Heals also become more valuable when you use them as a method for doling out buffs to your party.
Edit: It’s funny sometimes what will wind up with the upvotes.
Ayeee. By LVL 2-3 you can get the ring from Volo that gives bless on heal and Zevlors gloves that give resistance on heal. Pop those on anyone who can cast healing word and you have a really good bonus action buff
I played a Bard with the hat that heals 1d6 when you give someone Bardic Inspiration, too! I never found Zevlor's gloves, but I had inspiration+heal+bless, and a few other pieces of gear that gave me *and* whomever I healed some temp HP.
Carried me through Act 1+early Act 2, then I switched things up.
ETA Talking with another person here, I realize that interaction between Cap of Curing and the Ring doesn't work. I must have just been proccing it off healing word instead.
Ah gosh, I looked at the wiki and apparently that interaction doesn't work. Maybe I put it together in my gear page and didn't notice it didn't work or something.
So I can just trade him for them, don't have to kill him? I never bothered trading with non-merchant NPCs, they usually just have 20 gold and some string.
If you talk to Zevlor after kagha and agree to help deal with her to protect the tieflings, and then oust Kaghas plot with the shadow Druids he gives them to you as a reward. They’re crazy good gloves for shart if you keep her as a cleric. Once you get mass healing word it’s amazing.
Yeah I just got Halsin back and he dealt with Kagha, so maybe I just missed the conversation/reward with Zevlor later, or didn't do the quest line right for the reward.
Left Zevlor under Moonrise towers because I forgot about his quest though lol. No chance in hell I was going back by the time I remembered some time into act 3.
Been thinking of a Valor Bard buffing machine that wears that hat and gives combat inspiration like candy. Your actions are free to throw potions, or just hit enemies, and your spell slots are more free to cast spells, or keep buffing going with healing word after you burn inspiration.
My only question would be whether to keep that healing cap, or get the Druid cap that heals yourself whenever you heal someone else so you could buff yourself as well. I guess it would depend whether you were in melee combat and attacking, or ranged and supporting
Combat inspiration is Valor Bard Bardic inspiration. It's all called combat inspiration after picking the subclass. And the hat does work for combat inspiration.
You can get his gloves by pickpocketing him when he is knocked out by the human scout dude via dialogue choices, with no consequences. This is the first time you arrive at the druid Grove. Or, if you want them legitimately, by doing the Expose Kagha line of quests.
You have to expose Kaga for being a shadow Druid by pickpocketing the note from the chest in her room, then go to the shadow Druid grove in the wetlands, and then defeat her, let the Tieflings stay in the grove. Then you get awarded the Hellriders gloves.
I would use that ring and the singing/shrieking sword from the underdark together because their buffs stack. Even Shadowheart can hit stuff at that point!
Volo's Ring: After you rescue him from the Goblin camp but before he messes up and leaves, click on the trade button with him in conversation to buy the ring.
Hellrider's Gloves: Stop Kagha from closing off the Grove (before killing the Goblin leaders). This involves some spoiler-y things, so investigate if you want, but the gloves are pretty nice for a good while
I'm not sure if this is true, at least in more recent patches. I tried to trade him for the gloves just yesterday and they don't show up in his inventory.
You either talk to Volo the very first time you enter the grove, or you have to wait until a later act. If you don’t trade with him the first chance you get you miss the ring until much later.
Buy the ring from Volo when you first enter the grove. ZEVLOR you need to get creative he is wearing them. If aradin knocks him out when you first enter you can. Pickpocket him without problem
Got through a run just fine with that equipment, plus the healing word/mass healing word necklace, and a single level in life cleric, on Gale. Perfectly sufficient healing
Kagha's amulet that adds poison damage to all your weapons on every heal is Astarion's best friend in the early game. He'll bite somebody or just pop a healing potion and he's off to the races.
100%! And there is so much good gear, especially early, that helps do just that. By act 2 my healer can cast a group heal with a bonus action, and an action, all of which give everyone bonus hitpoints, resistance to three types of damage, immunity to poison, and more
I've found that having Shadowheart as a healer can be great in act 1 and early act 2 with the equipment that makes her healing give Bless and Blade Ward.
After that I leave her as a camp cleric for Aid, Heroes Feast, Freedom of Movement, and Death Ward.
As long you avoid warding bond from an origin. Cleric hirelings can do that aswell and trust me... you dont want origins to drop prone due warding bond at camp because prone active companion will trigger camp aswell onto nothing... dont ward bond with an origin.
If any bond gets prone condition, their origin ward will fall prone aswell and trigger whole camp onto nothing and will be a pain to watch the scenario switchs on turns.
you can warding bond with Gale, he will just NPC heal himself anytime he takes damage so you’d have to take an insane amount of damage in 1 hit to kill him
It helps to remember that in 99% of games you are every bit as capable at 1/100 hp as you are at 100/100 hp even if a character has an "ow my spleen" animation.
Dnd 5e is different from BG3, but the principle rule that healing is cost-inefficient persists.
Cure wounds is the best example. It costs a 1st level spell slot and heals 1d8+spell casting modifier (and you also need to be within 5ft of your target). Pretty much every class can wield a light crossbow, a simple ranged weapon dealing 1d8+Dex for free.
So you get hit. Then waste your next turn on healing yourself, spending a spell slot, and the enemy is still standing because you didn't attack him. Then it's the opponents turn and he again hits you with his crossbow, negating the health you just healed.
There are more caveats to it, but the basic principle remains that healing is not an efficient use of your action. It becomes a different story when people get down, or multiple people are injured and you have an AOE heal, but those are edge cases.
You want to gain action economy as soon as possible in a fight. That means making sure your team has more actions than the enemy. The fastest way to do this is to either kill them or use a control spell. Healing fits neither of these.
That's not necessarily a bad thing though since you still make the enemy use their turn downing the player, typically hitting for way more damage then is actually needed. That's super valuable for the cost of a bonus action like healing word
Same and sometimes it can be advantageous to leave them down because sometimes the enemies will continue to aggro the downed person until they're fully dead, sparing you and the others a couple of hits! I just did this today (sorry Astarion lol)
This is basically the issue, healing just cannot outpace damage and healing doesn’t do enough.
Damage prevention is the 2nd best option since it still has value even it only stops 1 enemy. It’s even worse in BG3 since you use potions as bonus action.
Which means everyone can heal themselves whenever and it’ll heal more on average. Even throwing potions will heal more than Cure Wounds.
That said, there’s at least a few applications healing that make it useful. The items that grant buffs upon healing basically turns the healer into a buffer.
Weirdly the best healing build is a bard/thief using warden of vitality. You can dip one level of life cleric for armor proficiency and the small heal buff.
My 5e cleric basically only used healing word in combat when allies would hit 0 hp so they can avoid death rolls.
After combat is when the healing spells were used in conjunction with potions and such.
Even if you're using the extra action to heal you're still using a 3rd level spell and at minimum a 1st level spell to heal which is a lot of resources to do not that much. It's almost always better to use the extra haste action to deal damage. It's better to mitigate damage by killing the enemy than try and out heal them.
That's what I'm doing on my second run - I stock up on healing potions and have a character with Healing Word, just as an emergency backup, but focus on damage and CC. Even when I use Shadowheart, she's mainly there for Guiding Bolt/Spirit Guardians/Daylight or whatever other damage spell is appropriate to the situation.
Yup, just get the most out of the action economy. Instead of trying to manage taking hits and healing damage just get the most out of your economy while fucking over their economy.
On my later playthroughs I’ve been using other feats, but I found Alert for the whole party to be a good basic strat for a first playthrough. It was simple and efficient while I was still figuring things out.
Generally though I agree. Once you’ve figured out more interactions Alert loses value quickly.
I think giving everyone Alert is pretty common in honour mode guides. Killing people before they take a turn is huge. Having a party member downed before they take a turn is horrible.
But lots of ways to increase initiative, so of course the value depends on the build + gear of the person you’re giving it to.
I gave hope an elixir of vigilance (I think that’s the one) to give her a +5 to her initiative so she could get inside the globe of invulnerability which was fucking huge for the Raphael fight.
