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2/29/2024 19:26:30

CH4OT1C!
Member

The following post has been edited to account for subsequent criticisms.

Recently, a GBI post was made by @Sapphire on the inequalities of healing. This post argued that Spellcaster lean, berserk, and spell type boosters should not boost heal-element attacks on the following basis:

There are very few heal element skills that are not spell-type

Spellcaster is inherently biased towards Mages, with Warriors and Rangers unlikely to carry one with them.

Therefore, spellcaster lean should not boost healing because no one build archetype should gain superiority over another.

Other spellboosters (Poelala, Sila’s staff etc.) also be excluded for the same reason.

Two of these three mechanics have subsequently been implemented (Spellcaster Lean and Berserk no longer affect healing). Although I have a few very minor problems with the argument made (which I won't elaborate upon here), I generally support the original points made by @Sapphire. The following GBI is based upon the assumption that the original GBI post is accepted as, while @Sapphire has subsequently decided to change his mind in relation to spellboosters, the closest thing we have to an official statement in @Ianthe's subsequent post directly supports the original GBI, which includes them. Implementing the GBI by incorporating spellboosters in such a way enforces a major new precedent in relation to healing, which has extremely far-reaching implications for the game.

The first important precedent set by such a fix is player damage would no longer be able to boost healing. 25% of a Mage's player damage is spent on MP with the assumption this is used to fuel spells. This is a core assumption made under the player turn model. However, under the above scenario, healing spells and spell-type skills are no longer boostable, excluding a component of Mage's player damage. Thus any weapon-based boosts that can apply to healing now unfairly disadvantage mages because Warriors and Rangers receive their player damage through weapons, rather than weapons and spells. There are two alternative implications of this, either 1). Weapon-based heal can no longer exist (not my preferred option) or 2). weapon-based healing must not be boostable in the same way as spell-type attacks are being excluded. Regardless of my assumptions, this already needs to apply to FO, since spellcaster lean has already received the nerf. This change also has major implications for damage-scaled healing ( Siphon, Algern’s carapace), but these are such a complicated issue that they warrant their own separate post (contrary to @Grace Xisthrith's assertion below, it is not as simple as just dividing by armour lean).

I further propose, under the assumption that spellboosters are being nerfed, that the same applies to CHA-based equipment. Many of the same principles raised by @Sapphire to contrast Mages and non-Mages are paralleled in Beastmasters and non-Beastmasters. Criticism below notes that CHA and INT are different because INT represents an archetype, but to my knowledge there has been no justification around why this distinction matters specifically within this context. The disparity between beastmasters and non-beastmasters is pronounced for a number of reasons:

Pets and Guests provide a far greater number and variety of healing options. These includes direct HP healing e.g., Retro Twilly, MP heals e.g., Fairy Godmother, and even SP e.g., Plush Mort, and can also provide damage-scaled healing e.g., Mosquito. This is a greater range than spells/skills due to SP healing being included.

Unlike other forms of healing, Guests are intentionally mathematically overpowered.

The boosters provided to CHA may not mathematically exceed the relative limits imposed by balance. However, beastmaster gear typically affects all elements simultaneously, where other builds typically possess equipment restricted to a specific element. For example, the spellboosting cutlasses boost damage to a specific element, whereas equivalents like Fresh Asteraceae boost everything. Neither should this be a thing - weapons like Independence Dayger are restricted to a specific element. This disparity also continues into the present, with items as recent as Tribal Shaman possessing omni-elemental boosts for pets. As a result, companion boosters that can affect healing are extremely versatile.

A byproduct of nerfing Mage Spellboosting gear is the indirect nerf of all Spell-type END healing skills. END, the stat that is meant to boost healing, has been curbed yet CHA has not.

While the above list is far from exhaustive, I hope it exemplifies the current power of Pet/Guest healing options. While they lack the initial raw power of a skill at 200% melee, they can reach 90% Melee baseline (135% Melee with Ferocious strikes) without costing the player turn, freeing up the option to cast a further healing skill/spell (for which CHA also has options e.g., Sisters of Mercy. With these factors in mind, I propose that if Spellboosters are being curbed under the above assumptions, I also propose that companion boosting effects also no longer function on healing. I recognise that this may be impractical to implement on an item by item basis, so I propose this is resolved centrally by treating all heal element attacks as "other" type attacks. If this cannot be achieved either, I proposed a rolling fix similar the changes made for HP costs.

I recognise the alternative opinion raised by @Grace Xisthrith that the staff may not yet choose to implement spellboosting effects. While this interpretation has no supporting evidence and runs counter to both 2 of the 3 fixes already being implemented and @Ianthe's initial post, I can completely understand if this third component was decided against either due either practical limitations (too difficult) or even just that nerfing this component is unnecessary. If the former is true, perhpas my proposed central solution could solve the problem. If otherwise, then the weapon-based boosters and companion boosters would not need to be so restricted. FO and other armour leans would still require fixes. I would also consider implementing these changes regardless. The versatility of companion boosting also needs scrutinising, and I intend to bring this up in another post.

< Message edited by CH4OT1C! -- 3/3/2024 7:26:15 >

Post #: 1

2/29/2024 20:40:21

Sapphire
Member

The SC lean fix was because of the fact that SC lean armors were intended for Mages and the fact they boosted healing gave them an advantage globally. This doesn't mean that specific heal items can't be made to cater to Warriors, Rangers, and Mages. In fact, two heal spells that scale based on resistance are "Ranged" damage and therefore gain extra stat damage from Dexterity. One, in fact, eats panic for a greater heal. All of those concepts are 1,000% fine. It's about item support. The specific heal spell that's catered to an Archtype or a specific armor that's catered to an Archtype that contains some type of heal are fine.

