Assist changes

[Graftmage]

Doctor heals overpowered in PvP (and PvM too, but it's out of scope), especially if heal target is not the doctor himself. Eveyone knows that

[NoGoal]

Attacks will always reduce a targets HP. Attacks beyond 0% can't be done, so you can't waste a special into someone who's already dead. Only nukes/perks can be wasted if the casting was started pre-death and the target died before execution. Heals to a 100% HP person can be done, and as a result healing doesn't scale the same way per character present as dmg does. You wouldn't believe how often two doctors happen to heal the same person for 10k HP. That equals to 10k+ heal being wasted, and your heals still need the same recharge. Maintaining a heal rotation is simply impossible in todays PvP environment, so don't even mention it.

And you still don't think that wasting full perk alphas, nukes or DoTs on a dead target isn't worse than wasting instacast heal with ~4s recharge?

I agree, but the OP suggests to remove heal assisting as well, and heal assisting is not what causes the zerg-like mechanics.

It's the exact same mechanic...

[Gatester]

macros for spam to chat "target >%t< click here for assist" where here is "/target %t" – thats be same as now.
All chat commands can be used in scripts or macros – this is game mechanic

If you spammed /target %t, you would not select anyone If someone else made a macro to display that on a selected target, then players would have to manually highlight and paste and use it, which takes even longer than just manually typing it.

/target gatester
/target lilpirata
/target lilgatester

You would have to manually type it out 100% of the time, unless you had stored /target macros for every opponent in a raid. Good luck.

[Avari]

It's the exact same mechanic...

I'll spell it out for you:

1. /macro kill /assist [insert name]:
   You assist the same person all the time, thus focusing dmg from several people on the same target. This is what creates the zerg effect, since there is enough dmg focused on the chosen target, that he can't possibly survive. That comes pretty close to the definition of zerging imo.
2. /macro heal /assist:
   You assist a random enemy, that you yourself have chosen, to find out what he is attacking. There is no correlation between the person you choose to /assist and the person the doctor next to you chooses to /assist. Thus, there is no funneling of healing to one single person through this macro.

NB. The perspective is group PvP with 7-12 people present - like BS or small scale tower wars.

[Forek]

i'll spell it out for you:

1. /macro kill /assist [insert name]:
   You assist the same person all the time, thus focusing dmg from several people on the same target. This is what creates the zerg effect, since there is enough dmg focused on the chosen target, that he can't possibly survive. That comes pretty close to the definition of zerging imo.
2. /macro heal /assist:
   You assist a random enemy, that you yourself have chosen, to find out what he is attacking. There is no correlation between the person you choose to /assist and the person the doctor next to you chooses to /assist. Thus, there is no funneling of healing to one single person through this macro.

nb. The perspective is group pvp with 7-12 people present - like bs or small scale tower wars.

QFT

These two already work differently (you can only /assist <name> with a player) so I don't see why a change couldn't be made to affect only the one that causes problems ...

[Theonora]

1. /macro kill /assist [insert name]:
   You assist the same person all the time, thus focusing dmg from several people on the same target. This is what creates the zerg effect, since there is enough dmg focused on the chosen target, that he can't possibly survive. That comes pretty close to the definition of zerging imo.
2. /macro heal /assist:
   You assist a random enemy, that you yourself have chosen, to find out what he is attacking. There is no correlation between the person you choose to /assist and the person the doctor next to you chooses to /assist. Thus, there is no funneling of healing to one single person through this macro.

NB. The perspective is group PvP with 7-12 people present - like BS or small scale tower wars.

OK, except:

/macro kill /assist <insert callers here>
Targets whomever on the other side your callers are targeting, obviously.

immediately followed up by
/macro heal /assist

if the person you targeted on the other side is using THEIR assist, you have now heal-assisted whomever the callers on the other side are calling.

The other option is when the leaders on your side happen to know the callers on the other side:

/macro heal /assist <insert enemy callers here>

I usually use the first option, as its just as fast and effective as the second for the most part.

So, while I agree with you that I'd rather keep assist healing than not, I'm under no illusion it takes any more effort to target someone for healing than it does for killing...unless you count two fast button presses as a significant amount more effort than one, which I really don't.

[Qlskdo]

except that if you remove #1, you have effectively reduced the use for #2, since the target you /assist won't use #1. This fixes zergs while mantaining assist heals, that are undoubtely useful in pvm.

[Avari]

except that if you remove #1, you have effectively reduced the use for #2, since the target you /assist won't use #1. This fixes zergs while mantaining assist heals, that are undoubtely useful in pvm.

Exactly! I'd like to highlight this, since half of you seem to be missing it.

