What are your opinions on Res abilities

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Are they a waste of a power pick as nobody waits for the healer to res they just click right away?

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Absolutely a Waste. The only one worth even mild consideration is rebirth.

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My main's a healer/support character.

I've had Redemption on my bar since I hit 40.

I hate rez powers and think they're a useless power tax that needs to be gotten rid of. They penalize healers for wanting to support their party by shackling them to a power that's useless 90% of the time. And if they don't take the power, their party's screwed in a lockout fight.

Rez powers need to be removed from the game and their functionality needs to be replaced by targeted heal-other powers.

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My main's a healer/support character.

I've had Redemption on my bar since I hit 40.

I hate rez powers and think they're a useless power tax that needs to be gotten rid of. They penalize healers for wanting to support their party by shackling them to a power that's useless 90% of the time. And if they don't take the power, their party's screwed in a lockout fight.

Rez powers need to be removed from the game and their functionality needs to be replaced by targeted heal-other powers.

I have to agree with this whole heartedly

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On the rare occasion I bother to run Therakiel's Temple or such, having a rez is handy (once people get it through their heads that they should not release during a boss fight because I have a rez and they can't get back in...). The rest of the time, it is totally useless. I pretty much agree with Dr. Sage; rezzes either need some additional functionality (the Sorcery self-rez circle seems to be an attempt at this lately), or they need to be rolled into other more useful powers.

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My main's a healer/support character.

I've had Redemption on my bar since I hit 40.

I hate rez powers and think they're a useless power tax that needs to be gotten rid of. They penalize healers for wanting to support their party by shackling them to a power that's useless 90% of the time. And if they don't take the power, their party's screwed in a lockout fight.

Rez powers need to be removed from the game and their functionality needs to be replaced by targeted heal-other powers.

Not to mention, res abilities no use unless someone makes a mistake, or in the case of CO a number of mistakes in succession. I mean, a healing ability is always useful because someone is always going to be taking damage, even if it's still reactive. Shields and defense boosters of various types can be used proactively to get away with stuff you normally couldn't.

Resurrects on the other hand, are only useful in the event someone dies, which typically means someone has to be taking more damage than they're capable of soaking up, the healer has to fail to heal them and they have to fail to block when they get low on health, allowing the healer to get around to them. Having a bad build also can contribute to this, as lacking some defensive options is a problem.

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Well, I am pretty glad to have my rebirth (and rez-others on my healer), and I would definitely like them to stay.
Just don't pick the power if you don't like them, why remove them?

Any boss-lockout fight you wiped in, you got 2 choices: wait 20 minutes outside for the others to finish it without you, or they all wipe and yay! start all over again...

Sorry, you might not need them, but I do.
Please, allow me to have the chance to play how I see fit.
Yes to the choice of taking them or not.
No to plain removal.

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Well, I am pretty glad to have my rebirth (and rez-others on my healer), and I would definitely like them to stay.
Just don't pick the power if you don't like them, why remove them?

Any boss-lockout fight you wiped in, you got 2 choices: wait 20 minutes outside for the others to finish it without you, or they all wipe and yay! start all over again...

Sorry, you might not need them, but I do.
Please, allow me to have the chance to play how I see fit.
Yes to the choice of taking them or not.
No to plain removal.
agree with this. If you let the team know you have rez for them, and they still don't wait for you, it is a player problem, not a power problem. Please don't take my choice of having a team rez away.

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Actually, the more I think about it, conceptually.. defeated heroes aren't dead. They're defeated. There's absolutely no reason why they can't simply be healed back into a fight.

To remove the 'tax' as Sage suggested, just bake resurrection into heals. Consider the superhero tropes.. Heroes that heal are easily able to get anyone back into a fight, even if they appear to have lethal injuries.

Resurrection should apply to any actual heals (not shields, hots, or probably aoe heals.. only single target direct heals)

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Actually, the more I think about it, conceptually.. defeated heroes aren't dead. They're defeated. There's absolutely no reason why they can't simply be healed back into a fight.

To remove the 'tax' as Sage suggested, just bake resurrection into heals. Consider the superhero tropes.. Heroes that heal are easily able to get anyone back into a fight, even if they appear to have lethal injuries.

