Healing VS Leech VS Regen VS Ward Gen

Feedback and Suggestions
11

Well there are plenty of reasons why almost all meaningfull games got rid of leech or still have it with a far lower ammount of leech.
If they don’t want to change leech mechanicly there should be a maximum leech amount that is tied to your max HP. For Example if you have 3k MaxHP you can only leech 300HP/sec. A 10% baseline so to speak while all leech passives and affixes offer 0.5% increase to it so we might end up at 25-30% MaxHP/sec and from there on it get’s toned down untill it’s in line with other defensive stats. All the numbers are just made up and are a simple example.

I still think Health reg can be the best sustain tool ingame because you canfor incredible ammounts of HP/s and I still think there is room to improve and more possible then 1.5k/s what is 3/4 of the hp most of my toons have untill I build them to tanky. If I don’t get oneshot and my HP jumps instantly to full I have enough tank :D.

12

Yeah, then you can give the tankier masteries higher leech caps, or specific skills higher leech effectiveness.

13

For example yes.In the end it’s just balancing an twisting some numbers. It’s the least of my concerns atm to be honest and easiely fixable when EHG got time for it. Right now it’s bearable and not gamebreaking and I’m pretty sure the workload should go into another direction but it’s a nice topic to crunch non the less.
I’ll put it in perspective… different classes can dualwield different weapons only. There is no homogenisation there. Why isn’t this mirrored in other aspects as well? Why aren’t Sentinels and Primalists HP hogs with leech mechanics while Acolyth and Mage are Ward based? Why can’t every class use every weapon but everything is the same old mess just with a different icon and a different look?
There are so many mechanics in this game and I only see two ways to go… use all the stuff that was made and give classes destinct advantages and disatvatages or get rid of the useless 2/3 of the stuff an make everything the same just with other animations on the skill and deliver the illusion of choice like many other games.
Same goes for healing as well as leech and regen or ward. Paladin best example of a class that’s closest tied to healing stuff. Void Knight and sucking away the life essence of enemys… sounds neat. Beastmasters healing themself and their pets… and so on and so forth.
There are so many possibilitys but at the end of the day Ward and leech are most used. It’s like two handed axes… who the heck is using that utter piece of crap compared to other weapon bases? There is not one Twohanded Axe in this game that is worth to use but the unique maybe.
There is so much stuff to do and as sad as it makes me I don’t see a development philiosophy or worthwhile path they take. To much stuff simply makes me questioning if this game will ever come to a point where everything makes sence and is of equivelent use compared to other options with all their merits and flaws.
But that’s just the pessemistic me and I’m pretty sure that I don’t see the big picture that might unfold :D.

14

I think that it might be really hard to balance the different mechanics when they work differently on classes. But in general I agree with you. I like asymmetric mechanics. Ward already is a caster mechanic since ward retention is tied to int. And Leech is supported very differently among the classes. But maybe it could be tweaked a bit. I like your suggestion. Why not also nerf leech on certain classes and buff the already existing support of others.

As for 2h axes: What does make them so bad in comparison to other 2h weapons in your opinion?

15

In short: The base phys dmg is okay but they seem to revolve arround melee cold or lightning dmg and low chance tp bleed ammounts. In theory it’s the base that offers the most dmg but i realy never used a 2handed axe or have seen anyone using it in a stream. From the outside and without access to data it seems like an unwantede weapon base. Well… since DW all 2handed options are unwanted as it seems :D.

16

This entire discussion is about balance. And for to balance things you should have some focus, basic metrics you’re trying to keep in a center of all your secondary parameters. I wrote a lot about it.

Game designer should define what players can meet… in numbers.

  • average duration of regular fight?
  • average duration of boss fight?
  • average number of enemies in a fight?
  • minimum number of enemies in a fight?
  • maximum number of enemies in a fight?

… and most important things …

  • minimum character’s survive time with no active resistance?
  • maximum character’s survive time with no active resistance?

