Divines:Need advice creating the ultimate healbot!

[backandforth]

Hi all !

I would like to make a divine character whose main role will be to heal and buff.

I also would like him to have high saves , high PRR and high AC if possible,maybe evasion.

I don't know if I should make a Cleric or a Fvs and I also don't know if I should splash 2 levels of paladin for more saves or splash 2 levels of monk for evasion and the feats.

What I know is that :

It will probably be just a champion but if the build needs it can make a tr.

RACE

Human(extra feat,skill, versatile enhancements),
Half elf ( If not a splash ,paladin dilettante gives a nice save boost,fighter gives proficiencies like tower shield ,if I'm not mistaken),
Warforged (I dont know the race well, but I guess the immunities +)

STATS

CHA all points and level ups (If cleric it gives more turns,if paladin splash more saves, if fvs more spell points and the only stat needed for spell casting anyway)

Idk what the other stats should be

FEATS
(useful feats IMO but don't know which ones should take or leave)
Toughness,Epic Toughness
Quicken
Empower Healing
Empower
Maximize
Shield Mastery
Improved Shield Mastery
Mental toughness, Improved and Epic
Greater Ability (CHA)
Extra turning
IDK if a cleric using his bursts and aura can pull it off taking feats like Resilience , Combat Expertise, Bulwark of Defense

SKILLS
DIplomacy, UMD , Jump.

ENHANCEMENTS

Full positive line and crits
charisma and toughness

EPIC DESTINIES

Unyielding Sentinel or Grandmaster of flowers ( Because of the immunity to knockdowns, almost nothing else can kill a divine.)

Twists
IDK

Sorry for not giving a lot of information ,I was kind of hoping someone would have a clue of what Im searching for and fill the blanks for me.
My gut is telling me to make a 18Cleric-2Paladin Human Unyielding Sentinel.

Any help appreciated ,Take care.

[AtomicMew]

20 FvS or 18/2 FvS/paladin in unyielding sentinel. Reason for FvS over cleric is wings which is equivalent to infinite PRR in many cases

[HastyPudding]

I say go with cleric for superior healing, but since you want grandmaster or sentinel, FVS is probably the way to go.

Race
I say go with human. You can't go wrong with humans, and both cleric and fvs are feat-starved classes with low skill points. Half-elf is great, but I still prefer human for maximizing your feats. WF cleric would be nice survivability, but it has penalties in both wisdom and charisma, key stats for both clerics and fvs.

Multiclassing
Looks like you're going for the tanky healbot. Even still, with enough metamagic, enhancements, and a 120 devotion item, the fvs capstone is pretty amazing (since you probably won't have renewal). The cleric capstone isn't quite as nice, but still very useful in the right situation. Both classes have nice capstones, but fvs will lose several high lvl spell slots. If you're going to go tankish, 18 cleric/2 paladin would be good, due to their aura allowing you to get right in the action and help out the melee while still stay alive.

Feats
Must have: maximize, empower healing, toughness, quicken
Good to have: empower, mental toughness, improved mental toughness
Optional but useful: extend, epic mental toughness
Useful for your build: shield mastery, epic toughness

[Ancient]

You say you want to make a healbot in the title, but the body of your post seems to drive towards making a tank. A healbot doesn't have to be a tank.

[backandforth]

thanks for your replies

20 FvS or 18/2 FvS/paladin in unyielding sentinel. Reason for FvS over cleric is wings which is equivalent to infinite PRR in many cases

My first thought was the same . Wings are amazing! Its not only good to avoid danger , but also to catch up with the rest of the party, barbs rangers monks etc run like maniacs.

Also with all the mental toughness and charisma , a fvs should have like a lot of spell points to last him between shrines.

Problem with my fvs is that he will rely only to spell points or scrolls for healing. Mass heals are slow to cast and dont remove negative levels like the cleric bursts do.

A question I have about wings is .If the Fvs wear heavy armor and tower shield, will the wings function still?

Race
WF cleric would be nice survivability, but it has penalties in both wisdom and charisma, key stats for both clerics and fvs.

