Heal/Mass Heal and Conjuration Focus feats

[NLawson]

I thought for a long time about how to respond to Azure's post...so long, in fact, that I forgot to respond.
I'm the same way (obviously, since two people who say they hang around with me also tend to stick to small groups) - if I want to farm something, we make a small 3 or 4 man team that covers all bases, and take it out. If I'm not so fussed about the farming and just want the exp bonus, or the fun of the raid, then everyone else gets an invite too. Some places are almost always group deals (see, MT, Temple, BD) and some tend to be done almost universally in small groups (Corsairs, Sistra, Edoras, MM).

The mod, by it's nature, will always be made up of small groups. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as it doesn't become too extreme (i.e. flat-out refusing to hang out with anyone other than your little clique). For farming purposes it is ALWAYS more efficient to take a small group rather than a large group, except for places which can't be done very easily by small groups. You might get an extra 0.5% drop chance if you turn a 3 man team into a 4 man, but you go from a 33% chance of winning the roll to a 25% chance.

Then you get those who simply turn up and expect to be invited on the raid.
By all means, ask to join us, wherever we're going. Don't just show up. That's a sure-fire way of getting on everybody's nerves.
If I say no, there's a 96.86% chance it's nothing personal, I just don't want to lower my chances if I don't have to.
As Sancho said - every farming team is made up entirely of toons that have been built to fulfill a specific role. Thanks to the difficulty of the Temple, healers are in more demand.

Since we're talking about heal - I think most people would agree that the 5% full heal chance really isn't working out as hoped...It was a great idea on paper, but in practice all it does is make the NPCs frustrating to kill.
I was fighting the pel king a few weeks ago, and he personally got two full heals, and one of his other minions (I think advisor) got one as well. If he'd only got one, I wouldn't be mentioning it, but with 8 heals that's a 33% chance that at least one of them will be a full heal (0.95^8 is the chance that none heal, which works out as 66%), and that's just too high for my liking. It's not like it really makes them that much harder to kill, it just makes them take a lot longer, because just when you think you're done you find out you've got to slog through 700 more hp, and he's still got 5 heals left...It sounded like a fun idea. It isn't, really.

[Sancho29]

And let's not forget that unless your tank can take on the particular boss unbuffed,  when your buffs wear out you will die.  Ex:  recently I fought a boss with a few thousand HP,  we got it to badly wounded and kept it there for a while because of heals and all,  then it got a full heal.  After slowly getting it back to badly wounded my last shadow evade wore off and I was dead before I could even try to run.  I thought about it,  and (yes I know a lot of this is bad luck but still...)  it has been about a week or two since I've fought a boss that has not gotten a full heal. (major boss,  that is).  This of course only applies to bosses that HAVE heals.  (basically all)  and I think the ones in the temple raid today didn't,  but we had like 8 people so it was not a big deal anyways.   What my main problem is that some bosses can use things such as divine shield to get like 90AC,  and they have like 30 casts of it due to boss-level charisma.  So while it already takes a long time to kill them,  full heals can really just bore you to death.   Also,  it's not like you can just leave the map and rest and come back, oh no.  The boss will reset and have all of it's buffs/heals back. 

And I'm not even saying it has to be removed entirely, but a change IS needed. Make it 25% heal or something, hell,  make it 300hp instead on 5%,  do anything...just not what you are currently doing.

[Khaine]

I've got a feeling you're still mentally scarred from that one fight with Thranduil, Sancho.

[Sancho29]

Oh you know it Daccid,  I had typed out a little section about that particular adventure but ended up removing it.

[Redaurora]

Having bosses heal alot of their health with healing spells is a problem, especially if the amount heal spells heal gets buffed.

But this is easily solved with someone to catch the heals with a counterspell.

Sounds like even more incentive for group efforts to me, small groups even ;p

I hear some bosses can't be counterspelled. I reply with: WTF BBQ HAX! and.. well if it can't be countered, its probably not a spell. just an identical some-other-ability (which is bad).



Aragorn apparently.

[NLawson]

Some use potions of heal, some seem to have it as an ability, only those who actually cast it (I bet maybe one in ten at best...) can be countered, as you said. Yes - a heal pot will only heal 50 hp and so they need to be given more of them...fine. They also have that 5% chance that one pot will do the work of the entire stack, and then some.
If they have 10 pots, that's a 35% chance of a full heal, plus 500 extra hp-in-a-bottle.

There's also the fact that sorcs usually have to debuff various enemies, counterspell normal spells, and don't get more than about 9 lvl 9 spells anyway.
I normally work in a group, I don't like soloing... ideal size is 3-5, but I can go with 7 or 8 if I absolutely have to, like BD or Temple.
With 3 people, you have one hitter, one tank, and one bard or mage...with 5 you can afford to dupe some roles (usually 2 hitters, and have bard + mage for curse + taunt + debuffing), or add a healer of your own if the area is tough. If I'm in a group with two mages, either the group is huge, the area is much easier to kill with spells than hitters, or the group is badly planned.

[Redaurora]

I was actually thinking the healer could double as a counter, since, by some twist of fate, he has many of the same spells that need to be stopped, and because of their specialized nature, it would skip wasting counters on other inconsequential spells.

[NLawson]

True - but I think the only time a healer would come along is when the area is so hard the the tank needs constant supervision...so they can't really afford to waste spells on countering.

[Sancho29]

Nobody sees a problem with the fact that you now NEED a mage to counter all the heal bosses,  or suffer a long fight?  Oh well,  one could always just attack the boss and then afk and watch TV,  it's worked until now,  it will work in the future.

[Khaine]

I see that bards are being seriously underestimated here.
A failed check vs taunt = 30% spell failure. That may not seem like much, but there are a lot of times when I've played my bard when bosses have failed to cast 3-4 heals in a row because of the spell failure I inflict on them with taunt.

Personally I don't see the boss heals as a big issue, as I usually don't try to take down bosses who have truckload of hp/ac AND tons of heals (like thranduil) without a bard (or a zerg, but I rarely zerg).
Other bosses who my hitter can hit on 15 or higher (which is a majority of bosses) or bosses where my smiter can smitesmitesmite them dead, the amount of heals they have are inconsequential, as it merely prolongs the fight by ~30 seconds.

There are a few exceptions, but I can live with those.

[Sancho29]

Idea one:  more people need to make bards...and not the fail bards I've seen,  get like daccid.  Taunt over 100 and great song/curse.

Idea two: daccid stop being indifferent!  I want to be able to 2 man everything in the mod!!  Lol.  But yeah,  I guess stuff like this just seals a roll in every party for a bard,  and makes it important like a tank or hitter.   But still,  when you get up to like 5-8 heals...and the boss has a few thousand hp...it just gets old.