Editing Healer (section)

==Details==
Part of the rarity of healers has to do with how objectively complex the human body is,<ref name=22.4c1>There -can- be very few people with healing abilities. Bonesaw, Scapegoat, Panacea. Others with niches (neurology only, or cardiac systems only), others still with limited capacity (Othala with the ability to grant regeneration).<br><br>That’s setting-relevant and a reality when healing is actually something monumentally complex. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/cell-22-4/#comment-22312 Comment] by Wildbow on [[Cell 22.4]]</ref> how few [[shard|superpowers]] can parse human biology and its more delineated physiology.<ref name="19.2 c1">Psycho Gecko:<br>Wonder what would have happened if she was on her period.<br><br>Wildbow:<br>Nothing. Scapegoat uses his own body as a template. He can’t absorb symptoms to parts he doesn’t have. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/scourge-19-2/#comment-11481 Comment by Wildbow] on [[Scourge 19.2]]</ref> Generally, healing should be seen as a byproduct in a power meant for something else.<ref name="dm29">“A healing power,” I said.  I watched as Scion reached out for another vial.  He held it next to the one he’d already retrieved.<br>[...]<br>“There aren’t any healing powers,” the Doctor answered.  We continued backing away.  “When they crop up, it’s a fluke, pure chance, an extension of another ability with a different focus.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/03 Excerpt] from [[Venom 29.7]]</ref>

Since healing exists in gray areas of power mechanics healers have to be aware of power interactions; healers canceling each other out or exacerbating an issue is a possibility.<ref>Panacea - Would probably work.<br>Edit: Worth stating that timing would be key with Panacea. Using her powers on someone freshly 'goated would just return to the person originally injured. Easier to just use Panacea first, with no 'goating.[https://redd.it/65v8l8 Scapegoat power Synergies] ([[Wildbow]], reddit.com, 2017-05)</ref>

Despite their rarity, the uncanny ability for powerful and successful capes to gain access to critical healing creates an air of invincibility. As anything short of death can potentially be remedied, it is much harder for a cape to suffer a career-ending injury so long as they can avoid a fatal blow.<ref>The availability of healing made for an interesting, if ugly, dynamic.  Capes like Tattletale, capes like ''me'' could be reckless, we’d get our faces slashed open, our backs broken, our throats severed, blinded and burned, and we’d get mended back to a near-pristine condition.  Tattletale still had faint scars at the corners of her mouth, regenerated by [[Brian]] after his [[Second trigger|second trigger event]], but she’d mended almost to full.  I’d had injuries of a much more life-altering scale undone by [[Panacea]] and [[Scapegoat]].<br><br>If we died, we were dead, no question, unless I gave consideration to Alexandria’s apparent resurrection.  But an injury, no matter how grave?  That was something that could be remedied, it lent a feeling of invulnerability, an ''image'' of invulnerability.  So we continued being reckless, and we would continue to be reckless until something finally killed us off. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/crushed-24-3/ Excerpt] from [[Crushed 24.3]]</ref> As healers are able to return wounded and disabled capes to the battlefield they are by definition a force multiplier.

Consider the specific example of the various time manipulators. Grey Boy, Perdition and Semiramis can both loop time to reverse injuries, but Perdition and Semiramis can alleviate pain and undo injury and the target is then free while Gray Boy is a banal torturer. In Semiramis and Perdition's case the 'healing' is merely a byproduct, as previously covered,<ref name="dm29"/> of a power meant to manipulate time.  Both can also heal themselves as well of any damage. [[Dispatch]] is also a time-manipulator, but his healing is solely through medical training and equipment rather than a direct function of his power.<ref name="24.3 e1">Dispatch, vice-captain of the Houston Protectorate team, zipped over to a group of wounded with accelerated speed, only to seem to pause, as though he and his immediate surroundings were only video footage. Color and space distorted violently in an irregular area around him as he hung there, just an inch over the ground, one hand at his belt and another reaching for someone with intense burns.<br><br>A half-second later, the effect dissipated, and they were all moving. Dispatch was carrying one of the most wounded, gloves off and the sleeves of his costume pulled up, dried blood up to his elbows. Others were bandaged and sutured. His name, I knew, came from his ability to pick out targets in a fight, closing the distance to them and catching them in his temporal distortion effect. He’d have minutes or hours, however long it took the air within the effect to run out, to end the fight with his super strength, durability and the close confines of the bubble. To any observers, it appeared as though he’d won the fight in a heartbeat. Apparently the idea extended to medical care. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/06/15 Excerpt] from [[Crushed 24.3]]</ref> 

For contrast, self-healing or regeneration is not unknown in [[brute]]s, [[breaker]]s, and [[changer]]s, but in those cases, it also can be seen as a byproduct, specifically, an extension of their personal [[Manton Limit|safeguards]].<ref name="I5">In the end, though, ''scholars'' in the setting haven’t fully researched and understood the Manton effect and why it exists. So the fact that there’s some confusion on the matter (to the point we may be talking about different effects that are all being (erroneously?) gathered under the same umbrella) is perfectly ok. -  [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/interlude-5/#comment-483 Comment by Wildbow] in [[Interlude 5]]</ref>