Priest healing vs. Priest health draining

Discussion in 'Card Hunter General Chat' started by Sir Knight, Feb 26, 2013.

  1. Sir Knight

    Sir Knight Sir-ulean Dragon

    Looking beyond melee, the Priest has something like four paths: holy/unholy blessings and curses, and holy/unholy health restoration. For the latter, you have a nice even balance between Heal on one hand, and Consuming Touch on the other: both heal up to 4 damage.

    Except that's not really balanced.

    People have complained that Priest healing is too weak. The developers want battles to actually end sometime, and that means not having people heal forever. Thus, you get masses of Minor Heal (2 health) at low levels, eventually get Heal (4 health) around level 6, and maybe Greater Heal (8 health) around level 9.

    But people who don't like holy healing can just switch to unholy health draining. Lifesteal, level 1 Epic, with Consuming Touch, Draining Touch, and Sapping Touch. Glowing Hide Armor, level 8 common, includes Invigorating Touch. They've recently added the Hand Of Melvelous, which includes range-2 health draining.

    Now this is important: all health draining is mirrored, so you may only heal 2 if you play a basic Sapping Touch, but your enemy has also lost 2. Sapping Touch is, effectively, the level-6 Heal card at level 1.

    So, at level 1, a lucky player (with that Epic item) can play Righteous Frenzy plus Unholy Frenzy (in a two-Priest party) and heal between 4 and 8 health. Effectively, that means a health disparity of between 8 and 16 after you hit an enemy. If Invigorating Touch (drain up to 6) is available on a level 8 COMMON, that implies that intermediate levels will have many other draining abilities by the time Blue Manchu is done, so you don't even have to be "lucky."

    (Related note: currently, the only way to boost healing is Healing Spirit, which adds a meager 1 point.)

    Mass Frenzy at level 11? Blind Rage at 6 or 7? No longer even need a second Priest in order to self-Frenzy. Someone who would be thrilled to received Greater Heal at such a level would wonder what the advantage is over health draining. Holy healing previously had the advantage of range and the fact that it couldn't be ruined by enemy Armor or Blocks; now, with Spear Of Darkness, we have range-2 health draining.

    We're running low on advantages. I fear future players are just going to complain even more about holy healing if they perceive this as an imbalance.
     
  2. Kaerius

    Kaerius Orc Soldier

    My favorite new priest card is Touch Of Pain, which I got on the lvl 16 common divine item Spiral Medallion.
    It's a 3 damage range 1 attack... and it's a leech, but instead of the normal leeching method it does: "For each point of damage this attack deals, all your allies Heal 1".

    Btw I've also now gotten Mass Frenzy on a lvl 3, and a lvl 7 item...(both with a drawback card).
     
  3. Zalminen

    Zalminen Hydra

    Yeah, health draining is much more useful at the moment than regular healing.

    I never pick items that provide normal healing (unless the item is otherwise useful) but I just love Invigorating Touch.
     
  4. Sir Knight

    Sir Knight Sir-ulean Dragon

    I believe the idea is that health draining is supposed to be more difficult: after all, if your AMAZING FRENZIED ATTACK hits a Parry, then it's all over. But the basic fact that Invigorating Touch CAN do more total good than any healing card in the game means that people will lean their strategy toward Invigorating Touch, indeed.

    Though I'll still use Greater Heal, and, on occasion, Heal. The immediate usefulness of plain holy healing makes things easier, since you don't have to apply complex strategy.

    What if plain healing were kept this way but also had the option of added complexity? So we have Healing Spirit, which is relatively weak. What if there were other forms of "Frenzy" for healing, or other effects that triggered off of it? Say, cards which were predominately equipped by non-Priest classes that boosted the effects of healing: some sort of Warrior Armor that granted "healing Frenzy" (by which I mean extra health restored) if a Priest cast a Heal card on that character.

    An unpleasant alternative is, well, to make health draining less complex and less appealing: say, disqualify all Frenzy effects from those particular cards. I'd rather not see that.
     
  5. Kaerius

    Kaerius Orc Soldier

    There's an unimplemented card named Talented Healer that gives 100% card draw when healing another character that was not on full health. More restricted than Altruism, but the card draw is guaranteed.
     
  6. Sir Knight

    Sir Knight Sir-ulean Dragon

    That helps. And, hopefully, there will be other things like variants on Healing Presence. We already have the similarly-themed Bless, after all.

    In case it isn't clear: I do enjoy the current options for healing, I just want players to see it as truly viable. At the moment, Priests seem biased toward being played "unholy."
     
  7. Wozarg

    Wozarg Thaumaturge

  8. SurgeonFish

    SurgeonFish Automaton Moderator Staff Member

    just not enough of these cards to be super worried, but i believe ya Sir Knight
     
  9. Sir Knight

    Sir Knight Sir-ulean Dragon

    As to "enough" of them, of course, I just repeat:
    After all, they shan't likely stop at the Hand Of Melvelous (level 7).
     
  10. Kaerius

    Kaerius Orc Soldier

    Alpha tester? In the current state, it doesn't even attach to your character.
     
  11. Sir Knight

    Sir Knight Sir-ulean Dragon

    Ooh, I just got a Silver Healing Ring: level 15 common Divine Item, 1 clear talent, with Greater Heal, Limited Heal, and Help The Weak.

    Looking at the immediate, this makes me feel more like I can use a healing Priest: there's a Greater Heal with no attached drawback (unlike on Possessed Chainmail).

    However, it's still too high a level to be useful in the single-digit levels discussed so far. But seeing as I hadn't encountered Help the Weak before, there are surely lower-level items with this nice card on it. Here's hoping for more.
     
  12. Wozarg

    Wozarg Thaumaturge

    I have a greater heal with no talent
     
  13. Sir Knight

    Sir Knight Sir-ulean Dragon

    Come come, elucidate!
     
  14. Hessian

    Hessian Orc Soldier

    Fixed :D
     
  15. irongamer

    irongamer Orc Soldier

    Doom Translation:
    Look over there! It's a mighty semi-yellow card hunter forum demon. One bite and I'll lose my ghost body, leaving only my eye balls to travel home. I'm gonna poke it with a stick.
     
  16. Hessian

    Hessian Orc Soldier

    Stick poking is always an option.
     
    irongamer likes this.
  17. Wozarg

    Wozarg Thaumaturge

    *Chomps down on doom* Should have poked a less active demon!
     
  18. Dugrim

    Dugrim Orc Soldier

    I tend to prefer healing: draining is good, but works only for the Priest.
    Healing (with Target Self) is more generic and usable in all kind of situations (my opinion).
    But a full health-draining Priest party could be dangerous and fun...
     

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