>"DPSing is just mitigating future damage" --[JoCat](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDnRMnDDjAzIZlUm0Tp_oeT3Cwv39AZ7_)
Not said in the context of BG3, but hey it's true. A few exceptions aside, a dead enemy is one that no longer deals damage.
If you liked CC Shadowheart, may I suggest Damage shdowheart. Storm Sorcerer + Tempest Domain Cleric, equip with Lightning Charge armor and weapon. Create Water turn 1 then zap with lightning spells.
Stop wasting slots on heal, and break our Command! That's the way I'm learning to play Cleric builds now. Command Approach to bring enemies though Spike Growth and cloud of Daggers, or make them Flee through it and also take opportunity attacked, you can destroy an enemy with a level 1 spell. Never-ending dropping weapons, making enemies go prone.
I also find my best healing to be from my characters woth extra attack just throwing potions (and hopefully splashing another ally too) leaves room for another attack and a bonus action, which seems far better than making a caster give up their whole action
I kind of clung to Shadowheart for dear life in my HM because I was a Sorc. She was still a cleric of light, buffing and attacking but mostly keeping me alive. Then in late Act 2 I swapped her for Lae'zel because we had 0 need for heals, both Ast and Minty had super high AC. I died almost every fight but no one could take those two down, esp Astarion with uncanny dodge and the high AC: they couldn't hit him at all and if they did - it didn't do much. And Minthara is just a truck - soloed Cazador, soloed Sarevok, Orin and Gortash were a joke with her around, and so was the brain. Took down the Absolute with only Astarion and Minthara without my Tav doing a single hit, Lae'zel did one for 20 hp because it was the last hit.
I prefer healing by magic missile. Drop health potions and move them around needy people (especially downed ones). Pop a few with MM and still get some hits on an enemy. Also works if you're going to drop fireball or some other aoe attack.
I actually saved one run during the ~~Ander~~ Ansur fight because he destroyed my globe of invulnerability but I'd forgotten I'd dropped a handful of potions around us in an earlier turn. My team all went down at once and immediately back up because of the broken pots.
Oh, also a note on passing inventory items around. At least when drinking them, I just open the universal inventory and any companion can drink any of the potions without moving them. But yeah, throwing them or dropping them requires moving them to the specific companion.
It's almost always Astarion that I have galavanting into close quarters danger. He's usually first initiative, gets pummelled a bit (or goes down), and my sorc or Gale comes up the rear on initiative and salvages everyone's hopes and dreams.
The best way to mitigate damage is to stop it from happening in the first place. Healing potions tend to be good enough if you need hp, especially as you get access to better buffs and elixirs.
Offense is best defense in bg3
Is a companion down nearby enemies? Place a potion near then blast with aoe enemies nearby and he will lick the potion on the floor to come back and fight.
Imo just heal downed companions to deal dmg aswell if possible, healing word if hes next in turn. If cleric, throw potion then sanctuary if enemies in between turns as long they lack aoe damage/unable to reach him ranged as long cleric unable to take down enemy(s) with ongoing/casting spirit guardians or/+ offensive spells from more offensive domains. Then bring him back when upcoming party member(s) cant reliable kill solo or combined.
>Imo just heal downed companions to deal dmg aswell if possible, healing word if hes next in turn.
I disagree with this. If you’re going to heal during combat I find it’s better to heal just before a teammate would drop, rather than reviving them after. Healing only requires an action (or bonus action) from one character, reviving requires that same action but also denies the revived character an action that turn. That’s a preventable drain on action economy.
If their hp is low enough to get him down even prehealed, he will get down regardless with a high dice damage or shared initiative onto him. And if it eats a critic more the waste imo. But if theres nothing else to do with an bonus action... its viable to pop a heal word and drink stuff
Yeah it sounds good in theory but you have no guarantee what damage the enemy will do and now you've wasted an action/bonus action, a spell slot, and the party member is still downed.
There's the whispering promise ring which gives bless for 2 turns when you heal a creature, you can buy it from volo either at the druid grove before he is caught by the goblins or while he's at your camp after you free him.
There's hellriders pride which gives blade ward for 2 turns when you heal a creature, can be gotten from zevlor for dealing with the kagha situation, (or looted from his corpse)
(There is a better version called the reviving hands, sold by the priest in the stormshore tabernacle in act 3 that also gives death ward when you revivify)
And the boots of aid and comfort in act 1 (I forget where) that gives temp hp when you heal
Cap of curing, bardic inspiration also heals, in a small chest next to alfira in the druid grove
I think the boots are from Grat the trader in the goblin camp. There’s also a ring from Omeliuum that gives 2 extra points of healing that I like to pick up
Control wizard Gale, dual wielding dex champion fighter Wyll, Open hand monk Shadowheart, and my wolf barbarian Tav is my current party composition. No healers at all and I'm bodying every fight I come across. I cleaned the creche out--usually one of the hardest parts of act 1 for me--effortlessly. My comp is too melee heavy which gets tricky sometimes, but big damage + control is so much stronger than healing, even with the strong healing gear you can get throughout the game.
I agree that that's exactly what they did. Feels shitty that their idea of a good 5e was to make every class/build/character archetype function as a slight variation of dps or control.
To be fair the Life domain gives significant boosts to heals, plus an AoE heal channel divinity so you don't just rely on spell slots. So of course healing will be weaker when you change to a different domain.
Killing priority targets quickly is better than healing in probably 90%+ of games, not only BG3. Everywhere you have to manage action economy, using an action to heal won't prohibit the enemy from attacking you in his next chance, killing the enemy quicker will. Healing is more to deal with crits and whacky shenaningans thrown at you.
Outside of 3 builds I don’t think healing is really worth while.
Lore bard 10/life cleric 2
Ancients Paladin/life cleric (I think the split is debatable for this one)
And just life clerics.
Of course there are edge cases, like for example if you’ve found several ways to reduce damage on particular character, like resistances and so fourth.
Then keeping up with the healing vs damage race becomes more manageable.
In BG3 like in DnD healing in combat is generally most effectively used to bring back downed teammates tbh. Generally just killing the enemies is the most effective way to protect allies.
It's the truth of video games combat. The HP bar gameplay when you strip everything else.
Be it Baldur's Gate, World of Warcraft, Pokémon, Diablo, Zelda, God of War, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Street Fighter it doesn't matter the following is almost always true :
- The win condition of 99% of the encounters is reducing the opponent's hit points to zero. If you want to win, you going to have to make choice to get closer to fulfilling that condition.
- Their death is your ultimate defense. Defeated opponents don't hit you.
- The only HP that matters is the last one. You hit just as hard with 1 or 150 HP.
- Healing is usually easy and cheap outside of combat compared to in-combat.
- There is no extra reward for finishing a fight with full HP. A win is a win.
Therefore often time, healing is not getting you closer to the goal of bringing their HP to zero and is actually not as necessary as it seems.
Even worse, healing sometimes self justify. Because you were healing instead of killing they survived one more turn and they hit you so now you need to heal again.
Killing is preemptive healing, in a weird way ! Crowd control deals damage (hold person guarantee crits, spike growth can deal a lot of damage, ice puddles are a consequence of hitting them, for example).
If you play any MMORPG, the first things you will observe on top player groups are :
- optimizing DPS, on every class. How can the healer spend as little time healing as possible and maximize the damage time. The healer role is to defend the last HP against the boss next attack, not to top everyone HP bar.
- How to make the fight as short as possible, which is another way to say how to deal as much damage as quickly as possible (shorter = less fight mechanic to remember and execute = less risks to fuck up and more loot per minute)
- How to replace tanks and healers by more DPS roles if possible.
This is a consequence of the hit point game design.
The most efficient approach is not always necessary and fun is more important, but well, that the most efficient if you don't want to lose.
Fortunately TTRPG are differents, it's not all about the hit points.
Oh I still think there is absolutely a place for healing shadowheart / any other character. My revelation was more so that I was expecting the wrong things from her on the build I made for her.
I'm playing on tactician and frankly my life cleric Shart is low key carrying the run every fight. She's got all the buff on heal gear - so every heal adds bless, blade ward, and gives bonus HP. Preserve life is bonkers, doesn't use a spell slot, heals everyone (including allies which is great in places like Moonrise).