What you're doing is asking to curb this part when it doesn't need to be, but even newer items have been curbed: The Wishweaver armor's exchange skill and Wishweaver pet's SP heal actually provided some caps to the heals. Both the exchange skill from the armor and the SP heal from the pet are capped and are based on damage.

When discussing the imbalance between builds, I didn't draw any lines within "builds", I drew the line within Archtypes, of which there are 3. Warrior, Ranger, and Mage. Some heals can lucky strike. Some heals come from a pet or a guest. But these interactions come from secondaries, and any one of the 3 main Archtypes can choose to train these. Therefore, there is literally zero issue here. In the same way, END provides 12.5% heal resist as a style bonus. It's providing boosted healing, too. But it's also a secondary.

This is a massive, massive distinction that despite what will be an obvious attempt to discredit, the fact that the comparisons and differences between Mainstat--> Archtype and the things secondary stats do, are essentially not apples to apples.

Do I think that there are certain interactions that allow for some pets and guests to provide far stronger healing of all 3 resources than non CHA players? Yes. But IMO, that's part of the decision making process that everyone makes when trying to decide what to train. CHA is not "OP" because of the upkeep cost to guests. That's a red herring. CHA is OP for the same reason as INT is. INT's MP bar provides the Mage a ton of versatility. CHA became more and more OP when the standard became toggles. Trading damage mode for status mode, and in some cases we have 3 modes. That versatility has created a situation in which a single pet or guest can do multiple things, allowing for superb adaptation..and that includes resource heals.

The argument doesn't really hold water as it pertains to secondaries. And using my original GBI post is honestly misrepresenting and skewing the point I made, which was calling for a re-balancing of Warrior v. Ranger v. Mage... because that was a rather large aspect of the stat revamp and I thought the heal aspect of SC created an imbalance. I suspect that very distinction is the reason why the SC lean to heal change was accepted and implemented. It was about Mainstat v. Mainstat balance. Therefore, adding CHA into the mix is then, IMO, a stretch. This feels like an attempt to find ways to nerf those players who train CHA since the stat revamp didn't nerf guests as much as some would have liked. I suspect others may agree.

But there is a much, much greater issue underpinning this entire idea that has to, and I promise, will be, considered: Much of the items that this is attempting to nerf are premium of a variety of types. You have Heromart items. You have UR GGB items. You have "rares" (Fae's isnt really a true rare but it is sort of semi premium) So are you asking for staff to nerf jelly, and it's functional clone, the mosquito after staff did the players a huge favor and brought the idea back? A nerf now would be a sort of slap in the face and completely remove the nice gesture. People didn't purchase Plush Mort so that it could just give some baseline 40% melee heal. They understood that you can use a variety of boosts to make it a worthy purchase.

Item by item or centrally changing this would have a massive detrimental effect, even if the argument provided was sound. But IMO it wasn't. And please don't skew my reasoning for the SC lean heal nerf. These arn't apples to apples in the slightest.

< Message edited by Sapphire -- 2/29/2024 22:38:04 >

Post #: 2

3/1/2024 0:36:34

Dardiel
Member

I have a pretty limited amount to say, just a few adjacent points:

- As a concept, I don't understand how healing and damage can be so different; they're both methods of creating a difference between your HP and the enemy's HP and they should theoretically both be balanced as overall concepts, rather than being so different that one can get a ton of boosting/interaction while the other is "it always does X, take it or leave it". My first thought would be that damage caps and high enemy HP/low resists can mitigate damage while nothing really mitigates healing, but that sounds to me like an issue with the system.

- The solution in my mind is that either the player should get a soft cap on healing to emulate damage caps, or monsters should be able to outdamage heals; the soft cap is likely easier to implement, since arguably a lot of AQ gameplay is leveraging synergy to get larger outputs than the balancing assumes.

- As a personal note and related to my comment on AQ gameplay, I do think that removing synergies from the game is suboptimal compared to giving diminishing returns for leaning "too far" into synergies. If healing effects are removed from so many forms of synergy they'll most likely just get dropped in favor of effects that can have synergy, being relatively boring/unskilled and likely being extremely liable to fall into the trap of "this is worthless" that so many heal effects are already in.

Post #: 3

3/1/2024 2:51:50

Sapphire
Member

I don't have a huge issue with a cap to healing, except that it comes in different forms. There is direct healing , such as what Plush Mort, Fae's, and FGM do, and there's damage-based healing, such as what Nightbane guest, Void skulls, and Jellies/Mosquitos do.

Also, the damage cap we have is per hit. Are we going to cap the heal per hit? Is it going to be several times higher than expected HP's like the damage cap is? Is the damage cap even necessary? Is a heal cap necessary?

Ultimately I don't think any of the arguments make sense in that, it feels a bit "let's choose this to nerf, but not that". And with so many other interactions in the game that are , what some people call "abusable" or "broken" (both terms way overused around this game), why tackle this specific "stack" over every other stack in AQ? Or is there a larger underpinned reason this is brought up?

I simply thought that in lieu of what seemed like a foundational aspect of the stat revamp being that on paper, and in a vacuum, that if I cast a healing spell not catered to any Archtype, that the amount healed should be-->Ranger=Warrior=Mage ...and since SC lean armors , which are catered to Mages and is the current direction moving forward, then IMO SC lean affecting healing gave Mages an advantage from a wholistic P.O.V.

