Healing Sleep

ElPapaPollo

Dalayan Beginner
A topic like this was introduced months ago by Malleus in http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/forum/index.php?topic=11208.0, and I feel it's worth revisiting because there was never a staff response to it.

As it stands Healing Sleep appears to be nothing more than a novelty for stopping people in their tracks or gaining instant aggro (healing sleep a tank), at least for me. Healing Sleep can seem practical in say a raid situation where the shaman can Healing Sleep the tank, an offtank, or anyone else while the healers med up. But, honestly, it would not set back the raid greatly if a cleric just simply healed the tank, etc. and consequently had to take a few more seconds to med.

I favor Malleus' Second Option the most because the self only FD seems to be very practical for raid or group wipe situations or simply dropping aggro. I would like to see the healing component stay as well, but that may be too overpowering. Subsequently, the three levels of Healing Sleep would have to offer some other increasing benefit, or there would be no point in there being three levels.

Therefore, I propose that (1) the three levels offer a level cap of a mob to which the shaman can FD or (2) offer the chance of successfully FDing.

The first option could have level increments of a mob to which the shaman can FD: (1) 51 mob, (2) 60 mob, and (3) 65 (or 70 possibly) mob. This would offer some balance to the fact that a healer is being given an FD.

The second option would have increasing percentage chance of FDing: (1) 20%, (2) 40%, (3) 60% (maybe 75%?). This would offer balance as well to the fact that a healer is being given an FD.

As Malleus also points out in his post, the cast time and recast time of Healing Sleep would add balance to the FD also.

If the staff is absolute in not giving an FD to a healer, then I believe Malleus' Third Option would be viable as well. A aggroless HoT for FD pullers would be ideal, but I believe it would need a longer recast time. The increasing increments of healing power should stay.



Please give input, especially other shamen and staff. I feel that we can obtain a great usefulness for this AA if we put our minds to it and work out a balanced solution.

-Xavu
 
Maybe it's just me, but I'd always enjoyed the idea of druids being specialized in direct heals, shamans in heals over time, and clerics being great at both. To that end, I suppose I'd like to see healing sleep morphed into Malleus's Option 1, but that's only as a part of a bigger thing (which itself would be mostly a flavor- and style-of-play change, and not an overall change in the effectiveness of shaman heals). Beyond that, I don't really have an opinion about Healing Sleep, other than that it's kind of crummy and so should be changed somehow.

For the lazy among you, here's Malleus's orignal three options:

Malleus said:
Option 1: Change the FD to a slow and/or snare, add silence and add a time duration. This gives the shaman a HoT that isnt self only and has significant drawbacks without making it useless. I believe this is the most viable option as it gives the shaman another heal in his somewhat limited repetior but by severly limiting the capablilites of the target while under the spell you arent just giving cotb to shamen.

Option 2: Make it self only and make the FD a true FD. The slow casting speed and long cool down would make it useless for pulling but give the shaman a possible means to dump agro and heal back up if they slow too soon or over heal.

Option 3: Add slow and/or snare and make it a zero agro heal so it can be used on FD characters. I realize the reason behind the current state of healing FD characters was brough about by the abuse of FD mechanics and healing to avoid anti power leveling systems but like the real FD option the slow casting speed and long cool down would make it impracticle not to mention limited to 65 shaman.
 
Do torpor like spells slow the shammies attack speed also?

If they do would Malleus' option one slow the targets attack speed?
 
With reference to shamen specializing in HoTs, why do we only get three of them then? We have two at level 60, one of which is a regular spell and the other which is an Ancient spell, and they are both self only. Then there is a zero-mana AA targetable HoT. If more emphasis was placed on HoTs for shamen then just suddenly in the 60's, then I would favor altering Healing Sleep in some aspect but keeping the HoT ability.
 
Attack is definitely slowed, but you gain an AC bonus and magic resist bonus and maybe other resists; I didn't really pay attention to that.
 
On Live Torpor was a 90%+ slow and a 50% or so snare. The 65 HoT, Quienciense (yes, I fucked up the spelling and I am not going to look it up) that my brother and I coined as Qpor, gave a huge HoT with no slow/snare making it a great spell in and out of combat. Torpor was a neat little trick to use after combat while you were munching on yourself.
 
ElPapaPollo said:
With reference to shamen specializing in HoTs, why do we only get three of them then?

It's an ought/is problem. Specifically, I was saying that I'd like it if shamans were HoT-specialized--not that they are so, because they're clearly not :)

At any rate, it's a side note that doesn't have a whole lot to do with Healing Sleep specificially. I just like to float the concept from time to time.
 
Thinkmeats said:
It's an ought/is problem. Specifically, I was saying that I'd like it if shamans were HoT-specialized--not that they are so, because they're clearly not :)

At any rate, it's a side note that doesn't have a whole lot to do with Healing Sleep specificially. I just like to float the concept from time to time.

