Best Healer?

[boar]

Wow. Way to not answer the OP's question at all, guys!

The healingest healer is the pacifist cleric. Take a cleric, go 18-16 wisdom-charisma, then take the pacifist healer feat. Use Astral Seal as one of your at-wills and whatever you want with the other(s). For powers, pick ones that heal your party -- these should be obvious to find. If you want to restore more HP than any other character, that's what you do.

Off-topic banter, resume.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I think that in a party full of strikers, you want a leader that has good synergy with strikers. To me that shouts Bard or Warlord. Healing strikers is sub-optimal at best, so I would rather have a leader that helps end the fight fast before you need much healing. Another reason is that faster fights is often a good thing, especially in 4e.

 

[Mengu]

Pacifist healer is my least favorite of any leader build. I'd say don't do it.

Playing a cleric is fine if you like their healing. They also do some decent buffing, can grant saves, have ways of providing temp hit points, and have diverse options. By choosing pacifist, you are killing your options. You can't focus fire with the rest of the party. Someone needs a save, and you want to give them a save with Sacred Flame? Can't do it and help take down something bloodied unless you want to be stunned. Without the small bonus from pacifist (yes, I said small), you are still healing plenty.

As for other good defensive leaders, Bards are pretty fantastic. You can play the valor kind for ever flowing temporary hit points, or you can play the cunning kind to essentially negate tons of hits by good tactical use of slides. And their song between encounters will mean a lot to your low healing surge strikers.

Tactical warlords, easily increase the focused fire potential of a party, quickly negating the damage coming back at you. Even the initiative bonus goes toward improving your alpha strike. Damage that doesn't ever happen is the best kind of healing.

I think "cleric is the best healer" is a pitfall. They are good, but they are good only after things go bad for you. They don't make encounters easier, they make them maybe a bit safer, but definitely longer. They make you use more resources. I have to say, I like every other leader (with the exception of Ardent whom I don't have a good grasp on), better than the wisdom cleric.

 

[Ccgizmo]

Wow guys i love the responses. i was building a Cleric and the d6 you get from healing doesnt seem like a great option not to be able to perhaps finish a bloodied monster, and instead wait for the fighter to do its massive damage on something that was near death anyway. So let me throw this out here then. Im kind of stuck on the cleric, since i already told the DM. What would be the optimal build for a lvl 3 Cleric in a party with a barbarian, warlock, rogue, psion, assassin?

 

[Mentat55]

Wow guys i love the responses. i was building a Cleric and the d6 you get from healing doesnt seem like a great option not to be able to perhaps finish a bloodied monster, and instead wait for the fighter to do its massive damage on something that was near death anyway. So let me throw this out here then. Im kind of stuck on the cleric, since i already told the DM. What would be the optimal build for a lvl 3 Cleric in a party with a barbarian, warlock, rogue, psion, assassin?

Well, assuming your rogue is melee-focused, your front line consists of the barbarian and the rogue, with your warlock and psion in the back, and the assassin probably skulking around and mixing it up with melee and ranged powers. Since you don't have a defender, a melee cleric could complement the beefy barbarian and help bolster the front line.

 

[Shazman]

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)

I will have to respectfully disagree. 4th edition has a huge disparity between the amount of hit points enemies have versus the amount of damage PC's can do. I would have to say that damage matters more in 4E than in any previous edition of D&D. Hindering enemies with status effects is good, but killing them outright is so much better. So while having healing is good, granting extra attacks or bonuses to hit and damage may be more beneficial in the long run than extra healing. The more you focus on defense in 4E, the more you tend to get long, drawn out, "grindy" combats. Maybe you could try to split the difference and do a hybrid of a tactical warlord and cleric? You'd probably want a str/wis race like one the shifters (I forget which one) or a str/int race like gensai.

 

[Mengu]

Wow guys i love the responses. i was building a Cleric and the d6 you get from healing doesnt seem like a great option not to be able to perhaps finish a bloodied monster, and instead wait for the fighter to do its massive damage on something that was near death anyway. So let me throw this out here then. Im kind of stuck on the cleric, since i already told the DM. What would be the optimal build for a lvl 3 Cleric in a party with a barbarian, warlock, rogue, psion, assassin?

