Healer Specific Changes

If you have any ideas about how to improve the state of healers, please post them here.

I vote no, paladins are imo a higher priority

Although I would agree with making healers a paladin path, somewhat combining the two

Just to confirm: you are voting no to all potential healer changes before any ideas are posted, regardless of the change?

Apparently so.  Because, you know, pali's are more boring to play than the laziest of all classes.

My no vote was to looking at them before paladins. 

While healers might be the laziest of all classes(debatable), they still have more flavor than current paladins.

And I say this as someone who currently has both at 50.

Incorporating them as a paladin path gets my vote.

Keep in mind that these brain storming suggestions are in direct response to Erelei's 5 coding changes we're interested in getting.  There's nothing saying that pali's and healers can't both go in at once.

There's also no need to end this thread before it begins, too.  Even if this suggestion doesn't make the final cut, doesn't mean that it can't be suggested for implementation at a later date.

Please post some ideas in the paladin thread if you want that to be your focus. The thread that gets more activity will obviously be more important. I'll hold off on your veto for now, as we don't even have healer ideas yet. Let's try to generate some ideas! Even little stuff, go for it!

If we want to make a healer change, we really need something. Healers are tough, so please give it some thought and let us know.

Shield of Faith

syntax: commune 'shield of faith' 2tic lag on commune, 10hr timer at 50, Pro

The shield of faith serves two distinct purposes. Its primary function is to stand as a wall against blasphemy, while the blasphemy spell shatters the Shield of Faith, the healer remains in contact with his Lord. The secondary function of this shield is to protect the healer from attacks that come from a distance, not to be confused with missile protection this spell can protect from ranged weapons fired from other rooms.

Upright Stance

syntax: commune 'upright stance' 2tic lag on commune, 5hr cool down at 50, Mal

By taking an Upright Stance, planting their feet and commanding the respect and will of their Lord, Healers have been known to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents, occasionally forcing them to flee. Similar to the spell turn undead, the intent of this spell however, is to drive the living away. Those affected by the stance will suffer fear 4 tics, charmed creatures suffering this affect will be unwilling to take the front against the healer.

Make healer staff damage selectable holy or mundane.

Same suggestion here as in the paladin thread, what do people believe the biggest problem is with healers? 

They obviously aren't meant to be Pk gods as that doesn't fit the rp of the class. 

How about adding a skill/spell that makes people more reluctant to fight them? Something like resistance to everything, or a boosted calm that stops the affected person from attacking them at all. Kind of like a temple priest where you can't target them 

As for fighting mobs, maybe some skills or spells that only affect mobs. Maybe a way to lower the level of the mob to weaken it in every way? Only works if the healer is the only one fighting the mob?

Just a couple of suggestions, definitely need more fleshing out but will hopefully inspire someone

My opinion on healers is that they have no offensive (ray of truth) or defensive advantage (spell-turning/steel wall) over clerics. They also have less useful spells and skills. On top of this, they have a very annoying playstyle restriction which also tends to force their RP into a narrow path. Their signature spell (resurrection) has no real purpose.

I believe that it would be very difficult to revamp the healer class to keep a support style but fit in a fun way in a 1vs1 game. Even if we did a revamp, keeping the healer theme, it would be such a big change as to be a new class.

Maybe scrap the class all together and make a new one. More spell orientated than clerics but with more Pk viability. Change the whole rp of the class so people can actually Pk with them, as I think this is a pretty big factor as to why we don't have any healers

Staff of Life:

This skill will replace the current Healer staff skill. Besides being a sufficient weapon, avg damage reflected by both rank and skill level, the staff may be imbued with up to three spells. When created the staff will have three permanent spell slots. The healer may imbue the staff with spells normally not allowed in combat, or that would otherwise lag the healer. The staff works much like an earth dragon, watching for a spell it holds to fall and rebuffing the healer in or out of combat. There would be a significant mana cost to imbue spells as well as a cooldown. This prevents the Healer from having instant access to a fully imbued staff, they will have to pray and wait for it.

@Fool_Hardy That is a very. very interesting idea in general and has several potential applications.

I am attempting to invent a skill set that absorbs  the current pacifist idea of the healer class, while providing potential battle strategy for the healer that has been pushed too far.

Need an example of this from a movie. Pale Rider comes to mind.

Resurrect should revert back to the days of old. Restoring lives permanently after a needless death, but it should also benefit evil characters as well. Healers honestly should be Neutral in nature, which would make them a class from the very get go and not require being a Cleric. The twist would be that Healers can still request from creatures, despite this fact considering their historical background, perhaps only allowing to do so with neutral aligned mobs which would be different than what's been done before.

