Self healing for Healers

[Sir_Cryer]

In my opinion all units that can heal others should also be able to self heal. Elf shaman for example: If she can heal another unit for 4 hp why she cant self heal for the same 4hp?
It doent makes sense at all. Also, I dont think they would be overpowered with this.

[Ravana]

It would be quite unwise to enforce this. When you remove possibility to add healing allies and other own units normally and force regen, then healing-types will just be done with events.

I feel it is best to allow creators choose which units unit with certain ability should heal. And for elvish shaman this has been picked to be adjacent allied or own units.

[beetlenaut]

Healing and regeneration are both powerful abilities, so combining them would make all the healers more powerful. (Whether or not someone considers that overpowered is a separate issue.) That would upset the balance of the game, and the difficulty of all the campaigns that use those units. What would be better would be to invent a sensible reason why the mainline healers can't heal themselves. Maybe they took a vow never to use their magic to benefit themselves, or maybe healing energy must pass completely through one person before it can be applied. I bet someone could come up with a better idea than either one of those though.

[Sir_Cryer]

@ beetlenaut
I must say that your points are strong in a balancing perspective. I would say that many research and time would be needed to implement/balance something like this but in the long run i think the benefits would pay the cost.

I would like to share my opinion about pros, cons and solutions:

PROS

• Gameplay more logical and balanced.
  More rpg like.
  Will be an improvement, in general.

CONS

• Lot of time researching the effects on balance.
  Players will need to adapt to new changes.
  Campaings will be affected.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

• Increase cost to recruit units with healing.
  Increase xp to advance to next levels.
  Reduce healing to +3 and +6.
  Reduce combat stats (hp, attack etc).

Thx for your replies.

[Telcontar]

@ beetlenaut
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

• Increase cost to recruit units with healing.
  Increase xp to advance to next levels.
  Reduce healing to +3 and +6.
  Reduce combat stats (hp, attack etc).

I think self-healing (regeneration) makes healing units too powerful. I would not give healers that ability in general.

If we look at the shaman, then it is already hard enough to level one up. They are already weak, too, so reducing combat stats or increasing XP seems a bad solution. Healing +3 makes healing much weaker, which leaves us with increasing the recruitment cost.

I think it may be worth exploring this in an add-on, but regenerating healers would probably be too powerful in long campaigns and on large maps (where you can retreat and recover).

[watbesh]

BfW balance-maintainers don't seem to like "moving a unit-type's strength from one point to another" just for narrative flavors (there's a rule for core/mainline contents called WINR) - if Elvish Shamans are too weak, they would just give them some more HP or damage.

If you wish to read more, let's see more into PROS in your post.

More on Pros:

- Gameplay more logical and balanced.
... Not so balanced, as it requires another bunch of tuning to all the healers and other things. Also, in other games, I've seen "divine healers" whose healing spells cost their own HP (while their offensive spells don't). In BfW, many of healers are "herbal healers" (elves/saurians) to an extent, so "logical" part makes some sense.

- More rpg like.
... I don't think "RPG-like" can be a good "pro" or a "con". Unlike RPG's, BfW has a PvP mode, so the healers should have low HP to enforce "kill the healers first" tactic, while rewarding tricky use, often offensive (Elvish Shamans' slow, White Magi's damage, etc).

- Will be an improvement, in general.
... Depends on what you mean by "improvement". I only see a "buff", and as an amateur Multiplayer-WML-coder, I can't see an improvement here; you can already code "regenerates" and "heals +4/+8" in one unit.

Also, game-design-wise, having both of "healers with Regenerate" and "healers without Regenerate" would help giving units characteristics. Currently, Tabib (Khalifate) seem to be "the Regen-Tank Healer" with Regenerate and relatively high HP.

[Sir_Cryer]

Well I must agree again, very good points.

However its very hard to find a game where healers cant cure their own wounds becuz it doenst makes sense. It doenst follows the logical path. Tell me a famous and big game where it happens that healers cant self heal. And to me this is the biggest point because it is common sense. This is what anyone would expect to happens.

I will not discuss balacing because you're all right and i dont have enough time or knowledge to test it properly. Thanks for your feedback.

[watbesh]

However its very hard to find a game where healers cant cure their own wounds becuz it doenst makes sense. It doenst follows the logical path. Tell me a famous and big game where it happens that healers cant self heal. And to me this is the biggest point because it is common sense. This is what anyone would expect to happens.

I know some examples.

