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Noble Sacrafice


Nursejenna

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I am sure this has been discussed in previous forum posts, but here it is again...

 

Was it really necessary to nerf noble sacrafice to the extent to which it was?

 

And before I go any further, by the end of this I am sure some sages may agree with me and some will reply and regale us with their epic stories of burst healing for ten hours without ever falling below half force. *Two thumbs up* for you amazing sages...we all applaud you and envy your epic ability.

 

EC HM...a step up from the difficulty level of the previous content and I was very happy about that. However, it came with a nerf to noble sacrafice making us the only healers in the game that have to tank our own health pool as a means to get force back, without any other ability to actually get force back .. (besides our epic regen rate....bravo).

 

Now at first I was irritated with this, but oh well. Some EC HM fights require a higher output of healing than any of the other Ops or FPs. Now, is maintaining your force throughout a boss fight difficult? No, not particularily. But on the rare occasion a member of the raid may have an error in judgement and perhaps some unnecessary damage is taken. So some burst healing comes in handy. Call me crazy...but I am sure I am not the only healer that has experienced this. Once this happens, I ususally come out slightly (insert bad word of choice) for force, making the remainder of the fight super fun! But wait!..I could simply hit my noble sacrafice and ask the other healer (hopefully not a sage!) to throw me a heal, or I could ask the tank to pop a CD while I scramble to get some viable force back, OR (and my personal favourite) I could throw down my AoE HOT and hope that it is a moment where others will reap the benefit of it and it's not just a waste of MORE force, stand in it and spam my noble sacrafice with a lower return amount upon each use. WIth that last option comes the added joy of hoping no one needs a heal for a few seconds while I do that or that some game mechanic doesn't smash me in the midst of tanking my health. What's great about the above options is that in one way or another they all negatively impact the raid. Small impact or not, it shouldn't even need to happen.

 

So again I ask....Was it really necessary to nerf noble sacrafice to the extent in which it was?

 

It wouldn't have perhaps...oh I don't know...made sense to maybe put a CD on noble sacrafice? Or perhaps just leave it as a lower return rate for each use within a certain time period so that it couldn't be spammed endlessly? Or dare I suggest...even give us a "free" heal like the other healing classes possess as a means to regen force while still being able to heal, even for only small amounts?

 

I am sure the usual crying of pvp'rs is what sparked such a nerf but please realise that there are PVE'rs as well that may not particulary appreciate such a nerf.

 

All of that being said, let me clarify because I am sure some of you will either read into this post wrong unintentionally and some intentionally so that they have an opening to discuss their amazingness. I am not saying that sage healers can not heal, or that they can not heal very well. All I am saying is that it would be nice to have a bit of wiggle room for those "oops" moments.

 

phew...glad I got that off my chest....Now let the trolling begin..

 

~* Happy Healing*~:p

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Happy to help you vent.

 

 

If you NS continuously during the fight off procs, taking a break to burst heal will not kill your force pool. Similarly, you'll never get too low on health, since it's continuous small hits that are easily healed. We're not able to cover for many mistakes on the part of the raid, especially on HM, so that's not on us.

 

Edited by shadowflit
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Happy to help you vent.

 

 

If you NS continuously during the fight off procs, taking a break to burst heal will not kill your force pool. Similarly, you'll never get too low on health, since it's continuous small hits that are easily healed. We're not able to cover for many mistakes on the part of the raid, especially on HM, so that's not on us.

.

 

I'm not debating appropriate healing rotation here. I am assuming at this stage in the game that most sages know when to use their NS and how often. All I am saying is that it would be nice to have an ability to better stabilize a force pool if an issue does arise. Abilities that the other healing classes have the luxury of. Should the current state of the sage work beautifully like rainbows and unicorns under normal circumstances? Sure, why not. But in reality, rarely does everyone in your raid do everything perfect. And like you said, we are not able to cover for many mistakes on the part of the raid, especially on HM. But I as a healer try very hard to correct any mishaps that may occur and not just say.. " oh well, that's not on me."

