Tinker - BICK (Healer Spec)
[This is part of my Tinker series. For an overview of all the articles, click here.]
After the general mechanics and the KICK (the tank spec), I will now tell you about the BICK (and I will add out-of-character comments in italic -Ekrem.)
BICK, Bio-Converter Kit, allows the MEC to convert biological content into… other biological content; enabling the suit to turn disease and poison into cures and antidotes, wounded flesh and infected blood into healing pastes and serum.
Power (Main Resource)
BICK’s Power is different from KICK. It has a number of Capacitator Pack. Each pack has four uses and they can be recharged through converted Power. According to my research, this is similar to how warlocks store power in soul shards. Almost all of BICK’s abilities depend on using Power via Packs, some requiring a single use, others consuming a whole Pack. Some abilities will generate some Power. However, most of the regeneration will come from recycling.
BICK’s converto is also excellent at converting movement into Power, which shouldn’t be underestimated.
It’s important to separate Power from the auxiliary resource, Recycled Power.
Recycled Material Stacks (Secondary Resource)
Almost always, when BICK uses an ability that consumes Power, it will recycle some of the materials used (and taken from the target), granting a number of Recycled Material Stacks. Each Stack will slowly generate Power as BICK converts material into energy. More Stacks, better regeneration of Power. However, this regeneration will not be enough for the most part as it is very slow and BICK needs to consume power in bulks. For this reason, BICK has been adapted to use Stacks directly.
When a Stack is used, it will be consumed to use the ability and still generate Power. However, it will be less than its total capacity when it generates the Power over time. It won’t generate a Stack of its own.
Another key point in using Stacks is the ability. Some abilities can not use Stacks and require Packs. Similarly, other abilities will work the other way round. Those who can use Stacks will always prefer to use Stacks over Packs. Also, the ratio of Stacks and Power spent is not always the same. It’s possible that a spell is more efficient when used with one resource or the other.
Steam
The Steam for BICK increases with each Stack, increasing healing capacity and also the movement speed slightly. At a certain amount of active Stacks, the BICK will go into Overdrive. gaining a substantial movement speed bonus. During Overdrive, BICK won’t be able to use any abilities but it will start mixing a concoction that it will release whenever the Tinker chooses, or at the end of the Overdrive. This concoction will heal all allies and damage all enemies nearby and its strength will increase the longer time spent on preparing it. Once the Overdrive is over, BICK will be left with a low amount of Stacks and Power, amount depending on how much the Overdrive concoction was prepared.
Healing Methods
BICK suit requires the tinker to be in the immediate proximity of their target or somewhat close, unlike most traditional healers such as priests. They are excellent when focused on a single target and they are able to quick patch up wounds and remove negative effects. However, this sort of “burst” action can only be kept up for so long. Finally, while they don’t have the ability to reach out wide areas like druids or maintain spells long; they have a few strong area-affecting abilities that will benefit people in quite close range.
Considering their movement speed to Power conversion, ability to heal fast and single target power, I would imagine them to be great supporting healers in larger groups.
While I explained it in the general mechanics document, I want to remind the “Maintain Functions” as they are used the most by the BICK suit. They are very similar to chanelling spells that magicians use, except the ability can have an initiation timer (similar to a cast time for casters) and there are three potential effect points:
Initial Effects happen at the kick-off. Channeling and Resolution effects happen during channeling and resolution respectively. These can also affect each other. For example, the amount of time channeled can change the power of Resolution.
Mastery will increase the power of Maintain functions.
Style Explained
A typical BICK would startwith Power spending abilities to generate some Stacks, then using the Stacks to empower some abilities and gain back Power. They would be pretty mobile, both to take advantage of their “burst” abilities but also to exploit the Power generated by their movement.
They would want to balance between Pack and Stack spells. Using Power spells mean generating Stacks, which increase overall efficiency while using Stacks is required not to be completely Power drained and also to keep getting into Overdrive.
In times of trouble, they would spend more and more Power Packs to drive their stacks above what the suit can take to force an Overdrive. Depending on how much power they need after the Overdrive, they’d decide how long they want to spend preparing the concoction and meanwhile position themselves optimally. Once the Overdrive is over, they would start from scratch again.
Sample Abilities
Drain Disease
Maintain Function — Connects a tube to the target and starts draining diseases
- Activation: Takes 0.5 second and spends 1 Stack or half a Pack.
- Channeling: It can be kept indefinitely until there are no disease effects to drain or the Tinker moves.
- Channeling Effect: Every second, 1 disease effect will be removed from target.
- The more diseases drained, the more Power or more Stacks will be generated depending on what resource was used to cast it. Using Power to cast would generate Stacks and vice versa.
Inject Supplements
Maintain Function — Concocts a beneficial injection that will heal and strengthen the metabolism.
- Activation: Takes 1 second and spends a full Pack.
- Channeling: Up to 3 seconds, or when distance between target and Tinker is longer than 10 yards.
- Initial Effect: Small heal
- Channeling Effect: Increasing amount of heal every 0.5 seconds
- Resolve Effect: If full duration is reached, the target will be energized, dealing more damage for 10 seconds.
- The amount of generated Stacks will depend on the channel duration.
Instant Boost
Instant Ability — Applies a special catalyst to cause an a reaction that applies the initial effect on an on-going maintained function.
- This is an instant ability that can only be used during the Channel period of a Maintain Function.
- It will re-apply the Initial Effect without changing the cast time. e.g Inject Supplements, it means it would an extra heal.
- It only requires a single use for a Pack (quarter of a full Pack) but does not grant back a Stack. (Also it’s off GCD)
Injection Storm
Instant — All arms hit and shoot the enemies close-by with injections. While friendly fire isn’t an issue, you never know what kind of side-effect you will have.
- For 2 seconds in 20 yard radius, all enemies will be damaged and all allies will be healed and hit with a random supplementary injection.
- It costs 2 blocks of Power and grants more Stacks depending on the amount of targets around the Tinker.
Vitamin Cannon
Aims and shoots an ally with a powerful vitamin mixture. More applications can enhance the effect, but too much of it may cause a reaction.
- This ability has the regular range of a rifle attack.
- It is an instant cast that grants a short but powerful heal over time effect that can be applied multiple times.
- More than three effects on a target will put them in Vitamin Override, decreasing the amount of healing on the target by 30% for 5 seconds.
- Spends a single use of a Pack or a single Stack.
