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Looking Forward: Healing Skillset

EstarraEstarra
in Combat Overhaul
As Dreamweaving is about complete, I wanted to next take a look at the healing skillset. Below is a draft proposal that I wanted to share with you. Please comment and let us know what you think!

SkillStatusLearned AtShort DescriptionChange Notes
Succor Unchanged Inept+0% Diagnose, heal and cure others.
Heal Unchanged Inept+50% Heal your body of damage. Note: Self-heals do not cause loss of empathy, but healing others can restore empathy.
Curing Update Novice+0% The ability to cure yourself of ailments. New functions: If no type of cure is specified, a random affliction on the target (from one of the affliction types you have the ability to cure) will be cured; this should come at a slightly reduced cost (either in terms of mana or eq-loss). Curing and farcuring others increases your empathy. Once a healer obtaines Farcure, they should have an option to specify two cures or farcures when curing someone else at a cost of 1 power.
Skin REMOVE Novice+33% Soothe the skin and cure conditions thereof.
Integumentary Update Novice+33% Cure the integumentary ailments. Cures: burns, chills, sensitivity, blindness, deafness, insomnia
Temperature REMOVE Novice+66% Cure the effects of temperature extremes.
Auras Update Novice+66% Radiate mystic auras that can heal and cure. Auras, Stamina, and Euphoria combined into this single skill. Note we are moving it to an earlier slot in the skillset to introduce the concept of auras and aura manipulation, which are now core to the skillset, earlier. Auras radiated onto others will restore a small amount of empathy each proc. As a healer's skill in healing increasing, she will automatically gain the ability to raise more auras: 3 auras at Gifted+0%, 5 auras at Mythical+0%. Keep in mind that auras will retain their heavy ego drain and will reduce in effectiveness with increasing duress.
Fractures Update Apprentice+0% Mend damaged bodyparts. Cures: damagedleftarm, damagedleftleg, damagedorgans, damagedrigharm, damagedrightleg, damagedskull, damagedthroat
Glandular REMOVE Apprentice+33% Cure glandular conditions.
Anesthesia New Apprentice+33% Relieve your patient of her pain. Healers can twist a patient’s aura to deaden their senses such that they feel no pain. New affliction: anesthetized, which is a form of recklessness that cannot be cured. Wears off automatically after a period of time (dependent upon your skill in healing: 40 seconds - 1 minute 20 seconds), or wears off immediately if the target has no other afflictions. Also contributes (5-15) points of aura warp, depending on current state of the healer's empathy. 2 power.
Senses REMOVE Apprentice+66% The ability to cure diseases of the senses.
Purity New Apprentice+66% Disease will flee from your restorative touch. Passive effect: Any time you directly restore health to a single targeted individual, they will also be cured of a random affliction. (This works on heal, farheal, and inspirited heal procs.)
Neurosis Update Capable+0% Treat the neurotic mental disorders. Cures: stupidity, anorexia, addiction, epilepsy, confusion, recklessness
Deepheal Unchanged Capable+33% Heal the deep wounds of the body. Note: Self-heals do not cause loss of empathy, but healing others can restore empathy.
Breaks REMOVE Capable+66% Mend broken bones.
Aurabrace New Capable+66% Brace your patient's aura for impending harm. Target will not take more than 10% of health from a single hit for the next 10 seconds. Cannot be cast on self. 3 power. Increases empathy.
Sanitise Unchanged Adept+0% Thoroughly clean the skin.
Choleric Update Adept+33% Directly treat choleric temperaments. Cures: paralysis, asthma, scabies, rigormortis, pox, powersap
Curses REMOVE Adept+66% Lift small curses that plague the spirit.
Serenity New Adept+66% Your proficiency in absorbing wounds increases. Passive effect: The cost associated with healing health is reduced by 25%. Furthermore, the cost of healing others is now split evenly between your health, mana, and ego. (This makes health-healing, which frankly is currently a pointless effort, somewhat viable. Healing self still costs ego and will still be very difficult to maintain.)
AuraShift Unchanged Master+0% Shift your healing auras onto a patient.
Muscles REMOVE Master+33% Cure diseases that infect the muscular system.
Flay New Master+33% Flay another's spiritual aura. Flaying a person’s aura will cause an affliction that they currently have to spread, where it will present as a different affliction of the same healing type (e.g., neurosis to neurosis, mania to mania, etc.). The new affliction will require time to manifest and will not immediately present symptoms, but flaying will immediately result in (5-15) points of aura warp, depending on the current state of the healer's empathy. FLAY ESTARRA chooses a random affliction, whereas FLAY ESTARRA NEUROSIS chooses a random neurosis affliction. The new affliction appears random 2-8 seconds later but does not give a trigger line when it arises. 1 power. (Gifted +0%). (Short explanation: someone has an affliction, they get flayed, another affliction in same healing type springs up; old affliction stays unless it is cured by player.)
Sanguine Update Master+66% Cleanse the body of sanguine afflictions. Cures: asthma, vomiting, haemophilia, dysentery, sickening, bleeding
Stamina REMOVE Gifted+0% You may now raise up to three healing auras.
Inspirit New Gifted+0% Inspirit your abilities to ensure the maximum impact of your sacrifice. You may now inspirit your heals (or farheals, if you have that ability) at a cost of 1 power, which ensures that your sacrifice does not go unnoticed. Ten seconds after your target is healed, she will be healed again for half that amount, followed by a quarter the original amount an additional ten seconds later.
Blood REMOVE Gifted+33% Restore the purity and flow of blood.