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I lead the raids that Nursejen is a part of. I'd like to step in here and clarify that I always put Jen in the spots hardest to heal (Zorn, Stormcaller, etc) and she makes them look easy. She knows her class inside and out and can heal very effectively. Back in Tier 1 content, she solo-healed Bonethrasher.

 

I am sure this has been flogged to death, but consider scoundrels. They have Diagnostic Scan (free heal, gives back 2 energy on crits, 4 ticks per use = ~80% chance of at least 1 crit) and Cool Head (50 energy back, 66 if spec'd). The thing to realize in this comparison is that Diagnostic Scan is their isomorphism to Noble Sacrifice; In other words, used regularly over the course of the fight to restore small amounts of energy. Cool Head is an added bonus.

 

One might try to argue that Cool Head is the result of their much smaller energy pool, but that is also not true. With Pugnacity up, a scoundrel regenerates roughly 1/15th of their energy pool per second, compared to roughly 1/81 of a sage's power pool per second. A sage is clearly intended to slowly run their power down over the course of a fight, ideally hitting zero as the boss dies. Assuming a 6 1/2 minute fight, which is a common enrage timer, they can lose 1.7 energy per second, so effectively you could say that they have a regen rate of 1/67 of their force pool. That is still vastly smaller than a scoundrel.

 

In 6 1/2 minutes, a sage's effective power pool is 3770 force, compared to 2440 for a scoundrel. However, a scoundrel's heals cost between 15 and 25 energy, compared to 37-51 force. They do fire faster, but they also have two free heals, so their power useage ends up being significantly less than half of a sage's, even though they have over half of a sage's effective force pool.

 

Now consider burst healing. If things go bad, a scoundrel (starting at full energy) can do 5 Underworld Medicines back to back, hit Cool Head, and still end up in their top energy bracket. One use of Diagnostic Scan will put them high enough to use Underworld Medicine again. Alternatively, they can alternate Underworld Medicine and Kolto Pack three times, for 6 total heals. Compare this to a sage. In the same amount of time, they can do a Healing Trance and three Deliverances. In the best case for force efficiency, assuming they use their Rejuvenate proc on a Deliverance, they end up losing 175 force. That is four Noble Sacrifices to make up for, assuming you spread them out to avoid the debuff, or over half of their health bar. That ignores the force cost of healing themselves back up.

 

QED.

Edited by Olostur
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What's great about the above options is that in one way or another they all negatively impact the raid. Small impact or not, it shouldn't even need to happen.

And like you said, we are not able to cover for many mistakes on the part of the raid, especially on HM. But I as a healer try very hard to correct any mishaps that may occur and not just say.. " oh well, that's not on me."

Everything I've read that Bioware people have written leads me to believe they like this state of affairs. We were covering for too many mistakes before, and as part of increasing the difficulty with EC, they cut our ability to cover quite so much. It's not so much our energy regain mechanic that is impacting the raid when it shouldn't, it's someone else's mistake impacting the raid that is showing up as our energy regain mechanic because you're so good at your job that you can still try to cover (and probably manage some of the time).

 

snip

I wrote some stuff and thought about it while writing it... so now I've written new stuff heh. I have only healed lower levels as a Scoundrel, so my understanding of that class may not be complete.

 

Basically, Scoundrels can burst heal (briefly) iff they have Cool Head available, or if the target dips under 30%. Otherwise they stick with baseline healing that fits into the fairly strict energy budget. Sages can burst heal as long as their force pool holds out, and otherwise must drop to the sustainable baseline healing. Sitting near zero energy is pretty crippling for a Scoundrel until they recover, sitting near zero as a Sage just means we can't burst in the near future.

 

So for burst, we have:

  • Cool Head vs Force pool size: Force pool lets you burst longer and (I think) more often. Also, if you give a Sage 10-15s break at any time, we can effectively reset some of our burst ability instead of being stuck with a hard cooldown timer.
  • Emergency Medpack vs Force pool size: Emergency Medpack provides on demand sustained burst, but is limited by circumstance. Force may be unavailable if a previous burst scenario used it up.

