[Proposal] - Healing's Word back as Divine Power

[Velmont]

Since Divine Power is up, WotC have made many changes to debuff the Cleric (and more precisely, the Pacifist Healer). The latest update have removed the Divine tag on the Healing Power.

I think that removing first kill the flavor of it. Healing have long time been the field of divine, but now only the runepriest have a divine class feature to heal. So if healing word is no more Divine, how the cleric is doing his healing?

Second, why the Runepriest healing feature is still Divine, why the Artificer and Bard feature are still Arcane, why the Shaman power is still primal, why the Warlord feature is still Martial and why the Ardent power is still Psionic?

Also, technically talking, if the problem come from Pacifist feat, why they haven't errated the feat instead to modify Healing Word.

So I propose to give back the Divine keyword to the clearic's Healing Word.

Please note that I am making this proposal in both L4W and LEB, so you can look on the other thread to see the argumentation.

 

[renau1g]

I'm also in agreement Vel. I know we've spoked at length in the Moonwatch thread re: the many kicks to the groin that Pacifist's have suffered. Seems silly not to be Divine. Personally, I haven't seen it be that bad after removing the Astral Seal Healer's Lore ability. River heals more, but the trade-off is that the party is really only 4 sets of attack actions vs. another party of 5, so the damage negation by killing enemies more quickly for party #2 may or may not be around the same as the Pacifist ability.

I also vote YES

 

[KarinsDad]

Before voting, I think we should do the math.

Personally, I think that the problem is the Pacifist Healer's feat as well. It doesn't really limit the PC in any significant way, but gives a HUGE helping of extra healing that the Warlord and Bard and most of the other Leaders do not get.

I'll post some comparisons between various classes shortly. I am leaning on voting NO at this point, just because of how ridiculous the amount of healing with a Pacifist Healer has become.

 

[Velmont]

Before voting, I think we should do the math.

Personally, I think that the problem is the Pacifist Healer's feat as well. It doesn't really limit the PC in any significant way, but gives a HUGE helping of extra healing that the Warlord and Bard and most of the other Leaders do not get.

I'll post some comparisons between various classes shortly. I am leaning on voting NO at this point, just because of how ridiculous the amount of healing with a Pacifist Healer has become.

If you want to do the math, have you consider too that a death enemy doesn't deal damage? That's a good way to prevent damage by killing an enemy and the Pacifist cannot do a lot of damage, and only to non bloodied enemy unless he want to be stunned. So he is very unlikely help on that side.

Also, with monster from MM3 that will spring in some encounter from now on, those monster deals more damage than from MM1 and MM2.

Also, now it is very hard to boost none HS healing power (which I find a fair debuff), so their is still limits to the healing you can give. But I agree that in PbP, adventure generally doesn't ask to stretch your resources over many encounter.

 

[renau1g]

I pretty much factor River's damage at 0 when I look at a fight before springing it on you. MM3 has been a huge help. Look at the last fight. n+1 encounter that dropped 2 of you and had Rumbum pretty beat up. If the ballista's had been a bit more accurate at first it would've been far worse (shooting 2/10 on their first few attacks). You also used 2 daily's and 3 AP's, which was probably a pretty good job actually, many groups hoard resources for some reason, and yet you used 4 of River's Surges, 4 of Rumbum's, and what 3 of Pok's? So 25% of Rumbum's about 40% of River's and 50% of Pok's... despite River...

 

[KarinsDad]

River with original Pacifist Healer's feat: 2 Healing Words at 3d6+14, Healer's Mercy at 2d6+14 (assume 2 targets), Word of Vigor at 3d6+14 (assume 3 targets). Total average extra healing: 19d6+98 = 164

River with nerfed Pacifist Healer's feat: 2 Healing Words at 2d6+10, Healer's Mercy at d6+14 (assume 2 targets), Word of Vigor at 3d6+14. Total average extra healing: 17d6+90 = 149

River without the Pacifist Healer's feat: 12d6+70 = 112

I look at things like Weapon Focus. That might be an extra 5 hit points per encounter of damage.

I look at things like Pacifist Healer and even nerfed, that's an extra 37 points of healing per encounter. That's extremely nice for a feat.

To say that 37 extra points of healing is not enough and that the extra 52 points of healing is required is not valid from a balance POV. The feat is already powerful.

How many feats out there give an extra 30+ points of healing?

How many feats out there give an extra 30+ points of temporary hit points for that matter?

I look at the other leaders where they don't add a d6+4 at first level, instead they add either the d6 or the 4 or neither. Clerics are already the mega-healers. Do we want to encourage everyone to always play a Cleric because the other healers suck even more?


To me, the unnerfed Pacifist Healer is SO powerful that it is virtually a required feat. It's the bigger, badder, better aspect of 4E.

Note: I see this bigger, badder, better a lot. One of my players created a first level Slayer that had a +10 to hit with a normal attack, +13 with a charge, and he did striker level damage. Normal melee PCs have either a +6 or +7 to hit at first level and +7 or +8 with a charge. Increasing the chance to hit on every single attack by 15% to 25% is just wrong.

