Guild Wars 2

I made a handy dandy flowchart for A.E.D use!

http://i.imgur.com/XNTwrsz.png

Chaith.8256:

I made a handy dandy flowchart for A.E.D use!

http://i.imgur.com/XNTwrsz.png

This!

The big heal is nice. I don’t think anyone feels it’s too small. The flow chart above (thanks & nicely done Chaith) explains the potential pitfalls of AED. They are…

- get interrupted – Shorter cast time would be the obvious solution.

- don’t hit 0 hp – This is part & parcel to the risk v reward of the skill design and, as such, can’t change much. I think reducing the cast time (as mentioned above) would reduce the change of interruption and thus allow more confident casting at lower hp levels.

- have conditions – Add a condition cleanse to the skill: If big heal cleanse 1 condition. If small heal cleanse 3 conditions. Then it can be used at higher health levels as a cleanse instead of a heal and actually have some functionality before we’re <15% hp.

I personally have issues with the toolbelt skill. An interrupt is nice & all but I feel like Engi have plenty of interrupts already and would rather have a condition cleanse skill, especially since the actual heal does not. The targeted interrupt synergizes with SD, but its ridiculously short range is less than ideal.

Honestly the cast time kills it, especially since stability is hard to come by as an Engi. Also, as had been said, there really isn’t any incentive to take it over a more reliable heal.
I think if the cast time were halved, and it gave Frenzy for the duration of the buff, it would fit into a ton more builds. Even then the toolbelt is pretty weak.

I think the condi removal on gadgets should be different for each one. Similar to how rocket boots removes cripple and immob, and goggles gives blind immunity. Each gadget should supplement condi removal. Or work if all gadgets are taken.

Linc.6834:

… I think if the cast time were halved, and it gave Frenzy for the duration of the buff, it would fit into a ton more builds …

Now that’s a great idea.

I have not played engineer and cannot comment on using it. However I have encountered engineers with AED and can state, quite definitively, it completely turns a fight around when it kicks in. Every time I’ve had AED kick in against me I’ve either died or had to disengage and completely leave the fight.

I’ve used AED in a rifle interrupt/kiting build, you have a lot of control over when your opponent attacks so its a lot smaller of a risk, still risky though, but I find it fun.

Seras.5702:

Linc.6834:

… I think if the cast time were halved, and it gave Frenzy for the duration of the buff, it would fit into a ton more builds …

Now that’s a great idea.

For sure. Compared to all the multi-purpose perks that Engineer heals typically have, A.E.D is plain vanilla.

I think that more than anything, we should leave the A.E.D healing numbers alone, if possible, and think about having A.E.D other, unique, useful perks like all the other heals currently have, such as:

• Toggle-able heal for efficient use of on swap/heal mechanics, drop-able Swiftness/Fury, toolbelt heal reduced in cooldown by traits, drop-able small condition removal, drop-able healing.
• AoE regeneration, water fields, blast finisher, good AoE condition removal.
• Random Swiftness/Protection/Vigor/Regeneration, traited small AoE condition removal, traited might stacking.

There is just so many dimensions of Engineer heals besides the healing number (which is still pretty important.)

The A.E.D-“cool things”-budget is definitely very focused on taking ‘lethal damage’, and ‘not dying’ as a perk. I would just like to point out that this is pretty much the illusion of a perk.

I’ll explain: When you have A.E.D active, and your HP is reduced to zero, even if A.E.D has 4 seconds left on the buff, it’s removed. There’s not an actual period of defying death, you just immediately start taking full damage. It’s the exact same thing as simply using any regular heal that heals you immediately after the cast. You’re just using it super late. If you used another heal with the same, or better, sustained healing and used it at any time you had missing health, it would put you in the same, or better, position.

A.E.D’s ‘defy death’ feature is a really nasty requirement, or drawback, that’s disguised as the perk of the ability. To reiterate, this new requirement forces the A.E.D user to lose effective healing time until in a position to go into the downed state. You have to get a 1s cast time heal off, like most do, and then you are healed regularly, like everyone else is – afterall, you just successfully got your heal off.

Remember that A.E.D’s healing per minute is single target, and only gets the same self-healing as Healing Turret when you are getting the A.E.D reward heal every 32 seconds (traited), which is impossible, due to all the hoops you have to jump through. See the previous flowchart for hoops to jump through in order to get your full heal. (http://i.imgur.com/XNTwrsz.png)

Hey, if A.E.D is pulling a level of sustain over time in the realm of Healing Turret – even if you need to get the 12,288 reward heal every 32 seconds to do so – I think the numbers are fine. I would be wary increasing them as well. But I think for this to be usable we really do need to create value elsewhere.

There are really great suggestions for adding value in A.E.D mentioned in this thread, keep it up.

@ Jon Peters, what do you feel the biggest unique strengths of A.E.D are? Also, consolidated suggestions for A.E.D in OP

Well, we have been heard. They are now testing with 3/4th of a second cast time.

