A dead warrior is useless in battle. That is why in combat-based video games there will always be significant focus on restoring health. It might be strictly controlled through the use of a traditional first-aid kit, Health Food or painkillers, obtained directly from enemies or happen any time you’re not being damaged. It might even be impossible unless there’s a dedicated healer present. Sometimes, it goes as far as reviving an already dead character. In any case, it is always something restricted to the player’s side.
Well, almost always.
You see, some games will include mooks that are dedicated to healing their allies. They might be restricted to healing one at a time, or create healing waves that work on all mooks in the vicinity. Sometimes, they will revive already fallen mooks instead, though it is not unheard of to combine both functions. Usually, they will be weaker than combat-only mooks, and might even lack any means of offense. If they happen to be just as or more competent at fighting than basic mooks, they’re almostly certainly Elite Mooks and/or Demonic Spiders.
Their inclusion in a game will often lead to players crying That's cheating!, then proceeding to Shoot the Medic First.
See also Mook Commander for another type of supporting mook.
Examples:
- The Monks (and their elite mounted version, Missionaries) of Age of Empires will automatically heal all allied troops around them, though at a slow rate. They were usually a priority target not because of their healing but due to being able to convert troops to their side or instantly destroy ships or war machines with the right upgrades.
- Age of Wonders had the human Monks and their High Elven counterparts. While they usually specialised in shooting powerful magic projectiles, they also were able to heal one ally per battle with their staff (i.e. they had to physically touch them.) To compensate for that, it "always" restored them to full health, regardless of how little they might’ve had remaining.
- Black Mesa: Amongst the HECU's cadre include a number of corpsmen, who can and will heal wounded Marines whenever possible, and also drop health kits in the event they're killed by the player.
- Borderlands
- Borderlands's "The Secret Armoury Of General Knoxx" DLC introduces Crimsom Lance Combat Medics, who can plant towers which heal nearby Crimson Lance units (similar to Roland's sentry will with the right upgrades). They're especially annoying in the fight against General Knoxx himself, because their towers can easily heal him for loads of health.
- Borderlands 2 has its fair share of these:
- Hyperion uses small flying robots called Surveyors to either repair Loaders and Constructors or give them Deflector Shields. Thankfully, you can still kill a Loader getting healed pretty easily unless it's being healed by multiple surveyors or a Badass Surveyor. Constructors are another story, however, since they're quite hard to kill to begin with.
- "Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt" introduces Witch Doctors, who heal themselves as well as other Aegran Savages. And they don't just heal other Savages, they make them stronger when they do it. Oh, and they have a whole lot of health, and can turn into tornadoes and shoot powerful magic beams at you. And thanks to their huge masks, you can't headshot them from the front.
- "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep" has Paladins, heavily armored knights (and the only shielded enemies in the campaign) who cast area-of-effect healing spells now and again.
- There's a funny example in Breath of Fire III, with the ZombieDr. He casts powerful all-targeting healing on his party, unfortunately they're all zombies too.
- In the flash game Captain Dan Vs. Zombie Plan, there are zombie medics.
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
- Outsider Drones will either heal other aliens or attempt to flank Carter or his squadmates and then levitate them out of cover and suspend in mid-air, allowing other aliens to shoot them up. Either way, they're always the priority.
- Late-game battles also introduce the Shield Commanders, which create renewed Deflector Shields around all allies in a significant area.
- Champions Online has "atomic reanimators" in the desert zone who not only blast you with radiation, but can raise mutants you've just slain back from the dead and send them rampaging towards you. And unless you're ramped up to the point you can one-shot them, they WILL reanimate something before they bite the floor....
- Chicken Warrior had the healer chickens appear during some matches, which granted health regeneration to all allies in their vicinity. Luckily, they were also the most fragile enemies in the game.
