Brainstorming Fun: Alternatives to Rescue

[Packetdancer]

First off, I definitely agree that Rescue hypothetically has a number of interesting uses. I have frequently used it for uptime cheese in Susano, for instance; before the pull, I mention "Hey, if anyone other than me gets the knockback and stack marker, don't run after them; I'll just rescue them back into melee range as the knockback goes off." Folks go "Cool, sounds good." And we do that. Yay?

But Rescue is janky and unreliable, and the vast majority of interesting uses are thus impractical. Outside of the aforementioned "grab your co-healer and bring them to safety while they're in LB3 animation lock", I almost never see Rescue used in savage or extremes. (I won't say I don't see it at all, but it's extremely rare.)

One; Reactive raise already exists within codebase in form of Pomander of Raising.
Two; Code for reactive skills already exists, think Excog.
Three; Prevent going below 1 hp code also already exists.

Slap all three together and you have reactive raise. We will not get reactive telewarp though because developing that would require additional time.

Buff/debuff-based 'zip to this spot' code actually also already exists in the game; it was a fairly key element in phase 2 of E12S last tier, with a number of "Relativity" mechanics that forced you to resolve multiple mechanics in a specific order without the mechanics happening, at which point you would be rewound to the positions snapshotted at the time the countdown had expired for that step. That would (in theory) not be terribly hard to repurpose.

Am willing to make wager on this can quote this Lala if I am correct in the future times. Heck number three is not relevant so can scrap that if we go with boring ol auto raise.

Now finally.. many apologies I kinda type a lot. Your suggestion is mostly dumpstered on arrival.

In higher level content (Savage+) and even most lower level content skilled players avoid anything that has potential to cost uptime/deeps. Just like avoiding old pre dps neutral Lily spells a skill that causes someone to eat 40% damage down will be avoided as much as can be. Whole reason why rescue = better is from its ability to prevent the weakness debuff and uptime loss of raising for both dead player and healer. Damage down portion has to go or be augmented or the skill goes from "Sweet! It worked!" to "Ugh, guess I will slap this on them instead of burning Swift".

As someone who raids savage, I would argue that if the alternative is "you died" (thus 90 seconds of rez weakness), the 30 seconds of damage down is, while not ideal, still the preferable option. And without that damage down -- with no downside to the ability -- you turn Conditional Salvation into functionally "Holmgang, but the healer can put it on anyone."

Which is interesting, I won't lie, but two healers able to functionally apply Holmgang to any party member... that strikes me as having a reasonably high chance of very quickly becoming a thing predominantly used for Large Cheesing where mechanics are concerned.

(And I personally would prefer not to encourage more things like the P1S "braindead" tank damage down strat for Intemperance. Why is this a thing.)

How does it slingshot the player?

If it works as current Rescue does will it move player to current position or previous position upon cast?

Both have potential to be most bad. I identify that player A is not going to survive mechanics and shall experience demise. Wish to use Conditional Salvation on them but it will yeet them to me however there is kill wall/chasm between me and player A. Gotta reposition before casting or make certain I do not reposition until they experience demise which miiiight result in my going splat. It will have to function like raise so again we return to reactive raise.

That one's easy enough to fix: if the buff is triggered and slingshots the player, grant them 5 seconds of Transcendent, as though they'd just been rezzed. (Transcendent being the temporary invulnerability to all damage you have immediately after rez.) This would let them still be brought safely to the healer's side even across the bad, and give the healer a moment's breathing space to heal them up again as well.

(Hell, even if nothing else about Rescue changes, I'd argue that giving them Transcendent for the duration of the Rescue-slide would do wonders for reducing people's annoyance with it, since at least you wouldn't be dragging them through death zones and potentially killing them regardless.)

Most biggest reason why it would insta flop especially in higher level content is how fricken punishing being out of position is there. One player not correctly positioned in Dragonsong Reprise results in tpk 95% of the times. If it becomes reactive raise without the yeet portion welp.. now the dead player is not in position for mechanic X so wipe time! If it retains the yeet but you must position for mechanics now you are dragging someone somewhere they should not be and that is a wipe again.

Oh believe me, as a healer main, I am painfully aware of how one person being out of position causes large problems in a lot of higher-end content. In the current savage tier, for instance, much of P4S phase 1 is basically "Proper Positioning: the Fight", while phase 2 is basically "Proper Positioning II: Position Faster, with Tethers".

But I have seen Rescue used very, very rarely to correct positioning in high-end content, because there's rarely time. Are you going to run to the person's spot, Rescue them there, then move back to your own spot? Rescue is not reliable enough -- or fast enough -- to run to the right spot for a position-based mechanic, Rescue, then run back to where you need to be in the vast majority of cases.

(Disclaimer: I will admit there are exceptions. I had one run of P4S in PF not long ago where a DPS had been disoriented by rez and happened to be standing in my orb spot, and was clearly tunnel-visioning as they did not seem to notice both of us were there. So I ran to theirs. If I had stayed there, we both would've been popping the wrong orbs and would die, but since they were specifically out of position in my spot I was able to use sage's Rescue + Icarus trick to switch our spots in time. However, I'd argue this -- and almost any situation where you use Rescue to correct positioning in savage, save for rescuing your co-healer from LB3 animation lock -- is an edge case.)

And if someone is dead for the mechanic, that often also causes it to fail. Someone's dead and can't soak a tower? Welp, that's a massive raidwide. One of the healers is down? Now it's time for the fun guessing game of "who gets the other stack marker". One of the DPS is dead for Darkened Fire in P3S, and it was DPS the fires were dropped on? Better hope the random person selected to receive the fourth fire is their tank/healer partner, 'cause otherwise that fire gets dropped smack on top of another one, the two tether, and you all die. Etc.

The number of situations in which someone being repositioned would be worse than someone being dead for the mechanic is, I suspect, not a large one. (Though I'll admit it is also a non-zero value. The Flare/Stack/Donut/Spread mechanic in Endsinger EX would be one; while still telegraphed when someone is down, the mechanic does not actually go off if the targeted player is KO'd at the time. Having a DPS with Flare alive but zipped to where the healers and tanks are stacked would end Poorly.)

Conversely, the number of situations in which someone being repositioned but still alive is better than death is probably a bigger number. Especially since Conditional Salvation could save someone from, say, P4S rot/tethers if they have the wrong thing; Rescue can't really do anything there except ensure they die in a different spot.

(Well, okay, you might be able to Rescue them to you if you are specifically supposed to have the tether they have, and then run away with it, but given how wonky Rescue is, I'd not place high odds on being able to do that and get far enough away afterwards that the tether-blast doesn't kill them anyway. And if it's a tank who has a tether when they shouldn't, that means you shouldn't either, so Rescue would just actively make things worse by bringing the "this will kill tanks or healers" blast straight to you.)

I don't think Conditional Salvation is necessarily the ideal solution -- or even necessarily the right solution. And it definitely doesn't allow some of the creative uses Rescue would, though it does also allow you to save people in places that Rescue wouldn't.

But if we were going to replace Rescue, I think Conditional Salvation wouldn't be a bad option as one possibility. And I don't think the issues you mention having with it are ones that are insurmountable.