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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6601359" data-attributes="member: 5834">Why would you use heailng word at higher level? This is what I don't understand. We had to use mass cure wounds at higher level or higher level cure wound spells due to the higher damage output by the enemy. A third level cure wounds heals between 17 and 18. A 3rd level healing word between 11 and 12. That is a substantial difference in a slot. On top of the potential difference that might occur for a high roll or when used in conjunction with a spell like beacon of hope I think it is called when you are maximizing the effect of heal spells. Not sure why it would be. Groups should be rarely using cure wounds or healing word[/I ]as they level. Even lair actions wipe someone out in really tough fights if they're at zero. You toss a 1st level healing word in a lair action or AoE scenario, they're done anyway. They key to surviving encounters with higher damage output at higher level is getting as many hit points into the character as possible. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.I'd rather see you describe a specific scenario where healing word was better to continue this debate. I don't see the validity of your argument. I heal quite often. You have to be able to get the hit points past a certain threshold for a healing spell to be useful. You can['t for example toss out a healing word because someone is down if you know the slot is going to be wasted. We are the opposite. The most death we've seen is in groups that don't have a good healer. Spike damage from crits. Surprisingly effective tactics by the opponent that immediately put the PCs at a hit point deficit and a woefully unprepared healer that can't get them back up quickly. A key character going down quickly to focused attacks and the cleric can't get them back up above the hit point threshold they need to survive.We were told the same thing in 3E. We tried it. We got wasted because it is extremely easy for a DM to bring heavy offense against PCs in a game. The real advantage PCs have over the NPCs is defensive and healing options. It is what usually sets them apart and decides the day.I find this very odd. The DM can rarely justify healing during encounter design. He has an easier time justifying heavy offense. The primary way a DM challenges an party is by making the opponent's offense so strong that PCs are overwhelmed. The main way the PCs have to counter this is healing and defense (crowd control, resistance, and the like). If they go heavy offense, they lose due to attrition because they usually have fewer members. The above primarily considers major encounters. Minor encounters we don't use combat healing either. We don't need it. Minor encounters are generally defeated with nearly no hit point loss. We often send scouts to clear minor encounter like room guards or single powerful monsters like an ogre. They don't even require the use of the entire party's resources. Sometimes your wasting resources by sending melee martials into battle against something you can kill at range before it can even enter battle.Strategy is an extremely complex and situational discussion. My spell choice is generally for main encounters (extremely powerful enemies) built for wiping the party out where healing and defense is the main way we survive. It's not for wandering around a dungeon wiping out a few rooms or fighting a single BBEG in a room with a few henchmen. Those types of encounters are generally easy and don't require much combat healing. The DM needs to put out the kitchen sink (which we usually do) to get us to combat heal like when we fought five young red dragons, two mounted wizards with 4th level spells, ten dragon cultist, and eight dragon fighters. That was a nuts battle at level 13 or 14.  I might adjust for 5E. It's not like 3E where a powerful healer can undo the massive damage that existed in 3E in a round. The math in 5E is different. I will have to adjust accordingly.</blockquote>

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