atonement beacon

[Soranis]

So i was playing disc healing a few days ago as in healing the tank with smite, and i came to the conclusion it is rng if there happens to be a melee lower than tank he gets the heal...
so i was thinking why not make a beacon target that aslong as he is in range he always gets the atonenemt target. wouldnt that make sense or am i talking bollucks?

greets soranis.

[[-Spiritus-]]

While your idea isn't unique by any stretch [as in hundreds have suggested it], I do not think the developers would entertain a "atonement beacon" because:

(1) Silly priest, bacon is for Pallies. But seriously, Beacon of Light, or the concept of "doing" stuff on C-Y heals Z because of B ability is pretty damn core to Paladin healing nowadays. They will not port it.

(2) It would require a HUGE nerf on Atonement. Simply put, in Atonement's current state, to tie the healing to a single player is would be ridiculously overpowered.

[Lujanera]

I've had similar frustrations with the randomness of Atonement's target selection, but I think Spiritus addresses why giving priests a beacon isn't likely. This doesn't mean that some change couldn't be made to improve the functioning of Atonement, though.

In 4.0.6, it looks like we will be able to maintain Grace on multiple targets. What if the heal from Atonement were more likely to heal targets with Grace? Or, alternatively, what if the heal from Atonement were shared by all nearby targets with Grace? These might provide some interesting decisions for priests since using Penance (or other Grace-applying spells) on non-tank targets could have positive/negative effects on Smite healing depending on the situation.

More generally, I feel like the random targeting of Atonement heals is illustrative of the general lack smart heals in the disc priest arsenal. Prayer of Healing, at least for me, tends to overheal a lot. Often enough, 1-2 group members do not need heals or the Divine Aegis proc is not used. Prayer of Mending is completely random and seems to get stuck on low-damage targets too often. After that, my only multi-target heals are Divine Hymn (smart heal, but long cooldown) and Binding Heal (situational, since one of the targets has to be the priest). I'd really like to see Grace used as a way of attracting some of these random healing effects since it signifies a target that is taking modest damage.

[sp101]

More generally, I feel like the random targeting of Atonement heals is illustrative of the general lack smart heals in the disc priest arsenal.

[...]

Prayer of Mending is completely random and seems to get stuck on low-damage targets too often.

Wait, what? Prayer of Mending is one of the smartest heal in the game, bouncing to the lowest HP target in range. It uses the same targetting rule as Atonement and its fairly easy to predict who it's gonna land on.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Wait, what? Prayer of Mending is one of the smartest heal in the game, bouncing to the lowest HP target in range. It uses the same targetting rule as Atonement and its fairly easy to predict who it's gonna land on.

60% of the time it bounces to Jehroon the Felgaurd every time. =P

[sp101]

60% of the time it bounces to Jehroon the Felgaurd every time. =P

Stupid Pets. Always stealing our "Smart" heals!

[Lujanera]

Wait, what? Prayer of Mending is one of the smartest heal in the game, bouncing to the lowest HP target in range. It uses the same targetting rule as Atonement and its fairly easy to predict who it's gonna land on.

Seriously?! This is the first time I've heard this about PoM. I always thought it was random, especially given how often it seems to get stuck somewhere bad (Jehroon the Felguard, indeed).

[Deleted]

PoM is like the best spell in the game, for some fights it almost feels imbalanced. Oh, a tank and a melee keep taking a lot of damage? Well, good thing I can instantly put a prayer of mending which will jump between them healing them loads for a low MP cost.

[cybermind]

If no one else but the tank has taken any damage (which is very possible especially just after the tank gets his first hit), PoM will jump to a random person. I guess Murphy's Law is to blame for Jehroon the Felguard getting it most of the time, but then again, it's a melee AI NPC and thus is more likely to take a cleave to the face and actually be lower than anyone else at the time PoM jumps. Nearly all target-limited AoE heals are smart, and will go towards the lowest HP person/people within range.

Edit: Jehroon the Felguard for Warchief

[[-Spiritus-]]

... it's a melee AI NPC and thus is more likely to take a cleave to the face and actually be lower than anyone else at the time PoM jumps.

Bingo. Jehroon the Felguard also enjoys bathing in fire, shadow crashes, and sound discs.

[Mazi]

Srsly.. wtb prom ignoring pets

[cybermind]

Jehroon the Felguard also enjoys bathing in fire, shadow crashes, and sound discs.

*Swoon*, so dreamy. Do you think you could introduce us?

[Pythagoreant]

Doesn't Jehroon the Felguard get a 90% AoE reduction?

[[-Spiritus-]]

Doesn't Jehroon the Felguard get a 90% AoE reduction?

