Zardnaar
Legend
A companion to my "How to Deal Uber Damage Thread" located here.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?383413-How-to-Deal-Uber-Damage
5E seems to have a somewhat strange healing design. In combat healing with the exception of the life domain cleric doesn't tend to be very good until the higher levels (11+), you heal 100% overnight and there is a generous amount of out of combat healing/short rest healing available YMMV depending on party composition and builds.
So how do you heal at the best or most efficinet rate? At low levels the answer is an easy one- the healer feat. This feat will out perform a life domain cleric. ANother oddity is the Cleric also misses out on two of the best healing spells in the game- Aura of Vitality and Goodberry. Goodberry will heal at a more efficient rate (one average) than a cure spells will using a level 1 slot. Goddberry also last for 24 hours and allows a Druid to recyle their spell slots the next day after a long rest as you can cast all of your remaining spell slots into goodberries. Aura of Vitality provides 2d6 points of healing over 10 rounds or 20d6 in total (average 70). Aura of Vitality however is a 3rd level Paladin spell (read level 9) and Paladins do not get that many spells to start with.
The best basic healer in the game then is a life cleric with the healer feat. Note I said basic healer one can try and tweak this a little bit to ramp up the effectiveness of your healing. A side benefit of this is you may also deal more damage as less spells will be spent on healing which gives you other options for prepared spells. If only there was some way to get goodberry, Aura of Vatality and the other cleric healing spells all onto one class.
Thankfully this is an option in 5E and one can be sneaky sneaky about it. The Lore Bard can steal spells from other classes spell lists and the lore bard can do this at reasonably low levels starting at level 6 and can pick up aura of vitality 3 levels before the Paladin can do so and have more spell slots to cast it. The lore bard also has several of the basic cleric healing spells available and at higher levels gets power word heal and can steal two more cleric (or whatever) spells at level 10 and 14. If you find your existing healing options sufficient you may not even need to take Mass Cure or Heal etc.
Now this may be silly as the life cleric is still better at healing than the Lore Bard. Things change however when the Lore Bard takes a single level of Cleric (life domain) to pick up the Disciple of Life Ability. If the Lore Bard has taken Goodberry and Aura of Vitality things start to get a little silly. Goodberry instead of healing 10 hit points now heals 40 for a level 1 spell. Considering heal at level 6 only heals 70 (78 life cleric) that is not a bad deal. Aura of Vitality however now heals 2d6+5 hit points per turn or 120 points on average for a level 3 spell. At level 7 the Lore Bard can out heal the Life Cleric al;though to be fair the life cleric is still better at in combat healing although the bard can use healing word themselves.
Perhaps one would like a build that comes online even earlier than the Lore Bard. One can also do this as well with a very basic Land Druid/Life Cleric multiclass. Chauntea and Eldath from the Realms have the life domain and Druids so this may be a harder sell in some settings or homebrew. Once again you are trying to combine Goodberry with Disciple of Life. This build comes online at level 2 and you can heal 120 points of damage just using your spell slots. YOu then have a choice of Land Druid or Cleric to progress in as you are level dipping the other class. More cleric levels are nice for obvious reasons in terms of healing, more land Druid levels can be good for natural recovery. The Land Druid is kind of overshadowed by the Moon Druid but I am not convinced the Moon Druid is outright better as the Land Druid can use spells like haste and if you can heal so well you can use most of your spell slots on whatever you want to do. In addition you get natural recovery at level 2, by level 9 (Druid 8/Cleric1) you can recall 4 level 1 spell slots. That can be 4 more goodberry spells for another 160 points of healing available on top of your existing 4 level 1 spell slots. The Druid dip also gives you some nice offensive cantrip options to supplement sacred flame.
Going the other way Cleric 8/Druid 1 gives you the extra goodies of the higher level life domain abilities and still lets you cast copious amounts of good berries and probably frees up several spell slots to cast offensive magic. You also gain access to Prayer of Healing and Mass Healing Word which are nice cleric spells to heal with supplements my copious amounts of goodberry. The life cleric XYZ/Druid1 will also have better in combat healing due to spells like mass healing word and the Channel Divintiy: Preserve Life option.
I think I would prefer more Druid levels as I suspect the Druid/Cleric will be good enough at healing and you can have fun with blasting Druid spells or cast haste and natural recovery can probably provide enough healing just using level 1 spell slots. Goodberry will probably heal more than your level 2 and 3 spell slots as well. By level 3 a Druid2/Clr1 can heal 240 hit points per day the CLr2/Druid1 can manage 200+10 per short rest.