[Insane666]

personally i love the idea of just team callers, been thinkin of it myself before a few times,,, and thats said aswell from the doctors perspective

i dont mind it becomming harder to target called ppl outside of my team, if at the same time the opposing zerg will not call a single person at a time all at once, at least until their callers live ( and vice versa ), but instead it will be each team calling on their own

it wouldnt change much in small skirmishes, it would mean a brand new quality tho in mass pvp in ao,,,

[Mekh]

You're comparing apples with oranges. The two types of assisting aren't proportional in power. Damage dealing is a pro-active action, while healing is a re-active action. Huge difference.

This...

Even with the /assist macro it's hard enough to manage to heal people up today before they're dead, if your heal target has more than one opponent at least.

Requiring a healer to manually target someone to be healed, would result in most people ending up dead long before the Doc had a chance to actually cast a heal on that person.

By the time you see someone taking damage they are usually more or less dead already, so even half a second more second lost on targeting would mean a huge difference.

[Alducio]

Ok, I totally agree with this idea about team assists as I have stated before but on another forums account name as my main account has lapsed payment.

The ONLY negative thing that I can come up with concerning this is that it will promote an eletist attitude within the AO population... being that if you are an endgame twinked toon with ACDC etc & full Intel Sysms & the best setup imaginable you will only want to be teamed with similar people.

So you will have super strong teams & less so. Which I suppose isnt in itself a problem but it still goes against an MMORG style being that most times you will be teamed with roughly the same people.
Not such a big thing as in War at the moment I hardly ever have team chat. So it could be positive & promote Teamwork which I am all for.

BUMP!!!!

Slower more enjoyable PVP is FTW!!!!

[Avari]

...So you will have super strong teams & less so....

I don't see how team callers would affect the forming of teams. People are effectively using team callers on BS already, since very few manage to coordinate more than a team up there.

[AryannaCK]

I have to admit, I appreciate the thought behind the OP ideas, even agree with them to a point. However, I am completely against the removal of assist healing macros.

In PvM, healing is mostly easy for us TL7 docs.. I have a regular /assist macro that I use religiously (not to mention hitting "t" on the tank to make sure I have their current hp reported, a bug that annoys me to this day).. it's all fairly simple in regular PvM teams.

When we get to the PvP scene though, it's insane. Things happen so quickly, when 3 or 4 different people alpha 1 person, we have to respond lightning fast or they are dead. There's no way in hell I will single click or even use the F1-6 buttons; it's just not fast enough.

I suppose it comes down to embracing the changes completely. I suppose every team would want a doc on team, then.. so who knows. It would definitely change the mass PvP setup though. Guess I'll just think about it.

[Mavritanic]

Doc in PvP must heal own team (i think this is more important for doc, then others peoples), if doc want heal somebody else, hi's can use targets target or "Next Friendly target" button, but this is must be less important.

[Parranoid1]

Doc in PvP must heal own team (i think this is more important for doc, then others peoples), if doc want heal somebody else, hi's can use targets target or "Next Friendly target" button, but this is must be less important.

i dont even have those on my screen, and im sure alot of other people don have them either.

i just use tab or ctrl+tab like a normal person....

except that if you remove #1, you have effectively reduced the use for #2, since the target you /assist won't use #1. This fixes zergs while mantaining assist heals, that are undoubtely useful in pvm.

anyways Dont use "zerg" to describe the mass use of assist macros, changing the macros wont resolve "zerging" because zerging is just a large bunch of people.

[Mavritanic]

i just use tab or ctrl+tab like a normal person...

BTW, you can change this button (i think ctrl+tab not so comfortably)

anyways Dont use "zerg" to describe the mass use of assist macros, changing the macros wont resolve "zerging" because zerging is just a large bunch of people.

Of course, peoples after assist changing can make crowd, but negative effects in mass PvP will be less.

[AryannaCK]

I don't like the idea of control tabbing my way through the healing process. Seriously.

Although, I guess it would be a new skill for docs to learn if it were set up this way. :P

[Avari]

Doc in PvP must heal own team (i think this is more important for doc, then others peoples), if doc want heal somebody else, hi's can use targets target or "Next Friendly target" button, but this is must be less important.

Because the vast majority always team up on BS

Let's face it, you have no idea what you're talking about with respect to healing in PvP, so why don't you focus on the stuff you do know something about? I think it could be exciting to see calling reduced to team callers tbh. Leave /assist healing alone though.

[Looke]

Let's face it, you have no idea what you're talking about with respect to healing in PvP, so why don't you focus on the stuff you do know something about?

This ^

[Mavritanic]

Because the vast majority always team up on BS

Let's face it, you have no idea what you're talking about with respect to healing in PvP, so why don't you focus on the stuff you do know something about?

assist heal, BGH and UBT? I miss somthing? Plz dont tell me about dots

/assist healing alone though.

This is same overpowered ability in PvP as zerg assist and use same mechanic - this is must be nerfed too. This should be fixed in PvP anyway.
I want to hope that assist heal it will be possible to maintain the same as is for PvE.

Doc just be heal own team and sometimes friendly targets in PvP