Thread: Song Brother/HoH discussion mk2

I hate derailing threads, especially discussing the virtues of Song Brother in a thread about 1h + shield.

In order to get the thread rolling properly...

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

If Song Brother is supposed to be a power restoration tool, why doesn't To Arms have something to do with power restoration?

Why is Strength of Will -10% Healing Skills Power cost instead of -10% Skills Power Costs?

Simple answer: Song Brother isn't a power restoration tool. All you're doing is polishing a piece of poop and claiming it to be a rare piece of petrified wood.

The design of the brother skills is not "healing, tank, dps"

It's "something to support a healer, something to support a tank, something to put on a dps".

Aside from outgoing healing, there's not much you can do for a healer. And so far nobody has had any better ideas. At least none that would be simple to implement.
They came up with -healing threat, -healing power costs, +outgoing healing, and a PoT. All things theoretically useful to a healer.

I don't know for sure why it's not a reduction to all power costs; The assumption you can make is with only a reduction to heal threat and heal power costs they intended you to use it on a healer. Reducing all power costs would prompt its use on a dps who was having power problems, and perhaps that was unwanted. It's also possible the dev's just didn't think about it. I'm not going to make a conclusion without input from them. And I don't recall the last time a dev posted in our forum. (Pre-roi raskolnikov?)

I have never argued the skill was designed well. (at least I don't think I have) It's not. I've just argued its poor design doesn't affect the potency of HoH, since shield brother is still available. Song Brother is trying to support healers, but it turns out healers don't need support, people being healed do. Shield brother has the side-effect of having the inspire HoT and +4% healing to the group, or Song Brother would actually be useful when needing to heal the group.

But you can't move the HoT from inspire to Song brother, what good would that be, applying a decent HoT to a healer that doesn't need it?

Song brother basically has several niche uses, and you'll be grateful you have it if you ever come across them, because it's basically just another example of how flexible the captain is. Whether by conscious design or not. They are not nearly as rare as you'd probably think, but you'll most likely encounter them with bad groups.

1. Obviously, if someone (preferably a healer, or yourself/hoh) are out of power, loremaster is dead or not included, song bro.
2. If the tank is in another group, song bro the healer in yours.
3. If you didn't trait fellowship brother, but want to improve group healing.
(omg there are viable builds that don't bring fbro? Yes. )

TL;DR: Shield and Blade are the only brother skills we ever needed, but having song only adds flexibility, so who cares if it's not as good?

Originally Posted by DuneBug

I hate derailing threads, especially discussing the virtues of Song Brother in a thread about 1h + shield.

In order to get the thread rolling properly...



The design of the brother skills is not "healing, tank, dps"

It's "something to support a healer, something to support a tank, something to put on a dps".

Aside from outgoing healing, there's not much you can do for a healer. And so far nobody has had any better ideas. At least none that would be simple to implement.
They came up with -healing threat, -healing power costs, +outgoing healing, and a PoT. All things theoretically useful to a healer.

I don't know for sure why it's not a reduction to all power costs; The assumption you can make is with only a reduction to heal threat and heal power costs they intended you to use it on a healer. Reducing all power costs would prompt its use on a dps who was having power problems, and perhaps that was unwanted. It's also possible the dev's just didn't think about it. I'm not going to make a conclusion without input from them. And I don't recall the last time a dev posted in our forum. (Pre-roi raskolnikov?)

I have never argued the skill was designed well. (at least I don't think I have) It's not. I've just argued its poor design doesn't affect the potency of HoH, since shield brother is still available. Song Brother is trying to support healers, but it turns out healers don't need support, people being healed do. Shield brother has the side-effect of having the inspire HoT and +4% healing to the group, or Song Brother would actually be useful when needing to heal the group.

But you can't move the HoT from inspire to Song brother, what good would that be, applying a decent HoT to a healer that doesn't need it?

Song brother basically has several niche uses, and you'll be grateful you have it if you ever come across them, because it's basically just another example of how flexible the captain is. Whether by conscious design or not. They are not nearly as rare as you'd probably think, but you'll most likely encounter them with bad groups.

1. Obviously, if someone (preferably a healer, or yourself/hoh) are out of power, loremaster is dead or not included, song bro.
2. If the tank is in another group, song bro the healer in yours.
3. If you didn't trait fellowship brother, but want to improve group healing.
(omg there are viable builds that don't bring fbro? Yes. )

TL;DR: Shield and Blade are the only brother skills we ever needed, but having song only adds flexibility, so who cares if it's not as good?

Basically agree though I don't really think it was designed poorly. It's pretty damn good at restoring power - so much so Captains are knocking at the door of Loremasters.

Most of the problems people have with Song Brother are theoritical - because they were expecting it to become the new Shield Brother and it isn't nor was it obviously the intent of Turbine to make it so.

So basically you can divide everyone up into two camps. The people who recognize that's it's meant to restore power are going to be satisfied with it. And those who wanted a sequel to Shield Brother and expected Song Brother to be it are going to be unhappy with it and call it broken or this and that.

I know this debate well because I used to be in the latter camp, and was very unhappy at first with Song Brother. But as soon as I let go of my prejudices and learned to accept the skill for what it actually was I have learned to be pleasantly impressed with the skill. It can be very useful.

