sages have too powerful healing as dps (Balance anyway), and their healing was originally designed when their energy-recharge consumed health. Since Vindicate doesnt consume health, their healing is overtuned. They are more than ok.

 

The 10% self heals are nice, but what's 10% heals every 1.5 minutes? Let's be real, that utility is taken only for the CC break CD reduction. No one has ever said "That guardian beat me because he had that 10% extra heal".

 

Focused defences is only good vs DoTspecs, and anyway it's a DCD (as is enure). Guardians don't have 20% DR for 30 seconds out of 60, nor do they have transcendence. Enure isn't even a heal... Any guardian knows that if they can't finish the fight in 10 seconds they might very well be dead.

 

Guardians have really good self-heals. 10% heal is ****, thats true. But every guardian specs for 90s CD on FD and it's useful against burst specs, too (and note that almost all burst specs have dots). Enure IS a heal, just unique, because that extra hp will be lost after the effect. Guardian selfheal isn't strong on its own, but let's not forget Saber Ward, Saber Reflect and there goes a FD-h2f. Personally I won't suggest to nerf their healing, I'm ok with it, but dont lie to me and say that their healing/defensives are not good.

 

5% heals every 30 seconds is basically 5% more damage the shield can absorb, that's all. Again, like you said this is an offheal class and as such they will have heals.

 

That utility is garbage. Lethality has quite nice offheals, but it needs, since its ramp up time is one of the longest. The class is fine also.

 

First of all, the HoT utility is horrible. 1% every 3 seconds? Tying yourself to one location for heals that can be negated by an autoattack. You are confusing "hunker down" with cover. They actually get the heals even when hunker down is on CD. Anyway, it doesn't matter. No slinger ever takes that utility who knows what he's doing. The shield mitigates very little damage, but yes, it's one of their cooldowns (again). Each class has different ones, and they got a shield. I'm pretty certain they'd be glad to exchange it for one of the sents' cooldowns.

 

ROFL. Not you, the OP. That self-heal doesnt deserve to be called a heal. Even basic attack spamming negates it. Hell, even Lethality dots negate it There is only one use of it (and ONLY in pve): it can proc your relics.

 

Nothing to add here.

 

Mando selfheal is ok. It doesnt make any difference only because they have no DCDs (120s CD lol)

 

So vanguards can spec into getting 30% (tactics) or 20% (others) every 1.5 minutes. It adds a DCD to their meager list of DCDs. other than that, they have Reactive shield (25% DR for 12 seconds, on a 2 minute CD), adrenaline rush (up to 40% health except for tanks, on a 3 minutes CD, and can be specced into a CC break), neural surge (2.5 seconds AoE stun, on a 45 seconds CD), and (for tanks only) battle focus (35% defense chance for 15 seconds, on a 2 minute cooldown). As you can see, sents have a much more extensive list of DCDs, not to mention shorter cooldowns on many of them.

 

Guard Cannon is a free medpac (35% for Tactics and 20% for Plasma). Nothing less, nothing more. VGs also have free self-heals from suffering AoE dmg that many forget of. AR is just as useless as it is for mandos. Oh, actually it would be useful for Plasmatech. If Plasmatech was viable for pvp.

 

Ok, conclusion time. All self heals mentioned above (excluding offhealing classes) are not better than defensives, because they replace them. I could go over all the DCDs again, but I already did so in the original post (for shadows, at least). Suffice to say that sents have some of the best DCDs in the game, and many (force camo, rebuke, transcendence) are either on a short cooldown or have a VERY long uptime. Self heals don't equate better survivability, except when paired with good DCDs (sages spring to mind). So yes, sents don't get self heals. They get other things, like the best burst in the game, a whole bunch of DCDs, and good passive defensives. That is why they don't deserve self heals. They certainly don't deserve them because "other classes have them". Would you ask for more ranged attacks, because shadows have 10-30m attacks and sents only have one? No. The same goes for self heals.

 

I hope I'm not coming off here as obnoxious, I did my best to explain my point of view.

Sents never had self-heals as AC ever. Then what is the problem?

1. Watchman self-heal was nerfed.

2. Guardians' FD got buffed.

3. Balance self-heal was buffed.

(4. VG dps got health utility which was tank only before, so free medpack for them)

As a Combat main, I wont whine until we get self-heals. But for someone who plays Watchman, they wanna get their old-selfheal back (TBH that's one of the reasons I left WM, that selfheal was unique).

Sents never had self-heals as AC ever. Then what is the problem?

1. Watchman self-heal was nerfed.

2. Guardians' FD got buffed.

3. Balance self-heal was buffed.

(4. VG dps got health utility which was tank only before, so free medpack for them)

As a Combat main, I wont whine until we get self-heals. But for someone who plays Watchman, they wanna get their old-selfheal back (TBH that's one of the reasons I left WM, that selfheal was unique).