Resurrection should apply to any actual heals (not shields, hots, or probably aoe heals.. only single target direct heals)
I know Cryptic doesn't like being compared to other games...
But considering their level of interaction with these Forums atm...
Well whatever, here goes:
Guild Wars 2 has a neat system for handling resurrection.
You get incapacitated?
New skill bar, 4 skills based on your profession: 1 to attack (with vastly lower damage), 1 to self heal (veeeery slow), 1 to play dead / move away / go invisible (iow: prevent the enemy for giving your the coup-de-grâce), and 1 to call for help (basically waiting for another player to heal you back).

Possible outcomes:
* You manage to kill the enemy somehow: you get back up with 1/2 life.
* Another player healed you: you come back full life.
* Mob gets you: go to respawn.

Simple, active, efficient, fits the theme, can be RPed.
I simply don't see any downside...

But that'd be implementing something brand new.
As it stands, we have a working system.
Not perfect, but working.

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I know Cryptic doesn't like being compared to other games...
But considering their level of interaction with these Forums atm...
Well whatever, here goes:
Guild Wars 2 has a neat system for handling resurrection.
You get incapacitated?
New skill bar, 4 skills based on your profession: 1 to attack (with vastly lower damage), 1 to self heal (veeeery slow), 1 to play dead / move away / go invisible (iow: prevent the enemy for giving your the coup-de-grâce), and 1 to call for help (basically waiting for another player to heal you back).

Possible outcomes:
* You manage to kill the enemy somehow: you get back up with 1/2 life.
* Another player healed you: you come back full life.
* Mob gets you: go to respawn.

Simple, active, efficient, fits the theme, can be RPed.
I simply don't see any downside...

But that'd be implementing something brand new.
As it stands, we have a working system.
Not perfect, but working.

I don't want to remove the ability to rez other players. I just want to remove specific rez powers.

That way, instead of taking one power that's only used maybe 10% of the time, you take a power that can have use all the time (a targeted heal). You heal someone when they're down, with either a full-charge or a full-maintain, they get back up and are good to go with whatever HP the heal gave them.

This also eliminates the need for anyone wanting to rez someone to have either a bubble or Unbreakable to even stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting the rez off. You just take a targeted heal, something that will have use for both you and others. You won't be able to "infinitely" revive people, as you still have to ensure you're in range of your heal and that you don't get stunned/held/knocked/killed before you get the charge/maintain off.

GW2 is what gave me the idea, but the part that made me think it woiuldn't be that hard to do was a bugged interaction that Sentinel Aura had on the PTS during the testing time for On Alert. At one point, Sentinel Aura's heal ticks were reviving dead teammates. If they can make it so one source of healing can revive teammates by accident, they can make it so other sources of healing can revive teammates on purpose, I'd think.

They fixed it, eventually, but it was a revealing insight.

At the moment, dedicated rez powers serve no purpose that can't be met by targeted heals (if the devs would change the flagging on them to work like the Sentinel Aura bug), and they're useless unless you're in one of the very few lockout fights. Healers are already penalized enough by *gasp* actually wanting to help other players at the cost of their own power, why make it worse with a power tax?

This would also help out the Mind and the Grimoire in their support roles (and you could probably do something for the Inventor involving Medical Nanites ticks).

Alternatively, they could spend time giving the Rez powers unique functions to be not-useless when they aren't being used to rez, but simply changing the flagging on targeted heals would be simpler.

My proposal doesn't even require removal of the existing rez powers. They're still the only percentage-based heal powers outside of Palliate (as opposed to specs/power side-effects) in the game. So they could add this functionality to targeted heals and leave the existing rez powers in. I doubt anyone outside of people that love them for theme would take them, but that just underscores how bad they are.

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Well, I am pretty glad to have my rebirth (and rez-others on my healer), and I would definitely like them to stay.
Just don't pick the power if you don't like them, why remove them?

Any boss-lockout fight you wiped in, you got 2 choices: wait 20 minutes outside for the others to finish it without you, or they all wipe and yay! start all over again...

Sorry, you might not need them, but I do.
Please, allow me to have the chance to play how I see fit.
Yes to the choice of taking them or not.
No to plain removal.

This^.

I'm not entirely sold on adding the ability to rez to standard heals either because of how Cryptic tends to work power costs. If heals could rez then they'd probably be more energy expensive powers or the ability to rez would be an advantage.