I'm going to break this up into two separate posts... the first addressing Song Brother, because that's half of the HoH problem.
================
Most captains will agree that each of our trait lines are organized around a central idea:
Lead the Charge: DPS
Leader of Men: Tanking
Hands of Healing: Healing

To maintain this symmetry, the capstones for each trait line should also be a pretty huge boost to the respective areas, and they are.

Enter the Brother skills (listed for ease of reference):

	Brother Skill	Strength of Will	To Arms	Inspire	Capstone
Blade	+ICMR, +Crit	-5% Attack Duration	+25% Damage	Minor HoT/PoT	LtC
Shield	+ICMR, +Crit Defence	+20% Incoming Healing	-15% Damage	Strong HoT	LoM
Song	+ICPR, -5% Healing Threat	-10% Healing Skills Power Cost	+25% Healing	Strong PoT	HoH

Capstone is the capstone that mentions that particular Brother skill. Following what the trait line's aimed at, you have:
Blade Brother: DPS
Shield Brother: Tanking
Song Brother: Healing

Mind you, all of the above is done in a vacuum ignoring gameplay - but it's also possible to infer intent based off of observation.

So what's observed in gameplay (ignoring FB for the moment)?

A Self Blade Brother gives a Lead the Charge capstone build a very good addition to DPS, but also the ability to sustaining that DPS (thanks to Blade Bro Inspire's PoT). Likewise, the Blade Brother target is going to also see a very nice jump in DPS - so Blade Brother succeeds in being beneficial to the captain and the target.

A Self Shield Brother gives a Leader of Men capstone build a very nice damage reduction ability, but also helps make the captain tank easier to heal thanks to Strength of Will and Inspire. The Shield Brother target is going to have a tremendous jump in survivability - so Shield Brother succeeds in being beneficial to the captain and the target.

A self Song Brother ensures that a Hands of Healing capstone build will never run out of power, and also boosts healing - but it does so at the expense of a HoT on the Song Brother Target. The buffs themselves are focused solely on helping a healer heal better, but there's absolutely no content in the game where the healer actually needs those buffs. Song Brother is really good for the captain, and meh at best for the target - which makes it odd because it's a "selfish" Brother skill, unlike the other two.

If you throw Fellowship Brother into the mix, Blade Brother becomes amazing for group DPS, and Shield Brother becomes amazing at helping the group survive through damage - but Song Brother falls flat. Both Song Brother: To Arms and Song Brother: Strength of Will are completely useless to most of the members of the fellow, unlike the other two Brother skills. Song Brother: Inspire is the ONLY redeeming quality from this Brother Skill when FB is involved.

Therefore, Song Brother is a complete failure as a healing tool - and only by polishing this piece of poop are we able to salvage this disaster and have some misleadingly call it a "power restoration" tool.

Which leads me to Hands of Healing, and why that's weak.

As it was explained to me in pre-RoI days, the reason why Leader of Men was chosen over Hands of Healing was a mix of proto-Fellowship Brother (before Shield Brother: To Arms became Blade Brother: To Arms), 6 second Rally Cry, and proto-Fellowship Brother: Inspire being roughly equivalent to VS HoT. The raid leaders figured out that by slightly weakening the overall captain heals, and removing a HoT from their tank, they could improve group DPS, make everyone slightly easier to heal, and we got told "trait this". Or at least, that's how I remember it.

This was the first case where group buffs >>>>>> captain's abilities - and it also highlights one of the problems with Song Brother - outside of power restore, it's largely useless to most of the members of the group, so a Hands of Healing build is strongly discouraged from running with a Brother Skill that would increase their healing by an average of +6% or so, in favor of one that will improve group survivability or group DPS. And 6% is an estimation of normalizing Song Brother: To Arms and combining that with the other captain healing percentages is somewhat accurate, to better illustrate how much impact you'd really see.

For Hands of Healing to be restored to where it should be, Hands of Healing needs to be able to run Song Brother as often as Lead the Charge runs Blade Brother and Leader of Men runs Shield Brother. Hands of Healing absolutely needs to widen the gap between it's healing and Lead the Charge's healing - if Lead the Charge is roughly twice as much (if not more) DPS than Hands of Healing's DPS, then Hands of Healing needs to be healing roughly twice as much (if not more) than Lead the Charge's Healing.

That means that Hands of Healing needs the following changes:

• Rally Cry is ungated. This is effectively true in Lead the Charge thanks to the usual 25%+ melee crit chance, and it also gives Hands of Healing symmetry with the other Capstones and ungated defeat responses.
• Song Brother needs to drop -5% Healing Threat and replace it with +Tactical Mastery, which opens up the possibility of putting Song Brother on a tank - something extremely useful if a captain is running without Fellowship Brother.
• Song Brother: Strength of Will needs to be scrapped, and replaced with something that is appealing to most of the group. Someone suggested +5% critical chance.

Some links for us to ignore and dead horses to beat:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...t=song+brother

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...t=song+brother

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-Brainstorming

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Song Brother needs to drop -5% Healing Threat and replace it with +Tactical Mastery, which opens up the possibility of putting Song Brother on a tank - something extremely useful if a captain is running without Fellowship Brother.