I dont really mind the loss of 2 or 3 points in charisma , it will be like a turn less and less sp. Wisdom is just for the ability to cast level 9 spells ,the divine wont use any offensive spells exept maybe for DP. With tomes and items is fixable. The question is if immunities and warforged items can make up fo rthe loss of the human extras (feat mostly) .

Multiclassing
Looks like you're going for the tanky healbot. Even still, with enough metamagic, enhancements, and a 120 devotion item, the fvs capstone is pretty amazing (since you probably won't have renewal). The cleric capstone isn't quite as nice, but still very useful in the right situation. Both classes have nice capstones, but fvs will lose several high lvl spell slots. If you're going to go tankish, 18 cleric/2 paladin would be good, due to their aura allowing you to get right in the action and help out the melee while still stay alive.

Why is the Fvs capstone amazing? How much will the cure light cure for?

Would a Fvs miss any healing spells if I multiclass it?

.......

I think the Extra turning feat can be useful for a cleric too, so Ill add it it to my feat list. .


In the event I would make this human cleric/pally unyielding sentinel. Which twists would be helpful?

[backandforth]

You say you want to make a healbot in the title, but the body of your post seems to drive towards making a tank. A healbot doesn't have to be a tank.

A healbot needs to be the last man standing IMO. In order to be able to raise the others. On my mind being a tank helps, but Im open for any other suggestions .

[Matuse]

but Im open for any other suggestions .

Start by not designing a character that ignores 2/3rds of its potential and is a boat anchor on the rest of the group.

[HastyPudding]

My first thought was the same . Wings are amazing! Its not only good to avoid danger , but also to catch up with the rest of the party, barbs rangers monks etc run like maniacs.

Also with all the mental toughness and charisma , a fvs should have like a lot of spell points to last him between shrines.

Problem with my fvs is that he will rely only to spell points or scrolls for healing. Mass heals are slow to cast and dont remove negative levels like the cleric bursts do.

A question I have about wings is .If the Fvs wear heavy armor and tower shield, will the wings function still?

I dont really mind the loss of 2 or 3 points in charisma , it will be like a turn less and less sp. Wisdom is just for the ability to cast level 9 spells ,the divine wont use any offensive spells exept maybe for DP. With tomes and items is fixable. The question is if immunities and warforged items can make up fo rthe loss of the human extras (feat mostly) .

Why is the Fvs capstone amazing? How much will the cure light cure for?

Would a Fvs miss any healing spells if I multiclass it?

.......

I think the Extra turning feat can be useful for a cleric too, so Ill add it it to my feat list. .

In the event I would make this human cleric/pally unyielding sentinel. Which twists would be helpful?

A cleric can get wings in the Exalted Angel destiny (also giving access to a little more healing and spellpower, as well as the awesome Renewal ability). it would lower your survivability, but you would gain a lot of utility. And, a FVS can always use wings, no matter what they wear.

The main reason people prefer a cleric to a FVS for healing is just that; bursts, aura, and being able to max out cure spells faster. The FVS does not have a healing PrE that is out (the beacon of hope) so they are at a disadvantage in this arena. As far as mass heals being slow, it's why quicken is mandatory for clerics and FVS, and it can heal for absurdly high amounts.

FVS capstone, if you follow the sovereign host, is a free cure light wounds. You can also use quicken, empower, empower healing, and maximize on it...for FREE and on a fairly short cooldown. With good devotion and healing criticals, you can heal 80-250+ with it. For free. It can save you a ton of SP spamming this between fights, or even during fights to top off that barb or paladin.

If you multiclass a FVS, it's best to go 18/2, due to the fact that the FVS is on the same spell schedule as a sorcerer, meaning you get spells on even levels, one level after a cleric/wizard. So at 18, the only level 9 spell you'd have is mass heal; so no implosion, no energy drain, no true resurrection. That's also -2 spell penetration and a sizable chunk of SP.

Extra Turning is okay, but there are better feats to get for a cleric. With the Radiant Servant PrE you won't be running out of bursts past the mid levels unless you spam them. The feat is better spent on something else, such as extend or a mental toughness.

