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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Empirate" data-source="post: 5386377" data-attributes="member: 78958">I beg to differ on both points.Minions you do not have to get rid of much of the time. At very low levels, there is no such thing as a minion - every enemy is dangerous in their own right. At mid to high levels, you can usually get to the boss more or less easily, as you will have more forms of movement available to you. Also, often you don't have to 'get to' somebody (as in, get in melee range), since you can shut them down for a round or more by employing one of the many means of battlefield control.Yes, a primary spellcaster who can do AoE stuff is very important in many encounters, especially if it is not readily apparent which enemy will be the greatest threat. Sometimes, you fight a bunch of similarly and reasonably powerful opponents. In such cases, area effects are your friends.But:  damage is absolutely not the required and only possible kind of AoE in these situations. In fact, a well-placed Web or Solid Fog or Entangle can just make your day. The only reason for lobbing a Fireball instead would be if you knew for sure that, even if they make their save, they'll still be dead, coz that's how few HP they have.Party members dying a sudden death will be a problem at all levels really. In-combat healing doesn't mitigate this fact. Sure, if your chum only has a few HP left and the big bad monster gets ready for another full attack, you'd like to heal him before that happens. But you could also take out the big bad monster instead, or whisk your ally to safety with Regroup or plain old Invisibility, or grapple/trip/bullrush/Grease the big bad monster. Also, facing a big bad monster's full attack, a Cure Moderate Wounds won't cut it.Basically, as long as there's no Heal online (which it actually wasn't in most of the campaigns I've played in or DMed), in-combat healing is really not that useful a way to go spending your actions. Out of combat, a Rogue UMDing a Wand of CLW is a good healbot, or a  Dragon Shaman with the right aura, or tons of other stuff really. Sure, a Cleric can do nifty healy stuff with Close Wounds, and Revivify if all else fails. But you do not absolutely need a Cleric to be successful!So sure, Clerics are Awesome, but not necessarily for their healing abilities. The same goes for Druids, only even more so, as they're worse healers and overall even more flexible.</blockquote>

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