Empowered Heal Feat on Bards?

[Ganak]

Looking for feedback on the empower heal feat on bards.

Planning for the next feat slot at 18.

My 16 human Bard (future 20 bard) has the following feats now:

Extend
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Pen
Mental Toughness
Improved Mental Toughness
Spell Focus: Enchantment
Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment



For my next feat at 18, I'm looking at either Empower heal or toughness.

I need the hp, currently at 251.

I'm very curious about empower heal.

Also, I'm thinking about taking both Toughness and empower heal, dropping Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment as the bard capstone includes a +2 to enchantment.

Thoughts?

[Tarnoc]

well my bard isa spell singer whos mostly about healing

being a halfling with full dragon marks

for meta magics i currently have empower healing and extend

im gonna take maximize and wen i did on lama it made a way bigger differnece then empower healing

and p.s. im swaping out the extend seeing as only two spells need extending

thats hjaste and rage which at lvl 20 unextended are 2 mins each you dont neeed 40 min gh blurr i guess displacment at 4 mins would be goodish but not worht the feat anylonger in my opinion

[Borror0]

'aste

Fixed

[Junts]

Looking for feedback on the empower heal feat on bards.

Planning for the next feat slot at 18.

My 16 human Bard (future 20 bard) has the following feats now:

Extend
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Pen
Mental Toughness
Improved Mental Toughness
Spell Focus: Enchantment
Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment



For my next feat at 18, I'm looking at either Empower heal or toughness.

I need the hp, currently at 251.

I'm very curious about empower heal.

Also, I'm thinking about taking both Toughness and empower heal, dropping Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment as the bard capstone includes a +2 to enchantment.

Thoughts?

I had empower healing on my bard. It was ok. I dislike empower healing even on clerics (i prefer maximize healing) and really disliked it when I did not have a 3rd spell to cycle in mass curing

my bard, however, is pure healing speced: i dropped emp heal for maximize and use the vod gloves. I am very, very happy with his performance.

i wuld drop the greater spell focus for toughness, too, for sure, or the imt: if you have all shroud sp, and are a spellsinger, you shouldn't need both mental toughnesses (i have neither, and my bard has 1200 sp).

[maddmatt70]

Empower healing is the most efficient healing feat for bards. I would highly recommend it and would say that quicken is not a bad idea either. Quicken is pretty much a necessity for a cleric in kobold for instance and for a healing bard the necessity is no different.

[MAP1974]

I had empower healing on my bard. It was ok. I dislike empower healing even on clerics (i prefer maximize healing) and really disliked it when I did not have a 3rd spell to cycle in mass curing

my bard, however, is pure healing speced: i dropped emp heal for maximize and use the vod gloves. I am very, very happy with his performance.

i wuld drop the greater spell focus for toughness, too, for sure, or the imt: if you have all shroud sp, and are a spellsinger, you shouldn't need both mental toughnesses (i have neither, and my bard has 1200 sp).

my healing specced spellsinger looks like this, though i have empower heal instead of maximise for the efficiency.

[Junts]

my healing specced spellsinger looks like this, though i have empower heal instead of maximise for the efficiency.

with the vod gloves, the efficiency difference is minute, if existant at all (-4 sp off maximize rocks).


quicken is essentiual to be a real healing bard

[lOprahl]

with the vod gloves, the efficiency difference is minute, if existant at all (-4 sp off maximize rocks).


quicken is essentiual to be a real healing bard

Quicken...Not Essential for "real healing bards". Pairing Quicken with Maximize ... ? Youll be a scroll bard 75% of the time.
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Looking at your build, swapping out improved mental toughness for empower heal...then toughness at 18...sp for hp?

Slightly less SP, more hp, same enchant dc.

[totmacher]

it's awesome, i use it on setzerr, with mid 1400 sp i'm as good as any cleric in pt 4 of the shroud (with spellsinger)

[maddmatt70]

Quicken...Not Essential for "real healing bards". Pairing Quicken with Maximize ... ? Youll be a scroll bard 75% of the time.
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Looking at your build, swapping out improved mental toughness for empower heal...then toughness at 18...sp for hp?

Slightly less SP, more hp, same enchant dc.

Quicken for healing even on a cleric is all about situational healing, but being able to throw on quicken and watch your healing power per second go up and/or not have your spells interrupted is pretty essential for a real healing bard. In kobold I have it on because I don't want to have my spells disrupted. In the shroud when I am solo healing I want it on because I need to have more healing power. Hangover, my bard, usually is the primary healer so she just like clerics who are primary healers needs it for specific situations.

[lOprahl]

Matt,

I hear ya bro, not flaming your comments on "quicken"... I see your point...just saying, with the enchant dc stuff, being strapped for feats, probably more effective to just have empower heal with max enchant dc..so I guess that would classify the ops build more as a enchanter/healer rather than a "True*" healer bard.



I agree, Quicken is very useful, especially if you are solo healing a party. I just think that quicken + maximize as a bard, is just silly. Especially using the VOD gloves as the reasoning behind it.

[direwolf33]

I am running empower healing on a warchanter and a spellsinger right now. I would definitely recommend it.

The spellsinger mass heals better than a weak cleric. At the current end game (shroud, vod, hound), healing ability is far more important than spell pen/enchantment.

Warchanter can throw mass heals while fighting in say shroud4/5 or VOD orthon battles. Also helps up CSW to a heal-scroll level. I've been experimenting giving up gTWF for it and so far think it's worth it.

[maddmatt70]

Matt,

I hear ya bro, not flaming your comments on "quicken"... I see your point...just saying, with the enchant dc stuff, being strapped for feats, probably more effective to just have empower heal with max enchant dc..so I guess that would classify the ops build more as a enchanter/healer rather than a "True*" healer bard.



I agree, Quicken is very useful, especially if you are solo healing a party. I just think that quicken + maximize as a bard, is just silly. Especially using the VOD gloves as the reasoning behind it.

I don't have quicken on all the time in fact the vast majority of the time I have it off, but its really really nice as a healing bard to be able to turn it on. I am not a fan of maximize because it is less efficient and doesn't really help other bard spells. To be blunt maximize people should work on their healing skills...

Sigh, being a cc bard is not the way to go currently. Ccing at end game is brutal. Healing bards on the other hand are very effective at end game on anything from raids to quests. Hangover, my healing bard, is one of my best characters right now. She adds dps, is a good buffer, and is a very capable healer. Really only place I like my clerics more in the end game is where blade barrior is very effective like monastery or if I go into some sort of insta-kill mindset, but that is less efficient. Next mod could change things for non melee oriented bards, but the fact is right now go healing over cc so from an optimum standpoint the OP should pick up both quicken and empower healing.