The Bardic Healer (5e build)

What is a powerful build? how is it defined? For most people it refers to the how much damage you can possibly do every round on your turn. However, this isn't the case for everyone, with the last build 'Nature's Beast' we explored some of the most tenacious options in the game - today we're exploring the best healing options in the game where I argue that Bard is one of the best option for healing.

At first glance through the Player's Handbook you might think that the Life Domain Cleric is hands down the best healing class. This isn't actually always going to be the case, because as a healer your top priority is damage mitigation over direct healing. Think of your hit points are a resource, instead of constantly refilling that resource, its better to prevent any loss from it. Therefore you will want the best and most rapid ways to mitigate damage. The best class for damage mitigation is Bard (Lore College), because of the spells and options for them.

How do you mitigate or prevent damage? Have you ever heard the term "The best defense is a good offense"? This is because one way to mitigate or prevent damage is to use outright offensive tactics to stop incoming damage sooner. Another way is to lower their ability to do damage by making them miss more often, or just generally do less damage. Effectively you heal a character for the amount you prevent - before the damage has even taken place! Direct healing is still needed of course, but should be considered inferior to damage prevention.

In early game, the easiest way to mitigate damage is with the spells Bane or Bless, available to: Bard and Cleric. According to our current argument, Bane will be slightly better of the too since it has the potential to increase damage by lowering the enemies ability to make saves, including vicious mockery. As you progress you gain more options to control the battlefield and fill in any weaknesses.

The core abilities of this build are:

• Bane and Vicious Mockery - Bane is an important spell that should be used near the beginning of combat. Deal with any creatures that save against it by using Vicious Mockery, giving them disadvantage on attacks.
• Bardic Inspiration (Cutting words) - Against creatures susceptible to charm effects, this is absolutely critical. Use it to lower their attack, increasing their chance to miss, use it to lower their damage when they roll an AoE effect decreasing the overall damage, significantly. It is an effect that can be used somewhat often, and becomes a much more common ability at Bard level 5, where it recharges as a short rest. Regular Bardic inspiration should be used when facing enemies not susceptible to charm effects or when saving throws against effects are a common threat.

The strategy:

• Know thy enemies - At the beginning of every encounter, attempt to learn as much as you can about the dangers so you know what to expect and/or how to hinder your opponent, increasing your effectiveness and adjusting your strategy appropriately. Utilize your high skill potential to gather the following information:
• What type of damage are they likely going to do? AoE elemental damage? Single target physical damage? Is it poisonous?
• What saves are they likely susceptible to? ie ogres and beasts (lower intelligent creatures) are more susceptible to Bane than creatures like Cambions or Drow, who have a high Charisma bonus.
• Damage prevention - pay attention on other peoples turns, as well as the enemies. Find out what kind of damage they do and if they fight in a pattern.
• Savor your spell slots - think hard before spending a spell slot at the beginning of the encounter to cast heal or even Bane. In an endurance game, you don't want to run out of spell slots too early. Sometimes players get 1 shot by an enemy - this is the prime time to use an early heal to get them back into the fight and dealing damage.
• Supplement direct healing with healing potions - stock up on healing potions when you can, use them as needed.

The weaknesses:

• Since your substituting your spot in the party for a potential damage dealer you might want to take a few damaging and crowd control options in situations where you might ineffective as a healer. Keep damage dealers at their full damage potential whenever possible.

Being a good healer in D&D is an efficiency game. Whats the best way to balance the odds of winning in the favor of your group? This should be a question you always ask yourself as a healer, and so is normally more of a challenging role. One helpful mindset to keep and to help weigh the importance of stat boosting/debuffing is this:

1. Increasing/Decreasing an attack roll by 1 increases/decreases the chance for it to hit by 5%. Therefore bane/bless changes the chance to hit by 5-20%
2. If an ally's AC is 16 and a creature's attack is +5, that creature has a 50% chance to hit, Bane reduces the attacks chance to hit on average by 15% to 35%. Additionally cutting words reduces this chance an additional 5-30% with an average of 20% to 15% a huge decrease in chance to hit.
3. If that creature hits for 2d6+3 you potentially prevent 11 damage on average

For the Bardic healer, it is important to have your Charisma as high as possible - make it a priority to increase it to 20 as quickly as possible. Next consider keeping Constitution and Dexterity relatively high and Intelligence to increase knowledge rolls.

Powerful additions to this build:

• Lesser Restoration - This is the quintessential spell in a healer's arsenal. As you level, you will run into more and more creatures and hazards that will bestow conditions to you and your allies. Removing these conditions as quickly as possible will keep everyone in the fight, making it end sooner.
• One option is to take a level in Fighter or 2 levels in Paladin for the Protection fighting style and the option to carry a shield. This allows you to utilize your reaction to give attackers - only do so if you feel comfortable about getting into close range with enemies.
• At level 6, 10, 14, and 18 a Bard is given the option to take spells from any class in the game consider the following powerful healing spells not normally available to the Bard - remember to choose damage mitigation spells over others (*-damage mitigation, **-particularly powerful):
• Level 1 spells
• Bless** (Take at level 6)
• Protection from Good/Evil*
• Sanctuary*
• Shield of Faith*
• Level 2 spells
• Aid*
• Barkskin*
• Blindness/Deafness*
• Prayer of Healing
• Protection from Poison*
• Level 3 spells
• Aura of Vitality
• Counterspell** (Take at level 6)
• Dispel Magic*
• Protection from Energy** (Take at level 10)
• Remove Curse
• Revivify
• Mass Healing Word
• Level 4 spells
• Aura of Life** (Take at level 10)
• Aura of Purity
• Death Ward**
• Stoneskin**
• Level 5 spells
• Greater Restoration ** (Take at level 14)
• Level 6 spells
• Hero's feast
• Heal
• Level 7 spells
• Conjure Celestial* (Take at level 14)
• Level 8 spells
• Holy Aura** (Take at level 18)
• Level 9 spells
• Mass Heal

What do you think of the build? Coming soon for healer builds is the Nature Domain Cleric, another powerful build for healers.