There’s not a single scenario where natbond would be worth taking over Barkskin or Boon of Shallya.
but it’s good if you don’t get hit
No it’s not. If you don’t get hit then you don’t get hit and you never get any use out of it.
but it’s good if you don’t get hit often
And so is Barkskin and Boon of Shallya. Better, even.
Even if you don’t get hit often, you will get hit. And when you do:
Boon of Shallya will help you quickly build up THP, especially in a pinch, where you perhaps take an overhead and/or get swarmed - natbond won’t.
Barkskin will help you by lowering the potential damage you get in such situations AND also keep you alive for a bit longer when caught by a disabler like assassin - natbond won’t.
All that natbond can do is replace your THP with GHP. But on higher difficulties there’s really no difference between THP and GHP since you should be able to keep your HP full with whichever; there’s enough enemies to build THP with. And even if you can’t - natbond won’t help you with it.
Therefore natbond should be either significantly buffed (so for example it regens more HP and doesn’t replace your THP with GHP but adds on top of it) or reworked completely.
again, barkskin doesnt lower the damage of the first hit you get, only of the second one and only if the second hit is within a timeframe of 2 seconds. If you dont get a second hit often you wont have any use but for specials. And why you are opening a new topic? Also i have said boon of shallya is for most players the better choice, just to clarify myself because you still use those quotations without mentioning that.
That’s exactly why I said “potential damage (and not just ‘damage’) you get in such situations” (it refers to the point above, which says you can get swarmed, in which situation you can get hit multiple times).
True. Which is still much more help than natbond ever offers.
And that’s also why I prefer shallya over barkskin myself.
A topic dedicated to a single suggestion allows it to be more refined and also makes it easier to discuss.
Of course it is. That’s exactly my point.
The point of this suggestion is to bring Natural Bond up to par with Barkskin and Boon of Shallya.
just make a 1 health every 3 second and it will be viable.
(i will still use boon of shallya on chara that have difficulty to get thp and barkskin on tank to never get down by gatling and flamethrower) but if i get Natural bond on chaos wastes, i will not be mad.
Even with 1 hp every 3s it will still be equally as useless.
That’s because it replaces THP with GHP. And you can get THP significantly faster than natbond could regenerate. And Boon of Shallya only amplifies that.
Wrong. If anyone loves it, then it’s just new players that don’t know how the game works.
You don’t see it being picked on higher difficulties (unless for memes), because it’s bad and pretty much useless.
One disadvantage I forgot to mention is that it stops you from getting GHP from healing yourself.
Obviously, if others prefer a different setup than you they “don’t know how the game works”.
I’m quite certain what I see on higher difficulties, because a mod allows me to see when others use it.
And there is that Zigo guy who use it on his true solo videos all the time. Quite strange if you ask me, but he does.
I use it for both Pyro and WS, its a question of being very good at avoiding damage in general but at the same, knowing you will take chip damage at times. Sometimes even self-caused.
Then just being able to regen through it anyhow.
I do not think it very good on melee focused careers that spend most of their time balls-deep though. So indeed, not very generally useful…but at the same time it cant really be since it´d be too powerful then. Healing is powerful and while rich THP is great its also true that you could fill it out only to enter the next big fight nearly empty and die instantly.
Even if a handful of people people like it that does not change the fact that the thing is pretty useless compared to the other choices.
And people who have put thousands of hours into the game can make anything work.
Of course you can do true solo cata with natbond. It’s possible.
But natbond is still useless when compared to the other choices.
It’s mostly newbies using natbond because they don’t know that Boon of Shallya affects THP and they don’t know the importance of THP on higher difficulties.
If you are good at avoiding damage then you do not need natbond - you’re much better off with Barkskin for the scenarios where you get caught by a special.
If you do get damaged, natbond is the worst choice. Barkskin will make sure you do not get swarmed too easily (damage mitigation) and Boon of Shallya will allow you to build THP much quickier to fill up your HP bar.
And you can keep your HP bar full of THP, especially with the amount of enemies that higher difficulties have.
And even if somehow all your THP decays before the next fight, Boon of Shallya will allow you to generate it much more easily, while natbond will generate neglible amounts of GHP AND stop you from getting GHP from drafts or medkits.
True you will refill your THP slow but steady and i often find myself with full green health again after a while. And others, newer players can use their healing items for themselves. Quite comfy on normal cata. I use it on my shade there is enough THP on the map with thp on kill as a dagger cloak of pain shade so boon of shallya feels like a waste for me and for barkskin i just get to less hits to be worth.
Barkskin is useless as crap on cata for any career that isnt already inherently very tanky. Lets look at it.
Packmaster? Doesnt even need a horde, just one elite or a few small enemies and you are toast beyond what barkskin could salvage. Since it only applies on the damage after the second hit.
Assassin? Sure it helps to not take as much damage from a lone assassin if help is near, but its very rare to get caught by an assassin working alone and the main danger comes from being caught in a pile in which case you drop dead anyway if help isnt instant.
Firerat? I cant even recall the last time a firerat did any notable damage.
Gunrats? Sure they can be dangerous, far more so for melee-only careers without shields though.
Stormers? Barkskin might save you, might, but it could also be far from enough.
Leeches? Less threatening than assassins or packmasters, too slow.