- In City of Heroes, we are given the Tsoo "Sorcerer" minions. These little bastards not only heal their fellow mooks, they also TELEPORT OUT OF RANGE when they're not healing your enemies, so that you're forced to either track them down (And get slaughtered by their mainstream mook allies) or just focus on their allies, and wait for them to come back and heal them, making it all futile. Oh, and they're just as likely to teleport ahead where there are more mooks as back in the area you cleared, so tracking them down could draw more fire. Not too bad if you have some sort of immobilization or hold, but if you're a standard melee class, you're pretty much screwed.
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Command & Conquer: Red Alert has the Medic. Left to their own devices, they'll extend the life of any infantry based enemy considerably.
- Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars had the alien Corruptor unit, which was usually used to flush infantry from buildings by spewing streams of acid. However, it would heal the alien vehicles if it was ordered to fire on them.
- Command & Conquer: Generals had the Chinese Propaganda Towers, which would heal everyone around them and could be mounted on the Overlord tanks and Helix helicopters. There's also the American Medical Humvee, which would heal any infantry unit around, as well as de-toxify the land affected by radiation or chemical poisoning (staples of Chinese and GLA, respectively).
- Allied Engineers in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 could deploy into medical tents, healing any Infantry nearby.
- Hiss Clusters in Control are strange spheres that alternate between remaining stationary and zipping around the battlefield so quickly they're practically teleporting. They have no offense capabilities, but as long as they're around, other Hiss soldiers will constantly heal. If Jesse Siezes one, it will heal her instead.
- The Cleric Grablins in Costume Quest.
- Diablo has a few of these: Zakarum Priests, Council Members and Overlords, and Unravellers counted as well.
- There are many such enemies in Cthulhu Saves the World, both healers and revivers. The reviver enemies tend to be more powerful.
- The Tyrant Weed in Deep Rock Galactic attacks with tentacles from several spawn pods that are attached to the core. The core can also summon healing pods that will restore the Weed's health if you don't kill it quickly.
- In Doom II , the Arch-vile can resurrect almost all slain monsters. Notably, they’re powerful fighters in their own right, possessing considerable health and attacking by engulfing your character in flames, which does plenty of damage and rather difficult to avoid. Mercifully, Arch-viles can only use their flames in a line of sight fashion on Doomguy and take a whole 3 seconds for their attack animation. It should also be noted that Arch-viles can't revive enemies that don't leave corpses (like lost souls and pain elementals), can't revive bosses or special monsters (like Commander Keen), nor can they revive other arch-viles.
- Humanoid enemy mages will sometimes possess healing spells in Dragon Age: Origins. This is one of many reasons they're a top-priority target for a party that wants to stay alive.
- Hurlock Emissaries will always specialise in healing and buffing other darkspawn (including Regeneration and Glyph of Warding spell, which makes enemies practically arrow-proof) with only basic attacking spells. This is in contrast to Genlock Emissaries, which can also heal, but prioritise Lightning, Flame and Entropy spells, including the area-based Tempest.
- Several in the Dragon Quest series - mostly Slimes. They tend to have very obvious names, such as Healslime, Cureslime, Sootheslime and King Cureslime. Anytime they appear grouped with other enemies, you'd do well to take them out first. Conversely, in the Dragon Quest Monsters series, where you use classic Dragon Quest monsters as Mons, having one of those in your party at all times is a good idea for most of the game's duration.
- The Power Robots in the Mother series can "replenish a fuel supply", which completely restores their own or other enemies' life. However, they explode for a ridiculous amount of damage on death, which makes targeting them first a bad idea.
- Glowing Ones from Fallout 3 can emit radiation that simultaneously injures the player and heals other feral ghouls.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy Tactics had a level consisting of facing five of these. It's not that hard, but it gets to be That One Level just out of sheer annoyance.
- Final Fantasy XIII has Flanitors, which you want to take out quickly not just to get rid of the healing, but because they make a very annoying siren sound when they do so. In XIII-2, you can get one as a monster ally, and naturally, it's a great fit for the Medic role.
- Several maps in Fire Emblem have Magic-users with long-range healing staves.
