Healing Pets

[eisprinzessin]

You noticed my edit? *hurray* But it's sensible to set the threshold early. Hardly ever used those things in TQ, which were triggered on low health.

[Shinrou]

I personally think one good alternative solution/addition as well would be the pet to use some sort of life leech skill that zaps enemy and it rebounds straight to player to heal the amount of damage dealt over the set period of time. The pet would use that skill if your HP drops under certain percentage.

Another strange experiment would be some sort of area life leech skill. The pet would cast area spell below closest enemy that would look something like that MP-drain area skill in TQ but red of course. It would drain HP of the enemies inside it and convert it into yours if you are also standing in the circle while they are being drained. It would need some balancing done, like it's healing capabilities should have a little penalty if there's many enemies inside the circle since you would get insane amounts of HP while in it.

I personally would like the pets to keep on fighting alongside and utilize heals in form of damaging spells. It could dedicate itself in dealing damage while ALSO healing. Of course it's damage dealing abilities of the skills that convert damage into health shouldn't be on par with real damaging abilities.

I don't really like the option of passive regen bonuses while having the pet summoned/near since it really doesn't give you that dynamic feeling of it actually doing anything.

But I'm certainly ok with regular heals as well, just throwing some ideas on the table here.

[Scryer]

In the case that the pet doesn’t just heal, and is thus not set to one mechanic (I.E. healing) I think that it’s okay then.

If the Raven’s only purpose were to heal then I think it should be reliable in doing that, but as you said it has a few other functions, in which case the player should realize that the pet’s reliability on healing is not guaranteed.

I actually like that a lot.

[Starkrun]

The bird needs to stay BUT the bird needs the ability to become passive so it'll stay by you and do its job... either use the bird passively so it'll only give you bonuses or when you tell it to attack like in TQ fir the Function commands to select pets....


keep it, keep the idea and the bird just allow us to set it passive, normal, aggressive... if you do that all issues you have are solved... then mister hardcore is at fault for not keeping the bird alive if its on passive... or not leveling the healing aspect of the bird more or giving it a better dodge ETC...

[Scryer]

I do like the idea of a branching skill that makes the pet sort of passive (untargetable by enemies).

I'm not sure if it'd be too OP with that, but it'd be kind of a cool bonus for those that want to spec into the pet more, it goes from being a temporary part of your arsenal in terms of length of time and death, to a more permanent part of your arsenal if you choose.

Maybe you could add a second branching augmentation whereby the raven is still targetable but gains even more awesome mechanics / gets even stronger?

Then you could make one skill lock out the other, not sure if you want to do anything like that though.

[Sile]

In Anarchy Online, the Meta-Physicist class uses pets to attack and heal. It's kinda cool to have a beast attacking for you and a smaller pet behind you just healing. The beauty of it was though, you could send the pet to heal your other attacking pet, or heal yourself, or heal another party member, or another member's pet etc etc.

I think for a healer pet to be fair in this sort of game, they have to be able to be targeted. You should fear AOE situations where your pet will take damage. In some cases, if a mob is going for your healer pet, you should employ a knockdown spell or a stun to shut that mob down. If you're going to have healing pets in the game, I believe you should need to care about losing them. Having them as a passive heal buff is not a good idea IMO. It just screams easy mode.

Having a heal pet that you're able to command is an idea I'd fully support. I'd like to be able to heal myself with it, or another player, or another pet etc.. like my example at the start of this post.

I don't think we need skill trees for the pet, but you could certainly have a skill for the player to summon better heal pets. Anarchy Online allowed you to buy better skills (spells) which meant you could summon better healing pets (and damage pets).

I use Anarchy Online as an example because I from my experiences, that did healing pets right and I just loved how they worked.

At this stage, I'll have to vote "meh". It would depend on more information about how they could work.

[Psyklone]

This idea is perfectly fine.
And I seriously doubt anyone would rely on this specifically to swoop in and save them.
To me its no different than having a regeneration aura.

So the regen aura is mobile, but more or less where you are... thats cool.
It also reinforces the idea that this class is stronger with their pets alive, and they're losing more than an extra dmg and some dps when they die.

[Gumshoe]

I think I would look at it like 'If the pet heal spell is an aura, why bother with the pet? Just have an aura.' Having the aura only work when in range of the pet could raise all sorts of problems with the pet getting stuck, running away etc. If the pet is only there to 'look cool' while otherwise the spells take care of themsleves, is it really necessary?

I personally would like to see a pet that is much more functional in defending the player rather than healing them. I think the raven would be cool if it swooped monsters to cause knockdown, had a screech attack to cause knockback/fear, or could 'round up' monsters and lead them away from/to the player.
This is useful especially for a ranged char and makes a purposeful pet, as to use knockdown/fear etc normally the monsters must be attacking the player already.

If the pet has heal effects, maybe it is done by roaming to find unsuspecting monsters, stealthily leeching life from them and returning to the player to deliver the health? If it's done out of battle, it's a cool(?) way of regenerating the player health without 'autorecovery'
If not a raven, a wolf or similar that actually charges the monsters, knocking them down, howls at them and rounds them up/chases them away, runs to your aid to attack monsters when you're attacked, especially archers, etc

I'd like for once for the pet to not feel like just a buff, aura or shield, but a companion that's working for me, like a good kelpie on a farm for instance :P

[i.n.s.a.n.e]

I like the idea and support it. It is everyone's option if the person wants to rely on pet's healing or will rather think about own health status by self. Especially on hc difficulty, the person would be pretty stupid to rely on anything but self in healing matters..

I am glad, Medierra, you played healer classes and that the inspiration gets projected to this great game. I am always playing healer/support in any game that supports it (heck, I even played spirit healer with some support spells in DA:Origins despite everyone claiming how boring it is...and I loved it!). I will love some sort of hybrid with healing in GD, can't wait! =)

[nicki_1911]

I do also like the idea. I think it's good if the pet does not always heal you so that you can't rely on it. It should just help to get through the game, but not make the game too easy because there is always someone instantly healing you from behind.