Fix for elite healers for high trial

[Arionthe]

We hear alot about elite healers or healers in general becoming a massive issue at high trials. How they are essentially immortal and sometimes tougher than the final boss to take down, if possible at all. Thought of an easy fix today that I mentioned in discord. Got Lam 's thumb up so figured I share it here in the forum.


Increase the base HP for healers massively but make them ineligible to be healed themselves. The idea is similar to the aura based elite mobs. The elite itself doesn't benefit from the aura but the surrounding mobs do. Since the most frustrating thing about elite healer is the xx millions of healing they do for every mob around them and themselves, if you make them killable, but not a pushover, they will serve their purpose without making high trials auto abandon when healers show up in numbers.

Now I understand giving healers the HP of an elite zombie charger seems out of character (if that's really a thing in any kind of fantasy setting game -- logicality), perhaps then healers are spawn with shield bubble around them that's 5-10X their base HP. This way it will pass the lore test.

With killable healers, they become the natural first targets to go after since they dramatically extend any fight (the opposite of what you want in clearing high trial). Coincidentally all those "go after the healer" minion cries are now good strategic advice.

[Coda]

[Jose Sarmento]

We hear alot about elite healers or healers in general becoming a massive issue at high trials. How they are essentially immortal and sometimes tougher than the final boss to take down, if possible at all. Thought of an easy fix today that I mentioned in discord. Got Lam 's thumb up so figured I share it here in the forum.


Increase the base HP for healers massively but make them ineligible to be healed themselves. The idea is similar to the aura based elite mobs. The elite itself doesn't benefit from the aura but the surrounding mobs do. Since the most frustrating thing about elite healer is the xx millions of healing they do for every mob around them and themselves, if you make them killable, but not a pushover, they will serve their purpose without making high trials auto abandon when healers show up in numbers.

Now I understand giving healers the HP of an elite zombie charger seems out of character (if that's really a thing in any kind of fantasy setting game -- logicality), perhaps then healers are spawn with shield bubble around them that's 5-10X their base HP. This way it will pass the lore test.

With killable healers, they become the natural first targets to go after since they dramatically extend any fight (the opposite of what you want in clearing high trial). Coincidentally all those "go after the healer" minion cries are now good strategic advice.

For once, I support your suggestion.

It also seems that such a "healer variant" already exists - the Ursoc Soothers from Act 4? So potentially, just replace the White Sisters in Trials with those (I am of course not sure if their regenerative aura wouldn't be excessive at extreme Trial levels).

But, Ursoc Soothers or White Sisters, I think this suggestion is the best (effectiveness and simplicity) approach to the issue. The alternative would perhaps be to substantially reduce the "scaling" of their healing skill, or greatly increase its cooldown time.

[Coda]

+1 to any of these ideas. They are broken and need "almost any" fix.

[Jose Sarmento]

+1 to any of these ideas. They are broken and need "almost any" fix.

To be fair, Potato mentioned a curious counterpoint to Arionthe's idea on Discord: if the healers have Elite-zombie-level HP, yet their AI still makes them "sit outside" from the main mob in a pull, they would still imply peak map abandon, as the DPS loss to take them out would simply be excessive ( Purple Potato, apologies if I didn't capture this correctly)

[lama75]

To be fair, Potato mentioned a curious counterpoint to Arionthe's idea on Discord: if the healers have Elite-zombie-level HP, yet their AI still makes them "sit outside" from the main mob in a pull, they would still imply peak map abandon, as the DPS loss to take them out would simply be excessive

While this situation described is true, the current status for any high trial with elite healers is already "abandon immediately." Or, phrased another way, there is CURRENTLY NO CHANCE of beating a trial with more than a couple elite healers.

The changes described by arionthe offer a possible change, because at least healers can be killed. Does that mean every trial will be passable now? Absolutely not. But trials that were previously "abandon immediately" status might now be worth attempting since the healer can at least be killed. That's an improvement, by my reckoning.

[Jose Sarmento]

While this situation described is true, the current status for any high trial with elite healers is already "abandon immediately." Or, phrased another way, there is CURRENTLY NO CHANCE of beating a trial with more than a couple elite healers.

The changes described by arionthe offer a possible change, because at least healers can be killed. Does that mean every trial will be passable now? Absolutely not. But trials that were previously "abandon immediately" status might now be worth attempting since the healer can at least be killed. That's an improvement, by my reckoning.

Indeed, this ties well to my previous suggestion about making beyond-the-timer peak trial attempts "worth it".

[Arionthe]

Indeed, this ties well to my previous suggestion about making beyond-the-timer peak trial attempts "worth it".

That's actually a very good point. There are basically two types of top trial attempts. One: LB attempts and Two: let's find a challenge and hone my skills.

This suggestion doesn't really change anything for type One because as both purple and lam pointed out, LB trial attempts are all about finding that mythical 100% non elite skeleton archer in a round map (slight exaggeration). Anything less is close to an auto abandon.

