Best "Healer" character?

[Desmodeus]

Just wonder what is the objectively best defensive support character in game(provide buffs + provides heal + remove negative effects)? In PoE1 priest was the king there - consecrated ground provided reliable recovery of HP and could have been mastered, best prayers was avaliable earlier and booster radiance was just insane. Now with loss of radiance enhancements and change of affliction mechanics I feel priest is kinda fell from grace as new "prayers against" type reshaffling makes it harder to cover important afflictions. Additionally consecrated ground no longer tied to priest and instead to place. At the same time Lifegiver druid get great boost to actual "healing" part and chanter get a lot of buffs he can now use almost at will if we go troubadour(brisk recitation just skyrocket prase count). Even paladin, now that it is not restricted to one revive and one lay of hand per fight (not to mention that some exhortations were once per rest)

So who is support king now?

 

[indika_tates]

A combination of a SC Chanter and a SC Lifegiver will give you the most "early". Multiclassed also, but at max level. I think priests are underrated by a big part of the POE community, but they are one of the strongest classes of the game, specially on a MC.

 

 

[mjo2138]

Quote

 

I agree that priests are a strong class, especially for buffs. Overall, I think the best defense is a good offense, so giving your party inspirations is a great strategy, along with boosting their Armor Rating. once an encounter begins. I  think druid can provide some very powerful buffs and heals (Form of the Delegman, Woodskin, Nature's Balm, Moonwell). In particular the healing and + defenses from Moonwell is a real boon. 

I always gravitate towards Heralds because the combination of paladin/chanter has so many support choices, along with passive heals, which make it very versatile for many situations, such as negating certain afflictions with the proper chant, and the ability to suppress afflictions via Liberating Exonerations. 

 

 

 

[thelee]

SC Lifegiver by far, imo, is the best overall healer.

 

However, to mjo2138's point about the best defense being a good offense, in my experience, if you go too all-in on healing with an SC lifegiver (or similar other classes), your offense will be so low that you'll end up having to do more healing than than you would have with a more normal setup, squandering some of the advantage. Fortunately for both the SC chanter and SC lifegiver, they have a bunch of other stuff so you can avoid this trap pretty easily (for lifegiver they get all their heals as free spells, so it becomes even easier to avoid this trap; edit - just make sure to do some offense instead of just holding your spells back to heal).

Edited February 1, 2021 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Difficult to define "best" - just highest healing output or great healing but also good at other stuff...? As always: depends.

For the same reasons @theleementioned I wouldn't put everything into healing and forget about the rest. 

So I would say Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour. Not only because of the passive healing auras (which require zero resources so with a tanky party you can go on forever) but also because of the good active healing capabilities (Lay on Hands, Two Fingers, White Flames etc.) as well as the two sources of revive (if we count that as healing, too). And on top of the healing you will also have some good support as well as sturdyness and good damage output with the right invocations but also weapon dmg (Eternal Devotion + Mith Fyr is good). One endless resource pool is also very nice to have.

Lifegiver/Psion might also be a good candidate for my taste. Here you'll have good healing (Rejuvenation spells obviously but also Pain Block), one endless resource pool again but at the same time a ton of other utility. 

Too bad Essential Phantom got changed from controllable summon into AI summon. You could use all the active abilites from gear once (for a short amount of time between patches) which included Healing Hands, Gaun's Pledge etc. And the per-rest healings turned into per-encounter that way. You could be a Wizard and still heal your party somewhat with your phantom.  

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

I use healer not as "restoring hp" type of character, rather as an defensive support type. Basically someone who might not input much damage itself but ensures that characters are protected and safe from any debuffs and control attempts and also provide defense against prolonged wave based fights like SSS survivor path(where enemies might not be a problem in term of danger per wave, but it is increadibly easy to end up running dry and succumbing to sheer exastion). Also it is more of a general balance thing as well even if priest is still good class, it does fall from grace compared to PoE1

Yeah, Herald might actually indeed be the best from that point of view. Not sure two sources of revive worth it though, also they does have different wakeup ispirations.... I also quite liked how Takeru as support druid/chanter ended up in my run. No summons though :( But watershaper basic spells were good addition and free spellchants also gave some goodies.

