Pharmacy Emergency

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With the upcoming changes to make green Emergency Med-kits only affect Altruistic Healing speed, the perk that was supposed to give you one quick heal by opening a chest has lost its purpose. Next patch, you have to be injured to gain the benefits of Pharmacy, only to either spend healing yourself in 24 seconds or use it on someone else, which seems to be the case for all medkits now.

The perk should be changed back to be always available so you can have a green Med kit on hand to heal someone else.

Comments

  • Ithiria
    Ithiria Member Posts: 236
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    It was a very weird backhanded buff, much like Calm Spirit got too.


    If medkits are gonna be bad for self-heals I don't think it'd be OP to revert it to its old way of working and making it work on every chest, it would still be a net time loss to do so.

  • Mooks
    Mooks Member Posts: 14,467
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    Perk should can an additional effect so that it increases self-heal speed with medkits.

    and maybe give the ability to rummage through an open chest once it’s active so you don’t get screwed buy plunderer teammates.

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,086
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    I loved Pharmacy - but with every change that affects it, it gets worse and worse 😭

    It needs buffs. Flat chest open bonus, token based (so you get a token for every time you're injured and can use a token to interact with a chest and get a medkit), flat healing speed-buff for self-heals (with an emergency medkit) - there are so many options to make it worth bringing the perk. But as is, even self-care is probably more useful....

  • ReverseVelocity
    ReverseVelocity Member Posts: 3,158
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    Pharmacy needs a major self-healing boost with medkits gained from chests to keep it useable.

  • Annso_x
    Annso_x Member Posts: 1,611
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    On top of a buff related to the healing itself, Pharmacy should be changed to activate when rumaging through a chest instead of opening one. It's just so stupid how a perk can be negated if your teammates open chests (and yet again an other problem that affects only solo q)

    Self-care is also going to need a buff tbh, I understand they want to encourage altruistic healing but if you're going to make perks to self-heal they should be somewhat decent.

    The only good self-healing left is inner strength and it also has its limitations, which barely impact swf but make it quite difficult to use in solo q because they still won't let us see our teammates' perks pre-game.

  • ReverseVelocity
    ReverseVelocity Member Posts: 3,158
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    Making it activate on Rummaging alone would be a nerf. Pharmacy is meant to let you grab a Medkit quickly and rummaging would add a lot of extra time.

    Instead, it should have a single rummage token that goes away if you open a chest while injured, as a backup in case everyone opens the Chests.

  • Timmylaw
    Timmylaw Member Posts: 225
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    I think it should negate the penalty to healing speed and efficiency when using a medkit

  • not_requested49
    not_requested49 Member Posts: 1,979
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    I'm pretty sure the devs just forgot it tbh

    First, they nerf it by making it required to be injured, then they do this

    They really must hate pharmacy, making sure it's dead

  • Turretcube
    Turretcube Member Posts: 435
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    The perk wasn't meant to provide a quick heal, just a guarantee that you can heal yourself. It originally just provided a medkit on the first search of a chest then it de-activated for the rest of the match, which was rather weak for a perk, it got re-balanced to alway's provide a medkit when searching a chest, but with the condition you had to be injured, which is fair as it make's sure you have some control from what item pool your drawing from when using a chest.

    It honestly doesn't need a change that affects healing speed as its rather solid as is. If it were to have a change,

    This would be the change it should have or making it actually work with Appraisal, since Pharmacy up's the interaction time on chests by 80% the time loss would be negated (the 80% interaction speed should work when healthy though), outside of that something similar to counterforce where while injured you see the furthest or closest chest aura while injured.

  • Caiman
    Caiman Member Posts: 2,182
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    If it was a rummage perk, you'd be able to open a chest, leave it, then come back later to rummage through for a medkit when you needed it.

  • Squippit
    Squippit Member Posts: 88
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    I think Pharmacy needs its own limited item like Flashbangs. Adrenaline shots that have a short use time and instantly heal you or the person you use them on, but exhaust you. That'd probably be worth using, and not too much more annoying that styptics/syringes, and as limited as there are chests on the map. Much like inner healing and totems, you'd still have to worry about others using them first.

  • Squippit
    Squippit Member Posts: 88
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    I don't think DE is able to make any more "guaranteed item" rummages after Residual Manifest. If you're guaranteed both a flashlight AND a medkit it's not really a guarantee anymore, is it? Appraisal still works though since the item you'd get is random

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,244
    edited April 2023
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    The perk wasn't meant to provide a quick heal, just a guarantee that you can heal yourself.

    The perk is limited to number of chests. It's slow, because it requires you find an unused chest - not even right away (only after you are injured - so there will "always" be travel time included), open said chests and then heal for 24s.

    What is the benefit of bringing pharmacy over self care? Because as of right now, I see exactly and precisely nothing.

    Also I absolutely disagree with your premise - the perk was designed to give you 1 quick heal + way to farm speedy medkits.

    As of right now - the heal is slow (if killer leaves you mid chase directly on the chest - which is super unrealistic, it would still take 5,6s (to open chest) + ~1s (to pick it up) + 24s (to actually heal) = NEVER less then ~31s. It's not unrealistic to presume you need on average 15s travel time - at which point you get to self-care time.

    As for farming - green medkits are practically identical to brown medkits - which are unlimited if you ever spend your BP's. So farming is now hard-nerfed.

