Funnily I will argue the 'paladin' is a better healer then cleric, druid & bard if no 'good berry life domain' shenanigan's. A paladins 'lay on hands offer 5 times your lv translating to 5-100 out of combat Hp for those that need it. Combine lay on hands with the 'inspiring leader' feat for THP of 1-25 but realistically 3-23 though level progression for 6 party members. At say lv 10 in a 4 member party that is 50hp +(12/13x4)THP=50+48/52=98/102 points 102 points is more then about the same if not slightly more then the health pool of martial on average. You have effectively added another members health to the party with out using a any slots & 1 feat while still being a martial 1/2 caster. Paladins can be above average DPS & healing with potential to be a tank. Only thing more powerful then a paladin is a well made bard or controller wizard. Ceric are powerful but healing is a trap much like druids. You can make insane cleric & druids but most go down the wrong avenues of builds.
@@arnijulian6241 Okay, I hear you, but have you considered: Level 9 Spirit Guardians. An ounce of prevention is worth a pile of corpses that have been desiccated by the damned souls of the undead spirits under your command.
Thank you for the shout out to norwegians! Det var en koselig overraskelse! You really sound like a native speaker, if you are native to Norway then that's really cool. It you are not a native speaker then that's all the more impressive🤩
@@Samuel_Kabel Polymorph is the best healing spell in the game. I convinced my DM that I could Polymorph allies who were downed to get them back up and kicking. Not really sure if that's possible or makes sense but... "YOU HAVE HP NOW! STOP SLEEPING!".
The Grave Domain’s 1st-level feature “Circle of Mortality” guarantees the highest possible healing output when you target a creature at 0 HP. That makes Grave Clerics incredibly efficient when healing in short bursts.
I love using high level spell slots on cure wounds as my grave cleric for this reason, it's so fun. I also knock out party members outside of combat so prayer of healing is more effective as well haha
i think warlock with pact of the chain also has an invocation for maxxing out the healing dice, but you need to pick celestial pact to get good use of it (healing light feature and cure wounds from expanded spell list)
@@markd.9042 In practice, you heal a unconscious party member for 4HP, the goblin hit the member for -10HP and fall unconscious again. And you heal, they hit, you heal, they hit. Then you ran out of spell slots, they start to beat you down. Party TKO. (Real story)
The classic spend-all-your-spell-slots-and-actions-on-healing character might not be optimal, but it's actually a good way for an inexperienced player who enjoys that playstyle to contribute to the group in *some* way. It's consistent and it's simple. That said, people need to stop pressuring other people into the role. My favorite healers are Celestial Warlock and Mercy Monk because they get to heal per short rest, which is extremely efficient for out-of-combat healing. In combat though, you're right that it's optimal to prevent harm rather than to heal. Healer is one of my favorite feats for the same reason.
Agreed. My favorite role is support/healer in pretty much every multiplayer game I play, DND included, but in DND it's always better to heal after a fight If you wanna do Support, make a character that can prevent the enemy from killing people and focus heals after the fight.
I'm a firm believer that healing abilities in d&d should be about as powerful as Twilight Sanctuary. People say it's a broken ability but I feel like it's only really broken in comparison to other healing abilities because they're all extremely weak and lackluster. Healing should be noticable and should be about keeping your friends standing longer instead of just barely keeping them away from the pearly gates of heaven while not being a waste of a turn, and that's exactly what Twilight Sanctuary does
Healer in DnD is more like: runs the defibrillator and casts support like bless, banish, or spirit guardians. The MMO spamming heal on the tank just isn't how this game functions. Tanking barely works since enemies don't have agro like in videogames, they can actually strategize and taking out the wizard spamming disintegrate is much more important than the barb that litterally can not die right now. Edit: spelling
I have to say though, that if your looking at druid subclasses that improve healing, cricle of the shepherd is in my experience really valuable. The Unicorn Spirit Totem heals all allies within 30ft of it for a number of hp equal to your druid level whenever you cast a healing spell. You don't need to be near the totem at all for this to work either. This means that at level 20, if you have a party of 5, you can heal 100hp total by just casting healing word.
And if you’re doing a multi class with ranger then you can just use healing word and have your action still free for your multi attack. Planning to do this in the campaign I’m playing in actually
3 levels of star druid (chalice form) the rest as life Cleric. Bonus to heals from Cleric and choose additional creature to heal with druid. You can have healing spirit up as a bonus action for a minute and focus on attacking while auto healing and just concentration on the spell. You can heal everyone up really fast this way after combat too along with goodberries giving the same benefits 🥰
I’d also suggest keeping in mind that you should heal if having your target going down would have them drop a very important spell concentration or limited ability like Rage.
Quick tip for spirit guardians: It does NOT make difficult terrain! Difficult terrain makes every foot of movement cost twice as much. Spirit guardians halves the speed of enemies. What's the difference? If a creature with 30ft speed walks up 15ft and enters spirit guardians, their speed is now 15ft, which they have already traveled. Therefore the can't move. This makes the spell fantastic for kiting. Edit: typo spotted, and corrected, thanks
That depends on how the DM rules it. I can see your way but personally I would half what movement they have when they enter the zone. Still amazing at kiting though.
I always hated that mechanic because they could walk 15 ft out of the zone and suddenly have their remaining 15 ft as if nothing had happened. It never occurred to me it was so effective in the other direction!
I really am astonished how many People do not get this - it's basic Synergy to combine it with something creating Difficult terrain. Same goes for Spike Growth and Grease and such spells - often you can combine them.
Ah yes, the ultimate healing spell, just turn the almost dead barb into a trex and suddenly heal up by like 150HP. And when the trex is killed they have all their resources from before the transformation. (Plus its ranged, no other healing spell heals that much, and certainly not at range) Its only downside is that you should have permission to change your friends character on them before doing it. (Its generally accepted when really low on hp and they are already a melee class)
For party optimization, it is important to have at least one or two members that can heal people. Healing Word as an ability that lets you get your friends straight back up and into the fight is optimal because downed party members are not having fun. Having one party member go down to a lucky crit or such and then having to pull their body around the rest of the day because you can't bring them back SUCKS (yeah that happened to me) luckily, 5e is pretty flexible and pretty much every class has healing options. Clerics Druids and Bards are full casters with healing spells. Rangers get goodberry and healing word, Paladins have lay on hands. Artificers have healing spells. Wizards have familiars capable of feeding potions (which can do so with prepared actions to smuggle the healing past a monsters turn). Marshals can always carry a couple healing potions for a pinch, and a thief rouge with the healers feat is a force to be reckoned with. Amount of healing rarely matters, just the presence of it. The idea of playing a "dedicated healer" barely applies to 5e, but having several people with some sort of healing can keep your party moving.
For artificers, their healing is pretty much JUST Cure Wounds. Spare the Dying too lmao, but also Revivify. Other than that, it's just condition spells like Lesser/Greater Restoration.
@@AnaseSkyrider ro be fair those 3 are the big ones, they are the defibrillator and don't die completely spells. And due to dnd health mechanics thats all you really need. Another interesting and weird thing is that crafting healing potions is basically impossible in dnd, or atleast is a very suboptimal use of downtime and you would get better returns running any buisness and buying potions directly instead of crafting them for half cost and 2days a pop for basic potions. (A trading company would probably be the most effective, especially as you open up contacts to new markets to buy from outside of your local kingdom/cities)
So I’ve played two ‘healer clerics’ from level 1 to level 20 and I’ve learned that you can actually do a ‘healer’ role but it’s a lot of work. I usually have all my allies max health written down and also how much damage they take. I also write down how much damage enemies do. Using all this determines who I heal and makes me an effective healer
At my tables we found the inevitable yo-yoing of optimal healing to be silly. Now going unconscious causes a level of exhaustion, and is something you want to avoid if possible. We also buffed various healing options: cure wounds now starts at 2d8, and healing word starts at 2d4. Also, when you're healed magically, you can expend a number of hit dice up to your con mod to recover more HP, but don't add your con mod to each of those die rolls (so if you have a +3 con and are a paladin, you could roll up to 3d10 hit dice, for an average of 16.5, not 25.5).
That exhaustion rule is interesting. Still 100% effective from full health to 1, but as soon as you drop to 0 the first time you lose effectiveness. I can see why you need to buff healing for it to work tho.
@@sildinis I think it's part of viewing HP largely as stamina with some actual damage mixed in, with a hit rendering one unconscious as an actual somewhat debilitating one. Going unconscious is no joke, unlike in the movies. It will severely impair your function; I get that magic can handwave away the effects of going unconscious, but I'd like for some consequence for it.
Hearing Kobold speak Norwegian and naturally understanding it as I am Swedish had me sitting here getting whiplash because I wasn't expecting it to come around all of a sudden.
I felt some whiplash too being norwegian, but not getting it instantly so I had to listen again. Not sure if its some dialect my basic Oslo ass doesn't get, someone just learning now or straight up danish
As someone who speaks no Norwegian i got whiplash from the sudden "But Kobald!" In plain English in the middle of otherwise "general germanic sounds" with subtitles that for all i know was gibberish.
As a multiclassing enthusiast, I have to mention aid. Cure wounds is trash, but if you can reduce the likelihood of a hit taking someone down it’s very much worth it vs. using your in combat action to heal instead of raining divine fury. Also for good temp hp classes, I really got a lot of mileage out of the glamour bard mantle of inspiration ability for the same reason, and also helps get the party better set for only a bonus action and a bardic inspiration.
As someone who played a high level cleric for most of a recent campaign I too can speak for the value of an upcasted aid. If we were in a spot where needing more health there was no substitute for having 30-40 extra health going into the fight, or just having 3 people's current health totals increase by that much mid combat in an emergency. It's an extremely powerful and versatile spell that I don't think get's enough credit.
Also, if you desperately need a lot of health on one person in a short time, but don't have access to high level spells like Heal yet, upcasting Aid on one person can be pretty solid. Persistent magical effects don't stack, so the max HP boost only applies with the first Aid effect, but nothing in the rules says that the second part of the spell doesn't apply. Aid increases max HP by essentially 5x(SpellLevel - 1), but then it heals the target's current health by that much. This means a 4th level Aid casting all 3 parts on one target grants 15 to their max HP, then heals for 45 to their current HP. A player who is at 0/50 will jump to 45/65 in one action. No rolls required, at a range. If they're expecting to get hit before their turn comes up, this can be huge. As for Glamour Bards, Mantle of Inspiration is so damn good. You can hand out free temp HP to up to 5 people, then, if they want to use their reaction, they can run up to their movement speed without provoking opportunity attacks. I have combined these two before, using my action to save downed players, then used my bonus action to give temp HP AND let them get up from prone and move half of their movement (after getting up used the other half) so they could get to more advantageous positioning. I've also cast fly on our absolute monster of a Hexblade Paladin and then used Mantle of Inspiration to let him cover 60 feet before his turn even started, getting him into melee with the enemy casters and archers from round one, lol. College of Glamour is so good.
aura of vitality on a life cleric .... literally the best option for healing. (also take meta magic adept for extend spell and you can heal your party faster then short rests can.((40d6 of healing+life domain bonuses out of combat in 2 min for a 3rd level slot and 1 sp) in combat is only takes a BA and is a round by round heal to someone)
My group has a life cleric with aura of vitality, and it feels like an MMO. We have ended multiple deadly CR fights with almost full health. Out of resources, but great HP.
The fact that a character is the same efficiency at 100% as they are at 1% health means healing will always be less valuable. Cause using your actions to heal is now taking away from winning the fight. This is also a tricky concept for people to learn in Magic the Gathering too.
No it doesn't otherwise a healer wouldn't be needed in an MMO, it is about the Action Economy from the Heal. If an enemy does 10 damage and you heal 10 Health you've done nothing but remove you and them from the battle. If an enemy does 10 damage and you heal 15 Health then you denied the enemy's turn with benefit. If an enemy does 10 damage and you heal 20 Health then you denied the enemy 2 turns.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 yeah a lot of people don’t get this. It’s also a waste to bring them back up if the enemy goes between you and the party member you bringing up. A lot of people don’t get that healing is the most complex role.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 no I think it’s more to do with the threat level of the monsters and the strength of the heal. In World of Warcraft for example, the tank can survive being beat up on for like a minute, but the fight will take longer than that, so what your healing does is increase the time they can take that damage for. On the flip side some enemies can do tons of damage in one hit with special abilities, in this case the healer wants to top off the tank because otherwise they’re gonna get one shot. Dnd has neither of these factors, so healing is never important. Using your action to heal would be worth it if either of the above were true.
I'm in a party of seven right now, a rogue, a fighter, an artificer, a ranger with a cleric dip, a bard with a warlock dip, a paladin, and a mercy monk. Now that the rogue got a healing artifact, everyone but the fighter can heal and all of us are damage focused. Could really use a control caster, but whatever.
@@innocyte_ Grave Cleric is kind of the best for combat healing since their ability actually focuses on the most beneficial timing to heal someone while in combat and maximizes the impact from it.