It wasn't meant to be leveraged and extrapolated in ways above that baseline

< Message edited by Sapphire -- 3/1/2024 3:24:58 >

Post #: 4

3/1/2024 4:04:18

CH4OT1C!
Member

@Sapphire: While I respect and agree with many of the claims made in your previous GBI, I can't help but think that the arguments you're making here severely undermine them:

First...

quote:

But there is a much, much greater issue underpinning this entire idea that has to, and I promise, will be, considered: Much of the items that this is attempting to nerf are premium of a variety of types. You have Heromart items. You have UR GGB items. You have "rares" (Fae's isnt really a true rare but it is sort of semi premium) So are you asking for staff to nerf jelly, and it's functional clone, the mosquito after staff did the players a huge favor and brought the idea back? A nerf now would be a sort of slap in the face and completely remove the nice gesture. People didn't purchase Plush Mort so that it could just give some baseline 40% melee heal. They understood that you can use a variety of boosts to make it a worthy purchase.

I want to immediately eliminate this as a point for the following discussion. This isn't because I think that an item being premium has no relevance at all. Instead, it's because your previous GBI focused on two things: Spellcaster Lean and Spell-boosting items like Poelala and Sila's Staff:

quote:

So again, I propose that healing no longer be boosted by spellcaster leans, Poelala (any boosters), sila's staff, etc etc and only allow these things to boost outgoing damage to monsters.

Of the 14 Spellcaster lean armours currently in existence (Necromancer; Brilhado Necromancer Robes; Angelic Robes; Scathing Dreamweaver; Fall Dryad; Archmage Apprentice; Wishweaver; Ice Necro Cavalry; Wind Necro Cavalry; Tribal Shaman; Broomstrider; Infernal Angel; Infinite Darkcaster; Thunder Bride/Groom. Please correct me if I'm missing any), 7 (50%) are restricted to either token packages, UR GGBs, or token contests (with Wishweaver costing 250,000 tokens to obtain). A further two, (Scathing Dreamweaver and Angelic robes) can only be obtained if you first purchase a painting which costs tokens. Most of the items you just successfully nerfed under this principle were premium gear. Poelala also costs two UR GGBs to obtain too. It would therefore be extremely hypocritical to nerf Spellcaster, then exclude Pets and Guests on the basis of there being too many concerns around premium items.

Second...

quote:

The SC lean fix was because of the fact that SC lean armors were intended for Mages and the fact they boosted healing gave them an advantage globally. This doesn't mean that specific heal items can't be made to cater to Warriors, Rangers, and Mages.

Agreed. In fact all of the items I raised in my first post: Plush Mort, Fairy Godmother, Malibu Twilly, Retro Twilly etc. are fantastic representations of healing boosters that are specifically catered to Beastmasters, in the same way that Healing spells are catered to mages, END-based healing skills are devoted to END users. What I'm targeting is the beastmaster items that boost these specific heal items, in the same way that you targeted Spellcaster Lean armours and Poelala boost INT and END based spell-type attacks.

Third...

quote:

When discussing the imbalance between builds, I didn't draw any lines within "builds", I drew the line within Archtypes, of which there are 3. Warrior, Ranger, and Mage.

Yes, your deliberate choice of wording did not go unnoticed by me. There is indeed a distinction, CHA is not a mainstat. However, in my mind, this distinction really has no relevance to the problem and, if anything, actually strengthens my position for multiple reasons:

As a yet smaller subset than an archetype, why should Beastmasters dominate healing? If anything, this is even more uneven between different players, the very problem the last GBI was attempting to avoid.

Any one of the three main archetypes can also choose to train another mainstat. While it's absolutely possible to respond to this conundrum by stating "just train CHA", the same principle can be applied to the last GBI - "just train INT".

Supposing we do allow such a subset dominate though, why should it be Beastmasters and not END when the latter is explicitly aimed at HP and healing? For Beastmasters to retain this benefit would require subsuming a primary characteristic of END, further undermining a stat which is already struggling to compete. Yet we just nerfed END spell-type skills!

To reiterate, I'm not disagreeing with the main principles outlined in the previous GBI, in fact I support them. All I'm doing is applying both them and their basic justification to a theoretically smaller, more restrictive subset of players that cannot lay claim to healing any more than Mages and certainly not more than the subset of players training END, the stat which is now specifically geared towards it. @Dardiel raises a really important point that's also worth reiterating:

quote:

As a personal note and related to my comment on AQ gameplay, I do think that removing synergies from the game is suboptimal compared to giving diminishing returns for leaning "too far" into synergies.

This is something I agree with. However, the nerf to spellcaster lean armours has already committed to the removal of this synergy, so in my mind this falls into the "nothing" category of an "all or nothing" scenario. Otherwise, you create a "rules for thee, not rules for me" situation where Beastmasters essentially receive extreme preferential treatment over both the three primary stats and the stat that is intentionally designed for healing in the first place. While this option certainly still on the table, in my mind it would severely undermine the general integrity of decision-making to allow one mechanic to be nerfed because it's stat-specific and gives one player subset a massive advantage over everyone else, then not doing the same despite a similar situation being present for a different stat. You can't even use the MP argument in this case - many guests are fuelled using MP!

< Message edited by CH4OT1C! -- 3/1/2024 4:26:32 >

Post #: 5

3/1/2024 6:21:10

LUPUL LUNATIC
Member

quote:

Due to these very obvious problems, I propose exactly the same solution. Namely that all pet and guest boosters no longer function on healing.

I agree on this, i think Healing should have exclusive items dedicated to it. I didnt liked Spellcaster Lean change for a reason : I think a Healing armor could be released specifically with its Lean applying to Heal element spells and im very much hinting at Angelic Robes which is now just a Spellcaster version of Light Lord's Cleric.

This further fuels the fact boosters shouldnt boost Healing but have dedicated boosters for healing just like how Spellcaster Lean armors should have dedicated Leans for Healing part of their thematic purpose when it fits.

quote:

A byproduct of nerfing Mage Spellboosting gear is the indirect nerf of all Spell-type END healing skills. END, the stat that is meant to boost healing, has been curbed yet CHA has not.

