Surgeons and Medicine Men

[araulius]

As they are now, they are completely useless. They, as well as field hospitals and preists, if made viable, would introduce a new level of macro and micro that I feel would be beneficial.

What do you guys think?

[howlingwolfpaw]

how would you propose to make them viable?

[araulius]

A small buff to their heal rate, and have their heal ability act as an aura. But have the heals cut if in combat.

[howlingwolfpaw]

i agree would be nice to buff these strats that often are seen as bad. making them viable.

[sdsanft]

I think they are only viable currently in late age 3/4 when you have both an art foundry and a church up, as well as many high damage low hp units (cannons primarily)

[lesllamas]

It's probably impossible to make field hospitals useful without making them broken, but healers could probs be buffed. There are a few vectors you can toy with to increase and decrease their power if you just made them all click-to-cast AOE heal: mobility, heal amount, heal cooldown, size of AOE, speed of the heal, and casting range. Basically healers in AoE3 would have to be battle healers, that can pop a heal on an AOE group during a fight. The current mechanic of having to keep the unit idle while being healed at an absurdly low rate is useless.

[howlingwolfpaw]

maybe at least make them trainable so you dont have to use a card

[momuuu]

Either they need to at least heal at a non zero pace or heal during combat.

The latter would be cool but does change the mechanic to the point where serious healer based comps might become a thing. The former could make the stray healer viable from time to time.

[howlingwolfpaw]

I think units should not heal in fight, but should be rewarded with the effort to leave battle field and go to surgeon camp to heal fast! maybe only to 75% health if is too OP

[araulius]

I think healers should be used to heal low-hp units after an engagement.

[pecelot]

Well, for surgeons you need a Colonial Age shipment, which should equal to about 700 resources. In these terms it's just not viable to send them, as you have priests, which are doing the same work, but a bit slowe (not sure, need a confirmation). Field hospitals heal one unit at a time, which is absolutely horrendous. I mean, you should be rewarded for spending 200 wood on one static healing place, which is awkward when it comes to army positioning, map control etc. Maybe they could be disposed by surgeons and be some sort of a mobile building (think about trebuchets in AoC, I'd see it being used in such a way), perhaps a 3 field hospital wagons shipment in colonial with increased healing rate? There's just so much to buff here, plenty of options to choose from, should be pretty easy to implement.

[araulius]

Well I'm glad my ideas aren't idiotic at least. Hahaha.

[yemshi]

Well, for surgeons you need a Colonial Age shipment, which should equal to about 700 resources. In these terms it's just not viable to send them, as you have priests, which are doing the same work, but a bit slowe (not sure, need a confirmation). Field hospitals heal one unit at a time, which is absolutely horrendous. I mean, you should be rewarded for spending 200 wood on one static healing place, which is awkward when it comes to army positioning, map control etc. Maybe they could be disposed by surgeons and be some sort of a mobile building (think about trebuchets in AoC, I'd see it being used in such a way), perhaps a 3 field hospital wagons shipment in colonial with increased healing rate? There's just so much to buff here, plenty of options to choose from, should be pretty easy to implement.

In all respect. It is unnecessary and would only change the meta for no reason. I do not see the benefits of that change.

[araulius]

You do not see benefits in more strategic options?

[pecelot]

It's still awkward to keep your military in one place idly to slowly regenerate HP. It's been an AoE feature since 1997, and although it doesn't have a place in the current playstyles and build orders, buffing it a bit may make it somewhat viable in certain cases. For example it could be a nice addition to turtle play — you keep your longbowmen in one place, advance when the enemy arrives, then back off a little to heal. Of course, it's not a part of the meta everyone hopes to be improved, but I think it fits nicely in the general idea of the ESOC Patch — little tweaks to make more things more viable.

[deleted_user0]

it would be worth for certain high hp or crucial units. like healing mams or spahi, or cannon. or some heroes. its not really useful to heal your rank and file units. better just replace and keep pressure lol

[howlingwolfpaw]

I think making them a trainable unit that heals one at a time or building a surgeon tent to heal multiple at a time would be enough to bring it back to the game. using a card is just pointless

[lesllamas]

TBH they just need to be able to cast a quick and large heal on a long cooldown to be viable. Basically the entire problem is with their mobility. It's just not worth it to sacrifice your ability to move around the map in order to heal anything other than a mam or something lol. I mean, the surgeons heal at a pretty high rate per unit. It's not like the problem is the heal rate, and they don't have any kind of a cap on heal amount. As far as I know, only the French explorer with the card can do an AoE heal cast during combat. I'd like to see that ability put onto priests/surgeons as well.

[araulius]

TBH they just need to be able to cast a quick and large heal on a long cooldown to be viable. Basically the entire problem is with their mobility. It's just not worth it to sacrifice your ability to move around the map in order to heal anything other than a mam or something lol. I mean, the surgeons heal at a pretty high rate per unit. It's not like the problem is the heal rate, and they don't have any kind of a cap on heal amount. As far as I know, only the French explorer with the card can do an AoE heal cast during combat. I'd like to see that ability put onto priests/surgeons as well.

You mean like how they worked in vanilla? I used surgeons a bit, and their heal rate is... awful. it's a *very slow* 1 hp per every few seconds on a single unit.

[lesllamas]

I don't think I've ever used a surgeon or priest in vanilla (and I've hardly ever played it anyways). In TAD, when you send the card to train surgeons from the church they heal at ~24 hp/sec (I just tested this yesterday--it heals in ticks of 12 hp, but I think you get 2 ticks/second), so I don't know where you're getting the 1 hp every few seconds from. Even priests heal like 5 hp/second, which is really slow.

[araulius]

Huh. I had a very different experience. do surgeons target singular units, or a group? I remember that it was only single units at one point...

[lesllamas]

Surgeons heal one unit at a time.

[HeatitUP_]

I watched a video or iamgrunt healed a spahi with his mosque on texas.

[duckzilla]

I watched a video or iamgrunt healed a spahi with his mosque on texas.

Spahis heal automatically afaik?!

[howlingwolfpaw]

yeah i thought they did too! nice unit feature