life cleric healing a barbarian

[Zhepna]

Hi,

I make a life cleric and I read online to not heal to always keep the players at full life because you cannot keep up with the damage done by monster. They say the exception is if you have a barbarian in your group because that's twice as good on them.

I don't understand why this is the case. We'll have a barbarian in our party. I understand that the have less ac but more hitpoints but I wanted to make sure I don't miss anything.

Thanks for the information.

[kazaryu]

Hi,

I make a life cleric and I read online to not heal to always keep the players at full life because you cannot keep up with the damage done by monster. They say the exception is if you have a barbarian in your group because that's twice as good on them.

I don't understand why this is the case. We'll have a barbarian in our party. I understand that the have less ac but more hitpoints but I wanted to make sure I don't miss anything.

Thanks for the information.

While raging they have resistance to physical damage. Which effectively means they have +50% effective HP. (+100% if its a bear totem barbarian)

So every point of hp you heal is more effective on a barb.

[col_impact]

To add a little more to the above comment, as a healer you want to take advantage of the brokenness of yo-yo healing as a general rule. Yo-yo healing allows a lot of damage to simply vanish due to how the rules work.

Except in the case of a raging barbarian. Going unconscious breaks rage so yo-yo healing is not as good. Plus, as already mentioned, you get double the value out of your heals while he or she is raging. So heal the raging barbarian. Yo-yo heal everyone else.

[Expected]

It's better to use your actions to eliminate the enemy (thus reducing their action economy compared to your party's) then to try to out heal the damage they do to you. If you decide to heal, a raging Barbarian is a goodrecipient for healing because as mentioned above, unconsciousness ends Rage so you need to avoid it from happening.

Now, it is true that a Barbarian's effective hit points are increased whilst raging, but it is not as simple as it being a 50% or 100% increase as you are still vulnerable to damage other than slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage for any Barbarian subclass besides Bear Totem Warrior who gets resistance to all damage except Psychic.

[LudicSavant]

Burst healing is more effective the slower allies take damage, such as from having a high AC or Resistance.

That said, if a Barbarian is going low AC + Reckless Attack, they'll often take more damage than a typical tank, despite Resistance.

[kazaryu]

Now, it is true that a Barbarian's effective hit points are increased whilst raging, but it is not as simple as it being a 50% or 100% increase as you are still vulnerable to damage other than slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage for any Barbarian subclass besides Bear Totem Warrior who gets resistance to all damage except Psychic.
Obviously those numbers arent perfectly precisex since the real breakdown is going ti be campaign dependent. The idea was to give general numbers as illustrations.

[col_impact]

Burst healing is more effective the slower allies take damage, such as from having a high AC or Resistance.

That said, if a Barbarian is going low AC + Reckless Attack, they'll often take more damage than a typical tank, despite Resistance.

You bring up a great point that can be generalized even further, healing and keeping your tanks at max potential is great value.

[LudicSavant]

Burst healing can actually be really good, the problem is that people try to do it by spamming Cure Wounds and that's really bad.

[col_impact]

Burst healing can actually be really good, the problem is that people try to do it by spamming Cure Wounds and that's really bad.

Spamming Goodberry now that is really good! Healing word also good! Unicorn Spirit also solid! Daily Bear Spirit in the morning now that is OP! Free action delivery of multiple goodberries now that is God tier!

[Azuresun]

To add a little more to the above comment, as a healer you want to take advantage of the brokenness of yo-yo healing as a general rule. Yo-yo healing allows a lot of damage to simply vanish due to how the rules work.

This assumes that enemies never ever attack downed characters before the healer's turn comes up, and that creatures with multiple attacks will immediately stop attacking characters the moment they drop.

[col_impact]

This assumes that enemies never ever attack downed characters before the healer's turn comes up, and that creatures with multiple attacks will immediately stop attacking characters the moment they drop.

Whatcha talkin about Willis? Yo-yo healing is the norm not the exception.