@@innocyte_ my mistake I meant jester played how many should play cleric. Heal only when needed vs taking out opponents. No body should be a "healer" but everyone should if possible be able to heal. Is what I meant
@@jlaw131985 Cad and Jester definitely felt like optimal clerics. Jester is "half a healer" is both a fun j9ke but also smart, killing enemies is more important that 1d4+2 healing every time. Especially with her control spells like pass without a trace, charm, comand, modify memories, banish, ect she was able to avoid and resolve fights saving so many more hit points in the long run. And Cad's main ability is that he heals max value when someone is at 0HP which is the optimal time to heal, so he is double optimal at combat healing, which frees him up to also control cast. How many combats did they get a double spirit guardians, a double bless or a bless/bane combo and just contibute so much to fights. Not to mention all the one off stuff they pulled, like jester casting the greed spell on all the zombies in the hag's swamp and next round turn undead as destroy undead. Or even just polymorph, both as fight avoidance and transportation as eagles.
I made a healer Paladin subclass. The aura was that whenever somebody healed (outside of your Lay on Hands) they healed an additional amount equal to your Charisma modifier. In roughly 5 turns of a level 20 one shot the character healed roughly 250 additional hit points.
I find Aura of Vitality pretty handy as a thing I can cast as a Moon Druid before going into Wild shape. Because I cannot cast anything in animal form and most wildshapes do not have a bonus action I'm literally doing damage and healing on my turn every round.
I should have thought of this, I have a shifter cleric who I may MC into (moon) Druid. Though the way I have it planned, I think it’s a little strong for the particular table.
Thanks. I typically play a Totem Barbarian2-5/Moon Druid, so rages normally mean I wont be doing anything useful with concentration, but that's a great idea for when Rages run out.
I'm playing my first dedicated healer (Life Cleric). I've got most of the healing spells and buffing/protection spells, plus a few of the classic damage spells. I will definitely keep these tips in mind during our game.
You are absolutely right about the mechanical aspects you cover in this video. However, I think there is one point that can not be measured mechanically, and which I have observed when playing a healer in AL games. When in a tough fight, and a heavy hit lands on any character, many players consider their next move with a focus on defensive abilities - either boosting their own defense or helping their allies. When the character that took the heavy hit is healed for most (if not all or more) of the damage taken, players return to their focus of dealing with the enemy - something that many players optimize their characters for. It is always better to have the damage-optimized character free to do their damaging thing, rather than foregoing that in favor of a suboptimal defensive play. And that is was a dedicated healer build brings to the table - the synergy with other characters to allow them to do their cool/efficient thing. Luckily, one does not need to build exclusively with focus on healing to have powerful healing options - that's the challenge of building optimized damage builds. Best of all, it proved the point that D&D is optimal when working together as a party, rather than focusing on being optimal alone.
I feel like Healing Spirit needs to be changed to what it was intended to be, an effective in-combat healing option only. The errata made it useless. If it could only heal a character up to 50% or 75% of their maximum hit points, that would do what it was intended to do--keep people up. If a DM felt like it was still too powerful, they could be limited to 1+Spellcasting Modifier heals per round and/or give it some hit points to allow enemies to destroy it with mundane means, but I feel like this was the spell we needed for D&D in-combat healing, and they just got rid of it.
The best early healing is lay on hands. It's burst healing. Sure, it's limited to touch and you cannot use a familiar to deliver it, even if you obtain one (see: Variant familiars. Some creatures you meet may be willing to be familiars of yours), but its something that could be reliable healing in the end, altho it's almost always better on yourself. Also, healers may not be needed but someone able to cast revival spells is.
Well, let this serve as a reminder you can always house rule to avoid mechanics that feel lame. I myself love healers and hate how weak standard healing is. So I design my games so mid combat healing is not only viable, but recommended. I also ban Resurrection. As said, "if you and your friends are having fun, you win."
@@ArkansymBetter solution? Add back negative health. They hit -10 hp? Dead. Wanna make it more forgiving? They hit half their hp in negative health? Dead.
Another option for healing is Life Domain Cleric + Shepard Druid. The Unicorn totem spreads healing to a number of creatures to your choice in the effect of the totem, healing for your druid level. Which means if you use a healing word as a bonus action after having dropped the totem, you can heal 1d4+2+3(assuming 16 Wisdom), plus your druid level to everyone else in the field. Combine this with the Shepard's summoning abilities to bring in minions that pull aggro away from party members and being able to heal those minions and party members as well. The build basically turns Healing Word into Mass Healing Word by level 4, and I think that's neat.
In my experience so far, theif rouge with the healer feat and accompanied kit is a good way to follow this video's advice. You can get Heals when u need them (and can potentially still have ur regular turn because of fast hands); still a damage dealer when u don't.
This also works for the UA Hadozee that will be official in the Spelljammer books. Hopefully they will keep their bonus action item usage because I'm really looking forward to using feet to assist patching someone up. Hold the gash together with the foot and sew it up with a hand. Totally sanitary, no medical concerns there.
Playing a Celestial Warlock… the 1d6 “healing light” feature as a bonus action is stronk. At L5 I have 6 die and I can roll them in groups if needed. Still best to use them per your check list but with 6 d6 per long rest as a bonus action, I can keep bringing the party up while spamming EB + agonizing blast while concentrating on Hypnotic Pattern.
I think thre to say on this subject, specifically about mitigation, temp hp, and effect removal. The Aid spell, the glamour bard's temp hp feature, and features that grant resistance are noteworthy. Effect removal or suppression can be accomplished with spells like Protection from Good/Evil, Lesser Restoration, Dispel Magic, Calm Emotions, Heroism, and Freedom of Movement. Effect removal is definitely in the category of 'turn preservation', which you do mention in the video. Something else worth mention is that many recovery spells are touch based, which can make familiars useful if you can sneak one into your healing class with a Feat or one-dip multiclass. Crafting scrolls during downtime for action-recovery spells like those mentioned above can also help preserve spell slots, or allow other party members to perform spellcasting beyond their level.
The way I see it is that healing is helpful in combat during levels 1-3 then bad but then it becomes better around level 11 and up when you can basically full heal someone
One of my favorite "Healers" is the Chain Pact, E.Blaster, Celestial (Xanathar's) Warlock. -Healing Light At 1st level, you gain the ability to channel celestial energy to heal wounds. You have a pool of d6s that you spend to fuel this healing. The number of dice in the pool equals 1 + your warlock level. As a bonus action, you can heal one creature you can see within 60 feet of you, spending dice from the pool. The maximum number of dice you can spend at once equals your Charisma modifier (minimum of one die). Roll the dice you spend, add them together, and restore a number of hit points equal to the total. Your pool regains all expended dice when you finish a long rest. -Celestial Resilience Starting at 10th level, you gain temporary hit points whenever you finish a short or long rest. These temporary hit points equal your warlock level + your Charisma modifier. Additionally, choose up to five creatures you can see at the end of the rest. Those creatures each gain temporary hit points equal to half your warlock level + your Charisma modifier. You end up with a blaster warlock than can be the party scout, party face, and party healer. Plus you get access to greater and lesser restoration and revivify.
Glad you mentioned Twilight Domain Cleric towards the end. My group relies upon ours quite heavily for temp hit points and those alone usually are enough to keep everyone up and fighting.
One way for healing spells to be relevant is with the spell beacon of hope. Having max healing from everything can be really good. Specially if there's another unit that can heal, like a druid of the stars, because beacon of hope maxes all healings. I have seen what a life cleric with beacon of hope can heal, and the guy was able to keep the whole party up against a difficult enemy and the enemy was doing a lot of damage per turn, since it was a battle of survive X number of rounds, but the cleric said "I can keep them alive forever", and the health points were going up and down so quickly that it was hard to keep up. Also, if there's someone with a familiar giving potions with max effect, it really feels great.
I'm in a group planning what's (hopefully) gonna be my first successfully started DnD campaign and I'm working on a Divine Soul Sorcerer who's *extremely* protective, so this video is proving a great inspiration for how to effectively play her that way in gameplay as opposed to just in roleplay.
I built what I thought was a really solid healbot character for a campaign about 2ish years ago now. I packed Spare the Dying, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Goodberry, and Aid into a Life Cleric/Druid mix. I used Vuman to get the Healer feat to start, and very heavily leaned on healer's kits and 4HP Goodberries as my first healing options. Kits with the feat are 1d6+4+the target's # of hit dice and can only be done on each target once per short rest. Kits have 10 uses each and only weigh 1lb total (if your DM micromanages carry weight). Aid at the beginning of an adventuring day for the other party members, and then I rationed out Goodberries to everyone.
Shepherd Druid with just a 1 level dip in Life Cleric works amazingly well. The Unicorn spirit turns any healing spell into a pseudo Mass Healing Word, and at later Druid levels (Because it scales with druid levels), can match or outperform a Mass Cure Wounds with a simple 1st level healing word. On top of that, you can summon beasts with beefier HP that can deal magic damage so you are contributing to not only healing, but DPS and adding extra bodies for enemies to attack that aren't your party. And Druids have some pretty solid crowd control as well. Though what I tend to do most is cast Healing Spirit where my tank is, who gets healed for the spell healing (base or upcasted)+2+spell level+1d4 from my moon sickle each turn with only a single BA casting on one turn and concentration which continuously heals for 5 rounds, while I use my non-concentration spells for damage.
If a player is joining and asks if the party needs any specific roles filled, instead of saying "We could use a healer", say "We could use someone who can heal". "Healer" tends to lead people to think about Clerics and Druids, but a character "who can heal" opens up options like Divine Soul Sorcerer, Celestial Pact Warlock, Cleric domains that aren't Life, Paladin with their Lay On Hands, Mercy Monk if you really like Monks, and even Ranger gets _cure wounds_ and _goodberry._ If you feel like spending a Feat, you can be literally any class with Magic Initiate to get _healing word_ or _goodberry._ They're not strictly "healers" but they have the option on hand. [Edit: Closed an italic.]
This is why I love Celestial Warlocks for this role. Bonus action 60-ft range heals 1d6. Doesn't count as a spell so it doesn't conflict with their casting actions, and Warlocks have little need for their BA.
My favourite class is cleric, and im constantly badgered by people who play with me saying my spell list is terrible. Almost no healing spells. Just healing word, mass cure wounds, aura of vit. And i always say, removing whats hurting the party is way more effective than healing. The right way to heal is one of two actions. Can you kill it? And; Can you escape from it?
Cure Wounds is one of the biggest trap spells in the game. It only has a range of touch AND uses your action to, on average, heal only 2 more HP than Cure Wounds. People who cast Cure Wounds on non-downed allies will most of the time waste the spell slot because it only heals 9.5 HP on average. I've never been in a campaign where monsters were dealing less than 10 damage a round past level 3.
I like Spells that only take a bonus action like healing words, Mass healing words, or healing spirit to bring back downed party members but still be able to attack. Goodberry is great. You can get Magic Initiate and goodberry as your 1st level spell and it's a free cast once a day? Pjustt give each person a berry and keep the rest for when others go down. Also, healing spirits is still great even after the nerf.
I played in a game that lasted up to level 15 (we only stopped playing due to the pandemic). I came up with such a disgustingly optimized cleric/druid healer build that the DM had to adjust his encounter balance depending on whether I was playing or not. Pre-nerf healing spirit was such a broken thing, almost as much as the goodberries I created with my remaining spellslots at the end of the day curing with all my bonuses. There was no point in bothering with shutdown and crowd control effects when we could all just rush priority targets, eating up attacks of opportunity and ignoring minions entirely. But other than this extremely niche case, even if I got to play with it first hand, I have to agree that healing is only worth it to bring people back from the brink in most combats.
Celestial warlock main / divine soul sorcerer is a great combo for healing. Bonus action distance healing, sanctuary, healing word while you still use your action for eldritch blast. Has been fantastic.
I personally love healing word for emotional reasons. making an attack role or forcing a saving throw has a margin of failure, but you can't miss with healing and buff spells. I've warmed to bane, but in general I favor bless. I don't know if that's optimal, but its optimal in terms of enjoying the game. as such I tend pick a strong offensive action and pair it with healing word as an option. paladins and divine warlocks are great for this, and some cleric builds as well.
Bless is far more optimal than Bane. A lot of time you can get everyone in your party (three other people) or most of your party and hang back, giving them a bonus D4 on all saves and attack rolls. That helps especially if something happens to said teammate that would make them suddenly incur disadvantage. What a lot don't realize also is bless helps with death saves. Once you bring an enemy to 0 they are 'dead' but when a teammate is brought to 0, they get a bonus d4 on their roll. Pretty much, it almost ensures that the enemy WILL have to drop everything to attack that person to actually kill them, meanwhile a d20 + a D4 on just the stock roll ensures they will easily live long enough for a healing word to come around, or some other form of healing.