 

Having now thought about the Sage/Scoundrel comparison pretty thoroughly, I guess I'm still relatively satisfied. I wouldn't turn down another ability - maybe something like Thermal Sensor Override that allows a couple free casts for a Sage (seems more role appropriate to me than something that gives us free force). I don't especially feel its lack at the moment though, and I don't see Cool Head as being an extra freebie that Scoundrels get, just part of their toolset. Our toolset is small... well, singular, but can be used in a variety of different ways. Their toolset is larger, but has fixed uses.

 

I will also point out I don't have much healing experience in other MMOs, so this could always be a case of not knowing what I'm missing.

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I will also point out I don't have much healing experience in other MMOs, so this could always be a case of not knowing what I'm missing.

 

If you don't have much experience, then don't talk about it. Plain and simple.

 

P.S. #1: You've gotten waaaaaaaay off track of what Jen's point was...

 

P.S. #2: Sitting at 0 energy as a Scoundrel isn't that crippling... You see, there's this skill called Diagnostic Scan... and it regenerates your energy fast.... and it's a free heal.... and it's spammable.... and you should look into that before you talk about it....

 

P.S. #3: I'd like to know your healing experience.... What bosses have you healed? SM or HM?

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I'm just going to keep this short and sweet.

 

Both the commando, and the scoundrel both have the ability to burst through their power in given situations which may or may not be part of mechanics. They may do this upwards of 3x's per fight depending on spec, and when the cd was first initiated. After bursting through their resources they have the ability to instantly recover as if the previous sequence of events never happened.

 

A sage cannot do the same.

 

All three classes are capable healers. The sage requires far more management.

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Furthermore ...( I know..there is more)...

Let me also add that NS takes a percentage of one's health pool, not just a set amount. So as a sage builds their character and gains more health, they have a larger chunk taken off with NS....therefore requiring more healing to counteract the use of NS. (Win!) A huge difference? no...but again...why? But it's ok because I am sure somewhere BW has a formula telling them that this all makes sense. I applaud the logic.

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bunch of condescending P.S.s

Yes, I followed the track to discuss scoundrels, it was interesting. Yes, I know about Diagnostic Scan. I also know how little it heals for, and how you'll need to cast it more than once to get your energy back up to high regen starting at zero. As a Sage, half of EC HM and everything below that (but no world bosses). As long as you're performing a competency check as a prelude to discussion in this thread, would you like to offer up your credentials?

 

In case anyone else was reading my post in the wrong light, let me be clear that I do not disagree with anything Jen said, and just thought it was an interesting topic to discuss. More tools in the toolbox would be nice, rather than hitting everything with the NS hammer.

 

Both the commando, and the scoundrel have the ability to burst through their power in given situations which may or may not be part of mechanics. They may do this upwards of 3x's per fight depending on spec, and when the cd was first initiated. After bursting through their resources they have the ability to instantly recover as if the previous sequence of events never happened.

Just going off of Olostur's math, that burst session a Scoundrel does is approximately equivalent to 1/3 of a Sage's power bar. Thus we too can burn through a Scoundrel's power bar 3 times per fight and maintain our sustained healing ability. Problem is that we can - and sometimes do - burn the entire bar in order to recover from a mistake somewhere. We don't have a quick and easy way back from that, but I view that as the tradeoff for increased burst duration.

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As long as you're performing a competency check as a prelude to discussion in this thread, would you like to offer up your credentials?

 

My credentials

 

Everything up to and including Kephess HM

Edited by Thorriin
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In case anyone else was reading my post in the wrong light, let me be clear that I do not disagree with anything Jen said, and just thought it was an interesting topic to discuss. More tools in the toolbox would be nice, rather than hitting everything with the NS hammer.

 

And really that is all I am saying. I may not agree with your full assessment of sage healing, and you (and I'm sure others) may not agree with mine. At the end of the day I personally feel that it is a little more than slightly off-balance at the moment between healing classes in terms of resources - with sages getting the short end of the stick. That has been my experience with it in some of the content that I have healed. More specifically fights such as Kephess HM. But it is what it is and although I hope for a change, I don't hold my breath. I'll just go on dealing with it in the best way I can.

