no but you can heal someone else with a medpack, cleansing your wound, granting him an entirely free bar of HP, while you then can play safe and regen…
thats like Zealot 101, works with NB aswell 
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cata
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Well if Natural Bond is so good… Then why come almost no one uses it?
It’s still a disadvantage.
Well, IB happens to be my most played class.
I’m fine without Boon or Barkskin on him and using HT I manage to get my team healed more than I’d ever get if I “saved” healing items via NB.
Both of them can technically be used to save healing items. From testing I know HT is just better at it.
I think my strat worked out fine. Playing with a SoTT who hoovered up temp health that I made. If my health filled back slowly in with NB, that meant more temp health for her.
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Because too few careers have reason to, and of those that do, almost no user can do it well enough to make it worth.
I could ask the same about HT, your answer to that would be the same in essence.
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How much experience with the game do you need to be able to use Natural Bond properly and to make it worth?
How many hours does it take, approximately?
Possibly, but I don’t really care much about HT. It’s a fun thing to take and doesn’t need any buff/rework (unlike NB). There’s not many scenarios where it can work well, but there are a few - and HT is the best choice in those, better than Barkskin, Boon or anything else.
Its not a question of “how many hours”, its a question of how quickly you learn to play. One guy i was chatting with got to cata in 3 days (exp boosted) and was good enough to hold his own without any issue. At such a breakneck speed he could probably have done the deal in another day. He had his profile and everything set to public so playtime was visible.
Your whole argument for NB being buffed was “no one uses it” was it not? If the same applies to HT…you find it good still? That´s you plus maybe one or two other odd birds against the world, the exact same reason you gave me that my point about NB being useable for a few not holding up.
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“no one uses NB” 
are you hiding under a rock, NB has so many users who don’t know nothing about how little value it gives them that its a total meme pretty much since half a year after V2’s release.
if anything NB is overused for what it is. but cata is the exeption,
because people actually know about game mechanics to a degree.
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I could be wrong, but on Official Realm, Natural Bond has a few rather niche uses:
- A very select couple of ranged careers, such as Waystalker and Pyro (I have little experience with Necro, so I can’t say there)
- Players who are well above the difficulty they’re playing
- And, in some, not all, cases, players who have not yet learnt how strong Barkskin is.
For point one and three, other careers have either enough damage reduction or base health to benefit more from Barkskin. Helps a lot when downed.
As a sidenote, on modded, Barkskin is taken to help against frequent multi-hit damage. A few tankier careers might benefit from Boon, but usually still take Barkskin.
When I used to main no-hit Handmaiden way way back, it was always with Healer’s Touch to get a chance to help allies more.
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Even if something is inferior, it has a place in the game. Players should be given the chance to evaluate and make their own opinions and decide to use an inferior effect if they believe it’s good. Noobs might use Nat Bond to build the confidence they need to survive without Nat Bond one day.
It is a valid game design and this metagaming post is obnoxious.
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I used NB on Ironbreaker and Unchained. It is good for regenerating venting damage. It slowly regenerate cheap damage too.
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Almost no one who plays cata takes NB, that means they haven’t reached a point where they’re good enough to make it worth to take NB, the obviously superior choice. Heck, even most people who take NB don’t seem to be able to make it worth. How much experience with the game do you need to be able to use Natural Bond properly and to make it worth?
No, never was. NB is trash and the fact that almost no one uses it is the effect, not the cause.
There’s a fundamental difference between NB and HT, even though similar amount of people use it.
There are scenarios where HT is definitely the best choice. And that’s why it’s small popularity is not a problem.
There are no scenarios where NB is definitely the best choice.
I only take HT on IB (recently trying it on OE because his HP got buffed, but I’ll probably stay with Barkskin), because IB has a large health pool, extremely good THP generation, innate DR and gromril curse. All that diminishes the role of Boon and Barkskin. And the next best thing is HT.
HT is there as an alternative to people who don’t benefit from Boon that much and feel safe enough without Barkskin. And it’s quite effective. It’s not an alternative that’s supposed to give you HP sustain - unlike Boon, Bark or NB.
They benefit from NB more than other classes, but they still always could benefit from Barkskin or Boon way more than NB.
And they can usually make NB work without being detrimental to the team.
And then they’re probably still better off using HT.
