Best Healer?

[Infiniti2000]

Pacifist healer is pure cheese. Don't do it. Choose any other option. Even the gouda-laden artificer is less cheesy.

 

[BobTheNob]

Just to confuse your further. Our group has a tactical warlord, who's healing is surpisingly good and has all sorts of ways of granting extra attacks and bonus's to hit and damage to allies. Invaluable contributer.

Question to OP. Do you have a group of "glory hound" players. Normally that is the case when everyone wants to be a striker. Before starting, encourage them to broaden their thinking 4e is VERY different to previous versions, and non striker classes are far more interesting than they were in the past. You really do measure contribution in this game by more than damage alone, in fact, they are going to have a tough time if all they do is damage...

I have a player who used to be a "striker only" mentality. He agreed to "tank" the group (dwarf fighter). To his surprise he gets a real kick out of locking enemies down, frustrating enemies and drawing fire unto himself. Another such player went a wizard, and he just loves causing chaos amongst enemy ranks. These guys literally give audable yells of "YES!" and raise there fists in the air when they succeed.

Pre 4e rewarded damage output, 4e rewards so much more. Help your players understand this before you proceed, or you wont get the most out of it (and are probably better off with 3.5 or pathfinder)

 

[Aulirophile]

Pacifist Cleric is the best "healer." Add Ritual Comrade's Succor to allow the Artificer's surge sharing mechanic at 10g per cast (only downside is you have to spend a surge as part of the cost, so so you have 15 party surges total. Hand back out 14, as needed, to each party member).

Still prefer a Warlord.

 

[cdrcjsn]

The key to a successful leader...is to have something to do when you're not healing.

Healing really is only a secondary function for leaders.

If you want to do anything else besides play backup support, then I'd suggest against going the pacifist healer route. Yeah, it's powerful healing, but it's also a straight jacket and limits your options.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, I would go a wisdom based cleric, and go for a mix of radiant attacks and healing. Spend all your utilities on healing, as well as most of ytour feats and magic item selections on better healing. Heal yourself as much as you can without healing words or utilities, and heal your party with those.

When you do not hneed to heal, blast someone with a ranaint at-will.

It is simple, but a fun build as you can still do something else, one way healers are great in 4E. Much less shoulting about "wasting" spell slots on other effects than healing.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Why is no one suggesting a hybrid? Isn't it the default choice for every other broken build?

 

[Ferghis]

Why is no one suggesting a hybrid? Isn't it the default choice for every other broken build?

I've heard some mutter about fantastic hybrids, but, for the most part, I see potential for creating sub-par characters. Even the better combos seem lesser versions of the two classes. Setting the clash in ability scores aside, I'd much rather have a straight cleric or straight artificer (with a possible MC feat) than a cleric|artificer hybrid. But I'll admit that I haven't really tried to tweak one out.

 

[keterys]

There are a couple of niche broken combos you can pull off with hybrids, but by and large they are slightly worse than non-hybrids when done decently, and potentially much worse when done poorly.

 

[Obryn]

There are a couple of niche broken combos you can pull off with hybrids, but by and large they are slightly worse than non-hybrids when done decently, and potentially much worse when done poorly.

Even more specifically, I think the most broken combos arise because, for some reason, the designers decided hybrids could still multiclass.

For some reason, it's that third class that adds the cheese.

-O

 

[Aulirophile]

Hybrid leaders are finnicky. You get the same number of Words at Heroic.. but at 16 you don't get 3 words/encounter. So that is 66% of the effective healing of any single-class leader.

Generally if I hybrid a leader I hybrid it with another roll. So you end up with .5 leader and .5 defender/striker/controller. Since I think an ideal group comp is something like 1 defender (split up into .5 each, a strikery fighter+a durable melee striker or similar), 1 controller, 1.5 leaders, and the rest strikers....

Runepriest actually fills that roll really well with no hyrbiding at all. So.