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Just going off of Olostur's math, that burst session a Scoundrel does is approximately equivalent to 1/3 of a Sage's power bar. Thus we too can burn through a Scoundrel's power bar 3 times per fight and maintain our sustained healing ability. Problem is that we can - and sometimes do - burn the entire bar in order to recover from a mistake somewhere. We don't have a quick and easy way back from that, but I view that as the tradeoff for increased burst duration.

 

This is a good example of how numbers always tell the truth, but people can use them not to. While what you said is roughly true, it is also irrelevant, due to the fact that it takes a scoundrel roughly two seconds (diagnostic scan channel with minimal alacrity) to go back to healing as if the burst never happened.

 

A sage can slowly run down their power bar, but if you are going to quote my math, please refer back to the section regarding regen rates, and contemplate how it is impacted by burst over the same time (hint: it makes the numbers worse...) Another thing that you could do, and this would be theonly reasonable way to do what you attempted in quoting me, is look at "heals per percent of effective power pool" for each class. Basically, take the effective power pools (the scoundrel one I gave does NOT include Cool Head use, btw) and divide healing output by them. See what you get.

 

I'm not trying to be condescending, and certainly all three healers are capable (see my initial post). However, the relevant issue is that sage does require more management, and could do with some quality-of-life improvements.

Edited by Olostur
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Right, I ignored some of your regen math since you ignored the actual regen abilities in your math. I don't blame you, that's much harder to estimate and I don't want to do it either, but at the very least that will change your "effective power pool" numbers, and likely the entire scenario as I think both abilities are used about as frequently in sustained heavy healing, and NS is likely to regen more percent resource.

 

Also I don't know what this is supposed to mean, since a) false and b) you already said it was for small energy regain during rotation.

due to the fact that it takes a scoundrel roughly two seconds (diagnostic scan channel with minimal alacrity) to go back to healing as if the burst never happened.

 

But since we're not actually discussing anything in this thread, except perhaps how wrong I apparently look, I shall bow out. Fortunately I've enjoyed the thought exercise, so thanks for bringing the topic up.

Edited by shadowflit
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I believe that you missed the point, so I will try to outline more clearly. Hopefully this helps:

 

Right, I ignored some of your regen math since you ignored the actual regen abilities in your math. I don't blame you, that's much harder to estimate and I don't want to do it either, but at the very least that will change your "effective power pool" numbers, and likely the entire scenario as I think both abilities are used about as frequently in sustained heavy healing, and NS is likely to regen more percent resource.

Challenge accepted:

 

The effective power pool numbers that I gave are the baseline from which I will work. They are simply the initial power pool size added to the product of the regeneration rate and a reasonable fight duration for an operations boss. As a reminder, the sage was 3770 and the scoundrel was 2440 (ratio of 1.55). However, a scoundrel's heals are cheaper than the sage's, with a ratio of roughly 2. The precise value obviously depends on rotation and there is high variance, but I cannot make it go down to 1.55 to match the resource pool size. In other words, the scoundrel's heals are more efficient on resources.

 

Moving on from that baseline, each has a way to gradually regain their resource. The scoundrel can use Diagnostic Scan, which heals the target for a small amount and gives back energy on crits. It has bonuses to its critical chance, which will be upward of 50%, and it ticks 4 times per use, giving an expected return of 4% of the scoundrel's energy. Compare that to a sage. Rather than heal a target, the sage loses health, which it will have to regain by spending power to heal itself. This makes the expected gain from Noble Sacrifice much lower than 8%. In fact, if Rejuvenate is used (most power efficient option if people aren't all low and stacked on you for the group heal), the expected return is 3.8% of the sage's force.

 

I sincerely hope I don't need to belabor the point any more to demonstrate the correlation between the two. However, the critical difference, and the core complaint is that the scoundrel uses the time to slightly heal a target, while the sage uses the time to slightly kill himself.