Start by not designing a character that ignores 2/3rds of its potential and is a boat anchor on the rest of the group.

^ This.

Healbots are for players that are totally new to divine classes. Even a healing-specced cleric can throw around some cometfalls, flame strikes, implosion, and greater command. As a healer, your goal is to help others, not hold their hands through the quests and babysit them; they'll never learn to take care of themselves if you do that.

Ironically, in epic elite quests and most raids, 90% of clerics and FVS are healbots.

[AtomicMew]

Start by not designing a character that ignores 2/3rds of its potential and is a boat anchor on the rest of the group.

I cannot even begin to count the number of times my FvS healblob has saved the raid from wipe, simply due to the fact that he was tough as nails. I have a completionist toon and other toons with >10 past lifes and have soloed more than a dozen EEs, but my first life healblob is still one of my favorite toons to play.

It all depends on what you want to do, but don't discount a build just because it's not your play-style.

[AtomicMew]

A cleric can get wings in the Exalted Angel destiny (also giving access to a little more healing and spellpower, as well as the awesome Renewal ability). it would lower your survivability, but you would gain a lot of utility. And, a FVS can always use wings, no matter what they wear.

Renewal can and should be twisted in. You miss out on divine wrath, but that's not as good as the HP, PRR and knockdown immunity you get from US.

Extra Turning is okay, but there are better feats to get for a cleric. With the Radiant Servant PrE you won't be running out of bursts past the mid levels unless you spam them. The feat is better spent on something else, such as extend or a mental toughness.

Extra turning is a far better feat than mental toughness for a healbot.

[HastyPudding]

Renewal can and should be twisted in. You miss out on divine wrath, but that's not as good as the HP, PRR and knockdown immunity you get from US.


Extra turning is a far better feat than mental toughness for a healbot.

Yes, renewal can be twisted in, but there are other things to be twisted, as well, such as the 10% SP buff and such.

Mental Toughness is good if you're going for epic mental toughness. This can push a cleric's SP way into the upper 3000's. It's a trade-off, honestly, and subject to personal preference and build.

[Ancient]

A healbot needs to be the last man standing IMO. In order to be able to raise the others. On my mind being a tank helps, but Im open for any other suggestions .

Last man standing can be a blast, I'm there... I don't condone just being a healbot, but even inside those constraints... I think you are still off target. You won't have a tank PRE, you don't get the extra feats to play catch-up with a real tank. If the real tank went down, chances are your tank ability isn't going to be more than a speed bump.

Lets back up and look at the biggest threats to a healer.

#1 Threat is being in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
Your number one defense is always to be someplace that isn't taking lethal damage. Mobility, awareness and being able to function on the run will trump being a mini-tank.

#2 Saves.
In Raids and EE, there are times where missing a save can mean that your life expectancy is measured in seconds. You can run from melee damage, but you cannot always run from magic/environmental effects.

#3 Mistakes
Stuff happens. If you are looking to be a killer raid healer then you need to be able to survive a mistake (even if its someone elses!). IMO, a fat hp buffer is one of the best ways to help ensure you get the 1-2 seconds to react v.s. being one shotted.

When I started to develop my novasoul build, I had a vision of being able to stand in the middle of a pack of EE mobs and suck it up. Using shield block, my pale master was able to go through all kinds of heroic content and I was sure I could find a way to make a divine able to do the same in epic elite.... total fail. Mobs hit for 2-3 hundred, and a pack of six mobs could take me down one second if they all caught me at once. Once I resigned myself to being in motion, my survival went way up.

Regarding raid healing.

Spell point pool is nowhere near as important as it used to be. It is still nice to have, but consider:

• Radiant Servant/FVS clw capstone
• Heal Scrolls
• Renewal
• Rejuvenating Cocoon
• Divine Wrath
• Healing Spring

There are some powerful healing tools inside the epic destinies. If I was going for a healbot then I would play a radiant servant cleric that twisted in both Renewal and Rejuvenating Cocoon using unyielding sentinel as the primary destiny. For easier raids, you could use exalted angel to have divine wrath, but in tough raids the survival options of unyielding sentinel makes a big difference.