[stoutstien]

I use a simple flow chart damage prevention, mitigation, pre healing, then finally healing.
Preventing the damage will always be the best option. Removing threats quicker, good planning, or so on.
Sometimes damage is unavoidable so medication comes next. The most common form is increasing saves but spells like warding Bond can be a good option.
Free healing is anytime that you can increase maximum hit points. Sources of temporary hit points and spells like Aid and heroes feast are extremely potent because you can kill somebody before they even get hurt.
The final option is healing. Try to avoid doing this in combat unless it's necessary.most the time incoming damage will always outstrip the amount that you could replace. Life domain cleric so pretty good about maximizing their action economy when it comes to healing. They're also the perfect candidate for warding Bond because they self heal.

Key points:
bless may seem like the boring option that everybody falls back on but that's because it plays double duty by killing stuff faster and providing medication with increase saves.
If you could swing the stats requirement inspiring leader is very powerful.
Don't worry about keeping everybody topped off hit dice provide a big pool of hit point recovery.
A strong point of clarity general is divination spells. Some of the best damage prevention is good forsight.

[J-H]

The party in the game I am running has a life cleric. She chooses to mostly heal in combat and is very good at it. I was surprised at how effective it really is.

[da newt]

Valid point all, but I don't think "bad" or "good" are the best words to describe the effectiveness of healing, Temp HP, High AC etc - I think efficient or effective or optimal are probably better descriptors, or best, better, etc.

Saying healing is bad can be confusing.

[Tanarii]

It’s not necessarily the case that healing in combat is bad or ineffective. Take into account that healing is 100% success rate, whereas doing damage may depend on a hit roll. All too often folks make the mistake of comparing base damage roll to base healing roll. What matters is DPR vs HPR. And the former depends on attack form (hit or nothing; save for half) and chance of success, among other things.


This assumes that enemies never ever attack downed characters before the healer's turn comes up, and that creatures with multiple attacks will immediately stop attacking characters the moment they drop.
Yup.

Personally, IMX unless players have been trained to accept pop up healing as the default way of doing things (usually common in AL), I find they instinctively try avoid it.

[stoutstien]

It’s not necessarily the case that healing in combat is bad or ineffective. Take into account that healing is 100% success rate, whereas doing damage may depend on a hit roll. All too often folks make the mistake of comparing base damage roll to base healing roll. What matters is DPR vs HPR. And the former depends on attack form (hit or nothing; save for half) and chance of success, among other things.


Yup.

Personally, IMX unless players have been trained to accept pop up healing as the default way of doing things (usually common in AL), I find they instinctively try avoid it.

Agreed. The normal point where players tend ti want to heal is about 1/2-1/3 of total HP which is about right IMO.

[Theodoxus]

I play clerics 90% of the time, and Life Clerics 100% of the time.

There's a lot of interplay when it comes to playing a Life Cleric in a party - especially if it's a new group (AL is a perfect example). Yes, the general (optimal?) play is to let a party member fall down, and you pick them back up (Healing Word or Cure Wounds, depending). If the barbarian is raging, toss a heal to them when they hit 1/2 hit points - the absolute worst thing you can do is overheal (your healing spell heals more damage than they've taken) - that's just a waste of your spell slot (and with the greater efficiency of Life healing, it's a lot easier to mistakenly overheal if you're not paying attention).

Beyond that though, know your team. Don't let a caster who's concentrating on a spell fall either. Don't heal the wildshaped moon druid ever (they can burn their own slots if they want to maintain their form - you might consider healing them if they're on their second shape and the fight is going to be close (or will be a crapshoot if they're reduced to their caster form).) Something to work with your party is to try to get everyone to aggro the bad guys. Your Channel Divinity is more effective when it's spread around (especially if most of the group is 5 or so points under half) - you can piss off the baddies by suddenly having your team back to fighting strength as an action. (Even more impressive if you're looking at a TPW and you pop off that bad boy, getting 2 or 3 friendlies back up from unconscious at the same time.)

Lastly, if there's a whiny little B in your party that always wants to be topped off and won't take a step further into the dungeon until he's at 100%, consider what they contribute to the party. Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and mollify them. But if they're not contributing much (they're not the tank, nor the #1 damage dealer), just ignore their whiny ass and follow the guidelines here (let him bounce if he's not concentrating or raging...)