Any healer worth their salt has full tact mastery already for max healing. So if the goal is to have people actually use this on a healer, I don't think +tmast is going to work. It'd have to be straight +outgoing healing% ... Just like To Arms.

I suppose it might still be useful to have +tmast for those pug mini's with ###### gear.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Song Brother: Strength of Will needs to be scrapped, and replaced with something that is appealing to most of the group. Someone suggested +5% critical chance.

Just changing it to -power costs, instead of heal power costs, might be reasonable. Critical chance... Would start infringing on blade brother. How about healing crit magnitude? At least we know that stat still exists, since it's on RO.

Bottom line for song bro... As long as shield brother has +20% incoming healing for the tank, it's going to be nigh impossible for Song Brother to beat it in amount of healing done. i suppose if it was changed to +5% or +10% i might change my opinion, but i have no desire to see nerfs to shield bro. I've already listed the situations where song bro's useful. I don't see how your changes would change those one bit.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Therefore, Song Brother is a complete failure as a healing tool - and only by polishing this piece of poop are we able to salvage this disaster and have some misleadingly call it a "power restoration" tool.

I don't see how it's misleading. It restores power at an amazing rate. Seriously... It's better than a lore-master. As they have to spend 30s sucking power when they run out. Still a niche skill though.

If it was me I'd be tempted to make it something of a middle ground between the survivability of shield brother and the damage output of blade brother, it seems you'd be hard pressed to make song brother superior for straight healing while +20% incoming healing on SB exists. So I'd make it a healing/buffing toggle, and give it class specific buffs of "to arms" and "strength of will", similar to the Minstrels Call to Greatness and Song of Aid.

I still think it is thematically appropriate.

Originally Posted by DuneBug

Any healer worth their salt has full tact mastery already for max healing. So if the goal is to have people actually use this on a healer, I don't think +tmast is going to work. It'd have to be straight +outgoing healing% ... Just like To Arms.

I suppose it might still be useful to have +tmast for those pug mini's with ###### gear.

Ok, what about healing crit magnitude?

Originally Posted by DuneBug

Just changing it to -power costs, instead of heal power costs, might be reasonable. Critical chance... Would start infringing on blade brother. How about healing crit magnitude? At least we know that stat still exists, since it's on RO.

Bottom line for song bro... As long as shield brother has +20% incoming healing for the tank, it's going to be nigh impossible for Song Brother to beat it in amount of healing done. i suppose if it was changed to +5% or +10% i might change my opinion, but i have no desire to see nerfs to shield bro. I've already listed the situations where song bro's useful. I don't see how your changes would change those one bit.

Song Brother needs to be something to put on more than a mini if it is ever going to see the amount of play needed to justify it's mentioning on the HoH capstone.

Originally Posted by DuneBug

I don't see how it's misleading. It restores power at an amazing rate. Seriously... It's better than a lore-master. As they have to spend 30s sucking power when they run out. Still a niche skill though.

It's misleading because it's not the best Brother skill for healing, yet it's on the HoH capstone as the self bro skill.

If the point of the self brother was to get the captain to use the brother skill all the time while in that capstone, shouldn't Song Brother be worth using **ALL** the time?

Originally Posted by 00CloughRN

If it was me I'd be tempted to make it something of a middle ground between the survivability of shield brother and the damage output of blade brother, it seems you'd be hard pressed to make song brother superior for straight healing while +20% incoming healing on SB exists. So I'd make it a healing/buffing toggle, and give it class specific buffs of "to arms" and "strength of will", similar to the Minstrels Call to Greatness and Song of Aid.

I still think it is thematically appropriate.

I like it.

Can you elaborate a bit on it?

Originally Posted by DuneBug

.

I don't see how it's misleading. It restores power at an amazing rate. Seriously... It's better than a lore-master. .

This pretty much sums up the whole debate.

People just need to stop looking at Song Brother as the way they "think" it should be and instead look at it for what it really is.

If you accept that it's a skill to restore power instead of a skill to maximize healing, you won't have any problems with it.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

This pretty much sums up the whole debate.

People just need to stop looking at Song Brother as the way they "think" it should be and instead look at it for what it really is.

If you accept that it's a skill to restore power instead of a skill to maximize healing, you won't have any problems with it.

That's like saying you should accept a BMW that's been sitting at the bottom of a lake for a while, because it's a BMW and is totally awesome.

Nevermind that you can't actually use it for what it's intended for, so you turn it into a flower garden in your front yard instead and brag about how it covers the flowers.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Ok, what about healing crit magnitude?
Song Brother needs to be something to put on more than a mini if it is ever going to see the amount of play needed to justify it's mentioning on the HoH capstone.

no. it doesn't.

dps, healer, tank. the trinity; blade, song, shield. This at least is a clear point of their design.
We don't blade bro tanks, we don't shield bro dps.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

If the point of the self brother was to get the captain to use the brother skill all the time while in that capstone, shouldn't Song Brother be worth using **ALL** the time?

Have we not already established that the skill is not designed very well? You're just repeating yourself.

However, there's virtually nothing you can do to make it the optimal healing skill unless you change shield brother.
Damage Reduction > Incoming healing > Outgoing healing.

Originally Posted by DuneBug

no. it doesn't.

dps, healer, tank. the trinity; blade, song, shield. This at least is a clear point of their design.
We don't blade bro tanks, we don't shield bro dps.