    So WHY would anyone EVER take pharmacy?

  • Timmylaw
    Timmylaw Member Posts: 225
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  • Turretcube
    Turretcube Member Posts: 435
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    I actually use Pharmacy alot when i play, i've found it more reliable and time saving than any of the other healing perk's outside of CoH or tracking finding another survivor. Empathic Connection or Aftercare also help with it with Built To Last making you an excellent healing station. Even by itself it can alter the flow of the game, similar to Hex: Devour hope only getting 1 insta-down before it get's broken, enough of a change in a match to alter the outcome.

    There's plenty of way's to use Pharmacy, i'm not arguing against it being active at all time's, but i don't like the idea of needing a toolbox but are locked to just medkits from chests. It's also not a quick heal, or in actual term's a quick self-heal, Inner Stength is a quick self-heal perk, it's better than Pharmacy as it's always avalible when you need it. If you want the best of both world's run both, pocket self-heal and medkit for later. Making it so Pharmacy affect's efficiency or healing speed just sounds like trying to get old healing perk's back that were changed because they were problematic in the past or contributed to the reason self-healing on medkits got changed in this recent mid-chapter. I can't see Pharmacy ever being meta but it would suck if it did as there would be more of a contest over chest's during a match.

    As for Farming medkit's, i don't know where that came from. I don't think Pharamcy has ever once been complained about for providing a free medkit to a survivor if they escape the match.

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,244
    edited April 2023
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    I don't know if we understood each other. But let's say it this way. When is current pharmacy better then current self care (and self-care is bad enough that some people consider it "best killer perk in game")? And I mean like specific niche (not just lucky situation) for which you would rather play pharmacy over self care. If you went thru my previous response - pharmacy is at best on average same speed as self care, but is limited to number of UNOPENED chests in a game (default 3, sometimes 4, can be more or less with offerings) - and forces you to carry an item (that can be franklined away). So again - why are you using it if it's just plain worse?

    The part about farming - I was not complaining about it. I was saying farming green medkits was 2nd use case why pharmacy might be better then self care (you are stacking up on quick medkits for other games). But that is also no longer true - because now it makes no sense to try to farm those (because medkits got all nerfed into brown medkit).

    So taking this into consideration. Why do you take pharmacy when you can take self care? I sincerely don't understand.

  • Turretcube
    Turretcube Member Posts: 435
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    I honestly havn't ran selfcare in such a long time i probably couldn't give a proper answer for lack of use and build synergy. On the surface compared, Pharmacy is just the better choice (especially with Built To Last). Unlike Selfcare it's versatile, it provides access to both a self heal and a better teammate heal. Unlike Inner Strength, it's usage can be increased through offering's or perk's that affect item consumption and isn't limited to a single area like CoH. The only major downside is Franklin's, Overwhelming Presence (highly unlikly to see) or item drop add-on's.

    It's probably due to different experiance's, but the limitation of chests has never been that much of a issue, not even after the mid-chapter so far, but other's say different. It's mainly why i see the perk in a spot where it's avalibility could be better, instead of giving something more drastic. If it was a unique medkit to the perk itself which was consumed on use and gave a fast heal on whoever it was used, sort of like a insta-heal, then yeah. But i don't think making the perk make self-healing faster after there was just a change to address self-healing is the right approach. It's more like improving something but it'll fall apart later regardless.

    The farming medkit's thing surprised me seeing it pop up, i didn't mean to make it sound like it was a point of complaint, just surprised it showed up when it wasn't mentioned previously.

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,244
    edited April 2023
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    If you are willing to use 2 perk slots, then I would suggest you try out self care with botany. It provides faster self heal and faster altruistic heal, but is unlimited and can't be stopped by perks/addons (compared to medkits). Considering 2 perk slots, there really is absolutely no reason to take pharmacy.

    Also to address your point about buffing self healing. That's not the point. The idea is to leave pharmacy in a state, where at least in some niche - it works better then self care. Due to the considerable indirect nerf it got (and self care not being affected at all) - I argue there is no reason to ever bring pharmacy over self care, because you are universally (considering builds and gameplay instead of super lucky toss of RNG) always better off with unlimited heal version compared to limited heal - which doesn't sound right.

    So overall if pharmacy stayed as good efficiency-wise as before last patch, then that would already be a good step (but personally I think the perk should get a little better buff, because it already was one of the weaker heal perks - just don't make it huge buff, the idea is not to make it meta perk. Only to make it viable choise)

    One other thing. "On the surface compared, Pharmacy is just the better choice" . Can you please provide a real gameplay example? I can think of only a very weird situation where this would be true (killer hooked you on a hill where there is also unopened chest - survivor just unhooked you, but he refuses to heal you - making your travel time very short so u heal a few seconds faster then with unlimited self care considering single perk use). This is not something that comes pften enough to make the choise really better then self care.

    In fact the only tangible benefit i see is, that people scoff at self care users more then on chest looters (pharmacy users), so taking pharmacy saves you a little from other players ridicule? Maybe this is the only true reason to take this slow heal over self care?

  • bm33
    bm33 Member Posts: 8,091
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    I think add tokens for rummaging incase all chests have been opened and have it remove the speed/efficiency penalty for self heals would make pharmacy a useful perk.

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,244
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    Maybe just removing medkit penalty would be enough on it's own. Keep in mind you could have brought your own medkit to the trial.