Empathy New Gifted+33% Control your empathy. Control your empathy. You will no longer gain empathy from healing or curing others. Can be toggled on/off. (Note: this is to help healers stay offensive longer, at a cost of their defensive potential. Healers will still gain empathy naturally over time.)
Melancholic REMOVE Gifted+66% Directly treat melancholic temperaments.
Phlegmatic Update Gifted+66% Directly treat phlegmatic temperaments. Cures: aeon, slickness, disloyalty, manabarbs, luminosity, healthleech
Quicken Unchanged Expert+33% Vastly speed your proficiency with healing.
AuraWarp Update Expert+66% Hinder a transgressor's ability to cure herself. For 1 min 20 seconds, curing any affliction causes the person to become afflicted with another random affliction from that affliction class after a short delay (maximum 1 new affliction per 5 seconds). Each of these afflictions also contributes (1-10) points of warp to the person’s aura, depending on the current state of the healer's empathy. 3 power.
Farheal Update Virtuoso+0% Heal and cure others from afar. Once a healer obtaines Farheal/Farcure, they should have an option to specify two cures or farcures when curing someone else, at a cost of 1 power. Note: Self-heals do not cause loss of empathy, but healing others can restore empathy.
Nervous REMOVE Virtuoso+25% Cure conditions that affect the nervous system.
Auric Update Virtuoso+25% Cleanse the aura of negative tumours. Cures: timewarp, pacifism, egovice, powerspikes, aeon, achromaticaura
Depression REMOVE Virtuoso+50% Lift the spirits of those in depressive states.
Invigorate New Virtuoso+50% Empower your patients to aid their recovery. Passive effect. Any time a patient finds herself cured by you, she will receive a 3/10 bonus to health, mana, and ego regeneration for 30 seconds. Anytime a patient finds herself healed by you, she will receive a 3/10 universal damage resistance buff for 30 seconds. Does not work on self-cures or self-heals or on cauterize.
Flushing REMOVE Virtuoso+75% Flush away toxins which foul the body.
Projection New Virtuoso+75% Project your aura to aid your allies. Project your aura outward to cure all allies in the room of a number of afflictions. This will occur after a three-second windup, which can be interrupted by stun, prone, or entanglement. The number of afflictions cured per person will depend on your skill in healing (random 1-2 from before Trans, random 2-3 at Transcendant.) If you have more personal enemies in the room than allies, each of the allies will also be healed for a percentage of their maxhealth. 3 power. Increases empathy. (Note: this skill does not cure/heal self.)
Vitality Update Fabled+0% An aura to protect yourself while healing. The power cost of this skill will be reduced to 5 to reduce investment healers need to make when they plan to play a support role.
Attend New Fabled+25% Attend to your patient by linking your auras. Attend to your patient by linking your aura to theirs. While linked, 20% of all healing you do to yourself or others (either through potions or skills) will also be applied to your patient. Furthermore, there is a 20% chance that any affliction the patient receives while you are linked will automatically transfer to your aura (afflicts healer, stops afflicting patient.) The link breaks if you are no longer in the same area. 5 power. Increases empathy.
Sacrifice Unchanged Fabled+50% Make the ultimate sacrifice to heal another. Note: Restores a lot of empathy.
Mania Update Fabled+75% Analyze and treat different forms of mania. Cures: stupidity, hallucinations, clumsiness, paranoia, sensitivity, tempinsanity
Insanity Update Mythical+0% Relieve yourself and others of Astral born insanity. In addition to its current use, Insanity will become a passive ability that increases the rate at which a healer regains sanity in order to make this a competitive skill for being at Mythical.
Euphoria REMOVE Mythical+25% Your fulminating skill may radiate five auras.
Cauterize New Mythical+25% Cure an affliction by burning away the aura. Cure a patient of ailments by burning away the affected portions of their aura. If the patient’s aura is too warped, however, this will simply put them out of their misery. (If target’s aura is completely twisted (<= 20): 5 power, instakill. If target’s aura is not completely twisted (>20): 1 power, cure 1 random affliction on target, deal damage, and contribute to (2-10) points of aura warp, depending on the current state of the healer's empathy.) Note: cauterize is not impacted by Invigorate passive.
Regenerate Update Mythical+50% Regenerate missing or mangled limbs. Regenerate will work on advanced internal afflictions (e.g., mangledlimbs), but will cause more empathy loss than typical cures when cast on self. It will still use equilibrium.
Draw New Mythical+75% Draw afflictions from your patient into yourself. As though drawing poison from a wound, you will transfer 3 afflictions at top of cure queue from your target to yourself (can specify types by DRAW ESTARRA NEUROSIS AURIC NEUROSIS, for instance), with a 50% chance that an additional affliction will be cured from your target outright. 2 power if in the same room, 3 power if in a different room in same area. Cannot be forced. Increases empathy. Equilibrium cost should be slightly lower than a typical farcure, otherwise it would be better to just farcure twice for less power cost and not have to cure yourself of afflictions afterwards. Restores massive amounts of empathy.
Bedevil Update Transcendent+0% Channel afflictions into a transgressor. At a cost to mana, the healer transfers 2 random afflictions that she currently has to a target. Each affliction also contributes (2-10) points of warp to target’s aura, depending on the current state of the healer's empathy. Note: Cost of bedevil should probably be less than the cost of whammy or doublewhammy, because bedevil requires that healer is afflicted. Target is blind to the specific afflictions she receives, as they are random. (Note: Estarra has also proposed a passive version of this skill.)