 

We are now at the point where the scoundrel has a more efficient baseline, and the power return abilities give back roughly the same amount, but with slight utility in the scoundrel one and a fairly heavy downside to the sage one. Next, add Cool Head to the mix, for 66% of the scoundrel's base energy pool every two minutes. Do I really have to say any more here?

 

Also I don't know what this is supposed to mean, since a) false and b) you already said it was for small energy regain during rotation.

You are right, I was unclear. Let me explain in more detail. In the burst situation that I outlined, either 5 Underworld Medicines or 3 Underworld Medicine-Kolto Pack pairs, using Cool Head will put the scoundrel at almost exactly 60 energy. One use of diagnostic scan will put them between 72 and 80 energy, depending on crits. That is enough to go right back to casting Underworld Medicine again. In other words, it's a) true and b) applicable here as well.

 

In any case, it is also not particularly important to the overarching point, which is that the downsides to Noble Sacrifice are highly irritating. How about a quality-of-life change, since those seem to be popular at the moment. Remove the health cost but also either add a cooldown to it, or cut the power restored in half, for instance. I am sure other people could brainstorm better ideas, and I'd enjoy hearing them rather than quibbling over more math.

 

I should also have clarified in my initial post that I have both a healing scoundrel and a healing sage, both of whom are 50 and have operations healing experience.

 

I hope this helped to clarify my position :)

Edited by Olostur
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I am sure this has been flogged to death, but consider scoundrels. They have Diagnostic Scan (free heal, gives back 2 energy on crits, 4 ticks per use = ~80% chance of at least 1 crit) and Cool Head (50 energy back, 66 if spec'd). The thing to realize in this comparison is that Diagnostic Scan is their isomorphism to Noble Sacrifice; In other words, used regularly over the course of the fight to restore small amounts of energy. Cool Head is an added bonus.

 

As a healer who has played both classes... NS>>>>>DS. The 'free heal' is so miniscule that they could remove that component and I wouldn't notice. You use DS purely for energy regen. In my experience as well, I needed to use DS much more often than I NS on my Sage to keep my energy pool up. DS also channels longer than the single GCD time NS eats up. At critical times on my Sage spending that GCD for NS can seem excruciating - it was so much worse when playing my Op.

 

One might try to argue that Cool Head is the result of their much smaller energy pool, but that is also not true. With Pugnacity up, a scoundrel regenerates roughly 1/15th of their energy pool per second, compared to roughly 1/81 of a sage's power pool per second. A sage is clearly intended to slowly run their power down over the course of a fight, ideally hitting zero as the boss dies. Assuming a 6 1/2 minute fight, which is a common enrage timer, they can lose 1.7 energy per second, so effectively you could say that they have a regen rate of 1/67 of their force pool. That is still vastly smaller than a scoundrel.

 

OK, first off, that regen rate you listed for Scoundrels is only true when they are at max energy regen. Mastering energy management on that class is pretty difficult (well much more difficult than managing force on my Sage), and recovering when you mess up or your raid messes up and you dip into near 0 regen territory, that is what Cool Head is for.

 

When you bottom out on a Sage, of course it's bad but... you are able to do significantly more healing than a Scoundrel before even reaching that point. Also, once there you recover by casting lightly and using NS with Resplendence. A Scoundrel without Cool Head has to channel DS (if I remember correctly) about 4 or 5 times to get back into max energy regen territory. During that time they can do NO HEALING without putting them back in the regen hole. The amount of light healing accomplished by a Sage in 'recovery mode' easily outstrips the healing done by DS.

 

I'm not crunching numbers, but I've healed in MMOs a long time, and the Sage is a much easier class to heal with than the Scoundrel/Op. It also has higher quality of life and feels more powerful. I switched to my Sage shortly before the nerf to Conveyance/Benevolence, and even experiencing that nerf, it didn't bother me because the Sage was still a much better healer. (Of course I believe Operatives were buffed since I switched, maybe I should check it out...) To me the force/NS thing seems balanced, and if you're taxing your Sage to the point where NS is too difficult, perhaps reexamine your strats and the damage your raid is taking before just putting it all on the mechanics of the class.

