@Human Alright, so this is a bit crude but let’s assign some basic numbers to an MP based MSK for a clearer idea of what it would be like, and craft it around some different load outs.
Let’s say you have 10 MP to begin with.
You regenerate 1 MP every 2 seconds in combat.
All abilities on a 2 second GCD (every other shot), except Lifewell which stays as is on CD (for no MP cost).
Healing orbs:
Renew = 1mp
Shield = 2mp
Decurse = 3mp
Cure Wounds= 4mp
Other orbs:
Poison = 2mp
Frost = 2mp
Weakness = 3mp
Gravity = 4mp
Let’s do 30 second combat comparisons of how many times abilities can be used as current MSK vs MP based MSK. I’m going to do my best to make these more typical scenarios. It would be pointless to look at how many times I can use renew alone in 30 seconds on an MP scale, if renew is the only orb I’m using.
Also, this is assuming you aren’t refreshing HoTs on a player or DoTs on mobs before the timer runs out, and I’m going to give multiple examples of the extra options you have using MP. Current MSK will only ever have one option how to use their orbs if they’re doing it off CD:
Current MSK with Renew, Shield, Cure Wounds, Poison for 30s:
Renew: 5
Shield: 3
Cure w: 2
Poison: 5
vs MP MSK, starting with 10mp refreshing 1mp/2 seconds in combat for 30s:
Renew: 5 / 5 / 2 / 1 / 1
Shield: 3 / 3 / 1 / 2 / 2
Cure w:1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 2
Poison: 5 / 3 / 4 / 2 / 8
There’s lots of different combinations. Note that in these scenarios, the first couple assume using Renew as often as you would have before. However it would be wise to not just burn MP on Renew since the turret will give Renew due to Empowered Turret talent. The last two examples opt to just use it on the turret once, and the middle case throw out an extra at a DPS (or wherever)
Now let’s try 4 minutes in combat to see how things pan out. Note again how much things change as you learn not to waste heals. The final will be renew only to refresh turret:
Current MSK for 240 seconds:
Renew: 40
Shield: 30
Cure w: 20
Poison: 40
vs MP MSK for 240 seconds:
Renew: 40 / 30 / 20 / 15 / 8
Shield: 24 / 24 / 16 / 16 / 10
Cure w: 8 / 10 / 15 / 13 / 8
Poison: 5 / 6 / 9 / 15 / 32
There’s something wrong here. Poison doesn’t work out nearly as well, and I’m not trying to hammer us farther down the strictly healing path because it’s just not needed at super high skill levels of play. However when more healing is required, we’re still given the freedom to do it by losing out on DPS (as it should be).
If it’s still majorly out of proportion, Poison’s drawback could be solved with a longer duration perhaps. Maybe it would be best to leave Poison at a 1mp use. But before we get into that area, there’s more that would need to change for this to be viable on the DPS front anyway.
Now let’s travel down another path. This one imagines that gravity orb be changed to a single hard hitting orb. We’ll call this single hard hit DPS ability the “Axe” orb, because I’m going to be cheeky like that haha. I’m giving it a 4 second cooldown, simply because it would be super annoying to reload it every 2 seconds.
Gravity orb’s special effect of moving mobs is typically detrimental to tanks and DPS, and I feel that should be removed. There’s no practical use other than pulling mobs out of walls, so the interrupt is all it has, and it’s only going to be used on bosses. Feels bad to waste an orb slot for that in higher end content especially. So in the following scenarios we bring you the hypothetical Axe orb instead.
Same loadout only replacing Poison with Axe, and this build is still notably very heal heavy.
Axe = 1mp, 4s CD. Keep in mind at 240 seconds, 60 would be max times Axe can be used.
MP MSK with Renew, Shield, Cure Wounds, and Axe for 240 seconds:
Renew: 40 / 25 / 18 / 12 / 8
Shield: 24 / 20 / 16 / 13 / 11
Cure w: 8 / 10 / 15 / 13 / 10
Axe orb:10 / 25 / 20 / 43 / 60
Now with Renew, Cure, Poison, Axe for 240 seconds. 40 times would be the max for applying poison without doing it early. Also, this assumes that the mp cost/dmg ratio for Poison is better than Axe: if Poison is ticking for the full duration. However it’s also still worth noting that Axe can interrupt and it would be better to use when mobs are low on HP.