[thelee]

4 hours ago, Desmodeus said:

I use healer not as "restoring hp" type of character, rather as an defensive support type. Basically someone who might not input much damage itself but ensures that characters are protected and safe from any debuffs and control attempts and also provide defense against prolonged wave based fights like SSS survivor path(where enemies might not be a problem in term of danger per wave, but it is increadibly easy to end up running dry and succumbing to sheer exastion). Also it is more of a general balance thing as well even if priest is still good class, it does fall from grace compared to PoE1

Yeah, Herald might actually indeed be the best from that point of view. Not sure two sources of revive worth it though, also they does have different wakeup ispirations.... I also quite liked how Takeru as support druid/chanter ended up in my run. No summons though But watershaper basic spells were good addition and free spellchants also gave some goodies.

ah, well depending on how much metagaming you're including, i would say priest is king support character. basically any scenario in which you can generate brilliant, priest has salvation of time

 

otherwise, for 90% of fights, i would say priest and priest variants are still king support character even though some bits of the priest are nerfed from poe1. all those mass party buffs at will are reeeeal handy, even the tier one spells are still effective late game when it means trying to clear up some afflictions. for the remaining of 10% of fights, chanter and chanter variants pull ahead because of their resource regen and recurring chants (a properly geared up herald pulls ahead faster).

Edited February 2, 2021 by thelee

[Griffonheart]

Haven’t played much, but I heard good words on Herald. A tank itself, passive healing, infinite resources, and the summons; the less damage your team takes the less healing you need. Not to mention, tank+healer in one means you can create a party however you like, be it extra debuff or extra dps.

Can a Cipher/Chanter be a viable healer/buffer?

[Desmodeus]

Psion/chanter should be viable. Standart way of ciphers to restore focus might be a bit problematic here.

In my experience herald actually isn't that good for tanking if he is focused on buffing. Sure, he survives a lot, but enemies prefer actually damaging and squishier targets and healer/buffer herald diesn't exactly qualify as either.

[Boeroer]

Played a Psion/Troubadour not too long ago: it's very versatile, can do support, healing, damage, CC - and the best is that you allwys have some resources to cast your stuff while at the same time you also have your phrases helping passively. Was very effective and fun. Particulary the Killer Froze Stiff invocation + Lingering Echoes was very useful since I was often able to alomost paralyze-lock whole groups of foes and alternate between Killers - Soul Shock - Killers - Soul Shock and so on while healing my party passively with Ancient Memory and Lethandria's Devotion. Didn't use buffing that much because I had no time since Killers was so effective. But I could certainly have cast support stuff instead - if that would have been my main role.  

[Desmodeus]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Didn't use buffing that much because I had no time since Killers was so effective.

Thats probably the biggest problem with buffing chanters in both first and second game. Why waste time on buffing when you can spam killers xD

[Lolesleona]

On 2/7/2021 at 2:42 PM, Boeroer said:

Played a Psion/Troubadour not too long ago: it's very versatile, can do support, healing, damage, CC - and the best is that you allwys have some resources to cast your stuff while at the same time you also have your phrases helping passively. Was very effective and fun. Particulary the Killer Froze Stiff invocation + Lingering Echoes was very useful since I was often able to alomost paralyze-lock whole groups of foes and alternate between Killers - Soul Shock - Killers - Soul Shock and so on while healing my party passively with Ancient Memory and Lethandria's Devotion. Didn't use buffing that much because I had no time since Killers was so effective. But I could certainly have cast support stuff instead - if that would have been my main role.  

I was checking Troubadour healing skills.. and they only have "2" active healing skills and two passives (phases)... 

They have a "ray healing" which is okish.. and another AOE healing (cone) in tier 9 when the chanter kills the enemies (that is what I understood from the text) so.. Am I missing something here?

Could I build a Troubadour as a main healer/support? How?
Could be considered a Troubadour healer/support as good as a Lifegiver, Kind wayfrire and Priest (Eothn) why?

 

[Boeroer]

You can heal passively with Ancient Memory and the Day Light's invocation as Troubadour, but the better option is from the Psion's side with Pain Block which is a pretty good single target heal + AR buff (which usually mitigates incoming dmg, too). Healing isn't the strongest suit of this multiclass, but it's there should you need it (since I was speaking about it's general versatility).

[dgray62]

IMO the best healing from a chanter comes from the Old Siec chant, which gives you 12% heal from damage done. This benefits most the front line DPS toons, who typically need it the most. Since you get it relatively late (PL 6), I wouldn't rely solely on a chanter for healing. They can contribute a bit a lower levels, and then make a bigger contribution once you get Old Siec. The nice thing about this chant is it is passive. It's best suited for a frontline chanter, like a skald, naturally.

[TheMetaphysician]

My favorite is indeed the Herald, either a Kind Wayfarer or Shieldbearer Paladin and a Troubadour chanter. The action economy is great -- he heals a ton passively, functions as a tank himself, and can use his actions either for more healing, summoning, or offensive action.

