There is no point to Natural Bond

[Frostysir]

I mean, your whole argument for “THP better” was “run and melee more&trade hits for more ability casts” on ranged careers. To me that seems absurd. Especially when more THP was not needed and it sacrifices ranged uptime in exchange for something like WS trueflight that doesnt do significant damage <.<

[Flawless]

@Frostysir

sacrifices ranged uptime in exchange for something like WS trueflight that doesnt do significant damage <.<

But can refill 100% of your ammo in a single cast.
You need ammo for ranged uptime on some weapons, no?

[Frostysir]

@Flawless

But can refill 100% od your ammo in a single cast.
You need ammo for ranged uptime on some weapons, no?

90% ammo, or even just 60%, back every 60 seconds (less with trinket and alternate regen talent) means the only weapon i can reasonably run outa ammo on is hagbane. And even then…waiting 20-30 seconds after clearing the screen from enemies/a monster, usually is not much. Takes that much time to walk&find more targets.

There´s a reason all the long timers think hagbane WS is silly OP.

Plus, while i do mainly stay ranged, i do melee at times as well since some will likely spawn nearby during hordes, that also serves to cut the downtimes further.

[hollerbach]

I agree. Barkskin is the best choice for maximizing your HP in the long run. As explained in VerminMaths: Some Deductions on Reductions, Barkskin reduces damage from various sources, such as special attacks, berserker combos, friendly fire, and even while you are downed. This gives you more survivability and a higher chance of being revived. You also don’t have to depend on your teammates to heal your permanent health, which saves time and resources.

Natural Bond, on the other hand, is not very useful in many scenarios. It regenerates your permanent health, but it overwrites your temporary health, and does not add to it. While temporary health > permanent health, Natural Bond is not doing anything useful. The more temporary health you generate, the worse Natural Bond becomes. That’s why it’s a bad option for most careers and playstyles.

Another problem with Natural Bond is that some users tend to ignore health potions, even when they have an empty slot or need healing. They just reply “NB” when I ask them to pick up or use a potion via the chat wheel. This is a bad habit that can hurt the team, especially if you are new to the game.

You also can’t rely on finding medical supplies every time. Sometimes, you only have health potions available. In that case, a Natural Bond user is a liability, because they can only heal temporary health, which is less effective than permanent health.

Natural Bond is only optimal for certain careers or playstyles: those with high HP, high damage reduction (due to diminishing returns in damage reduction stacking), and those with poor temporary health generation. It’s also the only viable choice for Deprivation deeds (no pickups).

I use Natural Bond on Ironbreaker, because Barkskin doesn’t work well with his passive and ult damage reduction. They stack with diminishing returns, so Barkskin doesn’t reduce much damage after his passive and ultimate are applied (multiplicative). Barkskin is better for the other careers, since they don’t have Ironbreaker-level damage reduction.

[hollerbach]

@Max93

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.

Correct. But several attacks in the game that could quickly kill you without Barkskin are within this timeframe: specials’ attacks, and combo attacks from berserkers and other units. Barkskin can also proc from friendly fire, and more importantly, will proc even while downed, lessening the time it takes for units to kill you (usually a gang of slaverats poking you) while you are downed.

[1184]

@Frostysir

On Legend sure barkskin works, Cata? Cata has between 20% to 50% more damage depending on which attacks we discuss. Which added with the “damage for lower aggro” multiplier is what makes random backstabs so painful.

Barkskin does not give you enough of a reduction to survive taking more than 2 hits from elites. If you got 4 Chaos warriors or just maulers spamming Charge attacks on you then any single hit would do 90-100 damage. Followed by 50-60 on the next. Toast.

A few specials also deal 100% more damage per hit. Stormers and assassins included.

If you are good enough to play on Cata then in general you should be able to avoid getting into a situations where you take 2 hits from elites. It’s obvious that no necklace will save you in such situation.
Barkskin will save you from being hit by several weaker enemies on Cata, though. It makes a significant difference.
But this is irrelevant because we’re talking about natbond being useless compared to other options.

@Frostysir

Only if you are running melee nonstop and need/want that THP, if you do not, bond will have a better output since 20 every two minutes or whatnot is still better than 0. Much better.

You don’t need need to do melee non stop to keep up the THP. Every career has decent THP perks. Even a good Huntsman player can build THP with a tuskgor spear swipe (and Huntsman doesn’t even have cleave THP talent). You can wait 2 minutes (100 seconds, to be exact) for that GHP or you can just do a few attacks to generate that much THP. RV and OE (both ranged classes) can generate that much (and more) with just a single heavy shield attack.
So no, natbond is still the weakest option.

@Frostysir

…And they both have talent options for damage reduction, OE even has more base health, both of which are synergy points for Barkskin.

You can run them without any damage reduction talents and still be fine with THP.

@Frostysir

Provided that said teammates are generating excess, not something you should ever take for granted in PUBS. Big mistake.

It’s still vastly more reliable than natbond.

@Frostysir

I did specify, not the slaverats? Clanrats are about the same. Gets more interesting if looking at beastmen gors with 30 base damage if many and up to 60+ per hit if few. Get pinned infront of 3 gors and you are gona drop as WS no matter what. And fully die in the next few seconds.

