Now onto the pros and cons for deciding if you want to choose this power:
Aid Self Pros:
1) This is by far one of the best potential heals in the game. It gives a 20% heal every 20 seconds. This translates into a 240% boost to your regeneration rate or the equivalent of having 10%* resistance to all damage types. This is better than almost every other defensive power in the game. If you slot it with 3 Heal SOs and 1 Recharge SO, this becomes:
622.9% regeneration boost or 26% damage resistance to everything!
In comparison all the passives from the Invulnerability tanker primary (RDP+Rel+Ren+TH) only give an effective 22.1% resistance to all damages except Tox and Psy.
* This number is calculated by assuming a constant rate of incoming damage to reduce your hit point to zero in 10 seconds.
2) Aid Self fully slotted is better than getting Tough, since Tough only covers S/L damage types. Also Tough at most grants a resist of 23%, while Aid Self can grant up to 26% over all damage types.
3) Aid Self only will get better with added defenses. As your character adds more defensive powers, Aid Self increases in its effectiveness. This is because the less overall damage you take, the less often you need to use Aid Self, and the more likely that Aid Self will replenish your Hit Points to 100%
4) Aid Self like any regeneration power is not capped at its effectiveness (hence why regen scrappers are always getting balanced). You are capped at the maximum amount of Resistance and Defense that you can obtain, however nothing stops your Aid Self from working if you have too many other regeneration powers.
5) As a heal, it will work against any damage type.
6) This great power is not as likely to get a reduction in its effectiveness. _Castle_ has posted that the developers are happy with it as it is. Now that doesnt mean that it wont be changed, just that it is not as likely.
7) Get Aid Other as your power on the way to get Aid Self, and you can start working on those Healing badges.
Aid Self Cons:
1) It is a pool power that requires you to take another power first. This means that you must spent 2 powers in order to get this.
2) It has a long animation time of 3.33 second in which you must be still. This means no using this while jumping or moving around the combat field. This also mean that your attack chain will be interrupted causing a loss in Damage Per Second (DPS). This loss in DPS is between:
13% to 23% depending on the length of you attack chain.
3) It can be interrupted during combat. Some have claimed that they are able to use this power even during DoT damage, which would make the interrupt time less than 1 second. However, currently there is no hard evidence as to the exact length of the interrupt. At best we can say is that it must be less than the animation time, which is 3.33 seconds. This means that the longest the interrupt is:
With 0 Interrupt SOs: 3.33 seconds max
With 1 Interrupt SOs: 2.37 seconds max
With 2 Interrupt SOs: 1.85 seconds max
With 3 Interrupt SOs: 1.55 seconds max
This means that you will have trouble using this if you get hit a lot in battle, so melee characters with out any Defense will not want to take this. Experiences differ on how easy it is to get interrupted, but most agree that unless you are in the middle of a herd you will not get interrupted with Aid Self slotted with 2 Interrupt SOs.
4) The endurance cost for using this can be high. Assuming you are getting damaged enough that you are needing to use Aid Self every time it is available, your end cost is:
0.866 end per second.
This means that you may want to consider adding in an End reducer enhancement.
5) You cannot set this power on auto. Not sure why this is the case, but something to think about. Some speculation on this subject is that most interruptible powers cannot be set on auto.
6) This will not help you survive an alpha strike. Which means that if you take enough damage to be defeated fast enough, you will not have time to use Aid Self to survive.
7) It uses a hand-held device to heal yourself, and this may not fit conceptually with your characters origin and/or background.
Slotting of Aid Self:
The best recommendation for slotting Aid Self is to six slot it with 3 Heals, 2 Interrupt reducers, and 1 Recharge reducer. If you notice that you are having problems with it getting interrupted, the try 3 Heal and 3 Interrupt reducers.
Summary:
Aid Self is a great power to increase the survivability of your character. It works best in conjunction with other defenses. It will not be very effective for characters that get hit constantly, so Resist only melee characters will not want to get this power. Also note that using this does involve a disruption in the running of your attack chain that will lower your overall damage potential unless used with some skill.