So technically the life cleric is probably the best healer 100% of the time but there are 3 multiclass options that seem to be able to heal better along with the healer feat at lower levels. I could be wrong and there may be better healing options available than the Bard/Cleric, CLeric/Druid and Druid/Cleric options but I do not know if they exist. If they do feel free to list them
.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?383413-How-to-Deal-Uber-Damage
5E seems to have a somewhat strange healing design. In combat healing with the exception of the life domain cleric doesn't tend to be very good until the higher levels (11+), you heal 100% overnight and there is a generous amount of out of combat healing/short rest healing available YMMV depending on party composition and builds.
So how do you heal at the best or most efficinet rate? At low levels the answer is an easy one- the healer feat. This feat will out perform a life domain cleric. ANother oddity is the Cleric also misses out on two of the best healing spells in the game- Aura of Vitality and Goodberry. Goodberry will heal at a more efficient rate (one average) than a cure spells will using a level 1 slot. Goddberry also last for 24 hours and allows a Druid to recyle their spell slots the next day after a long rest as you can cast all of your remaining spell slots into goodberries. Aura of Vitality provides 2d6 points of healing over 10 rounds or 20d6 in total (average 70). Aura of Vitality however is a 3rd level Paladin spell (read level 9) and Paladins do not get that many spells to start with.
The best basic healer in the game then is a life cleric with the healer feat. Note I said basic healer one can try and tweak this a little bit to ramp up the effectiveness of your healing. A side benefit of this is you may also deal more damage as less spells will be spent on healing which gives you other options for prepared spells. If only there was some way to get goodberry, Aura of Vatality and the other cleric healing spells all onto one class.
Thankfully this is an option in 5E and one can be sneaky sneaky about it. The Lore Bard can steal spells from other classes spell lists and the lore bard can do this at reasonably low levels starting at level 6 and can pick up aura of vitality 3 levels before the Paladin can do so and have more spell slots to cast it. The lore bard also has several of the basic cleric healing spells available and at higher levels gets power word heal and can steal two more cleric (or whatever) spells at level 10 and 14. If you find your existing healing options sufficient you may not even need to take Mass Cure or Heal etc.
Now this may be silly as the life cleric is still better at healing than the Lore Bard. Things change however when the Lore Bard takes a single level of Cleric (life domain) to pick up the Disciple of Life Ability. If the Lore Bard has taken Goodberry and Aura of Vitality things start to get a little silly. Goodberry instead of healing 10 hit points now heals 40 for a level 1 spell. Considering heal at level 6 only heals 70 (78 life cleric) that is not a bad deal. Aura of Vitality however now heals 2d6+5 hit points per turn or 120 points on average for a level 3 spell. At level 7 the Lore Bard can out heal the Life Cleric al;though to be fair the life cleric is still better at in combat healing although the bard can use healing word themselves.
Perhaps one would like a build that comes online even earlier than the Lore Bard. One can also do this as well with a very basic Land Druid/Life Cleric multiclass. Chauntea and Eldath from the Realms have the life domain and Druids so this may be a harder sell in some settings or homebrew. Once again you are trying to combine Goodberry with Disciple of Life. This build comes online at level 2 and you can heal 120 points of damage just using your spell slots. YOu then have a choice of Land Druid or Cleric to progress in as you are level dipping the other class. More cleric levels are nice for obvious reasons in terms of healing, more land Druid levels can be good for natural recovery. The Land Druid is kind of overshadowed by the Moon Druid but I am not convinced the Moon Druid is outright better as the Land Druid can use spells like haste and if you can heal so well you can use most of your spell slots on whatever you want to do. In addition you get natural recovery at level 2, by level 9 (Druid 8/Cleric1) you can recall 4 level 1 spell slots. That can be 4 more goodberry spells for another 160 points of healing available on top of your existing 4 level 1 spell slots. The Druid dip also gives you some nice offensive cantrip options to supplement sacred flame.
Going the other way Cleric 8/Druid 1 gives you the extra goodies of the higher level life domain abilities and still lets you cast copious amounts of good berries and probably frees up several spell slots to cast offensive magic. You also gain access to Prayer of Healing and Mass Healing Word which are nice cleric spells to heal with supplements my copious amounts of goodberry. The life cleric XYZ/Druid1 will also have better in combat healing due to spells like mass healing word and the Channel Divintiy: Preserve Life option.
I think I would prefer more Druid levels as I suspect the Druid/Cleric will be good enough at healing and you can have fun with blasting Druid spells or cast haste and natural recovery can probably provide enough healing just using level 1 spell slots. Goodberry will probably heal more than your level 2 and 3 spell slots as well. By level 3 a Druid2/Clr1 can heal 240 hit points per day the CLr2/Druid1 can manage 200+10 per short rest.
So technically the life cleric is probably the best healer 100% of the time but there are 3 multiclass options that seem to be able to heal better along with the healer feat at lower levels. I could be wrong and there may be better healing options available than the Bard/Cleric, CLeric/Druid and Druid/Cleric options but I do not know if they exist. If they do feel free to list them
.