So lets say you get hit by 3 gors, each with 50 base damage. Without Barkskin you receive 150 damage and drop dead. With Barkskin you receive 100 damage and provided you have the HP necklace and more than 100 HP at the time, you stay alive.
Barkskin makes a difference. Natural Bond does not.

@Frostysir

Because again, melee Careers inherently want more THP generation to offset the burden of going into melee vs specials and hyperdensity, no way around it. They will inevitably face occasions where they risk taking significant damage and thus, where boon shines a lot, especially given the virtue of already spending most of their time in melee range and generating THP to start with. Barkskin works for those that do not need boon at all. And then there´s only a six ranged careers being WS, huntsman, RV, OE, bounty and pyro. Bounty kinda needs boon since his inherent THP generation is awful. The others can use bond just fine if they want to but WS and pyro got advantages that make it easier, better.

Again - if you don’t take significant damage then you’re WAY better off taking HT. If you don’t take a lot of damage then you: a) won’t ever need healing, thus natbond is useless b) you can keep the small HP deficit filled with THP easily
WS benefits more from Boon than NB because Boon buffs the regen nearly as much as NB while also giving her more THP generation, more healing item efficiency and also avoids the drawbacks of NB.
And lets be honest - most people will get hit. And they will have low HP. And potentially get wounded. And that’s where Barkskin and Boon of Shallya help significantly. And that’s why most people take Boon of Shallya or Barkskin and not NB. If you’re good enough not to get hit then you’d better take HT. I’ve had HT turn one medkit into 4 several times and although rare, it’s fun. And very helpful. Unlike NB.

@Frostysir

Please do not confidently argue when you have no idea what you are on about, or do not mix in chaos wastes/conc pot into a comparison of default capabilities. For reference, Unchained has 50 more base health and half the damage she takes instead goes to the heat-bar. And she can vent the bar by using her ability. And she has talents that either give her either even more damage reduction or the ability to vent more by just blocking. ’

And talents for reducing enemy damage output by 30% or greatly reducing ability cooldown if she starts to self-explode. Which can help abort it for extra safety.

I know what Unchained has. It’s my most played Sienna class.
Pyromancer can often be a better tank, though. Only because of the ult THP talent.
And I’ve seen more Unchained Siennas blow up than Pyromancers (with the ult THP talent) dying.

@Frostysir

Yes i will get hit again, eventually, like 3-4 minutes later, and then i´ll keep walking happily and shooting enemies from a distance like i have been wanting to all along with nearly no loss health compared to the start. Instead of being forced to play a Zealot rush melee style on a ranged career like a rabid bull. A significant comfort that saves greatly on healing that my teammates will likely end up needing more.-

That was the whole idea to start with.

What are you talking about? You don’t have to go ‘rush melee style’ to generate 40 THP. It’s just a few swings. If you want to save on healing then just take HT.

[1184]

@Frostysir

----- I meean, even if it does overwrite THP its still not bad, still means you got more health that wont be gone 'cause you started to use a bow for a minute or two. Big advantage for ranged specialists trailing behind melee ones. At least the ones who already have enough THP generation.

There’s no significant value difference between THP and GHP on cata. Converting THP to GHP won’t help you with anything - it’s a waste of time.
You don’t get hit often, therefore filling the HP bar to full with THP shouldn’t be a problem because you don’t have to generate a lot of it.
If you get hit often… Well then you should take Boon of Shallya or Barkskin and not natbond.

@Frostysir

It does have benefits for melee, particularly those that already have some form of damage reduction and expect to deal with repeat chip damage. The benefits are nearly nonexistent for a squishier career with lower health that finds themselves in a similar seat though since they’ll still lack the foundation to endure.

Barkskin benefits ALL classes.
Tanks get less damage on the frontline, ranged classes get less damage when they screw up or get caught by specials. They can last longer and potentially avoid being wounded. And thus save healing items.
EVERY career can benefit from Barkskin. Barkskin is never a bad choice. And that’s the reason why it’s the most popular necklace trait.

@Frostysir

This is more or less a melee exclusive strategy, for ranged careers its a last resort with a serious drawback that leaves you needing to heal or playing like a melee but without the benefits of talents and passives for it in order to maintain THP.

No it’s not. If you’re good enough and have Boon of Shallya you can pull it off just fine.

@Frostysir

that leaves you needing to heal

Well guess what, Boon of Shallya helps with that.

@Frostysir

Waystalker and Pyro are the two main targets, for both of them it´s desirable to use ranged a lot which means they can go minutes without refilling much THP at all. While still having good enough inherent generation to make do in bigger fights. That in turn though makes them vulnerable to chip damage… even susceptible to going down to something silly like a slaverat spawning behind them with a light poke.

Really, this kinda goes for any ranged career, if they got enough THP generation without boon and enough melee comfort then being able to negate poke damage is really great. Going into battle at max or nearly max health is neat.

RV and OE can build THP extremely easily. Therefore they do not benefit from natbond, because they can keep their HP full at all times. They benefit more from Barkskin or HT.
Pyro can figuratively fart out THP from the lvl 30 talent. And guess what - Boon of Shallya increases the THP generated. And you also can melee to lower ult CD (and also generate THP from that melee, which is boosted by Boon of Shallya)
On Bounty Boon of Shallya is a very good choice because he needs the THP gen boost. Just like you said.
And Boon of Shallya is a better choice for WS, but I already explained why.
As for Huntsman - I’ve seen people generate enough THP on cata with tuskgor cleave. Without a cleave THP talent (tuskgor swipe has stagger).

