Healing Potions: Discussion on balance

[Rooshi49]

*Opens a figurative can of worms*

Okay lets get started. Healing potions.

I think that these potions are a tad overpowered. Here's why I think so:

• You can chug them every half round and they heal approximately 100+ hp a potion.

• They're fairly easy to make and get. The ingredients are easy to obtain, the amount of crafting points needed is not much, and the DC is low.

• Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that Kensai and Path of the True Flames can drink them.

• You can only interrupt someone from continuously chugging them is to hard CC (See the bottom for notes if you don't know what hard CC is) the person drinking them.

What happens in alot of pvp is that the side with the most healing potions tends to win. Because unless you have the cumulative DPS to attack one person to overcome 200+ hp being restored a round, you're just not going to kill them. A mage could use up all their spells, and someone could just chug healing potions through all that damage.

Now I'm not going to really use an argument on realism here to make my point, but I would like to bring it up. Wouldn't your stomach eventually burst from drinking so many potions? >.<

Greater restoration scrolls have a CD (cooldown) timer (I'm fairly certain). Why can't healing potions have at least some CD on them to prevent people from just chugging them? What do you all think? I think that healing potions DO benefit some classes more than others. Its essentially a balance issue of non-magical classes vs. magical classes. Because the longer a fight drags on, unless you're up against a weavemaster or a true flame, the weaker a magical class gets, and if someone can heal through all the damage just with chugging healing potions, it sort of negates everything that a mage does.

Now I'm not trying to tip the scales in my favor, I don't even play mages. I just think its a tad unfair. . . and a CD timer of around two seconds or so could help alleviate that.

Also, please don't bring up the fact that the server is an RP server, and thus balance changes shouldn't matter. . . it is an RP server, its not like noone doesn't know that.

Please don't flame me. I just want to have a nice discussion.

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NOTES: Hard CC stands for hard crowd control, or anything that stops a player from being able to input commands and have them fulfilled. Examples: Stuns, charms, etc.

EDIT: No I havn't been in pvp in the last 24 hours . . . FFS. People automatically assuming this is the reason why people are afraid of even speaking their opinions on the forums . . . because they'll be personally attacked.

[TimeAdept]

Chugging heal pots means improved expertise goes down and you're flatfooted. That's death in melee.

If someone wants to chug 50k+ in healing pots because the only thing you took as a wizard is damage spells, then you've made spellbook mistakes as a caster. MY condolences to Trueflames, but your spells are also infinite.

I don't think I've seen a single PvP where endless healpot chugging wins the day.

[flower]

They are expansive in large sum, and annoying to craft.


And They do not win pvp for anyone just because of them. Naturally if you encounter well supplied and ready person who put thousends into equiptment you cannot expect to have easy time.

[Rooshi49]

Chugging heal pots means improved expertise goes down and you're flatfooted. That's death in melee.

If someone wants to chug 50k+ in healing pots because the only thing you took as a wizard is damage spells, then you've made spellbook mistakes as a caster. MY condolences to Trueflames, but your spells are also infinite.

I don't think I've seen a single PvP where endless healpot chugging wins the day.

You're right about certain classes in certain situations. I'm not so sure about the flatfooted part though. And yea, if someone does only bring a wizard to a fight as their dps, it is a mistake on their part.

But I have to disagree on endless healpot chugging winning the day part. I'm surprised you havn't seen it, but your argument is a anecdotal one. I have seen it, and often.

[The Damned]

Chugging heal pots means improved expertise goes down and you're flatfooted. That's death in melee.

If someone wants to chug 50k+ in healing pots because the only thing you took as a wizard is damage spells, then you've made spellbook mistakes as a caster. MY condolences to Trueflames, but your spells are also infinite.

I don't think I've seen a single PvP where endless healpot chugging wins the day.

I've witnessed -many- fights in which people won engagements strictly due to winning the war of attrition. Namely: "Who has the most heal potions?"

You're also neglecting to consider that a slew of melee builds simply cannot be hard CC'd. CoTs and Paladins in particular. Their saves are far too high, and you'll meet a dead wall of failure if you attempt to CC them via any DC spells whatsoever.

It also isn't guaranteed death in melee unless you have phenomenally low AC, and your opponent hits like a truck. Generally it's worth the chug. And it's particularly game-breaking against casters.