If your tanky character have no other recover options except heal, but he looses all his health in 2 seconds in toughest fight, than even free 100% heal every 2 seconds is a dubious option. Only if you consider standing with a healer behind which should heal you every 1-1.5 seconds. Horrible model in my opinion.

So, if the game in its current state wishes you to die in less than 5-8 seconds, I doubt an instant heal can ever become a playable option, at least for solo play. And yes, I remember about mobility skills.

Same with health regeneration. It can’t and SHOULDN’T negate all the damage your character receives. But if so, you must have some time to retreat and recover. And this means your ability skills should be available 1-2 times between your 100% and 20% health states - to escape huge damages and to retreat to recover.

And again, all this and less than 5 seconds survive time makes HP. REG. very ineffective.

Health leech. It’s balanced to be good enough with a single target, but with every next enemy your damage multiplies and so the leech. That’s why I have to repeat myself: all effects (damage included) should reduce their effectiveness with every target affected. But this thought is rejected by the community :disappointed_relieved: .

Also yes, it’s only recover mechanics which effectiveness grows with damage AND protections, not just protections. And I think it can’t be balanced just via dragging up and down leech values. I believe in better solution, like adding obligatory offensive potential to protection affixes: thorns, rage, counter-attacks (from dodge?).

17

What do you think of leech being unavoidably tied to increased damage taken or reduced max life? This way, the players themselves decide the balance of how much leech they want to aim for - each extra bit of leech makes a oneshot more likely…
Eg - 30% health leech means you take 15% more damage, so you are always at full life until you reach a level where you get oneshot if you get hit.
This would make leech a viable option for survivability, but would mean that it drops off from being always included in the highest ranked builds. It would also provide incentives to combine it with dodge, block, etc.

18

That’s why I said it needs to be tied to max hp. Giving it a downside of taking more dmg it’ll be the worst option. On the other hand you can add a stat like ward retention to LL that is benefited by attunment. This will lead to choices that need to made. You need to stack 2 attributes if you want leech so acolyths and sorceres who use ward mostly will keep int up and sentinels and druids will naturaly combo it. Not realy sure how to handle it with the rogue but the rogue is op enough to handle a downside :D.

19

One of the imbalanced parts about leech isn’t really the leech, it is the absurd damage that some people can scale to. Leech SHOULD heal more than regen over the short-term as it is only activated upon hitting something.

Given that, I would very much like to see a couple item slots have a Hybrid Health Regen affix. Just like the Hybrid Health, it would give an added amount and a percentage increase. I don’t know what the numbers should be. Overall, though, Health Regen percentage increases aren’t very impactful due to the ridiculously low starting regen amount.

20

Congrats :slight_smile:

21

That’s why I said it should be tied to max HP as well. Lets say you have 1000 hp and you can leech at base 10% of max HP. So if you deal 1000 dmg you still only leech 100 hp. You’ll have to scale %LL as well as maxHP and leech base%. With this setup leech can stay strong because you have 3 stats to take care of.
The other way is a secondary attribute usage to get leech retention but this might be overcomplicated.
If EHG aims for 30% base leech (or whatever reasonable number is a sweet spot) you need X hits to get to max HP and you still have the chance to get to big ammounts compared to other methods.
I still think the easiest way should be the best way here.

22

I actually like what PoE did with the whole “Overleech” thing. I don’t think leech should hang around after you hit max health. Maybe make a cool unique 2H sword or 2H axe that allows you to overleech. For those that don’t know, overleech is where health leech that you have accrued over your maximum health doesn’t go away. It is held in reserve for several seconds and damage you take takes from the reserved health that had been leeched. It works somewhat like if you would gain excess leech as Ward but it doesn’t decay gradually over time. With that, there could be buffs that are bestowed on your character as long as you have an active overleech health pool.