Spirit Shield acts now like a shield when you don't have one, but perhaps allow it to be a weaker form of steel wall, but lessening the damage from mundane attacks or redirecting the damage every so often that's being dealt to the Healer. Being that they have natural tendencies to hunt the Undead, I propose that this be extended to Demon's and Avatar's as well. So in a sense they'd be losing Divine Intervention, but give them the ability to completely negate one of those paths biggest draw. By this I mean that Vampires can lose the ability to feed which is a necessity for say 24 hours, or have a chance to cast Eternal Daylight which would prevent them from being able to hide from the sun regardless of the time of day. Noon being the harshest point in the day, if landed it may have a SEAR like affect and they wont be capable of getting away to heal up for a while.

Demons may lose their ability to fly and see invisible things or a number of any other things. Not having played one or an Avatar I'm going to not be good at what to prevent from them to make it more interesting or viable. I would like to see Healer Staff be upped in a sense, so I do like the spell idea being implemented into it. Rather than a defensive spell though, I'd say adding the ability to be more offensive towards one of the three paths so it would hit vuln damage on specific creatures, but it'll still only last a set amount of time before crumbling. Set the timer to say 48 ticks or even 72 before crumble, with a timer of 120 or so before it can be used again which would prevent the Healer from being capable of having a staff for each opponent at any given time. Obviously they'll be losing their spell of protection due to the fact they're no longer good anymore and they'll also lose dispel evil.

Divine Retribution could remain similar in concept but it would actually cause damage to Good aligned characters but not Neutral aligned ones. Ideally this means that Watcher would be the natural path or selection for this class at this point, but they'd be allowed in Syndicate at this point instead of Knight. It wouldn't really be ideal because their damage output towards most others would not be nearly as high compared to the 'unnatural' races, but it's still possible. In turn they'd gain third attack as well, which will up their damage capabilities, but lose gate and gain portal. Sure this means that gate isn't a spell used anymore by a specific class, but it prevents them from being invincible since portal is locked to one place, and if you know where it's at, it wouldn't be too difficult in finishing the job when they're on the run. Gate honestly makes it nearly impossible to tell where they went to after fleeing from battle which makes them such a walking fortress.

Remove Heal and Mass Healing but keep cure critical. If Heal is kept or Mass Healing, code it so that it can't be used continuously but rather set as a timer before it could be used again. If that's the case, up the healing to around 200hp and a 24 hour cooldown on it. The same could be done with Mass Healing as well if that's the case. Restore Faith may be a little obsolete anymore considering lower numbers, but could still be useful to some degree, but rather than a spell, maybe it could be made a skill so that when their ability to commune is cut off, they can use it on themselves as well. It would keep them in the game, but with a timer it would mean that they wouldn't be unstoppable since there'd be yet another timer on this preventing them from being completely unstoppable.

Add in a few damage spells for offensive capabilities outside of turn undead/dispel undead or even the ability to create a wand/scroll with their intimate knowledge of creations and the help of Brambus per se, they could use spells limited in power to say level 40 based off of various herbs/potions they find to create them. Say the enchantments studied and created allowed them to bind the proper herbs/potions needed onto a scroll, but because they lose the potency of such, at best the levels on these are ~42 and never higher. It would prevent someone from creating a level 50+ scroll of acid blast or the likes, but still possibly giving the edge to them in battle.

Cabals allowed: Syndicate, Savant, Herald, Watcher, Tribunal

Races allowed: Feral, Gnome, Dwarf, Stone, Half-Elf, Half-Drow, Halfling, Werebeast, Human, and Slith

That's all I have so far, but having not played one that was successful in 12 years makes it harder to pick at. I've always thought they should be Neutral aligned though because of resurrection.

So, neutral q class then? 

You can then adjust the margins a little on limitations.  A true priest(ess) of life?

Or is druid alread have that spot?

Aside from psi of course. But they can be any align.

Essentially, yes. A true Priest(ess) of life. Albeit Druids do have that title, I think it's geared more towards Nature than actual life. In this capacity Healers would be geared towards the Life aspect without the limitations of being a Good aligned character. Although they may treasure Nature, they're not necessarily bent on keeping it completely pristine as a Druid would. They'd only be allowed to follow the path of Stalker in Watcher though and not a Warder which would support the role of their new found powers. As it wouldn't require a quest to become one anymore due to the fact they're Neutral, they'd no longer be a quest class overall.

They'd become slightly more offensive and be less restricted overall compared to how they are currently. Resurrection would be once again a viable spell that works, the added flavor would mean more people would play them since at this point with few players and no one asks for the services as much as they did once more, I believe it could help them. I'm sure there are plenty of other tweaks that could be done, but at the moment I'm coming up blank and will add more possibly later.

In terms of Paladin changes, I'm not opposed to them getting revamped a little as well, but in this instance, I feel that Healers are more broken, and have been for years, more so than a Healer.

I like the Idea.

Makes clerics the fanatics....

Just what a priest WOULD say.