But that's the problem of it.... the healer's don't need help. Arguably, they never have.

What if it went something like:
Shield: Tank
Blade: Physical
Song: Tactical

I'll start off by saying Shield Brother tends to overshadow Song Bro in the healing department (an exception: Lightning T2C'd with two wardens in the same group [for better aggro swapping] twice, and Song Bro on mini there was optimal).

Originally Posted by DuneBug

Damage Reduction > Incoming healing > Outgoing healing.

Thats right. So if the first two are covered by Shield, what can be done for Song?

Song Bro is kinda ok as a whole. The SoW is pretty goofy and I'd like to see that reworked. But the To Arms is great. Check it:

Blade Bro To Arms benefits group DPS (DPS classes > support > tank > healer in that order. The healer's contribution in a raid will be tiny so do we really care there?) So 3, maybe 4 people that we really care about get the offensive buffs.
Song Bro To Arms benefits group HPS. Thats the healers, us, Wardens (huge deal, warden self heals), and eh I suppose LMs. Thats 2-3 people of six that we care about getting healing benefits.
Shield Bro is nice for everyone in AOE fights, which from what I've seen (Lightining, F&F, T1 Saruman) is prevalent. So we care about everyone getting that buff... in those AoE fights.

If you discount its power restore with inspire(which is so good), song brother may look less useful than blade or shield. But it ain't bad... its just kinda OK--for the majority of situations.

-------

One thing I don't get is how we take the full benefits of a brother skill to be a big factor in deciding the worth of a particular traitline. Use ShBro in red if the situation calls for it, and BladeBro traited blue, if you feel you ought to. Be flexible. The self benefits from Full X-bro are worth giving up in a lot of situations.

The variation I would really like (though I have no idea if it's doable coding-wise) is this:

While you have a Capstone traited, you get that traitlines associated Brother effects on you, no matter what x-Brother skill you're using on another fellowship member.

Example: I'm the only tank, I'm traited LoM. I throw Blade Brother on a DPS-player, and when I use To Arms my BB-target gets To Arms (Blade Brother) while I get the full effect of To Arms (Shield Brother).

This would allow us to get the Brother effects the Captain have most use for, independently of also giving the Brother targer the effect he/she has most use for.

I tend to agree with DuneBug. I'm fine with Song Brother being a highly situational skill of lesser importance than some of our other skills. We have plenty of skills that don't see use too often.

The problem is that as a feature of the HoH captstone trait, Song Brother is not nearly as useful as Shield Brother is to the LoM trait or as Blade Brother is to the Master of War trait. If Hands of Healing were buffed somewhat, it wouldn't matter as much if we didn't get the full benefit of a useful x-Brother buff.

I personally use Song brother while raiding, especially for long fights. Healer doesn't run out of power and I can increase his healing output in a pinch.

Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

One thing I don't get is how we take the full benefits of a brother skill to be a big factor in deciding the worth of a particular traitline. Use ShBro in red if the situation calls for it, and BladeBro traited blue, if you feel you ought to. Be flexible. The self benefits from Full X-bro are worth giving up in a lot of situations.

Really, the problem in HoH isn't the use of the other XBros, it's the complete lack of a Self Bro because Shield so badly overshadows Song. That lack of a Self Bro cause HoH to heal less than it should for most skills.

I mean, what's the point of having Song Brother referenced on the HoH capstone if it's not the brother skill that's the best for healing?

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Really, the problem in HoH isn't the use of the other XBros, it's the complete lack of a Self Bro because Shield so badly overshadows Song. That lack of a Self Bro cause HoH to heal less than it should for most skills.

I mean, what's the point of having Song Brother referenced on the HoH capstone if it's not the brother skill that's the best for healing?

Again Almagnus, Shield Brother does not overshadow Song Brother.

Song Brother is far far superior to Shield Brother as a means to restore power. The only reason you think it overshadows Song Brother is because you incorrectly view Song Brother as a primary healing-tool. It's not. It's a POWER TOOL. And it's "point" is to allow us to restore power to others when they need it with HoH Captains having the useful option of being able to do it to ourselves as well. It makes perfect sense.

Omen is right. You are over-emphasizing the self-target feature on the capstone. It's just one single little aspect of our trait that is meant to provide a unique little advantage to each traitline. It wasn't meant to become the new foundation of our class and encourage us into using only a single brother skill.

As I've said to you before, just let go of your prejudices regarding the skill as I did and learn to appreciate it and use it for what it is. It's an adjustment well worth taking. I know that from experience, because like I just said, I used to be right where you are now.

Originally Posted by Uron

I personally use Song brother while raiding, especially for long fights. Healer doesn't run out of power and I can increase his healing output in a pinch.

Yeah it's great for long fights - or for helping the healer recover after a particular nasty amount of damage that emptied out their power pool. It's also interesting to use on a Loremaster who's power sharing. I did that the other day, and the loremaster seemed to like it lol

Frankly, it's just a great skill.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

As I've said to you before, just let go of your prejudices regarding the skill as I did and learn to appreciate it and use it for what it is.

While I may use it, I will not accept brokenness and mediocrity in our class, and strive to have such broken things fixed.