I might be ridiculous, but I don’t think necklace trait balance should be centered around people who play lower difficulty that’s not a challenge for them.
That or they for example don’t yet know how Boon of Shallya works and that it boosts THP gen, which is excellent for classes which don’t have the best THP gen.
Handmaiden is probably my least played class, but I think HT would be a good choice for her, yeah.
It has. With like 1% of the playerbase that shoot themselves in the foot by not taking the best option, which wouldn’t be a problem at all if they weren’t infamous for being mostly detrimental.
They do that, then they pick Barkskin or Boon of Shallya and realize how much better these are. And that’s how NB ends up dead.
“Valid”?
NB is a dead trait, almost no one uses it (most of those who do are detrimental) and it’s never the best choice.
I want NB to be a good alternative to Barkskin or Boon of Shallya and not a noob trap. And that requires a rework or a buff.
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IB can generate so much THP you don’t need any necklace trait to vent whenever you want.
In fact IB can keep his HP capped with THP, which makes NB utterly useless because it simply changes the color of a funny bar that is already almost always full.
I haven’t played Unchained much, so myself I used Boon of Shallya, because it’s extremely good with her base mechanics. You generate tons of THP > you get damaged > damage gets reduced and builds up overcharge > you generate more THP and vent the overcharge. If I was better with Unchained and skillful enough to generate THP more reliably, then I’d definitely take Barkskin (like everyone else) because it’s probably the best choice for her, as it mitigates damage and thus lowers the amount of overcharge generated.
NB is never the best choice.
Maybe this was changed at some point and I missed it but I’m pretty sure barkskin applies AFTER blood magic so has no effect on the amount of overcharge you take from enemy damage, it just further reduces HP damage. Makes it kind meh on UC though it’s still not bad for if you’re disabled (which deactivates blood magic).
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How do you prove this? I could say the same about HT but i could not prove it either way. I can only point to the numbers showing HT has a very poor yield.
No there´s no similar amount of people, i have seen people use NB but i have not seen HT used for years. Its rarity relative to NB is what NB is to boon/barkskin.
Its not effective at all, its objectively, literally stated, 75% chance of failure with 25% chance of showcasing any effect at all. Its a “help” that both requires you/teammates to fail but also have healing and even then fails far more than it doesnt. By design. IMO this thing is worse than NB in general since it´s literally made to be likely to have no payoffs at all unless guzzling healing.
And i am not talking your experience here, i am talking hard facts of coding, 75% fail chance means its made to fail much more than not. If it gives 2 extra healing potions over the course of a match then it has provided less value than NB which does at least provide 200 extra GHP over a match. Which yes, cant cure grey status so less value in that sense, but, does have better value outside that. But getting 2 extra heals on average mandates using 8 heals first. 
People do not avoid HT because it´s niche, its avoided because its even more niche than NB which is kind of a feat in on itself.
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NB is trash and the fact that almost no one uses it is the effect, not the cause.
People mock players who use NB. Because they are almost always a detriment to the team (which you agreed with). Because NB is garbage.
HT is not taken often because most people need that Barkskin protection or need that Boon boost. I also think a big factor with that is the fact that many people don’t even know that HT exists xd But it is still the best choice in many scenarios. But that’s irrelevant, because this thread is about NB and not HT. And NB is never the best choice.
Subjective. You cannot prove it.
And yet it works wonders and has never been detrimental. Unlike NB.
Nah. I just take it, keep myself full of THP and then I heal my team when they need it, often saving many medkits. It’s that simple.
TBH if I played BH and was confident in my special hunting skills I would’ve tried HT with the healshare talent. But that’s irrelevant to the topic.
And yet it’s still better than NB.
Except for all the time NB changes color of the funny bar instead of doing anything remotely useful, which is probably like 80% of the time for your common cata player.
And 2 extra healing potions/medkits is always great. That’s because on cata healing items almost never are used for getting more HP but for clearing wounds.
200 “extra” GHP on the other hand is useless because on cata GHP = THP pretty much. That’s why no one uses that chaos wastes boon which turns THP into GHP. It’s a waste of coins.
So, if almost no one can make it worth… What’s the point?
Should be buffed/reworked so it’s a good pick. Just like Barkskin or Boon of Shallya.
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I dont see any evidences behind your arguments. Its just a subjective point of view without any backup
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