Dragonmarking a healer Fvs?

[HamsterBoo]

I've seen a couple builds that halfling dragonmark a fvs. Apparently fully boosted they can save you a lot of mana, but with capstone is it really worth it?

My philosophy is if you have time to do something other than heal your party doesn't need your help, so don't take into account offensive casting/melee, only the power as a healer.

I'm probably missing something really obvious...

[Nott]

I'm probably missing something really obvious...Having never played a halfling (nor a dragonmarked toon of any type) I can only speculate... but I think what you're missing is that feats can be swapped out. Meaning, once you get your capstone, you could go for something other than the dragonmark.

Additionally, there are five(?) types of FvS... only one of them gets free healing as a capstone.


All that being said, I don't see a good reason for a few free cures a day on a FvS -- not a reason that justifies taking a feat at least. My SP is almost never empty and I tend to over cure, and I rarely use wands or scrolls. Contrast this with my former cleric who carried divine healing and tended to use them each rest.

[African-Grey]

My philosophy is if you have time to do something other than heal your party doesn't need your help, so don't take into account offensive casting/melee, only the power as a healer.

I'm probably missing something really obvious...
My philosophy is that it's usually more efficient to prevent damage than heal it back. Command, Sound Burst, Greater Command, Resist and Protection from Elements, that sort of thing. I realize not everyone plays this way, though honestly I'm not sure why. :)

For a full-on, nothing-but-heals character, the healing dragonmarks may be attractive. I'm not sure I'd say necessary, but then if it's what you want then go for it. As Nott pointed out, you can swap out feats to experiment and find what works best for you.

[Mellkor]

Dragonmarks on a healer (or any toon except maybe a wizard) costs too many precious feats (3) to be worth it imo. You can get the TWO SP feats to gain almost as many spellpoints you would save by spending THREE feats on dragonmarks. A waste of feats on characters that are semi feat starved as it is.

-JR

[sirgog]

Dragonmarks on a healer (or any toon except maybe a wizard) costs too many precious feats (3) to be worth it imo. You can get the TWO SP feats to gain almost as many spellpoints you would save by spending THREE feats on dragonmarks. A waste of feats on characters that are semi feat starved as it is.

-JR

This is my opinion as well. The top one would need to produce a Mass Heal effect (rather than a Heal) and the middle one Heal (rather than Cure Critical or whatever it is) to be worthwhile, IMO.

[Matuse]

Dragonmarks are for Wizards, Monks, and Fighters.

ie: People who get a bunch of bonus feats as it is, and might be able to spare 3 for this kind of thing.

[Sinni]

i play a pure dragonmarked halfling fvs, and sometimes it comes in really handy

just now i was in a sos run with 3 tin cans and 2 fleshies (which were one-hitted if they were unlucky with horrid writtling) and apart from 10 to 15 heal scrolls i could make it and still had some sp left

my feats are toughness, 3 dragonmarks, empower healing, maximize and quicken
without the dragonmarks i'd take empower, extend and heighten.
heighten would make soundburst viable again and also make greater command more useful in end game. empower could be another boost to mass cures, but i think maximize and empower healing are enough there. and it would make BB better, which would be handy espeically for soloing. the only spell i have that would really benefit from extend is recitation. extend would have been nice during the leveling process though.

since i got the capstone i use the least dragonmark much less. unitl then i used it to top off people. but i still use it when i want to make several small heals without waiting for the cooldown. an empowered (and possibly also maximized) cure serious wounds heals for 100 to 150 hitpoints, so it's still useful, you got 7 charches of it when you take the extra dragonmark enhancment line. and you get 5 free heals.

the dragon marks also have other benefits. they are not spells, but spell like abilities. due to this you can use them in situations where you can't use the normal spells. examples are beholders, bees in hound of xoriat or feebleminded. additionally since update 3 they are not on the same timer as the corresponding spells anymore. which means you can cast heal and use the greater dragonmark of healing right after another and thus cast 2 heals without cooldown.

and about dragonmarks vs. mental toughness/improved mental toughness.
the mental toughnesses give you 210 in total. the dragonmarks (given you spend the 10 AP to get extra dragonmark use IV) give you 5 heals and 7 cure serious wounds (and 9 cure lesser, but due to the capstone i'm going to leave them out). just this way they are equal to 5 * 35 + 7 * 20 = 315 sp. if you activate empower healing that's another 12 * 10 = 120 sp, so 455 sp in total (or 7 * 15 if you got empower instead of empower healing and 7 * 9 if you also got the enhancment line, still 63 sp). then you can also activate maximize when you know you are going to heal with dragonmarks for a bit, which is another 7 * 25 = 175 sp. and then you can add quicken, which is again 12 * 10 = 120 sp. so if you activate empower healing, maximize and quicken the heals and cure serious would cost you 315 + 120 + 175 + 120 = 730 sp. and the only partly useful 9 cure lesser would cost another 495 sp.

so even if you don't apply any metas and skip the cure lesser you have the same sp per feat ratio as with mental toughness (105), when you apply metas the dragonmarks are vastly better in the sp gain. you can't use those "SP" for whatever you like, but you can use them in situations where normal sp wouldn't work.

long story short: if you focus on healing the dragonmarks are better. if you don't take them you are more versitile.
but at least i can say: i have fun with my dragonmarked fvs and don't regret spending the 3 feats for them.

[HamsterBoo]

Thanks Sinni, thats really what I was looking for (some good old fashioned math instead of people just saying its a waste of feats).
As to the "prevent" rather than cure argument, thats what the other 5 characters are for (I count dps, etc. as preventative here btw).