Song Brother is a complete and total mess, and Stength of Will, To Arms, and Inspire need to be aimed at either power regeneration or healing (or both).

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

While I may use it, I will not accept brokenness and mediocrity in our class, and strive to have such broken things fixed.

Song Brother is a complete and total mess, and Stength of Will, To Arms, and Inspire need to be aimed at either power regeneration or healing (or both).

It's not broken, and it's not mediocre though.

It's nothing short of awesome at restoring power. So what if The To Arms buff and Strength of Will buff don't all do the same thing. Providing a variety of buffs doesn't hurt anything, as long as it remains useful.

Besides, by that logic Shield Brother is a "complete and total mess' as well because it provides a variety buffs also. Same can be said of Blade Brother, which provides a mixture of buffs too. None of the brother skills do all of one thing or all of the other.

Like I said, instead of trying to talk yourself into hating the skill over silly reasons, if you would just accept the skill for what it is you would learn to like it a lot more. And besides, just the fact you admit you "use it" proves it's not really as broken as you make out. That's the whole point behind the word "broken" afterall. Means it don't work no more, and you wouldn't want to "use" something if it was so "broken" like you say.

Here's a thought, what if the legacy is pulled, and the 4 set bonus for HOH gave +healing to all of the SoW's, Shield Bro: SoW goes to +5% staciking BPE, and Song Bro: SoW goes to either +5% incoming healing, or -5% (All) Power Costs?

There could be another 4 set bonus for LoM and LtC as well, so they have something comparable.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Besides, by that logic Shield Brother is a "complete and total mess' as well because it provides a variety buffs also. Same can be said of Blade Brother, which provides a mixture of buffs too. None of the brother skills do all of one thing or all of the other.

Let me quote myself so we have a frame of reference:

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

	Brother Skill	Strength of Will	To Arms	Inspire	Capstone
Blade	+ICMR, +Crit	-5% Attack Duration	+25% Damage	Minor HoT/PoT	LtC
Shield	+ICMR, +Crit Defence	+20% Incoming Healing	-15% Damage	Strong HoT	LoM
Song	+ICPR, -5% Healing Threat	-10% Healing Skills Power Cost	+25% Healing	Strong PoT	HoH

From examing the skills:

Shield:
Assertion: Designed for tanking
Buff: Crit Defence is a tanking stat, ICMR helps a bit with morale regen.
SoW: Makes tank easier to heal
Inspire: Reduces of the healing load on the tank
To Arms: Reduces the damage the tank takes.

Blade:
Assertion: Designed for DPS
Buff: Increased Crit = More DPS, ICMR because a dead DPSer does 0 DPS.
SoW: By decreasing attack duration, generates more DPS by increasing attacks per minute
Inspire: PoT enables a DPSer to use more power intensive skills than they would normally, HoT because a dead DPSer does 0 DPS.
To Arms: +Damage = +DPS

Song:
Assertion: Designed for Healing
Buff: ICPR helps healer push through helaing, -healing Threat allows healer to spam heals more often
SoW: Allows healer to heal for longer periods of time without running out of power
Inspire: PoT enables the healer to use the most power intensive heals to crank out the healing
To Arms: +Healing = +HPS

On paper, they all look like they should benefit each of piece of the trinity, in practice - however - Only Inspire from Song is desired, and Shield is the better healing tool.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Here's a thought, what if the legacy is pulled, and the 4 set bonus for HOH gave +healing to all of the SoW's, Shield Bro: SoW goes to +5% staciking BPE, and Song Bro: SoW goes to either +5% incoming healing, or -5% (All) Power Costs?

There could be another 4 set bonus for LoM and LtC as well, so they have something comparable.



Let me quote myself so we have a frame of reference:



From examing the skills:

Shield:
Assertion: Designed for tanking
Buff: Crit Defence is a tanking stat, ICMR helps a bit with morale regen.
SoW: Makes tank easier to heal
Inspire: Reduces of the healing load on the tank
To Arms: Reduces the damage the tank takes.

Blade:
Assertion: Designed for DPS
Buff: Increased Crit = More DPS, ICMR because a dead DPSer does 0 DPS.
SoW: By decreasing attack duration, generates more DPS by increasing attacks per minute
Inspire: PoT enables a DPSer to use more power intensive skills than they would normally, HoT because a dead DPSer does 0 DPS.
To Arms: +Damage = +DPS

Song:
Assertion: Designed for Healing
Buff: ICPR helps healer push through helaing, -healing Threat allows healer to spam heals more often
SoW: Allows healer to heal for longer periods of time without running out of power
Inspire: PoT enables the healer to use the most power intensive heals to crank out the healing
To Arms: +Healing = +HPS

On paper, they all look like they should benefit each of piece of the trinity, in practice - however - Only Inspire from Song is desired, and Shield is the better healing tool.

Most of that logic you use to justify the variety of buffs on the other Brother Skills could be used for Song Brother as well.

For example: Just as you say the healing over time effect Blade Brother gives helps keeps a DPSer alive so he can do DPS therefore it makes sense - I could turn that around and say the Power Regen on Inspire from Song Brother helps keep the healer with power so they can heal so that makes sense also.