@Frostysir

How does less melee lower value if she´s packing a dang magic staff? Several of which are veeery darn powerful? And how is THP an issue if she has full health from regenerating?

Because then the rest of the team has to make space for you. And you cannot avoid melee all match.

@Frostysir

Exactly, you dont need boon to have plenty of THP, that´s partly the idea.

If you don’t need Boon to have plenty of THP, then you take Barkskin to be safe or HT to support your team and get more out of healing items.

@Frostysir

On the contrary, its because of their great sustain that NB Is good for them, not needing to worry about neither hordes nor chip damage.

If you have great sustain then natbond is useless because you can just take HT and heal teammates. Or take barkskin to save yourself from screwups.

@Frostysir

I disagree, if you use this strategy you are basically employing the Zealot strategy for the sake of their abilities with none of the melee boons and extra survival power. Being forced to constantly run and melee while dropping a lot of ranged uptime and possibly even damage potential is a big nono for a career specialized in doing it. Plus the rewards are not amazing either.

But… You do know that you do not have to spend a lot of time to regenerate a small amount of THP on cata? It takes mere seconds (if not a single hit, as is often case with proper OE/RV build). You don’t have to constantly run and melee. We’re talking about a scenario where you get one hit every few minutes, so it’s really a small amount of THP to generate, doesn’t make for any significant ranged downtime (you have to melee with ranged classes at some point). And Boon of Shallya actually allows you to do this faster, so there’s even less “ranged downtime”. IF you were hit more often and got more damage… Well, you already explained how NB would be useless in that scenario and Boon of Shallya or Barkskin would be better.

@Riku

A new player is neither refined nor runs optimsed builds, if he wants to shoot alot and take NB he would benefit from NB more.

A new player is still better off with Barkskin (for when they screw up) or Boon of Shallya (to easily generate THP quickly and keep shooting a lot). NB will not generate enough HP for them.

@Flawless

I am not saying that there is absolutely no possible scenario in which NB might be useful.

I am.

@Frostysir

Because if you do not need more THP generation for big fights then you will get the THP replaced with green health which doesnt decay while you shoot or go through a walking section.

It won’t decay significantly. Even if it did, you have Boon of Shallya, you can generate more quickly, especially in emergency. Natbond won’t generate significant amounts of HP during ‘walking sections’, which are rather brief on cata anyway.

@Frostysir

A ranged career does more damage with their ranged weapons though? Especially since WS ability output is too weak, Pyro meanwhile…can do it but does even more damage at a distance. Plus, blazing offers more ability casts for more damage.

If you wana melee, why play ranged?

The person is talking about a tactic where you deliberately get hit to significantly lower your ult cooldown and thus maximize your DPS. Which is basically what Blazing Echo does except you also get free THP from every ult. How viable is that on Pyromancer? I have no idea, I’ve never tried that. I did notice pyros are less likely to die than UCs when they get the THP ult. And that means fewer healing items used up.

@Frostysir

I mean, your whole argument for “THP better” was “run and melee more&trade hits for more ability casts” on ranged careers. To me that seems absurd. Especially when more THP was not needed and it sacrifices ranged uptime in exchange for something like WS trueflight that doesnt do significant damage <.<

If more THP was not needed… Then you already have a perfectly sustainable THP generation. And if you do… Then you can keep your HP bar full of THP. At which point you do not benefit from natbond at all and are better off taking HT or Barkskin.

@hollerbach

Another problem with Natural Bond is that some users tend to ignore health potions, even when they have an empty slot or need healing. They just reply “NB” when I ask them to pick up or use a potion via the chat wheel. This is a bad habit that can hurt the team, especially if you are new to the game.

You also can’t rely on finding medical supplies every time. Sometimes, you only have health potions available. In that case, a Natural Bond user is a liability, because they can only heal temporary health, which is less effective than permanent health.

NB users being detrimental to the team??? No way…

@hollerbach

Natural Bond is only optimal for certain careers or playstyles: those with high HP, high damage reduction (due to diminishing returns in damage reduction stacking), and those with poor temporary health generation. It’s also the only viable choice for Deprivation deeds (no pickups).

If you have a high HP and high damage reduction… Then you can also benefit more from generating THP, no? And also you benefit more from Barkskin.
If you have poor THP gen… Then Boon of Shallya can help you with that. OR you can take Barkskin to make sure the THP you already have doesn’t get used up so quickly and sustains you for longer.
For Deprivation runs I always take Boon of Shallya. I used to take NB, but Boon of Shallya turned out to be just much better. Sure, NB helps you generate GHP, but if you screw up then you’re done for. Boon on the other hand always allows you to bounce back to full HP and keep it that way.

@hollerbach

I use Natural Bond on Ironbreaker, because Barkskin doesn’t work well with his passive and ult damage reduction. They stack with diminishing returns, so Barkskin doesn’t reduce much damage after his passive and ultimate are applied (multiplicative). Barkskin is better for the other careers, since they don’t have Ironbreaker-level damage reduction.

If you can keep your HP full of THP with IB (and you absolutely can) then you’re better off taking HT.

