"Unseen care"?

[onomastikon]

I don't understand the wording on this at all.
Permanent 0.5 magic HP bonus for every skeleton ....
- I have currently summoned? (seems too bad to be true)
- I have ever summoned (including those I summoned before getting this -- seems almost too good to be true)?
- I summon starting now? (seems ok for a build that focuses on low skelly level and high attack speed?)

[Morphic]

It is not retroactive.

Which means...

Originally posted by onomastikon:

- I summon starting now

So once you have that Trait, you will start gaining the 0.5 MHP from summons.

Generally speaking, that trait is good regardless but made better the higher your Max Skeleton amount is. Typically, you'll summon at least 2-4 Skeletons for every battle. So right there you are looking at +1-2 Magic HP gained per battle. More if your fights are difficult and your skeletons die. Say you get into ~10 fights per loop, that's +10-20 MHP per loop for free. Not much by itself but it is a form of scaling similar to the Ancient Crypt HP gains from killing enemies with souls.

[onomastikon]

Thanks!
Is the information displayed bottom right (where attack, defense, etc. Is shown) accurate? If so, I can see my magic hp counter go up about 1 a turn no matter how many skeletons I have, 2 or 4. Perhaps because getting 4 required as much effort as getting 2 twice?

[Morphic]

Originally posted by onomastikon:

Thanks!
Is the information displayed bottom right (where attack, defense, etc. Is shown) accurate? If so, I can see my magic hp counter go up about 1 a turn no matter how many skeletons I have, 2 or 4. Perhaps because getting 4 required as much effort as getting 2 twice?

Your current maximum Magic HP will be listed in the bottom right. However, you won't be able to differentiate between what MHP is coming from your Unseen Care or your Amulet/items. Though, AFAIK, all numbers/stats listed in that bottom right panel are accurate.

The Magic HP gains depends on actually summoning the skeletons. So, say your max skel count is 2, when you summon 2 skeletons you'd get 1 Magic HP. Then let's both get killed so you summon 2 more, you'd get another 1 Magic HP. Though you have to keep in mind how tough your skeletons are versus how strong the enemies are. E.g. your max skel count is 4. So you'd get 2 Magic HP from summoning all of them... but then you win the fight without anymore skels dying. Now if your max count was 2, you might have your skels dying in and being resummoned in that fight ... so you might end up gaining more Magic HP by using less skeletons since you end up resummoning more.

[Arckeiner]

You get 0.5 permanent Magic HP for each summon you make. It starts when you get it and does not work with the "Horde" perk.
If you get it pretty early it can be a game changer.
Right now, I'm on loop 10, it's the first skill I got: my Amulet is at 188, and I've got 277 MHP in the stats.
I got 89 MHP from "Unseen Care". It's pretty neat.

[Rhodry]

how does it work? seems crap, does it reset every battle or does it just add MHP when you summon which would be crappy since i lose MHP alot in some battles.

[Jean]

Originally posted by Rhodry:

how does it work? seems crap, does it reset every battle or does it just add MHP when you summon which would be crappy since i lose MHP alot in some battles.

You get 0.5 added to your maximum Magic HP every time you summon a new skeleton with the trait.

This is permanent MHP which is added to your Amulet MHP and is refilled on every fight, providing a temporary buffer to your real HP for enemies to go through first at the start of a fight.

MHP doesn't replace HP but is both better and worst. Better in that it's refilled for free at the start of every (usually short) fights but worst in that it can't be refilled in a (potentially long) fight like normal HP can. Note that Defense don't apply to your MHP.

[Morphic]

Personally, I think you get more survivability going Ancient Crypt and fighting enemies with Souls than using Unseen Care.

That said, Unseen Care is a solid pickup and you really can't go wrong with choosing it.... unlike some of the other traits.

[Creep Gnome]

Crypt and Unseen Care aren't mutually exclusive. They don't even compete with one another, given that one is a card and the other is a level up perk.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Creep Gnome:

Crypt and Unseen Care aren't mutually exclusive. They don't even compete with one another, given that one is a card and the other is a level up perk.

I was speaking in general terms of the practical application of gaining Scaling HP. Not to mention I was tying it back to OP's initial post and Rhodry's comment.

e.g. You could argue that taking Arsenal as Necromancer is a viable strategy... which would leave your only recourse for scaling HP to be Unseen Care. Whereas if you have Ancient Crypt ... you won't even need Unseen Care.

Furthermore Unseen Care is an RNG chance of getting and is exponentially worse the longer it takes to get it as you will be losing out a lot of potential MHP. Which then begs the question of "why take Unseen Care when I could take another trait?" Well, compared to many of Necromancer's exclusives... you can't go wrong with Unseen Care.

Hence, my personal preference is to to use Ancient Crypt. I don't pick Unseen Care unless it is offered early on (loops ~1-5) and it is not offered with another vital trait(like +skel level). Of course this changes if I plan on doing an "infinite loop" run, but I rarely do that as it is mostly pointless.

[Darkstrong]

You cannot really compare the crypt and Unseen care. Crypt only gives you max 3hp per enemy that needs to be replenished by potions or camps. Unseen care gives you 0.5 hp per skeleton and you can sometimes summon >10 skeletons per battle, that comes to max 5hp that will automatically regenerate after each battle. Basically, crypt is 3hp*enemy with a soul
Unseen care is ~3hp*battle*battle (since it only goes up, unaffected by deserts, and regenerates to 100% at the end of each battle)

[Morphic]

Again, "my personal preference"...

I never stated one was explicitly better than the other. Sure, auto regen/refresh MHP is nice ... but as Necromancer you rarely use Potions/get hurt if you are geared properly and create your loop to facilitate that. (MHP is also unaffected by other boosts such as Mountains/Camp items)

Now, considering Unseen Care is RNG(as it is quite possible to win without ever seeing it) I'd rather focus on the consistency of Ancient Crypt gains than roll the dice for Unseen Care. This is why I stated you can't go wrong with taking Unseen Care if it is offered. As I mentioned before, if Unseen Care is offered; I'll take it unless Field Practice or Laying Down One's Life are offered in the same level-up.

I was comparing Unseen Care to other Necromancer Traits and Survivability options.