Here's a Shieldbearer/Troubadour build (look on page 2 for my elaboration on Climhazzard's original idea); here's a Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour build.

Both a lot of fun.

[Griffonheart]

22 hours ago, TheMetaphysician said:

My favorite is indeed the Herald, either a Kind Wayfarer or Shieldbearer Paladin and a Troubadour chanter. The action economy is great -- he heals a ton passively, functions as a tank himself, and can use his actions either for more healing, summoning, or offensive action.

Here's a Shieldbearer/Troubadour build (look on page 2 for my elaboration on Climhazzard's original idea); here's a Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour build.

Both a lot of fun.

That is an intriguing idea! Using two-weapon style AND shield style at the same time!

Would it be wise to use The Giftbearer's Cloth as cloak? At 20 history it gives 15 defense, and gives you extra item/weapon set. You noted that the build doesn't require any specific skills so I presume taking history won't harm you.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Griffonheart

[TheMetaphysician]

On 4/27/2021 at 11:00 AM, Griffonheart said:

That is an intriguing idea! Using two-weapon style AND shield style at the same time!

Would it be wise to use The Giftbearer's Cloth as cloak? At 20 history it gives 15 defense, and gives you extra item/weapon set. You noted that the build doesn't require any specific skills so I presume taking history won't harm you.

Yeah, that would totally work.

I will say, I played this character pretty far, and one of its limitations is that it doesn't have any engagement slots (unlike the Healing Wall version, which has at least two, one from shield and one from shieldbearer class), since the bashing shield doesn't give you engagement. That means that, while it is really sturdy, it doesn't get attacked quite as much. So the history cloak strikes me as overkill. Unless, of course, you play it like a crazy tank, by (say) unstealthing it first, having enemies attack it, then unstealthing everyone else.

I found a mod that gave the paladin class extra engagement slots, which I used, as it seemed fitting. Even then, though, I didn't feel the need for extra defense.

[Boeroer]

28 minutes ago, TheMetaphysician said:

since the bashing shield doesn't give you engagement.

This sounded odd to me. All bashing shields are considered proper shields and thus should get +1 engagement from the "Shield Engagement" item mod.

But after reading it I couldn't really dismiss it with 100% certainty - so I loaded up the game and used all bashing shields on a lvl-1-Rogue with no other source of engagement: they all gave me +1 engagmenent.  

[TheMetaphysician]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

This sounded odd to me. All bashing shields are considered proper shields and thus should get +1 engagement from the "Shield Engagement" item mod.

But after reading it I couldn't really dismiss it with 100% certainty - so I loaded up the game and used all bashing shields on a lvl-1-Rogue with no other source of engagement: they all gave me +1 engagmenent.  

Even Magran's Blessing?

That's good news, if so. I remember noticing that I didn't have engagement when I had it on, and reading that there was a bug for that shield specifically (here is someone else noticing it.) Maybe it has been fixed and just didn't get fixed for my playthrough with it? That's weird, though, since I played it pretty recently.

I also could be deluded and failing to notice obvious things. Wouldn't be the first time.

[TheMetaphysician]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

This sounded odd to me. All bashing shields are considered proper shields and thus should get +1 engagement from the "Shield Engagement" item mod.

But after reading it I couldn't really dismiss it with 100% certainty - so I loaded up the game and used all bashing shields on a lvl-1-Rogue with no other source of engagement: they all gave me +1 engagmenent.  

No, I wasn't misremembering. I loaded my game up, and sure enough, Magran's Blessing does not have the "shield engagement" item mod on it. And in testing, a character with that shield still has no engagement in battle.

Now, I am using a bunch of mods, which could be affecting that. In particular, I'm using a file where I just copied a list of all the items and put it in the override folder, and then I go into that file to alter properties of items as I like (to increase/decrease charges, change from per-rest to per-encounter, etc.) I wonder if I copied that file before the shield got patched and it is overriding the patched version, even though I've made no changes to that item.

[Boeroer]

Weird. I know there's a bug that removes items' enchantments. I only saw it once in one of my playthroughs though.

If you don't have shield engagement on Magran's Blessing that surely is a bug - because I have it on that shield:

Edited April 29, 2021 by Boeroer

[The Berathian]

Best healer character? 

Any healing class paired with a helwalker monk. Massive AoEs and megaheals. 

Edit: 

I was just thinking, adding a nature godlike would help recover some power levels, and it wouldn't be hard to trigger the buff. You could be the lifegiving tree. Like from that poem. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by The Berathian
Because I am a dumb-dumb that forgot the obvious.