EVERY class has to melee at some point. That is unless you’re some kind of god who spent several thousand hours on the game. And Vermintide 2 playerbase isn’t made up of those.
That’s why every class has THP from melee talents. And if you don’t need them, then there’s the 3rd talent that allows you to heal teammates when you heal yourself - with which HT is an excellent choice.

[1184]

Here, I made a detailed chart that says which necklace traits are best for you in certain scenarios.
I marked the scenarios where Natural Bond is useful with a red circle, for your convenience.

[MunKy]

I have to admit, I yawn whenever this topic comes up. idc which side you stand on, if you dont llike it, dont take it, if you do, take it.

Id love to see it improved.

I should make a bingo card for these topics actually.

[1184]

If there are many suggestions on improving it… Well, then there’s a reason for that. It should be improved.
It stands out as a bad choice and people will keep pointing that out until it’s not a bad choice.

[brosgw]

@Flawless

Look at the recording of a mission (or try to keep track during the mission).
Every second that you have any temp hp at all: natural bonds value = 0.

Ummm… No? I could get hit for 50 damage lets say. Waiting, Nat bond heals 45 REAL health while moving around hitting roaming enemies with range or single lone enemies (my temp health only generates when hitting multiple things in one swing). I generate 5 temp health, and then get hit for another 50 damage. Nat bond helped prevent 45 more damage from being taken whereas just having barkskin or more temp health generation only prevented 5-7 damage taken.

@Flawless

Also consider that if you ever have to heal yourself, you only get thp (which automatically makes the health regen of natural bond useless).

These days, running legend pubs, me needing to heal myself is like… 1 in every 20 missions. Maybe. if it’s a hard boss.

@Flawless

When i did this test, i gained about 20-30 hp (actual hp gained, not thp converted to ghp) from natural bond across the entire mission (may ofc vary depending on map and team comp).
That is absolutely worthless.

If you use talents where you increase the amount of healing you receive it also buffs the nat bond ticks. It also scales with grail knights ability as well as waystalker abilities. I have literally had some moments, like with zealot, where I went to 1 health and over the course of a mission heal pretty close to 180 all on it’s own.

[1184]

@brosgw

Ummm… No? I could get hit for 50 damage lets say. Waiting, Nat bond heals 45 REAL health while moving around hitting roaming enemies with range or single lone enemies (my temp health only generates when hitting multiple things in one swing).

Cleave THP talents generate THP even if you hit only one enemy.

@brosgw

Nat bond heals 45 REAL health

Which takes nearly 4 minutes. You can build and maintain 45 THP in a fraction of that time, ready to take another hit like that. Which means natbond is useless.

@brosgw

Nat bond helped prevent 45 more damage from being taken

Natbond doesn’t prevent any damage from being taken. Barkskin does. If you get hit, you get hit and lose HP.
If it’s insignificant amount of HP, then you can easily build up the THP and maintain it.
If its a significant amount of THP, then you should take Boon of Shallya to help you build the THP or Barkskin to mitigate it.

@brosgw

whereas just having barkskin or more temp health generation only prevented 5-7 damage taken.

Untrue. If you get hit for 50 damage, you can quickly generate 50 THP in its place (again - with NB it’d take nearly 4 minutes) and then if you get hit for 50 damage again - you don’t lose any GHP and you can quickly build the THP again. You could say that THP prevents all the damage you take, using your logic.

@brosgw

These days, running legend pubs, me needing to heal myself is like… 1 in every 20 missions. Maybe. if it’s a hard boss.

If that’s the case and you’re often left will a high amount of HP then you don’t benefit from NB and are better off taking Healer’s Touch to help your team.

@brosgw

If you use talents where you increase the amount of healing you receive it also buffs the nat bond ticks.

Talents that increase the amount of healing you receive… ??? Are you talking about Boon of Shallya? You can’t have that and NB at the same time.

@brosgw

It also scales with grail knights ability as well as waystalker abilities.

Grail Knight? You mean the Virtue of Stoicism talent? Because that talent benefits from Boon of Shallya, not Natural Bond. Unless you mean the HP regen quest - but that doesn’t interact with natbond either, in fact it is boosted by Boon of Shallya as well. Thus Boon of Shallya is always a better choice. Also the quest HP regen shouldn’t be relied upon because it’s RNG; you don’t always get it.
Also Boon of Shallya is better for Waystalker because it boosts her regen (you end up with HP regen insignificantly lower than NB), gives her all the other advantages such as increased healing item efficiency or better THP generation and completely avoids disadvantages of natbond.
But you’d know that if you read the posts above because that has been said several times already.

@brosgw

I have literally had some moments, like with zealot, where I went to 1 health and over the course of a mission heal pretty close to 180 all on it’s own.

But… But you know you aren’t supposed to have a lot of GHP as Zealot, right? You do know that natbond actually ruins Zealot? It replaces your THP with GHP and you lose Fiery Faith stacks, which lowers your power.
You know that, right? You played the game, right?

Natural Bond is useless and needs a buff/rework.

[Flawless]

@brosgw

@Flawless

Look at the recording of a mission (or try to keep track during the mission).
Every second that you have any temp hp at all: natural bonds value = 0.

Ummm… No?

Ummm… yes.