I find healing is satisfactory. The singular change I would make to the Life Domain would be to swap out Divine Strike for Potent Spellcasting. I'd much rather sit back with a free hand and a shield, casting from a safe distance, than wade into melee with a mace (or warhammer when I play a dwarf). It's just so... unsavory.

[Keravath]

Yo-yo healing is the most efficient in the sense that any damage in excess of that needed to bring the character to zero hit points (as long as it doesn't hit negative total hit points) is wasted. A character with 40 total hit points, currently at 5 hit points who takes 34 hit points of damage is just unconscious. 29 hit points of damage don't do anything extra. A healing word or cure wounds spell will have them back up and fighting the next round.

HOWEVER, this is predicated on one particular monster/DM behavior. It assumes that the monsters won't attack unconscious characters.

"UNCONSCIOUS
• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
• The creature drops whatever it's holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature."

Any critical hit is two automatic failed death saves. Unconscious characters are very easy to permanently kill. If you are fighting opponents who are intelligent enough to know healing exists and that an unconscious opponent could be fighting the next round then they might very well attack downed opponents to make sure they stay down.

In this kind of circumstance, it may not be efficient to heal at greater than zero hit points but it becomes necessary to do so to prevent character deaths.

[Theaitetos]

I use a simple flow chart damage prevention, mitigation, pre healing, then finally healing.
Preventing the damage will always be the best option. Removing threats quicker, good planning, or so on.
Sometimes damage is unavoidable so medication comes next. The most common form is increasing saves but spells like warding Bond can be a good option.
[…]
If you could swing the stats requirement inspiring leader is very powerful.

That's why the Divine Soul healer is such a good alternative: High CHA & Inspiring Leader work great together, while (Twin) Warding Bond & Blade Ward & Interception fighting style & Heavy Armor Master feat is an even more incredible combo! :smallsmile:

[opaopajr]

Topping off is rather unnecessary, especially so in 5e. PCs recover 100% HP in a Long Rest, can use Hit Dice to recover during Short Rest, no negative damage means unless Lethal Hit (greater than Max HP in the negative in one blow) it sloughs off -- and Death Saves are the only real thing to watch for, etc. ... magical healing for topping off HP is not critical for survival. :smallsmile:

Magical Healing is still good, but it is contextual. Basically they are better as salvation from death saves disaster, or undo buttons while 1/2 HP or less (preventing a required yo-yo from death save disaster). That frees you up as a healer to throw in a few of your own monkey wrenches into your enemy's combat.

[LudicSavant]

Topping off is rather unnecessary, especially so in 5e. PCs recover 100% HP in a Long Rest, can use Hit Dice to recover during Short Rest, no negative damage means unless Lethal Hit (greater than Max HP in the negative in one blow) it sloughs off -- and Death Saves are the only real thing to watch for, etc. ... magical healing for topping off HP is not critical for survival. :smallsmile:

What is or isn't critical for survival varies a great deal by the difficulty of the campaign you're playing in.

For instance in harder campaigns, enemies aren't going to let players rest whenever they like, or politely forget to take measures to finish PCs off just because they hit zero, or abstain from using things that just plain destroy your corpse.

[col_impact]

That's why the Divine Soul healer is such a good alternative: High CHA & Inspiring Leader work great together, while (Twin) Warding Bond & Blade Ward & Interception fighting style & Heavy Armor Master feat is an even more incredible combo! :smallsmile:

Even more OP-ness is to be had in Life Cleric 1/ Shepherd X.

[kazaryu]

That's why the Divine Soul healer is such a good alternative: High CHA & Inspiring Leader work great together, while (Twin) Warding Bond & Blade Ward & Interception fighting style & Heavy Armor Master feat is an even more incredible combo! :smallsmile:

Everyone touts the twin wardning bond. Until all 3 of y'all get snacked with an AoE spell.

Nah jk. Definitely a useful combo, just carries a bit of risk

[Slipperychicken]

The second reason you don't want to always top people off mid-combat is Preserve Life. You wait for allies to get low enough that you can use the whole thing (5 x Level) or most of it, then bounce them back to half with it, and if needed combo with mass healing word to get people nearly to full. I keep a spreadsheet where I enter peoples' max and current health totals so it tells me how much I can heal with it.

