D&D 5E Best Healer?

[gyor]

Life cleric 1/ land druid xyz or life cleric 1/lore bard 6+

Life Cleric 1/ Celestial Warlock is pretty good too.

 

[gyor]

I'm still standing behind the FS, after level 6 and before level 17.

You can drain the lower levels to add to your sorcery points to cast Mass cure wounds, even empower them, you can twin 1st level cure wounds, plus they are better with none hp related healing, and eventually the really big self heal.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Make it Sorceror 6/Cleric 1/Lore Bard 6 and it can be a Empowered Healing Extended Aura of Vitality.

I'm not following. Are you referring to the Empowered Spell metamagic, or something from UA? I can only assume the latter since Empowered Spell doesn't require 6th level, and doesn't affect healing anyway. (And wouldn't be cost-effective even if it did affect healing.)

 

[Zardnaar]

Played the Second one. I was amazed at how much healing he could put out. A one level dip into Life Cleric seems essential for any truly dedicated Healer. Also you get access to Bless, the best buff spell in the game, and Heavy Armour proficiency, which is great for a squishy Lore Bard.

We have played it and it was one of the early OP builds we discovered in 5E.

By the end of 2014 I think we had actually tested all the broken crap in 5E, the -5/+10 feats, the Sorlock, the healer builds and PAM+warcaster+eldritch blast combo.

Nothing since has managed to top them really, tweak them maybe.

The Druid/life cleric is kinda OP from level 2, the clr1/Lore bard6 one takes a bit longer to come online and the Druid one has better boom spells and more slots for goodberry abuse, lore bard can steal aura of vitality of course.

 

[Yaarel]

Crap, I put Valour Bard, but I meant Lore Bard.

I understood what you meant, but it misstated options ruins the results of the post. You might even want to start a new thread if you are interested the results.

 

[Yaarel]

A one level dip into Life Cleric seems essential for any truly dedicated Healer.

5e recontinues the defacto healing monopoly of the Cleric class. This is painful and frustrating.

 

[Zardnaar]

5e recontinues the defacto healing monopoly of the Cleric class. This is painful and frustrating.

Not really you can be a Druid and have someone else in the party take the healer feat, if you really want to abuse healing its the interaction between 1 level cleric"life dip and how it interacts with goodberry+aura of vitality. Its the healing version of the -5/+10 feats.

The Lore Bard one comes online a bit late, the land Druid one has more boom and more goodberry spam so its hard to see what ones best (Clr1/Druid XYZ probably). The next best healer is a single classed life cleric and they are kind of better at group heals and in combat healing.

 

[Yaarel]

My objection is the 1-level Cleric dip.

Even when I hate the Cleric class, the healing mechanics pressure me to take a level of it if I want to be a master of healing.

This protectionism makes me hate the whole game.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

My objection is the 1-level Cleric dip.

Even when I hate the Cleric class, the healing mechanics pressure me to take a level of it if I want to be a master of healing.

This protectionism makes me hate the whole game.

That sort of war between your desire to min/max and your dislike of a specific class shouldn't affect the game as a whole. Lots of other classes are capable of taking on the healer role: Bards, Druids, Monks, Sorcerors, Paladins, Warlocks, Wizards.

Letting the theoretical existence of a possibly-more-optimal character build involving a class that you don't like playing get to you seems a little odd. Surely enjoying playing the character you want to play trumps squeezing a few percent more mechanical performance out of it?

Its hardly protectionism is it? Healing is probably the most widely-spread capability among the 5e classes, that used to be the domain of a single class in the early editions. The fact that the Life domain of the class that has always had good healing is viewed as the best healer by some people isn't entirely surprising. There are plenty of other classes able to do the job: I'm playing a cleric at the moment. Despite tending to play healers and support type characters, its the first cleric I've played with this group.

 

[Zene]

If you're just looking at hit points healed per day, then yes the Life Cleric 1 / Lore Bard 6 / Sorcerer 3+ wins hands down. However, hit points output /day doesn't really make you the best healer IMO. It just makes you a really slick one-trick (or two-trick) pony. Also that build sucks at healing until CL7, and then lags behind everyone else in every other area of the game after CL7. Still can be worth it if that gimmicky style appeals to you. (it does to me, btw).

Straight life cleric, on the other hand, has all the tools you need to heal *enough* hit points per day to be effective; but then it's also got the healer's toolkit of fast big heals when needed, damage prevention, restoration, general protection, general utility, and a couple "oh sh*t" buttons that make you the complete package.

Then again, the base cleric chassis has all the tools you really need to be a great well-rounded healer; so take that, and then go life if you want some extra healing oomph, or any other cleric subclass if you want some oomph in other areas. Either way you'll be fine.