Yes, but AoE reduction doesn't matter much when he doesn't move out of the fire and only gets healed by incidentals [CH, WG, CoH, ProM, gAoEs (which he'll rarely stand in), and Radiance]. Jehroon's health will generally be a lower percentage than most within ProM jump range of the tank.

[sp101]

Doesn't Jehroon the Felguard get a 90% AoE reduction?

Yeah, but what that means is that while all melees are sitting at 100% because they avoided the whirlwind / cleave / fire, Jehroon the Felguard is missing 732 health, which means your PoM will bounce on him directly.

---------- Post added 2011-01-21 at 10:22 PM ----------

Doesnt exactly bounce to "lowest health" from what I've gathered. if I'm understanding it, a "damage table" is established when a PoM goes out. The table starts observing which allies are taking damage, and will bounce to the player that has sustained the most damage and is in range, ignoring the ally PoM is currently on. (In the event that no one takes damage except the person who has PoM, it bounces to you by default)

Got any source for this? I'd like to read up on this.

[Mazi]

Doesnt exactly bounce to "lowest health" from what I've gathered. if I'm understanding it, a "damage table" is established when a PoM goes out. The table starts observing which allies are taking damage, and will bounce to the player that has sustained the most damage and is in range, ignoring the ally PoM is currently on. (In the event that no one takes damage except the person who has PoM, it bounces to you by default)

Yeah I've never heard of this. I thought it was more of "whoever is closest in range" from observation.

[Kellytm3]

if you want a beacon,go roll a pally...Holy paladins got nerfed enough bc of whining priests,now you want one of our core spells

[harky]

Doesnt exactly bounce to "lowest health" from what I've gathered. if I'm understanding it, a "damage table" is established when a PoM goes out. The table starts observing which allies are taking damage, and will bounce to the player that has sustained the most damage and is in range, ignoring the ally PoM is currently on. (In the event that no one takes damage except the person who has PoM, it bounces to you by default)

Completely wrong. It is based off of percentage and absolute health. 'Smart Heals' are pretty dumb. They make no distinction between anything except by judging current health. You are correct in that PoM has a predisposition to bounce back to the caster, but this happens whether or not people take damage, are at low health, if the moon is in sway, if your dog is barking, or any other divination process. It just does that, always has.

Here's just how smart they are;
1. Are any players in range with deficit health? If yes go to step 2, if no proceed to step 4.
2. Is one player at a lower percentage than the rest? If yes go to step 3, if no proceed to step 4.
3. Heal them.
4. Heal the player with the lowest absolute health in range.

That's it. It will heal the player at the lowest percentage of health and if two players are at the same percentage of health it will heal the player with the lowest absolute health. They're exceptionally dumb in this manner. If you have a tank with 200k health who is at 50% and you want to heal them, but a Rogue with 130k health is at 50% as well it will heal the Rogue. However, if the tank is at 49.999999% it will heal the tank instead. Unless you're in range at which point all bets are off. It might heal you even if you're at max health for no apparent reason.

[cybermind]

Completely wrong. It is based off of percentage and absolute health. 'Smart Heals' are pretty dumb. They make no distinction between anything except by judging current health. You are correct in that PoM has a predisposition to bounce back to the caster, but this happens whether or not people take damage, are at low health, if the moon is in sway, if your dog is barking, or any other divination process. It just does that, always has.

Here's just how smart they are;
1. Are any players in range with deficit health? If yes go to step 2, if no proceed to step 4.
2. Is one player at a lower percentage than the rest? If yes go to step 3, if no proceed to step 4.
3. Heal them.
4. Heal the player with the lowest absolute health in range.

That's it. It will heal the player at the lowest percentage of health and if two players are at the same percentage of health it will heal the player with the lowest absolute health. They're exceptionally dumb in this manner. If you have a tank with 200k health who is at 50% and you want to heal them, but a Rogue with 130k health is at 50% as well it will heal the Rogue. However, if the tank is at 49.999999% it will heal the tank instead. Unless you're in range at which point all bets are off. It might heal you even if you're at max health for no apparent reason.

While you are totally correct on all accounts (except for that last line, I didn't know it bugged out if you, the PoM caster, were in range), you didn't use nearly enough Jehroon the Felguard examples. Please rectify this. Perhaps the rogue could die and Jehroon the Felguard could take his place.

[harky]

My felguard was a real man. Not some Jehroon pansy. Real felguards have manly names, often involving fart jokes. Like Flaadhun. You know flaaaaaaa...d...huuuu..n. And yes, my Felguard was named Flaadhun. RIP Warlock 4.0.1. I hate switching mains.

And yeah, PoM and Atonement both are uh. Odd. It will sometimes jump/heal the caster for no apparent reason. CoH will do it as well sometimes. Pretty odd.