Notes on the new healing mechanics

[LadyWYT]

Just some of my general observations from messing around with it in the release candidate, in no particular order:

Health is no longer lost immediately.

There is a very brief delay between taking a hit and actually losing health. I'm guessing that this could mean that one might survive damage that would otherwise prove fatal, if they were finishing a bandage application or otherwise had incoming healing. I've not tested that theory to be sure though.

Bandages do not heal immediately and take time to apply before they will heal.

A very big change, but a needed one. Prior to 1.21, healing and bandage application were both instant, so all you had to do in a fight was slap a stack of bandages on yourself to heal back to full in a few seconds. The healing over time means that you now need to pay attention to your health bar and apply healing before serious damage hits, if you can, since waiting until you're nearly dead is much more risky. The time it takes to apply a bandage, paired with the healing over time, also means that you'll need to be much more deliberate about when you choose to heal yourself, as you won't be able to do most other actions while applying a bandage.

The application time and amount healed also make higher quality bandages much more valuable than they were previously. Prior to 1.21, stacks of horsetail poultices were the favored healing item, since they're cheap to craft. With the changes, they offer only +2 HP over 10 seconds, with a 3 second application time(3 seconds is standard for all bandages currently). They're still useful in the early game, when you have no alternatives, and for bandaging light wounds/recovering after a fight, but they aren't going to be very useful outside of those circumstances. In an actual fight, where you are taking some serious hits, you will want more healing per bandage since you can't necessarily rely on getting more than one or two bandages applied before getting interrupted.

Movement can interrupt bandage application, but not always.

Horizontal movement does not interrupt bandage application, so it's possible to apply bandages while on the run. What will interrupt bandage application is vertical movement...but only as a general rule, not always(at the time of this writing). There is a very brief delay before the interrupt happens, so if you were nearly done applying the bandage, you should be able to finish the application and get the healing. 

Overall, my general conclusion is that bandage choice is a lot more important now, and players will be needing to think ahead a little bit more in combat. So far, it feels like a good change, though it does take some getting used to.

 

[LadyWYT]

Another thing I discovered just now--you can also hop up one block heights without resetting the bandage timer, so it's even more feasible to bandage yourself while trying to escape an enemy.

Edit: Likewise, you can move down one block without getting interrupted, provided that it's only one block and you don't jump in the process.

Edited August 18, 2025 by LadyWYT

[Xanadu2003]

I had noticed it being a huge problem with the eidolon fight specifically. With wearing armor and having to jump to avoid their attacks it became near impossible to get a honey poultice off during the fight, even when hiding behind cover.