- In Genshin Impact, Hydro Samachurls, Fatui Hydrogunner Legionnaires, and Hydro Specters use water-based abilities to heal nearby allies. The Fatui also have Anemoboxer Vanguards, who can revive other Skirmishers who have been stunned by having their elemental shields broken, and Geochanter Bracers, who can create shields around their allies.
- Golden Sun has several enemies, including the Phoenix, which are capable of resurrecting their defeated allies.
- Guild Wars: enemies in the game use the same classes that players do, including healing specced enemies who fill this role.
- Halo
- The Engineers in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach give all the Covenant in the area overshields.
- Halo 4 introduces Prometheans Watchers, little flying things that can shield and head their allies. In 4, they can even revive Promethean Knights!
- Heroes of Might and Magic 3 had the Medical Tent as something that an army could buy to follow them around. It would randomly heal one of your units every turn, unless the hero has invested into the First Aid skill, which let them control it directly and heal more than once. It wasn't much use, though, because it couldn't restore those already dead in a unit, and so it barely had an effect on dozen-strong unit stacks. It was an entirely different matter if used on high-level uber units, though.
- The Kingdom Hearts series have certain Heartless that heal their allies. Some examples are the "Green Requiem", (which float around, are resistant to magic but lack any means of offense), and the Crescendo/Loudmouth (which can also summon other Heartless, at least in certain games).
- Kingdom Rush series:
- The original game has Shamans, who use healing spells to heal mooks in an area around them.
- Frontiers has Sand Wraiths who in addition to healing enemies can also summon mummies, and Witch Doctors who give Regenerating Health to savages around them.
- Origins has Twilight Evokers, who use healing spells to heal allies around them and can also silence your towers to prevent them from using powerful skills.
- Vengeance has Smokebeard Engineers who can repair the destroyed bodies of Mecha-Mooks such as Chomp Bots and MechaDwarf MK.9s, Sulfur Alchemists who throw potions that give their allies regeneration and potions that deal Splash Damage on your units.
- Mario & Luigi:
- Mario And Luigi Super Star Saga has the Troopea line who heal enemies with drops of water with Elite Troopeas and Scaratroopeas having the ability to revive enemies.
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time has the Love Bubbles and Soul Bubbles with the latter also being able to revive enemies.
- Some powerful geth in Mass Effect have repair drones that hang around near them. Fortunately, the repair drones are both uncommon and easy to kill.
- Mass Effect 3 has the Cerberus Combat Engineers, which repair the Atlas Mechs or their turrets to full health, and the Reaper Marauders, which buff common Husks and Cannibals with a layer of armour.
- Nurse Preons in Mega Man X: Command Mission will heal their allies, but you should not Shoot the Medic First. If you leave them as the last foe alive, they heal your party for free then run on the next turn (at which you can beat them at your own leisure).
- Overlord has Blue Minions who can revive fallen Minions provided they can get to the corpse.
- PAYDAY 2 has the Medic unit, which spawn rather frequently among waves of basic enemies on Overkill difficulty and above. While not especially powerful attackers, and sporting a slightly higher-than-average health pool, they fully heal any enemy that is killed near it, including other special units, from the more basic Shield to the almighty Bulldozer and its HP in the several thousands.
- Later on they combined the Bulldozer and Medic units into a single super unit for the hardest difficulty. They can potentially spawn in pairs, and can heal each other...
- White Magikoopas, Medi Guys and regular Magikoopas in Paper Mario. The sequel has X-Naut PhDs, the Wizzerd line and regular Magikoopas.
- In Ring Fit Adventure, Matta Rays are monsters with a body reminiscent of yoga mats. They can spread themselves out on the ground to restore their own HP, or let one other monster rest on themselves to heal them.
- Red Faction Armageddon had some plant-like aliens which would heal and buff others around them.