@brosgw

I could get hit for 50 damage lets say. Waiting, Nat bond heals 45 REAL health while moving around hitting roaming enemies with range or single lone enemies (my temp health only generates when hitting multiple things in one swing).

How does this spek against what i said?
Pretty sure it doesn‘t.

[brosgw]

@1184

Which takes nearly 4 minutes. You can build and maintain 45 THP in a fraction of that time, ready to take another hit like that. Which means natbond is useless

Disagree. Temp health drains fast and when you’re not in hordes and dealing with roaming enemies, scavenging, jumping puzzles for teams, ranging temp health is useless.

45 health in 4 minutes is pretty good if your match is 30-40 minutes. And again that can be increased by various talents.

@1184

Natbond doesn’t prevent any damage from being taken. Barkskin does. If you get hit, you get hit and lose HP.

But it does. I am not talking about damage reduction. If you had nat bond while roaming doing a grim puzzle not attacking or killing enemies except for ranging specials for a few minutes that is extra health you wouldn’t have had compared to temp health. Which means you can absorb more damage before going down. Bat bond also gives you more mileage on smaller health pool characters where the max health limits how much temp health you can have anyways and where barkskin doesn’t help if you can get mostly one shot anyways.

@1184

Cleave THP talents generate THP even if you hit only one enemy

Which disappears after like 2 seconds since it’s a roaming enemy and by the time you kill/get to another enemy the temp health will be gone.

@1184

you can quickly generate 50 THP in its place (again

If you’re maining range you aren’t generating temp health.

@1184

If that’s the case and you’re often left will a high amount of HP then you don’t benefit from NB and are better off taking Healer’s Touch to help your team

No, I still take the odd hit here and there. And then go back to full health. If my other team mates also have nat bond, like my bots do, then no one heals unless someone went down, or there’s extra supplies since we have 3 tomes anyways.

@1184

Talents that increase the amount of healing you receive… ??? Are you talking about Boon of Shallya? You can’t have that and NB at the same time.

No the career talents. Not gear. Amount of effective healing you receive talents buff the speed of nat bond.

@1184

Unless you mean the HP regen quest - but that doesn’t interact with natbond either,

Sure, the speed of green health increase goes up overriding temp health, meaning it stacks better with green health generation.

@1184

Also Boon of Shallya is better for Waystalker because it boosts her regen (you end up with HP regen insignificantly lower than NB), gives her all the other advantages such as increased healing item efficiency or better THP generation and completely avoids disadvantages of natbond.

I disagree. Nat bond on waystalker vs boon of shallya gives faster green health generation.

@1184

But… But you know you aren’t supposed to have a lot of GHP as Zealot, right? You do know that natbond actually ruins Zealot? It replaces your THP with GHP and you lose Fiery Faith stacks, which lowers your power.
You know that, right? You played the game, right?

Sure, but I don’t need to be a glass canon. I don’t run curse resistance on zealot and that gives me the stacks I need. I leave nat bond on for more survivability. More useful to my team being alive than chasing green circles.

[brosgw]

@Flawless

How does this spek against what i said?
Pretty sure it doesn‘t.

Don’t know how else to say it. Healing 45 actual health while roaming, and 5 temp health, compared to running lets say barkskin and having 5 temp health and no nat bond means when I get hit, it would be the difference between surviving and going down. Simple really.

[Frostysir]

@1184

If you are good enough to play on Cata then in general you should be able to avoid getting into a situations where you take 2 hits from elites. It’s obvious that no necklace will save you in such situation.
Barkskin will save you from being hit by several weaker enemies on Cata, though. It makes a significant difference.

On one hand you tell me taking several hits from elites is bad, on the other you tell me its understandable to take a bunch of hits from cheap, easily staggered chaff?

Also, Barkskin does nothing, absolutely nothing, if i only take a single hit and nothing else for the next two seconds, and then more damage.

@1184

You don’t need need to do melee non stop to keep up the THP.

Except i do, THP starts decaying after 3 seconds of no melee, after 50 seconds(60 with extra) that means a squishy career will have lost nearly 50% health. 30 seconds? Thats the time it takes to bounce between groups outside hordes, or not even enough if shooting said groups.

@1184

just do a few attacks to generate that much THP. RV and OE (both ranged classes) can generate that much (and more) with just a single heavy shield attack.

That mandates taking a shield on them though, who dafq uses shields mainly and is happy with it outside from the spear&shield ones? Most other weapons are better for a lot more except becoming a turtle. ‘’

And really, OE running ahead of his team to shieldslam ambient enemy parties for THP? Its kinda hilarious to image him trying with that slowpoke speed but its not something i´d ever suggest as a fun playstyle. Why play Engineer if you dont minigun?

Also, i specified mainly WS and Pyro i believe?

@1184

You can run them without any damage reduction talents and still be fine with THP.

If trading hits with chaff, sure, bad for practically everything else.

@1184

It’s still vastly more reliable than natbond.

Bogus.

Natural bond gives you 24 health no matter what each 2 minutes-ish as long as you’re alive. SoT´s passive only does anything IF your teammates are generating a lot and not taking more. A big IF.

@1184

So lets say you get hit by 3 gors, each with 50 base damage. Without Barkskin you receive 150 damage and drop dead.

