Healing | ||
---|---|---|
Realm | Life | |
Spell Rarity | Common | |
Spell Type | Combat Instant | |
Combat Cost | 15 | |
Research Cost | 100 | |
| ||
Heals the target unit by 5 Hit Points - or by however many it would take to return the unit to full health, whichever is less. Neither the Undead nor any Fantastic Units belonging to the Death Realm may be targeted by this spell. |
Healing is a Common Combat Instant belonging to the Life Magic realm. It may only be cast during combat, and must be targeted at a friendly unit that does not belong to the Death Realm. For 15 the spell will heal the targeted unit by 5 Hit Points. If the target is only suffering from less than 5 points of Damage, the healing will simply return it to full health. Lost figures in a Multi-Figure unit may be brought back from the dead thanks to Healing, but entire lost units may not.
Effects[]
The Healing spell fills the target with restorative energy, magically curing its wounds and even possibly returning dead men to life.
Healing Hit Points[]
When Healing is cast on a unit, the unit recovers between 0 and 5 Hit Points - depending on how much damage it previously had.
If the unit has suffered 5 points of Damage or more, Healing will restore exactly 5 Hit Points for the unit - possible returning dead figures to life if necessary (see below).
If the unit has suffered fewer than 5 points of Damage, it is simply healed to 100% health. The unit now has all of its Hit Points - with all figures restored to life.
Restoring Dead Figures[]
When a Multi-Figure unit suffers damage, it may lose one or more of its figures. So long as there is at least one figure left alive, restoring Hit Points to a unit will also restore dead figures to life as necessary.
Healing will add as many Hit Points to the first figure in the unit, until that unit is fully healed. If the unit is still missing figures, and Healing has not yet restored all 5 Hit Points it's supposed to, then the next figure in the unit is brought back to life, with 1. If Healing still hasn't restored 5 Hit Points to the unit, it will then heal this injured figure to full health, and so on and so on - until either the unit is at full health with all its figures revived, or Healing has restored the full 5 Hit Points it was supposed to.
Example[]
- A unit of High Elf Cavalry normally has 4 figures, each with 3 Hit Points.
- The unit takes some damage during combat, losing two of its figures. The next figure sustains 1, leaving it with only 2 Hit Points.
- Healing is then cast on the unit. As per the rules outlined above, this spell should restore either 5, or however many Hit Points are required to fully heal the unit.
- The next 1 then revives one of the lost Cavalrymen. He is restored with only 1, but then spell still hasn't fulfilled its potential, so another 2 are restored for this injured man, restoring him to 3 - he is fully healthy now.
- The next 1 then revives another Cavalryman. However by this point, Healing has restored a total of 5 to the unit, and has fulfilled its potential.
- The unit now has all 4 figures back to action, though the one at the front is injured, with only 1 restored.
Usage[]
Healing may only be cast during combat, for a basic Casting Cost of 15.
The spell must be targeted at a friendly unit. The only invalid targets for it would be Fantastic Units from the Death Realm, who may not be targeted. This includes any Undead creatures, as they are considered to belong to the Death Realm. Normally, it should not be possible for a wizard to cast Healing and be in possession of Death creatures, but there are a few possible situations where that may occur (for example, finding a staff with Animate Dead, or having cast Spell Binding and stolen a Zombie Mastery spell) which is why this rule is mentioned.
Healing is shown on screen as a powerful beam of light shining from the heavens down on the targeted unit. Hit points are restored immediately, and any revived figures will simply reappear as necessary.
Acquisition[]
As a Common Life spell, Healing may become available to any Wizard who possesses at least one Life Spellbook. However, its availability during the game is not guaranteed unless the Wizard acquires at least 7 Spellbooks.
Customized Wizards possessing up to 10 Spellbooks at creation time may choose this spell as one of their default spells before starting the game, in which case the spell will already be researched and available for casting immediately on the first turn. Wizards with 11 Spellbooks are guaranteed to have this spell available for casting as soon as the game begins.
Wizards with 6 or fewer Spellbooks who have not chosen Healing as a guaranteed spell have a random chance of being able to Research it. The chance for this spell to appear increases with the number of Life Spellbooks the Wizard possesses or obtains during gameplay. With −3 Spellbooks, the spell is guaranteed to appear for Research if it is not already available for casting.
Healing has a base Research Cost of 100.
With at least 1 Spellbook, the Healing spell may be acquired as a reward for winning encounters in creature Lairs, Towers, et cetera, or when conquering the Fortress of a rival wizard who has already researched this spell.
Strategy[]
Healing is mainly a way to keep a unit alive for longer in combat. Restoring Hit Points allows the unit to take more damage, and thus it can fight for longer. It can also save the unit from total destruction - which is much harder (or at least much more expensive) to undo!
With Multi-Figure units, Healing can be very important - the unit's overall combat effectiveness depends on the number of figures left alive in that unit, so restoring some figures to life restores some of the unit's lost attack strength as well.
Because the spell may only be cast during combat, some players will deliberately engage a weaker enemy force just so that they can cast Healing a few times on their injured units. This cuts down on the time that would otherwise be spent on the overland map waiting for these injured units to heal by themselves.
Known Bugs[]
Restoring health in battle may cause a bug that gives Multi-Figure units bonus health presented by golden Heart icons. For this to trigger, the following requirements must be met:
- a Figure is revived (through Healing, Regeneration or Life Steal);
- the revived Figure's missing health must surpass the unit's maximum number of Figures.
In this case, each living Figure (the revived one included) gains at least one additional maximum Hit Point. To calculate the increase in each Figure's bonus health, the game will divide the revived Figure's missing health by the unit's maximum number of Figures, and round down the result. This process is normally used by attacks bearing the Life Steal attribute, for which this is an intended behaviour when the unit is at maximum health with no missing Figures. That is, this attribute causes any life stolen to grant extra Hits above the normal maximum for the duration of the combat, but this is split between the Figures in the unit, possibly resulting in no gain if the life stolen was less than the maximum Figure count.
Unfortunately, a coding oversight causes this effect to also be applied every time any type of healing causes a Figure to be revived during combat, with the new "lead" Figure's missing health used as the "over-heal" amount.
Example
- A unit of Regular Griffins is heavily damaged: One Figure is already dead, the other has 6 of 10 Hit Points left:
- The Wizard casts Healing. This should normally restore 5 hit points:
- However, the described bug is triggered. The revived Figure has 9 Hit Points missing. Griffins usually consist of 2 Figures, so in this case, the bonus health amounts to 4 (9/2 rounded down). This results in the following instead of the above:
- The unit effectively regained 13 Hit Points, and even more can be gained by repeating this procedure (reviving a dead Figure over and over again).
This bug is fixed in the Unofficial Patch 1.50 (W113FIX.TXT).