And let's just be honest here, you are really starting to stretch this now if your new argument is Healing abilites can now be considered offensive abilities because they help keep DPSers alive, therefore the HoT from Blade Brother is somehow more justified than the PoT from Song Brother. That's really reaching Almagnus.

Truth is all of the Brother Skills give a variety of buffs that contribute in different ways. None of them are focused entirely on one thing or the other. And you can't logically argue Song Brother is "broken" and a "complete mess" because it gives a Power-over-time effect instead of a direct healing buff yet claim Blade Brother is just fine when it gives a Moral over time effect as well, which is not a direct offensive buff.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Most of that logic you use to justify the variety of buffs on the other Brother Skills could be used for Song Brother as well.

For example: Just as you say the healing over time effect Blade Brother gives helps keeps a DPSer alive so he can do DPS therefore it makes sense - I could turn that around and say the Power Regen on Inspire from Song Brother helps keep the healer with power so they can heal so that makes sense also.

And let's just be honest here, you are really starting to stretch this now if your new argument is Healing abilites can now be considered offensive abilities because they help keep DPSers alive, therefore the HoT from Blade Brother is somehow more justified than the PoT from Song Brother. That's really reaching Almagnus.

Truth is all of the Brother Skills give a variety of buffs that contribute in different ways. None of them are focused entirely on one thing or the other. And you can't logically argue Song Brother is "broken" and a "complete mess" because it gives a Power-over-time effect instead of a direct healing buff yet claim Blade Brother is just fine when it gives a Moral over time effect as well, which is not a direct offensive buff.

Tell me, what's the risk of increasing a DPSer's DPS?

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Tell me, what's the risk of increasing a DPSer's DPS?

Again, I could turn that around and ask what is the risk to a Captain increasing how often they are having to heal others?

It drains their power more.

Either way, if you are going to justify the morale over time effect Blade Brother gives because it may be of help to a DPSer if they pull aggro and take damage - by that same logic you have to justify the Power Regen Song Brother gives because having to heal people more will use up more power.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Again, I could turn that around and ask what is the risk to a Captain increasing how often they are having to heal others?

It drains their power more.

Either way, if you are going to justify the morale over time effect Blade Brother gives because it may be of help to a DPSer if they pull aggro and take damage - by that same logic you have to justify the Power Regen Song Brother gives because having to heal people more will use up more power.

Wrong, by increasing the DPS of a DPSer, you risk the likelyhood that they will pull agro - which is why there's a healing component to Blade Bro.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Wrong, by increasing the DPS of a DPSer, you risk the likelyhood that they will pull agro - which is why there's a healing component to Blade Bro.

I know what you was saying. Reread my post - that's exactly what I said lol

Originally Posted by Jeremi

I know what you was saying. Reread my post - that's exactly what I said lol

**chews on foot**

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Either way, if you are going to justify the morale over time effect Blade Brother gives because it may be of help to a DPSer if they pull aggro and take damage - by that same logic you have to justify the Power Regen Song Brother gives because having to heal people more will use up more power.

Why would I want to axe power regen on Song Brother? I want Turbine to fix Song Brother so it becomes the obvious choice for healing.

So Shield Brother should get a minor PoT, while Song Brother gets a major HoT, giving all of the XBros a HoT/PoT, and making Song Brother's the strongest and Blade Brother's the weakest.

This would also fix LoM tank power issues, since they can't afford to stack fate/ICPR or else they risk going **SQUISH**

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Wrong, by increasing the DPS of a DPSer, you risk the likelyhood that they will pull agro - which is why there's a healing component to Blade Bro.

That's quite the assumption.Then why does it restore power?
As if blade bro healing could keep up any dps class after pulilng agro.

Virtually every dps class would prefer they had the full PoT effect from song brother instead of the minor bb HoT. The one exception might be champions in Continuous Blood Rage.

But Don't get me wrong... Blade bro is fine as is. DPs take minor aoe's sometimes and bb can help top them up.
Its design was pretty clear, btw. Inspire was a healing skill before.

Tanks kept it as is, because tank's need health.
Healers don't need health, but need power. Thus song bro inspire.
DPS often needs both. Voila

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Why would I want to axe power regen on Song Brother? I want Turbine to fix Song Brother so it becomes the obvious choice for healing.

So Shield Brother should get a minor PoT, while Song Brother gets a major HoT, giving all of the XBros a HoT/PoT, and making Song Brother's the strongest and Blade Brother's the weakest.

This would also fix LoM tank power issues, since they can't afford to stack fate/ICPR or else they risk going **SQUISH**

I never said you wanted to "axe" it.

I said you can't logically justify the Morale/Power regen Blade Brother gives while at the same time calling Song Brother "broken" and a "complete mess" because it has a similiar component. It doesn't make any sense.

And yes - I know you think Song Brother should replace Shield Brother as the best morale restoration tool. You've made that very clear lol But like I've tried to explain to you - just because you have a theory about the way Song Brother should have been - doesn't mean the way it is now is somehow "broken" or a "complete mess" because it isn't.

Song Brother has its uses, and does compliment a healer in its own way by giving them a very effective power-regen tool to fall back on when nessassary. The fact it has a variety of other buffs and doesn't follow the exact same pattern can be said of all our Brother Skills.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

I did "elaborate". I've been "elaborating" the last 3 posts lol

And if anything isn't "adding" to the conversation it was deffinitely this last post of your's. So may wanna take your own advice.