180 damage actually, since they’d 60 each with only 3 present, but yes with barkskin you would still survive that. However, why the duck would you ever eat that many hits from a bunch of chaff? That´s messing up to start with.

@1184

Barkskin makes a difference. Natural Bond does not.

In this very niche situation you picked out? Indeed it would not, but it also falls under a severe case of observer bias with a specific premise that is not generally applicable at all.

@1184

Again - if you don’t take significant damage then you’re WAY better off taking HT. If you don’t take a lot of damage then you: a) won’t ever need healing, thus natbond is useless b) you can keep the small HP deficit filled with THP easily

Healers touch is quite possibly the worst trait of the entire bunch, 25% chance my foot. Even hand of shallya is better. And again, Natural bond is easily the best if my damage taken is about 30-40 damage per 4 minutes, because bond covers that comfortably and lets me save healing for others that need it. Especially if i already have enough THP generation to not need more of it.

@1184

WS benefits more from Boon than NB because Boon buffs the regen nearly as much as NB while also giving her more THP generation, more healing item efficiency and also avoids the drawbacks of NB.

@1184

you can keep the small HP deficit filled with THP easily

Except the part where WS only heals to 50%, and natbond goes to 100%. That means having to maintain 60 health with THP which means giving up a lot of ranged uptime. Why play WS at all if you’re gona melee this much?..Except well you are correct that for lower skill users its a better idea to bring bond to survive hordes. That is also something i noted at the start.

@1184

And lets be honest - most people will get hit. And they will have low HP. And potentially get wounded. And that’s where Barkskin and Boon of Shallya help significantly. And that’s why most people take Boon of Shallya or Barkskin and not NB

I think i noted this somewhere already but, again, skill issue. Yes, bond needs you to be comfortable without the crutch that is boon, but it rewards you for it.

@1184

If you’re good enough not to get hit then you’d better take HT. I’ve had HT turn one medkit into 4 several times and although rare, it’s fun. And very helpful. Unlike NB.

I have gone entire runs without triggering HT a single time, not even a single time. Did not help and did only disappoint. And what the heck if it triggers once? Still awful. Only useful if you are guzzling healing to start with but that´s a problem in on itself for champion and up.

@1184

And very helpful. Unlike NB.

Except Natbond lets a compatible user negate poke damage, big reward. And it works even if i take two small hits with a tiny, tiiiiiny pause in between. Unlike Barkskin.

@1184

I know what Unchained has. It’s my most played Sienna class.
Pyromancer can often be a better tank, though. Only because of the ult THP talent.
And I’ve seen more Unchained Siennas blow up than Pyromancers (with the ult THP talent) dying.

Her ult THP talent is a single instance of 50 THP, thats covered by Unchaineds base health alone, and she even has a similar talent herself, pack the crap.

@1184

And I’ve seen more Unchained Siennas blow up than Pyromancers (with the ult THP talent) dying.

Skill issue of trying to maintain high heat, not blocking and also not using ability correctly. Same thing as any other Sienna class trying to cast too much and accidentally blowing themselves up.

@1184

What are you talking about? You don’t have to go ‘rush melee style’ to generate 40 THP. It’s just a few swings. If you want to save on healing then just take HT.

For a single instance of 40 THP? Yes i can build that while fighting a larger group, takes about 10 swings with 2-3 THP per swing but her weapons are fast so it is indeed quick. But now what? Unless i keep going melee my THP will degenerate. That´s the fundamental problem with it. Especially with teammates also doing it.

Keep going melee to maintain THP, praying i reach enough enemies in time before my teammates catchup/get past me, or shoot the targets, and lose all the THP in the meanwhile.

[1184]

@brosgw

Disagree. Temp health drains fast and when you’re not in hordes and dealing with roaming enemies, scavenging, jumping puzzles for teams, ranging temp health is useless.

On lower difficulties you won’t need to generate as much THP because you don’t get hit as hard.
On higher difficulties the swarms are so large and common that no one should have issues generating THP and keeping it up (apart from BH, he absolutely sucks at THP generation).
Since we all agree that Boon of Shallya (or Barkskin) is always better when you take large amount of damage - when you take small amounts of damage, you should be able to easily build the THP and maintain it. Therefore there’s no need for Natural Bond. Therefore it’s useless.

@brosgw

45 health in 4 minutes is pretty good if your match is 30-40 minutes. And again that can be increased by various talents.

No it’s not, it’s next to nothing. You can generate 45 THP in a fraction of that time. And that alone makes Natural Bond useless.

@brosgw

But it does. I am not talking about damage reduction.

If you’re not talking about damage reduction then why use the term ‘prevent’?

@brosgw

If you had nat bond while roaming doing a grim puzzle not attacking or killing enemies except for ranging specials for a few minutes that is extra health you wouldn’t have had compared to temp health. Which means you can absorb more damage before going down.

If you somehow lose all your THP to decay (like… How can this even happen on enemy-dense difficulties like cata? Never happens to me) then you have Boon of Shallya, therefore you can just build the THP as soon as you meet the enemy.
Let’s say that you generate 5 THP on first hit alone - that’s already as much as you’d get from 25 seconds of natbond. Two hits and you’re at 10 THP - nearly a minute of natbond.
Natbond is just completely useless and every explaination I’ve read that tries to defend it is ignorant copium.