As far as energy goes, if the power was more expensive instead of having a rez that was useless 90% of the time I now have a power that costs more energy 100% of the time. Energy is nigh a non issue for people in support role...but I run everything from hybrid so I'd rather not be forced into this because someone else that doesn't want to use a power point on a rez wanted their heal to be an everything power.

As far as advantages I'd then have to choose between having the strongest heal I could or having a weaker heal 100% of the time that can only rez 10% of time. I prefer having the options I have available right now. I can have a full power heal and a rez if I want right now as long as I invest in it, I don't have to choose one or the other.

This is a freeform game (for golds) so we pick powers that do what we want need. Rez doesn't need to be shoehorned into another power. If it's a tax then good, that means one more meaningful choice we have to make in builds.

Now if they just want to throw rezs on all the heal others without increasing the cost or requiring an advantage then go for it I guess (despite removing one more meaningful choice). One less power to have to pick and no one gets screwed. If it would be done any other way? I'll pass thank you. Not a positive trade off from where I'm standing.

Has anyone spec'd Celestial Conduit so that it's a damage dealing heal power that can apply a moderate shield on a heal as well? If so I'd like a debuff added to it along with the rez and make it a passive. Might as was well throw everything in there at once so I don't have to decide what I can and can't fit in the build. /endpokingfunatsage

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Possible outcomes:
* You manage to kill the enemy somehow: you get back up with 1/2 life.
* Another player healed you: you come back full life.
* Mob gets you: go to respawn.


Or if you are really lucky and patient, a random explorer will stumble upon your body and rez you.

Can't wait for the second beta weekend.

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I personally want rez powers to become a sort of heal powers, like Bionic Shielding. However, make the Tampering not only prevent from healing, but also allow buffed player to self rez.

Rez powers in CO need to be pre-casted things due to the style. Unless Cryptic will make more and more instances like the final boss fight of Resistance, or current unchanged rez powers are just for RPers.

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Okay after reading this my opinion is changing, not because I think res in pugs is any use most people click and respawn before my res can be cast (also have to clear enemies as res'ing someone into sudden death will make you no friends).

The opinion that has changed is maybe I should team more with people who know I can res them and will wait till I can get them back into the fight.

I never wanted the ability to res removed just that the amount its used rather than being a power it could be an advantage to buy on direct heals.

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Yea.. I'm also not convinced that it will demand increased energy costs on heals. It really should just be baked into or bakable (through advantages/specs) into direct heals.

Support characters shouldn't have to blow a power point on a separate skill for resurrection. I don't think it's worth the power point right now, but it certainly merits getting looked at as potential advantage/spec fodder.

The opportunity cost for resurrection for a support character right now is a host of already pretty great choices so I don't think baking it into heals would really harm the choices, more free them up. (hence the 'taxing' element that Sage spoke of). That opportunity cost is also simply too high right now. There's a reason other games are being brought up in this thread, and that's because many of them treat resurrection better.

As Sage says, there's a fundamental event that has to happen right now for a res to be useful. Someone has to make a series of mistakes that lead to their defeat. It's poor game design to have powers for players that rely on their failure. This isn't a matter of saving time between attempts as it is in other games. CO doesn't have the kind of extensive buffing, extensive organization, or instance size relative to player speed in order to justify the need for Res like in other games. Our res is entirely predicated on player failure and the explanation for it's weakness as a power.

Arguably, you could say that had you as a healer taken a different skill, perhaps one that protected your ally proactively, you wouldn't need to res them in combat. As it stands, Res is a reactive skill right now and one that is predicated on the reaction to a failure. That can't hold. There's a reason why all the support guides recommend against Rez in favor of other powers. The opportunity cost is simply too high right now and the alternatives are much more attractive.

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If I were to make a suggestion, and I guess I am, I would say this: Every hero can already help an injured NPC. Say, a prison guard for example. Extend that to players as a sort of basic first aid ability. If you approach an incapacitated hero, you get an interract asking if you want to revive them. But, doing so takes 30 seconds (possibly reduced by a factor of any "heal other" buffs), generates a bunch of threat, and is interruptible. Maybe even make it turn off all your running powers. Leave rez powers as choices for players who want to self-rez or simply have a quicker, safer way to do it.