[Sinni]

you can still use the preventing method by using crowd control, just not as well if you miss heighten. it's the feat i'd take if i had a feat more to spend. and i chose toughness because fvs also have a class toughness enhancment line, so toughness really gives a lot of hitpoints.

[aristarchus1000]

haven't played one, but the dragonmark feat requirements are similar to twf, you migt consider the popular strategy of splashing 2 monk. You can take toughness with one feat, not sure of the other, maybe lightning reflexes or 2nd toughness, or TWF for debuffing. Evasion synergizes with halfling save enhancements nicely, and is really nice on a caster/healer, more so then the 10 DR, imo. The capstone CLW is not that useful imo, wands are cheap, especially at level 20. You can also use water stance to get another +2 wisdom. I would think heighten to be really important, in my mind, the only reason to go halfling dragonmarks is not for more healing, but the extra sps flexibility for offensive spells.

that's how I would do it, but give it a try and let us all know!

[Sinni]

haven't played one, but the dragonmark feat requirements are similar to twf, you migt consider the popular strategy of splashing 2 monk. You can take toughness with one feat, not sure of the other, maybe lightning reflexes or 2nd toughness, or TWF for debuffing. Evasion synergizes with halfling save enhancements nicely, and is really nice on a caster/healer, more so then the 10 DR, imo. The capstone CLW is not that useful imo, wands are cheap, especially at level 20. You can also use water stance to get another +2 wisdom. I would think heighten to be really important, in my mind, the only reason to go halfling dragonmarks is not for more healing, but the extra sps flexibility for offensive spells.

that's how I would do it, but give it a try and let us all know!

the dm feats don't have any requirement, but i guess you mean that you have to spend 3 feats for it.
generally fvs have high saves (full saves on all type like monks), built in, stacking 10 enery resists (3 types of your choice) and high hp for a caster type (i have around 440, with 14 start con and no shroud hp item). and a lot of traps can be avoided by leap of faith. i can't say there are many places where i missed evasion. the only ones that come to mind are enter the kobold and the fire part in sos. and even in sos it isn't much of an issue.

and about the capstone: 10 DR are really great. archers hardly harm you, if you buff yourself sonic resist the orthons in shavarath deal 0 to 2 damage with their ranged attack. as they use repeaters this means you take around 3 damage instead of 30. and especially in amrath quests you get hit often by teleporting, cleaving mobs. getting 10 damag less from each hit adds up a LOT. look at it as a permanent stoneskin. and it's also similar to additional 10 concentration.

and about clw: with sup potency/devotion, enhancment line, empower healing and maximise it heals for around 50 hitpoints, 120 if it crits. for free, every few seconds. it is great to top off people. you don't need to switch to wands (which don't hear nearly as much) and you can use it in fights too. i can often heal through good parts of a quest (for example in the vale or the refuge) only using the capstone clw.

basically the capstone amounts to a great protection for the healer and, depending how often you use it, a ton of sp. those sp can be spent for crowd control or to "snipe" mobs by using (energy drain and) destruction. i don't play epic (yet) but i only rarely have to resort to use heal scrolls and even rarer to use sp pots.

no to say that monk splash is a bad idea, but it's much more interesting to clerics. clerics have horrible reflex saves compared to fvs, and they have more spells (a lvl 18 fvs only has 1 lvl 9 spell compared to 3 he could have on lvl 20, and only 2 lvl 8 spells. clerics still have 4 lvl 8 and 3 lvl 9 spells on lvl 18). additionally the fvs capstone is much better than the cleric one.

[Mellkor]

yes, but as far as dragonmarks comparison of using cure serious vs spell points. This is not really a valid comparison, IMO, firstly because when using spell points I never use cure serious when for LESS sp I can cast the heal spell (considering typical meta usage). Secondly cure serious only heals 150ish points at best (again, considering typical meta usage and I never count on crits) vs my heal spell doing 427+ EVERY TIME. Far more efficient. So I actually get roughly 3 times the healing for LESS cost. In other words, I get 3 times the healing by spending 2 feats (mental toughness) on spell points VS 1/3 the healing for 3 feats (dragonmarks).

And I still think those 3 feats on a divine caster are FAR better spent on other more valuable feats.

I have to comment that as a cleric or FvS I never use cure serious anymore. I only really use heal and mass heal spells. I only rarely use mass cures when healing is needed between timers or a really fast burst healing is needed to more than 6 people in a raid. I NEVER use single cureXXX spells anymore. just something to consider when making these compariosons. You cant just go by numbers, you also have to consider what happens in practice.

-JR

[Sinni]

usually i don't have maximize activated but only when i know i can and will heal with the capstone and the dragonmarks and one or the other heal, and of course when i expect massive incoming damage.
so in my typical meta setup cure serious costs less sp than heal, and often enough csw is enough to heal casters and other squishies from 2/3rd hp to full, so i still use the cure spells or the dragonmarks for it.
but even if you consider maximize on and csw more expensive than heal: where you cast a heal for 400 hp and overheal 250 of those hitpoints, i use a csw dragonmark for the same effect, only that there is no overheal. thus the csw dragonmark saved me the sp for a heal. so the 3 feats would bring me more or less 12 heals the way you use them, only that 7 of them can only be applied to people with relatively low max hp, but it happens enough so that isn't a real limitation.

when there is enough damage incoming on 2 or 3 targets so heal is on cooldown and mass cure would be a waste or the people are too far apart. in these situations you will have to use the cure spells.

but you are right that you can't just take the sp equivalents, especially when you consider the clw dragonmark. even more so when you consider turning on all those metas.