Maybe they could do something similar with ward, but they would have to make it so you can’t get ward from any other source but leech. If not, people would just put the item on a ward build and have permanent bonuses when it is meant to be temporary for “overleeched” status.

23

Leech is already realy strong… why should anyone want it stronger? If there is a possibilty to overleech the ammount leeched needs to be so little the whole mechanic is useless most of the time to offset the overleech.
On top of it overleech = ward and I don’t hink two very similar sustain methodes would make people that happy. I realy don’t want to look like someone narrowminded or just pushing my own thoughts and I’m looking for more input on this topic because I like it very much but so far it seems like we all, me included, just do cycles.
On the other hand it’s input for the devs and maybe one of them will have a bright idea :D.

24

The whole point is to make “overleech” require a specific unique. As it is now, overleech kinda exists for all leech. As Boardman said in the OP, leech sticks around for a few seconds (even if you are at max health) and that is one of the reasons it is overpowered.

25

It depends if leech needs a second to tick or if leech instantly ticks if health is lost. Specific uniques for something is well and fine but how bad will you make that unique to offset an op overleech? or do you want to make the overleech so little it isn’t worth it and you stop leeching again because your overleech is full?
I think leech has a simple scaling issue if it is put in line like ward was to bee still very good but not the allmighty sustain things will chage a lot.

26

It should also have a cap so you can’t infinitely scale a health pool. I just always really liked that build in PoE. It was a neat new way to build. Obviously it shouldn’t be more powerful than any other mainstream build. There will always be build tiers for these types of games. I just want a great deal of variety and neat ways to play.

One way to pull leech back is how fast the leech heals you. That is the aspect that PoE balances around a lot. Leech rate could be tied to a percentage of your max health per second to scale it. Would need to be more than Regen since Regen is just passive and always on.

27

Just throwing in more ideas on leech:

  • Tie leech effectiveness to your current % of health above 50%

    • Below 50% hp = 100% leech
    • Above 50% hp = -2% leech for each 1% above that 50% threshold - this means your leech will decrease the more you refill your hp pool with 0% at full health

  • Make leech not leech damage dealt, but leech x% if your current missing health

28

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention this, thanks.
But lets analyze this further. Compare it to possible PvP. First problem that leech characters can meet is multiple protection layers of those who oppose them. 70+ resistances, 50+ damage reduction from armor and some more. This effectively lowers damage AND leech by 8+ times.

But mobs mostly have no such reductions. So maybe this is the decision? Mobs should scale their health much slower, but other damage negating attributes - faster.

Of course, this approach requires some corrections for Ward. For example, leech effectiveness should be reduced (2+ times) while damaged enemy has Ward?

29

Some suggestions on leech:

Example 1:
If there is a enemy with 1.000 HP and you have 100.000 damage with 10 % leech now, you leech 10.000 HP from the said enemy with 1.000 HP. How come?

Example 2:
If there is a enemy with 10.000 HP and you have 100.000 damage with 10 % leech now, you leech 10.000 HP from the said enemy with 10.000 HP. How come?

What it should be 1:
If there is a enemy with 1.000 HP and you have 100.000 damage with 10 % leech, you leech 100 HP from the said enemy with 1.000 HP.

What it should be 2:
If there is a enemy with 10.000 HP and you have 100.000 damage with 10 % leech, you leech 1.000 HP from the said enemy with 10.000 HP.

…and so on…

Conclusion:
You can allways leech 10 % of what you’re damage dealt on reality, and not of what you dreamed on fantasy numbers on your char sheets. (like getting 10.000 HP out of 1.000 HP on reality)

EDIT: If the enemy has 500 Ward and 1.000 HP, then ONLY the HP should be leechable. :slight_smile:

30

Leech being % of damage means that it allways hits the leech cap at end game(which is a % of max hp). Making it way better than all the other forms of healing.

The REAL issue is that the other forms of healing are currently based on FLAT VALUES, instead of being a % of max hp.