The ULTIMATE Support Character...Discussion

Okay, so I've spent the better part of this morning researching the different ways a player can heal/cure/benefit others. And I think the template below is possibly the best. I invite everyone to critique it though, as some of my information may not be up to date.

Again, this character is strictly for keeping others alive.

Some information about the setup.
No Meditation
No Focus
No Eval.
Again this is purely for supporting other characters and not dealing damage.

Suit will have 40LMC, 100LRC, and we are going to MAX out MR whether there is a MAX of 30, or if there are in fact Diminishing Returns on it. (Phoenix's post confuses me, and the other discussion I found is split.)

I believe with Shame Weapon + Bard Masteries, + MR2 each Armor Piece +Arti's/other slot items we can get to approx 70(give or take) MR.

Skills
Musicianship
Provocation
Peacemaking
Chivalry
Magery
Spellweaving?

May drop Magery for Med, after playing the template, but its hard to deny 49-58PT GHeals...
Chivalry gives 39pt Heals
Both of these can be increased even more with Arcane Empowerment(by howmuch I don't know)
Gift of Renewal give 9-14pt Heals every 2 Seconds (also increased with Arcane Empowerment)

Running Invigorate & Resiliance gives party 7-16pt heals every 4secs, +Stat Regens of +22. (not sure if Arcane Empowerment has an effect on the healing side of this one...)
Running Invigorate & Perseverance gives party 7-16pt heals ever 4secs, +30% DCI, and -30% Damage Taken

Invigorate 1.75HPS - 4HPS
Resiliance 2.2HPS
GOR 4.5HPS - 7HPS

8.5HPS on the low end just for one Member of the party. x 6 party members thats 50.7HPS you are putting on the group, not to mention any GHeals or Close wounds you cast.

Is this an insane idea? I'm thinking that with the new looting rights changes a character like this could definitely benefit.

Okay so I'm actually pretty dissapointed in the HPS of the bard masteries. Thinking further what about a setup such as this:

Magery (used for Invis, Gheal+Arcane Empowerment, Recall, Mark, Gate, Res, Cure...no need for eval)
Chivalry (Close Wounds, Cleanse by Fire, Remove Curse, Noble Sacrifice, Dispel Evil)
Spellweaving(Gift of Renewal + Arcane Empowerment, Gift of Life)
Meditation(MR)
Focus(MR+Mysicism)
Mysticism(Cleansing Winds + Arcane Empowerment, Healing Stone + Arcane Empowerment)

Also seems to be a decent Damage Dealer as well...
RC, WoD, Hail Storm, Nature's Fury, Bombard....

I guess at this point this temp would go in the spellcasters forum...

Invigorate heals I think 7-16 or 16-20 (I forget off the top of my head) every 4 seconds. So thats 40-> 50 HPR
In also increases health by about 23 HP (maybe more depending on if the person gets strength bonus.

The provocation abilities are empowerment abilities, so they make the character hit harder, stronger,faster.

The peace masteries are more geared towards helping survival. The damage reduction, and defense chance increase pair nicely with the increased regens, and increased resistance to curse and DOT effects.

If you combine peace/music with mystic/focus throw on med and add maybe wrestling, you get the really powerful close wounds healing as well as the hp regen and damage reduction which should allow you to easily support a group against significant incoming damage. You'll also get the damage output from a colosus and your myst spells.


You could go the same route and replace mysticism with chivalry for really fast heals but you'd have to worry about ranges.



Long story short your peace bard combined with any other healing ability, provides more survivability to those supported than any other template.

A provo bard is probably a not-particularly-close second, but still second none the less.

Thanks for the comment Zero Day, yeah i just took the masteries and converted them to Healing Per Second, and took the low end of the abilities that had ranges to get a base.

Ok Poo, now I had thought about Healing/Anat, but are you still popping 2sec heals when you're only running 10dex? I mean, you could probobly go a little below normal on STR with this template, but with chiv, or with healing, and I believe another spell i looked at(not sure if its spellweaving or one of the bard masteries) you had to be within a few tiles, or its benefit only ranged a few tiles....anyway point being gotta be in somewhat close.

I agree, completely.

My only fear is the mana issue. Im building the second template now. And with Med and Focus +decent MR(I think im running in the 20's) mana regen is awesome, but I am a little fearful of what will happen when i stone those and chiv off and replace with the barding...we shall see. It will take a bit to build the toon up for both templates, but i intend on doing it. Never hurts to have a few more skills stoned off.

Guess i could pop over to TC and give it a whirl.

I believe you heal others in Half the time you heal yourself, and the max is 8 seconds, so I'm guessing you'll heal others in 4 seconds with bandages.
If you do Myst/Focus/Peace/Music/Med and you aren't planning on getting hit then you could take all 5 of those to 120 and still have 100 for magery (and use a mageweapon) or 100 to chivalry.

Chiv is kind of superfurlous with myst/focus and with peacing you already reduce the duration of mortal wound to 3 or 4 seconds which gives you the ability to hit your cleansing winds and get the most bang for your buck.

(As for a healing mage, I do have one of those not a bad template)

All scenario considered:

Magery 120
Med 120
Focus 120
Mysticism 120
Music 100
Peace 100


1. Drop provocation & keep Peace (100):
For low-end mobs, your mates will kill them fairly quick without your help.
For high-end mobs, Provocation is likely to fail often or uselessly (due to lack of other mobs).
100 Music/Peace is useful enough for most situations for area-peace traffic control & can save the team. But some ppl may think area-pace is annoying or a waste.

2. Drop Spellweaving: useless


As for equip, just get those high-end arties for high MR.

GM Peace/Music will be pretty useless.
It's a support template not using for peace bombs. GM peace/music will get him +4 to all regens, maybe cure lesser poison and 8% damage reduction/dci which just dont cut it for support. at 120peace /music its +16 to all regens/ cure greater poison and 24% damage reduction/dci.
Better to go with 80 magery and raise it with items if you are goign that route.