Nice guide, I have aid self on my inv tank and it helps a great deal.
I'm a big proponent of the medicine pool. Aid Other is also a nice power to have as well. My mastermind uses it often to heal his robots, as opposed to repair in his primary; because it recharges faster, uses less end, and can affect allies as well. My blaster has even been the only healer on a team before, which was tough but interesting. My Rad defender found it useful as well as a nice single target heal that was stronger than his AOE heal.
I like this idea very much. I'm just bringing an Inv/SS up through the ranks, and think I'll try this out. Thanks.
Ever since I picked up aid self in respec on my MA/inv Scrapper, I have been practicing with timing it in heavy mob agro and it can be tricky but doable while firing it off between dots and also as soon as you see yourself pull the device out, you can move while the heal kicks in but your attack is still delayed for another 3 seconds.
Psst..
/macro heal "powexec_name Aid Self$$e Roar" Press it twice I think.
You can bypass the aid self tricorder animation and heal yourself as your roar. Any other emote works, personally, Im waiting for i7s backflip emote.
Not my discorvery, I learned it from the tank boards very recently.
I'd love to know your formulas used for determining how clicky heals equate to a regen rate boost and a regen rate boost equates to a res to all. How about you shoot me a PM?
"It's your money or your life madam. Oh wait! Today's Thursday! It's both."
Looks good. I'm going to be going this route instead of the ridiculously weak passives for my Inv/SS. Thanks for the numbers
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I'd love to know your formulas used for determining how clicky heals equate to a regen rate boost and a regen rate boost equates to a res to all. How about you shoot me a PM?
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Clicky Heals equates to Regen Rate:
Numbers to know:
R = 240 seconds to full heal with normal regen rate
A = Clicky recharge rate. This will be modified by recharge enhancements, but will never be less than the activation time. This is 20 for Aid Self.
H = percent of health that is healed with the clicky. For Aid self this is 20%.
H * R / A = Regen rate for a clicky.
This takes the percent of heal multiplied by the normal heal reduced by it's recharge to calculate the regeneration rate if the clicky heal is used every time it is available. This is the best case senario assuming a constant source of damage with out defeat.
Regen Rate equates to Resistance:
RR = Regen rate of power.
R = 240 seconds to full heal with normal regen rate
D = Seconds till defeat. This is the tricky value to determine. I basically want the total time in seconds it will take to take you to get to zero health with no defenses operating in a typical battle. This gives me a value for how much damage per second you are taking, and will be modified for amount of HP since a tanker will take longer at the same damage per second than a scrapper. For a tanker I place this at 14 seconds, where I am assuming the amount of damage is equal to 3 minions attacking and the tanker has no HP boosts running. I actually have a spreadsheet in excel where I input the character type plus all HP modifiers like accolades and Dull Pain like powers and then calculate the modified time from a starting time of 7.1 seconds for a blaster to get defeated from 3 minions. How did I determine 7.1 seconds for a blaster, that was done from hours of playing a blaster with no defense and seeing how long it took to go from full health to zero health in an average fight with 3 same level minions.
RR * D / R = Regeneration Resistance value
NOTE: The Regeneration Resistance value adds directly to the total resistance value for a hero, so with a high regen resistance it is easy to get over 100% resistance to a damage type. This is the reason that scrapper regeners are always getting modified, because they can stack defenses to get and equivalent resistance greater than most others in the right circumstances. Defense and Resistance have caps on then that effectively stop the two from giving more than 99% effective resistance to a damage type, and they don't add directly but indirectly.
Aid Self is MANDATORY for /SR scrappers & stalkers. Yes, it takes a VALUABLE 2 powers up, *but* even with just 3 heals (remember, defense-based aren't getting hit-and-interrupted as much) it's very handy and speeds up XP gaining INCREDIBLY (especially if one solos).