It's situational. A buffed party member has an advantage against multiple enemies. A debuffed enemy gives an advantage to the entire party. It all depends on how many enemies there are and their relative threat levels. Generally bless is gonna serve you better though, especially when upcast to give everyone an advantage against every enemy lol.
The charachter I am playing right now, has a fear of losing her allies and friends. She is a paladin. She saved many of her allies with her aura, her interception fighting style and the lay on hands feature. I also have cure wounds prepeared at the moment, but I don't think I've ever used it (I just had space after the last ASI to prepare more spells)
I'm playing a very similar character, interception, heavy armour master, and lay on hands. We don't have a main healer, interception and HAM does so much work reducing damage its much better than healing.
@@SaintAndrew921 For us HAM wouldn't be worthy. It doesn't help against a dragon's breath, the wizards fireball, the rouge landing on the aarakocra ranger making both of them fall down. Yeah our playstyle is wild, dumb and wildly stupid.
The best support/healer iv played and enjoyed was a Glamor Bard in a long running campaign. Mainly doing control spells and damage mitigation by giving a LOT of temporary hitpoints. using your inspiration to give the whole party temp hitpoints and repositioning is a lot more impactful that some think. At 5th lvl with 20 cha, you can use it up to 5 times 5 targets get 8 temp hp and may reposition. that's 40 extra HP to the party with every use, letting you mitigate up to 200 damage with your 5 inspiration uses. And giving people the option to reaction, move their speed without provoking saved a few bad situations too. Its an bonus action, not a spell so you can still cast big spells. And then always having a pocket healing word to pull up anyone dying.
Saved countless lifes doing exactly this. Harengon glamour bard with alert feat means i was pretty much the 1st to take a turn on most combat. Mantle of glamour to reposition allies and hipnotic pattern carried us till late game.
@@TheGodPoing My bard was also a Harengon and picked up alert at lvl 8. Well started as a Unearth arcane Rabbitfolk and updated to a Harengon as it released halfway trough the campain. Played trough the full Descent into avernus with her, ending up as a half celestial angelic bunny bard with the campain climax. Was an amazing campain that took over a year
My favorite out of combat healing spell on my druid is Aura of Vitality, now that Tasha's added it to their spell list. Would never cast it in combat This also reminds me of a dnd personality who made Healing Word worthless in their games by making it so the recipient has to be able to hear the spell, which unconscious characters can not
Wizard casts Power word: kill. Deafened character is immune because "healing word broken if it heals things that can't hear". Blindness/Deafness stocks somehow go up.
Probably worth mentioning that often one of the best ways to heal in combat is to just let the player drop, then pick them back up with Healing Word. All the overkill damage is wasted on a low-health character, so in some sense you really can match 50-damage attacks with your 5-damage heal. In terms of action economy, you're giving up a bonus action so someone else can theoretically have a full turn.
I was talked into playing a healer in a pathfinder campaign. pretty much the same story there as in DnD from what I gather. I was a first timer so I reluctantly chose to play a halfling cleric. I picked my domains from some homebrew stuff I found online and my cleric disliked healing. He would save people in a pinch but that was about it. My domains focused on luck, giving me nice abilities like touch of luck and chaos, basically giving someone I touch 2 rolls on D20s for a turn and pick the better/worse option. pretty neat, especially when your cleric has a gambling problem... the character was super fun in the end, becoming truly committed to the ways of chaos, encouraging others to take chances on random things and getting gifted a staff by a quirky little demon that has random effects on use, ranging from making an area smell of farts, over tying someones laces to on rare occasions dealing fire or poison damage. I did accidentally get our bard killed by enticing him to draw from a magical deck, resulting in an aspect of death being summoned that bard had to fight to the death, which was not very fun and not what I wanted, but ultimately bard didn't like his class anymore and was happy making a new character
I had to explain this to some good friends who I am DMing. They play a lot of MMOs and I was like, "You realize in an MMO your resources regenerate passively, where in DnD they require an active decision by the party?" I will note though, a tip for low level healing: If you somehow have nothing you are concentrating on then use the ready action. If you are unfamiliar with the ready action then go read the PHB. It is in actions in combat section. When you ready a spell you have to pick a trigger. In the example in the video Kobold suggests one component is if you are healing to save an ally's turn. If you use the ready action and specified "if my ally falls unconscious" then you would have delayed your cast until after your ally is popped, cast healing word, and reserved their turn. There is a lot of good stuff you could be using instead, and if you have concentration tied up it becomes a question of which spell you concentrate with. When you ready a spell you concentrate on that spell. Something to keep in mind. I think we need to talk more about ready actions though, as they can be invaluable in scenarios where opponents are ducking in and out of cover or are entering the field on a mount, using a ranged attack and retreating. I may have been training my players with these specific scenarios in our current campaign.
As I was in a party of 6 players, our line up was: Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Rouge, and myself a Sorcerer. We didn't really have any healers since our Paladin was mostly our tank and didn't usually heal, so as myself as a Sorcerer, our DM was nice enough to lend me, with my proficiency with Herbalism kit and Alchemist Tools, to create potions and tonics to heal us, as well as I took the Healer Feat as soon as possible. Now with our line up, my Sorcerer would be running around asking who got hurt after a fight and would bandage everyone up, and then give potions to use for in-battle healing the next time they got into a fight. I wasn't too good at the healing part since I also didn't choose Divine Soul since I didn't know we didn't have a healer, but I decided to gradually choose that role so I could still be support.
Aid, if for some reason you didn't cast it early in the adventuring day, is also a great in-combat healing option if at least one person is downed and even better if more than one person is downed. Though, as with any healing spell, you need to be mindful of the turn order since downed allies will be conscious-but-prone until their turn. Readying your action can be useful in these cases. An upcasted Aid plus out-of-combat recovery via short rests, Aura of Vitality, Healing Spirit, Goodberry, etc. will likely provide more effective healing throughout the day, assuming the targets of Aid heal back to full, than any in-combat healing short of the actual Heal spell. Bonus if you combine it with Extended Spell metamagic either via Metamagic Adept or just being a Sorcerer (both Clockwork and Divine Soul have access to Aid) so it lasts 16 hours instead of 8 hours so it literally lasts the whole day unless you pull an all-nighter.
I really enjoy playing a Divine Soul sorcerer with Beacon of Hope on the whole party-- It's rare that I cannot keep everyone topped up between twinned/distant casts and maxed out dice.
I also love the Glamour bard. You move your barbarian front liner closer to the back line mobs while giving him a bunch of temps to survive running through it. Saying, use your reaction to reposition yourselves ala fire emblem dancer is huge and the temps are icing on the tactical cake.
This is a good observation. I've played a number of druids and bard builds. I always describe it as a "Don't die" type healer and usually only cast on unconscious players. Because your right, it usually only takes one hit for them to be down again.
Best kind of healing we've got is, "proactive healing", IMO. Stuff like Aid, temporary hit points, and damage reduction. Giving your fellow players long term buffs will often help more in combat precisely because you can use more turns on damage.
I need a healer genuinely just means "I need someone who has Healing Word in case I get down" Healing is mostly just to keep Action Economy when someone gets down, if a player goes down and nobody can heal then having them being completely removed from play for hours is rough. Though the Nine Hells and Undead (which can often carry instant kills like finger of death or disintegrate) make it so pumping healing output can matter
0:18 You can absolutely play a tank effectively, but most DM's will not allow it due to the stigma against Magic Resistance... A Yuan-ti Oath of Ancients Paladin is the single most effective tank in the game. They have double Death Ward, Magic Resistance, Resistance to Magical Damage, Immunity to Poison, Heavy Armor+Shield+ of Faith+Fighting Style AC, and a d10 hit die. Lategame when AC is less important, they can also swap Shield of Faith for Stoneskin. Plus they're a Paladin, so they have a massive burst heal for themselves, and Smiting a few times can make it obvious that you need dealt with to any intelligent enemies, thus drawing aggro...
To become a non-magical battle-medic by level 5. Variant Human or Custom Lineage (to get Healer Feat), Rogue 3 (Thief for Fast Hands)/Fighter 2 (for Action Surge) and grab a healer's kit. You can now get 3 unconscious party members back up in a single turn. Use Healer's action to restore 1d6 + 4 hit points to it, plus additional hit points equal to the creature's maximum number of Hit Dice to another target, and then use Action Surge to do it again to another. Finally, bonus action regular use of healers kit (thanks to Thief's "Fast Hands") to stabilize a third downed ally and even restore a single hit-point (thanks to healer feat), getting them at least back up in the action. While it might not be the most optimal use of an action surge or feat, I just think it's a really neat interaction that doesn't even require you to divert your normal ASI progression to utilize.
Warding bond on my high HP cleric of life is actually pretty decent healing. I take some of the damage for my party, and heal both of us back up with a single spell. Of course I dont recieve very much healing from this, but I have twice the health of some of our dps so its very helpful for drawn out fights.
i'm about to start a campaign as a life cleric and i definitely needed to see this video. gotta remember to heal more often after a battle rather than during it (unless it's necessary to save a dying PC)
Artificer can also heal if you try hard enough. There’s a feature at level 11 that can let you store a spell (from 1st-2nd level) in an object after a long rest. You can cast it based on double your intelligence modifier. If you have max intelligence, that’s like 10 spells. So, if you put cure wounds on it after a long rest, that’s 10 cure wounds. There might be a better spell option, but if you want a healing artificer, that’s a thing. Oh, and maybe choose Alchemist or Battle Master as subclass to maximize your healing.
I actually pulled healer off quite well. One of the most important effects I found is "Beacon of Hope". That allowed me to keep everyone alive through a boss fight that we had no business winning. We went into the fight at level 9, full health and everything. By the time we finally dragged the boss down, I had 2 1st level slots left, my aasimir touch heal (heal a target for my level once/rest, so +9), and that's it. Nobody in the party had more than a quarter of their health pools left, four of the nine were unconscious, and I put probably upwards of 250 points of healing through on my teammates. Both channel divinities I had were expended. Now, I grant it was a custom class I made (combat medic. Designed to do one thing and one thing only) but I'm confident I could have pulled that with the cleric if I needed to. The DM flat out said he should have attacked me first, because without me the group was screwed. I'll grant the roles somewhat depend on the campaign design. I've played all the roles, but it varies widely based on the design of the campaign. If a fight can be won in two rounds, dpr is great. If it's an extended fight against an enemy with a large health pool, strong defense and high damage throughput, a tank and/or healer becomes necessary to keep everyone alive.
Artificer alchemist with their experimental healing potion heals 2d4+ int. Better than most healing spells since you can make it using one lv.1 spell slot. Later you get restorative regents which gives an additional 2d6+int in temp hit points. You also can cast heal at level 14 once per long rest!
Also, the healer's best friends are the spells Aid and Hero's Feast and the feat Inspiring Leadership. You use those three at the beginning of the day (with the two spells cast at higher levels if possible), and boom, that's a fuck-ton of extra hit points that will probably keep your party alive.
but i want to be the healer* (*sometimes) one of my favorite characters was a divine sorcerer/ celestial warlock multiclass. basting in combination of healing and currently i play a life domain cleric. i also play a Rogue arcane trickster and in pathfinder i play a summoner both do DPS. sometimes the healer is a great archtype that you can use in story the sorlock was/is a changing healer in Eberon for the halfling healing house. while the life cleric is a disinherited noble trying to toughen up and was send to the hidden forest temple as a way to get I'm away from the elven prinses who he loves but families don't approve "'yet".
I actually want to make a healer summoner build. Backstory: an Eladrin child (24 chronological years of experience) got lost in the woods and loved the animals. After learning to speak with them, he made his way back to his family. Scared of losing him again, he was sent to a temple to become a Life Cleric (1 level dip). But he didn’t like it there, and escaped to the woods to become a Shepherd Druid. The basic idea for combat: So long as he doesn’t roll attacks and damage himself, Sanctuary stays up. Summon animals before or after-since it doesn’t affect an enemy or cause a damage roll-and order them to attack on your behalf. Use Healing Word or other healing to keep them alive, and both the Life Cleric dip and the Unicorn Spirit boost and shares the healing. I plan to ask the DM if I can Conjure animals I defeat myself or via summoned beasts. So no free velociraptors, but if he has us fight them I can collect their claws as a material component.
one point, to see how far this goes... I played a Life Cleric who used zero direct damage spells just to see how it goes... I still made a Wyvern fall from the sky by having its wings restrained to have it take fall damage, but I never directly attacked... it's an interesting experience I recommend trying at least once... or at least seeing it happen within the group
I damn near made it though an entire campaign without taking the attack action as an order cleric. It is an experience! Story drove me to change sub class though.
Divine Soul sorcerer is hands down my favorite class, for free access to Healing Word alone. You get to blast with your main action, and healing word when necessary to get people off the ground. I've also been itching to play an Alchemist artificer, because they get a SUPER buffed Healing Word (1d4+int+int again with Alchemical Savant, at level 5) while again, still being able to blast with hard hitting Firebolts (adding their int mod to damage.)
