Thoughts on Ancient Memory?

[Jayd]

I've been taking Ancient Memory as an auto-pick on Chanters since I started the game. Passive healing for the whole party without spending resources - what's not to like? But recently I was looking to free up space on a Chanter build and decided to take a hard look at how much it was truly helping. I was kind of surprised. At 30+ Might at level 20 it really felt like the healing was a trickle. When everyone has a few hundred health, a bit over 2 hp/s really isn't too much. It would take much longer than most fights are to fill an average health bar just once. That made me think: there's a pretty good chance that having this has never been the difference between a party member dying or not - which is to say there's a good chance it's been entirely useless (no point in healing if it doesn't prevent a KO). Even if not entirely useless, maybe it's only saved a character once or twice in a playthrough - and is that worth the ability point and opportunity cost of queuing it over another chant?

This isn't to say I think it is bad, just that it might be more niche than I thought. It could could be valuable for a party built for attrition. But if you're running a party that's only likely to die from being burst down, is this likely to help at all? Your other healer(s) might by carrying all the weight.

Thoughts? Do you folks treat it as a mainstay or a meh-stay? Is it on every Chanter, or only when you think your team composition calls for it?

Could it be that it is strong early game, but falls off later when health pools are deeper and incoming damage is higher?

Edited March 20, 2021 by Jayd

[Boeroer]

Funny - I almost never use it.

I guess first of all it's good if you are able to stack/combine it with other forms of passive party healing like Exalted Endurance and Lethandria's Devotion, Blackened Plate and so on. At some point you will feel a substantial difference I guess. It's also good in combination with damage-mitigating strategies like high defenses + high AR - so great for tanks usually. Also good in combo with Her Courage.

And secondly I think it spares you to use a dedicated healing ability "in advance" from time to time. Which can be valuable because that takes at least some recovery time. 

But I agree that AM alone isn't something I'm too exited about. Other phrases are a lot more appealing to me. For example Many Lives Pass by does a much better job when it's about preventing knockouts. You just fill the battle with decoys - nobody's attacking your party members anymore.

[abot]

main reason to use it for me is it is nice to have at least one non-aggressive chant to avoid breaking sneaking, you can choose this one and get some healing help
[EDIT] and yes, Many Lives Pass by is probably one of the most powerful chants at higher difficulty levels so I never play without it, but often times enemies run to the initial spawned skeletons and may make your sneaking more difficult, so it works better if coupled with at least one non-aggressive starting chant

Edited March 20, 2021 by abot