I also have it on all my blasters now; this after going about 1.75 YEARS in this game w/o it. I used to think, "Pfff... medicine pool... no thanks" but curiosity on a test-server copied toon respec'ing... WOW!
What a maroon I've been! This thing ROCKS.
One last *MONUMENTALLY HUGE* P.S. If you are an /EM blaster and have POWER BOOST and 3 heals in the power, you will get close to 60% of your health per usage when you activate power boost. PB will DOUBLE the base heal rate (not the enhancement boosted rate); so it's (base x 2)+(base x enh % increase).
Yowza, that's a lot of healing! Empaths drool when my self heal does about as much as their single-target (not absorb pain) heal! My level 35 blaster gets around +550-ish HP per usage.
3 recharges in Power Boost, and that sucker is up quite often... making heals REALLY nice. Power boost also boosts the Aid Other (usually have just 1 heal slot in there) which makes that a very nice heal.
My favorite binds:
/bind SHIFT+E "powexec_name Aid Self" (Shift E is always close by)
/bind SHIFT+R "local Hahaha $target, you've just been healed by a BLASTER! $$ powexec_name Aid Other" (this gets a lot of comments)
-FyreBlast
"Look how many pages of crap are in this thread already!" -r0y to all threads on these forums.
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/bind SHIFT+R "local Hahaha $target, you've just been healed by a BLASTER! $$ powexec_name Aid Other" (this gets a lot of comments)
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I just might have to do that with my Brute. Fire/Fire Brute, uses a device that channels the power of the Phoenix. (When Healing Flames is fix'd, going to have that and Aid Self/Other).
As far as the Interrupt time, I think the base interrupt time is around 2 seconds. When you slot in Int reducers, the Green Numbers appear sooner in the animation time.
Now, as I said, I'm a Fire/Fire brute (most recent experience with Aid Other/Self), which means I have no defense at all, and I'm tanking 99.9% of the time (Blazing Aura 
). And I've been able to not only heal myself, but also heal other melees all the while tanking a spawn meant for 6 players. (The one time I was on a team of 8, it didn't last long, and was full of idiots).
Damage Proc Mini-FAQ
Just noticed Damage Proc Mini-FAQ wasn't working with new forums, it's been updated.
After playing with this power I noticed you can move after the interrupt time passes, before the animation finishes and you can activate another power.
Does anyone know the exact interrupt time out of the total act?
This may be the wrong place to ask this but here goes.
I tried this power on one of my blasters and noticed if i stacked a couple of quick heals before combat I seemd to have a mez resist on par w/acrobatics. Has anyone done the math on this part of the power or noticed in obvious holes in the status protection if any this power provides?
Taking It On the Chin I-16 Tanker Guide
Repeat Offenders
Great Guide. I have a ? though.
What's the duration of stimulant and the duration of the minor disorient res in aid self? Thanks.
If I had to guess on durations, I'd say stimulant is about 30 seconds (maybe 60, I only knew 1 guy who took it); the Aid-Self disorient resistance is WEAK. It lasts about 20-30 seconds (I can usually have 2 stacked). I get stunned right through it.
Perhaps a MAG 1 stun is resisted, but Family Minions and such with billie-clubs (minor stuns, right?) stun me in 1 shot, quite often.
So my personal rule-of-thumb is to not count on the disorient protection of Aid Self; but bask in the healing glory it brings.
-FB
"Look how many pages of crap are in this thread already!" -r0y to all threads on these forums.
Disorrient Resistance doesn NOT increase the magnitude, i.e. it doesn't not prevent you getting disorriented. What it does is decrease the amount of time the effect lasts, so that if you get stunned, you won't be for as long.
Sorry I don't have numbers, but the glow around your head indicates the duration of the efffect (or you see the Aid self icon in your status bar)
For comparison, Resilience in the /Regen set also offers minor resistence to disorrientation (but it's a passive power) and reduces the amount of time you are stunend after using an awaken quite significantly to the the point that it's not an annoyance anymore.
there are all sort of "mezzes" and Aid Self helps only with disorrient, not holds, fear, etc...