My favorite healer build is a multiclass between Life Domain Cleric 1/Circle of the Shepherd Druid (all the other levels). With this build, you get the Disciple of Life for your healing but can throw down an aura that doesn't have to be centered on you where EVERYONE gets healed. I've had games where, as a 6th level character, I was healing an average of 39 points total (accounting for everyone that got healed) per round.
im currently playing a shepherd druid in a campaign with a warlock, monk, and rogue. ive taken on effective party tank and healer. the spirit totem is not a feature to sleep on. being able to heal your entire party for a little splash of health every turn is super useful as a reactive tool during combat or the bear totem option is a great opener to give everyone a decent chunk of temp hp. this feels super good on a druid because once ive exhausting healing or we're close enough to the end of combat i still have wild shape, shilleigh, primal savagery, and enhance ability (super sleeper its one of my favorite spells in the game please pay attention to enhance ability) to transition into being able to aide in dealing damage. shepherd druid is super good, scales super hard with its healing, and still has the base platform of druid to go off of. if your dm isnt against a little party buildcrafting we've had a blast running three squishies and myself as the mega healer. also wow way of the shadow monk plus any rogue class is insane
How did you not mention circle of the shepard at all. It is the one subclass that can come close to MMO like healing. Plus the summons get the bonus of acting as HP Shields and action economy buffs for the party. I am currently playing one with 1 lvl dip into life domain cleric and i have not trouble keeping the party healthy through some insane fights.
Gonna be real this opened my eyes when it comes to healing and stuff. I gotta say though if it weren’t for the fact that I was asked or overheard that the party needed a healer (and me being the person that I am that feels the need to fulfill specific roles in stuff like this) I wouldn’t have created two beloved characters of mine that I still have today. But good to know that I don’t necessarily need to do that all the time and also now I know what I can do better in combat instead of panic healing someone only for them to get bodied the next turn.
Secondary question: When do you remove debuffs? A blinded controller? A paralyzed wizard? Are these guys at the unconscious level effectively? What about something less dangerous but crippling like a rogue with the poison status? They can't sneak attack (without hiding to negate the disadvantage, and then they need a 5 foot ally), and non thieves can't even benefit from the double item action economy. Is getting my rogue to sneak attack worth my second level spell slot and action/positioning? Or should I move into melee/spirit guardians, and yell at them to hide to negate the disadvantage (but prevent them from doing their one attack roll at advantage) I guess I should say, I always see these healing arguments, but less coverage for the ailments.
My favourite healing spell is Aid. Not only does it work is a multi-target ranged heal in combat, you can also spell trick it and increase the HP of allies BEFORE you have the encounter. It is awesome. The number of times we have ended combat, looked at our sheets and said "wow, that extra 5/10 hp made all the difference" is numerous.
If you really want to use slots, for me the best thing to do is use Healing Word to make sure your partner doesn't die from death saves, and life cleric goodberry is silly, but fun.
A DM could always give you enough combats during the day that a party can’t recuperate hit dice. Especially considering you only recover half hit dice on a long rest. If every day is multiple grueling combats, you won’t be able to only use short rests for HP.
The roles in 5e are single target dpr aoe dpr control caster and buffer. Healing is part of the buffer role. The best healers are the ones with goodberry and out of combat healers
In dnd playing healer is very hard i agree, but something i love is solasta has a subclass for druid that makes being a healer so fun to me, its a class that makes any healing you do then heal the person equal to your class level upon their turn beginning, so like a a lv 10 druid casting mass healing word would have the base 1d4+modifier. But then on each of their turns would recieve an additional 10 hit points (very nice ability to me)
First time playing DND I played a life cleric to try fill the role of party healer because I’m used to that role in other games. After awhile I realized hey I could either use a cure wounds/healing word which heals for either 1d8 + Wis or 1d4 + Wis then with disciple of life which was ok or I could deal 4d6 damage and give the next attack on a creature advantage with my guiding bolt which is only a first level spell. I ended up leaning more towards dealing damage especially with spirit guardians and also multi-classing with paladin for some extra support/DPS with vengeance paladin’s abilities and spells included with lay on hands for small burst if I don’t want to healing word
I strongly recommend the healer feat. A custom lineage rogue with healer fundamentally changed the game for us. It meant our druid didn't need to save slots to keep people alive. It provides enough healing at almost no resource cost that out of combat you can top people up and keep them comfortable for each encounter. It scales really well and stays relevant for most of the game. The rogue as well has the ability to move into and out of harms way to apply it in combat if needed (still not a great use of your action).
3:00 You're absolutely right about this comparison but I don't think duration should be taken at face value like that. No combat will last 10 minutes. If you plan well, you could have 2 or maybe even 3 combat encounters within that duration but you can't treat it as a full 100 rounds of value.
From some experience as a cleric with both of these, I’ve often found it comes down to ‘okay, do I go spirit guardians for the potential multiple fights or aura of vitality for the guarantee it’ll get its full effect regardless of future combats’
I've only ever used Aura of Vitality once in combat as a battlesmith and even then it was a situational pick since It would keep the fighter and bard in the fight till their turn even though they'd be knocked down right after. Out of combat it's been way more useful. 70 hp on average divided up between the party as needed is great at getting whoever was unfortunate enough to be targeted in the fighr back up to mid/full hp.
Thanks for the advice. In a future campain, I'm playing a lizardfolk fighter/cleric named Uraka. Frankly, he's less likely to heal someone and more likely to fight firsthand. I'm leaning more towards the cleric side for him than fighter. I felt like what you said fits really well with his personality. Thanks :)
Kobold, what about Life Transference? As a wizard, I seldom take any damage and with my high con score, I got quite a bit of HP. I could use artificer's cure wounds to bring my downed paladin back up, but I'm wondering if a third level spell slot and taking 18 average damage can be worth healing for double that amount. It's half a Heal spell and those 36 HP could go a long way. I don't think it's worth preparing, so I'll just write a scroll for rainy days (I'm a scribe which is S Class because scrolls can't be counterspelled and I got them on the back of my shield) but I'm not sure it's optimal because I might lose concentration on a spell I'm using, but on the other hand it's teamwork. Enlighten me with the bless of your pack tactic!
It's also a good idea to carry around a healing potion if it's not too much of a hassle, especially for characters that are bad at stabilizing. Maybe the guy with healing word is the one who needs to be saved, or he's dead and someone else is on the ground.
I once played a Goblin Wildfire Druid, who does get some nice bonuses to healing as well as dishing out fire damage, but I really took advantage of my herbalism kit to craft healing potions on our travels and hand them out to the party in case I can't heal them for some reason.
Healing also becomes more valuable the less damage you take. Having and Artillerist artificer or Twilight cleric providing temp HP every round to the entire party, a paladin improving everyone's saves so they succeed more often, or things like HAM directly reducing damage by a small amount; any and all of these can stretch out your HP so that each point healed lasts quite a bit longer. Basically, by itself healing isn't that strong, but when combined with anything that reduces damage taken, the effect becomes multiplicative, and more so if you _also_ have a way to boost your healing, e.g. a Life cleric. Just as an example, if you can cut damage in half, that means your healing is about 2x as effective. If you can also double how much you heal for, now it's 4x as effective. If you add in generating temp HP regularly that further reduces real HP damage by half, now healing is 8x as effective. Suddenly, the healing that looked lackluster before is now quite strong.
Celestial Warlocks are deeply underated support healers, IMHO. Doubly so at low level play. 60f & bonus action gives you a LOT of flexibility in topping people off via Healing Light while also throwing out some damage, before your team goes down in the first place. And one of your bonus spells is Cure Wounds, and that spell scales really well with Warlock style spell slots if you have any left-over near a short-rest.
Honestly probably the best way to heal without needing to be a full healer is getting proficiency in a Herbalism kit. This allows you to make a healing potion for half price and one day of not doing much. So any time skips and using a bit of extra spending cash and you can stock up your whole party with potions. Most DMs I have met let you drink a potion for a bonus action (Or sometimes a free action/ part of your attack action) so it makes it easier to think about using a potion cause you don't have to worry about things like spell slots or the action economy while still giving out heals. In my current campaigns I am playing a Alchemist Artificer and a Way of Mercy Monk. Mercy monk's healing is meh and Artificer is a half caster which makes healing a lot rougher. But thanks to those giving Herbalism kit Prof now I just make sure my party is stocked up with like 1-3 healing potions each and they can heal on their own time. Works well in and out of combat while still feeling like it can make a difference without messing with you character's actual skills like Monk's Stunning Strike.
I just used a Twilight Domain Cleric/Circle of Stars Druid with Beacon of Hope to maximize healing and when we were all almost dead, I had everything set up with Twilight sanctuary and put out heals. We were back at max HP within 3 turns while the BBEG we fought was very angry with me.
I play an artillerist in my friends' Curse of Strahd Campaign and holy crap does the Protector cannon have insane amounts of value. Even on just one person, granting 1d8 + int mod temp hp per round as a BONUS ACTION is just so nice. Not to mention that it can do it to your ENTIRE PARTY if they're in range. It's absolutely wild. It trivializes low level mobs and means we can tank through a lot of encounters without much fear.
The best way to play support is to make sure creatures don't hit at all. Try this support build out for size: Luck Build Lore bard/Divination Wizard/Wild Sorcerer, pick up the Lucky Feat, halfling if you want. Use cutting words to stop an ally from getting hit by an attack. Use Portent to make anything with dice that you want to happen. Bend Luck to make someone fail or succeed a roll. Lucky to protect yourself Use your cantrips to give an enemy disadvantage on attack or saving throws Use your spells to heal people at 0 hp Use control spells Buff your party Use dissonant whispers to force enemies to provoke from allies. The best way to heal someone from taking damage is to stop them from taking damage in the first place. To support someone it isn't just healing, it is to help your entire party. This build is also completely just using the phb, though does require multiclassing. You could add other classes to it though, more subclasses have came around that work like this. A good way roleplaying it is just being Lucky, Lucky is your magic. And it can rub off on people around you.
You can definitely make a tank in 5e if you understand how to use mechanics to incentivize enemies to attack you. There sadly isn't a lot of versatility in the role because of how few classes have an ability that effectively taunts the enemies around you, but it does exist.
My DM plays with a brutal but effective house rule to improve the importance of healing and reduce the abuse of 1hp spam: a player's hp reaching zero incurs one level of exhaustion Changes the whole dynamic of healing
One way to encourage healing via rules changes could be to actually add some temporary bonus to characters who've been healed. Imagine: a character healed by magic gains the extra action described in the Haste spell for one turn. Something similar is found in the Order domain.
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Funnily I will argue the 'paladin' is a better healer then cleric, druid & bard if no 'good berry life domain' shenanigan's.
A paladins 'lay on hands offer 5 times your lv translating to 5-100 out of combat Hp for those that need it.
Combine lay on hands with the 'inspiring leader' feat for THP of 1-25 but realistically 3-23 though level progression for 6 party members.
At say lv 10 in a 4 member party that is 50hp +(12/13x4)THP=50+48/52=98/102 points
102 points is more then about the same if not slightly more then the health pool of martial on average.
You have effectively added another members health to the party with out using a any slots & 1 feat while still being a martial 1/2 caster.
Paladins can be above average DPS & healing with potential to be a tank.
Only thing more powerful then a paladin is a well made bard or controller wizard.
Ceric are powerful but healing is a trap much like druids.
You can make insane cleric & druids but most go down the wrong avenues of builds.
@@arnijulian6241 Okay, I hear you, but have you considered:
Level 9 Spirit Guardians.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pile of corpses that have been desiccated by the damned souls of the undead spirits under your command.
ignore healing and go full dps, got it :'v
Thank you for the shout out to norwegians! Det var en koselig overraskelse! You really sound like a native speaker, if you are native to Norway then that's really cool. It you are not a native speaker then that's all the more impressive🤩
"Healer" means "has Revivify and Healing Word", lol. If they can bring an Extended AoV, all the better, but I really want the first two.
Don't forget Polymorph!
Hey billbrons miss you 😘
@@mitojomar7011 Thanks, just taking a break, but will be putting up new stuff soon!
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons take as much time as you need
@@Samuel_Kabel Polymorph is the best healing spell in the game. I convinced my DM that I could Polymorph allies who were downed to get them back up and kicking. Not really sure if that's possible or makes sense but... "YOU HAVE HP NOW! STOP SLEEPING!".
The Grave Domain’s 1st-level feature “Circle of Mortality” guarantees the highest possible healing output when you target a creature at 0 HP. That makes Grave Clerics incredibly efficient when healing in short bursts.
I love using high level spell slots on cure wounds as my grave cleric for this reason, it's so fun. I also knock out party members outside of combat so prayer of healing is more effective as well haha
@@KodasGarden is like, sorry, but not sorry *YOINK*
i think warlock with pact of the chain also has an invocation for maxxing out the healing dice, but you need to pick celestial pact to get good use of it (healing light feature and cure wounds from expanded spell list)
How often do people actualy get to zero hp? Or does it matter if their negative 3-12 if that is even possible?