@brosgw

Bat bond also gives you more mileage on smaller health pool characters where the max health limits how much temp health you can have anyways and where barkskin doesn’t help if you can get mostly one shot anyways.

If you mostly get one shot anyways… Then Natbond will not help you at all. In fact, if you have a tiny health pool, you might want to keep it full at all times and build it back up AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after you get hit that doesn’t kill you. Which is what Boon of Shallya is great at.

@brosgw

Which disappears after like 2 seconds since it’s a roaming enemy and by the time you kill/get to another enemy the temp health will be gone.

Not really, no. THP doesn’t decay that quickly.
THP starts to decay after 3 seconds of generating THP and it decays at a rate of 1 THP per seconds. That means if you get 60 THP then it takes 63 seconds for it to fully disappear. Even if you somehow went for 63 seconds without hitting a single enemy (smh) you can still quickly build that THP back with Boon of Shallya.

@brosgw

If you’re maining range you aren’t generating temp health.

Yes you are. If you aren’t, then you suck and are detrimental to your team.
You eventually have to melee as ranged class, you cannot avoid it.

@brosgw

No, I still take the odd hit here and there. And then go back to full health. If my other team mates also have nat bond, like my bots do, then no one heals unless someone went down, or there’s extra supplies since we have 3 tomes anyways.

If you take a hit from time to time, then you can just EASILY fill it with THP and maintain it, since you don’t get hit often.
Natbond means that when someone screws up and gets hurt, they don’t have a good way of fixing that and must dodge all the hits for several minutes. And also the team has to circumvent their inability to heal themselves by carrying a medkit just for them.
And that’s pretty much what always happens with NB. That’s why NB isn’t a popular choice.
Because it’s useless and needs a buff/rework.

@brosgw

No the career talents. Not gear. Amount of effective healing you receive talents buff the speed of nat bond.

Which talents?
Pretty much every GK build on randalds.gift uses Barkskin. Or Boon of Shallya. And not Natbond. And there’s a good reason for that. Natbond being useless is that reason.

@brosgw

Sure, the speed of green health increase goes up overriding temp health, meaning it stacks better with green health generation.

1. It’s additive, not multiplicative. NB doesn’t interact with his talents at all.
2. Boon of Shallya does, because it literally multiplies the amount of health gained by 1.3
3. Relying on a random quest which you might not even get to be your primary health sustain on a melee-only class is an utterly flatbrain idea. And most people understand that. That’s why they don’t take NB on GK. Because NB is useless.

@brosgw

I disagree. Nat bond on waystalker vs boon of shallya gives faster green health generation.

I just literally said the same thing, read what I typed.
Yes, with NB you end up with (VERY, VERY SLIGHTLY) faster GHP regen. But you end up unable to properly heal yourself with items (healing items are inefficient without Boon and you only get THP, though that isn’t really an issue since THP has pretty much the same value as GHP on cata, since there’s so many enemies and so many opportunities to generate THP), you don’t have as good of a THP generation, the team has to carry medkits just in case you need healing. A Natbond player is most often detrimental to the team.
And that’s the reason why almost everyone takes Barkskin on Waystalker.
Because Natural Bond is utterly useless. If it wasn’t then more people would be using it.

@brosgw

Sure, but I don’t need to be a glass canon

A glass cannon? What the f**k are you talking about, Zealot isn’t a glass cannon. Shade is.
Zealot is supposed to sustain himself with THP. He’s supposed to drop to lowest possible amount of GHP and generate as much THP as possible. And stay that way.

@brosgw

I leave nat bond on for more survivability.

What? What the f**k???
Have you even unlocked Zealot? That’s not how Zealot works AT ALL. That’s shooting yourself in the foot. NB is literally the worst possible choice for him. It replaces his THP with GHP, which ruins his stacks. To get the stacks back you have to knock yourself down to lowest GHP value and build the THP once again.
That’s exactly why Waystalker should never take team-wide HP regen talent when playing with Zealot.

@brosgw

More useful to my team being alive than chasing green circles.

You’re more useful to your team when you deal a ton of damage to the enemies so they die.
If you ruin your stacks with NB then not only you don’t get to generate as much THP (and thus you die faster), but also you cannot kill enemies as easily/quickly, thus you and/or your team dies faster.
You sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Natural Bond is useless, there’s not a single scenario where it would be the best choice.
It needs a rework or a buff.

@brosgw

Don’t know how else to say it. Healing 45 actual health while roaming, and 5 temp health, compared to running lets say barkskin and having 5 temp health and no nat bond means when I get hit, it would be the difference between surviving and going down. Simple really.

45 HP generated in nearly 4 minutes vs 45 HP generated in less than 30s.
That’s a no brainer.
Not to mention the fact that if you get hit again with Boon of Shallya you can just quickly generate that THP back up. With NB you’re screwed and will most likely go down, which means your team will have to waste healing items on you.

[Riku]

@brosgw

But it does. I am not talking about damage reduction. If you had nat bond while roaming doing a grim puzzle not attacking or killing enemies except for ranging specials for a few minutes that is extra health you wouldn’t have had compared to temp health.

when BH griffon foot or a flamer deletes like 70-90% of trash mobs if thats your main source of thp, i’d rather had NB in that case too.

