Healer Mechanics by Whurse

LHC
Sergeant

Posts: 38

Healer Mechanics by Whurse Jul 6, 2020 0:48:43 GMT Faardo, Scorchbeast, and 1 more like this

Quote

Post by LHC on Jul 6, 2020 0:48:43 GMT

Source: www.tapatalk.com/groups/casualba/penance-healer-information-t60.html
See also - Henkes tool for calculating healer codes: henke96.github.io/Spacing/

Game Tick Order of Operations for Healers:
1. If poison timing and poisoned, take poison damage

2. Check death

3. If spawn timing, check reserve spawn / wave end (occurs every 6s)

4. Player input (food use)

Periodic Poison Damage:

Poisoned healers take periodic poison damage every 3s. However, the first healer behaves differently than the rest.

1st Healer: Starts taking periodic poison damage 3s after poisoned. Timing is relative to when poisoned.

All Other Healers: Passive poison damage occurs every 3s and is synced with wave start.

Example: Suppose both the 1st and 2nd healers are poisoned at 11.4s. The 1st healer starts taking passive damage at 14.4s, whereas the 2nd healer starts taking passive damage at 12s.

Decreasing Poison Damage:

Recurring passive damage starts at 4 damage per splat. Every 5 passive poison ticks, the damage goes down by 1. The first food used does not count as the first 4 splat.

I.E. Healers take: {4,4,4,4,4, 3,3,3,3,3, 2,2,2,2,2, 1,1,1,1,1} damage if one food is used.

Refreshing Poison Damage:

If a subsequent food is used, poison damage is reset to ticking 4's.

As per order of operations, if you refresh poison on the same game tick a healer takes poison damage, it will take poison damage then have the damage refreshed.

Stacked Healers:

Healers are organized in the order they are "discovered by your client".

Usually this is the order they spawn in, but things change if healers leave viewing distance. When a healer reenters viewing distance, it becomes the last healer your client knows about.

The top healer has a moving HP bar.

Stack order is as follows:

First Healer

Last Healer

2nd to Last

3rd to Last

...

Health Values per Wave:
Wave HP
1 27

2 32

3 37

4 43

5 49

6 55

7/10 60

8 67

9 76

Last Edit: Jul 6, 2020 0:49:28 GMT by LHC

Faardo
Captain

Posts: 85
Runescape Name: Faardo

Healer Mechanics by Whurse Jul 6, 2020 11:53:20 GMT LHC and Scorchbeast like this

Quote

Post by Faardo on Jul 6, 2020 11:53:20 GMT

Periodic Poison Damage:

Poisoned healers take periodic poison damage every 3s. However, the first healer behaves differently than the rest.

1st Healer: Starts taking periodic poison damage 3s after poisoned. Timing is relative to when poisoned.

All Other Healers: Passive poison damage occurs every 3s and is synced with wave start

This isn't necessarily true. The other healers are only synced if you poison them within the first 3 seconds of them spawning. If you do not do so, they will tick different, much like the the first healer.

I can explain why (theory) this is, see the spoiler below.

SPOILER: Click to show

~~~THEORY WARNING~~~
I will blow your mind but healers are poisoned as they spawn.

Healers tick every 3s in sync with the wave start if they're poisoned "in time" (3s after spawn).
After messing with healers on later waves, I concluded with the help of henke18 that the "0" hitsplat is actually still active poison.

See the image above.

If the poison would run out at 72s, and you would poison the healer after the last "1" tick, but before the "0" tick at 75s, you would get another fresh hitsplat ("4") at 75s. The poison would then continue down the same timing as before, every 3s starting at 75s.
But if the poison would run out at 72s, and you poison the healer after the "0" tick at 75s, the timing will be relative to when it was repoisoned after 75s.

So with this info, what happens when healers spawn?

I'm quite confident the same thing that happens between 72 and 75 seconds, actually happens when they come out of the cave. They tick their last "1" inside the cave, let's say 12s in this example (before they spawn, which you cannot see as explained in Order of Operations), which means they would tick a "0" 3 seconds later, on 15s. And with the info we had before, the "0" hitsplat matters. You will get a hitsplat on the 3s wave cycle only IF you fed the newly spawned healer within the 3seconds.

This also explained why the first healer is always off-ticked. You can never get there within the 3s.

I hope this made sense.

Last Edit: Jul 6, 2020 11:53:57 GMT by Faardo

mmdts
Corporal

Posts: 1

Healer Mechanics by Whurse Jun 14, 2021 18:43:06 GMT

Quote

Post by mmdts on Jun 14, 2021 18:43:06 GMT

=========================
Healer Decision mechanics
=========================
N = 7

Below is my understanding of healers after analyzing N number of rounds. Everything below is mere speculation.

The ticks since wave start at which healers start to move / target runners / players suggest that healers
do not have a cycle like runners do.

Healers act as follows.

=============
Healer States
=============

The healer has states and triggers. In a given state, the healer will keep repeating an action forever until a trigger happens.

The zeroth state is called the static state.
The healer is standing still.
The trigger is finding a player, this puts it in the first state.

The first state is called the following player state.
The healer follows a player.
The trigger is reaching and poisoning it, this puts it in the second state. (The player can also walk too far, unstudied.)

The second state is called the random walk state.
Each tick in this state, the healer has a 1/8 chance to start random walking, and a 7/8 chance to stay in place.
Once it starts random walking, the healer will not stay in place again.
This state has NO END TRIGGER for the first 4 ticks. After that, the trigger is finding a runner, this puts it in the third state.

The third state is the following runner state.
The healer follows a runner.
The trigger is reaching and healing it, this puts it in the fourth state. (The runner can also die, unstudied.)

The fifth fourth is the pre-player random walk state.
Each tick in this state, the healer has a 1/8 chance to start random walking, and a 7/8 chance to stay in place.
Once it starts random walking, the healer will not stay in place again.
This state has NO END TRIGGER for the first 2 ticks. After that, the trigger is finding a player, this puts it in the first state.

Basically, the healer starts at the zeroth state, and keeps looping between the first and fourth states.

==============
Random Walking
==============

When set to random walk or pre-player random walk, and the healer rolls the 1/8 chance random walk action,
the healer decides a random destination within the 11x11 square centered around the healer, and starts walking to it.

If the healer cannot reach it (the frequently encountered wall-hugging / player-hugging healers), the healer spends as much time
as would've been necessary (later referred to as the "necessary time") to reach it hugging that spot, before deciding on the next random move, which could, with very high
likelihood, also be a move that causes it to continue hugging that spot.

The minimum necessary time is 2. This means that if a healer decides to walk only one tile away, it'll stay idle for 1 tick on that tile before random walking again.
Needless to say, finding a player/healer is a trigger, and breaks out of the whole random walk / pre-player random walk state, thus, interrupting the random walk.

(Healer trying to path diagonally while being blocked from a lateral direction by a player is unstudied.)

Last Edit: Jun 14, 2021 20:07:56 GMT by mmdts