@@KegstandOGIf you listen to the video it’s the most optimal play. Healing while having hp is garbage. You can’t have less then 0 hp.
How to heal:
-Be Cleric
-Cast Hypnotic Pattern or Fireball
-Congratulations no one needs to heal
-Profit
In theory, sure! In practice, gotta keep party members up and ready for combat.
@@markd.9042 in practice, gotta end combat before teammates get downed.
@@markd.9042 In practice, you heal a unconscious party member for 4HP, the goblin hit the member for -10HP and fall unconscious again. And you heal, they hit, you heal, they hit. Then you ran out of spell slots, they start to beat you down. Party TKO. (Real story)
The classic spend-all-your-spell-slots-and-actions-on-healing character might not be optimal, but it's actually a good way for an inexperienced player who enjoys that playstyle to contribute to the group in *some* way. It's consistent and it's simple.
That said, people need to stop pressuring other people into the role. My favorite healers are Celestial Warlock and Mercy Monk because they get to heal per short rest, which is extremely efficient for out-of-combat healing. In combat though, you're right that it's optimal to prevent harm rather than to heal.
Healer is one of my favorite feats for the same reason.
Agreed. My favorite role is support/healer in pretty much every multiplayer game I play, DND included, but in DND it's always better to heal after a fight
If you wanna do Support, make a character that can prevent the enemy from killing people and focus heals after the fight.
I'm a firm believer that healing abilities in d&d should be about as powerful as Twilight Sanctuary. People say it's a broken ability but I feel like it's only really broken in comparison to other healing abilities because they're all extremely weak and lackluster. Healing should be noticable and should be about keeping your friends standing longer instead of just barely keeping them away from the pearly gates of heaven while not being a waste of a turn, and that's exactly what Twilight Sanctuary does
@@nyxislost553 Yeah absolutely honestly
Only real issue is if you give it to enemies it'll probably fuck things right up
Healer in DnD is more like: runs the defibrillator and casts support like bless, banish, or spirit guardians.
The MMO spamming heal on the tank just isn't how this game functions. Tanking barely works since enemies don't have agro like in videogames, they can actually strategize and taking out the wizard spamming disintegrate is much more important than the barb that litterally can not die right now.
Edit: spelling
And you need someone with revive magic. That's the actual reason to have a cleric or druid in the party
I have to say though, that if your looking at druid subclasses that improve healing, cricle of the shepherd is in my experience really valuable. The Unicorn Spirit Totem heals all allies within 30ft of it for a number of hp equal to your druid level whenever you cast a healing spell. You don't need to be near the totem at all for this to work either. This means that at level 20, if you have a party of 5, you can heal 100hp total by just casting healing word.
Don't forget all the animals you summoned! Shepherd Druid thrives on Conjure Animals. Healing Word becomes veryyyy valuable with Unicorn Totem.
Also the level 14 ability is in my opinion one of the coolest in the whole game
@@timswarts2615 100%
And if you’re doing a multi class with ranger then you can just use healing word and have your action still free for your multi attack. Planning to do this in the campaign I’m playing in actually
3 levels of star druid (chalice form) the rest as life Cleric. Bonus to heals from Cleric and choose additional creature to heal with druid. You can have healing spirit up as a bonus action for a minute and focus on attacking while auto healing and just concentration on the spell. You can heal everyone up really fast this way after combat too along with goodberries giving the same benefits 🥰
I’d also suggest keeping in mind that you should heal if having your target going down would have them drop a very important spell concentration or limited ability like Rage.
Quick tip for spirit guardians:
It does NOT make difficult terrain!
Difficult terrain makes every foot of movement cost twice as much.
Spirit guardians halves the speed of enemies.
What's the difference?
If a creature with 30ft speed walks up 15ft and enters spirit guardians, their speed is now 15ft, which they have already traveled. Therefore the can't move.
This makes the spell fantastic for kiting.
Edit: typo spotted, and corrected, thanks
That depends on how the DM rules it. I can see your way but personally I would half what movement they have when they enter the zone. Still amazing at kiting though.
I always hated that mechanic because they could walk 15 ft out of the zone and suddenly have their remaining 15 ft as if nothing had happened. It never occurred to me it was so effective in the other direction!
@@clonedgoodness yh, just walk back afterwards
It also stacks with Difficult Terrain
I really am astonished how many People do not get this - it's basic Synergy to combine it with something creating Difficult terrain.
Same goes for Spike Growth and Grease and such spells - often you can combine them.
Best healing option is Polymorph, you already explained this in a previous video.
Ah yes, the ultimate healing spell, just turn the almost dead barb into a trex and suddenly heal up by like 150HP. And when the trex is killed they have all their resources from before the transformation. (Plus its ranged, no other healing spell heals that much, and certainly not at range)
Its only downside is that you should have permission to change your friends character on them before doing it. (Its generally accepted when really low on hp and they are already a melee class)
Just buy Health Potions... Lots of health potions...
That’s why I love trickery domain cleric.
For party optimization, it is important to have at least one or two members that can heal people. Healing Word as an ability that lets you get your friends straight back up and into the fight is optimal because downed party members are not having fun. Having one party member go down to a lucky crit or such and then having to pull their body around the rest of the day because you can't bring them back SUCKS (yeah that happened to me)
luckily, 5e is pretty flexible and pretty much every class has healing options. Clerics Druids and Bards are full casters with healing spells. Rangers get goodberry and healing word, Paladins have lay on hands. Artificers have healing spells. Wizards have familiars capable of feeding potions (which can do so with prepared actions to smuggle the healing past a monsters turn). Marshals can always carry a couple healing potions for a pinch, and a thief rouge with the healers feat is a force to be reckoned with.
Amount of healing rarely matters, just the presence of it. The idea of playing a "dedicated healer" barely applies to 5e, but having several people with some sort of healing can keep your party moving.
Just a note, you heal 1 hp 1d4 hours after being stabilized if you're still at 0hp
For artificers, their healing is pretty much JUST Cure Wounds. Spare the Dying too lmao, but also Revivify. Other than that, it's just condition spells like Lesser/Greater Restoration.
C can x
@@AnaseSkyrider ro be fair those 3 are the big ones, they are the defibrillator and don't die completely spells. And due to dnd health mechanics thats all you really need.
Another interesting and weird thing is that crafting healing potions is basically impossible in dnd, or atleast is a very suboptimal use of downtime and you would get better returns running any buisness and buying potions directly instead of crafting them for half cost and 2days a pop for basic potions. (A trading company would probably be the most effective, especially as you open up contacts to new markets to buy from outside of your local kingdom/cities)
@@jasonreed7522
I'll hire a Cleric...
So I’ve played two ‘healer clerics’ from level 1 to level 20 and I’ve learned that you can actually do a ‘healer’ role but it’s a lot of work. I usually have all my allies max health written down and also how much damage they take. I also write down how much damage enemies do. Using all this determines who I heal and makes me an effective healer
At my tables we found the inevitable yo-yoing of optimal healing to be silly. Now going unconscious causes a level of exhaustion, and is something you want to avoid if possible. We also buffed various healing options: cure wounds now starts at 2d8, and healing word starts at 2d4. Also, when you're healed magically, you can expend a number of hit dice up to your con mod to recover more HP, but don't add your con mod to each of those die rolls (so if you have a +3 con and are a paladin, you could roll up to 3d10 hit dice, for an average of 16.5, not 25.5).
That exhaustion rule is interesting. Still 100% effective from full health to 1, but as soon as you drop to 0 the first time you lose effectiveness. I can see why you need to buff healing for it to work tho.
Do you do the same for mercy monk?
@@Therobin3a We haven't had a mercy monk at our tables yet. We very well might, I think it would be touch-and-go.
@@sildinis I think it's part of viewing HP largely as stamina with some actual damage mixed in, with a hit rendering one unconscious as an actual somewhat debilitating one. Going unconscious is no joke, unlike in the movies. It will severely impair your function; I get that magic can handwave away the effects of going unconscious, but I'd like for some consequence for it.
Yep, at my tables dropping to 0 gives a level of exhaustion. It makes a huge difference - players actively take steps to prevent going down.
Hearing Kobold speak Norwegian and naturally understanding it as I am Swedish had me sitting here getting whiplash because I wasn't expecting it to come around all of a sudden.
I felt some whiplash too being norwegian, but not getting it instantly so I had to listen again. Not sure if its some dialect my basic Oslo ass doesn't get, someone just learning now or straight up danish
As someone who speaks no Norwegian i got whiplash from the sudden "But Kobald!" In plain English in the middle of otherwise "general germanic sounds" with subtitles that for all i know was gibberish.
Is it Norwegian?
@@arkonos4406 he said "now we are here in good old norway" at one point
As a multiclassing enthusiast, I have to mention aid. Cure wounds is trash, but if you can reduce the likelihood of a hit taking someone down it’s very much worth it vs. using your in combat action to heal instead of raining divine fury.
Also for good temp hp classes, I really got a lot of mileage out of the glamour bard mantle of inspiration ability for the same reason, and also helps get the party better set for only a bonus action and a bardic inspiration.
As someone who played a high level cleric for most of a recent campaign I too can speak for the value of an upcasted aid. If we were in a spot where needing more health there was no substitute for having 30-40 extra health going into the fight, or just having 3 people's current health totals increase by that much mid combat in an emergency. It's an extremely powerful and versatile spell that I don't think get's enough credit.
I metamagic duration aid on my sorcerer for 16 hours duration pre-long rest. Also inspire leadership feat
Also, if you desperately need a lot of health on one person in a short time, but don't have access to high level spells like Heal yet, upcasting Aid on one person can be pretty solid. Persistent magical effects don't stack, so the max HP boost only applies with the first Aid effect, but nothing in the rules says that the second part of the spell doesn't apply. Aid increases max HP by essentially 5x(SpellLevel - 1), but then it heals the target's current health by that much. This means a 4th level Aid casting all 3 parts on one target grants 15 to their max HP, then heals for 45 to their current HP. A player who is at 0/50 will jump to 45/65 in one action. No rolls required, at a range. If they're expecting to get hit before their turn comes up, this can be huge.
As for Glamour Bards, Mantle of Inspiration is so damn good. You can hand out free temp HP to up to 5 people, then, if they want to use their reaction, they can run up to their movement speed without provoking opportunity attacks. I have combined these two before, using my action to save downed players, then used my bonus action to give temp HP AND let them get up from prone and move half of their movement (after getting up used the other half) so they could get to more advantageous positioning. I've also cast fly on our absolute monster of a Hexblade Paladin and then used Mantle of Inspiration to let him cover 60 feet before his turn even started, getting him into melee with the enemy casters and archers from round one, lol. College of Glamour is so good.
aura of vitality on a life cleric .... literally the best option for healing. (also take meta magic adept for extend spell and you can heal your party faster then short rests can.((40d6 of healing+life domain bonuses out of combat in 2 min for a 3rd level slot and 1 sp) in combat is only takes a BA and is a round by round heal to someone)
My group has a life cleric with aura of vitality, and it feels like an MMO. We have ended multiple deadly CR fights with almost full health. Out of resources, but great HP.
The fact that a character is the same efficiency at 100% as they are at 1% health means healing will always be less valuable. Cause using your actions to heal is now taking away from winning the fight.
This is also a tricky concept for people to learn in Magic the Gathering too.
No it doesn't otherwise a healer wouldn't be needed in an MMO, it is about the Action Economy from the Heal.
If an enemy does 10 damage and you heal 10 Health you've done nothing but remove you and them from the battle.
If an enemy does 10 damage and you heal 15 Health then you denied the enemy's turn with benefit.
If an enemy does 10 damage and you heal 20 Health then you denied the enemy 2 turns.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 yeah a lot of people don’t get this. It’s also a waste to bring them back up if the enemy goes between you and the party member you bringing up. A lot of people don’t get that healing is the most complex role.
*laughs in orzhov
@@Buglin_Burger7878 no I think it’s more to do with the threat level of the monsters and the strength of the heal.
In World of Warcraft for example, the tank can survive being beat up on for like a minute, but the fight will take longer than that, so what your healing does is increase the time they can take that damage for.
On the flip side some enemies can do tons of damage in one hit with special abilities, in this case the healer wants to top off the tank because otherwise they’re gonna get one shot.
Dnd has neither of these factors, so healing is never important. Using your action to heal would be worth it if either of the above were true.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 Assuming the enemy goes after the same target and doesn't instead target the healer
Why jester was a great cleric
Also why you should have multiple people that can heal.
Healers in group: 0
People that can heal: all
"Healers in group: 0"
That's kinda shitting on Caduceus, but I see your point.
I'm in a party of seven right now, a rogue, a fighter, an artificer, a ranger with a cleric dip, a bard with a warlock dip, a paladin, and a mercy monk. Now that the rogue got a healing artifact, everyone but the fighter can heal and all of us are damage focused. Could really use a control caster, but whatever.