And while it's very tempting to respond meanly here (as you deserve) - I'll play nice and just report this in the interest of maintaining forum decorum

Just to sum up the conversation:
A1: It's a broken healing tool **reasoning**
J: no, it's a power tool

while(true)
{
A1: Why?
J: 'cause it is
}

// you do realize that saying you're reporting someone is a form of trolling, right?

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Just to sum up the conversation:
A1: It's a broken healing tool **reasoning**
J: no, it's a power tool

while(true)
{
A1: Why?
J: 'cause it is
}

// you do realize that saying you're reporting someone is a form of trolling, right?

I let you know when I report your posts so you know when you cross the line with me. I don't do it as a form of "trolling". And if anything was "trolling" it was that last post you directed at me anyways. I was having a perfectly civil debate with you up to that point.

And again - just because it is a "power-tool" doesn't mean it can't effectively assist the healing line.

Power is very useful to a healer. That's where your logic falls apart - by thinking just because it's an effective power-tool that somehow disqualifies it from being associated with the Hands of Healing trait line. It doesn't.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

And again - just because it is a "power-tool" doesn't mean it can't effectively assist the healing line.

Power is very useful to a healer. That's where your logic falls apart - by thinking just because it's an effective power-tool that somehow disqualifies it from being associated with the Hands of Healing trait line. It doesn't.

But that's the downside of Song Brother, it's supposed to be a great healer's tool, but none of the healers actually need/want it.

In ToO T2 HM, most of the group is (generally) better served by going Blade Brother.

If Shield Brother is better for focused tank healing than Song Brother, which of the two is better for group/aoe healing? Still Shield? or is it Song? Also consider the variable of what kind of tank you have, Guard, Warden (or other).

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

But that's the downside of Song Brother, it's supposed to be a great healer's tool, but none of the healers actually need/want it.
.

And that's where I think you're wrong.

It IS a healer's tool, because being able to rapdidly regenerate your power when needed is very useful to a healer. And I can't count the number of times other healers have asked me to use Song Brother on them. So trust me - a lot of healer's out there do "want" it.

Besides, an argument could easily be made that the PoT effect from Song Brother's Inspire is far more useful as a self-targetable tool for HoH Captains than would be the HoT effect from Shield Brother's Inspire. So it even makes more sense as to why it's attached to the HoH line in that context.

To put it shortly -as a HoH Captain - if I had to choose rather or not I had the option to use Song Brother's Inspire on myself or Shield Brother's Inspire on myself, I would choose Song Brother's. Being able to rapdily regenerate my power is more valuable to me than being able to place a healing over time effect on myself, since I'm a healer and rarely taking the brunt of serious damage.

Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

If Shield Brother is better for focused tank healing than Song Brother, which of the two is better for group/aoe healing? Still Shield? or is it Song? Also consider the variable of what kind of tank you have, Guard, Warden (or other).

IMO, Shield.

Not only are you reducing damage with To Arms, but you are also increasing healing potency with Strength of Will, and Inspire is a HoT, in addition to everything else you have. You pay for it in power, though.

For Song, sure you have +25% healing on To Arms, but you lose the HoT (and gain a PoT), Strength of Will is utterly worthless on a non-healer (although it might be useful on the tank's healing skills). Warden tanks would likely benefit from the increase healing, however, with -healing threat on the Brother Skill, I would be really hesitant to give them Song Brother (even though they could benefit from most of the buffs).

As I've said before, both Inspires need to be HoT/PoT Inspires, like Blade Brother's - it would solve one of the big beefs with Song Brother (no HoT), and also fix LoM power issues.

[6/27/12: Shoot, I accidentally posted something else over this when I was trying to copy/paste take a quote from myself. Luckily I can retrieve previous versions and restore the old text]

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

IMO, Shield.

Not only are you reducing damage with To Arms, but you are also increasing healing potency with Strength of Will, and Inspire is a HoT, in addition to everything else you have. You pay for it in power, though.

For Song, sure you have +25% healing on To Arms, but you lose the HoT (and gain a PoT), Strength of Will is utterly worthless on a non-healer (although it might be useful on the tank's healing skills). Warden tanks would likely benefit from the increase healing, however, with -healing threat on the Brother Skill, I would be really hesitant to give them Song Brother (even though they could benefit from most of the buffs).

As I've said before, both Inspires need to be HoT/PoT Inspires, like Blade Brother's - it would solve one of the big beefs with Song Brother (no HoT), and also fix LoM power issues.

Yeah I think you're right. Just a little guesswork and calculator punching here, nothing solid, but here goes:

The +12.5% OGH over a minute to the healer and captain (lets say HoH captain [with tact prowess]) (we can reasonably assume these two create the majority of the non-tank heals) is probably a little better than the +4% inc healing and -2.5% (minute average) less damage to the group. But not by much at all (even factoring in the fact that +12.5% OGH on a 50% OGH mini is a relative 8.33% increase to his heals instead of 12.5%). Some back-of-the-napkin calculations make me figure the inspire HoT means more group heals (non tank heals as I define it here) from Shield, as you say. If the capt is not HoH, it oughta shift further to Shield. The absence of Tact Prowess (5r/2b build) would favor Shield more as well. {EDIT: Lower OGH on those healing is one factor makes Song look more effective. The crux of it all is by what % does ShBro inspire increase group heals when added to RC, Inspire Fellows, Chord of Salvation, maybe VS and maybe Conviction. I did a little guesswork there}Thank the devs that Song has power, right?

