Favored Soul Healer

[ViggoEvan]

Hi y'all, is it worth it to build a straight FS healer? meaning worthwhile for grouping/ raiding?

[droid327]

Hi y'all, is it worth it to build a straight FS healer? meaning worthwhile for grouping/ raiding?

If you're going to do it, FvS is probably the way to go since they have a dedicated group heal tree.

Whether its worth doing at all is the question - its a very niche build. Useful in high-end group content, ie endgame raiding, but largely overkill in anything else, so you might have a slow time trying to get to endgame raiding.

Plus, pure healing is not a role that requires 100% of your opportunity costs, so even a "pure" healer is going to be more of a healer/CC or a healer/DPS or something.

[Clemeit]

Pure healers, while not as viable as they used to be, can still fill a few critical roles. Namely,

Healing high-reaper quests where the role of CC/DC caster is filled by a more capable character
Low to mid reaper raids where the need for party healing is more demanding

Where they really fall short is during the leveling processes. Most people run content on r1 for the purposes of leveling, and it's in these settings that your healing abilities are rarely - if ever - necessary. Playing a pure healer through heroics is a nightmarish bore. You'll be entirely reliant on other players to run the quests for you, and you'll have little to offer in return. If your intention was to use this healer for end-game content, I'd suggest leveling as a CC/DC caster or Inquisitive and LRing at cap into a pure healer.

I've had a dedicated healer on-hand since I started playing back in '09. This character is just a healer - no CC/DC casting at all. And while pure healers aren't as useful as they used to be, I still enjoy running them through high-reaper content and static groups. A very good healer can make a group run much more smoothly, and they certainly have their place; however, in most content you'd be much more useful if you had some sort of CC/DC casting abilities.

As an aside, as someone who has played both Cleric and Favored Soul healers extensively, I would recommend pure Favored Soul for pure healers any day.

High-reaper content? Pure healer is a great addition to a party.
Low-reaper content/leveling? Pure healer is unnecessary. Supplement with CC/DC casting.

[unbongwah]

Most of what you want for a pure healer are the same things you want for a caster / blaster build: i.e., max WIS (or CHA), metamagic feats, etc. Where they differ are a few feats (e.g., the DPS caster will pick up Spell Focus and/or Penetration while the healbot might just take Mental Toughness line for added SPs), their Enhancements (Beacon of Hope vs Angel of Vengeance), and gear.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that any decent DPS caster build is also going to be about 90% primed to be a good healer as well, so I wouldn't bother with a pure healbot unless you know that's the dedicated role you're going to fill (i.e., designated healer for guild raids). I posted a first-life FvS caster build (https://www.reddit.com/r/ddo/comments/edk4hh/favored_soul_build_options/fbkqtwz/) which is also heavily invested in BoH.

[Clemeit]

Agreed, with a minor modification. A pure healer's primary objective is to stay alive because, in the content that a pure heal-bot is useful, a dead healer almost certainly spells certain death for the rest of the party. To that end, the benefits of maxing Constitution and dumping as much energy as possible into maxing HP/PRR/MRR supersede the minor benefits a higher casting stat will give you.

A pure heal-bot should max Constitution and let Wisdom/Charisma fall into place somewhere below. A CC/DC supplemented healer will always sacrifice survivability for utility.

https://i.imgur.com/z7tQtAN.png

[OzmarDDO]

https://i.imgur.com/z7tQtAN.png

Bwahhhhhh... How???

Impressive stats...

-Ozmar the Meager

[rabidfox]

You can pretty easily setup a heal/CC build with minimal stats by doing a FvS Elf Arcane Archer build. There's other pure caster builds you could do instead, but AA has the advantage of solid CC in paralyzing arrows at no spell point costs saving all your power toward heals you toss out. Heal/AA hybrid setups are the one time I think AA shines as it's damage is meh but for support it's awesome. Here's a basic mock up build: (edit: forgot to put in rapid shot, so I'd swap the feats around slightly to squeeze that in an actual character)
Favored Soul 20
Elf

Stats
. . . . . . . .32pt . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . --------
Strength. . . . .8. . . .4: DEX
Dexterity . . . 17. . . .8: DEX
Constitution. . 15. . . 12: WIS
Intelligence. . .9. . . 16: WIS
Wisdom. . . . . 16. . . 20: WIS
Charisma. . . . .8. . . 24: WIS
. . . . . . . . . . . . 28: WIS