Also i agree, Healing shouldnt be better as a Beastmaster with CHA, to the extent that its even better than END healing when END is really the stat designed for Healing in the first place,Beastmasters are healing a whole lot with Creature 72 + Fae and very easily too. If only END based healing would be to this level

quote:

Of the 14 Spellcaster lean armours currently in existence (Necromancer; Brilhado Necromancer Robes; Angelic Robes; Scathing Dreamweaver; Fall Dryad; Archmage Apprentice; Wishweaver; Ice Necro Cavalry; Wind Necro Cavalry; Tribal Shaman; Broomstrider; Infernal Angel; Infinite Darkcaster; Thunder Bride/Groom. Please correct me if I'm missing any), 7 (50%) are restricted to either token packages, UR GGBs, or token contests (with Wishweaver costing 250,000 tokens to obtain). A further two, (Scathing Dreamweaver and Angelic robes) can only be obtained if you first purchase a painting which costs tokens. Most of the items you just successfully nerfed under this principle were premium gear. Poelala also costs two UR GGBs to obtain too. It would therefore be extremely hypocritical to nerf Spellcaster, then exclude Pets and Guests on the basis of there being too many concerns around premium items.

Also agreed, the Spellcaster Lean nerf affected a lot of premium armors with Wishweaver being the most premium one and got hit hard because now armor cant boost shield's healing spell in SC lean mode, on top of berserk not affecting Healing anymore. This means the boosters can very well be hit by it despite them being URs.

quote:

Supposing we do allow such a subset dominate though, why should it be Beastmasters and not END when the latter is explicitly aimed at HP and healing? For Beastmasters to retain this benefit would require subsuming a primary characteristic of END, further undermining a stat which is already struggling to compete. Yet we just nerfed END spell-type skills!

Yes as i said,we cant let CHA have better healing than END when END is aimed primarily at Healing yet the Spellcaster Lean nerf was indeed aimed towards END-based spelltype healings to fix a disparity between builds, but we should make END be the best for Healing not CHA and beastmasters purely for flavor and thematics.

Post #: 6

3/1/2024 6:33:21

Sapphire
Member

If you wish to make a comparative argument between the totality of features between all of the secondaries, maybe that's warranted. But luck also boosts player-created healing via hypercrit. It's a feature and is tied to item support for the stat. This is the same with CHA.

But the issue I have more than anything here is we are taking a proposed nerf to SC lean, which was intended to boost spell damage and paying for it via a lean change, and it's side effect of boosting healing as an unintended consequence, for free, ...and attempting to ensure that Archtype v Archtype in regards to healing was balanced,and this is trying to encapsulate many other forms of healing to also nerf it, too. It's not apples to apples.

There's nothing wrong with a warrior focused armor that pays damage or SP to heal based on damage, or pays something to boost all healing spells. Same for ranger armors. Same for their weapons. Same if they made a SC lean armor that paid x % to allow the that specific armor to boost heal spells, too by the lean... it's all tied to the specific item, and is paying for it.

This doesnt mean all damage based heals get nerfed or removed. It doesnt mean you can never make an item that caters to healing for any one archtype, as long as it's paid for. It doesnt mean that secondary stats like CHA, END, and Luck shouldnt have their own ways to boost healing..because all do in their own way.

This just meant at baseline, they should be equal (mainstat v mainstat)

Post #: 7

3/1/2024 11:38:44

Dardiel
Member

A potential solution could be a (hopefully) simple two-parter:
- Give the player a per-turn healing soft cap, resetting the counter after the enemy's turn; player celerity would increase the cap by 1.2/1.4 (SP gain + turn value / total player side value) and pet celerity would increase the cap by 0.2/1.4 (pet value / player side value).
- Implement a design rule that healing and healing modifiers CANNOT be granted by increasing the damage that the player takes, just like how you can't pay HP for a heal spell. This means Spellcaster lean, FO lean if/when it could be scaling a heal (such as Infinita Staff), and any other "damage lean" effects. Effects that reduce output in exchange for reduced damage (eg FD lean) should theoretically also take reduced healing but it's probably easier that they just go untouched because they already reduce damage dealt (and therefore reduce any damage-based healing) and they would need potential extra effort to make SP-per-turn ignore the healing modifier; however if healing from spells was affected then it seems fair to me.
I feel that those two combined points would work to mitigate the abuse cases of healing without restricting the design space for heal effects.

Post #: 8

3/1/2024 17:09:47

Grace Xisthrith
Member

In before I'm not reading allat. Here to put my opinion on many of the topics discussed here. I noticed a lot of stuff I believe to be factually incorrect being claimed, some as opinion and some as stated fact, so I've labeled my thoughts as either fact checks, for those statements I believe to be objectively untrue, or opinion, for my opinions. I'm of course as prone to error as anyone, so my bad if my fact checks were incorrect at points, but I think it's pretty solid. TLDR at the bottom.

