UOTH - Healing Skill

"Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity"

Healing is an essential skill for any character that will engage in any form of combat. It allows you to restore a certain number of health points using bandages. Though it is mainly used by dexers, mages could also greatly profit from its benefits. I can hear some of you asking why in the world would a mage waste a skill over healing when he can cast greater heal on himself? Well, there are a few reasons for that:

Spell casting can be interrupted by an attacking creature, hence forever preventing you to cast at a time when you need it the most
Reagents are required to heal, if you run out or a thief/spawn has looted all or part of your reagents, you cannot heal yourself
While casting healing, you cannot cast offensive attacks, whereas you could start applying bandages while you're casting any other spell, even cure if you've been poisoned.
The healing spell requires mana. A good mage will be able to cast Flamestrike twice and Energy Bolt once before he runs out of mana. At that point, you better hope you do not need to heal or cast invisibility or you're in trouble. With healing, the only thing that will limit you is your bandages supplies.
Since anatomy and eval int combined work like wrestling, healing fits perfectly in the template of a PvP mage.

However, in order to resurrect with healing, you will need 81 healing skill AND 80 anatomy. Also, be aware that dexterity increases the speed at which you heal your patient and the higher your anatomy, the more health points you'll be able to restore.

Raising healing is quite simple, all you have to do is heal, heal and heal some more. Like with most skills, you will gain a lot in the early stages. You should have no problems reaching the 81 skill requirement to resurrect. After that, it will be a very slow process.

You will gain more healing others than yourself as it takes less time to heal someone else, hence you heal more often and stand more chances to gain. So during training, you want someone that will sustain heavy damage continuously. Go hunting with a friend and cross-heal each other.

Once you hit 81+ skills, you can start resurrecting. At that point, you want to work on ghosts. You can either camp outside dungeons (Destard is a winner, Despise and Shame are also good spots) to rez any ghost that comes out, but that's a little iffy. If you're unlucky, you can waste a lot of time waiting for a ghost to show up. Ideally, you would need a benevolent friend or guildmate that will relinquish his life for your benefit. Kill your guildmate (or have your friend drink poison if not guilded) then try to rez the ghost.

8x8 Method
Regardless of skill level, the 8x8 method is even faster. Get on a boat, sail slow forward in a North-South direction. Below 81 skill, fight a guildmate and cross-heal each other. You will gain in all kinds of skills (anatomy, healing, tactics, parry if you're using a shield, and the combat skill you chose either swords, fencing or macing). As soon as you gain healing, stop the boat, lock anatomy and start using the 8x8 method. Do not move the boat 8 tiles as long as you're gaining at the tile where you're standing. Once you stop gaining there, move 8 tiles. Once you hit 81 healing, you will need a ghost. Have your friend kill himself and using the same method, keep healing. If you also have 80 anatomy, you will be rezzing more and more quickly. However, I strongly suggest you keep low anatomy if you want to raise healing faster.

Healing doesn't take much time to GM using this method. As a side note, do not go around healing people in dungeons unless they are obviously in trouble. Even then, ask first if they need help. You may ask why? Well it's simple, the same way you want to heal everything that moves to raise your skills, chances are the other guy is trying to raise his as well. Some people voluntarily lower their HP as much as they can before trying to heal. So you may try to do a good deed but just end up annoying your patient.

Healing does not work on pets. You will need veterinary skills heal animals with bandaids.