The suggestion is good for that second type of high trial attempts, and if combined with Jose's suggestions of making high trial attempts worth well, then one should see a lot less frustration abandons as it removes one of the immovable obstacles currently in the system.

Which brings me back to the first type of top trial attempt -> LB attempts.

The current programmatic random maps doesn't provide any kind of consistency in terms of challenge provided. When you have a LB that ranks people and yet without any assurance of comparable challenge, how equitable is that ranking? Let me make the analogy of a 100M race. Except the starting blocks aren't placed in a straight line. Some blocks starts at 20M, some at 40M and some even at 60M. Yet the finish line is the same for everyone. You are randomly placed into those starting blocks. So please tell me who's the fastest from the results of a race?

So what happens is that everyone keep restarting the race in hopes of being placed into one of those 60M starting blocks (that 100% non elite skeleton archer map).

Obviously that's another big topic for discussion.

My position is that if you are going to rank people and tap into people's competitive spirits, the playing field should be made more consistently equitable.

[lama75]

The current programmatic random maps doesn't provide any kind of consistency in terms of challenge provided. When you have a LB that ranks people and yet without any assurance of comparable challenge, how equitable is that ranking? Let me make the analogy of a 100M race. Except the starting blocks aren't placed in a straight line. Some blocks starts at 20M, some at 40M and some even at 60M. Yet the finish line is the same for everyone. You are randomly placed into those starting blocks. So please tell me who's the fastest from the results of a race?

So what happens is that everyone keep restarting the race in hopes of being placed into one of those 60M starting blocks (that 100% non elite skeleton archer map).

Obviously that's another big topic for discussion.

My position is that if you are going to rank people and tap into people's competitive spirits, the playing field should be made more consistently equitable.

I would quibble a bit with this. Even though there is a search for that unicorn map, that doesn't mean that skill level doesn't come into play as you ascend trials. Because of the way monster HP scales, and to an extent monster DPS, even moving moving back 2 trials can make a huge difference in ability to pass a trial. The system is perfect, but at least we all understand the rules so we abide by the results.

That said, I agree with the overall thrust of your comment. Design trials with fixed maps, or reduce the map RNG while maintaining better consistency of monster mix from map to map, scale the monster difficulty appropriately as trial level increases, and let people go to work.

[Arionthe]

I would quibble a bit with this. Even though there is a search for that unicorn map, that doesn't mean that skill level doesn't come into play as you ascend trials. Because of the way monster HP scales, and to an extent monster DPS, even moving moving back 2 trials can make a huge difference in ability to pass a trial. The system is perfect, but at least we all understand the rules so we abide by the results.

That said, I agree with the overall thrust of your comment. Design trials with fixed maps, or reduce the map RNG while maintaining better consistency of monster mix from map to map, scale the monster difficulty appropriately as trial level increases, and let people go to work.

Points taken. Of course I wasn't casting dispersions on the top LB players. Anyone clearing TLs near 120 all have requisite mastery of the skills needed. For most of us, we could only marvel at that skill level.

You were right, my main thrust was about the consistency of the challenge presented. It can get frustrating when mapRNG isn't in your corner and you are trying to move up in the waning hours of an ANB event. I was there,trying to eek out one more level with 40mins left and damn ghost packs keep showing up (I was SW).

I think the current setup is fine for just honing skills and get some loot as long as immovable obstacles such as elite healers are changed.

But for LB, like you said, I do prefer a more fixed setting. The other consideration is that we have a great variety of mobs, it would be disappointing to eliminate much of that variety for the sake of consistency. As long as skeleton archers are the unicorns for mages and ghosts are the bane for SWs, I don't really think the current trial system is fixable to offer both consistency of challenge and preserve the variety of challenge. You see consistency and variety are opposites.

But I do believe it is possible to have BOTH. All you need is revamp the LB to be based on the combined scores of "Boss Specific Challenge Towers". Yes it is just a new name for my old suggestion.

Let's say we have 5 bosses. The maps can still be randomly generated, but the mobs will be specific to each boss. I think it makes perfect sense to only have mob types that appear in the boss maps in the story mode. This drastically cuts down the variety of mob types one will face when moving up in the challenge tower of a particular boss. You get the consistency this way. Since there are 5 bosses (more in the future), you have a different selection of mob types with each boss. So you still have the variety of challenge when you consider across all the boss challenge towers.

There both consistency and variety in the setup. Additionally different classes will naturally be better or worse against certain bosses. This setup allows one to explore the absolute ceilings of each build since difficulty with a particular boss doesn't stop one's progress anymore with other bosses. So in the end, I truly believe this LB setup gives the best representation of a player's skill/build what have you all the while preserving the wide range of challenges all environments and mob types get to offer (ie you can't just skip what you aren't good against).