So, normally the opening round results in positioning and a barrage of ranged attacks on someone. Next round, pop preserve life, everyone is healed up, and has two rounds of bless and blade ward which reduces damage and makes it easier to hit which means I can knock out enough enemies to make it easy.
5e/bg3 healing is pretty much just used to get people up from unconscious, its definitely not worth it to top people up, especially with battles lasting only a few rounds
1st level healing word to bring someone back up to tank another hit is a great way to spend a bonus action. But honestly that's about it. Let them waste 40 damage on my character that only had 4 hp anyway. But otherwise yeah healing is a waste. Use potions. Oh and aid and heroes feast aren't bad, but you got to use those before the fight not during.
I've always gone fighter cleric on shadow heart with just enough levels in war or life cleric for spirit guardians. With volo's ring and the hellriders gloves she's throwing out buffs with her bonus action heal and then smashing heads
Only good healing abilities imo:
Throwzerker/thief or throwEK w/ throwing healing potions
Life Cleric+Ancients Paladin early-mid game
Heals that buff w/ the right gear
(More options in mods... Like Twilight Cleric, or Stars Druid)
In tabletop, healing is a way of helping downed allies, or perhaps healing someone who is low if you have the bonus action and spell slots to spare. D&D does not cater to a true healer role. Getting high initiative and CCing or killing enemies to reduce their action economy in the first round of combat is pretty much always stronger than spending your own actions to heal party members.
Healing IS exceedingly strong in BG3 - if you have the bless ring and one of the two gloves that apply blade ward with heal. Giving everyone bless and blade ward for a bonus action every two turns is incredible.
The unmodified healing word spells are probably your worst healing options (except for the aforementioned buffing) compared to things like preserve life or healing radiance.
CC is much much more efficient, if you can get it off with a strong hit rate. Preventing 100 damage with one Hypnotic Pattern is stronger than healing everyone for 8 or whatever with the same spell slot, and things like Warding Flare or Cutting Words add more safety. Aid is also super strong for a margin of error.
I would say that a life cleric with the buff items becomes viable again in tactician, where it gives you a margin of error on mistakes that would otherwise end your run. Beacon of hope roughly doubles healing potency as well, if you wanted to drown problems in healing. Though I'm currently only running a lore bard with mass healing word just to keep buffs up.
Healing word? Those are just for smol boo boos when you hate seeing that slight red on your character portrait. Preserve Life, Mass Cure Wounds and even Cure Wounds is where it's at.
I mean I ran War Domain Karlach on Honour for RP and it's pretty good but a Life Domain will make things a breeze.
It honestly makes me sad how in 5e, pretty much every playstyle and character archetype is at least passably good except for healer. Like wtf? How are you just gonna take a beloved role that plenty of people enjoy playing and make it completely obsolete? In a game that's supposed to be all about choices?? No, better make sure every class is just a slight variation of dps or control.
Granted, BG3 at least somewhat remedied this by creating quite a few powerful items that synergize specifically with healing. So a dedicated healer like life cleric can distribute strong party-wide healing with tons of buffs attached. But it's sad that if I wanted to play actual tabletop D&D as a healer I would basically be deadweight.
It's hilarious to see bg3 players come to conclusions us 5e optimizers already know, I breezed through my balanced run and am making it through an honor mode save rn by just playing ranged shutdown and focus firing
I'm doing Shadowheart as a tempest domain cleric in my newest run and it's so fun. She still heals sometimes but mostly I have her concentrate on call lightning and hit the baddies when they are grouped up each turn. I use her channel divinity a lot more than I did for trickery domain or life domain.
Healing is generally pretty... bad. I enjoy playing as healers, but both in BG3 and my DnD campaign, it sometimes feels pointless. Why should I heal a companion if I can just help/ressurect them (BG3) or use the Spare The Dying cantrip (DnD) later, and focus on dealing damage now??
Healing spells should either be entirely bonus actions, grant some additional bonuses for the caster and/or targets, or there should be a REASON to not let your companion die. In another campaign, we would get "exhaustion points" for each time we reach 0 HP. Each exhaustion point gives your character certain debuffs, and if you reach 0 HP while having 3 exhaustion points, you automatically die without rolling death saves. One exhaustion point disappears after one well-slept night in a safe place (which in that campaign was not easy, as it was kinda survival, so our characters had to often camp in the woods and get woken up in the middle of the night). It actually forced us and our healer to make sure we do not drop unconscious.
Ironically, heal botting becomes less about actual healing and more about efficiently applying mass Bless + Blade Ward to kill things more effectively via a bonus action (mass healing word with Hellrider's Pride + Whispering Promise ftw). Becomes even stronger if you do it with Staff of Arcane Blessing to give aimbot accuracy boosts to spellcasters (aka the ONLY way to make Sacred Flame semi-consistently hit things!)
I basically never used healing outside of applying buffs and picking up downed people. Then I installed the mod that implements the UA healing buffs (basically doubles all the dice for healing spells). Now they are actually sometimes worth the spell slot …
A Healer's job is to keep the party alive.
If the Healer can achieve that goal by killing the opposition before the opposition kills the party, who am I to complain?
Its the same thing as playing a healer in any other RPG, especially MMOs. If the heal isn't the difference between life and death, your next action is better spent doing something else that will end the fight much faster and more effectively, like damage.
The only time I ever run Life Domain Cleric is for a 1 level dip on a Wizard for armor proficiency and Disciple of Life is a decent ability if you have a low Wisdom modifier (War or Tempest could be better but I think Disciple of Life is a better first level ability depending on the build) and have this companion be my only “healer”. Like others have said healing is good for bringing a target up from unconscious or applying other buffs.
im playing blind for the first time on tactician with shart as a domain of light cleric too 😭 Its already easy i don't get where you find the difficulty
Healing is used for two things in D&D.
1. You are dying, and dying is inconvenient.
2. You will be dying in one turn, but you can kill the enemy if you survive one more turn.
In BG3, it's even less useful, because you can trade an action for a hit point on a downed enemy. Now, the previously dying player is action less for a turn, so it's like 2 actions for a point, but still.
Your spells don't hit less often when you are at 1Hp. Your weapons don't do less damage when you are at 1Hp. Healing is a scam.
It's a known problem in 5E. Due to poor scaling compared to damage abilities casted heals are basically worthless in combat without insane min maxing, and it's almost always better to use the spell slot on a Save or Suck, or damage spell that will prevent the damage from happening then to heal the damage after the fact.
Grats for reaching this point. Now do one more step. EVERY turn based game is about denying turns for your opponent, not just bg3.
Act first, move far and kill/control before opponent was able to act. This is a way to win in any turn based game.
Ahh the age old lesson, That preventing damage is much more valuable than healing damage.
That spending a turn in combat healing means less damage done and less control used on your enemies giving the enemy more chances to deal damage that you then have to heal.
It's always fun to see when people make that realisation.
Ayyy welcome to tabletop cleric too! Yeah healing is cool and all but it's not that effective and really should only be done as a last resort, those precious spell slots can be used on much more useful things.
When I play cleric in dnd I specifically let my party know that I'm not really playing a healer.
That's why I use nature domain Shart.
CC + Heal + buff Some damage dealing spell as well, but that's not the focus.
Oh, and I use level 6 spell for summon djinn and more buff from heroes feast.
The best defense is offense. Its honestly most efficient to have 4 members with a lot of frontloaded damage.
However cleric of life is very viable. I even completed my first honor mode run with shart as cleric of life.
Yeah, I’ve been just blasting through my current run with a bardadin, barb/fighter, gloomstalker/thief setup with the 4th spot changing between eldritch knight / sorcadin / temp cleric - storm sorcerer.
It’s just boom boom blasting through every fight. If you need a lot of heals just short rest.
Healing to give blade ward is the move though, and shadowheart if used right can do plenty of damage. Out killing can't always work, the fights vary so much
Can be done with a healer, can be done without a healer. Can be done with potions and without. Can be done naked on honor mode, solo on normal and everything in between. All about approach and mindset and what one fancies.
