Just make them rare with a rare count of 150 but bump the heal to 100hp/120hp each - if you want to carry 4 you are more then welcome to without any other weapons. Good luck warriors or any melee.
No class has ever been balanced with the Imms thinking "Oh I know this skill is quite powerful but we better up its power in case the opponent has nymph hearts and nullifies the first 10 times someone uses them"
Or just make them a food item.
Easy fix to nymph hearts...make them crumble like potions.
I also said make them heal 50% of the tuo scroll which would turn 1 of them into what.. a dozen of what they are now?
/facepalm
1 tuo scroll = 200 hp
1 heart = 40 hp
50% of a tuo scroll = 2.5 hearts
a dozen = 12
2.5 =/= 12
40 hp for a heart? Thats even better then I thought it was, lol
Ive never seen them but now ill be sure to really avoid anyone carrying them 
UC
Or you could farm them in the Everwild like everyone else. Yes, I'm guilty of this, too. It's the only one I can be bothered to farm, though.
Object 'nymph heart flower' is type pill, material flower. Extra flags: glow hum magic. Weight is 5, value is 1000, level is 30. Level 30 spells of: 'cure critical'.
Or you could farm them in the Everwild like everyone else. Yes, I'm guilty of this, too. It's the only one I can be bothered to farm, though.
Object 'nymph heart flower' is type pill, material flower.
Extra flags: glow hum magic.
Weight is 5, value is 1000, level is 30.
Level 30 spells of: 'cure critical'.
Why dont i just play a hybrid and farm the tuo scrolls AND the hearts, while im at it I might as well pick up some mugwart lol
UC
Obvious solution is to roll more thieves and steal backpacks.
/facepalm
1 tuo scroll = 200 hp
1 heart = 40 hp
50% of a tuo scroll = 2.5 hearts
a dozen = 12
2.5 =/= 12
How often do they fail? Never
How often does tuo's scroll fail? Probably not often, but its POSSIBLE.
Or you could farm them in the Everwild like everyone else. Yes, I'm guilty of this, too. It's the only one I can be bothered to farm, though.
Object 'nymph heart flower' is type pill, material flower.
Extra flags: glow hum magic.
Weight is 5, value is 1000, level is 30.
Level 30 spells of: 'cure critical'.
This is not the answer. I don't want to spend playing time farming a consumable which no one NEEDS to be viable to actually be viable. BOOORRRRRRING. I might as well play some old school mount and blade = -1 player. (that happens 10 times and we don't have a pbase).
Gripe: We are creating an environment where not only does knowledge and experience count- but actual physical time counts. If you don't have 10 hours a month to farm consumables don't bother trying to be top tier competitive. Its that simple.
**Forget the learning curve, we've created a FARMING curve. It makes moderates a little redundant. You can't compete on EQ, Cabal Skills and most people who play them, play because they don't have the time to invest in a ruthless character. **
2c
While I agree consumables are needing a looking at, I do not believe that you have to be stocked up on them to compete top tier. I rarely if ever eat nymph hearts, nor do I have anyone who could use tuos scrolls. All ego striking aside I have never needed then to beat or compete with top tier pkers. White staff? Sure every now and then but herbs do me just as good. I do however make use of frenzy leaves often enough and scrolls\potions of protection.
Edit: Post is moot. I thought I was responding to something that wasnt actually there. I need to get more sleep...
Yeah, I think there is too much focus on using consumables to be competitive while ignoring perhaps more important mechanics...I also never made use of nymph hearts..I don't think I have ever used one.
There are two fairly easy ways to balance healing consumables. One way is to add some kind of 'healing saturation' tag on successive heals of the same type in a period of time to lessen the effect of each successive heal. I.g. 100% for the 1st, 75% of the second and so forth (logarithmic or linear, I suppose either works)...this would discourage people from spamming hearts in a row, allowing it work, but with diminishing returns (40 + 30 + 20 + 10 + 5 hp if 5 hearts spammed in one tick, for instance). Interestingly, this would also affect curative spells...perhaps getting some use out of cure light/serious in order to break up the saturation. Cure critcs get less effective, so need to switch to serious for awhile, etc.
The other way is to provide an item healing modifer to characters. One easy way to do this is to make it a function of hp regen and total hp. The greater the difference between your max (base, unmodified?) hp and your hp regen, the more it heals you. So combos with high regen/max hp (e.g. high con melees) or low regen/hp (e.g. faerie/elf casters) would get less out of the hearts whereas low regen/high hp (example: giant caster) or high regen/low hp (feral warrior, for instance) would get more out of such healing consumables. This is good as it strengthens the lower powerspike, less commonly played combos while not allowing powerspike combos to get as much out of the tactic.
