Life Oracle.
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Life oracle with Pei Zin Practitioner archetype works well.
Spirit guide oracle for double life link.
Witch doctor life shaman for 2 channel pools fateful channel and bless weapon?
You may be able to find a way to adapt this build to not be a cleric (feather/eagle domain).
If you get a bodyguard animal companion and a protector familiar and use shield companion on the AC you can take a attack that was going to hit an ally and split the damage 3 ways. This make channeling way more effective. It also lets you do damage with your AC and still have your actions. It works well.
I have not found a non-cleric way of doing it. Nature oracle with eldritch heritage and heal out of combat would work well but no channel. A life Shaman that get an AC through Animal Ally could work.
Channel is restricted to Paladin, Cleric, Shaman, Witch, zealot vigilante, Bard, Medium (hierophant), Warpriest and oracle if I remember right.
The full channelers are cleric, shaman, oracle and Medium.
BUT basically all you need to fill the "healer" role is wands of cure light and the ability to remove status like blindness and ability damage.
Hedge witch + hex channeler is an interesting and capable way to fill the healer/support role IMHO
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I would actually argue that Life Oracle is THE best healing class in the game, with Cleric being the second best.
The OP asked what class/archetype was the best PURE healer. The Life Oracle is almost certainly the best pure healer. I agree with you that healing as a primary strategy is not the best, and your thoughts on Oracles in general. I was simply answering the OPs question of what class/archetype is the best at pure healing. Life Oracle, while it is overspecialized is the best at healing.
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If your opinion of best healer is not the one that does the most healing then I would go back to the old idea that the best healer is a wand and the most needed healing is removal and restoration spells.
Human battle oracle can know all the spells needed and becuase they tend to cast one spell a fight they will have many extra spells to spend on utility casting/healing.
A life oracle still has room to take lots of save or suck spells for when they are not healing. Spend your other actions casing offensively.
I'd recommend a battle oracle. If I am not mistaken, they can also (take) channel and if no healing is needed be a decent combatant. With one revelation you can become excellent at tripping, of course this will not work against many opponents, but you get it for a low price.
If your DM is allowing Psionics, Vitalist is an amazing healer. Soulthief Vitalist uses touch attacks to cause damage and then you can distribute the healing from Steal Health/Transfer Wounds throughout your group every time you hit.
Feats:
Blind-fight/Intuitive Fighting (adds Wis to +hit). You attack Touch AC with everything you do, so having Wis added to hit will ensure you almost never miss.
Expanded Knowledge: Hammer, every time you make a touch attack with Steal Health/Xfer Wounds, a Hammer charge goes off for xd8 dmg.
Scenario: At lvl 5, you could have the above effects in play. With an 18 Wisdom, you'd have 2BAB + 4Wis (6) to hit Touch AC with Steal Health (which would cause 5level + 4Wis damage (9 dmg/heal) and your Hammer would have 5 charges dealing 3d8 dmg each.
So at lvl 5 with 18 wis and 5pp Hammer active, you would have +6 to hit Touch AC and cause 3d8+9 dmg, and you would be able to distribute 9 health to your collective as a Triage Heal (i.e. Jack gets 3 health, Lisa gets 4 health, and Timmy gets 2 health).
It gets really good at the mid-higher levels too, especially with Soulthief Transfer Wounds.
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Edit: And that's not even the half of it. The best thing a Vitalist does is BUFF. You can give your entire collective Temporary Health with Vigor (at lvl 5, you could give everyone 25 temp health) and at lvl 7, you can give your entire collective HASTE (Physical Acceleration).
The Hex Channeler can channel from her familiar. Get a bird in some elven chain and send him round healing
The OP asked what class/archetype was the best PURE healer. The Life Oracle is almost certainly the best pure healer. I agree with you that healing as a primary strategy is not the best, and your thoughts on Oracles in general. I was simply answering the OPs question of what class/archetype is the best at pure healing. Life Oracle, while it is overspecialized is the best at healing.
Doesn't come online until level 10, but a Separatist Cleric of Pulura 8 / Stargazer 2 can put out enough healing to give Life Oracles a run for their money. Grab the Healing domain (why you took the Separatist archetype) to make all your cure spells empowered, and The Mother Sidereal Arcana from the Stargazer and your cure light wounds heals 39-49 hit points - compared to 11-18 from a 10 level Life Oracle's CLW. A mass cure light wounds from the cleric/stargazer will heal 46-57 hit points, which actually makes it a very strong and viable healing spell. True they don't get the Life Link revelation, but I think the fact the class combo actually makes the mass cure spells useful and opens up a whole new dimension for mass healing more than makes up for the loss of Life Link.
I know cleric was a fat no, but in our game our Oracle has Leadership and a Cleric follower. The Cleric is the primary healer with the Oracle player being secondary.
Separatist Cleric of Pulura 8 / Stargazer 2 can put out enough healing to give Life Oracles a run for their money. Grab the Healing domain (why you took the Separatist archetype) to make all your cure spells empowered, and The Mother Sidereal Arcana from the Stargazer and your cure light wounds heals 39-49 hit points - compared to 11-18 from a 10 level Life Oracle's CLW.
"The Mother" runs off class level, not character level, so it's a +4 HP per spell at this point (+6 with empowered).
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Paladin. Hospitaler is the best healer in the game IMO. Channels, large pool of Lay on Hands not linked to channels, some casting (lags a bit behind here, but Mercies can make up for it.)