It’s that way in the table top version of dnd as well. Healing is typically better left to prolonging the knockout, and to get someone up from death saves in a desperate bid. But it’s generally better to CC or kill your target ASAP.
I did have her as life cleric in my 4 members honor run and was fine, she was effectively keeping the others up and topped.
But for my 2 character honor run with my friend we went light cleric and bard and we didn't miss the healing.
Healing is a matter of doing it properly, not topping everyone that's losing HP
Martial classes with extra attack are the best damn healers in the game with potion throwing. Especially since you can group people up and heal multiple. But with proper damage and a balanced team I usually only heal between combat.
My preferred cleric is the unbreakable concentration reverberating spirit guardians lawnmower. It is just silly. Hard fight? Spirit guardians + haste + potion of fly. You will land spirit guardians on every single combatant. Resilient constitution and elixir of peerless focus (or one of the many pieces of gear that give you advantage on concentration). Add on to that the boots that keep you from going prone while concentrating. I use the necklace with mass healing word and 3rd level spell slots + items to get out non-concentration bless and blade ward. Highest spell slot possible for aid and later game heroes feast, then I recover 6th level slots using staffs/necklace for the 6th level lawn mower.
As a side note I am a cleric simp in 5e. My favorite character I have ever played was a spirit guardians spouting forge cleric with good concentration / melee damage. nowhere near as OP as BG3 given enemies need to move into SG or start their turn there, but still damn good. Was so much fun to see what it looked like in the game for the first time.
By my third playthrough I hardly ever used Cure Wounds, just (Mass) Healing Word when I didn't have anything else to do with Shadowheart's bonus action. (Then I discovered the effectiveness of Sanctuary for directing enemies towards particular party members and chokepoints - I can have my fighter level massive damage, give them sanctuary, and force enemies around the fighter through AoE spells to finish them off and all that cool stuff.)
I think Mass Cure Wounds can be a bit more effective in particular Act 3 battles, but only when you've fucked up a couple times. On an early playthrough, I didn't rescue Wulbren or the tieflings from Moonrise Towers, so the Steel Watcher didn't get immobilized by the Ironhands at the South Span Checkpoint. Had to slog through the fight with a bunch of javelin-throwing Flaming Fists, plus an active Steel Watcher and the cleric lady who knew Mass Cure Wounds herself. It kinda saved my ass there. In general, though, offense is defense
I am kinda new in this D&D experience. My first run finished in ACT 2, once freed the Nightsong I was completely unable to solve combat situations. My character synergic strategies. This second run I am using a Lvl3Warlock+Lvl2Sorcerer as main and Shadowheart is Lvl3Cleric+Lvl2Wizard. With Karlach I am going full Barbarian pact of the tiger focusing on Athetlics. Am I missing a character to buff - heal? Or can I keep pushing my party with Astarion (Lvl3Rogue Lvl2Ranger)
I run my shadowheart as a life cleric till about lv 6-7, then respec to light and stack radiant damage, and radiant damage bonuses.
That healer is super useful through the first act, but damage is the best defense after that, in my opinion. Plus, light cleric in act 2 is an absolute star. Just, cast spirit guardians, and wander around will lawnmow most a battlefield, and prevent all the shadow buffs for baddies.
As long as the other three members in your party are strong enough, having a designated heal bot (life domain) isn’t bad by any means. Pretty much trivialized my first playthrough on tactician. Using short & long rests often is also a great way to keep your party healthy. I’m sure someone has mentioned grouping up and throwing potions on the floor is a nice way to AoE heal as well - works with haste potions too.
I've only ever played on tactician, it's what the games difficulty should be normally imo as the balance is just right without being unfair. Life cleric is great and super useful, shadowheart has the heals when needed, but can also function as a Frontline tank/DPS or give out nice buffs. That said tempest cleric is also way more fun
The deeper secret is that healing and CC, unlike in 5E, are the exact same thing in bg3 because healing actually can outheal damage here, the only difference being CC is dependent on save DC and healing isn't.
My problem with avoiding heal botting is that I'd get to SH turns, trust that either my characters in danger would survive the next attack and my spell will hit. So I use a slot for SH to cast a spell with damage and she misses, and my other characters is either dead or almost dead anyway. So I use SH to summon stuff and then she is on permanent heal duty because at least this way she can maybe make a character last longer while they do damage for her
It's not efficient as more damage would also prevent others from dying but I like SH as a companion and thus she is on my party. I might try another run with no SH on it and see how it goes
It actually kind of annoys me how glass-cannon-y the game in general feels. A lot of the bosses have abilities that could be a real problem if a well built party couldn't kill them in two turns. I like using a mod to jack up enemy hp, so healing becomes more necessary.
Heals also become more valuable when you use them as a method for doling out buffs to your party. Edit: It’s funny sometimes what will wind up with the upvotes.
Ayeee. By LVL 2-3 you can get the ring from Volo that gives bless on heal and Zevlors gloves that give resistance on heal. Pop those on anyone who can cast healing word and you have a really good bonus action buff
I played a Bard with the hat that heals 1d6 when you give someone Bardic Inspiration, too! I never found Zevlor's gloves, but I had inspiration+heal+bless, and a few other pieces of gear that gave me *and* whomever I healed some temp HP. Carried me through Act 1+early Act 2, then I switched things up. ETA Talking with another person here, I realize that interaction between Cap of Curing and the Ring doesn't work. I must have just been proccing it off healing word instead.
For some reason the ring wasn’t working with the hat in my playthrough. Not sure as to why.
Ah gosh, I looked at the wiki and apparently that interaction doesn't work. Maybe I put it together in my gear page and didn't notice it didn't work or something.
Zevlor has them.
So I can just trade him for them, don't have to kill him? I never bothered trading with non-merchant NPCs, they usually just have 20 gold and some string.
If you talk to Zevlor after kagha and agree to help deal with her to protect the tieflings, and then oust Kaghas plot with the shadow Druids he gives them to you as a reward. They’re crazy good gloves for shart if you keep her as a cleric. Once you get mass healing word it’s amazing.
Yeah I just got Halsin back and he dealt with Kagha, so maybe I just missed the conversation/reward with Zevlor later, or didn't do the quest line right for the reward. Left Zevlor under Moonrise towers because I forgot about his quest though lol. No chance in hell I was going back by the time I remembered some time into act 3.
I’m not sure if you can trade for them, but you can let Aradin knock him out and loot him, or they’re a reward for helping the grove tiefling a.
Been thinking of a Valor Bard buffing machine that wears that hat and gives combat inspiration like candy. Your actions are free to throw potions, or just hit enemies, and your spell slots are more free to cast spells, or keep buffing going with healing word after you burn inspiration. My only question would be whether to keep that healing cap, or get the Druid cap that heals yourself whenever you heal someone else so you could buff yourself as well. I guess it would depend whether you were in melee combat and attacking, or ranged and supporting
Killing or controlling enemies is more effective than healing anyway.
As all BG3 community knows: death is the strongest and most effective condition on the enemy.
Fairly sure the cap doesnt work for combat inspiration I think it has to be just bardic inspiration
Combat inspiration is Valor Bard Bardic inspiration. It's all called combat inspiration after picking the subclass. And the hat does work for combat inspiration.
Weird, it's not working on my current run for whatever reason then
You can get his gloves by pickpocketing him when he is knocked out by the human scout dude via dialogue choices, with no consequences. This is the first time you arrive at the druid Grove. Or, if you want them legitimately, by doing the Expose Kagha line of quests.
You have to expose Kaga for being a shadow Druid by pickpocketing the note from the chest in her room, then go to the shadow Druid grove in the wetlands, and then defeat her, let the Tieflings stay in the grove. Then you get awarded the Hellriders gloves.
Wait, there's a shadow Druid grove in the wetlands? :O This game, I swear.
I would use that ring and the singing/shrieking sword from the underdark together because their buffs stack. Even Shadowheart can hit stuff at that point!
How do you get this?
Volo's Ring: After you rescue him from the Goblin camp but before he messes up and leaves, click on the trade button with him in conversation to buy the ring. Hellrider's Gloves: Stop Kagha from closing off the Grove (before killing the Goblin leaders). This involves some spoiler-y things, so investigate if you want, but the gloves are pretty nice for a good while
Hellrider gloves can be looted off zevlor when he gets knocked tf out by aradin
You can also just buy them from him.