Things from other games:

- Soraka (an "action RTS" League of Legends): Her primary healing spell costs her HP and cannot target herself (she actually has self-healing in other spells). It's solely because of the competitive balance, as the Devs thought it's otherwise impossible to have a healer defined as "the Healer". It's explained as something like "infusing her own life-force into her ally".
- Micaiah (a turn-based strategy, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn): Her unique skill, Sacrifice, simply gives her HP to the target (where zero HP means a permadeath) and of course cannot target herself. Since it doesn't have a Multiplayer mode, it's probably not for the game-balance, but for the story; she performs this to a wounded boy at one plot point. With this event, and being a generous fortune-teller and a member of a team of chivalrous thieves, she's one of the nicest persons in the game.
- Healers in other Fire Emblem titles: Their "healing spells" often entirely rely on holy staves, most of which cannot heal users themselves. It's probably because of the game balance. Or the staves are just too long to aim at yourself while wielding (like rifles).
- As a non-divine example, the Arbalest (a dungeon-crawler called Darkest Dungeon): Two of her unique camping abilities heal others, but not herself. One involves bandaging her ally, which is not really easy to perform on herself. And the other is called [acronym="process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition" by Wikipedia]"Triage"[/acronym]; since she can still move, she probably considers herself of the lowest priority. ...This game is not that famous? hmm...

There may be some more.

EDIT - This page may help.

[DwarvenWarrior]

If healer heals itself, it should take regeneration as ability. ( like khalifate doctor)

Edit: also paladin in warcraft can only use holy light on living ally ( he cant heal undead nor himself)

oh wait, why do our curers in wesnoth heal undead anyway lol

[Bitron]

Hey Guys.

I had the same thought few days ago, and know I found this thread.

So, whats about a higher rest-regeneration for healers ? in my opinion healers should be able to use their healing power for themselfs. But i see the balancing aspect as well. So maybe it would be a good deal. They could heal themselfs, but only if you give them time for it. Maybe a +4 resting-heal. Does'nt need to be more.

[JoeGeneric]

Wouldn't healers be incredibly tanky if this is implemented? I mean making them slower to level up would make them too weak. I think the current system works fine.

[Spannerbag]

Just for comparison (on 1.16):

Dune Luminary (DL) vs Mage of Light (MoL)

Both are L3, moves=5, can heal +8 and cure poison.
Below the Dune Luminary values are first then Mage of Light (i.e. DL/MoL)

Cost: 38 / 60

HP: 52 / 47

XP(*): 39+65=104 / 54+136=190
* Total for L3 ( L1->L2 + L2->L3 )

Alignment: Liminal / Lawful

Melee: 9x4 (impact) / 7x3 (impact)

Ranged: None / 12x3 (Arcane)

Resistances:
blade: -10% / 0%
pierce: 20% / 0%
impact: 0% / 0%
fire: 0% / 0%
cold: 0% / 0%
arcane: 20% / 60%

Other abilities:
Regenerates +4 (also cures poison) / Illuminates

Cost-wise you could buy 3 DLs for the price of 2 MoLs (and have change) plus DLs have roughly 10% more hp than MoL.
Also MoLs need almost double the amount of xp to reach L3.

The two big advantages of MoL over DL is a powerful ranged attack and illuminates which favours lawfuls and hinders chaotics (though it doesn't differentiate between friend and foe...).

However, not sure this compensates for the DL's vastly lower xp and recruitment cost coupled with the fact that even at L1 (Dune Herbalist) they have regenerates +4 and heals +4 which greatly improves their durability and utility respectively. They are also cheaper (14 vs 20 gold) and tougher (32 vs 24 hp) than Mages.

One way regenerating healers might be more entertaining (and balanced IMHO) is if they had to be on full health to heal others, so if wounded or poisoned their healing ability is turned on themselves and they regerate. Once on full health their healing energies "turn outwards" and can be used to heal comrades and allies. This is in contrast to MoLs that even if poisoned and on 1hp can still heal adjacent allies. I think this would bring some balance to the game whilst still allowing significant differences between the healers.
How to justify why some healers can't heal themselves? Well, it's magic, innit?

Just my tuppence worth.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[LienRag]

So, whats about a higher rest-regeneration for healers ? in my opinion healers should be able to use their healing power for themselfs. But i see the balancing aspect as well. So maybe it would be a good deal. They could heal themselfs, but only if you give them time for it. Maybe a +4 resting-heal. Does'nt need to be more.

Better resting-heal as an ability or trait could be nice indeed.
In general BTW, not necessarily for Healers.

[shevegen]

Perhaps a new ability could be useful here? So not all healers get "better rest"
or "meditation" or something, but if a campaign author thinks it would be nice to
have for some units then this could become possible too. And it would only be
used if the healer is not moving and not healing some other unit or so, e. g. just
focus on himself for this turn.

The balancing concern could be kept in mind by having that ability not be too
powerful, e. g. heal less than the per-round heal ability. Or something like that.