Look at the feat options:
Greater Mercy, (extra d6 on lay on hands if subject doesn't need one of your mercies)
Ultimate Mercy (expend 10 lay on hands to raise dead, can ignore material components of spell by accepting a temporary negative level for 24hours that can't become permanent)
Word of Healing (Lay on Hands from 30ft but only heals half, still applies mercies).
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The most "annoying" (effective) healer I had in a group was a tiefling paladin. With the Fey Foundling feat. And Greater Mercy. And Bracers of the Merciful Knight. Who kept shield other up on the two melee types. I was running them through a mega-dungeon.
At 10th level it was:
"I touch myself as a swift action to heal 8d6+26 hp. Who needs the standard action heal?"
She had the hospitaler archetype as well but didn't really need it. Most of the damage was being taken by those three. I was trying to figure out if I could actually kill any of them with straight damage from a level-appropriate enemy. "Well, if I hit them with a maximized fireball, and all three of them fail their saves, 120 points might be enough that she'll still be dead after hero's defiance goes off. Didn't happen, of course. All their deaths in that campaign came from failing against Save-or-Suck spells. The rogue actually had the most PC kills while dominated.
"The Mother" runs off class level, not character level, so it's a +4 HP per spell at this point (+6 with empowered).
Unless there's been a FAQ or clarification, here's how the power is written, as copied from Paths of the Righteous:
The stargazer channels the nurturing heart of the Caravan. Whenever the stargazer casts a cure spell, casts breath of life, or uses the healing hex, he adds twice his class level to the hit points restored. If the startgazer is a cleric with channel positive energy, his stargazer levels stack with his cleric levels to determine its effects.
So, I'm reading this as the "its" to mean The Mother power, since the stargazer levels stacking with cleric levels to determine the effects of channel positive energy doesn't make any sense - channel energy doesn't have any effects that depend on cleric levels.
Paladin/Life Oracle is a good melee while healing, get paladin 2 or 4ish, then rest oracle. Life link group, lay hands as needed, there is a seperate post a while back about it, flue is kicking my butt or I would link it.
For range I like clerics with domain to get a animal companion and shoot things with a bow, heal and channel in down time.
The stargazer channels the nurturing heart of the Caravan. Whenever the stargazer casts a cure spell, casts breath of life, or uses the healing hex, he adds twice his class level to the hit points restored. If the startgazer is a cleric with channel positive energy, his stargazer levels stack with his cleric levels to determine its effects.So, I'm reading this as the "its" to mean The Mother power, since the stargazer levels stacking with cleric levels to determine the effects of channel positive energy doesn't make any sense - channel energy doesn't have any effects that depend on cleric levels.
But it does: "The amount of damage dealt or healed is equal to 1d6 points of damage plus 1d6 points of damage for every two cleric levels beyond 1st (2d6 at 3rd, 3d6 at 5th, and so on)." I'm pretty sure that's what the level stacking applies to.
I send the writer a PM, hopefully she'll answer what her intend was.
Derklord has the right of it. The Mother sidereal arcana lets you stack your stargazer levels with cleric levels for the purpose of the channel energy ability, which includes the additional dice, the DC to resist its effects, and any other effect which cares about your cleric level. That line only applies to channel energy, however - that's why it's listed in a separate sentence at the end of the ability. (If it affected the entire sidereal arcana, it would say "if the stargazer possesses levels in cleric, his cleric levels stack with his stargazer levels when determining this arcana's benefits".)
Hopefully this helps clear things up. ^_^
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So... I have that DM asking me if I could take the role of the only healer of a player party.
I say "why not?"... except I just completly HATE playing clerics. I mean... seriously.So, I'm wondering: what is the best class/archetype I could pick for a pure healer, given that:
- multiclassing is forbidden
- 3rd party content is forbidden
- I want to have channel energy?
The most important question is: How much healing do you think you will need? Generally speaking, the 'best' healing specs tend to be overkill (overheal???) in most games, as many groups do fine with just a wand of Cure Light Wounds, and 'preventative medicine' like buffing your party and/or helping to kill your opponents faster can be more effective.
As mentioned by a couple of other posters, a Life Oracle is a very powerful healer, but if you are going that route, I would strongly recommend the Spirit Guide Archetype, as it allows you to get a few options from another Mystery (or even allows you to double-down on healing with a Life Spirit to get a second Channel pool).
Personally, I played a Heavens Oracle with this archetype in Wrath of the Righteous (the only caster in our party) and never felt like I needed the Heal Mystery/Spirit. I tended to swap between Flame spirit for Fireball, Lore spirit for Knowledge buffs, and Ancestors for Int Skills and Heroism.
Correction: We did have a character get level drained in one session, so I did channel a Life Spirit at the end of that session to get Restoration as a spell known before he had to make the 'is this loss permanent' save, but I'm pretty certain that was the only time I channeled that particular spirit.
The 'annoying' part of this archetype is the bonus spells known list: In theory, it means you don't have to learn a whole group of spells, but in practice, you might still want the while you happen to be using a different spirit, so you might end up having to learn them anyway (for example, I was reluctant to learn Resist Energy because the Flame spirit granted it as a bonus, but I didn't use that spirit all the time). Of course, you could just always take the same spirit every day, but that sacrifices your flexibility (I did pretty much end up only taking the Ancestors spirit for the last half of the game, as pretty much everything we expected to face was resistant or immune to fire).
If you do go the Oracle route, I recommend the Mnemonic Vestment and a collection of scrolls to deal with Blindness, Deafness, Curses, Diseases, and other conditions that require a very specific spell to cleanse at lower levels: You just can't afford to learn them all as an Oracle.