@@innocyte_ Grave Cleric is kind of the best for combat healing since their ability actually focuses on the most beneficial timing to heal someone while in combat and maximizes the impact from it.
@@innocyte_ my mistake I meant jester played how many should play cleric. Heal only when needed vs taking out opponents.
No body should be a "healer" but everyone should if possible be able to heal.
Is what I meant
@@jlaw131985 Cad and Jester definitely felt like optimal clerics.
Jester is "half a healer" is both a fun j9ke but also smart, killing enemies is more important that 1d4+2 healing every time. Especially with her control spells like pass without a trace, charm, comand, modify memories, banish, ect she was able to avoid and resolve fights saving so many more hit points in the long run.
And Cad's main ability is that he heals max value when someone is at 0HP which is the optimal time to heal, so he is double optimal at combat healing, which frees him up to also control cast. How many combats did they get a double spirit guardians, a double bless or a bless/bane combo and just contibute so much to fights.
Not to mention all the one off stuff they pulled, like jester casting the greed spell on all the zombies in the hag's swamp and next round turn undead as destroy undead. Or even just polymorph, both as fight avoidance and transportation as eagles.
I made a healer Paladin subclass. The aura was that whenever somebody healed (outside of your Lay on Hands) they healed an additional amount equal to your Charisma modifier. In roughly 5 turns of a level 20 one shot the character healed roughly 250 additional hit points.
I find Aura of Vitality pretty handy as a thing I can cast as a Moon Druid before going into Wild shape. Because I cannot cast anything in animal form and most wildshapes do not have a bonus action I'm literally doing damage and healing on my turn every round.
I should have thought of this, I have a shifter cleric who I may MC into (moon) Druid. Though the way I have it planned, I think it’s a little strong for the particular table.
Thanks. I typically play a Totem Barbarian2-5/Moon Druid, so rages normally mean I wont be doing anything useful with concentration, but that's a great idea for when Rages run out.
We found the only good use of AoV 🥳
I'm playing my first dedicated healer (Life Cleric). I've got most of the healing spells and buffing/protection spells, plus a few of the classic damage spells. I will definitely keep these tips in mind during our game.
You are absolutely right about the mechanical aspects you cover in this video. However, I think there is one point that can not be measured mechanically, and which I have observed when playing a healer in AL games. When in a tough fight, and a heavy hit lands on any character, many players consider their next move with a focus on defensive abilities - either boosting their own defense or helping their allies. When the character that took the heavy hit is healed for most (if not all or more) of the damage taken, players return to their focus of dealing with the enemy - something that many players optimize their characters for. It is always better to have the damage-optimized character free to do their damaging thing, rather than foregoing that in favor of a suboptimal defensive play. And that is was a dedicated healer build brings to the table - the synergy with other characters to allow them to do their cool/efficient thing. Luckily, one does not need to build exclusively with focus on healing to have powerful healing options - that's the challenge of building optimized damage builds. Best of all, it proved the point that D&D is optimal when working together as a party, rather than focusing on being optimal alone.
I feel like Healing Spirit needs to be changed to what it was intended to be, an effective in-combat healing option only. The errata made it useless. If it could only heal a character up to 50% or 75% of their maximum hit points, that would do what it was intended to do--keep people up. If a DM felt like it was still too powerful, they could be limited to 1+Spellcasting Modifier heals per round and/or give it some hit points to allow enemies to destroy it with mundane means, but I feel like this was the spell we needed for D&D in-combat healing, and they just got rid of it.
The best early healing is lay on hands. It's burst healing. Sure, it's limited to touch and you cannot use a familiar to deliver it, even if you obtain one (see: Variant familiars. Some creatures you meet may be willing to be familiars of yours), but its something that could be reliable healing in the end, altho it's almost always better on yourself.
Also, healers may not be needed but someone able to cast revival spells is.
Well, let this serve as a reminder you can always house rule to avoid mechanics that feel lame.
I myself love healers and hate how weak standard healing is. So I design my games so mid combat healing is not only viable, but recommended.
I also ban Resurrection.
As said, "if you and your friends are having fun, you win."
@@ArkansymBetter solution? Add back negative health. They hit -10 hp? Dead. Wanna make it more forgiving? They hit half their hp in negative health? Dead.
Another option for healing is Life Domain Cleric + Shepard Druid. The Unicorn totem spreads healing to a number of creatures to your choice in the effect of the totem, healing for your druid level. Which means if you use a healing word as a bonus action after having dropped the totem, you can heal 1d4+2+3(assuming 16 Wisdom), plus your druid level to everyone else in the field. Combine this with the Shepard's summoning abilities to bring in minions that pull aggro away from party members and being able to heal those minions and party members as well.
The build basically turns Healing Word into Mass Healing Word by level 4, and I think that's neat.
In my experience so far, theif rouge with the healer feat and accompanied kit is a good way to follow this video's advice. You can get Heals when u need them (and can potentially still have ur regular turn because of fast hands); still a damage dealer when u don't.
This also works for the UA Hadozee that will be official in the Spelljammer books. Hopefully they will keep their bonus action item usage because I'm really looking forward to using feet to assist patching someone up. Hold the gash together with the foot and sew it up with a hand. Totally sanitary, no medical concerns there.
Playing a Celestial Warlock… the 1d6 “healing light” feature as a bonus action is stronk. At L5 I have 6 die and I can roll them in groups if needed. Still best to use them per your check list but with 6 d6 per long rest as a bonus action, I can keep bringing the party up while spamming EB + agonizing blast while concentrating on Hypnotic Pattern.
I think thre to say on this subject, specifically about mitigation, temp hp, and effect removal. The Aid spell, the glamour bard's temp hp feature, and features that grant resistance are noteworthy. Effect removal or suppression can be accomplished with spells like Protection from Good/Evil, Lesser Restoration, Dispel Magic, Calm Emotions, Heroism, and Freedom of Movement. Effect removal is definitely in the category of 'turn preservation', which you do mention in the video.
Something else worth mention is that many recovery spells are touch based, which can make familiars useful if you can sneak one into your healing class with a Feat or one-dip multiclass. Crafting scrolls during downtime for action-recovery spells like those mentioned above can also help preserve spell slots, or allow other party members to perform spellcasting beyond their level.
The way I see it is that healing is helpful in combat during levels 1-3 then bad but then it becomes better around level 11 and up when you can basically full heal someone
One of my favorite "Healers" is the Chain Pact, E.Blaster, Celestial (Xanathar's) Warlock.
-Healing Light
At 1st level, you gain the ability to channel celestial energy to heal wounds. You have a pool of d6s that you spend to fuel this healing. The number of dice in the pool equals 1 + your warlock level. As a bonus action, you can heal one creature you can see within 60 feet of you, spending dice from the pool. The maximum number of dice you can spend at once equals your Charisma modifier (minimum of one die). Roll the dice you spend, add them together, and restore a number of hit points equal to the total. Your pool regains all expended dice when you finish a long rest.
-Celestial Resilience
Starting at 10th level, you gain temporary hit points whenever you finish a short or long rest. These temporary hit points equal your warlock level + your Charisma modifier. Additionally, choose up to five creatures you can see at the end of the rest. Those creatures each gain temporary hit points equal to half your warlock level + your Charisma modifier.
You end up with a blaster warlock than can be the party scout, party face, and party healer. Plus you get access to greater and lesser restoration and revivify.
Glad you mentioned Twilight Domain Cleric towards the end. My group relies upon ours quite heavily for temp hit points and those alone usually are enough to keep everyone up and fighting.
One way for healing spells to be relevant is with the spell beacon of hope. Having max healing from everything can be really good. Specially if there's another unit that can heal, like a druid of the stars, because beacon of hope maxes all healings. I have seen what a life cleric with beacon of hope can heal, and the guy was able to keep the whole party up against a difficult enemy and the enemy was doing a lot of damage per turn, since it was a battle of survive X number of rounds, but the cleric said "I can keep them alive forever", and the health points were going up and down so quickly that it was hard to keep up. Also, if there's someone with a familiar giving potions with max effect, it really feels great.
I'm in a group planning what's (hopefully) gonna be my first successfully started DnD campaign and I'm working on a Divine Soul Sorcerer who's *extremely* protective, so this video is proving a great inspiration for how to effectively play her that way in gameplay as opposed to just in roleplay.
I built what I thought was a really solid healbot character for a campaign about 2ish years ago now. I packed Spare the Dying, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Goodberry, and Aid into a Life Cleric/Druid mix. I used Vuman to get the Healer feat to start, and very heavily leaned on healer's kits and 4HP Goodberries as my first healing options. Kits with the feat are 1d6+4+the target's # of hit dice and can only be done on each target once per short rest. Kits have 10 uses each and only weigh 1lb total (if your DM micromanages carry weight). Aid at the beginning of an adventuring day for the other party members, and then I rationed out Goodberries to everyone.
Shepherd Druid with just a 1 level dip in Life Cleric works amazingly well. The Unicorn spirit turns any healing spell into a pseudo Mass Healing Word, and at later Druid levels (Because it scales with druid levels), can match or outperform a Mass Cure Wounds with a simple 1st level healing word. On top of that, you can summon beasts with beefier HP that can deal magic damage so you are contributing to not only healing, but DPS and adding extra bodies for enemies to attack that aren't your party. And Druids have some pretty solid crowd control as well. Though what I tend to do most is cast Healing Spirit where my tank is, who gets healed for the spell healing (base or upcasted)+2+spell level+1d4 from my moon sickle each turn with only a single BA casting on one turn and concentration which continuously heals for 5 rounds, while I use my non-concentration spells for damage.
Grave Cleric is actually my favorite healer because they maximize what healing occurs when healing should actually be done.
If a player is joining and asks if the party needs any specific roles filled, instead of saying "We could use a healer", say "We could use someone who can heal". "Healer" tends to lead people to think about Clerics and Druids, but a character "who can heal" opens up options like Divine Soul Sorcerer, Celestial Pact Warlock, Cleric domains that aren't Life, Paladin with their Lay On Hands, Mercy Monk if you really like Monks, and even Ranger gets _cure wounds_ and _goodberry._ If you feel like spending a Feat, you can be literally any class with Magic Initiate to get _healing word_ or _goodberry._ They're not strictly "healers" but they have the option on hand.
[Edit: Closed an italic.]
This is why I love Celestial Warlocks for this role. Bonus action 60-ft range heals 1d6. Doesn't count as a spell so it doesn't conflict with their casting actions, and Warlocks have little need for their BA.
My favourite class is cleric, and im constantly badgered by people who play with me saying my spell list is terrible. Almost no healing spells. Just healing word, mass cure wounds, aura of vit. And i always say, removing whats hurting the party is way more effective than healing. The right way to heal is one of two actions. Can you kill it? And; Can you escape from it?
If they complain the let them play cleric! It’s both the most asked for and least played class in my experience.
Cure Wounds is one of the biggest trap spells in the game. It only has a range of touch AND uses your action to, on average, heal only 2 more HP than Cure Wounds. People who cast Cure Wounds on non-downed allies will most of the time waste the spell slot because it only heals 9.5 HP on average. I've never been in a campaign where monsters were dealing less than 10 damage a round past level 3.
I like Spells that only take a bonus action like healing words, Mass healing words, or healing spirit to bring back downed party members but still be able to attack. Goodberry is great. You can get Magic Initiate and goodberry as your 1st level spell and it's a free cast once a day? Pjustt give each person a berry and keep the rest for when others go down. Also, healing spirits is still great even after the nerf.
I played in a game that lasted up to level 15 (we only stopped playing due to the pandemic). I came up with such a disgustingly optimized cleric/druid healer build that the DM had to adjust his encounter balance depending on whether I was playing or not. Pre-nerf healing spirit was such a broken thing, almost as much as the goodberries I created with my remaining spellslots at the end of the day curing with all my bonuses. There was no point in bothering with shutdown and crowd control effects when we could all just rush priority targets, eating up attacks of opportunity and ignoring minions entirely. But other than this extremely niche case, even if I got to play with it first hand, I have to agree that healing is only worth it to bring people back from the brink in most combats.
A party does not need a healer, but does need someone who can cast rivivify
Someone who can cast restoration and remove curse spells is a big help too.
Celestial warlock main / divine soul sorcerer is a great combo for healing. Bonus action distance healing, sanctuary, healing word while you still use your action for eldritch blast. Has been fantastic.
I personally love healing word for emotional reasons. making an attack role or forcing a saving throw has a margin of failure, but you can't miss with healing and buff spells. I've warmed to bane, but in general I favor bless. I don't know if that's optimal, but its optimal in terms of enjoying the game. as such I tend pick a strong offensive action and pair it with healing word as an option. paladins and divine warlocks are great for this, and some cleric builds as well.
Bless is absolutely more optimal than bane, its gator approved as one of the best lvl 1 spells!