You misunderstood my point about sages. I agree that they're overtuned right now. Apart from that, I agree with most of what you said. However, enure is useless without help, so I don't consider it a real heal.

Buffing watchman's heals would be nice. They are suffering from the same problem serenity is right now. I have no problem with vanguards getting a selfheal, they have practically no good DCDs, and precious few bad ones.

To OP: I don't understand why you want to improve sents so much. Almost everyone agrees that they're in a good place right now. Improving them would lead to nerfing them, and it would be sad to see one of the only well-balanced classes fall with the rest of them.

You misunderstood my point about sages. I agree that they're overtuned right now. Apart from that, I agree with most of what you said. However, enure is useless without help, so I don't consider it a real heal.

 

Buffing watchman's heals would be nice. They are suffering from the same problem serenity is right now. I have no problem with vanguards getting a selfheal, they have practically no good DCDs, and precious few bad ones.

 

To OP: I don't understand why you want to improve sents so much. Almost everyone agrees that they're in a good place right now. Improving them would lead to nerfing them, and it would be sad to see one of the only well-balanced classes fall with the rest of them.

I think we basically agree then. Ofc Enure is not a heal in common sense, but it works kinda like one and the main goal of Enure is to make real DCDs stronger, not act alone. I play all classes and disciplines, sents could use a little defensive buff, nothing serious. All I ask is revert WM heals and no sent would have a right to complain. I have np with VGs healing either btw, just pointed out that they got something, while sents or snipers got nothing. I dont think their selfheal needs nerfing

To OP: I don't understand why you want to improve sents so much. Almost everyone agrees that they're in a good place right now. Improving them would lead to nerfing them, and it would be sad to see one of the only well-balanced classes fall with the rest of them.

I agree we're in a good place for PvE (excepting conc/fury).

PvP-wise I think we need some fine tuning. We can be amazing with the right support but with limited support we collapse sometimes worse than squishier classes, simply because we're inherently exposed. It's kinda the risk of having proactive DCD's like Sent--great for PvE, good on paper for PvP but unreliable in practice.

That's why all of my proposed changes are to utilities -- there's too many useless ones, too many that need to be merged with another, too many 'required' ones that should simply be a part of the ability they're modifying. Keep in mind the actually proposed changes I've made are pretty minor.

Just gonna chime in here cause I can.

While I agree that self heals would be nice for all three speccs, I don't think that they're necessary. And knowing BioWare's inability to balance the game, we'd see a minor buff to self heals with a major nerf to defensives. Honestly, I'd rather see Watchman's heals be brought back up to how they used to be and have the other two speccs left alone. I'm used to playing Combat/Conc. without self heals, so it wouldn't make any difference.

If they did decide to buff self heals across the board for Sentinels, I'd rather see it done in a buff to Zealous Ward rather than inherit healing to the class itself. ie; slightly higher heals and a lowered CD (c'mon, 3mins is painfully long).

That said, I think our biggest problem aside from utility bloat (which I doubt will be fixed any time soon) is being kited. I think having Cut Loose removed (or changed to a CD reduction) and having the purge baseline for Blade Blitz would be a good idea. Alternatively, have Transcendance purge roots basline for you and have Fleetfooted add the purge to your group (in addition to the speed boost, as it currently does).

tl;dr - buff watchman heals, fix zealous ward, buff anti-kite ability

I play all classes and I would have to say that a sentinel in PvP where there is no healer is very, very vulnerable.

So you fight 3 guys, get down to 10 or 5% health, what are you meant to do, stealth off and hide for 10 minutes while it regenerates?

Only hope is WZ medpac, waiting for that to come off CD.

If it is good enough for all other classes to have some basic heals, then it should be fair that sentinel does too.

This is in WZ ofc, in PvE healer changes everything.

I would vote for some self heals.

Why not?

I play all classes and I would have to say that a sentinel in PvP where there is no healer is very, very vulnerable.

So you fight 3 guys, get down to 10 or 5% health, what are you meant to do, stealth off and hide for 10 minutes while it regenerates?

Only hope is WZ medpac, waiting for that to come off CD.

If it is good enough for all other classes to have some basic heals, then it should be fair that sentinel does too.

This is in WZ ofc, in PvE healer changes everything.

I would vote for some self heals.

Why not?

The honest answer is what people have been saying already in the thread, we are already in a very good place. We don't want to get a buff from BW that can easily make us op. Sure we will be great for awhile but eventually the nerf hammer will come down. It might take a few weeks, maybe a few months but it will come and we don't want to see a class we all enjoy smashed to pieces for a momentary burst of glory.

Also remember that any self heals we get need to be balanced around pve too, and any heals to be noticeable in PvP would come with major trade offs.

I'd be happy with a Utility point heal.

I don't think Sentinel is close to OP yet, lol, there is a bit of a buffer there to fill before that title ;p

Anyway, we all have different views.