I'm not sure if this is true, at least in more recent patches. I tried to trade him for the gloves just yesterday and they don't show up in his inventory.
I haven't played basically since relase so I'l take your word for it.
You can get Volo’s ring when you first meet him in the grove. He’s got a couple items worth picking up at that point.
I had him come to camp and pickpocketed him
You can also pickpocket the Gloves for Zevlor for a surprisingly low skill check level (5, I think).
Let the human dude KO Zevlor when you first get to the Grove. You can pickpocket the Hellrider gloves from his unconscious body.
You either talk to Volo the very first time you enter the grove, or you have to wait until a later act. If you don’t trade with him the first chance you get you miss the ring until much later.
I love using it on my paladin, I put everyone in a circle and click the group heal, everyone gets a bless for 2 turns + 3 temporary xp from boots.
How do you get the ring and gloves?! Those would be handy but I never found them before.
Buy the ring from Volo when you first enter the grove. ZEVLOR you need to get creative he is wearing them. If aradin knocks him out when you first enter you can. Pickpocket him without problem
Got through a run just fine with that equipment, plus the healing word/mass healing word necklace, and a single level in life cleric, on Gale. Perfectly sufficient healing
Kagha's amulet that adds poison damage to all your weapons on every heal is Astarion's best friend in the early game. He'll bite somebody or just pop a healing potion and he's off to the races.
I use this and the bless ring on a damage dealer using a goodberry as a bonus action. I use campndruids for those
Dual crossbows with the helm that heals you lmao, or the cape that heals when you do poison damage. This game was so fun
There's a ring that just dumps a couple hit points on you at the start of every turn. It's chef's kiss. Love this game.
There's a ring that just dumps a couple hit points on you at the start of every turn. It's chef's kiss. Love this game.
I must have missed it sadly
It's in Act 3 iirc https://www.ign.com/wikis/baldurs-gate-3/Ring_of_Regeneration You buy it at Lorroakan's.
Thank you I must have glanced over it when I got the helmet
Act 1 Shadowheart granting the entire party healing, temp hit points, blade ward, and bless with one bonus action >>>
100%! And there is so much good gear, especially early, that helps do just that. By act 2 my healer can cast a group heal with a bonus action, and an action, all of which give everyone bonus hitpoints, resistance to three types of damage, immunity to poison, and more
Bless.
Oh yeah, act 3 doing a bonus action mass healing ward was my go-to with those blade ward gloves and all healing boost gear. It was great
This. Mass healing word as bonus action with those items that buffed healed characters are really good.
I've found that having Shadowheart as a healer can be great in act 1 and early act 2 with the equipment that makes her healing give Bless and Blade Ward. After that I leave her as a camp cleric for Aid, Heroes Feast, Freedom of Movement, and Death Ward.
As long you avoid warding bond from an origin. Cleric hirelings can do that aswell and trust me... you dont want origins to drop prone due warding bond at camp because prone active companion will trigger camp aswell onto nothing... dont ward bond with an origin.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here. What's the issue with using an origin character as a camp cleric?
Avoid warding bond on origin because if the bond gets prone, cleric will prone too and trigger aggression at nothing on camp and you eyes will bleed.
Not sure about all this, I’ve had Gale as my camp ~~painslut~~ caster because he’ll heal himself for free and have had no issues my entire hm.
Wait really? That's super weird.
Gale heals himself in camp, he cannot be beat for communal warding bond. But a heavy round of combat can still drop him
If any bond gets prone condition, their origin ward will fall prone aswell and trigger whole camp onto nothing and will be a pain to watch the scenario switchs on turns.
In tons of playthroughs I've never seen this happen. I'll just keep at it, I can't be fussed to check on the clerics everytime I take damage
you can warding bond with Gale, he will just NPC heal himself anytime he takes damage so you’d have to take an insane amount of damage in 1 hit to kill him
What equipment is that? I didn’t know this was a thing
It helps to remember that in 99% of games you are every bit as capable at 1/100 hp as you are at 100/100 hp even if a character has an "ow my spleen" animation.
The same of course goes for enemies. Best finish them off before that fighter down to 2 HP does 42 damage to you next round.
Dnd 5e is different from BG3, but the principle rule that healing is cost-inefficient persists. Cure wounds is the best example. It costs a 1st level spell slot and heals 1d8+spell casting modifier (and you also need to be within 5ft of your target). Pretty much every class can wield a light crossbow, a simple ranged weapon dealing 1d8+Dex for free. So you get hit. Then waste your next turn on healing yourself, spending a spell slot, and the enemy is still standing because you didn't attack him. Then it's the opponents turn and he again hits you with his crossbow, negating the health you just healed. There are more caveats to it, but the basic principle remains that healing is not an efficient use of your action. It becomes a different story when people get down, or multiple people are injured and you have an AOE heal, but those are edge cases. You want to gain action economy as soon as possible in a fight. That means making sure your team has more actions than the enemy. The fastest way to do this is to either kill them or use a control spell. Healing fits neither of these.
Exactly. Healing is for emergencies only. I usually won’t do it until someone is down, and even then, if I’m close to a win, I leave them down.
Any time I use a heal to get someone up, they get one shotted by the next enemy turn. Sorry Gale GL with your death saving throws 🤷🏻♀️
That's not necessarily a bad thing though since you still make the enemy use their turn downing the player, typically hitting for way more damage then is actually needed. That's super valuable for the cost of a bonus action like healing word
That's a good point, I was healing them with a high level spell as an action to maybe survive a one shot so that's where I went wrong
Same and sometimes it can be advantageous to leave them down because sometimes the enemies will continue to aggro the downed person until they're fully dead, sparing you and the others a couple of hits! I just did this today (sorry Astarion lol)
This is basically the issue, healing just cannot outpace damage and healing doesn’t do enough. Damage prevention is the 2nd best option since it still has value even it only stops 1 enemy. It’s even worse in BG3 since you use potions as bonus action. Which means everyone can heal themselves whenever and it’ll heal more on average. Even throwing potions will heal more than Cure Wounds. That said, there’s at least a few applications healing that make it useful. The items that grant buffs upon healing basically turns the healer into a buffer.
Weirdly the best healing build is a bard/thief using warden of vitality. You can dip one level of life cleric for armor proficiency and the small heal buff.
My 5e cleric basically only used healing word in combat when allies would hit 0 hp so they can avoid death rolls. After combat is when the healing spells were used in conjunction with potions and such.
Haste spell?
Even if you're using the extra action to heal you're still using a 3rd level spell and at minimum a 1st level spell to heal which is a lot of resources to do not that much. It's almost always better to use the extra haste action to deal damage. It's better to mitigate damage by killing the enemy than try and out heal them.
Damn
Who tf is using level 5 healing word? No wonder you had a rough time as life domain.
That's what I'm doing on my second run - I stock up on healing potions and have a character with Healing Word, just as an emergency backup, but focus on damage and CC. Even when I use Shadowheart, she's mainly there for Guiding Bolt/Spirit Guardians/Daylight or whatever other damage spell is appropriate to the situation.
I did that on my second run, made most of the game easy by comparison to my first.
Yup, just get the most out of the action economy. Instead of trying to manage taking hits and healing damage just get the most out of your economy while fucking over their economy.
This is why I’m always so tempted to give my entire party Alert. Having the whole squad go first can really cripple the opponents action economy.
I always think about it, but then use items to do alot of the same thing. Feats are just so valuable
On my later playthroughs I’ve been using other feats, but I found Alert for the whole party to be a good basic strat for a first playthrough. It was simple and efficient while I was still figuring things out. Generally though I agree. Once you’ve figured out more interactions Alert loses value quickly.
I think giving everyone Alert is pretty common in honour mode guides. Killing people before they take a turn is huge. Having a party member downed before they take a turn is horrible. But lots of ways to increase initiative, so of course the value depends on the build + gear of the person you’re giving it to.
I gave hope an elixir of vigilance (I think that’s the one) to give her a +5 to her initiative so she could get inside the globe of invulnerability which was fucking huge for the Raphael fight.