Fact checks and opinions

Chaotic 1:
Opinion: "Other spellboosters (Poelala, Sila’s staff etc.) also be excluded for the same reason." I believe it is important to point out that of the three ideas proposed by Sapphire's initial post, SC Lean, Booster Pet and Guest, and Berserk, two of those three have been implemented, and the one that hasn't (booster pets and guests) was immediately something Sapphire changed their mind on two posts later, due to the objective fact that all builds boosters affect spell type skills equally. That's important context in my opinion that discredits your claim that spellboosters were a subject of the GBI
Fact Check: "player damage can no longer boost healing." This was not established by the prior GBI, so your claim is untrue. The changes that resulted from the GBI were limited to Armor Lean from different builds boosting healing. (Debatably berserk as well, but I think most players would assume the berserk healing change came from the DEX lean focus, and focus on autohit with regards to that)
Fact Check: "25% of a Mage’s player damage is used to fuel spell-type attacks, which now cannot boost healing." This is an incorrect statement. Mages "pay" 25% melee on weapon attacks to gain an MP bar. That MP bar is still useable for healing spells. It simply doesn't gain a 1.375x multiplier now. Yes, SC lean comes from only casting spells every few turns, because of trading 25% melee in damage for MP, that doesn't change it.
Fact Check: "weapon-based healing damage must now either not exist, or not be boosted by standard weapon-boosters" same as above, player damage not boosting healing is not the conclusion of the GBI, so this is untrue as well. You correctly state however that FO armor leans (or FD leans) cannot effect healing from weapon based sources. This would require damage based lifesteal items dividing by armor lean, which presumably isn't hard, divide by armor lean is present on various items.
Opinion: "The second precedent set (or rather reinforced) is the importance of no one ‘archetype’ reigning supreme over another, specifically applied to healing in this instance. I believe that this same principle should also extend to all Pet and Guest healing. The same basic principles applied in the previous GBI also apply between non-Beastmasters and Beastmasters." This is your opinion, as you state here. While AQ terminology is infamously fluid, so using a word like Archetype can mean many things, you seem to see beastmasters and non beastmasters as archetypes in the same way that Warriors, Rangers, and Mages are archetypes. I believe this is not the case, for the simple reason that CHA isn't a mainstat. Any player, warrior, ranger, or mage, can now invest in CHA and reap the full benefits. There's no imbalance between the mainstat archetypes, as anyone can choose to invest in CHA. There's no beastmaster armor lean (if there is in the future, healing should be divided by lean). The initial GBI was dedicated to these mainstat archetypes.
I will have another opinion on your next few lines, but first some fact checks.
Fact Check: "Pets and Guests provide a far greater number and variety of healing options" All of the options you list (and all options I know of you didn't list) barring pure SP heal (Pure HP and MP, Damage based HP, MP and SP) exist in spell form. These pets and guests heal in an identical manner to various spells, simply with a different power budget. I'm not sure why you mention Malibu Cowboy Twilly's status resistance here, as it's not a heal (yes the attack that does it heals, but if you're saying part heal part status effect, that also exists in numerous spells), but that's not important.
Fact Check: "They can also reach extremely high values now thanks to Ferocious strikes, and they’re also much easier to sustain" This is an extremely misleading statement with regards to ferocious strikes, and either a factually incorrect statement with regards to sustain, or another misleading statement with regards to sustain. Guests still output the exact same %melee each turn, it's just now RNG dependent for 1/6th of that output. Saying "reach extremely high values" therefore is misleading, the highrolls from ferocious strikes are balanced by their rarity. As for "they're also much easier to sustain," if you mean compared to a Spell, then yes, a guest outputs per %melee resource invested. However, it does this at 30% the speed of spells. If you mean they're easier to sustain than they used to be, than of course, that's factually incorrect, as their upkeep costs have increased post stat revamp.
Fact Check: "Because of their lower baseline, Pet/Guest boosters have often been allowed a far higher power budget. Examples include the more easily available ways to access companion celerity, and the higher baseline of damage boosts." Both misleading and factually incorrect. There are 6 F2P armors (no clones counted, and off the top of my head) that give the player celerity whenever they want. There are ~3? armors that do this for pets and guests, Bard of War, Infernal Champion, and uhh, probably one more. I may be missing a few others, but I'm confident there aren't more than 6 that give guaranteed pet and guest celerity at any time (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to Bard of War here as well, it's not guaranteed). You could argue Bard of War counts as 8 armors, I'd say that's silly personally. As for Clever Disguise, see SFP and Lovestruck. As for Harvati blade, yes, there's no weapon that gives player celerity by trading a boatload of damage for it (except Pumpkin spice, but it's more situational so I'll give it to you). "Far higher power budget" The strongest guest is +100% damage, same with pets, I'm pretty sure (ignoring charge mechanics, because those of course don't count, they do normal damage each turn, but instead do it all at once). Have you heard of weapon based skills? That's 2x damage. Consider overcharged weapon based skills for 2x+(50%) damage. "Higher baseline of damage boosts" This point is somewhat true, but misleading. You could double a pet's damage with a misc, say +100% pet damage (none of these exist, the highest is Optico with essentially a 1.75x damage multiplier conditional on investing in LUK, and it's valued at 2/3s of that) and that would be +40% melee, while we have Bloodblade type weapons (edge of defiance) that give +30% melee worth of damage. That's ignoring, oh I don't know, elecomp? (Elecomp is applied to pets and guests in 2 niche situations, Void Awakening Form and Daimyo Rider. This does not undermine my point). Any +22% damage misc is worth +50% pet damage, so of course the numbers look bigger on pets, because where they start from is so much smaller, so any resource applied to boost them is 2.5x bigger compared to boosting the player.
