More Pool Power Changes

I would say that the power is mostly aimed at characters who want to pick up Medicine for Healing their allies rather than those who just want a self heal.

Assuming that the interrupt reduction works by decreasing the cast time (as is being done with snipes) then Aid Other will have a cast time only a little higher than the cast time of normal single target heals (Heal Other, Cauterize, O2 Boost etc.). Field Medic itself buffs your healing which will help make up for Aid Other having a longer recharge than other similar powers.

Yes, Field Medic will help people who are using Aid Self but I think the devs want to make it so that Aid Self is still worse than having a proper self heal in your Primary Secondary while simultaneously bringing up the ability of Medicine to function as a means of supporting your team.

Overall though it still seems like good options. We've got the Aid Other and Field Medic combo (plus Aid Self or Injection) as a light-Empath option and Injection + Aid Self (+ Field Medic) as a decent self-defense option.

Speaking for myself I'm toying with the idea of taking the new Medicine on my Cold/Ice Defender. I've got room for the powers (if I drop one leadership toggle and Vengeance) the question is just finding the slots.

Ok, so you want to take 2 powers, which you probably wouldn't use much, to add one power that you had to click which lowers your DPS to get a little more healing from your Dull pain, healing flame, etc... That seems a little much.

I have a fire aura scrapper and a dark armor brute. Both are reliant on their self heals and I don't see me picking up this power for either of them. It's just too much requirement for too little. Especially as it's rather useless for soloing and I tend to do that more anyway.

Also, I never said the AOE placate wasn't good as I would pick that up on a few toons. I like the whole "Ambush" deal behind it. Just it seems that they ran out of ideas. Unrelenting is awesome. I just think they could have done something different for the presence so it wasn't overshadowed by the other one.

If I wanted to heal my allies, I'd play a healing set already. If I'm playing a healing set, then I probably wouldn't use the other powers in the pool.

I think most of the people who pick medicine now pick it mostly for aid self or (In the case of MMs) to heal their pets. This isn't really that good that a person who takes aid self would want it. Hey, maybe this is another power mostly targeted at MMs since they haven't fixed the pet AI yet! They wander off and get hurt? Least you can fix them. ;P

you'd be surprised how many people out there who Take medicine to heal or rezz their allies.

Precisely, most people who take it now take it to heal themselves. So clearly the set as it is currently implemented can be considered reasonably successful in terms of providing self healing to those who want it (with the change to Stimulant being a buff for them). The changes therefore seem to be mostly targeted at people who would like some way to heal their allies.

You mentioned Masterminds and historically they probably have been the primary users of Aid Other since they can more easily work around the interrupt and animation time than a lot of other characters. Well with the change to Aid Other/Field Medic the Medicine Pool now becomes a more attractive option for players who want to support their team.

Historically the majority of my characters have taken the Leadership pool, if they have a few spare power picks it's a quick and easy way to add a bit of team support into my build irregardless of AT. With the change to Medicine I may well switch some of them over to that instead since in some cases it will provide a team support setup that works better for them.

For example I have a Domiantor where I'm thinking of switching out Maneuvers, Tactics and Vengeance for Aid Other, Aid Self and Field Medic. I probably wouldn't bother with Aid Self on its own since it doesn't mesh well with his playstyle (it will be useful for topping up between combat though) but with the change to Aid Other and Field Medic it gives me a good tool for patching up my teammates and Animated Stone which is useful (the loss of the recharge form the LotGs will hurt though).

Finally I'll note that sets that already have Healing are the LAST place I'd take Field Medic. Field Medic is a nice buff to have but I can't imagine a situation where I'd find it worth three power slots to boost my healing potential. Even on a set like Storm which has only a single target heal I'd stick with that over Aid Other/Field Medic (although admittedly that's not a perfect analogy since O2 Boost is a lot more than a heal and a generally awesome power).

This is great for my FF and Sonic Res characters (although yes, moreso my MMs than my Defenders/Controllers )

I'm a little disappointed that Leadership isn't getting a Team +Res toggle, but oh well...

Yup, gonna love this for my Sonic Res team oriented def. Res shields are nice. Res shields and healing are even better. My even drop Clarity for Stimulant after this change.

Actually, most self-only heals are flagged to ignore resistance, meaning that no matter how much heal resistance (negative or positive) you have, the heal hits for the same amount. These abilities will be affected by the Heal Strength buff from Field Medic's active use, but will not be affected by the -Res(Heal) portion of Field Medic.

Just as a general point, a lot of self heals in Armor sets are also flagged to ignore external buffs since they have a Toxic Resistance so they aren't going to get ANY benefit from Field Medic.

Oh well.

Edit for correction:
Are these powers (that usually but not always grant Toxic resistance) not also flagged to ignore outside buffs and strenght?

Which is why it should affect or grant something else related to healing in addition to the +Strength(Heal) and -Resistance(Heal) (such as a +Regen buff or a buff to Regen strength, etc.). But this is probably something better discussed whenever Issue 24 goes in to beta.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

This isn't meant to constitute an Issue release announcement, nor should it be taken as one. They will release a full list of I24 changes (they haven't even told us everything yet) in text form when they're ready to, just as they always do, this is just a bonus preview of what they're working on.

But hey, I guess it's easier to complain about something you aren't entitled to but got anyway, amirite?

A placate in the concealment pool makes sense, in the presence pool? not really I think a taunt aura makes sense

Placate means that squishies interested in the Fear powers dont have to take a suicidal power to get to them (The devs are trying to make the pool MORE attractive, and currently only dominators who slot Perfect Zinger/Mocking Beratement take the taunt).

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

Interesting note: Internally, the Presence Pool is called "Manipulation".

I take both taunt on my tankerminds but I can compromise make 1 of the entry powers in the pool a fear for squishies and the other one can remain as a taunt

Well, it looks like the intent of the Presence pool are powers that affect mob AI. That fits with the internal name of Presence (Manipulation) and the original effects of the powers (Taunt and Afraid, the old fear). Considering that, a Placate seems like it would fit right in to me.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

And thematically, one of the first tricks many people are taught when it comes to projecting themselves onto others is to hide it.

Correct, in fact if you look at the healing enhancements on City of Data you'll see that "healing" enhancements actually enhance four different attributes, For example:
http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/power....Mutation_Heal

Perhaps a kickstarter to buy the devs licenses for a speech-to-text dictation program so all they have to do is go back and format it?

I'd throw $5 in.

Thematic explanations aside, we don't need an AoE placate atop two pools. But we could really really use a taunt aura at the top of Presence. No, wait... really really really use. Because that third "really" makes the difference here. Arbiter Hark and Synapse won't be able to deny me if I have a third really in my post.

Well then good news everyone, we don't have an AoE Placate in two pools. We have a single target placate as the first tier in one pool (i.e. easily accessible to all) and an AoE placate as the fifth tier in a second pool (i.e. only accessible to people who invest int hat pool).

Sounds like a good split to me.

Adding a Taunt Aura to Presence would bring back the problem it currently has: Most characters that want the later powers in the pool don't want the first couple of powers and most characters that could use the first couple don't need them since they have better powers in their primary/secondary. Now I wouldn't strongly object to a Taunt Aura as the fifth tier in the Presence pool, but not the first tier.