S4 First 1/2 Season - State of Healing

I had a quick solo-queue Assault match where someone wanted my Kukulkan roll. They had Hel, so I figured why not, I've always liked her (only real exposure has been in Assault, I pretty much never choose her elsewhere).

After the enemy team surrendered at 10:09, I started thinking more about healing...then I saw my stats. LOL. Now look, this is a very unique situation, as it's just one big teamfight, and we also couldn't go back to base to buy items, etc. I also haven't been playing nearly as much Assault lately. But I don't remember seeing this kind of healing since S2, maybe early S3. And it could have been higher...I missed a few Restorations on constantly moving teammates, and was playing around a lot with stance switching.

(other thoughts on that match...their Anhur rerolled...looks like he was previously their healer, hahaha...and not enough of our people rerolled...4 mag on our side...but I'll take 4 mag any day over an idiot rerolling a healer)

Anyway, as the first half of S4 is coming to a close, I'm just curious to see what everyone thinks about the current state of healing.


Gods

Right now, compared to S3, we've seen almost all group-healing gods see a nerf to their effectiveness... Hel not only got an overall decrease in healing, but her main group heal Inspire also got a weird heal over time thing. Ra got the other biggest change, which was adding protections when under the influence of Solar Blessing. Terra's and Chang'e's heals feel like a piece of ****. Aphrodite might be the only one whose heal is still amazing, but hers is also the most limited...heals herself and her link only.

Self-healing gods also got healing nerfs in some ways, but I don't think they were hit nearly as hard. Tyr got nerfed, then got buffed. Hercules got nerfed, then people threw a fit and he got sort of un-nerfed. Am I remembering this correctly?


Items

So...Hi-Rez. What exactly is your plan, here? I thought you wanted healing nerfed overall, right? Not only did you nerf healing abilities, but you also nailed Rod of Asclepius pretty hard. (I do like the idea of increasing healing when in combat, promoting actual fighting) You also made a lot of items pretty cheap for people to build into anti-healing... Divine Ruin is a super-strong early-game item... Brawler's Beat Stick is still around, Witchblade, Pestilence, etc. Alright, fine.

SO WHY THE HELL IS BRACER OF UNDOING A THING??? "Hmmm...let's nerf all healers and build up anti-healing. But to make up for that, let's let EVERYONE heal!!!" Okay, so that's a weak rant, but you get the point.

And I'll mention as an honorable mention... Cursed Ankh. Upgraded, the healing reduction lasts for...15 seconds?!? Right. I guess they needed to make it worthwhile to even pick up...and even then, it's questionable.


Your thoughts

Those are my thoughts in a nutshell. I'm generally okay with healing nerfs. I'm also okay with most of the anti-heal items; if you build it, you're sacrificing something else, at least. But Bracer needs to go or needs a big adjustment (maybe longer CD at least), and Ankh could be improved, perhaps.

What about you?

Hel is pretty OP actually, if she isnt focused. lost my 9 winstreak because of a Hel :(

Guan's heal is so bad that you even forgot him...

To be fair if you ever let a Hel hit lategame in any season you probably lost the game.

Pfft. Y'all ain't got nothin' on me. :D

S2 Guan Assault:



Over 30k, ~13 minutes.

I'd say self-healing needs a nerf, and group healing needs a buff (or at least its nerfs undone).

If I had to describe the meta in one word, that would be "selfish", especially with the nerfs to auras (and Bracer just plain existing).

Oh yeah, screw Bracer in every way possible.

"Ooh, do I see a ki- ah nevermind, they Bracer'd."

"Oh no, I'm dying! Good thing I picked up this OP relic called Bracer, let's... Only 150 hp? Tf is this!"

"Burnt 20 abilities on this already OP Herc, now's the final push and he's down. Boom! wait what? He's alive... oh, Bracer."

Yeah this relic is totally fine... Not.

It really depends per god and item.

Bracer is pretty much a chronos/weaver ult without the traveling, which makes it better. So yeah poor chronos.

However healing in most moba's is a pretty big problem. Only dota doesn't have the problem because scaling doesn't exist, making healing strong early game but bad late game.
In LoL it's also not that balanced. However it's the same case as in smite it really depends on the character (and sometimes team comps)

To call the healing OP I think aphro is/was the perfect sample mostly because the ability also does damage. still het healing was pretty high and pretty frequent. even tho you can only heal 1 target in most cases that's enough to win the fight (cause lifesteal too).

The items are in a pretty decent spot in most cases. only witch blades healing reduction is less however that's not the main reason to pick it up.

However for assault I would say healers are even more OP. LoL kinda fixed it by adding in an aura that reduces healing from teammates by 50% (self heals aren't affected). However in smite I would feel that certain healing gods would get hit way too hard by something like that.

I would say certain items/gods are balanced and others are far from it. However because of healing in general being pretty strong (and annoying) buffing or nerfing it slightly can have huge impacts.