Fact Check: "A byproduct of nerfing Mage Spellboosting gear is the indirect nerf of all Spell-type END healing skills. END, the stat that is meant to boost healing, has been curbed yet CHA has not." This misleadingly ignores that all spells (spell type END healing skill is redundant), regardless of resource cost, or stat scaling, STR DEX INT END, or you know, CHA scaling healing spells, were nerfed. You acknowledged in the previous GBI that various SC lean armors are used by other builds, so this nerfed spells of all stat scalings. This was the goal, to prevent someone using SC lean armors from having an advantage, since the vast majority of the time it was mages gaining an advantage over warriors and rangers. END wasn't earning that 1.375x jump in power it got from SC lean, SC lean was.
Opinion: "While the above list is far from exhaustive, I hope it exemplifies how powerful Pet/Guest healing now is compared to practically every other option bar potions." I'm going to investigate this claim, since I don't really agree with it. That being said, the below numbers aren't perfect, they can't account for item support, or synergies, or infamously bugged options (CR72 + Fae). To start, I'll look at CHA as a stat. Assuming mainstat investment, this is how I've derived valuation of the three substats: Comparing what you get as a player without them, and then with them. Starting with END, you gain ~3k HP, 5 Status Resistance, 12.5% increased healing, and ~1/10 of a stun cleanse per turn. 3k HP is either ~2000% melee, or 874% melee. I'll give END the benefit of the doubt and start with 874% melee. 5 Status res is 5% melee per turn, 12.5% increased healing is ~5% melee, but I'll drop it to 4% per turn because no MP or SP, scuffed valuation but close. 1/10 of a stun cleanse is 10% melee per turn. Divide 874/10, 87.4 + 5 + 4 + 10 = 106.4% melee per turn in a 10 turn battle. If it's 20 turns (which is pretty misleading to reality, but whatever), END is /20 instead, so 43.7% melee per turn + 5 + 4 + 10 = 62.7% melee per turn.
CHA: I think a lot of people value CHA wrong. What I'm going to do is compare the optimal Pet and Guest setup at 0 CHA (pet, no guest) to the optimal pet and guest setup at 250 CHA (Pet and guest) and find the difference between their outputs. At 0 CHA, You go from 65% accuracy 20% melee pet (13% melee) and 65% accuracy 22.5%melee output -30%melee input guest (-15.375% melee) to 85% accuracy 40% melee pet (34% melee) and 85% accuracy 60% melee output - 30% melee input guest (21% melee). The difference between those two (0 CHA with guest: -2.625% melee, without guest 13% melee)(250 CHA with guest: 55% melee) is 42% melee per turn. That's all CHA gets, already lower than END in even the longest battles (you might say END doesn't really get the value from its HP, I'll talk about that in a minute).
LUK: Very hard to value the status potency and resistance you get from minor rolls, so LUK is better than my numbers give it credit for. Add on the fact that all crit sources are 2/3s the cost of what they should be, and this further under values LUK. But, that being said, you get 15% melee per turn in player LS, 6% melee from pet LS, 20% melee from Lucky breaks (hard to value because 20% chance of gaining 50% melee is 10% melee per turn, but you cleanse a status of any power, so situational. I'll trust staff valuation of 20%), and somewhere near 5% from Initiative, and like I said initially, giving value to minor rolls is very difficult due to how situational they are. If you trust Lucky Breaks, LUK is 46% melee per turn, if you think they're worth nothing, you get 26% melee per turn, and both of these ignore minor rolls.
The conclusion is, CHA has a similar or smaller power budget to both LUK and END. It's not that "Guests are intentionally mathematically overpowered," it's that investing 250 points in a substat gives the player direct power they don't have to pay for in resources. This analysis doesn't talk about healing specifically, but it shows that CHA's direct power budget is by no means stronger than other substats.
Fact Check: Despite your claim that CHA is a better healing stat than END, Pet and Guest healing is weak when compared to END's HP pool, (I'm equating HP pool to healing, because it directly negates the need to heal). This is incorrect due to the following example. Imagine you use a pure healing pet and guest, which remember, you said this (I hope it exemplifies how powerful Pet/Guest healing now is compared to practically every other option bar potions) about. Pet outputs 40% melee, Guest outputs 60% melee per turn. Both take an always useful penalty, and autohit penalty. 100% melee * .9 * .85 = 76.5% melee per turn. Don't forget to take away guest upkeep, -30% melee = 46.5% melee per turn. This comes out to ~.465*350=162.75 HP in profit each turn. Guess how many turns you'd have to run those to make up END's 3k HP? 18 turns. Are you really going to argue that spending 18 turns with a healing pet and guest out is better healing than just having that HP flat? (this comparison also ignores that with END, you'd have a 20% melee pet acting each turn to widen the disparity). In conclusion, your claim that CHA is somehow a better stat to heal than END is factually incorrect, unless you're claiming fights last 18 turns. As a followup, if you want to argue somehow that misc items that provide 45% bonus pet damage somehow make up this gap, I'd counter by saying the END player in that situation could simply use a defensive misc, and make their HP effectively twice as massive. To be clear, this doesn't mean END is an objectively better stat than CHA, it simply means END is far better for healing (indirectly by removing your need to heal by having more HP) than CHA.

