Different Colors for HP Bars of Undead/Forged Characters

[changelingamuck]

To me, this is a huge quality of life change requiring little developer labor. I'm suggesting that the health bars displayed for pale masters in undead form and warforged/bladeforged party members have a different color than the standard red. I'd suggest purple health bars for pale masters in undead form and silver health bars for warforged/bladeforged. Fleshie artificers with the construct essence feat could have a grey color or just stick with the standard red since they still receive larger heals from positive energy than from repair spells. For the very few forged characters who take the improved fortification feat that makes them immune to positive healing, maybe they could be assigned a very, very dark grey colored hp bar.

This would solve a number of continuous problems for many builds while in parties:

1) Benefits to Healers healing the Fleshie and Undead: Healers in a party/raid group won't be wasting spell points misguidedly casting positive energy healing spells on wizards while having no idea whether or not they're pale masters and totally immune to positive energy. And, divines would have to consider carrying the Harm spell and they would actually know for sure which party wizards would benefit from it just by looking at the party UI.

2) Benefits to Fleshie Wizards: Fleshie, non-pale master wizards would receive third-party heals since healers won't assume, based on their wizard icon, that they're immune to positive energy heals or don't need heals since they're probably self-healing war-/blade-forged.

3) Benefits to Positive Energy Healers healing the -Forged: Healers in a party/raid group will be able to see those war-/blade-forged in the group who will likely receive smaller heals from positive energy and be able to adjust the strength of their choice of healing spells accordingly. And, healers will see silver/grey hp bars next to an arcane/artificer icon and consequently know that they can self-heal through most things and don't need as much help.

4) Benefits to Repair Healers: Classes with access to repair spells will be able to see whom those spells will affect just by looking at the party UI. Artificers, who are not a competitive class at all right now, have access to both positive and repair healing spells and admixtures and this simple UI color change of health bars would increase their effectiveness in groups by knowing who they can most effectively heal with what repair spell/positive energy admixture by looking at hp bars.

5) Overall Benefit of Less Healing Confusion: A significant amount of the balance problems with 'non-self-healing' builds would be ameliorated and some problems with healing classes being 'less fun' would be ameliorated by this improvement of their efficiency (and how transparent and enjoyable healing is) by far.

This is a simple change of the display of colors in the UI that, I think, would improve the balance of classes greatly without 'nerfing' or 'buffing' a single numeric value. It would require no additional 3d graphics, animations, nothing like that. Just a change of colors, resulting in a large quality of life improvement.

I rest my case. Please provide opinions and "/signed"'s or "/not signed"'s.

EDIT: As some people replying to the thread have pointed out, the colors of hp bars would need to change under some varying circumstances. For example, war-/blade-forged sorcerers in the capstone savant elemental forms become just like fleshies in terms of their receptiveness to positive energy heals and being immune to repair heals; so their hp bar color would need to turn to the standard red in those elemental forms. The same thing would happen with characters with druid levels going into animal forms. Dead characters raised through the tier 5 pale master animate ally enhancement or by the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers would need their hp bars turned purple (which should be automatic since undead forms would already be coded as turning to purple hp bars under this proposal).

[HatsuharuZ]

I think this is a good idea. It would save my characters a lot of annoyance, trying to heal something that can't be healed.

[Qhualor]

skull and crossbones.

I don't play any undead toons, but I know the frustration to throw a heal on someone that is almost dead and keep hitting them with it thinking you were out of range or something only to realize they are undead. I think whenever these undead characters are in form there needs to be an icon change that lets everyone know. I would say a color change but some people are colorblind.

4 years ago I would have agreed with WF, but unless I have repair spells for some odd reason on my melees that always have Cocoon or cure spells that come with the class, positive healing is dominant today. im still going to throw them a heal regardless if they dumped healers friend. how much im willing to throw on a dumped healers friend forge is another story.