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Comments

  • SynkarinSynkarin Nothing to see here
    Just to clarify so I am understanding things

    Empathy and warping are offsets? IE no empathy means max warping (working towards instakill or being offensive) and more empathy means they are doing more curing and being defensive?



    Everiine said:
    "'Cause the fighting don't stop till I walk in."
    -Synkarin's Lament.
  • TwytchTwytch
    Wooow! 
    See you in Sapience.
  • ShaddusShaddus , the Leper Messiah Outside your window.
    Healing has a kill now? Nice.
    Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
  • ShaddusShaddus , the Leper Messiah Outside your window.
    All in all, this looks to be an amazing upgrade.
    Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
  • LuceLuce Fox Populi
    To add to Synkarin's question, the aura twisting starts at a big number and gets reduced, or should cauterize be >=20 and <20 for the kill and cure respectively?
  • CyndarinAscendsCyndarinAscends
    Anesthesia + Aurawarp basically means incurable recklessness because you'll always have recurring affs which should probably be addressed.

    Is there a way to cure off twisted aura? It feels like another "run or die," style kill.

    I really love the theme of these, btw. The new skills are really awesome. 
  • LuceLuce Fox Populi
    Maybe not. Depends on recursion time. Looks like aurawarp's main counter will be just curing things on different balances such that you cure more than one thing every 5 seconds. Then Anesthesia will go away if you hit 0 affs at any point, even if another one reoccurs the next second.

    Granted, the healer should theoretically be either bedeviling or using their primary to augment this. But the apparent solution to all of that is to force the healer on the defensive. Sure you can't keep affs on them for any length of time, but you can pressure towards burnout or force them to run from you (which builds empathy and hinders their healing-based offense.)
  • CyndarinAscendsCyndarinAscends
    I'll clarify: in practical application in group combat, you will have incurable recklessness due to affliction output/stacking post overhaul. 1v1 will obviously be a different animal altogether. 

