Healing vs Undead!

I was talking to one of the games best healers yesterday, and she expressed her concern about lack of offense as a pure healer. Which is why she had picked up other skills. I made the statement to her that IMO Healing spells should be Direct damage, or damage over time (depending on the spell used) to all Undead type creatures.

So in a nutshell Healing vs Undead should = Damage..

Thoughts?
Comments?

 

What's wrong with that Life spell that does direct damage to undead? Or is it sun??

 

<checks the game> Yep, it's an undead direct damage spell in the life tree.. so.. get that high enough and it should be what you are asking for?

 

Targeting healing touch on an undead enemy though, to do damage instead of heal... my thoughts: maybe..... but I think that spell is in there for such a reason..

I think it would be nice, and stays true to tradition for fantasy genre. But doing offense damage with a spell that was trained primarily as a healing spell, that might be hard to push with everyone.. then again.. almost everyone has healing touch..

 

Yes there is one spell that does DD on Undead in the life tree, but even back on Pen and Paper Healing spells as well did damage. Just looking to add some variety for the pure classes that are sure to come.

 

Healers with healing spells are not supposed to do damage, they're healers.

There is the spell Banish Undead in the Life tree that does direct damage (as pointed out by others), but that's kind of the point of being a healer in my opinion. If you want to be the best at healing, it should be harder to be really good at other stuff too. Healing is very powerful at the moment, if you're able to heal more than something that is attacking you, you can't die. If you're able to augment hit points to players in your group that are doing the offensive damage to something, that's helping them not die.

 

I had ideas like this when I played pen and paper dungeons and dragons.

I thought of it like positive numbers and negative numbers. Undead fell into the class where their life was negative life and a healing spell would bring them back towards zero from negative numbers. When they reach zero like the living, they die. Again.

 

So this is you dictating what others are supposed to do.. So far I only see negative comments posted by you. Every thread I visit that has your name on a post spirals down to you and your Opinion.. Which is all that is.. not a fact.. so choose your words carefully or kindly just sit back and read. So you have a group with a beefy tank and some crazy dps, the trash usually dies shortly after encountered. everything around you is undead.. So why shouldn't that bored healer throw out a heal spell onto an undead to damage it some. Least they get to press a button instead of deciding that healing sucks because I'm not needed..

 

@Mordakai,

Well I think there's merit in suggesting different skillsets have different advantages and weaknesses. I think there's a lot of pressure sometimes to make the skillsets more like each other, so people can play those "pure builds". To make ranged as easy as melee at close range, to make healing as useful for offense as other magics, to make light armor as good passively as heavy armor. Ultimately, I don't know how good that is for the game. You want the skillsets to still feel different.

The more specific suggestion that Life be better against undead, on the other hand, isn't bad. But that still wouldn't help a pure Life mage fight against non-undead creatures, would it? So I don't see it helping the pure Life mage build overall. The Life mage would still have to stick to areas with undead around.

I guess it would help you train better in the beginning of the game, if that's what you're after? I guess that's not a bad goal. But then other pure mages also have similar problems. Moon mages can't train much with only skills like Night Vision, Animal Charm, etc. Sun mages have Searing Ray, I guess. I'm just a bit skeptical about "pure builds." What's a Life Mage going to do to fight a kobold? I'd like to see mages be able to use their staves as polearms, anyway.

Just my opinion on the more specific issue... and this is a bit subjective... but skeletons are just dead corpses that are animated, and healing mends wounds. On the surface, I don't know how that's supposed to work. I think having healing harm undead is treating life/death pretty abstractly. Maybe, its okay, I guess, but I also like the more specific Banish Undead.

 

I would have addressed your quote here a little differently, but the idea is the same as @Mordakai. There is no objective reason a life magic healer shouldn't be able to nuke undead from orbit.

 

It is not so strong (and it is not AoE despite the animation) and the combo (Cleansing rain) is pathetically weak even though it is undead specific.

 

I would say the objective reason is that using the same logic I could ask why fire magic doesn't have healing spells.

 

Well, there is precedent within fiction and non-fiction that fire could, conceivably, have healing properties, for example cauterizing a wound, the spell "White Flame" in Final Fantasy, the Thermal powerset in City of Heroes, Cauterize spell in WoW, etc.

Any other "objective" reason since that didn't support your position? I'm just saying that being able to damage undead with healing spells is a well-worn trope in fiction.

 

There's already a spell called Banish Undead in the life tree that does direct damage to undead. I have no problem with that. But to further create offensive DPS from healing spells would be overdoing it imo. No single tree should have it all.

 

There should be an AOE spell directed against undead. Either it can be a branch from banish undead further down the tree or the evolution of banish undead itself as you progress in levels. A holy/life type of character putting that much effort into obtaining higher skills in that tree should be able to affect more than one undead abomination at a time!

 

If fire would have to have a healing spell i guess it would play on 'Cauterization'
good perhaps to stop bleeding wounds.