Hordes? If you are eating hits you are doing it wrong, and it wont save you from big swings from elites anyhow since those oneshot anything that isnt extra durable.
With Bond i wont feel like crap because some slaverat spawned behind me and poked my ass while i was shooting something infront. Nor when i vent on Pyro because i need to cast a lot rapidly. Or when i get chipped by a olympic gasrat or faraway gunner.
There are times when you can not do that, hence i noted those. Spawns are not certain and there are scripted events or just sections where you walk more than you fight-.
Again i noted that, yes, boon generates more but that wont help if you got 1 health left for the next fight and and any random breeze knocks you over. That´s the downside of it. Could be a gunner, a firerat, gasrat or even a teammate with a AOE weapon that normally does nothing to you.
This is why every good Zealot you ever see will be extremely prone to forcing approximate speedruns. Even if it means leaving the team behind.
If the damage i take is very low then its still enough, and while i cant heal myself i can still get healed by teammates with medkits. Plus its a waste not to take it if i already have enough THP generation without boon, especially for squishy careers where barkskin is useless AF. Being squishy means i cant take much damage at once, doesnt necessarily mean i cant sustain prolonged fights.
And waystalker has inherent regen which combined with bond is enough to get her to 50% quite quickly, lets you carry medpacks on her and heal teammates instead when you go down to clear grey for better heal efficiency.
Barkskin is meant to keep you alive long enough for the team to rescue you.
Also in a scenario where you get disabled for a handful of seconds you can get hit by the nearby swarm multiple times, so damage mitigation is good for that as well.
If you get hit for lets say 30 HP, regenerating that with natbond will take you 2 and a half minutes. You can get 30 THP with a couple of attacks, even fewer if you have Boon of Shallya - just a few seconds. And it’s also easier to keep the THP topped with Boon of Shallya. Therefore natbond useless.
You’re supposed to vent with THP and Boon of Shallya helps you build THP easier. Natbond on the other hand replaces THP. Therefore natbond useless.
I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous scenario, except for Zealots. Even if you found yourself in such, you’d know to be very careful, hide behind teammates and generate THP at first opportunity. Or use a healing item - because you don’t have natbond you can actually get GHP from them.
True. That’s a big drawback of Zealot and one of many reasons why I don’t play him.
If the damage you take is very low then you won’t get much use out of natbond. If the damage you take is very low then you can easily top your HP with THP. Therefore natbond is useless.
Being squishy means you can’t take much damage at once, yes. And that’s where Barkskin helps. If you take a lot of damage at once, figuratively, then barkskin will lower the damage from each next attack.
Waystalker with Isha’s Embrance talent + Boon of Shallya regenerates nearly as quickly as with natbond AND you also get all the advantages of Boon of Shallya while avoiding drawbacks of natbond. But that doesn’t matter at all since most people pick Barkskin on Waystalker because it’s so much better for her.
if you have WP with From Fury, Fortitude then Boon of Shallya is even better.
And lastly - you use healing kits on cata not to heal HP but to remove wounds. And both Barkskin and Boon of Shallya are VASTLY better at keeping you far from the wounded state.
Therefore Natural Bond is useless.
if the damage you take is very low you wont get much use out of boon of shallya but more from natural bond, because you will be full thp with or without boon of shallya, but you will be able to get full green health with natural bond.
nah, it’s fine. plenty of times i’ve found myself completely regened without noticing, and if you opt to take the shared healing perk you can be quite the boon for your team. Also i take umbridge with the idea that THP and GHP are effectively the same thing at higher difficulties, in fact it kinda screams to me you don’t play much cata. They’re vastly different and people you will see enough action on higher difficulties you can actually keep your THP up without having to worry about staggering things all the time or smacking headshots. I generally always opt for NB on my “thp on stagger” classes just how easy it is to generate thp on higher difficulties. The enemies have higher hp’s just in general so you’re more likely to stagger ran than outright kill on higher difs.
But if the damage you take is very low you won’t need to regenerate that HP because you won’t need it because you won’t die anyway because the damage you take is very low.
This could go on forever.
The truth is - Barkskin saves your arse from disablers and sudden damage from multiple hits, Boon of Shallya lets you bounce back to full HP significantly more quickly. Both of them help stay away from the wounded state despite emergencies (and it’s the wounded state that healing items are for in cata, not regenerating HP) and natbond won’t. Therefore natbond useless.
Also - the damage you are going to take is not going to be low. You are going to be hit. And you’re going to be hit hard, on cata. And in these scenarios natbond fails.
And if you’re not going to be hit significant amount of times - you probably have played this game for thousands of hours and belong to the tiny percent of the playerbase. Your experience is not the common player experience. Changing natbond isn’t needed for you, it’s needed for the typical player.
All natbond is good for is making sure the player doesn’t benefit from barkskin or boon of shallya, slow regens neglible amounts of GHP (which replaces his THP) and cannot use healing items to heal GHP.
to the people who run it, you’re legends. Love having the people who use boon and the group healing perk as well because you can actualyl just funnel all the healing into them (if the people notice) and have them heal the entire team for the run. I find that even on cata runs, whenever i have someone with that we don’t always have many hp problems, but it relies on them being good enough not to get hit a lot.