    Recklessness is just one of those affs you can't survive for a long time with. Espeically in the presence of a mana killer. 
  • OrventaOrventa
    I'm going to miss temperatures and breaks auras :( specifically for places like climanti and hunting things like mammoths. I dislike having to keep sipping vials, not automated like some fancy folk.


    I'm a consent-based roleplayer! Kindly ask first, and I will return the favour. Open to developing tinyplots.
    Atlantis is my client of choice! (Guide)
  • SynkarinSynkarin Nothing to see here
    You can still cure those afflictions, they're just moved to different auras

    Everiine said:
    "'Cause the fighting don't stop till I walk in."
    -Synkarin's Lament.
  • OrventaOrventa
    Ah ok.


    I'm a consent-based roleplayer! Kindly ask first, and I will return the favour. Open to developing tinyplots.
    Atlantis is my client of choice! (Guide)
  • YehnYehn
    o.o this looks really, really nice! ^^

    ...buuut I'm not the most knowledgeable person at combat. Is this as good as it looks? It looks really good. Can't wait to play this^^

    And just to be sure... empathy is a resource we'll have to manage? Will it be something on the prompt..?
    beep
  • SalomeSalome
    Just looking at this off hand it looks exciting. I'd like to see how strong it is.
    The apple is cold, crisp, and sour as the juices fill your mouth. As you consume the fruit, you glimpse, for a moment, a massive, shadowy figure, Her snow-white hair framing a perfect, icy-eyed visage. Beneath you, a vast, perfect web of silken strands lies - and, for a moment, you realize that you too are part of it, weaver and strand both - and home.
  • CiaranCiaran
    Sorry, stupid phone formatting -- I think it shouldn't be too hard to set up your system to automatically sip when you have the healer recklessness, and toggle to mana/ego as needed. -- Recklessness is definitely not a death sentence by any means, but you have to set your system up to deal with it *shrug* -- this skillset seems crazy strong, but it depends on how empathy/warp is balanced. -- I like the direction though!
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Recklessness that can't be cured for 40 seconds (or longer!) is pretty darned overpowered, though... even at a 2p cost.
    image
  • CiaranCiaran
    If that's all it costs, yeah absolutely. Especially considering how sweet the rest of the skillset is. If you make it take cost warp (thereby sacrificing attrition towards the instakill), and maybe shorten the minimum duration, that would probably be better.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • AeldraAeldra , using cake powered flight
    I've not yet had time to read through it completely, so far, I think it sounds really interesting. There's three things I want to point out right away / want to ask for clarification:

    - As others have asked, clarification on empathy / warped aura would be great, to get an idea how to work with it
    - What will the use of quicken be? it's untouched and I have never really felt any use or need for it, it seemed to be rather 0.001% usecase, given how short it is. Maybe it'll be worth more now, given that curing others get's more interesting, but still, maybe worth considering.
    - It's a really minor thing, but when auras are touched, maybe something can be done about the 'pulse' message? Nothing to spam you to death as two healers with five aura's up on people. :)

    Will try and give more thought through feedback after reading it a few times and understanding it. First impression: Looks very interesting :-)
    Avatar / Picture done by the lovely Gurashi.
  • CyndarinAscendsCyndarinAscends
    edited June 2016
    No, it's not a "death sentence." Yes, it absolutely is too strong if you have more than one vital being pressured. You'd have to add damage/drain approximations into your system line by line for every attack in the game just to manage extended recklessness somewhat effectively. Which is nuts. Right now systems just assume vital levels while reckless.

    I wrecked face just pressuring and understanding a target's sipping prios as an SD pre-overhaul healing with no affliction potential. With a viable way to give extended recklessness and aff potential, it would be cake. In groups? Won't even have to try and toad people. Can just smash the button.

    My other concern is how unevenly this skillset will ultimately be applied. It's going to favor guilds with passive affliction potential massively over those without it. I think this could benefit wiccans tremendously (Moondancers just outright need something like this, SDs have no aff potential to speak of so will not see a huge benefit outside of groups), but really question if Researchers and Celestines need this as a viable alternative to tarot and their guild kill methods.

  • LeradLerad
    Just a couple of notes:

    - Flaying needs to differentiate in effectiveness between random and chosen - there would be little point to choosing a type if there is not an advantage to doing so over just letting it be a random flay, since there is the (I assume) inherent disadvantage of getting nothing if you try to flay a healing type which the target has no afflictions of. The concept of stronger power at a bigger risk, and encouraging proper tracking and thought out strategies over button mashing is an important part of give and take.