Feats

.1. . . . : Point Blank Shot
.3. . . . : Precise Shot
.6. . . . : Quicken Spell
.9. . . . : Empower Healing Spell
12. . . . : Improved Critical: Ranged
15. . . . : Improved Precise Shot
18. . . . : Precision
21 Epic . :
24 Epic . :
26 Destiny:
27 Epic . :
28 Destiny:
29 Destiny:
30 Epic . :
30 Legend :

.2 FavSoul: Knowledge of Battle
.7 FavSoul:

.1 Deity. : Follower of: Silver Flame
.6 Deity. :
20 Deity. :


Enhancements (80 AP)

Beacon of Hope (41 AP) Pleasant Disposition, Beacon of Grace, Shining Light, Beacon of Hope, Flight of Glory, True Resurrection: Wisdom Good Hope I, Confidence III, Spell Critical, Spell Points I
Close Wounds III, Spell Critical, Might's Reward: Wisdom III
Hope for Protection, Efficient Empower Healing, Spell Critical, Wisdom
Hope for Victory, Optimism, Spell Critical, Wisdom
Hope for Success, Heal, Undying Beacon, Flame of the Favored
Elf-Arcane Archer (25 AP) Arcane Archer, Morphic Arrows, Metalline Arrows Conjure Arrows, Corrosive Arrows
Force Arrows III, Elemental Damage
Terror Arrows, Soul Magic, Elemental Damage, Wisdom
Paralyzing Arrows, Smiting Arrows
Elf (14 AP) Elven Accuracy, Elven Dexterity Aerenal Weapon Training
Enchantment Lore III, Arcanum I
Arcane Archer

[rabidfox]

Also checkout Strimtom's beacon build & video
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/498585-Strimtom-s-Beacon-of-Lots-of-Healing-on-the-Cheap?p=6124419

[OzmarDDO]

How does a person get 90 Con?

I am curious...

Start with 18... Aasimar Favored Soul, up to 30 levels. No idea what equipment he has, so let's see if I can imagine how this might be...

Raise Con every level: +7
Eat a yummy tome: +8 inherent
Warpriest capstone: +2
Racial past lives & racial completionist: +4
Heroic completionist: +2
Four epic feats on Con: +4
Epic destinies: +6 (could use twists for more? but assume not)
Reaper enhancements? +5
Items:
Gauntlet of the Iron Council: +22 enhancement
Blood Feast Filigree set: +2 Con untyped
Legendary Cloak of the City's Champion: +10 insight

That's up to 90... so I guess that works... :P

-Ozmar the Jealous

[HastyPudding]

YES YES YES!

One of my alts is a bacon-flavored soul. He has decent DC's and damage for lower reaper, but not so much for higher reaper. However, in higher reaper I'm healing far more than attacking; I'll still use implosion and frog and maybe get a few kills, or use sun bolt and divine wrath now and then, but mostly it's healing.

The two beacons are phenomenal. On a pure FVS they heal quite a bit in a fairly large area, give +300 unconscious range, and +30 healing amplification: both of these effects are sustainable.

The hope buffs are pretty useful later on. When there's a slight break in the action, buff the hard-hitters in the party (barbarians, inquisitive, rogues, etc) with the first 3 hope buffs. Save the fourth buff for large fights or boss fights: it is absolutely amazing. Putting Hope for Success on an inquisitive pushes them into god mode for 20 seconds and it only has a 60 second cooldown. These buffs also buff you, so keeping them up also increases your PRR, MRR, and AC.

Flame of the Favored SLA is amazing. This is like wall of fire but it's a wall of healing, only costs 40 SP, and has a 99% uptime since its cooldown is the same as its duration. Throw this on the melee pile in a fight or on a tank, then stand back and use your beacons and other healing and spells.

The Close Wounds SLA is much better than it looks on paper. This is dirt cheap (2 sp), spammable (literally 1 second cooldown), and casts as fast as a sorcerer with quicken on a level 1 spell. It doesn't heal a ton, but with decent positive spellpower this is a phenomenal tank healing ability (especially with the healing amplification buffs from your beacons and healing wall) and very useful for between-fight healing to top everyone off.

Neat trick: some people go 19 favored soul and 1 warlock and use charisma as their main ability score. Then they get the Feigned Health ability in the warlock's tainted scholar tree. This gives the allied targets of your spells (including healing and beacons!) temporary hit points equal to your charisma. Even if you have only a moderate 70ish charisma, you can buff everyone in your beacons with 70 temporary hit points. Add in the fact that you can also spam your 1 second cooldown close wounds sla to do this and it's pretty nifty. The only downside is you have to use charisma as your primary stat to get any real use out of it.

