My Self |
Off the top of my head, the best combat healer would essentially be an HP battery. Shield other and a channel focused build is pretty effective. Take fey foundling for the extra self healing.
That sounds like an Oradin. Are there any other ways to go about doing that without being an Oracle, Paladin, or combination of the two?
Markov Spiked Chain |
Why non-Oradin?
Witch Doctor Life Shaman with a Raven Protector familiar works well, and let's you be pretty debuffy/dominating/crowd controlling if that's what you're into.
Grab Selective and Quick Channel, you've probably got enough channels to use Quick Channel freely.
At 4, you have a bunch of channels a day of various sorts and Life Link on the people getting pounded. Shield Other+a Reach rod if you've got a particularly hard case.
At 5, your familiar can take most of your Life Link damage (3/5) and fast heal it away.
At 6, you can get Wandering Hex (Arcane Enlightenment) to branch out.
At 7th, you can Imbue with Spell ability your familiar and let it Shield Other your allies directly.
At 9th, you can Imbue Hex your familiar for unlimited group fast healing 1 (2 if you have time to spam virtue, 3 if you've got another party member with Virtue or a wayfinder or something.)
Spirit Guide Life Oracle can do similar stuff, with fewer familiar tricks.
Castilonium |
Life shaman. Their life link hex works like the oracle's life link revelation now. Be an aasimar with the Scion of Humanity alternate racial feature and use the human FCB to add Shield Other to your spell list at level 5. Use a Protector familiar, and it will absorb half the damage you take. You will hit your familiar with your Channel Energy, and it has fast healing.
Gummy Bear |
You could even go cleric with this. I was thinking life shaman witch doctor when I posted initially since with a phylactery of positive channeling they have very effective heals. IMO, any class with a way of getting shield other and channeling is the way to go for in combat healing. Halving their damage and then channeling to heal both of you is sort of like channeling twice with a standard action to heal your frontliner (I'm abstracting the concept here, but the point is that it is highly effective). Quick channeling on top of a regular channel is going to be an incredible amount of HP relative to how much damage is being taken.
EDIT: protector familiar just adds to the joy as has been stated above :D my only reservation with that is aoe effects are going to be stressful. The target of shield other will take meh damage but you and your familiar (with a much lower amount of HP) are going to be taking extra damage on top of the normal.
LuniasM |
Here's my suggestion: build a Witch Doctor shaman with the Life and Water spirits. Take the Cleric VMC for spontaneous cure spells and another channel energy pool. Be a half-orc, half-elf, or human for the racial FCB to gain cleric spells. For your first hex take Life Link (recently erratad to work when the target is missing 5 hp instead of at -5 hp). At Level 5 take Shield Other as your bonus spell known and grab the feat Fateful Channel. At level 6 take Fluid Magic as your wandering hex.
What this gives you is 3 separate pools of Channel Energy, spontaneous cure spells, cleric spells, Shield Other, and all the great healing hexes from the Life Shaman list. Fateful Channel grants rerolls to anyone affected by your channel energy ability, and since you have TONS of them you can keep pumping out the heals all day while simultaneously buffing the party. You also have some of the greatest long-duration spells in the game. Take Spirit Talker for Arcane Enlightenment if you wish to further enhance your buffing prowess before a long dungeon or important fight.
Markov Spiked Chain |
Yes, Protectors are quite vulnerable to AoE, since they give up Improved Evasion.
One trick that works, but that I'd probably only try in a home game, because re-explaining it to a PFS GM each time is annoying: take Meld w/Familiar as an Arcane Enlightenment spell (NOT Familiar Melding.) This lets your familiar merge or unmerge with you as a move action. They start fights merged, and delay the first turn until just before you. They unmerge (Move) then ready an action to merge when your turn ends. They take 60% of your Life Link damage at the start of the turn, fast heal 1, then merge with you. Their readied action puts them just before you in initiative again. They're not around to take AoE damage unless someone readies an action to fireball when the familiar pops out. Which you can probably figure a way to signal and avoid. Once you explain it once, you don't have to worry about going through the motions each round, but that first explanation is annoying.
Also, since we're talking about Shield Other, take a look at Watchful Eye. It's a level 1, minute per level version of Shield Other, and may be my favorite spell. As written, you have to worship Torag, but that's not horrible, and I think most GMs would let you take it for other gods, particularly protection domain gods.