Even OP’s some answers irritated me, he sticked with his main concern (leveling with lifestaff) and I respect that but everyone here answered it for very very end game.
He simply wants ( If i understand correct) to play lifestaff while leveling (which was pain while i was playing). I don’t break in hatchet-lifestaff leveling on release which was broken but playing only lifestaff while leveling is really pain. Especially for farming some territory quests etc.
I played all MMO’s i have played as healer and I can understand what he asks for. Playing hatchet/lifestaff or voidgauntlet/lifestaff or any weapon/lifestaff on open world pve/leveling/farming for trade skills just isn’t playing lifestaff.
I mean, and also what I think he means, Lifestaff mains shouldn’t need another weapon for farming boars, doing some territory standing runs or even for leveling. I was main lifestaff back then on release until january and I remember how i farm stuff; without a lifestaff. That’s the reality you all are keep ignoring and all repeats the same stuff; Lifestaff can solo mutations etc. That’s not the case. The only pve is not mutations or dungeons. Not everyone likes to play only dungeons or the way you like to play. In every mmo I played, I love farm stuff with my healing equipment which I can’t do it here.
That’s the case for this topic and stop ignoring it.
30 or 40 expeditions seems low. I just cam back and was around 550gs. Have run around 15 gen/laz since and 1 piece is 600, two others around 585 and a smattering of 570 plus a lot of weapons are 540 to 570. Jewelry which I have Ben using gypsum on are high 540s.
The game is balanced around group PvP and magic weapons are an afterthought that the devs seem reluctant to even have in the game.
I leveled to 60 last fall before the VG and like most healers, I used LS and Ice for my group healing build. Even back then for solo, I also used the hatchet so I could actually kill things. It has always been all about the STR and DEX weapons.
I’ve done the 1-25 stuff on the PTR recently and the difference between a GS and hatchet build vs. an LS + VG is like night and day. soloing the same content.
The problem at launch before they started nerfing was always the STR builds with an LS secondary, What they should have done is build in a heal penalty to STR stacking itself instead of nerfing armor to force healers to light armor and the healing nerfs. Like targeting the problem directly.
The damage coefficient on the Focus weapons has always been lower than it should be but now, combined with all the nerfs it is truly pathetic for soloing.
Good luck getting a healer for Amrine in the FSS. There are not enough kid brothers you can talk into being a healer and always carry in PvE duo questing to fill the need. There’s just no way I’m soloing a healer this time around.
IMO, ESO does healers right. As a Warden main, I can heal, tank a little, and DPS. It’s something I enjoy doing because I contribute in dungeons and trials with a very active combat play style. When I roam the open world, I’m self sufficient to take on world bosses and harder group content. Best of all, the combat of a healer is fluid. Super fun game to play as a healer.
New World unfortunately doesn’t offer any such experience for healers. Life Staff abilities have long cool downs, forcing you to light attack spam to reduce the timers and keep those heals up. Ground targeting is janky and can be challenging when you can’t see the floor. Close-quarter combat is horrible. Staves often fire off on a tangent when an enemy is to close, missing the shot. And then there’s the animation locks and slow animation recovery. It’s very difficult to enjoy playing as a healer.
If AGS puts combat on their high priority list and if they can bring healing to the same level that ESO has, I would totally convert over. However, given the above problems + only two weapons that scale with focus, I just can’t. I play intelligence instead. I have access to a wide variety of weapons, great element damage output, great damage, and I can use potions and food for heals, plus dodging. If I want to heal because I’m tiered of waiting in the lobby, I’ll put gear on with focus stat. That will boost me up to ~200 focus and I find that good enough for healing, plus swap to void gauntlet and rip enemies to shreds due to the focus/int scaling. For open world though? I would never touch life staff.
Perked warhammer hits dummies for 6000-8000 full heavy swing crit.
Cheese perks with spear rend and trenchant crits/keen emp is like 12,000
amber warhammer does maybe 1700-2200
That number really does need to be higher, it wasn’t nearly as painful to run around with a melee weapon at the start. And i understand why they nerfed them with heavy armor the way that it was.
But they can absolutely fix this with adjustment to amber nerfs, as right now it hits for peanuts. The only time it’s “okay” is if you are fighting something that is weak to nature, and even then it’s still just alright.
But that’s just my opinion having lived through all of the nerfs as they just kept coming.
I had a full set of BiS heavy healing gear before they rofflethropped the heavy healing.
I DO have a set of light, but i don’t like it. In that way they broke my build that i started with and put so much time in, so i put the life staff away.
With shirking fort and fort stacking, light is absolutely beefy. Arguably even beefier than heavy was in a lot of situations. But i just don’t for the life of me want to play the roll/rapier or roll VG pew pew build.
I was a heavy shield or heavy hammer build, absolutely my favorite thing to play is the paladin.
They could have tweaked it, instead they just curb stomped it and threw it in the dumpster.
That’s what it feels like anyway.
I love to play in heavy, and occasionally medium. But i just don’t do light.
I’ve not taken part in any lvl 60 dungeons yet so, I can’t comment on the difficulty level but the principle of making content easier isn’t a favourable one for me I’m afraid. I’m of the mindset that there should always be content available that is neigh on impossible to complete unless you’re very good or have put lots of practice runs in to get to that point. It’s ok not to complete everything imho. I’d like to think that I’m good enough at games to warrant getting into them and giving them a good go (as I’ve been a 5 day a week raider before and I’m not scared of the hard work involved getting to that stage). If all the content was achievable by everyone, then where’s the challenge?
I’m sorry for those that want to nerf current content, you must feel frustrated but I don’t think nerfing is the right way to go about things. If your ceiling is lvl 5 mutations, this is like your level 10. You should be pleased to have gotten that far and perhaps in more time you’ll start to progress again and compete 6-10. Don’t be in such a rush to complete things, instead be in a rush to enjoy things, the journey is a part of that and finding joy in the fact that you’re still on your journey should be a warming thought in my opinion. Those that have completed lvl 10 are probably bored now with less things to achieve.
Enjoying the climb makes for a better view when you reach the top.
Getting back to the OP; solo PvE is a chore mainly because ppl foolishly still believe enforcing the trinity is the secret sauce to balance.
Yes to a degree simplifying things makes things easier to balance they also make things unbelievably dull and braindead.
There used to be this skill called Smite that all LS users had access to. Apparently ppl didnt like the idea of a healer that could also do dmg and removed it. But in doing so they forced healers in a state where they would either be reliant on other people to damage in order to level and progress or give them methods of doing damage based on a heal spec without actually giving damage abilities to the LS.
Since then its been an endless battle of healers are too strong and need nerf posts. Either they heal to much or they bring too much “extra” (dmg, cc, utility).
You can chalk this up to basic flaws of rock, paper, scissors balancing within a community that both wants to be unconstrained by the rigidity of class archetype but expects the outcomes of class archetype when pitted against each other.
Only ways to fix it are to go all in on trinity and class archetype…Lame
or
Give better tools to both sides of the equation in the form of damage for healers and anti-heal/utility for dps. They exists but kinda suck atm.
Also it doesnt help if everyone wants to be a jack of all trades build that can handle every encounter type regardless of encounter.
The only way you could possibly make that a thing is to remove gearing from the equation and return the combat back to previous stages where combat skill trumped ability and gear progression…
The players apparently dont want that. They also dont want healers to be able to heal so idk what to tell you other than if you enjoy main healing stay away from this game the community has no clue what they want or are doing in terms of the class.