[firemedium_jt]

My advice to creating the ultimate healbot is...

Don't!

Not that much fun longterm is the concensous on here.

A Barbarian with 1200 hit points wants to get below 600 cause he gets more ****ed off and powerful. With clr17 u can heal anyone. Just have high spell points is all. But with Ddo store mana pots and epic gear it is even easier. I rec high wis build for more sp and go casting type.

Now your build seems ok and maybe with double strike. I get the bit with the shield and buffing auras. So just want some versatility so what heroic enhancments u taking?

[backandforth]

Thanks guys you are very helpful.

Healbot because:

- I have already a fvs with 3 wiz, 3 sorc, 2 fvs,1 bard past lifes. Pure evocation damage/instakill kind of build.

- When I rolled my first cleric (back when the gianthold was first introduced). I was farming pop all the time and people would die ,complain about death xp loss, always made me be the one to recall and reenter and lose xp.
I started paying atention to how other clerics play and they were even worse than I was.. Until I met that certain cleric... Nobody died ever with him, not in raids,not in tough quests ever-period.
This had impressed me so much that since then I have found that is very pleasurable and an acheivement to finish tough quests with people that are not optimal builds or well geared ,needing 5+ rounds to kill Harry without deaths on normal for example.

Healbots are for players that are totally new to divine classes. Even a healing-specced cleric can throw around some cometfalls, flame strikes, implosion, and greater command. As a healer, your goal is to help others, not hold their hands through the quests and babysit them; they'll never learn to take care of themselves if you do that.

Ironically, in epic elite quests and most raids, 90% of clerics and FVS are healbots.

A crowd controler or instakiller, needs feats for spell penetration and dc,lots of dc items and past lifes. too much trouble. Having spells not landing is no fun.

I like hand holding ,some others dont. SOme wizards only cc for the mellee ,some kill everything at sight.

A saved cometfall ,flame strike etc can just be a mass aggro magnet without the proper DC and high damage amplifying items. The cleric in this situation ,should other run for his life like a lot of rangers do or tank it which is what I would like.

There are some powerful healing tools inside the epic destinies. If I was going for a healbot then I would play a radiant servant cleric that twisted in both Renewal and Rejuvenating Cocoon using unyielding sentinel as the primary destiny. For easier raids, you could use exalted angel to have divine wrath, but in tough raids the survival options of unyielding sentinel makes a big difference.

I find your post really helpful . Would you splash the 2 paladin levels for the saves? Which race would you chose?

A Barbarian with 1200 hit points wants to get below 600 cause he gets more ****ed off and powerful.

This barbarian could benefit chosing to be a warforged with no heal amp and all vicious frenzies etc because it is hard to keep the rogue next to him alive otherwise.

[gerardIII]

Problem with my fvs is that he will rely only to spell points or scrolls for healing. Mass heals are slow to cast and dont remove negative levels like the cleric bursts do.

A question I have about wings is .If the Fvs wear heavy armor and tower shield, will the wings function still?

Why is the Fvs capstone amazing? How much will the cure light cure for?

Would a Fvs miss any healing spells if I multiclass it?

I have 2 healers both first life:
- 18cleric/2monk
- 25fvs

The 25 fvs has high wisdom to land some death spells, still i have around 700hp/4100sp buffed in EA destiny and 1000hp/3700sp buffed in US destiny.
I took the Enlarge feat and all the Mental Toughness feats.
The Cure Light capstone heals myself for 80-120hp, I have Enlarge so I can reach people for emergency healing (Caught in the Web ).
The cleric burst ability to remove neg levels is rarely useful, as we have DW and restoration (I almost never use resto).

I'm very happy with my first life halfling healbot FVS, i can handle solo Epic Normal easy, I have so many sp + free cure light + destiny healing that I often complete normal/hard raids with 2000-3000sp left. When I'm playing on a laggy laptop or I want to relax, I hop on my FVS and join a EH chrono or hard shroud.