Sapphire 1:
Opinion: "This feels like an attempt to find ways to nerf those players who train CHA since the stat revamp didn't nerf guests as much as some would have liked. I suspect others may agree" I think subtly suggesting there's a conspiracy really weakens your argument, and isn't really debating in good faith.
Fact Check: " Much of the items that this is attempting to nerf are premium of a variety of types." This doesn't matter, as stated by staff, Premium items are not subject to different balance standards.

Dardiel 1:
Opinion: "The solution in my mind is that either the player should get a soft cap on healing to emulate damage caps" This is an interesting idea to me. I wonder if bosses with damage caps could be given a status that inflicts a -damage cap on the player automatically, limiting healing per hit. That wouldn't work well as a cap, since healing effects are entirely arbitrary in their hitcount, but there may be a workaround similar to this, like say, -Plot armor on the player.

Sapphire 2:
Opinion: "Ultimately I don't think any of the arguments make sense in that, it feels a bit "let's choose this to nerf, but not that" Since GBI is player initiated, this is pretty much a reality of all threads in here, so I don't think your point really matters much.

Chaotic 2:
Opinion: "Spellcaster Lean and Spell-boosting items like Poelala and Sila's Staff" again, claiming Sapphire's thread was focused on Poelala / Silas after he recanted that point two posts later is in my opinion, misleading.
Fact Check: "why should Beastmasters dominate healing" as proven above, this is factually incorrect.
Opinion: " Yet we just nerfed END spell-type skills" Again, claiming END spell type skills no longer benefitting from spellcaster lean is misleading, all healing spells regardless of stat scaling or resource cost were nerfed to prevent mages getting superior healing access

Lupul Lunatic 1: No comment

Sapphire 3:
Opinion: "This doesnt mean all damage based heals get nerfed or removed" going off the SC lean standard, they should have their outgoing damage divided by armor lean to equalize healing across builds regardless of armor lean.

Dardiel 2:
Opinion: "Effects that reduce output in exchange for reduced damage (eg FD lean) should theoretically also take reduced healing but it's probably easier that they just go untouched because they already reduce damage dealt." I think given that both STR and DEX builds get a bunch of free damage in FD armors, it probably should be adjusted / multiplied by lean here as well, in this scenario.

TLDR:
CHA isn't overpowered compared to the other substats in power budget. It's somewhere in the middle of END and LUK, or below END and slightly below LUK, depending how you value LUK. My opinion: This doesn't account for item support, which pushes LUK way up, and CHA significantly up, and END moderately up
I personally believe the SC lean change to healing reflects a future precedent of healing not being affected by armor lean, with the goal of preventing builds that use different armor leans from having advantages over one another, although of course I can't know 100% staff intent behind the change
CHA isn't the best healing stat by any stretch of the imagination, END is objectively better unless you're in crazy long fights

Post #: 9

3/1/2024 18:31:09

CH4OT1C!
Member

@Grace Xisthrith: Condensing my response for simplicity. Apologies if I skip a few points, as my time is limited:

Your central problem with my argument stems from one of fixes in the original GBI not yet being implemented - Spellboosters. @Sapphire's original post involved all three of these topics, even if he subsequently changed his mind. Two of the three fixes have already been implemented. @Ianthe, in the closest thing we have to an official staff statement, directly supports the original post. Therefore, your interpretation directly contradicts the limited information available to us. These circumstances do not guarantee me being correct, but my post more correctly aligns with pubicly-disclosed information.

Regarding "player damage can no longer boost healing": Your interpretation omits extremely important information regarding the identity of mage. This build pays 25% Melee on weapon attacks to gain an MP bar with the expectation of casting spells. This is a fundamental part of the Player Turn Formula. All spells that deal damage are spell-type. If mages choose to portion some their damage to a heal spell, they cannot boost it with spellcaster lean. By contrast, any equivalent boost for a weapon-type heal applied to Warrior and Ranger would apply to their full player damage component, but only 75% of Mage's. This concept also extends to all weapon-type boosters if spellboosters are also assumed as discussed in point one.

As a knock-on effect of the above explanation, weapon-based healing must either not exist (so only non-boosted spell-type heals apply equally to all) or aren't boosted by weapon-type boosters in keeping with the above logic. As stated already I shan't go into damage-based healing here for brevity.

You disagree with the parallels I draw between INT and CHA on the basis of CHA not being a mainstat. You emphasise this label without providing a single reason to support why this distinction matters within this context, beyond stemming from your prior assumption that does not align with currently available evidence. Moreover, just as any Warrior, Ranger or Mage can now invest in CHA, any Warrior or Ranger could have invested in INT before and received the benefits. Extending from point one, this also covers beast boosters.

Regarding: "all of the options you list (and all options I know of you didn't list) barring pure SP heal (Pure HP and MP, Damage based HP, MP and SP) exist in spell form.": Correct. this proves my point that there is a greater variety of companion-based options.

Regarding Ferocious strikes: they can deal 100% Melee, which is a higher power cap. In any case, this is a subsidiary point that I will happily concede as it makes little difference to my central argument.

I will concede on my point that Pets/Guests have a higher boost baseline that weapon-based ones, as it's a subsidiary point regardless.

Spell-type END attacks were nerfed. It is therefore not misleading to state that they were nerfed. Spell-type CHA attacks were also nerfed, correct. It's also correct that I acknowledged other builds use spellcaster lean armours (though obviously take into account the clear central premise of nerfing the lean to begin with). It would, however, be equally misleading to consider the two types of skill comparable.

To briefly summarise, I think a lot of the points you claim as me trying to "mislead" and hijack the original purpose of @Sapphire's stem from a fundamental difference in the assumption you made regarding how the fix is being implemented. While this is a reasonable opinion to hold, it does not conform to the evidence available. With that said, I'm not above compromise, and I think this requires some level of staff statement to clarify: What is being implemented from @Sapphire's post?

If the rest of the fixes are going through, then the majority of my points stand. We should also question why companions deserve boosts when weapon and spell-based effects do not

If just spellcaster lean is being implemented (with Berserk being a fix needed regardless), then most of the above can be overlooked. The only fixes needed would be to ensure that FO and FD armour leans cannot affect healing.

< Message edited by CH4OT1C! -- 3/1/2024 18:42:52 >

AQ	Post #: 10

3/1/2024 19:23:41

Sapphire
Member

Yeah, you keep misrepresenting my take by quite a bit, and continue to attempt to take advantage of that post to further your points, which IMO, lack enough substance to justify what you're attempting to do here. I would like to ask to stop using assumptions from my stance as food for bullet points, because most if it isn't accurate.

