Storm Survivability – Healing Current
Part 2

Read Part 1 of “Survivability, Storm Style” here

The Match: Part 2

With his initial effort thwarted, your opponent tries to come up with a different plan.  Giving up entirely on blade stacking, the Conjurer goes to prepare for a combo.  With new minions lasting just long enough to break your Myth shields, the Conjurer now has a full rack of Power Pips and an Infallible Aura (taking away 20% from your resist for the next four turns); you just know that a Colossal Basilisk will hit you with its tail, leaving you immobile for long enough to make you completely open to a Colossal Minotaur the next turn.  Fortunately, you have one more new trick up your sleeve for the turn right after you are Stunned: Healing Current, another three-pip spell you learned at Level 75.

Healing Current: Getting Out of the Red Zone

At first glance, Healing Current does not seem like a worthwhile spell at all.  After all, it costs more than a Pixie – and more likely than not, it will heal no more than that Pixie (and quite possibly a lot less)!  However, the fact that it is a Storm spell instead of a Life spell means three things, each of which explain why Healing Current is not only useful, but a true deck staple for Diviners in terms of survivability.

1. You can cast it using your Power Pips, so most likely it will cost only two pip slots just like Pixie.
2. Because Zafaria and Avalon have made training points much less limited than they were before, a large number of duelists have trained Life Dispel to cut off an opponent’s healing.  If you use a Storm spell to heal instead, you can completely ignore that dispel.
3. Because Healing Current is a Storm spell, it uses your Storm critical rate rather than your Life critical rate.  This means that unlike Pixie, which is very unlikely to critical in the hands of a Diviner without Vengeance, Healing Current’s heal could take advantage of Storm’s potential for VERY high critical rate (over 50% from gear alone is possible) to heal “200, 800, or 2000” for 3 pips instead of “100, 400, or 1000”.

The Deck Changer

Using Healing Current as a deck staple allows you to change strategies in other ways as well:

• You can improve this spell even more by improving your heal boost:  if it is high enough, the critical 1000 heal can take you from zero to full!  I would argue that for a Healing Current user, it’s a toss-up between Stellar Signet/Cosmic Kris and Stellar Signet/Courtly Dirk because the heal boost plays to your strength and not your weakness.
• Vengeance becomes important in your deck again:  in addition to being a boost for your attack, it serves as a major heal boost at the same time.  And unlike attacks, whose criticals can be blocked regularly even despite Storm’s naturally high critical rating, the critical heals can never be blocked.
• With no need for a Life amulet for heals, you are free to do other things with your Amulet hand, ranging from another mastery to amulets that give awesome cards like the Storm Hound DOT or a 30% Vengeance.
• Similarly, there is no real need for a Level 80 Storm duelist to train Life to Satyr:  other things can be done with some of those training points (granted, that’s not a real issue at 80, but it’s nice to know anyway!)
• There ARE times when it makes more sense to use a ‘safer’ Life school heal than Healing Current though:  Sprite (trained, treasure, or pet; take your pick) is an easier way to burn off an infection and a Pixie (with your large heal boost) makes sense if you are anticipating your opponent trying to cast a finisher and need your heal to definitely go up by more than a few hundred immediately, at least if you are between levels 75 and 85.

NOTE FOR DIVINERS LEVEL 86 AND ABOVE: Just as Gargantuan and Colossal eliminated the risk of Wild Bolt only hitting for less than a wand hit, the new Azteca spell Primordial takes away nearly all of the downside from Healing Current.  Slap a Primordial on your Healing Current and it now heals for 200/500/1100 instead of the face value.  Factor in a build with high Storm Critical (with crafted gear and Vengeance up, for example)… and even that lowest hit, which appears as 200 on the card, now heals exactly as much as a Pixie!  So, you now have a heal which costs the same as a Pixie… is very unlikely to do less than the Pixie, but has a good chance of healing a little to a lot more than that two pip life spell.  Therefore, my new recommendation to Diviners in Azteca is as follows:

Train Primordial as soon as you can; it (as a boost for Healing Current), NOT Storm Owl or Galvinic Field, is your absolute best Azteca spell in this Diviner’s opinion.

Finally, while the “100, 400, or 1000” or “200, 800, 2000” plus critical boost seems like it is highly luck-based, this type of ‘luck’ plays an important part in a Storm’s strategy.  For example, If your opponent fears a Critical Healing Current healing you to full, he might play more aggressively and try for an OHKO, which might allow you to Enfeeble his blades before the  attack!

This fits in well with Storm’s own notion of survivability:  after all, for us Diviners, survival does not mean “turtle for six to twelve hours” but rather “withstand the opponent’s assault for just long enough to go on offensive, bring on the pain, and UNLEASH YOUR INNER THUNDER!”

The Match: Success!

Back to the battle, the Basilisk hits you for 500 a tick.  The next turn, a Minotaur gores you for 900 and another Basilisk tick brings your health down to 600 before you can act.  As planned, you use your Healing Current, summoning rushing water to nurse you to health.  The water glows white for a critical, and the number 3964 on the screen confirms that you are healed at more than full health while your opponent is out of pips.  Congratulations; you have survived the initial assault.  Now you can go on the offensive and blast that Conjurer with lightning for the win!