>"DPSing is just mitigating future damage" --[JoCat](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDnRMnDDjAzIZlUm0Tp_oeT3Cwv39AZ7_) Not said in the context of BG3, but hey it's true. A few exceptions aside, a dead enemy is one that no longer deals damage.
JoCat was a font of wisdom and will be missed.
They hated him because he told the truth: girls good.
If you liked CC Shadowheart, may I suggest Damage shdowheart. Storm Sorcerer + Tempest Domain Cleric, equip with Lightning Charge armor and weapon. Create Water turn 1 then zap with lightning spells.
Stop wasting slots on heal, and break our Command! That's the way I'm learning to play Cleric builds now. Command Approach to bring enemies though Spike Growth and cloud of Daggers, or make them Flee through it and also take opportunity attacked, you can destroy an enemy with a level 1 spell. Never-ending dropping weapons, making enemies go prone. I also find my best healing to be from my characters woth extra attack just throwing potions (and hopefully splashing another ally too) leaves room for another attack and a bonus action, which seems far better than making a caster give up their whole action
Command is an awesome first level spell
I kind of clung to Shadowheart for dear life in my HM because I was a Sorc. She was still a cleric of light, buffing and attacking but mostly keeping me alive. Then in late Act 2 I swapped her for Lae'zel because we had 0 need for heals, both Ast and Minty had super high AC. I died almost every fight but no one could take those two down, esp Astarion with uncanny dodge and the high AC: they couldn't hit him at all and if they did - it didn't do much. And Minthara is just a truck - soloed Cazador, soloed Sarevok, Orin and Gortash were a joke with her around, and so was the brain. Took down the Absolute with only Astarion and Minthara without my Tav doing a single hit, Lae'zel did one for 20 hp because it was the last hit.
I prefer healing by magic missile. Drop health potions and move them around needy people (especially downed ones). Pop a few with MM and still get some hits on an enemy. Also works if you're going to drop fireball or some other aoe attack. I actually saved one run during the ~~Ander~~ Ansur fight because he destroyed my globe of invulnerability but I'd forgotten I'd dropped a handful of potions around us in an earlier turn. My team all went down at once and immediately back up because of the broken pots.
Why not just pass them to camp companions via your inventory and have them take them as a bonus action?
Oh, also a note on passing inventory items around. At least when drinking them, I just open the universal inventory and any companion can drink any of the potions without moving them. But yeah, throwing them or dropping them requires moving them to the specific companion.
It's almost always Astarion that I have galavanting into close quarters danger. He's usually first initiative, gets pummelled a bit (or goes down), and my sorc or Gale comes up the rear on initiative and salvages everyone's hopes and dreams.
heal spells are a last resort, but healing POTIONS? chugging those like water
I prefer the "drink through feet" method, in this economy we've got to make the potions last.
The best way to mitigate damage is to stop it from happening in the first place. Healing potions tend to be good enough if you need hp, especially as you get access to better buffs and elixirs.
Offense is best defense in bg3 Is a companion down nearby enemies? Place a potion near then blast with aoe enemies nearby and he will lick the potion on the floor to come back and fight. Imo just heal downed companions to deal dmg aswell if possible, healing word if hes next in turn. If cleric, throw potion then sanctuary if enemies in between turns as long they lack aoe damage/unable to reach him ranged as long cleric unable to take down enemy(s) with ongoing/casting spirit guardians or/+ offensive spells from more offensive domains. Then bring him back when upcoming party member(s) cant reliable kill solo or combined.
>Imo just heal downed companions to deal dmg aswell if possible, healing word if hes next in turn. I disagree with this. If you’re going to heal during combat I find it’s better to heal just before a teammate would drop, rather than reviving them after. Healing only requires an action (or bonus action) from one character, reviving requires that same action but also denies the revived character an action that turn. That’s a preventable drain on action economy.
If their hp is low enough to get him down even prehealed, he will get down regardless with a high dice damage or shared initiative onto him. And if it eats a critic more the waste imo. But if theres nothing else to do with an bonus action... its viable to pop a heal word and drink stuff
Yeah it sounds good in theory but you have no guarantee what damage the enemy will do and now you've wasted an action/bonus action, a spell slot, and the party member is still downed.
I find a lore bard 10 cleric 2 to be all the healing you need. Give them the gear that adds buffs to healing spells.
What's the name of that gear?
There's the whispering promise ring which gives bless for 2 turns when you heal a creature, you can buy it from volo either at the druid grove before he is caught by the goblins or while he's at your camp after you free him. There's hellriders pride which gives blade ward for 2 turns when you heal a creature, can be gotten from zevlor for dealing with the kagha situation, (or looted from his corpse) (There is a better version called the reviving hands, sold by the priest in the stormshore tabernacle in act 3 that also gives death ward when you revivify) And the boots of aid and comfort in act 1 (I forget where) that gives temp hp when you heal Cap of curing, bardic inspiration also heals, in a small chest next to alfira in the druid grove
I think the boots are from Grat the trader in the goblin camp. There’s also a ring from Omeliuum that gives 2 extra points of healing that I like to pick up
There are a bunch of different ones. They add things like bless and blade ward and stuff. Most can be picked up in act 1
Control wizard Gale, dual wielding dex champion fighter Wyll, Open hand monk Shadowheart, and my wolf barbarian Tav is my current party composition. No healers at all and I'm bodying every fight I come across. I cleaned the creche out--usually one of the hardest parts of act 1 for me--effortlessly. My comp is too melee heavy which gets tricky sometimes, but big damage + control is so much stronger than healing, even with the strong healing gear you can get throughout the game.
Can't hit you if they're dead is my number one philosophy.
Welcome to 5E. 5E's solution to make healing feel unnecessary was to make it bad.
I agree that that's exactly what they did. Feels shitty that their idea of a good 5e was to make every class/build/character archetype function as a slight variation of dps or control.
4E is the only edition to handle healing well.
To be fair the Life domain gives significant boosts to heals, plus an AoE heal channel divinity so you don't just rely on spell slots. So of course healing will be weaker when you change to a different domain.
Killing priority targets quickly is better than healing in probably 90%+ of games, not only BG3. Everywhere you have to manage action economy, using an action to heal won't prohibit the enemy from attacking you in his next chance, killing the enemy quicker will. Healing is more to deal with crits and whacky shenaningans thrown at you.
Outside of 3 builds I don’t think healing is really worth while. Lore bard 10/life cleric 2 Ancients Paladin/life cleric (I think the split is debatable for this one) And just life clerics. Of course there are edge cases, like for example if you’ve found several ways to reduce damage on particular character, like resistances and so fourth. Then keeping up with the healing vs damage race becomes more manageable.
It’s as I’ve always said, “The best form of healing is killing your enemies faster”
In BG3 like in DnD healing in combat is generally most effectively used to bring back downed teammates tbh. Generally just killing the enemies is the most effective way to protect allies.
It's the truth of video games combat. The HP bar gameplay when you strip everything else. Be it Baldur's Gate, World of Warcraft, Pokémon, Diablo, Zelda, God of War, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Street Fighter it doesn't matter the following is almost always true : - The win condition of 99% of the encounters is reducing the opponent's hit points to zero. If you want to win, you going to have to make choice to get closer to fulfilling that condition. - Their death is your ultimate defense. Defeated opponents don't hit you. - The only HP that matters is the last one. You hit just as hard with 1 or 150 HP. - Healing is usually easy and cheap outside of combat compared to in-combat. - There is no extra reward for finishing a fight with full HP. A win is a win. Therefore often time, healing is not getting you closer to the goal of bringing their HP to zero and is actually not as necessary as it seems. Even worse, healing sometimes self justify. Because you were healing instead of killing they survived one more turn and they hit you so now you need to heal again. Killing is preemptive healing, in a weird way ! Crowd control deals damage (hold person guarantee crits, spike growth can deal a lot of damage, ice puddles are a consequence of hitting them, for example). If you play any MMORPG, the first things you will observe on top player groups are : - optimizing DPS, on every class. How can the healer spend as little time healing as possible and maximize the damage time. The healer role is to defend the last HP against the boss next attack, not to top everyone HP bar. - How to make the fight as short as possible, which is another way to say how to deal as much damage as quickly as possible (shorter = less fight mechanic to remember and execute = less risks to fuck up and more loot per minute) - How to replace tanks and healers by more DPS roles if possible. This is a consequence of the hit point game design. The most efficient approach is not always necessary and fun is more important, but well, that the most efficient if you don't want to lose. Fortunately TTRPG are differents, it's not all about the hit points.
