I know this is a controversial issue, with many people
staunchly believing it doesn't make sense to play Hymn during
a fight at higher levels. But I thought I'd toss out some
numbers I happened to calculate during last night's play.
Two paladins and I (L31, 32, 31) were wandering Guk and
happened across the ancient crocodile. It /conned blue so we
decided to give it a shot as they both had lay hands ready.
One of them has ghoulbane and the other has a blackened iron
bastard sword, so in general I do less than half the damage
one of them can do in a fight. Hence I'd mostly been playing
with my lute singing Hymn along with Anthem and Chain.
The croc hits hard, with a max hit of around 72 and often
double-attacking. Buffed out, the paladins had about 1000 hp
(200 hp per bubble), I had abaout 750. The fight lasted 27
song pulses, and ended with one paladin down to 2 bubbles, the
other down below 1 (he stepped back to heal himself near the
end), for a net deficit of 1400-1500 hp. (They are both very
good at using taunt and stopping attacks to evenly distribute
the damage they're taking.)
Hymn at my level with a lute heals 13 points per tick. In 27
pulses with both paladins wounded, it healed roughly 702
points, for a total deficit of 2100-2200 hp. That is, even in
a fight against an opponent who often double-hit for 60-70,
and with just two people wounded, Hymn with a lute was able to
"reduce" the damage taken during the fight by roughly 30%.
If I'd equipped my weapons and joined in the fighting, I
would've boosted our damage rate by about 20% (assuming I do
half the damage of either of them). That would've resulted in
the croc dying 20% faster, and us taking ~430 points less
damage. Hymn without a lute heals 7 points a tick, so over 22
rounds it would've healed 308 points. Add these to get 738
points.
So we probably would've done slightly better with me using my
weapons instead of singing Hymn. But remember that this is
with just two people wounded. If the group had been bigger,
the benefit of using Hymn with a lute would've been greater,
while the impact of me using my weapons would've been smaller.
So it *can* make sense to use Hymn with a lute during a fight
at this level. Most of the monsters we were fighting weren't
doing as much damage as the croc, and I was primarily using
Hymn to keep as close as possible to max hp in case things got
ugly and we had to run for the zone.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...