[Clemeit]

How does a person get 90 Con?

I am curious...

Start with 18... Aasimar Favored Soul, up to 30 levels. No idea what equipment he has, so let's see if I can imagine how this might be...

Raise Con every level: +7
Eat a yummy tome: +8 inherent
Warpriest capstone: +2
Racial past lives & racial completionist: +4
Heroic completionist: +2
Four epic feats on Con: +4
Epic destinies: +6 (could use twists for more? but assume not)
Reaper enhancements? +5
Items:
Gauntlet of the Iron Council: +22 enhancement
Blood Feast Filigree set: +2 Con untyped
Legendary Cloak of the City's Champion: +10 insight

That's up to 90... so I guess that works... :P

-Ozmar the Jealous

My healer (in that picture) is only a 3rd lifer, with 3 Epic PLs. No racial PLs, no completionist status, no +8 tomes. Only 3 constitution from EDs, and no constitution feats.

It goes to show that it really doesn't take "triple-everything completionist with reaper wings" to build a very solid healer, which is why I chose that toon for a permanent heal-bot. Minimal investment, maximum return.

As for the actual constitution breakdown, I have no idea, sorry.

[Clemeit]

The two beacons are phenomenal.
...
The hope buffs are pretty useful later on.
...
Flame of the Favored SLA is amazing.
...
The Close Wounds SLA is much better than it looks on paper.

Absolutely 100%. These reasons are why I always prefer Favored Soul over Cleric for healing.

[Kutalp]

I believe Favored soul is a stronger healer compared to Cleric through class and enhancement tree specialities.

Favored soul also makes a more viable warrior than a Cleric through class and enhancement tree specialities.

You can also go Charisma or Wisdom way as I know.


Fellow posters above, allready poured all the details at the table. Enjoy the feast. :)



https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/food-drink-eat-eating-eats_out-meal-chef-rmrn12_low.jpg

A Tiefling Flavored soul.

[HastyPudding]

Absolutely 100%. These reasons are why I always prefer Favored Soul over Cleric for healing.


I believe Favored soul is a stronger healer compared to Cleric through class and enhancement tree specialities.

Favored soul also makes a more viable warrior than a Cleric through class and enhancement tree specialities.

You can also go Charisma or Wisdom way as I know.


Fellow posters above, allready poured all the details at the table. Enjoy the feast. :)

Agreed. The cleric's Radiant Servant tree is outdated and extremely expensive. The one area cleric seems to have FVS beat is survivability, since they get automatic access to heavy armor and their healing aura is always centered on themselves. Before I TR'd my cleric into a FVS, he used the protection domain and was quite tanky.

[Clemeit]

...and their healing aura is always centered on themselves.

Very true, and the aura is something that I really miss. Flame of the Favored is good, but as soon as I place it down the party always seems to move out of it. It's good for boss fights and for when there's a dedicated tank in the group who won't move around, but otherwise I don't find myself using it too much. I wish they would change it to have a 6-second cooldown - keeping its 30-second duration - and allow the caster to "move" it around more often (where recasting it would remove the old instance).

Cleric's Burst ability was also pretty solid, and its omnidirectional nature was a big selling point for me. Beacon of Hope, however, is an exceptionally powerful heal, and since it also increases healing amp, it makes for a very handy ability in high-reaper difficulties where self healing becomes a serious issue. With the healing amp from Sharn's Divine set paired with the healing amp from Beacon, I might argue that Favored Souls have an edge over Clerics in regards to instant self-healing, even if they lack in passive self-healing.

Now if I could just aim the **** thing properly... I fear that its directional nature is its major handicap. Party members jumping around and server-client desynchronization make for some dodgy situations.

[HastyPudding]

Very true, and the aura is something that I really miss. Flame of the Favored is good, but as soon as I place it down the party always seems to move out of it. It's good for boss fights and for when there's a dedicated tank in the group who won't move around, but otherwise I don't find myself using it too much. I wish they would change it to have a 6-second cooldown - keeping its 30-second duration - and allow the caster to "move" it around more often (where recasting it would remove the old instance).

Cleric's Burst ability was also pretty solid, and its omnidirectional nature was a big selling point for me. Beacon of Hope, however, is an exceptionally powerful heal, and since it also increases healing amp, it makes for a very handy ability in high-reaper difficulties where self healing becomes a serious issue. With the healing amp from Sharn's Divine set paired with the healing amp from Beacon, I might argue that Favored Souls have an edge over Clerics in regards to instant self-healing, even it they lack in passive self-healing.

