I've been thinking it would be cool to add in a sort of healer to this game to help groups get through the various missions. I know there's no official classes in this game as well, but there are armor sets and equipment to let you play as a swordfighter or gunner or bomb specialist; this would be another set for people who want to be able to take on a helpful setup. I have a few ideas on how it would work as well.

"Healer" types would use equipment that did minimal damage and could push enemies back when used as an attack. Instead, they could be used to target allies and restore a bit of their health during missions, taking a bit of pressure off of some fights. The healing abilities wouldn't be incredibly powerful... not able, for example, to completely heal a knight, but they would aid in the survivability of knights in extreme situations.

The purpose of a knight using healing gear would be to keep everyone healthy, and in the case of a large amount of deaths, revive others and heal them enough to keep fighting. They of course would be able to heal themselves; their armor would automatically regenerate their health over time, and their "sheilds" would allow them to make healing items (see below for further explaination).

The weapons, which could be called "Life Energy Restorative Systems" (I have a mental image of a kind of wand attached to a belt device as the "sword" and a Star Trek-like tricorder device as a "gun") would heal much like gremlin devices, the "sword" requiring the healer to "attack" the ally they're trying to heal, and the "gun" requiring the healer to pause and "cast" the healing at whoever it was who needed more health. This would allow them to choose between two play types; the "Combat Medic" who runs into battle with the knights, and heals them from up close, pushing back monsters threatening to do damage to the one's they're caring for, or the "Ranged Healer" who heals from the sidelines and draws off enemies while the knights clean up the main groups.

Their "sword" weapon would have a shorter range, but heal more, giving a benefit for taking the risk of being a "Combat Medic". Playing this way would have the healer pushing monsters away from other players by attacking them, while "whacking" knights with their healing device to transfer health as needed. This device would be a faster heal than the "gun" device, as each swing would heal for a certain amount, and could be swung multiple times. At higher star levels, this would both heal more damage per "hit", and do more damage when used to knock away enemies. These weapons would also have an increased knockback per hit, so as to be able to be used to clear space around a knight being harassed by a lot of monsters.

The "gun" device would be able to heal at range, but be both a bit slower and heal a bit less, in order to not have someone running all over healing and escaping with ease. This device would also require the user to stop moving, similar to the autogun, when being used, and would only have a single "shot" per use. The recharge between heals would decrease at higher star levels, as well as the amount of healing done. Some variations on the gun would be able to briefly stun or inflict other non-damaging effects on monsters; bosses and extremely strong monsters would be unaffected. Otherwise, using the ranged weapon on a monster would only do a small bit of damage.

Healing in general would draw the attention of monsters, similar to if you had struck them, but only within a certain range. If you healed while fairly close to a monster it would take notice.

A Healer's "shield" would be a sort of item dispenser. It would be able to produce either curative pills or life recovering pills. I haven't been able to decide on how that would work *exactly*, but I think it could either be done at a low energy cost per item (between 3 and 5), or in exchange for materials picked up. There would be a time period between each pill being made, so as to prevent the ability being abused. This "shield" would still be used to block just like any normal shield. I picture it as a kind of device worn on the arm with a force field (a shield of pure transparent energy) being projected in front of it. As this item gains in stars, it would be able to create a higher level of healing item, but be constrained based on what the difficulty level of the area the knight was in. This would prevent healers from dispensing ridiculously overpowered pills on lower levels.

Their armor would actually restore a small amount of health over time. This would allow them to be the "Rescue Medic", able to run into battle and revive someone who had been knocked out, then recover slowly in case they needed to do it more than once without being reduced to a single life bar. A requirement of this armor would be that it could only be used with the healer-type weapons, preventing other "classes" from wearing it to add regeneration into their loadouts. If you wanted to wear healer armor, you would have to BE a healer. This armor would grow to have some of the best defense, as healers would probably be targeted during fights, and only be able to really push enemies away to defend themselves, as their "weapons" would be first aid devices.

The whole idea would be to add another "class" to the game that might be fun or interesting to use, and to add a setup for people who like to be helpful and assist other players when they're fighting. What do you think?