    - The buffs to health healing and other forms of healing in general (in the form of purity, serenity, inspiritness, invigorate and the empathy changes etc) are incremental on their own, but will add up to huuuuge buffs in survivability. I think this is a good move, to give defensive healers and support healers an actual niche in combat. But I think as a result, farheal needs to given heavier costs in comparison, or the farheal versions need to be toned down. I am leaning toward the latter as a suggestion, as we don't want to keep giving more power to in-room healers to differentiate them from farhealing ones, but rather to lower the effectiveness of those who stay in a safe place. The safer you are, the less effectiveness you should bring to the fight.

    As it is, I fear in-room healers will be too strong in healing, but I think given the ineffectiveness of the skillset historically, it's probably a good idea to adopt a look-and-see stance at how these buffs will affect in-room healers (especially since they put themselves at considerably higher risk when they are in-room) before moving to tweak the healing effects. In general, the healing buffs are a good move, I feel.

    - Empathy is still a little undefined in here, it'll need to be properly explained in the ABs for sure, to avoid confusing newbies. But the concept of offensive abilities being low in effectiveness when the healer is concentrating on healing and viceversa is a good one. The only problem is the implementation. The large ranges of aurawarp (2-10 per affliction for bedevil) and its unknown interaction with empathy makes it hard to gauge how overpowered or underpowered cauterize's instakill threshold is (20 aurawarp points).

    Cauterize should probably also have some additional requirements than just 5p and aurawarp points.

    I think that buffing healing and locking the healing potential behind empathy is definitely a very well thought out move, and similarly with the offensive side. If we ignore the lack of details and specifics, the direction is definitely something that'll invigorate (geddit?) the healing skillset. Makes it possible to have both very strong offensive and defensive abilities, but since they can't be simultaneous, it makes it good.

    On that note, bedevil's rework is a great move. Please don't make it passive, an active cure that pushes afflictions on the target AND adds aurawarp is a great idea. A passive one, which effectively is defensive and offensive at the same time without incurring opportunity costs or creating meaningful choices is not. If bedevil is passive, then it becomes a 100% must have for all healers to put up at all times, whether they are healing or afflicting. Not a good idea.

    That said, I'm not sure if the fluctuation of empathy WILL affect healing potential (it certainly affects aurawarp potential), and that's probably something that you want to take note of and perhaps implement.

  • LeradLerad
    Some secondary thoughts.

    Incurable recklessness is very, very powerful. Recklessness and blackout are the two things that can never really be fully coded and/or optimised against, which is a good thing in the meta of automated curing of course, but that also means they should be powerful afflictions reserved carefully with properly balanced costs. There was a big fuss made about the aquachems when they came out with their huge glut of blackout effects, and it's been written extensively on why it was not a good idea.

    At the very least, anesthesia, even if kept at the current effects, need to have an on-target cooldown. Once it is cured, there needs to be a significantly large window wherein anesthesia cannot be reapplied to the same target. It will also need to have significant costs to cast in the first place, 2p is too low, I feel. It shouldn't be something you reach for instinctively to gain an advantage or force an opponent onto the defensive at any and all circumstances, and should involve hesitation, and a question of, "If I do this now, and I fail to capitalize properly on it, will it set me back more than if I choose not to do it?" And the answer to that should be a resounding YES in almost every situation except when the target has been well and properly prepped with afflictions/aurawarp/empathy-manipulation.

    I also hope that this healing buff will move us toward healing nerfs for the classes that have a glut of it (and access to healing at the same time). I think it would be a smacking great idea to have a few abilities in the guardian and wiccan primaries that synergize specifically with the new empathy resource while taking the bat to some of the more egregrious passive and active healing abilities. For example, make shadowdance drink be affected by the rise and fall of empathy - low empathy means less healing, maybe even dropping the affliction cure. Similarly to all the large amounts of healing in Celestines, Researchers and Moondancers. It makes zero sense to have healing be a great curing skillset that buffs defensiveness and survivability, but with a meaningful cost of giving up offense... and then making that balance meaningless by putting a large amount of defensive abilities in primaries so that healers can concentrate on using low-empathy to build strong offense and STILL get a huge amount of survivability from their primaries.