Now if I could just aim the **** thing properly... I fear that its directional nature is its major handicap. Party members jumping around and server-client desynchronization make for some dodgy situations.

My FVS has 245 healing amp with the sharn set and beacon's buff, and almost 1100 positive spellpower while in reaper. Even in r6-7 quests, I can still self-heal very well.

I find that, with the healing wall, you can place it down and people can kite mobs through it for an extra heal, or builds that stand still can stay inside, etc. It's a multi-purpose tool, but in general, yes, people do tend to not stand in it when they need to.

[Clemeit]

My FVS has 245 healing amp with the sharn set and beacon's buff, and almost 1100 positive spellpower while in reaper. Even in r6-7 quests, I can still self-heal very well.

I find that, with the healing wall, you can place it down and people can kite mobs through it for an extra heal, or builds that stand still can stay inside, etc. It's a multi-purpose tool, but in general, yes, people do tend to not stand in it when they need to.

Oh I feel ya, it's completely nuts. Favored Souls are definitely more capable self-healers in reaper.

https://i.imgur.com/eSvitrV.png
FvS With Beacon and Sharn set

[Wipey]

You can have perfectly "tanky enough" ( 2.6k+ hp, 200+ prr 150+ mrr ) fvs caster with full casting abulity ( 125 evo, 110 other schools, no fail frog and rebuke ), healing just comes with it, you don't need anything special.

Beacon of hope is garbage imo. Hopes provide too little, constant waste of valuable apm.
Beacon being directional is not that practical either for really quick oh **** situations, which most of r10 healing is.

Wall of healing is healing over time - so pointless, wonky targetting and has "nice party friendly" blinding effect. Harder to see animations, circles, champion types or even examine window on boss beatdowns.

At least for myself and fwiw the players I tend to play with it's "back to basics" - quickened Heal and three Mass Cures, aasimar Loh and maybe twisted Renewal or Cocoon sometimes.
Reactive Heal and cleric aura is really really nice.
Both fvs and cleric can heal perfectly fine but I'd take cleric over fvs every time.

[Chilldude]

Hi y'all, is it worth it to build a straight FS healer? meaning worthwhile for grouping/ raiding?

I'll answer you straight up, yes. Yes, a FVS makes an excellent healer. They get lots of spell points to heal and heal and heal. In epics you get a cure moderate mass SLA that you can jack up with meta magic and heal and heal and heal with. You also get divine wrath that heals and heals and heals. You can also do a tier 3 twist to have renewal (How could they remove it from EA!!?!?!?!!!????!!!? How dare they!!!!???!?!!! The cure mass is alright, but renewal... ugh... what an awesome spell.)

If you want to heal, FVS is a great way to go. Don't worry about all the people talking about heal bots and all the other junk. If you want to heal, FVS is a great way to go. Cleric is fine, but I prefer FVS. I'm sure there are plenty of groups that'd be more than happy to have a healer tag along. I imagine very few parties are full, so having a FVS healer tag along is a no brainer.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooo many people in the forums have a HUGE problem with anyone saying they want to actually heal other players in a party. "OMG!!!! You don't need to healjbotz!!!! There is not healer class in DDO!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! YOU MUST ALSO DPS!!!! OMG!!! DON'T JUST HEAL!!!! OMG!!!!"

The truth is, most parties have always welcomed a healer to the group. Today, in reaper, healing other players is not only welcome, it's pretty much a necessity. A word to the wise though, in game calling yourself a healer is totally 100% OK. In the forums, it's 150% OK with me, but man will some people come unglued!

[Alled78]

Hi y'all, is it worth it to build a straight FS healer? meaning worthwhile for grouping/ raiding?

Fvs is great to heal and very useful. Only problem is u need usually a party.
No party no fun

[Silverleafeon]

Hi y'all, is it worth it to build a straight FS healer? meaning worthwhile for grouping/ raiding?

When my tank shows up along with a FvS healer, good leaders start thinking "how about reaper 10"?

With the recent changes to reaper (anti perching and reduced time for crowd control), a healer & tank combo along with two dps toons and two random toons can very effective.



In fact, at times in heroic reaper, I have found that just sitting back a bit with a stack of heal scrolls made the party so much more efficient.
That one heal can make the difference between a sorcerer falling or clearing the room.

[Silverleafeon]

In case anyone is interested, here is a link for what theoretically should be a good 3rd life tank:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/375340-Fawngate-s-Completionist-Project?p=6274495&viewfull=1#post6274495

to combine with a 3rd life healer for a party that should make the other roles (including melee) more enjoyable to play.


