[Merc] Apothecary

(Mr-Penguin) #1

“Well… I uh… heal… I suppose.”

Class- Medic
HP- 90
SP (Sprint Speed)- 440

Appearance- Can’t come up with one. What would a completely incompetent doctor look like?

Profile- Apothecary was just your run of the mill burglar, trying to pay off some debts. But when he broke into Pirin Medical to find some juicy corporate secrets to sell to the highest bidder, he wasn’t expecting to find a fully functioning prototype heal gun. After somehow making his way out of the facility, he got a fake passport made his way to London, pretending to be a British doctor and make money off of the HEALR’s amazing capabilities. There’s one problem though- he has no idea what the thing does.

Primary Ability- Heal Gun
CD- 18 sec (overheated), 5 seconds (per slug)
Duration- 5 sec (Heal Beam), 3 sec (Heal Slug)
Apothecary pulls out his HEALR prototype healing gun and readies it for use on his allies. As it is obvious from its name, the HEALR does not revive like the REVIVR, but instead heals your allies and deals some damage to enemies. It has two healing modes that can be switched at will with the secondary ability, both of which are:

Heal Beam- Shoots a constant stream of healing nanites that slowly heals teammates by 30 HP/sec, but it can buff their health by up to 25% of their maximum health in a manner similar to TF2’s overheal mechanic. The “beam” of nanites covers a 35 degree radius in front of Apothecary and will lock onto up to three teammates at a time, but each consectutive teammate healed after the first will reduce the healing rate by 5 HP/second each. Similarly to the minigun, the HEALR will reduce its CD on its own, but only when the ‘reload’ key is tapped. Each second of healing produces a three second CD period for the manual cooldown, but if all 5 seconds are used, the HEALR overheats and is forced on a 15 second CD. The Heal Beam has a very short range though, smaller than Phoenix’s Healing Pulse max radius.

Heal Slug- Shoots a slug filled with nanites wherever Apothecary is aiming. Each slug heals a total of 50 HP over three seconds. There is a 5 second “priming” period between each slug. Computer assisted aiming protocols allow for near perfect accuracy and more or less unlimited range. If an enemy is hit with a Heal Slug, then they will take 50 damage over 10 seconds and suffer a speed penalty of 20 and have their vision be somewhat blurred. The severity of these effects will decrease over the 10 second duration. Getting healed or dying will negate these effects.

Secondary Ability- Fire Type Change
CD- N/A
Duration- N/A
Apothecary flicks a switch on the side of the HEALR if it is being used, and the gun changes between its healing modes.

Weapons- Blishlok, Hochfir, SMG-9

Quotes-
“Healing… I think. Well, at least it looks cool.”- Utilizing Heal Beam
“What did this do again?”- switching heal modes
“I killed three of you… too bad I can’t scratch tally marks into the side of this thing.”- Triple Kill

Notes-
Apothecary- the exact opposite of Sparks. He can heal multiple allies very quickly and provide a health buff, but he has no reviving capabilities. His two healing modes provide both close quarters and ranged healing, but he can really only heal one ally at a time efficiently, lest he incur the wrath of a lengthy CD. But I don’t know if the overheal is a good idea, and the entire HEALR concept can probably become very unbalanced. Feedback is appreciated!

As always, thanks for reading! :cookie:

(sentimentalDime) #2

How about this: If you hit incapacitated teammates with the heal slug, it halves help up time, and revived teammates spawn with 50% more health.

Overall i really like this merc idea, as for the appearance, I’d say according to the desribtion, a tall, thin and narrow shouldered guy would fit him.

(HunterAssassin5) #3

Ubercharge me, doc!

i think the reason the game doesnt have any sort of direct-healing of allies, unless you count throwing meds directly at them, is because to avoid “pocket medic-ing”, with a medic focusing on a single player and following him around pretty much not bothering with anyone else. even the meds come in limited amounts and on a cooldown.

sure, i mean, it can heal up to 3 players at once, but the short range kinda goes against that since who stands so close with teammates these days? especially with stroker and thinder out now.

the heal slug sounds somewhat better, though its more or less a medibag that auto-locks onto friendlies, flies further and doesnt heal enemies like the medibags do.

for the appearance, well, he’s a thief that breaks into corporate buildings, so he has to be reasonably fit. think a street thug trying to read a university textbook, my image on what this guy is like XD

(Mr-Penguin) #4

[quote=“TheRyderShotgun;120663”]Ubercharge me, doc!

i think the reason the game doesnt have any sort of direct-healing of allies, unless you count throwing meds directly at them, is because to avoid “pocket medic-ing”, with a medic focusing on a single player and following him around pretty much not bothering with anyone else. even the meds come in limited amounts and on a cooldown.

sure, i mean, it can heal up to 3 players at once, but the short range kinda goes against that since who stands so close with teammates these days? especially with stroker and thinder out now.

the heal slug sounds somewhat better, though its more or less a medibag that auto-locks onto friendlies, flies further and doesnt heal enemies like the medibags do.

for the appearance, well, he’s a thief that breaks into corporate buildings, so he has to be reasonably fit. think a street thug trying to read a university textbook, my image on what this guy is like XD[/quote]

I wouldn’t say the range of the Heal Beam would be that short. Phoenix’s Healing Pulse fully charged is pretty big already, now just imagine that but tiny bit smaller. If anything, the Heal Beam is more like a directed Healing Pulse that requires constant CD management to avoid overheating.

To avoid a pocket medic situation, heal efficiency could degrade over time. It obviously has to be canceled or slowed severely if the target is taking damage- which was a detail I forgot to add.

The “computer assisted aiming” was more like a flair type of thing to spice up the post. It’s not a lock on, but it basically has the same accuracy and range of the REVIVR.

Thanks for the feedback! Now it’s time to conjure up an image of a street thug with a stethoscope. XD

(eccentricLullabye) #5

I love the idea of the healing slugs, but a tip on the Heal Beam. Make it more a burst heal in a cone. I agree with being the Phoenix, but make it more directed in a 90 degree cone. Making it similar to the TF2 medic is a good idea, but not have it give a bonus to health with the constant heal. At that point, it makes rhino, thunder, or any merc that is tanky even more tanky and harder to kill. Also, I would like to see what could counter the merc very effectively, like Red-eye’s smoke smothers the flames from Stoker’s molotov

(HunterAssassin5) #6

i’d think thunder’s flash can disable the heal device for some time?

(Mr-Penguin) #7

Could be interesting, but then by extension, should the REVIVR, artillery spotter, laser designation, and similar devices be disabled by a conc?

Now that’d be interesting for the concs to disable abilities, but that’s another topic. As for Apothecary, making the Heal Beam a multi-charge burst heal like @eccentricLullabye suggested isn’t a bad idea, but I felt that that was a bit too similar to the Healing Pulse.

Perhaps Heal Beam could just speed health regen the longer it’s held on a teammate instead of the constant heal it is right now?

(eccentricLullabye) #8

Could be interesting, but then by extension, should the REVIVR, artillery spotter, laser designation, and similar devices be disabled by a conc?

Now that’d be interesting for the concs to disable abilities, but that’s another topic. As for Apothecary, making the Heal Beam a multi-charge burst heal like @eccentricLullabye suggested isn’t a bad idea, but I felt that that was a bit too similar to the Healing Pulse.

Perhaps Heal Beam could just speed health regen the longer it’s held on a teammate instead of the constant heal it is right now?[/quote]

Ok. I like that idea better. And you are right about the conc with the REVIVR and other weapons. Guess it would make the conc grenade a little bit too OP.