    In short, the new healing offensive buffs should also be paired with defensive nerfs to primaries if the healer is choosing to use offensive abilities.

  • LuceLuce Fox Populi
    Lerad said:
    Some secondary thoughts.

    Incurable recklessness is very, very powerful. Recklessness and blackout are the two things that can never really be fully coded and/or optimised against, which is a good thing in the meta of automated curing of course, but that also means they should be powerful afflictions reserved carefully with properly balanced costs. There was a big fuss made about the aquachems when they came out with their huge glut of blackout effects, and it's been written extensively on why it was not a good idea.

    At the very least, anesthesia, even if kept at the current effects, need to have an on-target cooldown. Once it is cured, there needs to be a significantly large window wherein anesthesia cannot be reapplied to the same target. It will also need to have significant costs to cast in the first place, 2p is too low, I feel. It shouldn't be something you reach for instinctively to gain an advantage or force an opponent onto the defensive at any and all circumstances, and should involve hesitation, and a question of, "If I do this now, and I fail to capitalize properly on it, will it set me back more than if I choose not to do it?" And the answer to that should be a resounding YES in almost every situation except when the target has been well and properly prepped with afflictions/aurawarp/empathy-manipulation.

    I also hope that this healing buff will move us toward healing nerfs for the classes that have a glut of it (and access to healing at the same time). I think it would be a smacking great idea to have a few abilities in the guardian and wiccan primaries that synergize specifically with the new empathy resource while taking the bat to some of the more egregrious passive and active healing abilities. For example, make shadowdance drink be affected by the rise and fall of empathy - low empathy means less healing, maybe even dropping the affliction cure. Similarly to all the large amounts of healing in Celestines, Researchers and Moondancers. It makes zero sense to have healing be a great curing skillset that buffs defensiveness and survivability, but with a meaningful cost of giving up offense... and then making that balance meaningless by putting a large amount of defensive abilities in primaries so that healers can concentrate on using low-empathy to build strong offense and STILL get a huge amount of survivability from their primaries.

    In short, the new healing offensive buffs should also be paired with defensive nerfs to primaries if the healer is choosing to use offensive abilities.
    Since it's been brought up in reference to other tertiaries recently, How would you manage this in light of the potential for those same classes to choose, for instance, hexes, astrology, or tarot.
  • LeradLerad
    Hrm? I would assume nothing should change for them. As long as the tweaks and nerfs to the primary is tied to a healing-only resource, like empathy, it would be possible to tweak how any of those abilities will perform if the user has chosen healing, and leave it untouched for other tertiaries.

    Whether there's a need for it will also depend on the implementation of empathy as a resource and how it regulates the swing to and from healing and aurawarping offense of a healer. I'm assuming that empathy being gained when a healer cures a target means that the more they cure, the less effective aurawarp should be. If I'm reading this totally wrongly, then my notes above will need to be re-assessed. (It should be noted here that I am categorically opposed to the idea that a healer should build up more offensive potential the more they heal others.) 

    But if we go by my assumption that high empathy means drastically lowered aurawarping potential (I say drastic because the aurawarp swings are huge, like a range from 1 to 10 "based on the healer's empathy" means that at the extremes, a healer can be 10 times more or less effective at offense), then it should be pertinent to make sure that healers can't maintain an unreasonable level of curing from their primaries to negate that intended drawback (lowered survivability) for higher afflicting power and killing potential.

  • YehnYehn
    edited June 2016
    Lerad said:
     But I think as a result, farheal needs to given heavier costs in comparison, or the farheal versions need to be toned down.

    Isn't giving it a power cost enough of a thing? Power doesn't recharge all that fast and spamming heals will eat through it pretty quick... not to mention a lot of the other new abilities are also introducing power costs...
    beep
  • LeradLerad
    Yeah, reading through the abilities again, it seems like lower empathy means better offense (higher aurawarp points) and curing or healing others will increase empathy.

    I assume that means other abilities (probably the offensive ones?) will "cost" empathy, thereby increasing their offense.

    The only thing is to make sure that low empathy healers (who are now at a high level of offensive potential) have lowered healing from the healing skillset, as well as from their primaries, so that you don't get healers churning out 10 points of aurawarp per affliction with incurable recklessness and instakill-cauterizing every other balance WHILE still healing 3 times over 20s, with boosted health curing and the ego costs spread over health and mana and curing an affliction each tick, with passive aura cures as well as the choice of group curing via aura projection and curing a secondary target with aura link etc etc. All on top of existing cures and defensive curing abilities from primaries.