PS Seeing that Healing Wall pop up really makes my day as a tank...

[Pilgrim1]

If your looking for a pure healing toon i just want to pop in and say dont forget about druid! A con bear druid in US would make an amazing off tank heal hybrid build.

Fvs have plenty going for them, thats for sure but druids have the best heal spell in the game, mass regenerate.

When people have 1000 positive spell power, 66% positive crit chance, and everyone is running around with 100+ heal amp overhealing becomes normal. Well mass regen takes care of that, it heals for 25hp every 2 seconds for 5 ticks. And unlike heal and mass heal regen gets full spell power. Fire off a mass regen and people just will not die while its up. Vigor stacking is the best thing in the world for dealing with tanks. Wall of healing is great for when people clump together but vigor stacking is great when people spread out.

In addition its easy to build bears some CC abilities as well. You could easily mix in dire charge, tremor, and roar to keep groups of mobs locked down while mass regening and mass viggoring.

Anyways, just wanted to hype druid as a healing option.

Btw, renwal does not stack with vigor. Evil.

[Silverleafeon]

If your looking for a pure healing toon i just want to pop in and say dont forget about druid!

+1

[SirValentine]

You can have perfectly "tanky enough" ( 2.6k+ hp, 200+ prr 150+ mrr ) fvs caster with full casting abulity ( 125 evo, 110 other schools, no fail frog and rebuke ), healing just comes with it, you don't need anything special.


Agreed!

OP, you don't need to build a "pure" healer. If you're in some especially difficult content where it's needed, you can of course concentrate on healing. And if you know you're going to be doing nothing but healing, say in some particular raid, you can swap to Unyielding Sentinel destiny for more tankiness. But you'll be more useful in more situations if you can do something else (DC caster [my personal preference], or nuker, or weapon DPS, or tank, depending what you like) in addition to healing. That goes for FvS or Cleric or Druid or whatever.

The only reason I can see to build a "pure" healbot is if it's a character you never intend to actually play except when your guild needs more heals in a raid.



SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooo many people in the forums have a HUGE problem with anyone saying they want to actually heal other players in a party.


Really? I don't recall seeing anyone having a problem with people wanting to heal, since it's very useful ability to have available and often very helpful to groups.

Of course, if a character can only heal, what are they doing when that's not needed?

[Kinerd]

Fvs is great to heal and very useful. Only problem is u need usually a party.
No party no fun

right on the money. back in the day i had a lot of fun playing a healer with my guild but soloing with it was pointless, and even pugging could be hit or miss. (still have vivid memories of trying from below to heal a warforged barbarian on the rooftops of the Summerfield District T_T)

with the population decline these days i would be very hesitant about building one and in fact have not done so. i think Clemeit's suggestion of leveling as a caster and LRing is excellent, especially since OP might find that a caster's healing (while not as good) is good enough to fill their desire anyway

[deochii]

Agreed, with a minor modification. A pure healer's primary objective is to stay alive because, in the content that a pure heal-bot is useful, a dead healer almost certainly spells certain death for the rest of the party. To that end, the benefits of maxing Constitution and dumping as much energy as possible into maxing HP/PRR/MRR supersede the minor benefits a higher casting stat will give you.

A pure heal-bot should max Constitution and let Wisdom/Charisma fall into place somewhere below. A CC/DC supplemented healer will always sacrifice survivability for utility.

https://i.imgur.com/z7tQtAN.png

Mind telling us your build? like what feats you took, items, spells, etc

[zappy]

Mind telling us your build? like what feats you took, items, spells, etc

/Necro

this is a 2-3 year old setup. much has changed.

[axel15810]

As others said, very boring and terrible for leveling generally unless the party is constantly pushing skulls maybe but yes a pure healer can be desirable in reaper difficulty raids for those pushing skulls and high skull questing.

I run primarily a healer/melee cleric and have for years and I gotta be honest I've been tipping my toe more into high skull and even R10 endgame stuff lately (I normally run mid skull) and there's still a ton of down time in between heals. Personally I would recommend just building a caster/healer FVS instead of pure healer FVS as it would be much less boring. You are going to want something to do between heals, and you can build that in with minimal negative impact to your healing effectiveness.

Also if you don't have a static group or guild that specifically wants a dedicated healer I wouldn't do it. If you rely on PUGs definitely build a caster/healer or melee/healer or you'll be bored out of your mind and not all that useful most of the time. Most PUGs don't need a ton of healing attention, just occasional heals here and there.

Edit: And oh, just realized this is a /necro