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Make a support Art

Designer · 30 min · No code

Result: two support Arts. Mend heals one ally the player picks from the party HUD. Rally raises the whole party's Strength and gives them Regenerate, with no healing of its own.

Before you start

How a support Art differs from an attack

The same Art definition does both. Three fields change what it is:

Field Attack Heal one ally Party buff
Effect Type Damage Heal No damage or healing
Target Type Enemy One ally Whole party
Effects Reactions, debuffs on each target Optional The buffs, Recipient set to suit

With Effect Type set to Heal, the shared Art ability applies the heal effect Battle/Arts/GE_XenoCore_Heal instead of the damage effect, plays the heal cue, and shows the amount restored as a number over the character, including 0 on a character already at full health. You add no cue and no effect yourself. One ally makes confirming the Art open an ally selector on the party HUD and a small white ring under the highlighted member; the Art is only spent when you confirm a character, and cancelling costs nothing.

Support Arts are for battle

Like every Art, a heal is used from the battle palette. An ally-targeted Art never checks the distance to an enemy, but out of battle there is no palette: the party recovers HP on its own instead (Tune revive and defeat).

Never make a heal by duplicating an attack

An attack's montage carries hit notifies and a weapon trail, and an attack's ability applies the damage effect. Duplicate either into a heal and the heal fires melee hits, trails a blade, and damages. Start a support Art blank, use DA_XenoCore_LightHeal, the shipped heal, as the reference for its settings, and give it a gesture montage with no notifies.

Steps

1. Mend: heal one ally

  1. In MyGame/Arts, right-click › Data › Data Asset, pick XenoCoreArtDefinition and name it DA_Mend. Create it blank rather than duplicating DA_XenoCore_LightHeal: a copy carries whatever the original holds.
  2. Open it. Set Display Name Mend, Description Restores HP to one party member., and its own Cooldown Tag Cooldown.MyGame.Art.Mend.
  3. Leave Ability Class empty. (Light Heal points at its own older ability Blueprint, GA_XenoCore_LightHeal, which is not needed: the shared Art ability picks the heal effect for any Art with Effect Type Heal.)
  4. Set the three fields: Effect Type Heal, Target Type One ally, Attribute Ether. Category: Heal.
  5. Power is the amount healed, before the art-level curve. Try 300.
  6. Cooldown Duration: 10.
  7. Set Montage to Characters/Player/Animations/Kwang/AM_XenoCore_LightHeal: a casting gesture with no notifies. Set a Palette Glyph and Glyph Colour.

Ether does not change a heal

A heal restores Power, scaled by the art's level and by any healing skill bonus (such as Healing Wisdom). The caster's Ether stat plays no part: unlike damage, a heal does not run through the damage formula. Attribute Ether marks it as an ether art, which wakes ether-sensing enemies nearby.

2. Rally: buff the whole party

  1. Create another blank Art the same way, DA_Rally. Set Display Name, Description, its own Cooldown Tag, Montage (AM_XenoCore_LightHeal again) and Palette Glyph.
  2. Effect Type: No damage or healing. Target Type: Whole party.
  3. Power: leave it; nothing reads it for this effect type.

  4. Under Art › Effects, add two entries:

    Effect Duration Magnitude Recipient
    Battle/Status/GE_XenoCore_Status_StrengthUp 20 0 Whole party
    Battle/Status/GE_XenoCore_Status_Regenerate 15 40 Whole party

    Strength Up raises Strength by Magnitude percent; a Magnitude of 0 sends nothing and it falls back to its default of 30 % (×1.3). Regenerate heals Magnitude HP every second, so it needs one. Both need a Duration.

  5. Cooldown Duration: 30. Save.

Recipient and Target Type are different things

Target Type decides who the Art is aimed at. Each effect's Recipient decides who that one entry lands on: Each target, the User, or the Whole party. An attack can carry a User entry to buff its caster as it hits.

3. Your own gesture montage (optional)

If you replace AM_XenoCore_LightHeal:

  1. Make a montage from a casting or gesture sequence on the Mannequin skeleton. Lyra's own heal uses AM_MM_Generic_Unequip, an upper-body gesture, as reference.
  2. Put it on the FullBody slot (the DefaultGroup slot group), like the shipped Arts. Every Art roots the character while it plays, so an upper-body slot gains nothing here.
  3. Add no notifies. No hit events, no weapon trail.
  4. Set Impact Fraction to where the spell lands in the gesture.

4. Teach them

Add a row for each to a character's learnset, the Data Table set as their Art Learn Table (Set palette slots and unlocks).

Test it

  1. Press Play in Maps/L_XenoCore_Gym with two or more party members active. Slot Mend and Rally on the leader's palette.
  2. Engage a minion and take some damage. Select Mend and confirm: a selector appears on the party HUD. Move it to a wounded member and confirm. The heal plays and a number shows the HP restored.
  3. Select Mend again and press back instead: the selector closes and Mend is not on cooldown.
  4. Use Rally. Every active member's HUD plate shows the Strength Up and Regenerate icons, and their HP ticks up every second.

If it doesn't work

Content Browser warning: 'A Heal art aimed at an Enemy heals the enemy'

Target Type is still Enemy. Set One ally, User or Whole party.

The selector opens and nothing happens

The Art is on cooldown or the party has one member. Check the palette ring.

Fails silently: the buff never appears

The entry's Duration is 0. The Art definition reports this as an error on save; fix it.

Heal shows sparks, a trail or a hit reaction

The montage was duplicated from an attack. Use a notify-free gesture montage.

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