Forget about turning undead, your channel divinity is for preserve life only.

Healer is a mandatory feat to take pressure off your spell slots. Lets you heal d6+4+level to every ally, every short rest, for a price of pocket change and saying "I buy more healer kits in town". And it's not a spell so you can combo with healing word. I always go VHuman to get it at level one.

Always prepare every condition removal spell you can. Bailing people out of disease, curses, possession, paralysis, and other shenanigans is your job. The spells that you care about are healing, condition removal, and bless. Might be one or two times in an adventure it makes sense to cast spirit guardians or some detection spells. Everything else takes precious slots away from your job.

I think multiclassing and goodberry are cheese, so I don't bother. Multiclassing is bad because you need those condition removals ASAP. You'll regret that druid dip when you're stuck with a cursed ally at level 5. Great story, not so great for survival.

Damage prevention is a meme left over from older editions when you could lock down whole encounters including bosses before they fired a shot. In 5e your party will get badly hurt, and as the healer, what happens next is up to you. It takes a suicidally dumb party to die despite the best efforts of a good conscious life cleric.

You can keep up with damage dealt. You just have to be smart and pace yourself: track hitpoints, use your short rest resources (healer, preserve life), let your allies use theirs (second wind, hit dice), save your spell slots, and take your short rests. I know this because I've been doing it through full adventuring days (including deadly+ encounters) for years. My GMs often complain that it's nearly impossible to kill a party with a well-played life cleric.

[Theaitetos]

Everyone touts the twin wardning bond. Until all 3 of y'all get snacked with an AoE spell.

Nah jk. Definitely a useful combo, just carries a bit of risk

It's only risky for the healer, your party is pretty safe! :smalltongue: At higher levels extended Death Wards are great buffs, and when you expect the worst to happen, then on your turn you can break a single Warding Bond by removing the associated platinum ring (free item interaction) or by moving out of range for a moment.

But yes, getting resistances for yourself is a thing you want to look out for. The Absorb Elements, Fire Shield, … spells are good for that, or race/item resistances. I suggest going with 1 level in Fighter at the beginning for the Heavy Armor + Fighting Style (+ STR save), but if you don't mind losing Interception, you can dip Life Cleric for 1 or 2 levels: 1 level dip is basically free, the 2nd level costs you an ASI at the end; a Kalashtar is a good race option for dipping Life Cleric if you do.



Always prepare every condition removal spell you can. Bailing people out of disease, curses, possession, paralysis, and other shenanigans is your job. The spells that you care about are healing, condition removal, and bless. Might be one or two times in an adventure it makes sense to cast spirit guardians or some detection spells. Everything else takes precious slots away from your job.

That's another thing I prefer about the Sorcerer Healer over the Life Cleric: Your Counterspell is absolutely powerful in preventing your party from being afflicted with many conditions in the first place: Using a 3rd-level slot for Counterspell beats using a 5th-level slot for Greater Restoration.

[Sigreid]

Whatcha talkin about Willis? Yo-yo healing is the norm not the exception.

Can't speak for other tables but at mine we try to keep everyone off the ground. There's a lot of bad things that can happen between going down and being revived such as loosing your weapon, the opponent moving past the tank to the squishy and the opponent finishing the downed PC off.

In a world where yo-yo healing is possible it's unreasonable for the opponent not to land a blow or two to be sure. Especially if they've seen the party get someone up already. Even if the bad guys want prisoners, one will probably do.

[DevilMcam]

There is an amazing guide on healing out there : you can find it here

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545797-This-Hurts-You-More-Than-It-Hurts-Me-A-Healer-s-Handbook

[clash]

Another thing optimizers fail to consider is turn order. Doing damage isn't better than healing if your buddy who can deal twice as much damage goes down and misses his turn because you left him at 5hp on your turn. Sure you can get him back up in your turn but that doesn't stop gin from missing his next turn again if you just throw him a healing word and smack another guy. I find that yo yo healing doesn't work as well in practice as it often results in missed turns for the people that should be dealing the damage and are optimized for it.