    Those curing boosts should definitely be lowered in effectiveness when the healer is at low empathy.

  • VivetVivet , of Cows and Crystals
    Just wanted to say I think this looks nifty too!
  • LeradLerad
    Ooh, that information is very helpful.

    Leaving aside the argument about tying in (self-)healing abilities in primary skillsets to also be affected by empathy as well, the new skillset looks to introduce an interesting mechanic for healers that gives them room to go offensive without the traditional problem of being good at it while also being unkillable. 

    Generally speaking, it looks like a 1v1 healer is generally speaking much more offensively orientated than a group-based healer, because it's almost always going to be more efficient in a group to be healing and curing multiple people via link, aura projection and putting auras on other people (and since it doesn't result in empathy drops, it maintains maximum healing efficiency). And because it synergizes with purity, serenity, inspiritedness, there's going to be very little arguments to go offensive on a target (beyond casting anesthesia) or building aurawarp points in a group. It actually means it's probably not THAT critical for diminishing returns on aurawarp points, since it's likely to not be very efficient to invest multiple healers to waste all their actives on bombing a target, but hey, better to prevent abuse than to address it only when it becomes a problem, I guess.

    Making sure anesthesia is not a set-and-forget ability that defensive healers just drop on a target without thinking should also be something to think about, when refining for release, I would say. Tying in its power to aurawarp points might be a good idea - it should reward 1v1 healers who are actually building aurawarp offensively, to make anesthesia be a proper finisher type ability with more effectiveness, and limit its impact in a group setting. Need to really see aurawarp in action to see how easy it is to get to less than 20 for the cauterize kill, needing to build 80 points on a target that is curing would be pretty high a threshold on first sight. I think maybe an aurawarp point requirement for anesthesia (target must have less than 85 aura points to be anesthesia'd) and ramping benefits for anesthesia (maybe lowering the amount of aura points cured by steam if target has low aura points AND anesthesia) as the aurawarp points get lower would be a good way to make it reward the offensive style it's supposed to support.

    Also, I missed Yehn's post - my understanding is that farheal doesn't cost power - DOUBLE curing using farheal or in-room heal will. I'm saying that normal farheal SHOULD have additional costs so as to have the risk-versus-cost ratio make more sense. In-room healers put themselves at significantly more risk, and healers at a safer place should not be operating at the same healing efficiency or without meaningful differentiation in costs.

  • AeldraAeldra , using cake powered flight
    After mulling through all of this a few more times, I must really say that I'm looking forward to this, mostly because it feels like it'll give us healers a choice, clean up with most of the complaints -and- make it quite awesome feeling combat.

    When I took healing as a skillset, I was always wanting to play a more defensive healer in groups, because I felt that was what I wanted healing to be. Currently, it looks like that will be a possiblity and people will no longer tell me 'you are far more useful offensively', so yay for that!

    A few things:

    - availability of information. To be halfway able to build a system around this new skillset, at least empathy should be available through gmcp and I suppose it'd be good if succoring an enemy would reveal their level of aurawarp.
    - I wonder about this impact while solo bashing. I get there being a need to balance healing in combat situations ( and I actually love how that's done ), but in a bashing situation, am unsure? I suppose it's a case of having a cake and eating it, but I still wanted to raise it as a consideration point.
    - this recklessness thing. I generally am not sure if I want to have anything deal 40 seconds of recklessness, uncurable or not. I think maybe changing that to be more a tool to build aurawarp as Lerad suggested may be a good idea.
    - Maybe it would be rather interesting having this skill available for testing overhaul arena style, to deal with other ocncerns that are there ? ( things like how quick/slow it'll be to build aurawarp )

    all in all: yay actually being a healer in group combat, yay 1vs1 viability, yay insta :x
    Avatar / Picture done by the lovely Gurashi.
  • CiaranCiaran
    I agree with a lot of Lerads points. I also really like the design of the skillset aside from the fact that a warped aura makes you cure slower. This is the classic slippery slope that makes balance almost impossible. If I can build aura warp from the onset you'll never catch up to cutting. I would suggest at a minimum that whatever cures aurawarp isn't slowed by the affliction itself.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • RilunaRiluna
    You gave Healing an instakill? <3

    Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
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