For that party, I would go with more of a front line durable battle cleric, maybe multiclass into warden. Probably go with Goliath. Something in the lines of:

[sblock]
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
level 3
Goliath, Cleric
Build: Battle Cleric
Background: Geography - Mountains (Athletics class skill)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 18, Con 15, Dex 11, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 10.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 13, Dex 11, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 10.


AC: 18 Fort: 16 Reflex: 12 Will: 18
HP: 37 Surges: 9 Surge Value: 9

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +5, Insight +9, Heal +9, Athletics +11, Perception +9

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics, Arcana, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Dungeoneering +4, Endurance +3, History, Intimidate +1, Nature +6, Stealth, Streetwise +1, Thievery

FEATS
Cleric: Ritual Caster
Level 1: Goliath Greatweapon Prowess
Level 2: Defender of the Wild

POWERS
Channel Divinity: Healer's Mercy
Cleric at-will 1: Righteous Brand
Cleric at-will 1: Invigorating Assault
Cleric encounter 1: Healing Strike
Cleric daily 1: Moment of Glory
Cleric utility 2: Shield of Faith
Cleric encounter 3: Divine Glow

ITEMS
Ritual Book, Dwarven Chainmail +1, Luckblade Greatsword +1, Symbol of Life +1, Healer's Brooch +1
RITUALS
Gentle Repose
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======
[/sblock]

This would give you two rounds of marking (during one of which you can make sure you have resist all 5), a few good powers for negating damage encounter long (resist all 5 everyone, +2 AC everyone), and resources for buffs and temporary hit points, while keeping you up to par on damage at a respectable 1d10+7. Maybe Scale or Toughness would be a good next feat.

Your group size is large enough that I would recommend one other person pick up an emergency heal via a multiclass. Not sure what the barbarian, warlock, assassin, and psion builds look like but they may all have various ways to help along the damage mitigation. So you shouldn't feel too burdened in the healing department. Make sure the warlock always remembers his shadow walk, the assassin uses teleportation and insubstantial defensively, the psion helps by imposing penalties, etc.

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

I know you're stuck with Cleric, but for anyone else who comes here with a similar question:

Go Bard. Take every bard healing power you can get you hands on. The Hit Point Pinata daily power at level 1 (and later another at 9) are especially good in boss fights so your strikes, some of which may be getting lots of attacks, can heal themselves pretty solidly over the course of the fight.

Then, blow all of your feats on multi-classing into classes that grant daily heals when you multiclass. That way you have two pretty solid encounter heals and tons of daily healing. Maybe play half-elf for Astral Seal.

 

[DracoSuave]

HA I WILL ALSO GO AGAINST THE GRAIN!


Go Insightful Warlord, and take one (AND ONLY ONE) Multiclass feat so you can take Channel Divinity: Healer's Mercy.

Then, use Healer's Mercy when your party is at its worst. Otherwise, use your turn to do cool stuff, and then immediate action to do cool stuff on other's turns.

The party will do more damage total, your class feature will buff defenses against hard targets, you'll get to do more than anyone else at the table, do competitive damage.

The best healer is the one that prevented 4 rounds of enemy damage by ending the fight 4 rounds earlier.

Do you want to be a healbot, or a hero?

Then, blow all of your feats on multi-classing into classes that grant daily heals when you multiclass. That way you have two pretty solid
encounter heals and tons of daily healing. Maybe play half-elf for Astral Seal.

Any advice that suggests you turn to multiclassing into -dailies- to cover healing without the words 'Divine Channeler' or 'Healer's Mercy' is not optimal advice.

Healer's Mercy is the best healing power to Multiclass into. It affect multiple allies, is an encounter power. The only downside is that it only affects bloodied allies. I put forth that any situation where you'd need to blow a daily Word power is one where Healer's Mercy would have been just as good and one where your ally was bloodied.

You'll find that being a bard and taking multiple Daily Words is subpar when taking Healer's Mercy -once- could have done so much more.

 

[keterys]

If you try to get Healer's Mercy as a MC feat for a warlord, it becomes a daily... only if you already have channel divinity is it an encounter power.