Personally I am not yet convinced, but I’m eager to try it out at that shorter cast time. What sounds like a minimal change may feel more impactful I guess.

It won’t change anything. Any other heal is still more convenient, less risky, and doesn’t depend on your opponent not seeing you emit sparkles for the whole duration.
It still hasn’t got additional gadget traits to work with, it still works bad with automated medical response, and still requires you to not use your healing skill until the last moment, wasting its uptime whereas any other healing skill would be used just when needed and put on cooldown to be ready asap.

Faster cast time on AED would be an excellent start.
It’s far less risky than tweaking with the numbers/mechanics of it.

It may be interesting to consider allowing the tool belt skill to quick res an ally. It is an AED after all, so why can’t you use it on your friends.

Shadowfall.6543:

It may be interesting to consider allowing the tool belt skill to quick res an ally. It is an AED after all, so why can’t you use it on your friends.

Should be usable to either restore X hp to a downed or dead ally (~50% of the bar), or stun an enemy in melee range.

JonPeters.5630:

There is some merit here. This skill had such a high risk/reward tradeoff that we knew it was possible that it had a chance to become too strong or not strong enough. I do think it is closer than you all think and I would be wary of increasing it. I think the key question is going to be where do you increase, which is a better discussion. Does it need a better baseline? Does it need a better reward heal? Longer buff duration? Faster cast time? Lower cooldown? Or maybe just gadgets need some good traits to empower it more?

Hopefully that helps direct this discussion a bit. Let’s keep this thread to this particular heal. If you have concerns about the effectiveness (in either direction) of other heals either start an individual thread for those that you are concerned about, or start a general thread but keep in mind that you will have to work hard to keep a general heal balance thread focused and productive.

Jon

Maybe if it had some condition removal on cast or otherwise could be trait to remove conditions on cast, so that you have some small immediate pay off.
Esp if it specifically targets certain conditions like poison and weakness, so that if it pays off it won’t lose a large chunk in the process.

That being said, I haven’t used it yet. (don’t play my engy often)

Still, it’s and interesting skill, I’ll give it that much.

Well written!

What personally struck me was that the numbers weren’t really impressive. I wanted to calculate how effective A.E.D. is in comparison to our other heals, since I first figured that A.E.D. ought to have good potential sustain, if you manage to use the skill properly. Say you forget all about how it offers zero condition removal and group utility (when all the other heals have a means to offer some). It becomes obvious quite fast that currently A.E.D. is not designed for sustained fights at all. I was very disappointed. Apparently using A.E.D. requires a very specific build/philosophy to fights. (unless you have permanent regen and guardians saving you perhaps? They would probably not like you using A.E.D. instead of HT.)

Let’s compare our heals for sustained fights, with 0 boon duration, no additional blasts for healing turret, no traits for anything but AED, not taking toolbelt skills into account for HT. (Elixir requires traits so not considering that right now)

• CD-traited A.E.D. (12280 (1.7? scaling), 32 seconds)
  Theoretical maximum base HPS 384, 0.053 HPS/healing power
  Impossible to pull off

• Healing Turret pick-up (5040 (1.0) + 5s regen 650 (0.625), 15 seconds)
  379 HPS, scales 0.108 HPS/HP and scales with boon duration and blast finishers

• Healing turret blast (5040 (1.0) + 5s regen 650 (0.625) + 1320 (0.2), 20 seconds)
  350 HPS, 0.091 HPS/HP, scales with boon duration and blast finishers

• Med Kit (4920 (1.0) 20 sec + 1000 (0.5)*3 12 sec)
  Base HPS 496, 0.175 HPS/HP, scales more with traits, requires activity

A.E.D. does not scale with…. anything really. It doesn’t even scale well with on-heal effects. And to top it off, these calculations do not take into account the facts that A.E.D. theoretical HPS does not “start off” until you first use it and that you have to take damage to proc it. It is true that A.E.D. offers heal when you most need it, but that does not make up for the downsides.

Now when you ask how plausible it would be to slot it, I say extremely unlikely for sustain. Considering the group utility, condition removal, potential different gameplay possibilities (preparation-mode, heal amount scaling to needs, etc.) of both Med Kit and Healing Turret, A.E.D. seems extremely lacking.

How would I use it?
A.E.D. negates one attack, the one that would kill you. That, the toolbelt and the bursty healing on a long CD points to a hit-and-run static discharge style. So somehow you need to be able to evade damage with A.E.D. and play bursty and fast.
Or perhaps if you can guarantee yourself dying before 25% so you can double-use it once.
Or perhaps with Elixir R…?

A.E.D. burst heal doesn’t really secure anything, and as the flowchart points out, it has multiple ways of counterplaying it. I might still not use it even if it was instant, although it would “only” leave poison and condis to use against it in the hands of a perfect engineer.

Gadget traits would be awesome, yes. Other than that, perhaps lowering the risk of using A.E.D. a bit would help – such as triggering the heal at 10%? It’s still low and doesn’t remove the counterplay but increases your chances of survival post-A.E.D. This is especially important in PVE where the heal is probably unusable.