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I hope this helped to clarify my position :)

It did indeed! I think I've been playing Sage too long and not enough of the other healers, because for the most part I don't even think about the health cost anymore. It's a nuisance I deal with, but most of the time it's countered by the AoE healing, so I consider it "free" at those times. I look at the 8% and just happily see 8% (and 8% of the 4pc bonus no less), but you're quite right that you can't ignore the health cost of course.

 

I'm also glad to see that you were factoring Cool Head into that 2sec recovery. I was willingly granting you that as instant, so bringing up the 2sec was a point of confusion harkening back to Thorriin. My point here was that Sages maintain their sustainable healing output at any Force level, while Scoundrels need to get back up to the top regen bracket to do the same. Since Sages don't need to regain the lost force from a burst, the non-recovery is as instant as Cool Head.

 

Good god......the point is over there - go fetch it.

Squirrel!

Edited by shadowflit
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As a healer who has played both classes... NS>>>>>DS. The 'free heal' is so miniscule that they could remove that component and I wouldn't notice.

It ticks 4 times. For me, non-crit is about 250, crit is about 330. Multiply those by 4 for the upper and lower bound, then spend a moment in silent contemplation. Small? yes. Negligeable? No. Better than removing health? Well....

You use DS purely for energy regen. In my experience as well, I needed to use DS much more often than I NS on my Sage to keep my energy pool up.

Then you're doing it wrong. Feel free to send me a PM to discuss it, so we don't clutter the sage forums.

DS also channels longer than the single GCD time NS eats up.

Alacrity isn't worthless for scoundrels, and as far as sages go, it takes two GCD's to NS and then heal over it, unless you're in a situation where you would be group healing anyway.

OK, first off, that regen rate you listed for Scoundrels is only true when they are at max energy regen.

True. I assumed that the scoundrel would be playing their class intelligently.

Mastering energy management on that class is pretty difficult (well much more difficult than managing force on my Sage), and recovering when you mess up or your raid messes up and you dip into near 0 regen territory, that is what Cool Head is for.

If you're going that low, I implore you to PM me to discuss how to heal on scoundrel. Please, for the good of your team mates.

When you bottom out on a Sage, of course it's bad but... you are able to do significantly more healing than a Scoundrel before even reaching that point.
You need to spend more time theorycrafting. Scoundrel can crank out more single target healing than a sage, by a fairly good margin.

Also, once there you recover by casting lightly and using NS with Resplendence. A Scoundrel without Cool Head has to channel DS (if I remember correctly) about 4 or 5 times to get back into max energy regen territory. During that time they can do NO HEALING without putting them back in the regen hole. The amount of light healing accomplished by a Sage in 'recovery mode' easily outstrips the healing done by DS.

Again, if you go that low as a scoundrel when you don't have Cool Head, you are doing it very wrong, even in an emergency. I'm not going to discuss which class performs better when played terribly. Also, please go back and look at the healing numbers for DS when you factor in the higher crit chance, then compare that to Rejuv again.

I'm not crunching numbers,

First true thing you've said so far.

(Of course I believe Operatives were buffed since I switched, maybe I should check it out...)

This explains quite a lot. It's a very different class now. You can no more use pre-1.2 knowledge to debate scoundrels than you could use pre-nerf sage knowledge.

 

If you would like to discuss scoundrels further, by all means send me a message. Otherwise, we have deviated quite far from the original topic. Let us all take a moment to contemplate Noble Sacrifice, and return the discussion to its original domain...

Edited by Olostur
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The 'free heal' is so miniscule that they could remove that component and I wouldn't notice.

 

On my Scoundrel (Pretty well geared), DS crits for ~400 on myself, and ~385 on others. Ticks 3 times, gives 2 energy back each crit, 24% crit chance from the skill points, 38-40% crit chance from my crit rating, 62-64% chance to crit after all the maths are done. If all 3 crit, you're looking at 1,155 healing in roughly 2 seconds (activation speed). How is that miniscule?

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