Bless is far more optimal than Bane. A lot of time you can get everyone in your party (three other people) or most of your party and hang back, giving them a bonus D4 on all saves and attack rolls. That helps especially if something happens to said teammate that would make them suddenly incur disadvantage. What a lot don't realize also is bless helps with death saves. Once you bring an enemy to 0 they are 'dead' but when a teammate is brought to 0, they get a bonus d4 on their roll. Pretty much, it almost ensures that the enemy WILL have to drop everything to attack that person to actually kill them, meanwhile a d20 + a D4 on just the stock roll ensures they will easily live long enough for a healing word to come around, or some other form of healing.
It's situational. A buffed party member has an advantage against multiple enemies. A debuffed enemy gives an advantage to the entire party. It all depends on how many enemies there are and their relative threat levels. Generally bless is gonna serve you better though, especially when upcast to give everyone an advantage against every enemy lol.
Not gonna lie. That switch to a sponsor was smooth as frick
The charachter I am playing right now, has a fear of losing her allies and friends. She is a paladin. She saved many of her allies with her aura, her interception fighting style and the lay on hands feature. I also have cure wounds prepeared at the moment, but I don't think I've ever used it (I just had space after the last ASI to prepare more spells)
I'm playing a very similar character, interception, heavy armour master, and lay on hands. We don't have a main healer, interception and HAM does so much work reducing damage its much better than healing.
@@SaintAndrew921 For us HAM wouldn't be worthy. It doesn't help against a dragon's breath, the wizards fireball, the rouge landing on the aarakocra ranger making both of them fall down. Yeah our playstyle is wild, dumb and wildly stupid.
The best support/healer iv played and enjoyed was a Glamor Bard in a long running campaign.
Mainly doing control spells and damage mitigation by giving a LOT of temporary hitpoints.
using your inspiration to give the whole party temp hitpoints and repositioning is a lot more impactful that some think.
At 5th lvl with 20 cha, you can use it up to 5 times
5 targets get 8 temp hp and may reposition.
that's 40 extra HP to the party with every use, letting you mitigate up to 200 damage with your 5 inspiration uses.
And giving people the option to reaction, move their speed without provoking saved a few bad situations too.
Its an bonus action, not a spell so you can still cast big spells.
And then always having a pocket healing word to pull up anyone dying.
Saved countless lifes doing exactly this. Harengon glamour bard with alert feat means i was pretty much the 1st to take a turn on most combat. Mantle of glamour to reposition allies and hipnotic pattern carried us till late game.
@@TheGodPoing My bard was also a Harengon and picked up alert at lvl 8.
Well started as a Unearth arcane Rabbitfolk and updated to a Harengon as it released halfway trough the campain.
Played trough the full Descent into avernus with her, ending up as a half celestial angelic bunny bard with the campain climax.
Was an amazing campain that took over a year
My favorite out of combat healing spell on my druid is Aura of Vitality, now that Tasha's added it to their spell list.
Would never cast it in combat
This also reminds me of a dnd personality who made Healing Word worthless in their games by making it so the recipient has to be able to hear the spell, which unconscious characters can not
Wizard casts Power word: kill.
Deafened character is immune because "healing word broken if it heals things that can't hear".
Blindness/Deafness stocks somehow go up.
Who was this personality?
@@davwalsr Satine Phoenix said this in an interview a while back
this was before the recent news about her and her partner
Probably worth mentioning that often one of the best ways to heal in combat is to just let the player drop, then pick them back up with Healing Word. All the overkill damage is wasted on a low-health character, so in some sense you really can match 50-damage attacks with your 5-damage heal. In terms of action economy, you're giving up a bonus action so someone else can theoretically have a full turn.
Wasnt it so that X amount of damage below 0 can straight up kill someone, no saves?
I was talked into playing a healer in a pathfinder campaign. pretty much the same story there as in DnD from what I gather. I was a first timer so I reluctantly chose to play a halfling cleric. I picked my domains from some homebrew stuff I found online and my cleric disliked healing. He would save people in a pinch but that was about it. My domains focused on luck, giving me nice abilities like touch of luck and chaos, basically giving someone I touch 2 rolls on D20s for a turn and pick the better/worse option. pretty neat, especially when your cleric has a gambling problem... the character was super fun in the end, becoming truly committed to the ways of chaos, encouraging others to take chances on random things and getting gifted a staff by a quirky little demon that has random effects on use, ranging from making an area smell of farts, over tying someones laces to on rare occasions dealing fire or poison damage.
I did accidentally get our bard killed by enticing him to draw from a magical deck, resulting in an aspect of death being summoned that bard had to fight to the death, which was not very fun and not what I wanted, but ultimately bard didn't like his class anymore and was happy making a new character
I had to explain this to some good friends who I am DMing. They play a lot of MMOs and I was like, "You realize in an MMO your resources regenerate passively, where in DnD they require an active decision by the party?"
I will note though, a tip for low level healing:
If you somehow have nothing you are concentrating on then use the ready action. If you are unfamiliar with the ready action then go read the PHB. It is in actions in combat section.
When you ready a spell you have to pick a trigger. In the example in the video Kobold suggests one component is if you are healing to save an ally's turn. If you use the ready action and specified "if my ally falls unconscious" then you would have delayed your cast until after your ally is popped, cast healing word, and reserved their turn.
There is a lot of good stuff you could be using instead, and if you have concentration tied up it becomes a question of which spell you concentrate with. When you ready a spell you concentrate on that spell. Something to keep in mind.
I think we need to talk more about ready actions though, as they can be invaluable in scenarios where opponents are ducking in and out of cover or are entering the field on a mount, using a ranged attack and retreating.
I may have been training my players with these specific scenarios in our current campaign.
As I was in a party of 6 players, our line up was: Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Rouge, and myself a Sorcerer. We didn't really have any healers since our Paladin was mostly our tank and didn't usually heal, so as myself as a Sorcerer, our DM was nice enough to lend me, with my proficiency with Herbalism kit and Alchemist Tools, to create potions and tonics to heal us, as well as I took the Healer Feat as soon as possible. Now with our line up, my Sorcerer would be running around asking who got hurt after a fight and would bandage everyone up, and then give potions to use for in-battle healing the next time they got into a fight. I wasn't too good at the healing part since I also didn't choose Divine Soul since I didn't know we didn't have a healer, but I decided to gradually choose that role so I could still be support.
Aid, if for some reason you didn't cast it early in the adventuring day, is also a great in-combat healing option if at least one person is downed and even better if more than one person is downed. Though, as with any healing spell, you need to be mindful of the turn order since downed allies will be conscious-but-prone until their turn. Readying your action can be useful in these cases.
An upcasted Aid plus out-of-combat recovery via short rests, Aura of Vitality, Healing Spirit, Goodberry, etc. will likely provide more effective healing throughout the day, assuming the targets of Aid heal back to full, than any in-combat healing short of the actual Heal spell.
Bonus if you combine it with Extended Spell metamagic either via Metamagic Adept or just being a Sorcerer (both Clockwork and Divine Soul have access to Aid) so it lasts 16 hours instead of 8 hours so it literally lasts the whole day unless you pull an all-nighter.
I really enjoy playing a Divine Soul sorcerer with Beacon of Hope on the whole party-- It's rare that I cannot keep everyone topped up between twinned/distant casts and maxed out dice.
I also love the Glamour bard. You move your barbarian front liner closer to the back line mobs while giving him a bunch of temps to survive running through it. Saying, use your reaction to reposition yourselves ala fire emblem dancer is huge and the temps are icing on the tactical cake.
This is a good observation. I've played a number of druids and bard builds. I always describe it as a "Don't die" type healer and usually only cast on unconscious players. Because your right, it usually only takes one hit for them to be down again.
Best kind of healing we've got is, "proactive healing", IMO. Stuff like Aid, temporary hit points, and damage reduction. Giving your fellow players long term buffs will often help more in combat precisely because you can use more turns on damage.
I need a healer genuinely just means
"I need someone who has Healing Word in case I get down"
Healing is mostly just to keep Action Economy when someone gets down, if a player goes down and nobody can heal then having them being completely removed from play for hours is rough.
Though the Nine Hells and Undead (which can often carry instant kills like finger of death or disintegrate) make it so pumping healing output can matter
Or Magic Missile... That will kill anyone at 0 health instantly.
Exactly my thoughts and sums up healing in DnD5e pretty well.
0:18 You can absolutely play a tank effectively, but most DM's will not allow it due to the stigma against Magic Resistance... A Yuan-ti Oath of Ancients Paladin is the single most effective tank in the game. They have double Death Ward, Magic Resistance, Resistance to Magical Damage, Immunity to Poison, Heavy Armor+Shield+ of Faith+Fighting Style AC, and a d10 hit die.
Lategame when AC is less important, they can also swap Shield of Faith for Stoneskin. Plus they're a Paladin, so they have a massive burst heal for themselves, and Smiting a few times can make it obvious that you need dealt with to any intelligent enemies, thus drawing aggro...
To become a non-magical battle-medic by level 5.
Variant Human or Custom Lineage (to get Healer Feat), Rogue 3 (Thief for Fast Hands)/Fighter 2 (for Action Surge) and grab a healer's kit.
You can now get 3 unconscious party members back up in a single turn. Use Healer's action to restore 1d6 + 4 hit points to it, plus additional hit points equal to the creature's maximum number of Hit Dice to another target, and then use Action Surge to do it again to another. Finally, bonus action regular use of healers kit (thanks to Thief's "Fast Hands") to stabilize a third downed ally and even restore a single hit-point (thanks to healer feat), getting them at least back up in the action. While it might not be the most optimal use of an action surge or feat, I just think it's a really neat interaction that doesn't even require you to divert your normal ASI progression to utilize.
Warding bond on my high HP cleric of life is actually pretty decent healing. I take some of the damage for my party, and heal both of us back up with a single spell. Of course I dont recieve very much healing from this, but I have twice the health of some of our dps so its very helpful for drawn out fights.
i'm about to start a campaign as a life cleric and i definitely needed to see this video. gotta remember to heal more often after a battle rather than during it (unless it's necessary to save a dying PC)
Artificer can also heal if you try hard enough. There’s a feature at level 11 that can let you store a spell (from 1st-2nd level) in an object after a long rest.
You can cast it based on double your intelligence modifier. If you have max intelligence, that’s like 10 spells.
So, if you put cure wounds on it after a long rest, that’s 10 cure wounds.
There might be a better spell option, but if you want a healing artificer, that’s a thing.
Oh, and maybe choose Alchemist or Battle Master as subclass to maximize your healing.
I actually pulled healer off quite well. One of the most important effects I found is "Beacon of Hope". That allowed me to keep everyone alive through a boss fight that we had no business winning. We went into the fight at level 9, full health and everything. By the time we finally dragged the boss down, I had 2 1st level slots left, my aasimir touch heal (heal a target for my level once/rest, so +9), and that's it. Nobody in the party had more than a quarter of their health pools left, four of the nine were unconscious, and I put probably upwards of 250 points of healing through on my teammates. Both channel divinities I had were expended. Now, I grant it was a custom class I made (combat medic. Designed to do one thing and one thing only) but I'm confident I could have pulled that with the cleric if I needed to. The DM flat out said he should have attacked me first, because without me the group was screwed. I'll grant the roles somewhat depend on the campaign design. I've played all the roles, but it varies widely based on the design of the campaign. If a fight can be won in two rounds, dpr is great. If it's an extended fight against an enemy with a large health pool, strong defense and high damage throughput, a tank and/or healer becomes necessary to keep everyone alive.
Artificer alchemist with their experimental healing potion heals 2d4+ int. Better than most healing spells since you can make it using one lv.1 spell slot. Later you get restorative regents which gives an additional 2d6+int in temp hit points. You also can cast heal at level 14 once per long rest!
I personally love alchemist. To me, it is one of the best support subclasses
@@bladesandswords6136 I'm actually playing one right now. I made a gun and I'm both supporting and dealing massive damage.
Also, the healer's best friends are the spells Aid and Hero's Feast and the feat Inspiring Leadership. You use those three at the beginning of the day (with the two spells cast at higher levels if possible), and boom, that's a fuck-ton of extra hit points that will probably keep your party alive.
but i want to be the healer* (*sometimes) one of my favorite characters was a divine sorcerer/ celestial warlock multiclass. basting in combination of healing and currently i play a life domain cleric. i also play a Rogue arcane trickster and in pathfinder i play a summoner both do DPS. sometimes the healer is a great archtype that you can use in story the sorlock was/is a changing healer in Eberon for the halfling healing house. while the life cleric is a disinherited noble trying to toughen up and was send to the hidden forest temple as a way to get I'm away from the elven prinses who he loves but families don't approve "'yet".
It may be because my first character ever was a druid, but Goodberry has always been, and probably will continue to be, my favorite spell in DND 5E.
I actually want to make a healer summoner build.