I'd still suggest Song over Shield for a Lightning T2C fight with two wardens aggro swapping (which practically necessitates they're in the same group to leech off each other). Song on the healer in that group, and the +5% OGH (minute avg) to the dual wardens makes the buffs nice and even (bro swapping from tank #1 to tank #2 is impractical in that situation). Also, more power = fewer DbD's. Fewer DbD's = more threat gambits or heal gambits or buff gambits. Aggression is a hell of a power user.

Originally Posted by Omen_Kaizer

I'd still suggest Song over Shield for a Lightning T2C fight with two wardens aggro swapping (which practically necessitates they're in the same group to leech off each other). Song on the healer in that group, and the +5% OGH (minute avg) to the dual wardens makes the buffs nice and even (bro swapping from tank #1 to tank #2 is impractical in that situation). Also, more power = fewer DbD's. Fewer DbD's = more threat gambits or heal gambits or buff gambits. Aggression is a hell of a power user.

Only way I've seen Lighting T2 HM involves a tremendous amount of DPS, and the fight lasting one, maybe two, raid hops. I've never seen the agro swapping in T2 HM.

How well would Blade Brother work with that strategy, as a replacement to Song/Shield?

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Only way I've seen Lighting T2 HM involves a tremendous amount of DPS, and the fight lasting one, maybe two, raid hops. I've never seen the agro swapping in T2 HM.

How well would Blade Brother work with that strategy, as a replacement to Song/Shield?

Fight's a only a DPS race at the last 3rd of his health (when basically everything is lit up). Til then every other source of group damage is mitigated by good tactics (grouping for lights, running for chain lightning, swapping/moving for static). So Blade-bro works just fine in there. We swap 'cause there's less room for error there, its more forgivable if your tanks can handle the aggro mechanics. Single tanking is probably more efficient; see with a guard you can get your positioning down such that he stands between 2.5 and 3 m from the boss [max range leg] and the dps stands 2.5 m away on the opposite side. Boss is 5m across and static shock is 10m from origin (tank). That means melee dps and guard never move. No one loses positioning, melee dps never has to move and slow down. But we go double tank and it just happened to be wardens most of the time.

I always felt that Song-Bro fits better with LoM capstone - As the tank I want my healer to be better. In Yellows I have power problems so PoT is more useful and -power costs on healing skills works well with that.

I always felt that Shield-Bro fits better with HoH - As a healer I want more tools to protect my fs, reduce the damage they take and increase the efficacy of my heals (i.e. they need to fill in smaller gaps in morale bars). I will have another HoT running on the Group and I will be very good at protecting my Tank.

The solution seems so bleeding obvious to me but some of you may disagree.

It is not the skills that are bad or broken per se. It is the Capstone association. And I know I can use whatever xBro with any build but read capstone descriptions to see what I mean.

Originally Posted by Ravenstride

I always felt that Song-Bro fits better with LoM capstone - As the tank I want my healer to be better. In Yellows I have power problems so PoT is more useful and -power costs on healing skills works well with that.

I always felt that Shield-Bro fits better with HoH - As a healer I want more tools to protect my fs, reduce the damage they take and increase the efficacy of my heals (i.e. they need to fill in smaller gaps in morale bars). I will have another HoT running on the Group and I will be very good at protecting my Tank.

The solution seems so bleeding obvious to me but some of you may disagree.

It is not the skills that are bad or broken per se. It is the Capstone association. And I know I can use whatever xBro with any build but read capstone descriptions to see what I mean.

I disagree, so the capstone allows you to fully reflect the benefits of the xbro on yourself.

Lets look at all 4 cases.
LoM traited with Song on capstone. Threat from Healing - detrimental I want threat, Outgoing Healing - pretty pointless, you use few healing skills, Reduced P-C from healing skills - again not a huge proportion of your rotation. PoT - yes it is useful.

LoM with Shield on capstone. Crit Defence - Fantastic. +20% Incoming Healing - Fantastic, -15% Damage - Fantastic, HoT - Good, and only if there was no LM would I prefer the PoT, but if anyone needs a HoT it's you.

HoH traited with Shield on Capstone. Crit Defence, +20% Incoming Healing, -15% Damage - Fantastic, HoT These are all clearly geared to someone taking damage, which as your healing you shouldn't be.

HoH traited with Song on Capstone. Threat from Healing - good, Outgoing Healing - great, Reduced P-C from healing skills - great. PoT - great.

It's pretty clear that to improve your ability to fulfil a role is best suited to the current set up. The question you need to ask is which is better 1 tank getting full shield brother, or 2 healers getting song. If you were going to make any change to the capstone it would be you get the current associated regardless of which brother toggle you actually have active.

Edit. I re-read Ravenstride's post, you are aware that the capstone only gives the full benefits to you not the whole fellowship, as in all honest that misapprehension would be the only way your post makes sense to me...