- In Runescape, Tztok-Jad summons healers halfway through his fight. Ramokee Skinweavers are the first target of any knowledgeable Dungeoneering group, as they heal their fellow exiles. And the Dagannoth Sentinels heal each other in battle as well.
- The scarab in Sacrifice, which automatically shoots healing energy at any injured ally within range.
- The Shining Force series also has this, preferably with the words "dark" and "evil" to describe the healers. The second game (as well as the Sega CD version of the two Gaiden games) make it more clear by having an evil bat-wing fairy show up whenever a healing spell is cast.
- In Sonic Heroes, there is a robot who randomly heals all mooks onscreen (including himself) at once. If flipped over, he'll turn into a Bandit Mook and steal your rings.
- Spore has the Shaman Rod in the Tribal stage; tribe members can equip these to heal other tribe members. This is an interesting variation as both the player and the AI have access to the same healing capabilities, though the AI rarely uses them.
- Super Mario RPG have Starslaps, Zeostars, Artichokers, Orb Users, Orbisons and Chesters who will use Recover or for the latter two, Mega Recover to heal themselves and their allies.
- In Team Fortress 2 Mann Vs. Machine mode, some of the invading giant robots come with one (or more) Medi-bots in tow. Needless to say, trying to shoot them down without a mean of taking out the Medic first is tricky at best. There's also a giant version that is paired along with its other giant teammates, having the same obscene amount of health, making them much harder to destroy quickly. To make it even worse, the medic itself is using a super-powerful version of the Quick-Fix: it heals 200 times as fast and the Ubercharge heals both the patient and the Medic even faster. Basically, its healing target is functionally invincible so long as the Medic is alive and you have about thirty seconds between ubercharges to kill the Medic otherwise all your progress is lost.
- Shaman Goblins in Torchlight.
- Some pets and minions perform this function in World of Warcraft.
- Kurzan Medicine Men can be a nasty surprise to a new player first entering Stranglethorn Vale. They tend to pair up and heal each other. They can be unkillable if you cannot kill or incapacitate one of them right away.
- In Warcraft III's expansion, the Tauren Spirit Walker's third-tier ability is to bring back any Tauren unit to life (that is, Tauren and Spirit Walkers, the Tauren Chieftain can respawn by himself at high levels). In the orc campaign, this ability is mostly seen with some centaur enemies (who gain the "Tauren" designation) who respawn their comrades.
- At least one monster in a single line has some form of healing move. Sasquatch, Harpy Queens and Furbolg Shamans have Rejuvenation, Draenai have Healing Wave, Troll Priests have Heal, etc. The closest to the trope is the Razormane Medicine Man, available on some maps as a mercenary unit. They are extremely useful to have, what with an all-targeting regeneration spell and a summon.
- In allied games, two or more of the same hero with a healing spell can quickly become this. Especially Paladins, with a big single target heal and temporary invulnerability.
- Every faction has a healer unit: the Alliance has the elven Priest (heals a small amount of HP), the Horde has the Witch Doctor (whose healing ward regenerates allied HP), the Night Elves have the Druid of the Claw (who rejuvenates a large amount of the target's HP over time), and with the expansion the Undead gained the Obsidian Statue (which heals units all around itself).
- Warframe has mook healers in several flavors. Infested Ancient Healers emit waves of healing energy to regenerate the health of infested units; if a Healer is mind-controlled by a Nyx, the healing waves will restore player health and instantly revive downed players. Corpus Shield Ospreys float above groups of Corpus enemies, giving them a massive boost to their shield capacity and regeneration rate. Eximus enemies of all factions give area-of-effect buffs to their nearby allies, such as resistance to damage types or shield regeneration.
- In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the roles of Damager, Healer, Tank are acknowledged In-Universe, and as such groups of enemies from both nations commonly include healers. They are called Rescuers for Keves, and Medics for Agnus. Both of these types of soldiers carry mace-like Magic Staves as their weapon.
Well, I have finally finished that page. It was pretty easy ... wait, did you just restart all of it again?!
