What about a character that can spend life?

Now that we have another character that can increase their life (Arbiter) and with all the talk of a vampire character going on I got to thinking about a character that can manage their lifebar as a resource. I always threw this idea away because giving characters healing without tying it to super meter or instinct is usually broken, but in KI super meter is gained quite quickly and Arbiter makes the healing look pretty reasonable so I gave it some thought.

So my Idea is for a character who’s specials cost life to use (maybe as potential damage), but heal it back if they land (perhaps healing more than you spent). This definitely supports KI’s high risk high reward style, and you cant just run away and heal the whole time; also Instinct could remove the life cost on specials (or maybe turn it into potential damage so it can heal back on its own).

Another idea is a character who’s potential damage does not heal automatically, it can only be healed by a special method such as landing a throw or a certain special move.

Can any one else think of ways a fighting game character can heal life without it being considered cheap, or a stalling tactic? How to make healing fun and interesting like how Arbiters bonus health grants him projectile resistance?

Spending life to add power to a move or change it similar to Shadow Jago’s Surge mechanic could work if done correctly. I think that would especially work for some sort of vampiric creature, whether it’s the traditional “human” kind or a monster (I kind of hope if we get one it’s monstrous!)

I think this would best be done one of two ways, and I’ll call the mechanic “pumping”;

  • Pumping adds potential damage onto myself, which will heal over time, but puts me at risk of losing a lot of health fast if I get opened up. There are no ways to regain health otherwise. Instinct could halve the amount of potential damage added, or increase the healing speed of potential damage.

  • Pumping adds true damage, meaning every time I pump a portion of my life gauge is completely gone. Certain specials or enders (most likely enders) have life-steal mechanics to them, with Enders scaling the life gained per ender level. The ender route also makes it risky- if you combo-break me, I lose the chance to get life from the ender. Instinct could reduce the amount of life taken away, increase the amount of life regenerated from enders, or turn the damage into potential life instead.

Er, spending life is what basically every fighting game character ever does.

…okay, maybe that’s gambling life.

Off the top of my head, Kan-Ra’s sandsplosion falls into this category.

Someone was suggesting an instinct ability for Sabrewulf which’d allow him to self-inflict PD for a damage buff.

Vampire character (if it happens) should be this kind of energy gambler, life draining character.