[EllisDee37]

4 years ago I would have agreed with WF, but unless I have repair spells for some odd reason on my melees that always have Cocoon or cure spells that come with the class, positive healing is dominant today. im still going to throw them a heal regardless if they dumped healers friend. how much im willing to throw on a dumped healers friend forge is another story.

I think the OP's thought is the value of a robot color isn't for healers using positive energy, it's for repair-ers who don't normally throw any recons being able to see at a glance if they could.

[Nefatron]

If they ever make healers something to play again I could see that..
But I haven't had a heal tossed my way in ages now.

[lyrecono]

anything to get people to run healers again, +1

[Powerhungry]

But I haven't had a heal tossed my way in ages now.

Then you're either playing with the wrong people (every healer I know throws heals) or you only solo and there isn't anyone to heal you.
Maybe try a different server if they won't heal you

[RD2play]

I like this idea!! There are 3 different states to be in considering healing atm so 3 colours would be fine one for positive, negative and repair. also like the red, purple and grey you choose.

[RD2play]

maybe there should actually be a 4th colour, namely for warforged that took feat/enhancements that completely make them immune to positive

[changelingamuck]

maybe there should actually be a 4th colour, namely for warforged that took feat/enhancements that completely make them immune to positive

thanks, being mostly 'warforged illiterate', I had to look it up and the feat is 'improved fortification'. That's definitely relevant. I don't believe there are any enhancements that make forged characters immune to positive energy healing--just that one feat. But yeah, it's totally more important to be able to tell who in the party is completely immune to healing of a particular type. If there was only a partial change to the color of hp bars, I'd say a different color for characters with the improved fortification feat and pale masters would be most important...

[dredre9987]

You could always just communicate with the party...

[changelingamuck]

You could always just communicate with the party...

I feel like it's awkward to start asking every wizard in a raid group if they're pale masters. And asking and waiting for replies can actually take longer than selecting and examining each wiz and looking for the undead stance icon in their examination window buff list. If you're a late joiner, in a zerging group or last to jump into a raid, there's often not time to do either actually before the action is going, in my experience...

Not to mention, people can feel like there's an implicit criticism if they're asked if they self-heal and, if they're warforged, get defensive about their healing amp and yadda yadda yadda. (And if the healer doesn't ask, who wants to be the fleshie wizard who makes it a point to tell the healer that they aren't PM or forged?) I think the people who like this idea would just rather have 'healability' plainly clear without hassle--I mean both the people who want healers to know how they can be healed and the healers who want to know who they can heal and how, instantly.

When I'm in the heat of things, frantically scanning dropping hp bars and tossing back-to-back heals, I don't want to have to be looking at hp bars and then looking at the name and class icon for everyone in order to figure out if I'd be completely wasting sp targeting them with positive energy or if they could use a 'harm' spell. The fleshie in need of a heal dies when I cast a heal on a lich player instead of them because I didn't have time to process 'hp bar = low' + 'class icon = wizard' + 'character name = AmIUndead YesOrNo' + 'oh yeah, AmIUndead said they were undead during the pre-quest interview about healability'.

[Qhualor]

thanks, being mostly 'warforged illiterate', I had to look it up and the feat is 'improved fortification'. That's definitely relevant. I don't believe there are any enhancements that make forged characters immune to positive energy healing--just that one feat. But yeah, it's totally more important to be able to tell who in the party is completely immune to healing of a particular type. If there was only a partial change to the color of hp bars, I'd say a different color for characters with the improved fortification feat and pale masters would be most important...

I knew one player that took Improved Fortification. he was a soulstone most of the Shroud run. how he managed to get that high of a level, I don't know. that feat is a trap.

[Ancient]

I knew one player that took Improved Fortification. he was a soulstone most of the Shroud run. how he managed to get that high of a level, I don't know. that feat is a trap.

If I knew that it worked against champion fort bypass, I'd consider it... on my palemaster, of course.