My husband and I both have EM/Elec brutes. The EA does not have any type of heal so we researched and found that the Medicine Pool is not only a GOOD idea, but a Tried and TRUE idea. We are excited to try this concept on our twin brutes during gameplay. WTG on the specs and ty for answering some lingering questions we had.
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Aid Self is MANDATORY for /SR scrappers & stalkers.
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No, it's not.
A column of Respites carried me all the way from level 1 to level 50 on my MA/SR. I finally took Aid Self at level 49 just because there really wasn't anything else that I wanted, but it is in no way mandatory.
Karate Man - 50 MA/SR Scrapper
Frostgleam - 40 Ice/Axe Tanker
Twilight Flux - 40 Kin/Dark Defender
Necrosaro - 27 Necro/Dark Mastermind
Selena Moonblade - 30 DB/WP Scrapper
"Live life to it's fullest, and die playing Zelda!"
Voyagers forever! Long live M59, Server 100!
Just a suggestion but most people take aid other versus stimulant. I one brute with aid other, and one with stimulant. I use stimulant alot more often. Someone uses awaken, stimulant removes the mez and they are right back in action. PvP fear or confuse gotcha down, Stimulant again FTW. Its a great little short term mez protection for when your support squishies get into trouble.
Not saying i use it alot, but I do use it alot more than aid other.
Also I have definitely gotten aid self off between DoT ticks. I practiced on a CoT map with the red crystals damaging me. You gotta time it right, just as the damage ticks hit aid self. It is definitely possible, but also likely to get ya in trouble.
i'm surprised DarthJoe isn't all over this.
Can you use aid self while phase shifted?
@Murphy - 10 Murf Beam/Traps Corruptor on Virtue(4 retired 50s)
Does anyone have a suggested slotting for Aid Other?
A Guide to the Pool Power: Aid Self 1.0 [I6]
One of the best healing powers in the game is available to any character in the medicine pool. This is the Aid Self power. While one of the best heals, it does have enough drawbacks that you need to review if it is best for your character. That is the purpose of this guide, to help you decide if this is a power that you should choose.
Why this Guide:
Being a Tanker at heart and a mathematician by day, I have always looked at the best options available to increase my defensive capabilities. What surprised me is that by taking Aid self, I was getting more effective defense than taking all of my passive powers from the Invincibility Tanker primary. Yes, Aid Self offers more protection than RPD+Rel+Ren+TH!
Basic Information:
Aid Self is in the medicine pool as the power available at level 14, once you have chosen one of the first two powers: Aid Other or Stimulant. The basis stats for the medicine pool powers are:
Aid Other
End Cost: 6.5
Activation: 2.9 sec
Recharge time: 10 sec
Range: 15
- This power will heal the target hero for 20%. This power is interruptible. (It has been suggested that this percentage changes on the AT of the user being higher for defenders/Controllers and lower for Tanks, but that the percentage healed is based off of the users own Hit Points. This has yet to be confirmed.)
Stimulant
End Cost: 13
Activation: 2.9 sec
Recharge: 10 sec
Range: 15
- This power will free a target hero from the effect of Sleep, Hold, Immob., Disorient, and provide resistance from these effect for a limited time. This power is interruptible.
Aid Self
End Cost: 13
Activation: 3.33 sec
Recharge: 20 sec
- This will heal yourself for 20% of your HP, plus provide minor resistance to Disorient. This power is interruptible. This power is available at lvl 14, once one other medicine power has been chosen.
Resuscitate
End Cost: 32
Activation: 3.33 sec
Recharge: 180 sec
Range: 15
- This power revives a fallen hero. The hero is left with full hit point but no endurance. This power is interruptible. This power is available at lvl 20, once two other medicine powers have been chosen.