Backstory: an Eladrin child (24 chronological years of experience) got lost in the woods and loved the animals. After learning to speak with them, he made his way back to his family. Scared of losing him again, he was sent to a temple to become a Life Cleric (1 level dip). But he didn’t like it there, and escaped to the woods to become a Shepherd Druid.
The basic idea for combat:
So long as he doesn’t roll attacks and damage himself, Sanctuary stays up. Summon animals before or after-since it doesn’t affect an enemy or cause a damage roll-and order them to attack on your behalf. Use Healing Word or other healing to keep them alive, and both the Life Cleric dip and the Unicorn Spirit boost and shares the healing.
I plan to ask the DM if I can Conjure animals I defeat myself or via summoned beasts. So no free velociraptors, but if he has us fight them I can collect their claws as a material component.
one point, to see how far this goes... I played a Life Cleric who used zero direct damage spells just to see how it goes... I still made a Wyvern fall from the sky by having its wings restrained to have it take fall damage, but I never directly attacked... it's an interesting experience I recommend trying at least once... or at least seeing it happen within the group
I damn near made it though an entire campaign without taking the attack action as an order cleric. It is an experience! Story drove me to change sub class though.
Divine Soul sorcerer is hands down my favorite class, for free access to Healing Word alone. You get to blast with your main action, and healing word when necessary to get people off the ground.
I've also been itching to play an Alchemist artificer, because they get a SUPER buffed Healing Word (1d4+int+int again with Alchemical Savant, at level 5) while again, still being able to blast with hard hitting Firebolts (adding their int mod to damage.)
My favorite healer build is a multiclass between Life Domain Cleric 1/Circle of the Shepherd Druid (all the other levels). With this build, you get the Disciple of Life for your healing but can throw down an aura that doesn't have to be centered on you where EVERYONE gets healed.
I've had games where, as a 6th level character, I was healing an average of 39 points total (accounting for everyone that got healed) per round.
im currently playing a shepherd druid in a campaign with a warlock, monk, and rogue. ive taken on effective party tank and healer. the spirit totem is not a feature to sleep on. being able to heal your entire party for a little splash of health every turn is super useful as a reactive tool during combat or the bear totem option is a great opener to give everyone a decent chunk of temp hp. this feels super good on a druid because once ive exhausting healing or we're close enough to the end of combat i still have wild shape, shilleigh, primal savagery, and enhance ability (super sleeper its one of my favorite spells in the game please pay attention to enhance ability) to transition into being able to aide in dealing damage. shepherd druid is super good, scales super hard with its healing, and still has the base platform of druid to go off of. if your dm isnt against a little party buildcrafting we've had a blast running three squishies and myself as the mega healer.
also wow way of the shadow monk plus any rogue class is insane
Great video! Don't forget Paladin though, the all in one tank-dps-healer-support-face class
I really liked playing 1-5 as a divine sorc. Casting 2 healing spells in 1 turn was great.
How did you not mention circle of the shepard at all.
It is the one subclass that can come close to MMO like healing. Plus the summons get the bonus of acting as HP Shields and action economy buffs for the party.
I am currently playing one with 1 lvl dip into life domain cleric and i have not trouble keeping the party healthy through some insane fights.
Okay that was one hell of a perfect transition to an ad.
Gonna be real this opened my eyes when it comes to healing and stuff. I gotta say though if it weren’t for the fact that I was asked or overheard that the party needed a healer (and me being the person that I am that feels the need to fulfill specific roles in stuff like this) I wouldn’t have created two beloved characters of mine that I still have today. But good to know that I don’t necessarily need to do that all the time and also now I know what I can do better in combat instead of panic healing someone only for them to get bodied the next turn.
Secondary question: When do you remove debuffs? A blinded controller? A paralyzed wizard? Are these guys at the unconscious level effectively? What about something less dangerous but crippling like a rogue with the poison status? They can't sneak attack (without hiding to negate the disadvantage, and then they need a 5 foot ally), and non thieves can't even benefit from the double item action economy. Is getting my rogue to sneak attack worth my second level spell slot and action/positioning? Or should I move into melee/spirit guardians, and yell at them to hide to negate the disadvantage (but prevent them from doing their one attack roll at advantage)
I guess I should say, I always see these healing arguments, but less coverage for the ailments.
My favourite healing spell is Aid. Not only does it work is a multi-target ranged heal in combat, you can also spell trick it and increase the HP of allies BEFORE you have the encounter. It is awesome. The number of times we have ended combat, looked at our sheets and said "wow, that extra 5/10 hp made all the difference" is numerous.
Step one don't heal with spell slots, just short rest, you can do better things with those slots
If you really want to use slots, for me the best thing to do is use Healing Word to make sure your partner doesn't die from death saves, and life cleric goodberry is silly, but fun.
A DM could always give you enough combats during the day that a party can’t recuperate hit dice. Especially considering you only recover half hit dice on a long rest. If every day is multiple grueling combats, you won’t be able to only use short rests for HP.
Yeah sometimes you need to heal and a short rest isn't viable
The roles in 5e are single target dpr aoe dpr control caster and buffer. Healing is part of the buffer role.
The best healers are the ones with goodberry and out of combat healers
The best healer has revivify, the second best healer is your potion dealer.
In dnd playing healer is very hard i agree, but something i love is solasta has a subclass for druid that makes being a healer so fun to me, its a class that makes any healing you do then heal the person equal to your class level upon their turn beginning, so like a a lv 10 druid casting mass healing word would have the base 1d4+modifier. But then on each of their turns would recieve an additional 10 hit points (very nice ability to me)
First time playing DND I played a life cleric to try fill the role of party healer because I’m used to that role in other games. After awhile I realized hey I could either use a cure wounds/healing word which heals for either 1d8 + Wis or 1d4 + Wis then with disciple of life which was ok or I could deal 4d6 damage and give the next attack on a creature advantage with my guiding bolt which is only a first level spell. I ended up leaning more towards dealing damage especially with spirit guardians and also multi-classing with paladin for some extra support/DPS with vengeance paladin’s abilities and spells included with lay on hands for small burst if I don’t want to healing word
I strongly recommend the healer feat. A custom lineage rogue with healer fundamentally changed the game for us. It meant our druid didn't need to save slots to keep people alive. It provides enough healing at almost no resource cost that out of combat you can top people up and keep them comfortable for each encounter. It scales really well and stays relevant for most of the game. The rogue as well has the ability to move into and out of harms way to apply it in combat if needed (still not a great use of your action).
3:00 You're absolutely right about this comparison but I don't think duration should be taken at face value like that. No combat will last 10 minutes.
If you plan well, you could have 2 or maybe even 3 combat encounters within that duration but you can't treat it as a full 100 rounds of value.
From some experience as a cleric with both of these, I’ve often found it comes down to ‘okay, do I go spirit guardians for the potential multiple fights or aura of vitality for the guarantee it’ll get its full effect regardless of future combats’
I've only ever used Aura of Vitality once in combat as a battlesmith and even then it was a situational pick since It would keep the fighter and bard in the fight till their turn even though they'd be knocked down right after. Out of combat it's been way more useful. 70 hp on average divided up between the party as needed is great at getting whoever was unfortunate enough to be targeted in the fighr back up to mid/full hp.
Those 10 minutes can be a whole dungeon crawl. That's like the whole adventuring day if you clear it.
@@PackTactics A dungeon in 10 minutes? It takes 10 minutes to search a room!
@@CJWproductions Backtrack once the duration runs out.
Thanks for the advice. In a future campain, I'm playing a lizardfolk fighter/cleric named Uraka. Frankly, he's less likely to heal someone and more likely to fight firsthand. I'm leaning more towards the cleric side for him than fighter. I felt like what you said fits really well with his personality. Thanks :)
Kobold, what about Life Transference? As a wizard, I seldom take any damage and with my high con score, I got quite a bit of HP. I could use artificer's cure wounds to bring my downed paladin back up, but I'm wondering if a third level spell slot and taking 18 average damage can be worth healing for double that amount. It's half a Heal spell and those 36 HP could go a long way. I don't think it's worth preparing, so I'll just write a scroll for rainy days (I'm a scribe which is S Class because scrolls can't be counterspelled and I got them on the back of my shield) but I'm not sure it's optimal because I might lose concentration on a spell I'm using, but on the other hand it's teamwork. Enlighten me with the bless of your pack tactic!
Loved this, and I would love to see a similar video about the tank fallacy
It's also a good idea to carry around a healing potion if it's not too much of a hassle, especially for characters that are bad at stabilizing. Maybe the guy with healing word is the one who needs to be saved, or he's dead and someone else is on the ground.
I once played a Goblin Wildfire Druid, who does get some nice bonuses to healing as well as dishing out fire damage, but I really took advantage of my herbalism kit to craft healing potions on our travels and hand them out to the party in case I can't heal them for some reason.
Healing also becomes more valuable the less damage you take. Having and Artillerist artificer or Twilight cleric providing temp HP every round to the entire party, a paladin improving everyone's saves so they succeed more often, or things like HAM directly reducing damage by a small amount; any and all of these can stretch out your HP so that each point healed lasts quite a bit longer. Basically, by itself healing isn't that strong, but when combined with anything that reduces damage taken, the effect becomes multiplicative, and more so if you _also_ have a way to boost your healing, e.g. a Life cleric.
Just as an example, if you can cut damage in half, that means your healing is about 2x as effective. If you can also double how much you heal for, now it's 4x as effective. If you add in generating temp HP regularly that further reduces real HP damage by half, now healing is 8x as effective. Suddenly, the healing that looked lackluster before is now quite strong.
Celestial Warlocks are deeply underated support healers, IMHO. Doubly so at low level play.
60f & bonus action gives you a LOT of flexibility in topping people off via Healing Light while also throwing out some damage, before your team goes down in the first place. And one of your bonus spells is Cure Wounds, and that spell scales really well with Warlock style spell slots if you have any left-over near a short-rest.
Honestly probably the best way to heal without needing to be a full healer is getting proficiency in a Herbalism kit. This allows you to make a healing potion for half price and one day of not doing much. So any time skips and using a bit of extra spending cash and you can stock up your whole party with potions. Most DMs I have met let you drink a potion for a bonus action (Or sometimes a free action/ part of your attack action) so it makes it easier to think about using a potion cause you don't have to worry about things like spell slots or the action economy while still giving out heals. In my current campaigns I am playing a Alchemist Artificer and a Way of Mercy Monk. Mercy monk's healing is meh and Artificer is a half caster which makes healing a lot rougher. But thanks to those giving Herbalism kit Prof now I just make sure my party is stocked up with like 1-3 healing potions each and they can heal on their own time. Works well in and out of combat while still feeling like it can make a difference without messing with you character's actual skills like Monk's Stunning Strike.
I just used a Twilight Domain Cleric/Circle of Stars Druid with Beacon of Hope to maximize healing and when we were all almost dead, I had everything set up with Twilight sanctuary and put out heals. We were back at max HP within 3 turns while the BBEG we fought was very angry with me.
The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to healing in combat is that the only hit point that really matters is your last
I play an artillerist in my friends' Curse of Strahd Campaign and holy crap does the Protector cannon have insane amounts of value. Even on just one person, granting 1d8 + int mod temp hp per round as a BONUS ACTION is just so nice. Not to mention that it can do it to your ENTIRE PARTY if they're in range. It's absolutely wild. It trivializes low level mobs and means we can tank through a lot of encounters without much fear.
The best way to play support is to make sure creatures don't hit at all.
Try this support build out for size:
Luck Build
Lore bard/Divination Wizard/Wild Sorcerer, pick up the Lucky Feat, halfling if you want.
Use cutting words to stop an ally from getting hit by an attack.
Use Portent to make anything with dice that you want to happen.
Bend Luck to make someone fail or succeed a roll.
Lucky to protect yourself
Use your cantrips to give an enemy disadvantage on attack or saving throws
Use your spells to heal people at 0 hp
Use control spells
Buff your party
Use dissonant whispers to force enemies to provoke from allies.
The best way to heal someone from taking damage is to stop them from taking damage in the first place. To support someone it isn't just healing, it is to help your entire party.
This build is also completely just using the phb, though does require multiclassing. You could add other classes to it though, more subclasses have came around that work like this.
A good way roleplaying it is just being Lucky, Lucky is your magic. And it can rub off on people around you.
You can definitely make a tank in 5e if you understand how to use mechanics to incentivize enemies to attack you. There sadly isn't a lot of versatility in the role because of how few classes have an ability that effectively taunts the enemies around you, but it does exist.
Damn that was a good sponsor switch up, was not expecting that
My DM plays with a brutal but effective house rule to improve the importance of healing and reduce the abuse of 1hp spam:
a player's hp reaching zero incurs one level of exhaustion
Changes the whole dynamic of healing
One way to encourage healing via rules changes could be to actually add some temporary bonus to characters who've been healed. Imagine: a character healed by magic gains the extra action described in the Haste spell for one turn.
Something similar is found in the Order domain.