Compulsively chugging heal potions in PvP -does- work, and it's silly that it does. One of two solutions should be implemented to handle it:

1. The addition of a significant cooldown to heal potions.
2. Diminishing returns with subsequent uses in the span of a minute. 50% at least per subsequent usage.

There's good reason why most balanced servers (particularly PvP servers, which specialize in this sort of balancing) either nerf or disable heal potions to begin with. Healing kits coupled with heal skill are plenty sufficient to keep people alive in PvE, as well. So this is ultimately a significant balance problem in PvP.

[The Rambling Midget]

I can't say I've ever seen heal potions make a decisive difference in PvP. Really the only thing I've seen them turn around is RPless ambush PvP where one side just had no idea that a fight was coming, and a quick heal let them survive long enough to ditch. But if a handful of heal potions turn a fight around, then neither side really had enough of an advantage to ensure victory. In high level PvP, that 110HP accounts for maybe 1-2 hits. It can't even match a maximized IGMS.

Greater Restoration is CD, because it removes status effects, and while damage can be reliably dished out, those can be very difficult to land, so it'd be unfair to make those too easily dismissed.

[TimeAdept]

Chugging heal pots means improved expertise goes down and you're flatfooted. That's death in melee.

If someone wants to chug 50k+ in healing pots because the only thing you took as a wizard is damage spells, then you've made spellbook mistakes as a caster. MY condolences to Trueflames, but your spells are also infinite.

I don't think I've seen a single PvP where endless healpot chugging wins the day.

I've witnessed -many- fights in which people won engagements strictly due to winning the war of attrition. Namely: "Who has the most heal potions?"

You're also neglecting to consider that a slew of melee builds simply cannot be hard CC'd. CoTs and Paladins in particular. Their saves are far too high, and you'll meet a dead wall of failure if you attempt to CC them via any DC spells whatsoever.

It also isn't guaranteed death in melee unless you have phenomenally low AC, and your opponent hits like a truck. Generally it's worth the chug. And it's particularly game-breaking against casters.

Compulsively chugging heal potions in PvP -does- work, and it's silly that it does. One of two solutions should be implemented to handle it:

1. The addition of a significant cooldown to heal potions.
2. Diminishing returns with subsequent uses in the span of a minute. 50% at least per subsequent usage.

There's good reason why most balanced servers (particularly PvP servers, which specialize in this sort of balancing) either nerf or disable heal potions to begin with. Healing kits coupled with heal skill are plenty sufficient to keep people alive in PvE, as well. So this is ultimately a significant balance problem in PvP.

Incinerary Cloud, Mindfog, Cloudkill, Acid Fog, Web, all spells that perform CC w/o a save effect attached to them.

In high level PvP, that 110HP accounts for maybe 1-2 hits. It can't even match a maximized IGMS.

To be totally fair, the situation generally described is a rich epic with herbalism or herbalism friends that sits on 100-200 heal pots specifically for PvP, and can easily afford to chug 40 of them if it means winning a fight. This exists, but is a super tiny minority.

[The Rambling Midget]

To be totally fair, the situation generally described is a rich epic with herbalism or herbalism friends that sits on 100-200 heal pots specifically for PvP, and can easily afford to chug 40 of them if it means winning a fight. This exists, but is a super tiny minority.

I understand that, but my point is that it rarely puts you ahead. It's more like a liquid stasis field that allows you to keep yourself from dying, while others carry on the fight. If you're being double or triple teamed, all it does is delay the inevitable.

[Cerk Evermoore]

I've used up all a players cooldowns (G-resotration, Pray all their natural CDs) and had them at the brink of death and so began the healing potion chug. I don't know why people are defending them, should we bring back heal wands too? If having 99 healing potions in a stack is balanced the wand that has 50 casts of heal on it are in the exact same category.

Just because you hanv't seen them used in pvp effectively doesn't mean they are not strong. The game has enough consumables to give wealthy players the edge, I don't think we need to give them the ability to engage in a fight indefinitely.

Also it definitely does put you ahead when you can run out of a team fight, drink two potions and return to the fight in a span of seven seconds.

Only in the case where odds were totally stacked against you and you'd have died anyways is it useless.

Even fights? Incredibly op. Removes any need for any healer, all you need to do is break off the engagement for five seconds and full heal.

[Nitro]

Heal wands would be categorically awful. Potions you can at least chug two per round, not so much with wands. And if someone is standing still to chug heal pots, that gives you the time to respond to a stationary non-attacking target. If you're a melee, that's ample time to chug a truestrike pot and land a KD, as a caster you have a myriad of ways to make them move or outright CC them.

