Brainstorming Fun: Alternatives to Rescue

[Packetdancer]

And now I'll start things off with my own current hypothetical replacement I've tossed around with others: what I've called "Conditional Salvation".

This hypothetical role action puts a Conditional Salvation buff on a player very briefly; let's say 5 seconds. If something would have killed them in that time, the buff procs and instead of dying, they are reduced to one hitpoint and slingshotted to the healer that offered them Salvation. It also includes a penalty; let's go with a 40% damage down for 30 seconds if it procs.

The damage down might feel extreme, but it's less severe than a Brink of Death double-rez debuff (which just straight out reduces all your offensive stats by 50% for more than a minute and a half). And it definitely needs a deterrent of some sort to avoid people using it like an extra tank invuln in savage; it should be used to save someone who would otherwise die, not to cheese mechanics without consequence.

It might still be jarring for the player to be slingshotted into the safe zone, but since the only way the buff procs is if you were literally otherwise dead, it's functionally just putting you where you'd be when rezzed anyway. And while it might interrupt a cast... again, the buff only procs if you would have died, so it's not like you were finishing that cast in the first place.

This does lose Rescue's ability to pull people onto pads to cleanse Doom, or reposition someone who's standing in the wrong place and is going to get everyone killed, but on the other hand... if you make it proc on almost everything (obviously there are some exceptions, like an enrage), you get some extra functionality in place of that.

Someone was Doomed? You can't pull them onto a cleansing pad, but when the Doom hits they'll still be alive... just at 1 hp and repositioned where the healer is.

Someone was about to fall off the edge? You can't Rescue them back, no. But since they'd have died, the buff procs and they instead slingshot to the healer. (Bonus: it is a lot easier to have this proc when someone would've fallen rather than relying on Rescue's janky timing and basically just hoping the server tick is on your side.)

Someone in P4S phase 1 still has the plague (or grabbed a tether when they ought not to) and is thus guaranteed to die? Throw Conditional Salvation on them before the plague and tethers resolve, and at least they don't have to be rezzed. (And hey, this is a situation where you can now save someone, but Rescue couldn't do a dang thing.)

Basically, in many of the scenarios where you might try to save someone -- and save yourself needing to use Swift or 8 seconds of your time, along with 2400 MP or a charge of Thin Air -- they're still saved. And that salvation is more reliable than Rescue's janky behavior has ever been.

Meanwhile, if the person genuinely had a plan to get out of the bad and get to safety, then hey, they don't die, the buff never procs and it falls off after 5s; they aren't forced into a new position (and potentially upset/annoyed by it) or given the damage down penalty, because their plan was both effective and executed properly and thus they did not die.

Either way, the healer doesn't spend 2400 MP and 8 seconds to rez someone.

[Calysto]

Here's an idea :

New "general" action : HALP!!!
-give the user a halp buff for 2s
-make a big marker appear above target head
-recast 60s ?

Rescue :
-enabled ("trigger" effect) when a party member is under halp buff
-pull party members within 30' to you if they have halp buff and remove it
-recast 30s-90s ? maybe with charges

Solve some problems and create others.
The healer won't pull you to your doom anymore, but if you want to be saved you better beg

[Droxybrobotnik]

Here's an idea :

New "general" action : HALP!!!
-give the user a halp buff for 2s
-make a big marker appear above target head
-recast 60s ?

Rescue :
-enabled ("trigger" effect) when a party member is under halp buff
-pull party members within 30' to you if they have halp buff and remove it
-recast 30s-90s ? maybe with charges

Solve some problems and create others.
The healer won't pull you to your doom anymore, but if you want to be saved you better beg

Brilliant. We'll have the ff14 version of being a medic in team fortress 2