[Slipperychicken]

Healer over the Life Cleric: Your Counterspell is absolutely powerful in preventing your party from being afflicted with many conditions in the first place: Using a 3rd-level slot for Counterspell beats using a 5th-level slot for Greater Restoration.

While I sorely wish that life clerics had 'Counterspell' and 'See Invisibility', it would make the build completely OP. At least leave us with some reason to keep arcane casters around :smallbiggrin:

I don't think I've ever needed to cast greater restoration. 99% of the time a lesser restoration (2nd), protection from evil and good (2nd), remove curse (3rd), dispel magic (3rd), or dispel evil and good (5th) will do the job. Maybe if your GM is in love with exhaustion levels, petrification, or straight hp/ability score penalties that somehow aren't due to an ongoing disease, spell effect, or curse? It's pretty obscure stuff. I find my GMs usually just want to stuff us full of demons, diseases, and curses.

[Theaitetos]

I don't think I've ever needed to cast greater restoration. 99% of the time a lesser restoration (2nd), protection from evil and good (2nd), remove curse (3rd), dispel magic (3rd), or dispel evil and good (5th) will do the job. Maybe if your GM is in love with exhaustion levels, petrification, or straight hp/ability score penalties that somehow aren't due to an ongoing disease, spell effect, or curse? It's pretty obscure stuff. I find my GMs usually just want to stuff us full of demons, diseases, and curses.

Sure, if you can prepare so many spells, then great. I mean, that's the only reason why divine casters are still viable, right? :smallbiggrin:

All sorcerers have to contend with an extremely low number of spells known, so they have to value the versatility of a single spell much more. A lvl20 cleric has 35 spells prepared – 20 from level +5 from WIS + 10 from domain. A sorcerer has 15 spells, less than half of a cleric. So replacing Greater Restoration with a bunch of lower level spells doesn't cut it for the sorc.

However, there's a funny twist too, because clerics have a much lower number of cantrips known than sorcerers. See, diseases and curses are often the only occasions where one can accurately prepare for an expected saving throw, and thereby make use of the Resistance cantrip. But since this cantrip is otherwise so weak and the cleric has to take Guidance, Sacred Flame, et.al, the low number of cantrips known requires the cleric to replace its features with higher-level spells – just like sorcerers have to do with spells!

Granted, a Divine Soul is equally unlikely to choose Resistance, but that's because many of the arcane cantrips are even more powerful than the divine cantrips.

[Danielqueue1]

It depends on the campaign.
I ran a semi-dedicated healer in a homebrew campaign where the DM upped the difficulty level to match the party's capability. It wasn't long before we were going up against a homebrewed invisible flying terrasque-equivalent that could cast aoe disintegrates just for the encounters to possibly be scary. If we went into those same encounters without the healer, we would all have lost our characters very quickly.

How the campaign runs will completely change how necessary in-combat healing is. Ask yourself (or your DM) the following questions,
•will enemies attack downed PCs?
•will getting knocked unconscious repeatedly have consequences?
•will the campaign difficulty scale with the party's capabilities?
•will rests be easy/reliable?

These questions will determine a great deal on how one should heal.

[Dork_Forge]

There is an amazing guide on healing out there : you can find it here

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545797-This-Hurts-You-More-Than-It-Hurts-Me-A-Healer-s-Handbook

I'd take this guide with a pinch of salt, some sources of healing are under rated and some things are misleading in the guide, not bad overall though especailly as a compiled list of sources of healing (just missing RftLW understandably).

OP: Healing varies from campaign to campaign, some people won't heal in combat besides yoyo healing others will spend actions on Cure Wounds. It depends on what kind of threats you go up against and how the DM plays the monsters. Besides that it also depends on your personal stance on the matter, personally I hate yoyo healing. RP it makes no sense to wait for your companion to be on the floor dying before helping when you can see they're hurt and mechanically it's not only risky but can lead to lost turns, losing concentration, rages special abilities etc.

Rule of thumb bonus action healing is best healing but you're a life Cleric, meaning you can throw out a Spritiual Weapon and later use your action for healing whilst still having a bonus attack if you want.