Just a random thought.
Interesting ideas Cel. I like the one about the decaying effectiveness of nymph hearts. It's similar to the devestation berserks that take more and more mana to execute. If it has a timer of 0 it can even add some more strategy into the mix if you want to be most effective, while at the same time making it unreasonable to eat big amounts of hearts at once.
Very nice.
Please don't go around ruining communers to fix consumables, but Celerity idea is good.
"I also never made use of nymph hearts..I don't think I have ever used one."
I said the same, and then went and got them on a character of mine. More meele oriented. And found that a quick 300 HP boost can save your life so many times, or ensure a kill when you can lag. And it's not that many hearts.
To me nymph hearts are wrong in two ways.
Unlimited HP recovery in a very short period.
Promote the unfun activity of grinding.
So, the idea way is to replace them for something that grants HP but can't be spamed (rare, cool down, diminishing returns), and aren't grind-able (rare, heavy, cursed).
I also think it should not be rare, in order to not make Tuo Scroll irrelevant, and be available to all.
My years old idea, is turning them into a "medical kit" or "bandages" and be an item with several uses of BMG Field-Dressing.
Can also recycle Acupuncture and monk healing into this since they all have cool downs.
Or we can just code a new healing spell just for consumables and fix the problem forever.
Something with a high HP cure + cool down. Or a lower HP cure and diminishing returns.
To be clear are we talking just nymph hearts or all curatives in general (diamana leaves, the fruit from the cloud city, nectar ect)? In terms of adjusting the healing that you get from it I mean.
To be clear are we talking just nymph hearts or all curatives in general (diamana leaves, the fruit from the cloud city, nectar ect)? In terms of adjusting the healing that you get from it I mean.
I guess Nymph hearts are the vehicle to highlight the problem. Other forms of healing are limited - fruit from the city heals maledictions at a very low level... Eating 50 kiwi's might give you the result you need, its like using reds vs gyvels.
Nectar is 1. Extremely expensive, you can't even kill the mob for it. 2. A 1 use item only, its also rare so take a valuable slot and can't be stacked in the hundreds.
Diamana leaves (are these the slow ones? Or is that Mugwart?) is just slow (plus there is the addiction issue) - there have been items which granted slow for YEARS (flying citadel) if you were prepared to bother getting it - its not a new resource, merely more available. Any communer/caster using it better look forward to parrying nothing at all.
Red and white staves - you need to have staves to use, are a pain to collect and have a lower healing ability.
It's mugwort.
The citadel staff you're talking about is also unique. Sure, in later years it's been available since the melee shift. Shouldn't invalidate your point, though.
Red and white staves are on par with hearts. Still a staff, but it's still a cure critical. Might even be a group heal, but I'm likely misremembering something, so don't quote me on that til I can find proof.
Yup. It's also a group heal.
It's mugwort.
The citadel staff you're talking about is also unique. Sure, in later years it's been available since the melee shift. Shouldn't invalidate your point, though.
Red and white staves are on par with hearts. Still a staff, but it's still a cure critical. Might even be a group heal, but I'm likely misremembering something, so don't quote me on that til I can find proof.
Yup. It's also a group heal.
Yes but my point is that its a stave. Available to very few people and those that would use it wouldn't bother aka rangers simply because its not needed when fighting other melee's or mages who aren't using hearts.
The staff may be unique, but it is ALWAYS available. I'm pretty sure one of my druids is the ONLY person who used it regularly and I stopped bothering after a while.
Ah. I took the "lower healing ability" line as "less than a heart" rather than "it's less than a heal". Duly noted.
It wasn't my intention to argue your points, but you certainly cleared it up a bit for those who might.
Red and white staves are on par with hearts. Still a staff, but it's still a cure critical. Might even be a group heal, but I'm likely misremembering something, so don't quote me on that til I can find proof.
Yup. It's also a group heal.
Red and white are not on par with nymph hearts. They are harder to get, and take longer to use. Eating has the same lag as moving 1 room, brandishing has like a round of lag. Not to speak you need to hold the freaking thing. This reasons make them a lot less used than the nymph hearts.
Also in my opinion they should be made wands.
On par as in healing ability. And they're not harder to get. Longer, maybe as you need to run through more rooms, but not harder. Or by harder do you mean you have to kill one not overly difficult mob?