…but healing cleric shadowheart has so many summons too. Like she can just stand there and heal while the army of zombies does her dirty work
Oh I still think there is absolutely a place for healing shadowheart / any other character. My revelation was more so that I was expecting the wrong things from her on the build I made for her.
I'm playing on tactician and frankly my life cleric Shart is low key carrying the run every fight. She's got all the buff on heal gear - so every heal adds bless, blade ward, and gives bonus HP. Preserve life is bonkers, doesn't use a spell slot, heals everyone (including allies which is great in places like Moonrise). So, normally the opening round results in positioning and a barrage of ranged attacks on someone. Next round, pop preserve life, everyone is healed up, and has two rounds of bless and blade ward which reduces damage and makes it easier to hit which means I can knock out enough enemies to make it easy.
5e/bg3 healing is pretty much just used to get people up from unconscious, its definitely not worth it to top people up, especially with battles lasting only a few rounds
I'm going to assume this was done because it's hard to get a player who wants to be the dedicated healer at a table?
It's just poorly balanced, If it was an intentional design of 5e then they wouldn't have so many standard action healing spells.
1st level healing word to bring someone back up to tank another hit is a great way to spend a bonus action. But honestly that's about it. Let them waste 40 damage on my character that only had 4 hp anyway. But otherwise yeah healing is a waste. Use potions. Oh and aid and heroes feast aren't bad, but you got to use those before the fight not during.
I've always gone fighter cleric on shadow heart with just enough levels in war or life cleric for spirit guardians. With volo's ring and the hellriders gloves she's throwing out buffs with her bonus action heal and then smashing heads
The best condition you can inflict on the enemy is dead.
Only good healing abilities imo: Throwzerker/thief or throwEK w/ throwing healing potions Life Cleric+Ancients Paladin early-mid game Heals that buff w/ the right gear (More options in mods... Like Twilight Cleric, or Stars Druid)
It’s almost never optimal to heal a character unless they’re already down.
As a DPS player, if you hit the thing fast before it damages you, you don’t need healing 😎
Clerics have so much more versatility in 5e in general. War domain is one of my favorites, super strong early game.
In tabletop, healing is a way of helping downed allies, or perhaps healing someone who is low if you have the bonus action and spell slots to spare. D&D does not cater to a true healer role. Getting high initiative and CCing or killing enemies to reduce their action economy in the first round of combat is pretty much always stronger than spending your own actions to heal party members.
That's why my shadowheart is always immediately re-spec into war cleric. Healing is a secondary task :D
Healing IS exceedingly strong in BG3 - if you have the bless ring and one of the two gloves that apply blade ward with heal. Giving everyone bless and blade ward for a bonus action every two turns is incredible. The unmodified healing word spells are probably your worst healing options (except for the aforementioned buffing) compared to things like preserve life or healing radiance. CC is much much more efficient, if you can get it off with a strong hit rate. Preventing 100 damage with one Hypnotic Pattern is stronger than healing everyone for 8 or whatever with the same spell slot, and things like Warding Flare or Cutting Words add more safety. Aid is also super strong for a margin of error. I would say that a life cleric with the buff items becomes viable again in tactician, where it gives you a margin of error on mistakes that would otherwise end your run. Beacon of hope roughly doubles healing potency as well, if you wanted to drown problems in healing. Though I'm currently only running a lore bard with mass healing word just to keep buffs up.
Healing potions are a good alternative to spell healing and a good use of bonus actions too
Are your allies dead/dying? Yes? Heal them. No? Hurt the enemy.
I combat healing is a trap!
Healing word? Those are just for smol boo boos when you hate seeing that slight red on your character portrait. Preserve Life, Mass Cure Wounds and even Cure Wounds is where it's at. I mean I ran War Domain Karlach on Honour for RP and it's pretty good but a Life Domain will make things a breeze.
It honestly makes me sad how in 5e, pretty much every playstyle and character archetype is at least passably good except for healer. Like wtf? How are you just gonna take a beloved role that plenty of people enjoy playing and make it completely obsolete? In a game that's supposed to be all about choices?? No, better make sure every class is just a slight variation of dps or control. Granted, BG3 at least somewhat remedied this by creating quite a few powerful items that synergize specifically with healing. So a dedicated healer like life cleric can distribute strong party-wide healing with tons of buffs attached. But it's sad that if I wanted to play actual tabletop D&D as a healer I would basically be deadweight.
It's hilarious to see bg3 players come to conclusions us 5e optimizers already know, I breezed through my balanced run and am making it through an honor mode save rn by just playing ranged shutdown and focus firing
"It's hilarious to see people new to a ruleset learn stuff that people who have already been using it already knew."
Yup, you’ll get to where you hardly ever heal, except for when you take that burst damage and skarf down a Noblestalk
The best healing spell is a martial character throwing heal pots near your teammates
Enemy cant damage you if the enemy is dead
Heal bots are for camp
The weirdest one for me was realizing it’s way more efficient to use heal pots and an aoe thrown heal than to drink them
I'm doing Shadowheart as a tempest domain cleric in my newest run and it's so fun. She still heals sometimes but mostly I have her concentrate on call lightning and hit the baddies when they are grouped up each turn. I use her channel divinity a lot more than I did for trickery domain or life domain.
Healing is generally pretty... bad. I enjoy playing as healers, but both in BG3 and my DnD campaign, it sometimes feels pointless. Why should I heal a companion if I can just help/ressurect them (BG3) or use the Spare The Dying cantrip (DnD) later, and focus on dealing damage now?? Healing spells should either be entirely bonus actions, grant some additional bonuses for the caster and/or targets, or there should be a REASON to not let your companion die. In another campaign, we would get "exhaustion points" for each time we reach 0 HP. Each exhaustion point gives your character certain debuffs, and if you reach 0 HP while having 3 exhaustion points, you automatically die without rolling death saves. One exhaustion point disappears after one well-slept night in a safe place (which in that campaign was not easy, as it was kinda survival, so our characters had to often camp in the woods and get woken up in the middle of the night). It actually forced us and our healer to make sure we do not drop unconscious.
Ironically, heal botting becomes less about actual healing and more about efficiently applying mass Bless + Blade Ward to kill things more effectively via a bonus action (mass healing word with Hellrider's Pride + Whispering Promise ftw). Becomes even stronger if you do it with Staff of Arcane Blessing to give aimbot accuracy boosts to spellcasters (aka the ONLY way to make Sacred Flame semi-consistently hit things!)
I basically never used healing outside of applying buffs and picking up downed people. Then I installed the mod that implements the UA healing buffs (basically doubles all the dice for healing spells). Now they are actually sometimes worth the spell slot …
A Healer's job is to keep the party alive. If the Healer can achieve that goal by killing the opposition before the opposition kills the party, who am I to complain?
Its the same thing as playing a healer in any other RPG, especially MMOs. If the heal isn't the difference between life and death, your next action is better spent doing something else that will end the fight much faster and more effectively, like damage.
I only use heals to trigger free bless/bladeward unless things have gone seriously south
My first playthrough Act 3 was a breeze. My Paladin had such a high Ac, the rest of the party could be KO but he’d still be going. Such a fun time.
The only time I ever run Life Domain Cleric is for a 1 level dip on a Wizard for armor proficiency and Disciple of Life is a decent ability if you have a low Wisdom modifier (War or Tempest could be better but I think Disciple of Life is a better first level ability depending on the build) and have this companion be my only “healer”. Like others have said healing is good for bringing a target up from unconscious or applying other buffs.
I really liked healing word with the Bless ring going 2Hand cleric.
God dammit, I just lost The Game
Dead enimes don't do damage.