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But, doing so takes 30 seconds (possibly reduced by a factor of any "heal other" buffs), generates a bunch of threat, and is interruptible.

There's some issues with this.

As fast as things move and attack in this game, how fast they can rip through shields and with several mobs having damage penetration that just ignore shields combining all of these facets together would make that ability nearly impossible to use.

An exception would be that one player would need to be casting shields on the reviving player (who is drawing aggro from the increased threat gen) but thus means instead of one player down and one taken out of the fight to revive (for a total of two players out of action) you now have 3 players out of action (one down, one reviving, and one protecting the reviver who is now pulling mobs with the threat gen). In a situation like that it's more efficient to just leave the defeated player alone and let them either get locked out of fly back to the fight so the team is only down one instead of down 3. A situation like that removes the need for that kind of rez function in the first place.

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That was kind of the point. A free rez that's really dangerous during combat. If you want to do it safely during combat, take a power. I agree it makes sense in the context of the game world to be possible to revive someone without a power, but I think it should be really hard to pull off in the middle of a fight without using a power. It should take a coordinated effort. "Glass Man is down again! Cover me while I break out the super glue!"

Outside of a fight, it should be easy to revive someone though.

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That was kind of the point. A free rez that's really dangerous during combat. If you want to do it safely during combat, take a power. I agree it makes sense in the context of the game world to be possible to revive someone without a power, but I think it should be really hard to pull off in the middle of a fight without using a power. It should take a coordinated effort. "Glass Man is down again! Cover me while I break out the super glue!"

Outside of a fight, it should be easy to revive someone though.

So essentially your idea is a free rez more suited for after a fight is over to save someone from having to fly back from a respawn point?

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Yes. Or from a lockout. More of a "quality of life" suggestion. I think the existing powers are fine as.

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If I had the spare power for my healer I'd take rebirth... but I don't. What I do instead is take some devices (on a temple run). Yes I should know better but the Baron can still be very hard on my veteran healer. Can't heal anybody if you're dead sooo.

Ah other rezzes, yes I take em on healers and if I'm really pushed on other builds (esp squishy range strikers) occaisionally. Theory being the healer may well get dead and it's handy to be able to bring em back in a temple run.

Last run I made with a team I didn't know the main thing they wanted out of me was rez! "CAN YOU REZ?" That was a very hmm specific question!

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Something I've thought about for a long time is giving rez powers the ability to bypass the death penalty. Essentially, if you click to respawn, you lose a star, if you get rezzed you don't.

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So essentially your idea is a free rez more suited for after a fight is over to save someone from having to fly back from a respawn point?

In the current implementation of this game, that's a horrible idea. This game does not need noncombat resurrection whatsoever. Respawn to back into the fight time is usually less than 10 seconds.

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Angie's specced to be full on heals & support so I couldn't imagine not bringing a res-other power but I use devices for self rezzing in lockout battles (as long as I remmeber to equip them).

I wouldn;t bother with a rez-others for anything other than support builds.

I usually team with the SG, who pretty much know I got rez, but if there's any doubt I'll shout out at the start of the mission.

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I have to admit that if I build a Support char I'm going to make Resurrection Serum my go to rez of choice because it permits combat rezzing where the others do not innately, unless you pop a bubble or something on yourself. Of course, most of my characters tend to be sparing of attack powers so I can fit things like Rebirth and a pair of active defenses in so I can do silly things like tag the boss of an Alert with Gatling gun and mow down the minions that charge me while Masterful Dodge keeps me alive, giving a nice bunch for the tank to lunge into, pop an AoE, and go to town with his job. :D Rebirth's for when the tank sucks or I misclick or whatever, 3 minute reuse? why not?

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I keep Rebirth standard on my healer -- it fits her power suite and origins. Ditto my dark avenger ghost-rider type, as it does the same -- with the added fact that sometimes Dark Transfusion goes badly wrong when a tank suddenly fails -- because repeated sniper shots to someone's head tends to drag aggro onto me -- though hard lesson learned was not to Rebirth/DT in short succession (heh).

I keep Redemption on my main healer and Serum on my DPS/Supporter.. but neither gets a lot of use. Still, be prepared and all.