Runaway Mage Healing

[MrFancyPants]

To clear up a few misconceptions in here:

Speaking of Knights. A 50-Rage Drain is insanely broken in PvP. Especially since it effectively kills two rounds if it hits someone in the process of casting something they then can't afford. You sit on Intercept for when a Delphic is coming and it's almost as good as a Holy Seal from back in the day.

Intercept can be incredibly annoying, but as it's completely ineffective vs. sylphs, I wouldn't call it totally broken. It does virtually no damage, so it's barely even an attack. Best case, you stop your opponent's attack, doing essentially nothing in return, and then you can bring out stronger skills while he's stuck building rage.
If non-sylph attacks mattered more, then I might use it, but it's not quite worth it for me.

Then there's Agoran Shield. 20% is a lot of HP to absorb. For a 750k HP Knight that's 150k HP. Those are more common than you think now. It's making that 20% HP Passive pay off even more since it stacks within this. Same thing with the Heal Rune. I've seen 400k HP Heal Rune triggers in BG. It's frustrating when you've got a Knight just about dead and then Heal Rune + Bubble effectively puts 550k+ HP back on them. Sometimes the more annoying types then put up an Apollo just to spite you .

Those numbers are for the absolute monsters out there. 400k rune means a maxed advanced heal rune and 800k hp. I doubt there are more than 20 players like that in any time zone. Closer to my level, that's exactly the way I feel when I have nearly finished a mage and he uses resto for 300k. A 450k knight will rune for ~160k, and shield for ~90k. Knights might dominate at the upper echelons, but most of us aren't there yet.

In Group-Play the Archer's DDS is the most effective single non-pet Skill.

That was true at one time, but ever since the stun rate dropped through the floor, it's not all that effective, in my experience. It's good damage, and a super high crit rate, but it might only hit 2 targets. Counting all hero skills, BL is probably the most effective group pvp skill, and sunto, puri, apollo, scatter I would all prioritize over any attack skill.

[SlowPlay]

Lets be clear about heals for mages....in order to be succesfull at using crit heals...you have to run around without guardian angel astral. Of course not using guaridan angel astral makes you take more crit damages. Also...we have lower pdef so we take more damage of other classes anyway. Theres two advantages you have over us already. If it werent for the heals wed spend most our days on the ground, so in fact our heals are what keeps this game balances for all classes.

I agree that guardian rune is overpowered, yet its just another possibility for players to either use or not. I dont for that matter, id rather take purge and amnesia to the battlefield. I hate my fellow mages pulling out suntoria or for that matter knights casting all those shields, so i always use purge to get rid of those effects. And well...i guess you can all figure out what i do with amnesia.

I dont understand why people bring chaos to any battle but to 4v4 pvp battles like group arena and guild battle (and cross server guild battle), since troops go down with one hit anyway. So really...i dont care if its me or you killing my troops...if its me ill kill yours right after and thats that

Mage have lower pdef and face patk player but so do knight/archer have lower mdef and face matk agaisnt mage so it's kinda the same, it's not like u hit with patk.

[Eskendal]

I lose to mages around my BR all the time, wow, I must be a total noob. I will try to get better.

[SlowPlay]

@zorich Dude so many mistake, it's not even funny to point them out.

1st knight heal boost doesn't work on heal rune, neither does on block heal so on a 1vs1 it doesn't help at all (it's basically a pve/group pvp passive) unless that knight is playin triton.

2nd damage dealt /= chance to crit

3nd knight can use only 1 between edd and dd unless u delay a lot awaken or u get lucky with rage reduction (and i don't see any knight bring both edd and dd in pvp, i'm actually not using any of those anymore just because they're way too slow to use in pvp and make each one longer) so don't pick both, just pick the highest and you'll see that any same br mage can outheal slasher/us with sunt (that's 5 turn) and edd with restore and still do damage with thunderer.
I've never played archer but think that 320% is dds, really few archer use it in 1vs1 pvp, most use ap/is which are more usefull and then again a same br mage can outheal them pretty easly with sunt and restore while doing damage with thunderer. About ap debuff, it's as usefull as reverse damage for knight. 1k less pdef when ur opponent has 50k+ it's pretty much nothing.

4th 750k hp knight, yeah sure there are as many knight with those hp as mage with 160k matk (few) but it's pretty much the same that op said, knight shield will get stronger and stronger and same goes for mage heal since they're based on atk.

[Asha_S30]

Lets be clear about heals for mages....in order to be succesfull at using crit heals...you have to run around without guardian angel astral. Of course not using guaridan angel astral makes you take more crit damages. Also...we have lower pdef so we take more damage of other classes anyway. Theres two advantages you have over us already. If it werent for the heals wed spend most our days on the ground, so in fact our heals are what keeps this game balances for all classes.

I agree that guardian rune is overpowered, yet its just another possibility for players to either use or not. I dont for that matter, id rather take purge and amnesia to the battlefield. I hate my fellow mages pulling out suntoria or for that matter knights casting all those shields, so i always use purge to get rid of those effects. And well...i guess you can all figure out what i do with amnesia.

