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Teaguethebean
2019-12-13, 12:54 AM
I have been fascinated by the idea of how to play the ultimate hp battery and I am unsure of how to best fill this role on a team. Obviously the staples of the build are Warding bond, and a High capacity for pain. Sadly I am unsure on the best options to take the damage for my friends.

So far I have found 3 different builds to be very effective at this play style the first of course being the classic masochist cleric build. This build is achieved using the life domain and HAM to maximize survivability. As we all know life clerics can heal both their allies and themselves in one spell. The main idea is as follows: Your fighter is hit by a hill giants club twice and takes 18 damage from each, instead of needing to retreat or possibly going down he only takes 18 damage total. Though now you are gonna take some pain, though with HAM you only take 6 from each strike leaving you with having only lost 12 hp. Now time to heal your fighter. Healing word or cure wound both work but lets say you wanna attack so you only healing word your friend even a level 1 spell helps a lot. you heal him 1d4+wis+2+1 so with a +3 wis an average of 8.5 meaning he only lost about 9 hp from 2 hits from a giant. Meanwhile you heal up 3 hp making it so you only lost 6 hp in the interaction. Though this is a great build two others are also solid decisions.

The next is an oath of the crown paladin. This character will play rather similarly to the cleric with warding bond and HAM. Though the combat healing is lacking in this build it makes up for it with the use of powerful control spells such as compelled duel and spirit guardians. With a spell like spirit guardians you can spend your turns with grappling or channel divinity that the oath of the crown loves. This also makes a very viable option through the ability to utilize your auras making you even more powerful form merely existing.

For the final build we are sent to a rather new piece of content, the mark of sentinel moon druid. This build lets you get oodles and oodles of hp paired up with the ability to cast warding bond. This build is the only one that could reasonably use a barbarian dip to make the hp battery never die. You can by level 7 easily have almost infinite hp. While raging and using warding bond you can take the form of a constrictor snake with the ability to eat up 120 point of pain before dropped out of a form. This build probably has the least features to keep allies alive after warding bond and the ability to take a single attack per long rest.

In closing what build do you think does this the best? Would you change any of the builds or would you do something entirely different? Please tell me what you think great internet gods.

Anderlith
2019-12-13, 01:17 AM
Tanky Artillerist with Protection Turret

Teaguethebean
2019-12-13, 11:15 AM
Tanky Artillerist with Protection Turret

Do you have any additional tips to help with this tactic?

stoutstien
2019-12-13, 11:20 AM
Do you have any additional tips to help with this tactic?

Strap it to who ever is near the most of your party and spam your bonus action to keep the THP active and topped off between fights.

Talionis
2019-12-14, 12:30 AM
Retribution Paladin 15/Fiend Chain Warlock 5. Take the Invocation that maximizes healing while you have your familiar. Use spell Aura of Vitality which you can cast out of your Warlock slots and heal a lot. You take the damage for your friends with your aura. At fifteen you recover fifteen health a round if you are below half health.if you can kill things you add temporary hitpoints from Fiend.

HiveStriker
2019-12-14, 05:21 AM
At high level, the best is a plain Life Cleric.

If you want early shenanigans that can still scale though?
Shepherd Druid X / Chain Warlock 3 (Repelling Blast, Gift of the Ever Living God). If you really want Warding Bond go Divine Soul Sorcerer so you can also grab Aid and Sanctuary, and Extend + Twin metamagics.
14 WIS / 16 CHA / 16 CON, pick Inspiring Leader, pick Resilient: Constitution, Tough possibly even Healer.

Basic idea is as follows:
1) When adventuring, you alternate between Druid Aura as Bear and Inspiring Leader to keep your party with good THP amount. The idea is to try and keep at least one Druid Aura use at all times to avoid getting into fight "empty".
2) In encounter, you use a bonus action to cast your Druid Aura as Unicorn, while you instruct your familiar to keep close. You can use your action on a buff spell, or on a Druid spell, whatever.
On subsequent turns, you'll use Cure Wounds on yourself preferably, while using bonus action to move up the aura to follow your pals.

Because you can maximize healing of any kind with your familiar, every time you use Cure Wounds on yourself you get healed for 15 HP. AND at the same time every friendly creature you want in a 30 foot radius area get healed for your Druid level. Let me assure you that it goes up fairly quick.
Alternatively, you could cast Cure Wounds on an ally needing it more and get yourself inside the area.

Provided you went and tri-classed into Sorcerer, things get crafty: you can use one short rest at the beginning of the day to convert one set of Warlock slots into 1st level long rest ones (as well as any regular Druid ones). Because you went Divine Soul, you could even afford to Twin Warding Bond if you support that with a (upcasted!) Healing Spirit centered on you.
Plus, since you'll spend most of your time doing "positive" things, you can afford to Sanctuary yourself as well, so enemies will have trouble breaking that continuous flow of resilience.
And because you went Divine Soul and are still mostly a regular caster, you can also Extend upcasted Aid before starting long rests so every slot is restored "and yet" everyone gets a nice and meaty +15 / 20 max HP for the day.

NOTE: if your party is 3 or less, there may be better (more efficient or simpler to make) builds achieving the same magnitude of overall protection.
For a 4+ party (including everyone of course, so also familiars, companions, mounts, NPCS) it's the absolute best. Guaranteed. :)

moonfly7
2019-12-14, 08:56 AM
Not sure if this works or helps, but at least dipping 3 levels sorcerer, and presumably going divine soul could get you twin spell, casting twinned warding bond(which undercuts warding bonds wording because your only casting the spell once) could be nice.

ProsecutorGodot
2019-12-14, 09:03 AM
I've actually made a Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?583098-Violence-as-a-Last-Resort-A-Guide-to-the-Oath-of-Redemption-Paladin) to playing Redemption Paladin, which works very well for this type of playstyle.

Life Transference and Warding Bond were also added to the Paladins expanded spell list in a recent UA, if you can get your DM to agree with that then it's 100% the perfect choice.

TheUser
2019-12-14, 09:11 AM
HAM doesn't interact with Warding bond as the damage you are taking is not from non-magical weapons; you are taking damage from Warding Bond.

HAM explicitly states it reduces bludgeoning/slashing/piercing damage you take from non-magical weapons.

However! You could use some form of spell resistance to lower the damage (make sure you have Proficiency in con saves btw).

Witty Username
2019-12-14, 01:10 PM
If I recall moon druid paired with 3rd level bear totem barbarian so you can rage then wild shape, resistance to most damage and random beast health pool.

HiveStriker
2019-12-14, 01:54 PM
Not sure if this works or helps, but at least dipping 3 levels sorcerer, and presumably going divine soul could get you twin spell, casting twinned warding bond(which undercuts warding bonds wording because your only casting the spell once) could be nice.
This works indeed per RAW and RAI, and it can work well.
Just remember that it means that in means you potentially take the equivalent of several attacks in a single round (because you take half damage for 2 people).

It also means twice the amount of saves you'll have to make to maintain concentration on a potentially interesting spell (*cough* Spirit Guardians / Haste / Fear / Hypnotic Pattern as a regular Sorcerer, Spike Growth / Sleet Storm / Warding Wind / Conjure Animals as a Druid multiclass).

So for this to be really feasible, you have to up your stacks on HP and concentration, meaning pushing Constitution full gear on: starting with 16 or 17 CON, getting proficiency in Constitution saves before 3rd level spells at worst, getting at least 18 AC one way or another (and/or Sanctuary), and getting Tough as well.

This can certainly work though. :)