The lack of balance is getting out of hand. IMO.

I vote NO. Wotc changed this for a very good reason and I don't think we should encourage power gaming to this level.

I also don't think we should be voting in a changes here at LEB unless something is way off kilter. This is a player entitlement suggestion, not a "WotC screwed up" suggestion. WotC screwed up at first. They then fixed it. Pacifist Healer is still an extremely powerful feat, just not the mega-powerful it was before.


Note: Clerics are also getting powers like Healer's Mercy and Word of Vigor that Pacifist Healer does affect. I've been in a game where the PCs go from the edge of defeat to being nearly totally healed due to Healer's Mercy combined with Pacifist Healer (here on these boards). That's the province of a Daily power, not the province of an Encounter power. But, that's what Pacifist Healer does. It changes the Encounter heal powers into Daily heal power levels of healing, but they can still be used every single encounter.

I think Pacifist Healer makes it extremely difficult for the DM to set up an encounter here that the Cleric just waves away as "it was a challenging encounter, now it's a walk in the park, just because of one feat".

 

[KarinsDad]

If you want to do the math, have you consider too that a death enemy doesn't deal damage? That's a good way to prevent damage by killing an enemy and the Pacifist cannot do a lot of damage, and only to non bloodied enemy unless he want to be stunned. So he is very unlikely help on that side.

Yup. That's the balance factor for getting 30 or 40 extra points of healing per encounter out of a single feat. And, it's hardly game breaking that the Cleric focuses on non-bloodied enemies or does Astra Seal on a bloodied one. That's not THAT limiting.

 

[renau1g]

How many feats out there give an extra 30+ points of healing?

How many feats out there give an extra 30+ points of temporary hit points for that matter?

I look at the other leaders where they don't add a d6+4 at first level, instead they add either the d6 or the 4 or neither. Clerics are already the mega-healers. Do we want to encourage everyone to always play a Cleric because the other healers suck even more?

Elemental Empowerment probably is around the same level of damage output.

Sure, cleric's are the best healers. Been that way since day 1. Warlords are the best damage output/action granters... bard's are good at everything (like always). The spirit companion of the shaman is really cool, an awesome way to help out the front line without exposing yourself.

Really, healing is all the Pacifist is used for. He doesn't attack so yes Paficist Healer is a "required" feat for a fully dedicated healer, but really we have what? 2 in LEB? If it was the penultimate power that brought DM's to their knees I'd expect every Leader to be a Kalashter cleric, 18's in both Wis/Cha...and yet Bard is the most popular leader IIRC.... weird...

 

[KarinsDad]

I pretty much factor River's damage at 0 when I look at a fight before springing it on you. MM3 has been a huge help. Look at the last fight. n+1 encounter that dropped 2 of you and had Rumbum pretty beat up. If the ballista's had been a bit more accurate at first it would've been far worse (shooting 2/10 on their first few attacks). You also used 2 daily's and 3 AP's, which was probably a pretty good job actually, many groups hoard resources for some reason, and yet you used 4 of River's Surges, 4 of Rumbum's, and what 3 of Pok's? So 25% of Rumbum's about 40% of River's and 50% of Pok's... despite River...

I'm not sure it is accurate to label that as an N+1 encounter just because of monster XP. The narrow terrain prevented the PCs from spreading out. The ballistas appeared to be doing enemy only area attacks. The stairs limited movement. The encounter started out with the PCs spread all over the place and they could not counterattack without multiple PCs being within an area of effect. And, you specifically targeted River. There are many reasons that this was a more difficult encounter, none of them had to do with whether River can heal an extra 15 points of healing per encounter. You put the PCs behind the eight ball before the encounter even started.

One thing that some DMs fail to notice is that terrain makes or breaks an encounter. The current encounter in Murder Most Foul has increased the difficulty of it from N-1 for creatures and traps to N+2. So, I will be handing out a terrain XP modifier. The same thing happened in the Paper Chase. The DM created narrow terrain that forced every PC to take 12 or so points of extra damage (and more for some PCs) and prevented the PCs from using several of their abilities to their advantage.

Your encounter here was increased by at least 1 due to terrain. Stuff happens in an N+2 encounter. It doesn't mean that River needs more healing. We saw from round one that it was going to be difficult due to the terrain and the area effects, so Sheeva started whipping out a Daily and an Action Point. Note: And, RumBum didn't need to use his Daily.

We still have 15 or so Dailies in the group. Faell wasn't touched and didn't use a healing surge. He's in front.

 

[KarinsDad]

Elemental Empowerment probably is around the same level of damage output.

Err, no. An extra 4 points of damage per hit is nowhere near 52 points of damage per encounter since that would require 13 hits. Even with area effect powers (all of the same elemental type), very few PCs hit 13 times per encounter.

And Durable at these levels is 30 extra hit points per day, not 37 (or 52) extra hit points per encounter.