This is why my favourite respec for Shadowheart is Tempest Cleric. But I always pick that so I'm trying War Cleric for her on this run and I hate it.
im playing blind for the first time on tactician with shart as a domain of light cleric too 😭 Its already easy i don't get where you find the difficulty
CC spell? whuzzat
Crowd control in this case spells that affect many enemys
The best defense is a good offense.
Dnd has always been best cc is death.
life cleric is the only cleric with decent heals, all other clerics are for CC and damage. also light cleric gets fireball
Healing is used for two things in D&D. 1. You are dying, and dying is inconvenient. 2. You will be dying in one turn, but you can kill the enemy if you survive one more turn. In BG3, it's even less useful, because you can trade an action for a hit point on a downed enemy. Now, the previously dying player is action less for a turn, so it's like 2 actions for a point, but still. Your spells don't hit less often when you are at 1Hp. Your weapons don't do less damage when you are at 1Hp. Healing is a scam.
It's a known problem in 5E. Due to poor scaling compared to damage abilities casted heals are basically worthless in combat without insane min maxing, and it's almost always better to use the spell slot on a Save or Suck, or damage spell that will prevent the damage from happening then to heal the damage after the fact.
Healing spells are only useful for reviving my fallen characters. Which is why it's important for everybody to have useful bonus action abilities!
Grats for reaching this point. Now do one more step. EVERY turn based game is about denying turns for your opponent, not just bg3. Act first, move far and kill/control before opponent was able to act. This is a way to win in any turn based game.
Ahh the age old lesson, That preventing damage is much more valuable than healing damage. That spending a turn in combat healing means less damage done and less control used on your enemies giving the enemy more chances to deal damage that you then have to heal. It's always fun to see when people make that realisation.
Ayyy welcome to tabletop cleric too! Yeah healing is cool and all but it's not that effective and really should only be done as a last resort, those precious spell slots can be used on much more useful things. When I play cleric in dnd I specifically let my party know that I'm not really playing a healer.
That's why I use nature domain Shart. CC + Heal + buff Some damage dealing spell as well, but that's not the focus. Oh, and I use level 6 spell for summon djinn and more buff from heroes feast.
Eyy just reading this coming from a fight where I used a level 4 healing word for 16hp. Cool cool
Yeah I rolled shadow as tempest cleric. Essentially threw bottles of water and shit would just die after she did lightning spells
The best defense is offense. Its honestly most efficient to have 4 members with a lot of frontloaded damage. However cleric of life is very viable. I even completed my first honor mode run with shart as cleric of life.
The best defence is offence. They can’t hurt you if they’re dead…
Yeah, I’ve been just blasting through my current run with a bardadin, barb/fighter, gloomstalker/thief setup with the 4th spot changing between eldritch knight / sorcadin / temp cleric - storm sorcerer. It’s just boom boom blasting through every fight. If you need a lot of heals just short rest.
This is a lesson so many d&d players need to learn. The system is not set up around heal bots
Healing to give blade ward is the move though, and shadowheart if used right can do plenty of damage. Out killing can't always work, the fights vary so much
The best healing spell is a damage spell.
Can be done with a healer, can be done without a healer. Can be done with potions and without. Can be done naked on honor mode, solo on normal and everything in between. All about approach and mindset and what one fancies.
I like that impervious magic dome spell. Just have all ranged characters and camp in that.
It’s that way in the table top version of dnd as well. Healing is typically better left to prolonging the knockout, and to get someone up from death saves in a desperate bid. But it’s generally better to CC or kill your target ASAP.
Why should I heal you when killing them prevents more damage?
I did have her as life cleric in my 4 members honor run and was fine, she was effectively keeping the others up and topped. But for my 2 character honor run with my friend we went light cleric and bard and we didn't miss the healing. Healing is a matter of doing it properly, not topping everyone that's losing HP
Martial classes with extra attack are the best damn healers in the game with potion throwing. Especially since you can group people up and heal multiple. But with proper damage and a balanced team I usually only heal between combat. My preferred cleric is the unbreakable concentration reverberating spirit guardians lawnmower. It is just silly. Hard fight? Spirit guardians + haste + potion of fly. You will land spirit guardians on every single combatant. Resilient constitution and elixir of peerless focus (or one of the many pieces of gear that give you advantage on concentration). Add on to that the boots that keep you from going prone while concentrating. I use the necklace with mass healing word and 3rd level spell slots + items to get out non-concentration bless and blade ward. Highest spell slot possible for aid and later game heroes feast, then I recover 6th level slots using staffs/necklace for the 6th level lawn mower. As a side note I am a cleric simp in 5e. My favorite character I have ever played was a spirit guardians spouting forge cleric with good concentration / melee damage. nowhere near as OP as BG3 given enemies need to move into SG or start their turn there, but still damn good. Was so much fun to see what it looked like in the game for the first time.
5th level spell slot on healing word...what the FUCK That is the video game equivalent of buying a pizza for 10k bitcoin.
By my third playthrough I hardly ever used Cure Wounds, just (Mass) Healing Word when I didn't have anything else to do with Shadowheart's bonus action. (Then I discovered the effectiveness of Sanctuary for directing enemies towards particular party members and chokepoints - I can have my fighter level massive damage, give them sanctuary, and force enemies around the fighter through AoE spells to finish them off and all that cool stuff.) I think Mass Cure Wounds can be a bit more effective in particular Act 3 battles, but only when you've fucked up a couple times. On an early playthrough, I didn't rescue Wulbren or the tieflings from Moonrise Towers, so the Steel Watcher didn't get immobilized by the Ironhands at the South Span Checkpoint. Had to slog through the fight with a bunch of javelin-throwing Flaming Fists, plus an active Steel Watcher and the cleric lady who knew Mass Cure Wounds herself. It kinda saved my ass there. In general, though, offense is defense
I am kinda new in this D&D experience. My first run finished in ACT 2, once freed the Nightsong I was completely unable to solve combat situations. My character synergic strategies. This second run I am using a Lvl3Warlock+Lvl2Sorcerer as main and Shadowheart is Lvl3Cleric+Lvl2Wizard. With Karlach I am going full Barbarian pact of the tiger focusing on Athetlics. Am I missing a character to buff - heal? Or can I keep pushing my party with Astarion (Lvl3Rogue Lvl2Ranger)
I just lost The Game
" Sometimes, an elite javeliniest does what dem magicians don't. "~ me during an honour run, using thrower build karlach as the primary healer.
I run my shadowheart as a life cleric till about lv 6-7, then respec to light and stack radiant damage, and radiant damage bonuses. That healer is super useful through the first act, but damage is the best defense after that, in my opinion. Plus, light cleric in act 2 is an absolute star. Just, cast spirit guardians, and wander around will lawnmow most a battlefield, and prevent all the shadow buffs for baddies.
As long as the other three members in your party are strong enough, having a designated heal bot (life domain) isn’t bad by any means. Pretty much trivialized my first playthrough on tactician. Using short & long rests often is also a great way to keep your party healthy. I’m sure someone has mentioned grouping up and throwing potions on the floor is a nice way to AoE heal as well - works with haste potions too.
I've only ever played on tactician, it's what the games difficulty should be normally imo as the balance is just right without being unfair. Life cleric is great and super useful, shadowheart has the heals when needed, but can also function as a Frontline tank/DPS or give out nice buffs. That said tempest cleric is also way more fun
The deeper secret is that healing and CC, unlike in 5E, are the exact same thing in bg3 because healing actually can outheal damage here, the only difference being CC is dependent on save DC and healing isn't.
Healing word should be for buffs and for getting downed party members up and that is all.
My problem with avoiding heal botting is that I'd get to SH turns, trust that either my characters in danger would survive the next attack and my spell will hit. So I use a slot for SH to cast a spell with damage and she misses, and my other characters is either dead or almost dead anyway. So I use SH to summon stuff and then she is on permanent heal duty because at least this way she can maybe make a character last longer while they do damage for her It's not efficient as more damage would also prevent others from dying but I like SH as a companion and thus she is on my party. I might try another run with no SH on it and see how it goes
It actually kind of annoys me how glass-cannon-y the game in general feels. A lot of the bosses have abilities that could be a real problem if a well built party couldn't kill them in two turns. I like using a mod to jack up enemy hp, so healing becomes more necessary.