I dont understand why people bring chaos to any battle but to 4v4 pvp battles like group arena and guild battle (and cross server guild battle), since troops go down with one hit anyway. So really...i dont care if its me or you killing my troops...if its me ill kill yours right after and thats that

[Zorich]

i dont have nothing against nerfing our heals... but only if we get higher crit and HP like archers

+ some skill to nerf their MDEF like they have piercer for Pdef :P

Excellent Point, lets bring up some more...

Passives

The Mage class has the worst passives by far. Yeah, we get 20% MDef - which helps us against 1/3 of the classes and maybe 20% of PvE Encounters. The 8% Healing Boost is a joke. Our Rage Passive is +2/+4 compared to Knights +5/+10. Theirs works for everything, ours only for damage attacks. We have to use another 3 Skills (Advanced no Less) to get Rage Regain from Healing Powers. Oh, and another 2 Skill Pts for the "Rage Reducer" that averages saving about 1 pt of Rage per action over time. That's 7 Skill Points in Rage Reducers that all combined are still worse than other classes!

Knights and Archers get +20% HP boosts that the Mage doesn't get. At the current high-end you're talking about 100k extra HP, and the gap just gets bigger.

Knights get 20% PDef - which is useful vs. 2/3 Classes and like 80% of PvE. Archers get +20% Critical Rate. These are both far better than the Mage's 20% MDef boost.

Knights also get a +20% Boost to Healing upon Oneself (from Pets, Runes, Allies, Stole Heals via Chaos), Block Heals (that add up) and an innate 5% Damage Reducer & 7% Critical Reducer. Archers also get a stacking +10% Damage Buff and an Advanced +10% Critical Damage Boost.

Damage

The Mage has the worst single-target attacks. 295% is our best. Knights get 405% & 340% Attacks. Archers have a 320% that comes with a +20% Critical Rate and paired with that damage stack is more like 355%.

In terms of single-target repeatable damage, the Mage has LB at 110%. Archers alternating DS & MS gain rage faster and do more damage than a Mage as well as build the Damage Boost Stack because they both have Crit-Rate boosts. The Archer's AP at 200% plus a defensive debuff can be set into that rotation and do tremendous damage while keeping rage intact for a Delphic and an Incendiary.

The Knight has the best rotational attacks at 132% and 150% + QTE.

Healing & Utility

Yeah, Mage has Resto and Sunto. BL is only used in Group Settings - at least by any serious Mage. Most Mages won't bother even casting Sunto vs. an Archer anymore because of Scatter. A Mage that carries all healing to drag out combats isn't trying to win - he's trying to be a d-bag. It's like the Knight that brings a Heal Rune, Agoran Shield, Apollo's Shield and has a Triton with Ice Shield, Rain Dance and Warm Spring.

Speaking of Knights. A 50-Rage Drain is insanely broken in PvP. Especially since it effectively kills two rounds if it hits someone in the process of casting something they then can't afford. You sit on Intercept for when a Delphic is coming and it's almost as good as a Holy Seal from back in the day. Then there's Agoran Shield. 20% is a lot of HP to absorb. For a 750k HP Knight that's 150k HP. Those are more common than you think now. It's making that 20% HP Passive pay off even more since it stacks within this. Same thing with the Heal Rune. I've seen 400k HP Heal Rune triggers in BG. It's frustrating when you've got a Knight just about dead and then Heal Rune + Bubble effectively puts 550k+ HP back on them. Sometimes the more annoying types then put up an Apollo just to spite you .

In Conclusion...

Having played all 3 classes at L80 + Advanced Skills and Evolved Sylphs, I'd really have to say that Knights are, by far, the best PvP Class. If you're losing to equal BR players consistently as a Knight - you're doing things wrong or you're getting outplayed. A Mage is a distant 2nd in PvP with Archers probably being the worst overall in that aspect.

However, in PvE, the Archer is king. An Archer's ability to Crit in excess of 90% combined with their skills-speeds in rotational speed-attack and the +10% Damage Boost and +10% Cirt Damage Boost usually have them doing a solid 25% more Damage over Time compared to equal BR Mage and Knight characters.

In Group-Play the Archer's DDS is the most effective single non-pet Skill. The best PvP groups are always a blend of all 3 classes.

[girgle180]

i dont have nothing against nerfing our heals... but only if we get higher crit and HP like archers

+ some skill to nerf their MDEF like they have piercer for Pdef :P

[fernandochang]

in my view the mages who got attacked my archer gets more pi ss ed so they end up by wasting their time haha

[SlowPlay]

Damn, I think this is correct. I haven't seen chaos steal a heal if the mage (or triton) is alone, at least for a long time. I used to be able to get it to work early on, when I couldn't 1-shot the troops so consistently, but I never realized it wasn't working after the troops are gone. I did notice that suntoria will behave differently if the troops are gone, i.e. it won't buff the caster if under chaos and troops are still alive. And the total uselessness of chaos in CW made me start to reconsider it.
Glad chaos is still pretty useful in group pvp, or I'd be really unhappy to have spent so many runes upgrading it. Wish I had gotten amnesia to 9 instead of chaos to 10 though.

