Spiral Knights - Healing with Battle Sprites.

Healing with Battle Sprites.

9 replies [Last post]

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 08:53

Sykocaster

I'm going to try to keep this short.

Obviously, we can't have an actual healing ability that simply works on a cooldown. Were that the case, it would be far too easy to simply stay put and wait to heal everyone to full, then keep going. That's kind of game-breaking. Instead, here's two ideas as to how Battle Sprites could add (what I feel is a fairly balanced) healing to the game. Tear them/me apart at your leisure, I just ask that you actually read the whole post first.

Ability1: Vita-Nom(?)
You know how you get all those extra Vitapods after everyone already has them? Totally useless. Slightly annoying. This ability would give you a couple seconds to pick some up, and re-drop them as a fraction of hearts. Example: You activate the ability. For the next 5 seconds, any Vitapods you walk over, instead of being picked up, explode into hearts. You pick up a 9-Vitapod, it turns into 3 hearts. Has a five or more minute cooldown.

Ability2: Healing Finish(?)
What this is is a fairly weak attack launched by your sprite. It does about as much damage as a normal attack from a gun at whatever depth you're at. If you just use it willy-nilly, it's just an attack, no side effects. However. Should it be the last blow that defeats an enemy, that enemy is *guaranteed* to drop hearts when it dies. The number of hearts is relative to the amount of total HP the enemy has. A Lumerer finished with this will drop more hearts than, say, a Devilite. Obviously this only applies to enemies that actually drop hearts, and not things like Royal Jelly Minis. Other enemies with very low HP, like I assume mobbing type enemies like Dust Bunnies will have, will also not drop hearts.
(Note that this ability is SLIGHTLY ruined by the addition of health bars in the new UI)

What both of these abilities do is force you to keep fighting. You can't just sit back and wait to heal up. Instead it just gives you a better chance at getting heart pick-ups.
And yes, I know the names are retarded. Feel free to post any suggestions for better names.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 09:09

Klipik

Ability 1 seems like it should be a passive ability, since there's no time you wouldn't want it on. Ability two seems like it should be a "mark" ability where the target has a mark on it for a few seconds (maybe 10) and they 100% drop hearts if killed in that time.

Also, these should probably both be for Seraphynx only.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 09:12

Sykocaster

True, but.

You definitely wouldn't want Ability 1 on in a party, when other people don't have Vitapods, yet.

As for Ability 2, requiring it to be the finishing blow adds a bit more skill to the usage of it, imo, but your version sounds perfectly fine as well.

And yeah, I'd agree with Serap-only. Possibly Mask, but that'd be a stretch.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 09:39

Little-Juances

Circle around that lumber, spamming the attack. No matter how long the cooldown is, you don't need skill, just patience.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 09:48

Klipik

Since sprites can only have 3 active abilities, I think it would be better for 1 to be passive to make more room for activateable stuff. Health bars might make your 2 easier, but it's still incredibly hard to have a low-damage attack be the finisher. You could add to the skill required by making it a long cooldown and short effect time, so if you don't kill it in that time you basically don't get another chance.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 09:54

Sykocaster

@Little-Juances

Just circle any enemy spamming any attack and you'll get hearts eventually. If you're going to take a long and extremely caution path, you can survive just about anything.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 09:57

Sykocaster

@Klipik

I'm not saying they should have both abilities. But a passive version, in my opinion, would be too OP.
It's just a matter of opinion. I feel mine are balanced better. Your versions seem too easy and would take skill and decision-making out of the healing. It being hard to make that attack the finisher is exactly the point.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 10:36

Klipik

Not sure if I explained that wrong, put "ability" in front of "1" and "2" in my last post. Does that change anything?

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 19:21

Sykocaster

Nope.

I understand what you're saying, I just feel the healing would be too easy and OP the way you're describing it.
Balance is key, and healing should be a challenge. What you're describing sounds spammy.

Sun, 03/31/2013 - 21:12

Klipik-Forum

Still Klipik

I also agree with Juances; the finisher attack can just be used instead of other attacks and you don't even have to worry about that last hit. Not sure when the last hit will be? No problem, stop your regular attacks at half health. Then use the finisher, kite until it refills, use it again, repeat until it dies. What you could do instead is make it like this:

-"marking" type ability
-short effective time (5 seconds?)
-long cooldown (30 seconds?)
-make it castable only once per enemy.

That way if you don't kill it in that first time, you don't get the benefits and you don't get to spam it all over the place. The possible problem I just realized is holding a weapon charge, activating this ability, then letting it loose right after. I'm not sure that would be a problem or not though, since we don't know if you can hold a weapon charge and use sprite abilities at the same time. Which actually seems OP in other situations too, so I would suggest against allowing that if any devs decide to read this.

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Healing with Battle Sprites.