Renew: 40 / 25 / 18 / 12 / 8
Cure w: 8 / 10 / 13 / 10 / 8
Poison: 24 / 30 / 25 / 35 / 40
Axe orb:10 / 5 / 10 / 8 / 10
So you’ll notice the numbers don’t line up as well in the overall counts at 4 minutes. But we’re using super basic numbers: starting at 10/10mp,+1mp / 2sec, mp costs no greater than 4.
So I’m pretty sure that means you can find a balance given enough digits to work with on the total MP, MP costs/orb, and MP refresh rate since it should be somewhat proportional as the time increases.
If it was 1000mp max, +100/2 seconds, and costs such as 100/renew, 150/shield, 150/poison, 350/cure wounds: then it would probably wind up much closer. I just used tiny numbers for simplicity trying to fill out the tables. The point is, you can make it line up super close to how it currently is if you wanted to, and have lots of freedom to make adjustments as needed for the job to be tailored to the content evenly this way.
Right now it’s either increase potency or shorten cooldowns to make us more viable, but neither would help in terms of what we’re dealing with for poison/deep wound combo, or help make us more relevant in general currently. I would nerf Cure Wounds potency in an MP based scenario, because being able to cast 2 sequentially would be super OP as it currently stands. I’m trying to make the point that only buffing or shortening the CD for what we currently have isn’t enough on it’s own. This isn’t a matter of simply how much healing that’s at stake, it’s a matter of how we can split it when we need to. And being able to for the sake of future content creation design.
There’s so many variables here for how many different options you would have. Two examples isn’t enough to cover the huge spectrum that a 15+ minute raid fight would have. Also, in OG orbus we used everything off CD much more than we seem to in Reborn. Maybe even with this discrepancy, these numbers would be still be valid in terms of only using orbs when they’re actually useful.
But I think after a couple different examples using the “learn to not heal when you don’t need to” if you want to DPS, hold your MP if you’re newer or uneasy and want to be able to burst heal - MP would be a great thing. It’s definitely a boon to people still mastering their aim, and I think it would be as well to those already there.
Just sitting on orbs is painful. We can’t even buff our turret with cure wounds most of the time because we have to hold it because of it’s huge cooldown. Shorter wouldn’t help, unless it was like 4 seconds to deal with dots on multiple people. Then it would be super OP without a nerf, and then we’re back to square one.
To make matters worse, healing turret with poison is dumber than a box of rocks and doesn’t prioritize healing very well. So it’s punishing to even try and get more out of your class out right now. I’m sure that the turret target priority will be fixed in time. But we can really only put renew on our turret, and have to hold onto a 12 second CD Cure most of the time. Can’t buff your turret to max healing potential in most cases, can’t rely on it to heal if you put poison in it, gotta just sit and hold cure. And it just feels super bad.
Maybe it would start lining up in even more interesting ways if we could do AoE orbs for 2x MP every 30 seconds, or a talent to buff mp refresh up by 1 on the next tick for landing long skill shots every 10 seconds. That would be huge.
I wouldn’t consider the game to be too forgiving if you could use 3 cures in succession (2 normally max at any time, 3 with Ult). But I think 3 is the maximum I would say is acceptable. And for MSKs who don’t need to use as many heals, they can go up in DPS a lot.
Maybe my math is all wrong, or doesn’t show properly. Maybe I’m crazy and stopping too soon because the numbers would end up in an awful place over the course of raid fights. Since I didn’t use enough variables for time and used small baseline MP numbers, this could well be the case and this theory isn’t salvageable.
I’ve been at this for quite a long time and my head is beginning to burst! Plus, I’m sure I’ve lost almost everyone by now. At the end of the day I’m just saying we need more ways to use our abilities, and at the least we need to find and justify a way to do more damage than Bard.
Especially because our skills aren’t “smart”, which automatically hit surrounding things. Not to say that playing the marimba and activating their abilities mid fight is easy, I wouldn’t know yet.
But I do feel it’s definitely an advantage to not worry about hitting a moving target with a straight shot. And not having to worry about players, mobs, or bosses blocking the shot towards someone about to die. So long as you can bang away on your instrument just fine during mechanics, BRD seems to dust the MSK in most ways and we need to change that without damaging how BRD operates.
I sincerely do believe there is something to this idea. So for anyone left, thank you for reading and start firing away with any commentary!
i also wrote a paragraph about it
