Tactical spells in GW Hope we see more of them!

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  I found it very ironic when I would heal a character with healing breeze and they would castigate me for doing so, claiming that "I was an idiot and a newbie" although I had saved their lives.

Although healing breeze heals ALL units in a circle around the caster, it is still possible to place half of the circle by your allies and half behind you (assuming that you are in the back) thereby healing your allies and not your enemies.

Placement, however, was often tricky, since I was playing on a VERY slow machine and my allies were always dispersed, preventing me from truly utilizing the aoe goodness of breeze.

Healing spells like breeze promote formations as well as tactical placement by the caster, which I think has been a lacking element in all of the mmorpgs I have played to date.

Hopefully we will see other area of effect spells, or spells that require some planning before execution.

 

"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred."
MP

Kartel

You're refering to the spell "heal area", not "healing breeze". (just to clear that up)

I have mixed feelings about this type of skill though. It could be seen as tactical, but could also just as easily be seen as a pain in the ass. Heal Area would never be used in place of Heal Party, given both options. Healing your party, or even just an individual member is great. Healing the enemy is counter productive, or at least, gets you nowhere.

Heal Area is ok if your party greatly outnumbers the enemies (like 4v1). But if the enemies are similar or greater in number, then healing them becomes quite a problem. I don't hate a skill like this, but I would definitely avoid using it in favor of other skills, unless it was all I had.

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Indeed: Last time I played was E3. Sorry about last post.

Healing breeze gives you a small initial hp heal with a h.o.t. What I like about heal area is that it has the most efficient maximum hp-regen/time (at least for lvl 15) (assuming you use it optimally (all party members are in the front half of the circle)) .

Even if you let it function as a self-heal it is by far the most efficient means of healing (assuming you don't heal the enemy) in terms of hp-regen/time/mana, which is critical in GW, considering that enemies were dealing considerable D.O.T.

For me, the extra trouble of placement was never an issue, since I was always in the back of the party, letting the warriors get the aggro.

If you aren't a warrior/monk then you shouldn't be in the front line (if the armor constraint present in E3 is preserved) (unless of course there are no warriors in your party). I particularly found that optimal groups (with warriors in front and casters/rangers at back) catered to the execution of the spell, since there is usually a distance between the warrior (assuming not surrounded) and the caster groups that is open, meaning you can optimize your heals with heal area if they are within the perimeter of the circle.

Also having been the pure healing monk (wand user) I was, I often found myself lingering back with the ranged heroes, so that the cases where the ranged heroes were ambused by other ranged enemies were sufficiently covered with heal area.

In any case, if the parameters from E3 are preserved then AOE heals will be the most effective in terms of damage healed/time/mana so that non-melee monks should choose heal area if they are with an experienced group.

"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred."
MP

flamindeath

Unless of course you a Elementalist/Monk with lots in energy storage and so have between 60 and 70(75?) energy.  Then you just use heal party three times while a Necro/___ uses BiP (blood is power which makes the necro lose 40 health to give an ally 9 or 10 clicks of energy regen for a little over 10 seconds) to help you recover your mana super quick.  Or the classic of 2-3 Necro/Monks BiPing each other while they used heal party and heal breeze .  Ahhh the multitude of strategies which can be employed.  One of the reasons GW is so amazing is because there are infinite strategies which can be used and no single strategy is better than the rest.  I still love my melee Necro/Elem though lol.  (lava font+phoenix+inferno=200-300 damage )

FlaminDeath