[Matuse]

I'm very happy with my first life halfling healbot FVS, i can handle solo Epic Normal easy

...that's really not saying much at all.

My non-healbot FvS can handle all quests on epic hard solo with no destiny running and sitting at level 21 the entire time.

Healing is a crucial role, and often (particularly) in raids, it's the main responsibility.

But healing isn't very difficult to arrange, build-wise. This isn't like trying to land insta-kills in EE, where you are almost forced into burning 6 past lives for spell pen, 3 spell focus feats, only able to use one destiny, etc.

2-3 feats (2 of which work on a hell of a lot more than healing), a few AP in life magic, a decent devotion and arcane/healing lore...and you're pretty much good to go.

There's simply no need to build an entire character around it when doing that gets you...at most...5% better than someone who just checks a few important boxes. That 5% is trivially consumed by who you group with. Just the difference between someone wearing PDK gloves or not has a giant impact on your healing ability, and that's not something you have much control over.

[Moltier]

If you want a healbot, then lvl20 cleric.
For saves, make it 18cleric/2paladin. Evasion isnt that important, just be in US destiny for high hp and some free aoe heals.

I would make it dwarf for +5saves vs spells, and more hp.

With such a build, and with the right twists, you could solo heal any current raid on EE.
But it would be still boring. :P

[Mubjon]

I would never suggest a healbot, even if the DDO world were going to end and the only way to save it was to be a slave to someone else.

The divines have so much more to offer and even with a standard caster build or tanky build you can solo EH no problem and help in EE as a healbot if you choose.

As we are hopeful that TIer III Prestiges will come eventually, hopefully with the enhancement pass, I would recommend an 18/2 build or 18/1/1 build on a cleric.

an 18/2 build would be Human Cleric/fighter. The two fighter feats would be both shield mastery feats, you get tower shield for free.

Empower healing
maximize
quicken
heighten
toughness - human bonus feat
Spell pen
SF: Evo
GSF: evo

If you have access to Epic levels then your epic feats would be

Epic spell pen
empower

This would allow you to use Implosion, blade barriers quite effective and still allow you to heal the group when ever needed.

[AtomicMew]

...that's really not saying much at all.

My non-healbot FvS can handle all quests on epic hard solo with no destiny running and sitting at level 21 the entire time.

Healing is a crucial role, and often (particularly) in raids, it's the main responsibility.

But healing isn't very difficult to arrange, build-wise. This isn't like trying to land insta-kills in EE, where you are almost forced into burning 6 past lives for spell pen, 3 spell focus feats, only able to use one destiny, etc.

2-3 feats (2 of which work on a hell of a lot more than healing), a few AP in life magic, a decent devotion and arcane/healing lore...and you're pretty much good to go.

There's simply no need to build an entire character around it when doing that gets you...at most...5% better than someone who just checks a few important boxes. That 5% is trivially consumed by who you group with. Just the difference between someone wearing PDK gloves or not has a giant impact on your healing ability, and that's not something you have much control over.

That's why healbots are first life toons and not multi TRed monsters. It's 5% more effort to get 5% better raid healing. Swap at the end to get the gear and completion you want on other toons. Lots of people have healbots for this very purpose. Alternatively, go ahead and be stubborn and wait 30 minutes to fill the last spot with a healer.

Btw, it isn't just a 5% difference. Even simplistically stacking mental toughness feats and maxing out scroll mastery, it's very obvious that a healbot provides much more than 5% better healing capacity compared to a standard evoker.

[SirValentine]

Healbot because:
<snip>
I met that certain cleric... Nobody died ever with him, not in raids,not in tough quests ever-period.
This had impressed me so much

That's not a good reason to make a deliberately gimped build.

Healing is a player skill that can be done extremely well on all sorts of builds. Including anything with mostly Cleric, FvS, Druid, or Bard levels.

With the right spell selections, gear, ED abilities, you can be a great healbot whenever you want to be, provided you've learned the player skills. Then you can swap around gear and EDs, and go slaughter stuff in caster or melee mode, as the case may be.