[Frostysir]

@1184

There’s no significant value difference between THP and GHP on cata. Converting THP to GHP won’t help you with anything - it’s a waste of time.

There is a major difference for someone who spends most of their time shooting, GHP does not decay by itself.

@1184

You don’t get hit often, therefore filling the HP bar to full with THP shouldn’t be a problem because you don’t have to generate a lot of it.

It is a big problem since i now gotta constantly seek out melee fights to keep my THP up, 3 seconds before it decay starts and all.

@1184

If you get hit often… Well then you should take Boon of Shallya or Barkskin and not natbond.

If i get hit every 3 seconds then barkskin does nothing : P

@1184

Barkskin benefits ALL classes.-…"

And this is not what we were discussing, the question on hand was, is boon good for mainly WS&pyro but also other ranged ones? And notably, Barkskin has absolutely no benefit unless you take all your damage in multiple hits that also do not exceed the capacity. Sparse hits and it does nothing.

@1184

EVERY career can benefit from Barkskin. Barkskin is never a bad choice. And that’s the reason why it’s the most popular necklace trai

Boon is the most popular, at least as far as i have ever seen. And according to the biggest steam guides.

@1184

No it’s not. If you’re good enough and have Boon of Shallya you can pull it off just fine.

it is, because you drop half your health and then refill with THP, you are now in the melee run loop, failing to participate in said loop in order to shoot at stuff means any random hit is likely to kill you.

@1184

Well guess what, Boon of Shallya helps with that.

Not if everyone does the same thing and all the healing is spent, this makes things even worse.

@1184

RV and OE can build THP extremely easily. Therefore they do not benefit from natbond, because they can keep their HP full at all times. They benefit more from Barkskin or HT.

Basing your playstyle of maintaining health in the form of THP, thus using ranged less, why play OE or RV to start with?

@1184

Pyro can figuratively fart out THP from the lvl 30 talent. And guess what - Boon of Shallya increases the THP generated. And you also can melee to lower ult CD (and also generate THP from that melee, which is boosted by Boon of Shallya)

Again, my argument was, you can shoot more if you take bond since you now do not need to constantly run melee to generate THP to maintain health. Furthermore, if you take the pyro THP ability talent that means you either save it for safety and drop damage, or you use it for damage and lose safety. Or you run melee to use it as often as possible but then lose usage of your staves. Which makes one wonder why not play BW or UC instead?

@1184

As for Huntsman - I’ve seen people generate enough THP on cata with tuskgor cleave. Without a cleave THP talent (tuskgor swipe has stagger).

The stagger talent when combined with a weapon-attack that can stagger generates THP! Big shock! …But that was not the question, the question was, does bond let a ranged user spend more time shooting and less time trying to melee?

@1184

Because then the rest of the team has to make space for you. And you cannot avoid melee all match.

The question was how being able to shoot when i want to lowers value, not if i could avoid melee or not.

@1184

It won’t decay significantly. Even if it did, you have Boon of Shallya, you can generate more quickly, especially in emergency. Natbond won’t generate significant amounts of HP during ‘walking sections’, which are rather brief on cata anyway.

It does, in just a minute you´ll have lost 60 health, thats no time at all if you are shooting, half my health gone because i wanted to use my main weapon <.<

@1184

which are rather brief on cata anyway.

Not always, far from it, especially not on any DLC map except tunnel sections like bögenhafen sewers.

@1184

The person is talking about a tactic where you deliberately get hit to significantly lower your ult cooldown and thus maximize your DPS. Which is basically what Blazing Echo does except you also get free THP from every ult

Again, that means running melee, giving up ranged in favor of more ability casts which are not even that powerful on either of those careers.

@1184

I did notice pyros are less likely to die than UCs when they get the THP ult. And that means fewer healing items used up.

This is a question of those UC’s being bad, its beyond unreasonable to base the talk of them. Its no different than saying that Battlewizard sucks since she can teleport too far away and end up alone&die to specials.

@1184

If more THP was not needed… Then you already have a perfectly sustainable THP generation. And if you do… Then you can keep your HP bar full of THP. At which point you do not benefit from natbond at all and are better off taking HT or Barkskin.

Again, having an easy time in hordes because i generate enough THP to offset damage there doesnt mean i will have a full tank outside hordes. Not without melee rushing or healing which was the whole idea to avoid.

@1184

NB users being detrimental to the team??? No way…

“Some people being stupid means anyone using that stuff is also stupid!”

If this applied to everything we´d all be beyond all salvation-kinds of stupid. It would mean that every dwarf that ever touches the trollhamer is a toxic piece of arse because a few of them will shoot while disregarding teammates entirely.

@1184

Natbond doesn’t prevent any damage from being taken. Barkskin does. If you get hit, you get hit and lose HP.

Barkskin doesnt prevent damage either, on the first hit. Or rather, only if i take more damage during the next 2 seconds. If i take more after that then Barkskin still does nothing and will be utterly completely without a spec of use.

[Riku]

@Frostysir

Barkskin doesnt prevent damage either, on the first hit. Or rather, only if i take more damage during the next 2 seconds. If i take more after that then Barkskin still does nothing.

barkskin also scales with how much dmg enemies deal, preventing 30dmg in cata or 5 in veteran, NB would provide the same amount in veteran diff where barksin becomes less useful with each diff you drop down