Also it definitely does put you ahead when you can run out of a team fight, drink two potions and return to the fight in a span of seven seconds.

If memory serves, heal pots restore 100HP on Arelith. So if someone can chug 2 and be back to anywhere near full HP they've got such a squishy build that they're in constant danger of being one-shot. For more reasonable 4, 6 and 800 HP, it would take at least 2, 3 and 4 rounds respectively of potion chugging, in which case you now have a sitting duck of a stationary target letting you do whatever you want to close out the fight.

[Dirac]

ROFL, what the hell do you mean healing pots don't win fights? You can chug heals to the tune of ~310 hps per round.

EDIT: I guess if they chug 10+ points to win a fight, but are they really winning?

[flower]

To be totally fair, the situation generally described is a rich epic with herbalism or herbalism friends that sits on 100-200 heal pots specifically for PvP, and can easily afford to chug 40 of them if it means winning a fight. This exists, but is a super tiny minority.

I understand that, but my point is that it rarely puts you ahead. It's more like a liquid stasis field that allows you to keep yourself from dying, while others carry on the fight. If you're being double or triple teamed, all it does is delay the inevitable.

Shall i count for you the cost in real money i would get in work for time spent making all these hundreds of heal potions people keep talking about?

And that it delays inevitable? And? and what? If three people are unable to put single person down they deserve it.

Edit: to drink a potion you become flat footed, have to stop in place, and give AoP to attacker. If you fight heavy meelers drinking heal potion will restore 110 HPS but you may get critted as AoO for another 150.

[Cerk Evermoore]

If healing potions were useless in pvp I wouldn't be posting here and the OP wouldn't be either. I've used them to save my own life in pvp and I have seen others use them to save their own. It is tied to the fact the potions are uninterruptible and if you suck at pvp you'll stand there and let them attack you flat footed. But the funny thing about being chased around in melee is you can just run in the opposite direction and just heal yourself when they peel off or fall behind in a transition.

Also, gold isn't an object to many players.

I am not going to bust out a calculator or try to post paragraphs to explain what instances they would be useful in. We can all invent situations that they would be useful or not useful with all the perfect variables. But I 100% guarantee you that they are not useless in pvp, they don't make you a superhero but they definitely give you a huge edge. If they sucked, folks wouldn't be shelling out serious money per-potion. They sure aren't buying them on the regular to kill npcs. I've said my piece and I am not going to continue this conversation, because frankly. Arguing against people who have never experienced this situation in pvp is tiresome.

[Lunargent]

My feedback is that you shouldn't be able to post on the forums within 24 hours of being in PvP. Too often (especially recently) things become a whine of, "I lost to this, please nerf it".

Heal has already been nerfed a fair amount. The potions are expensive to buy and Herbalism is such a trash crafting discipline that few enough invest in it that they aren't readily available anyway. There is very little reason to invest in Herbalism currently, so any 'rebalancing' of the heal potions, one of the sole reasons for taking the craft, will just diminish it further from "nearly useless" to "complete and utter garbage".

If they're so easy to craft, just craft them. Have your people gather ingredients for you and make a pool of ingredients and soon you'll have a heal pot factory of your own.

[Nitro]

No one is saying they're useless. We're saying they're nowhere near as wildly OP as you claim them to be. They're not even slightly OP. They have a use but are not the end all emergency button to get a huge advantage in a fight.

What they are, is one of many consumables that when used correctly, can give an advantage in a fight, but has just as much counterplay as any other consumable.

[Rooshi49]

To be totally fair, the situation generally described is a rich epic with herbalism or herbalism friends that sits on 100-200 heal pots specifically for PvP, and can easily afford to chug 40 of them if it means winning a fight. This exists, but is a super tiny minority.

I understand that, but my point is that it rarely puts you ahead. It's more like a liquid stasis field that allows you to keep yourself from dying, while others carry on the fight. If you're being double or triple teamed, all it does is delay the inevitable.

Shall i count for you the cost in real money i would get in work for time spent making all these hundreds of heal potions people keep talking about?

And that it delays inevitable? And? and what? If three people are unable to put single person down they deserve it.

Edit: to drink a potion you become flat footed, have to stop in place, and give AoP to attacker. If you fight heavy meelers drinking heal potion will restore 110 HPS but you may get critted as AoO for another 150.