OK, I misread your original post. I would like to see shamen's being given greater HoT power, but to what end would that affect our direct healing power? I wouldn't want to see Woundbane's healing power decreased from what it already is.
 
ElPapaPollo said:
OK, I misread your original post. I would like to see shamen's being given greater HoT power, but to what end would that affect our direct healing power? I wouldn't want to see Woundbane's healing power decreased from what it already is.

That's a topic for another day (and another thread). I'd rather not muddy this one.
 
Thinkmeats said:
That's a topic for another day (and another thread). I'd rather not muddy this one.

Fair enough.

----------------

Going back to the idea of the FD, I don't feel that it would be too out of character either, considering shamen are in touch with the spiritual world, meaning an FD could appropriately fit into their roleplaying.
 
I hope to not tread on necromancer and shadowknight toes too much here, but given that shamen are the second best at DoTs and that they could have greater HoT power, Healing Sleep could be transformed into an effective lifetap that heals the group (or possibly raid). The power of the lifetap would naturally increase over the three levels. Also, if the lifetap is too powerful, then the recast time could be increased to one to two hours.

Just another idea that I had.
 
Given the cast time and recast time, I think FD would be a viable option for this aa.

At 2 minutes for a recast, shamans would still never be splitting mobs in a raid or group setting.. and if they did it would be incredibly slow

The cast time itself is 5-6? seconds and a shaman can't take all that many hits.. I don't think it would really change the class much.. but it would make the AA a hell of a lot more useful.
 
I agree with pretty much all of the above. Either the FD option or the worthwhile targetable HoT option would be perfectly decent.

With an FD, if DoTs are a concern, it could always be made so that Black Plague, Plaguewind, and Relic: SOL wear off upon FD (I could easily imagine dropping 3-4 dots onto, e.g., one of the WW dragons, then FDing and letting it take 6 or 8 thousand damage, then hopping up and doing it again... all the disease dots last plenty long enough to prevent much regen while you're FD).
 
I agree on HoT speciallization and on FD.

Maybe make Healing Sleep an Super Hot with 15 mins recast (just like clerics AAHOT, altho better)
 
I agree on removing the extreme hate component on Healing Sleep and making it able to hit NPCs (namely pets). But adding FD to it would be basically turning it into its own opposite, no? Plus, necro rez would seem pretty useless and noone would ever collect rubies again.

(You don't even have to HoT the tank, simply using it on yourself nearby (out of melee range) will turn the mob's attention to you and even your friendly shadowknight won't peel it off before it's dead :mad: )
 
Frankly heals on FD characters should never have been changed in the first place, changing such a fundamental part of pulling (a huge part of the exp and raid game) should never have been changed to what it is now simply because a few people were using it to powerlevel their alts, there must have been more options available to curtail this behavior than what was done.

That said the idea to make it an FD is I believe a good one provided that it is made self only, having a targetable FD in the hands of a Shaman, no matter how low the % of success, is stepping on the toes of Necro's.Giving Shaman the additional utility of having a chance (not a guaranteed success, perhaps 70% at max level) to FD and recover a raid or group is a good idea.

If the "aggro when healing an FD character" change is a permanent fixture making it an aggroless heal is a decent alternative provided the healing per tick is considerably lowered while the duration of the spell is also considerably increased, this would increase the usefulness of the spell.I'm not sure if this is permitted in the client, I'm aware the recast time cannot be changed but I'm unaware if the duration or cast times can be changed.
 
Zhak having 2 fding toons.....

/cringe at the possibilities!~ ;)

My main is a shaman, at nearly 300 aa's I have opted to not take healing sleep for the above known issues. I would like to see it fixed as well.
 
Let me be very clear on shaman FD: No, never, no way and what are you people thinking?
 
Wiz said:
Let me be very clear on shaman FD: No, never, no way and what are you people thinking?

I figured I was fighting for a lost cause. Is it still not possible to tweak the HoT power of Healing Sleep to make it more useful? I still like the idea of an zero-aggro HoT that could be used on pullers. The recast time could be increased to say 20-30 minutes to help balance that out.

Or, maybe turn Healing Sleep into a complete HoT with no detrimental effects (not being able to attack) and a 1-1.5 hour recast time.
 
ElPapaPollo said:
I figured I was fighting for a lost cause. Is it still not possible to tweak the HoT power of Healing Sleep to make it more useful? I still like the idea of an zero-aggro HoT that could be used on pullers. The recast time could be increased to say 20-30 minutes to help balance that out.

Or, maybe turn Healing Sleep into a complete HoT with no detrimental effects (not being able to attack) and a 1-1.5 hour recast time.

IIRC, timers are one of those things about AAs that cannot be changed.
 
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