To be clear, I think healing is a legitimate strategy and good for the game. The problem I think we all agree on is when someone is able to continuously out-heal the damage being done to them causing the game to go to timer rather than a defeat. Whether or not the player sets up to do this or not is irrelevant, it is a problem, and not how I imagined the devs intended PvP to be played.
Various different nerfs have been tried over the years to balance this from reducing heal crits to increasing damage to most recently, reducing healing. The problem is, balancing something like this is a very fine razor. Make heals too good and games will end in a stalemate without either player being able to KO the other. Nerf them too much and no one bothers to use them because you cannot out-heal the damage being done. The sweet spot is very hard to hit.
I have a different approach I want to suggest. Remove all flat nerfs from heals and allow them to do 100% of the intended amount. The catch is, this will only be the case for the first heal. After that every consecutive heal will have an increasing debuff.
It would look something like this:
First heal 100% Second 90% Third 80% Fourth 70% Fifth 60% Sixth 50% Seventh 40% Eighth 30% Ninth 20% Tenth 10%
This will keep heals relevant for the first few times, but the diminishing effectiveness of numerous heals will mean the duel will have an eventual end in a defeat. A player will be able to out-heal damage being done initially, but eventually will not be able to. This ensures that healing remains a viable strategy, but heal spamming is not.
May cast heals should also be effected by this and increase the healing reduction.
Alternatively instead of a flat decrease in percentage each time it could be a fraction of the previous. For example:
This system will still allow the devs to tweak the numbers as they please to keep the effectiveness of healing in a healthy place for the game.
It could be: 100% 96% 92% 88% etc
or
100% *0.81= 81% *0.81= 66% *0.81= 53% etc.
or anywhere in between.
There are a few different ways to implement something like this from having the debuff shown in someway to having it hidden. Personally I think the best way is to have the numbers on the cards themselves change after each heal.
The healing value of Satyr if consecutively reducing by 10% would be:
860 774 688 602 516 430 344 258 172 86
The same should be done for every healing spell by whatever reduction the devs decide. This also helps if the amount being reduced each heal is not a round number like 10%. The player can see the number on the card and that's all that matters.
I understand that this would require the most coding and be the hardest to implement, but it would be the best for the player's experience who doesn't need to do math or keep track of how many heals they have already used. The amount the spell is going to heal is written on the card for them to see.
On a finishing note, each player and minion should have their own reductions separate from other team members. This way team PvP can still benefit from running multiple healers if they choose.
I have realised a flaw in my suggestion and want to make an edit. It doesn't seem fair to increase the debuff to healing by a set amount for every heal. For example, you get very little health back from using minor blessing or sprite and most of the time if you ever see these spells, they are used strategically to remove an infection. I would suggest instead that the heal debuff should increase relative to the amount of pips the heal is worth. For example: 2% per pip
Minor Blessing doesn't cost any pips so should not increase the debuff
Sprite should increase it by 2% Fairy and Pixie by 4%
Satyr by 8% etc.
Some spells are only partially a heal and should increase the debuff relatively. Link is a two pip spell that is half heal half damage so should only increase the debuff the equivalent of one pip at 2%. Wings of Fate is the same but worth six pips total half of which is three at 6%
I want to see a bigger decrease because that doesn't effectively stop someone from healing. decreasing 10% per heal does nothing because all they need is the first few heals to really shift a game in their favor against weaker schools. For example, a -10% blade barely decreases any damage from a hit and isn't seen as a valuable debuff. That's the difference in hitting someone for 3000 damage and 2700 damage. I was just in a fight with a life wizard who spam healed and he beat me with only 9k health. I combo'd him for 7K+ with my first three hits and healed back with an unbuffed Satyr for 3k and used Dryad for the remaining health. the decrease should maybe be:
the heal should cap at 10% (maximum) after the 5th heal and continue for further heals. Life(along with every other school) has the means to be an offensive school with 140+ damage and 44 pierce (the stats he had for damage), so there should be no real reason for them to have the ability of spam healing.
I want to see a bigger decrease because that doesn't effectively stop someone from healing. decreasing 10% per heal does nothing because all they need is the first few heals to really shift a game in their favor against weaker schools. For example, a -10% blade barely decreases any damage from a hit and isn't seen as a valuable debuff. That's the difference in hitting someone for 3000 damage and 2700 damage. I was just in a fight with a life wizard who spam healed and he beat me with only 9k health. I combo'd him for 7K+ with my first three hits and healed back with an unbuffed Satyr for 3k and used Dryad for the remaining health. the decrease should maybe be:
the heal should cap at 10% (maximum) after the 5th heal and continue for further heals. Life(along with every other school) has the means to be an offensive school with 140+ damage and 44 pierce (the stats he had for damage), so there should be no real reason for them to have the ability of spam healing.
Yes, agreed. The numbers can be adjusted to best balance the game.