You're assuming that everyone can do that much damage . . . which is wholefully untrue. Also you're assuming its always a 1v3, which isn't always the case. In fact that I would imagine that because someone can use a type of potion to survive at all against a 1v3 shows that its imbalanced, even if they're delaying the inevitable like TRM says.

[Rooshi49]

No one is saying they're useless. We're saying they're nowhere near as wildly OP as you claim them to be. They're not even slightly OP. They have a use but are not the end all emergency button to get a huge advantage in a fight.

What they are, is one of many consumables that when used correctly, can give an advantage in a fight, but has just as much counterplay as any other consumable.

Okay. . . what are those counterplays you speak of?

[Nitro]

No one is saying they're useless. We're saying they're nowhere near as wildly OP as you claim them to be. They're not even slightly OP. They have a use but are not the end all emergency button to get a huge advantage in a fight.

What they are, is one of many consumables that when used correctly, can give an advantage in a fight, but has just as much counterplay as any other consumable.

Okay. . . what are those counterplays you speak of?

If you're a melee, that's ample time to chug a truestrike pot and land a KD, as a caster you have a myriad of ways to make them move or outright CC them.

I guess if you're a build that has literally 0 offensive potential you'd be in trouble (But then you're already in trouble), but otherwise it's not that bad. If you're melee you can either laugh as you get free hits in because their expertise turns off from chugging potions AND they're flatfooted and just keep nuking them with some free extra attacks of opportunity as well, or you can chug a free truestrike potion because hey, now they can't run away from the incoming KD because they're busy chugging heal pots.

And if you're a caster, you can drop any number of area spells on them, like say mind fog or incinerate to force them to move or eat damage/negative status effects, then either spam dispels to get rid of their buffs so you can chunk a save-or-die spell through their reduced WILL save courtesy of mind fog. It's also a good time to pull out any summons you might want, drop an EDK on them for instance. Or ward up with short lasting spells that you couldn't get up before the fight or that got dispelled, like acid sheath.

EDIT: And if it's one person chugging heal pots against three attackers, it really isn't the heal pots that are making them lose if they are. Then there's a clear power gap between the build of the solo person and the builds of the 3 others.

[flower]

When someone starts to drink heals it means he is pushed on defensive, is in minus with HPS enough to begin drink heal potions, offering Windows for more criticals / hits from melee/range or giving time to mage to get off more spells.


Heal potions are also counters to harm spells.

They are not expansive to make, but you need to put the time into it, that you do not value your own time you need to drop on potion crafting is not issue of others.

[TimeAdept]

But the funny thing about being chased around in melee is you can just run in the opposite direction and just heal yourself when they peel off or fall behind in a transition.

I didn't know we were counting exploiting the game engine now as legitimate arguments over PvP balance. Becuase that's what using transitions is.

[Rooshi49]

They are not expansive to make, but you need to put the time into it, that you do not value your own time you need to drop on potion crafting is not issue of others.

Is it too much to ask that a forum post doesn't devolve immediately into personally attacking an individual? Seriously? Too much to ask for?

[flower]

But the funny thing about being chased around in melee is you can just run in the opposite direction and just heal yourself when they peel off or fall behind in a transition.

I didn't know we were counting exploiting the game engine now as legitimate arguments over PvP balance. Becuase that's what using transitions is.

It is already forbidden is it not...

[Aodh Lazuli]

Healpot chugging in the context you're talking about (trying to outheal damage currently being dealt) = losing slower, not winning by attrition.

[TimeAdept]

But the funny thing about being chased around in melee is you can just run in the opposite direction and just heal yourself when they peel off or fall behind in a transition.

I didn't know we were counting exploiting the game engine now as legitimate arguments over PvP balance. Becuase that's what using transitions is.

It is already forbidden is it not...

It absolutely is, which is why I found it pretty funny that Cerk is saying to use it to chug heals faster. It says a lot. About the implication.

[Hunter548]

You're assuming that everyone can do that much damage . . . which is wholefully untrue. Also you're assuming its always a 1v3, which isn't always the case. In fact that I would imagine that because someone can use a type of potion to survive at all against a 1v3 shows that its imbalanced, even if they're delaying the inevitable like TRM says.

If this is true, the problem is with the builds involved, not heal potions. There's nothing wrong with playing suboptimal builds, but let's not use them as the baseline for balance.