Nah chaos still work even on 1vs1, there's indeed a difference though when there are troops, without troops he can either heal himself or you (should be 50/50 but we all know it's not), with troops there's a 3rd option because mage can heal themself, heal u or heal troops (so it's a 66% chance to procs).

[ATreeTopper]

in any case just chaos them when they are at 2/3 hp and go to sylph ...or with good hades or gaia they can heal 300k u will hit them 500k :P or use that skill 50% less hp from heals when u feel they gona desylph and heal

Devil's Gaze is another possibility, true. I just don't feel like having to bring Hades plus Amnesia rune plus.. just in case the healing nut uses Triton/Iris for the maximum amount of healing.
As for knowing the results early, also true unless you bother looking at the opposition before leaving spawn

[MrFancyPants]

Not to disagree with your experiences, but every time I have seen even lvl 10 Chaos runes used, if the one hit with chaos type effects were alone, their skills functioned normally. This includes lone knights without troops using Apollo Shield and archers using Scatter Shot, not just lone mages throwing whatever heal spells they could. I do think healing should be capped at some point, mostly because knights and archers felt the nerf treatment, though as someone posted, I suppose I'm not hitting the local mage hard enough. To date, the only viable strategies against the heal-o-matics seems to be either stun them before they begin mega healing (Holy Seal, Delphic Star Destroyer) or hit them with Amnesia rune or Herc/Eve's Jupiter's Wrath (and pray you knock out healing).

Damn, I think this is correct. I haven't seen chaos steal a heal if the mage (or triton) is alone, at least for a long time. I used to be able to get it to work early on, when I couldn't 1-shot the troops so consistently, but I never realized it wasn't working after the troops are gone. I did notice that suntoria will behave differently if the troops are gone, i.e. it won't buff the caster if under chaos and troops are still alive. And the total uselessness of chaos in CW made me start to reconsider it.
Glad chaos is still pretty useful in group pvp, or I'd be really unhappy to have spent so many runes upgrading it. Wish I had gotten amnesia to 9 instead of chaos to 10 though.

[SlowPlay]

If you can't kill mages in one hit, you're obviously not hitting hard enough.

+1, that's all it takes noobs.

[Nightfish]

Not to disagree with your experiences, but every time I have seen even lvl 10 Chaos runes used, if the one hit with chaos type effects were alone, their skills functioned normally. This includes lone knights without troops using Apollo Shield and archers using Scatter Shot, not just lone mages throwing whatever heal spells they could. I do think healing should be capped at some point, mostly because knights and archers felt the nerf treatment, though as someone posted, I suppose I'm not hitting the local mage hard enough. To date, the only viable strategies against the heal-o-matics seems to be either stun them before they begin mega healing (Holy Seal, Delphic Star Destroyer) or hit them with Amnesia rune or Herc/Eve's Jupiter's Wrath (and pray you knock out healing).

its annoying seeing mage healing over and over and u deal so much dmg, even when I as mage face another mage most of them just troll and waste time ...even archers and knights with heal rune,shield just waste time and taking 3x more dmg than they deal to me....

when u spend 2 years playing this game as me after first exchange of hits u will easy see outcome of battle no matter what enemy do .....

in any case just chaos them when they are at 2/3 hp and go to sylph ...or with good hades or gaia they can heal 300k u will hit them 500k :P or use that skill 50% less hp from heals when u feel they gona desylph and heal

[ATreeTopper]

chaos works 1 on 1 I stole zillion times heal from enemy mage ....I forced them with 2/3 of hp to went to sylph mode in order to avoid healing me

Not to disagree with your experiences, but every time I have seen even lvl 10 Chaos runes used, if the one hit with chaos type effects were alone, their skills functioned normally. This includes lone knights without troops using Apollo Shield and archers using Scatter Shot, not just lone mages throwing whatever heal spells they could. I do think healing should be capped at some point, mostly because knights and archers felt the nerf treatment, though as someone posted, I suppose I'm not hitting the local mage hard enough. To date, the only viable strategies against the heal-o-matics seems to be either stun them before they begin mega healing (Holy Seal, Delphic Star Destroyer) or hit them with Amnesia rune or Herc/Eve's Jupiter's Wrath (and pray you knock out healing).

[Tranc3motion]

Something needs to be done about runaway mage healing in pvp. It is ridiculous, I knock them down to 10% health then they heal back to full with 1 huge heal or 2 medium (non-crit) heals before sylph mode. Then I knock them down to 20% or so health while in sylph mode and they shift out of sylph early, heal back up to full again and then for whatever more damage I do in sylph they heal up again. You guys need to do something about this. It's the reason my brother and so many other friends have quit the game. I would propose this:
either,
1. Divide their talent tree so that they can either choose healing or damage but not both. This can be accomplished simply by adding the amount of talent points needed to max out these abilities.
or...
2. Allow knight and archer slowing abilities like deep freeze to work again in pvp.

If you can't kill mages in one hit, you're obviously not hitting hard enough.