I recanted the booster aspect because those items are unique to the build, and arn't in the same boat as SC lean. The fact remains, SC lean was an attempt to push mages more into spellcasting instead of weapons based skills. The lean represents the input/output balance which assumes damage vs damage intake within the model. Therefore, it boosting healing was an unforeseen consequence that was never addressed. Since the stat revamp was an attempt to even the playing field between the 3 major Archtypes, being Warrior, Ranger, and Mage, the unintended consequence of SC lean boosting healing gave Mages another advantage over Warriors and Rangers. Since spells are apart of a Mage's damage identity, and the SC lean being intended for Mages (yes, anyone can use any item they wish for whatever reason, but the fact remains armors do get made to cater to an Archtype. This has been seen with melee and ranged type locks in other aspects) In other words, if (random example) warrior lean was made in such a way that had it's attacks consequently cause all weapon-based attacks that heal somehow gain some massive boost to all healing, even though the armor was intended for warriors, I would have also said the same thing. An armor LEAN that's intended for a specific Archtype shouldn't, as a byproduct, give some universal advantage to something as foundational as healing.

The premise here is not an evaluation of how secondaries perform in lieu of the SC lean change. All three Archtypes can choose any of these routes as it pertains to secondaries. So they all have the same access to what CHA does, what LUCK does, and what END does.

The end result was so that BASELINE ARCHTYPES have equal footing in regards to healing. Trying to include CHA and pets/guests is therefore, a massive, massive stretch.

Despite saying all of those things, I admit that there are specific pets and guests and specific interactions with them utilizing some boosts that create some very, very strong results. I will even admit the specific design of something like Mosquito creates some absolutely crazy results with some boosts, such as elevuln stacking. But here's the overarching thing, In every single case, the "boost" is paid for. Elevulns arn't free. +% pet/guest damage add ons arn't free. It's not like spellcaster lean where the lean itself created a FREE unintended byproduct.

I hear that some seem to not like the SC lean change. That somehow healing isnt as good. Sorry folks, but want to know why CHA-related healing is better? ITEM SUPPORT

The reality is , is people were relying on TWO seperate, and different interactions to boost healing and BOTH were unintended. SC lean and berserk are now fixed. (Although it seems berserk isn't yet announced, but it's in effect)

So what that leaves you with is heal resist stacking. That's it. So the answer here is multi-faceted:

1. Staff should make heal boost items that are each specific to the various archtypes. This can include:
A. Individual Main-stat scaling booster pet/guest. So what I mean is , as an example, is a booster guest that boosts healing. But it's amount scales with Strength. (functional copies for Ranger, Mage)
B. items that have specific booster effect for specific resources. Where heal resist is an all resource booster, these items can be specific, and therefore, a bit more powerful. So instead of a shuield that gives you 12.5% heal resist, a shield could grant you +25% boost to HP healing, or MP healing, or SP healing. (shields, miscs)

2. Staff could make armors that have skills/toggles inside them that allow you to boost healing of specific resources, or all, and this is *not* heal resist mods..but heal damage mods....
A. There could be an armor that has melee locks, or ranged locks that have a skill inside it that pays damage, MRM, SP, etc etc etc to boost healing.
B. They could even make a SC lean armor that reduces the boost to offensive spell damage, or as above, to pay for the lean of this armor only, to boost heals (or just MP heals, or w/e)

So in other words, instead of a reliance on the FREE unintended utility that came from berserk and SC lean, you make item support to boost heals via PAYING FOR IT, JUST LIKE EVERY PET AND GUEST BOOST DOES

The change opened design space for healing. So maybe it would be a good idea to stop attempting to kill it out of what optically IMO is seemingly coming off as some vendetta. It feels like the better direction forward is crystal clear.

Post #: 11

3/3/2024 7:22:25

CH4OT1C!
Member

Update: I've taken on board as many of your criticisms as I could for the time being and updated the initial post of this thread accordingly.

AQ	Post #: 12

3/3/2024 14:43:50

Sapphire
Member

So pet hypercrit is targeted? Guest FS (healing effects)??

Post #: 13

3/3/2024 18:07:09

Dardiel
Member

Okay I spent some time in my Hyperbolic Theory Chamber and have updated my proposal with improved logic and an enhanced solution.

Logic: If any enemy has twice the normal HP, that is functionally identical to giving the player side a 50% reduction in damage... Except for the heal element, or any effects that scale with damage dealt.

Solution part 1: Give the player a soft cap on healing, equal to 140% x [always useful] x HealResist x [0 END Max HP] / [Enemy Max HP] with a clawback of 0.75 (basically the same sort of damage scaling as Mason Form, but accounting for HP instead of resists). This combats the exact problem of players being able to outheal enemies, scaling with how hard that enemy is to outheal (as more defensive enemies would tend to have lower damage) but not punishing small incidental heals which are typically suboptimal.

Solution part 2: If possible, also implement the "effective damage multiplier" soft cap at the point where damage is "reported" to damage-scaling effects (eg damage is calculated and applied to HP + recorded in the battle log, then the cap applies, then the updated damage total is passed along). This solves the issue of tanky high-HP enemies being fodder for effects that scale with damage (if it isn't possible to do this, then the solution would be to just apply the soft cap to all future damage-scaling items the same way they boosters all get an outlevel formula).

Extra Note: Notably this doesn't help enemies that have low resists or high MRM rather than high HP - those enemies do already have inherent reduction to damage-scaling effects which is convenient, but when it comes to healing there's two options:
1: Apply an additional multiplier to specifically the HP soft cap, which scales with enemy resists and MRM relative to the "normal amount"
2: Just leave these low-damage low-HP high-defense enemies as "the ones that are easy to outheal"
I personally support option 2 here, as it gives an additional knob to turn with enemy designs - raising enemy HP reduces player healing while lowering enemy resists or raising enemy MRM doesn't reduce healing (in addition to the other implications from raising any given defensive trait).

< Message edited by Dardiel -- 3/4/2024 14:08:08 >

Post #: 14

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