Xanathar's has both the Circle of Dreams and Circle of the Shepard if you want to be a dedicated healer.
Shepard is usually better, because one of the class features is a spirit animal that lets you heal in a movable 30' bubble every time you cast a heal spell. Other than that, they summon tankier versions of animals other druids can summon, to help spread out the damage the party takes. The class is more built around a summoner concept, but that class feature is super strong.
Circle of Dreams has a pool of dice it can spend to heal people without a spell slot, and get other features that allow you to have safer rests (short and long), and a strange transportation/exploration/communication ability later on.
You can also dip a level in life cleric, to improve your heals, but this isn't necessary. The druid list has just about all of the strong healing spells already. If you mean play-style, don't be reliant on wild shape, because you will have to drop it to get heals off. You are also squishier than a life cleric, so you should prioritize healing magic that doesn't have range touch, so you can stay back a bit and focus more on control, buffs, and heals. Also, don't feel like you have to be locked into just healing. Druids and clerics can switch spells up every rest if they need something, meaning if your party is missing something, you can pivot spells over to cover for that weakness.
And don’t forget every wargamers favorite heal spell: healing spirit, which has been banned from so many home games that noobs probably think that it is as good as wish
Circle of shepherd - Competes with life cleric for how much it can heal depending on the situation (its all about the shortrest)
Your spells will be healing word and curewounds at first
at second you gain unicorn totem - when you use it for one minute if you cast a spell slot that can heal, all chosen within 30' of the unicorn heal 1point per your druid level. Yup that means at second a cure wounds will heal - your entire party 2 hits and familiars mounts and allies in addition to the healing done by the spell itself
You also gain access to the bear totem - cast on starting a day and get in a short rest by turning into a mouse and riding on a party member for an hour to recover your wildshape whilst napping and your totem - this allows you to give 5+ druid level temp hits to everyone you choose in 30' when it appears. With four people in a party at second level that one ability is 28 hits of short rest lasting till the party long rests or they are individually expended
At 4th take the healer feat add bandages to your healing mechanic - and it encourages other players to want to short rest so you can use bandages again and not coincidentally your totem.
at 3rd you gain a second level spell, In xtge - healing spirit - the potentially full party heal spell if given a minute to hug - not bad to quick recover after a quick fight
at 5th / 6th you gain summoned animals -which your DM may make pointless making your 6th level bonus to them also guff. If your not getting random delights you have no control over and instead are getting giant owls or dire wolves you will have throwaway high hp blockers to take hits so your party doesnt have to - its a good idea to divide them up and let the party control them - that way everyones involved and the combat doesnt seem to bog down under the way of animal assault your turn could become.
Thats it but lets have an example - at 5th level on a boss fight you could totem and cure wounds - thats 5 hp to all and 1d6 / 10 rounds (2d6 if third level slot) over the nex four rounds you could use four first level slots to heal hits per person per round +the heal itself + those d6 - place the totem effect in melee by the tough opponent between the melee fighters - each of their rounds they move in and away wihtout triggering attacks of opportunity. Aoe becomes recoverable from swiftly, much more swiftly than any other healing subtype - and the morning bear totem makes the mages familiars+10 temporary. (also beast masters pet, party mounts allies, cooks and camp staff etc etc.) If your a yuanti druid with the ability to communicate with snakes and acquire serpent allies they will be much more likely to survive and an ally that survives a hit is an ally that can disengage to fight another day after filling your opponents full of poison.
at 10th level you would heal +10 hits for the same first level spell with the totem - you need those short rests but as long as you get them your party can keep pushing for a lot longer - works best in a predominantly melee party / not long rest spell casters.
I don't think cure light wounds is ever really worth memorizing. Between healing word and healing spirit you've got healing pretty well covered. Always remember healing word is a bonus action, so you can toss a cantrip when you need to.
As others have alluded to being a dedicated healer in this version of DnD is less effective than being 'support' that heals. Use your summon spells to help mitigate damage. Use spells like entangle to break up groups. Use faerie fire to make it easier for your allies to deal damage. Control the field so that the bad guys only engage with your party on your terms.
For any subclass of druid other than moon your wild-shape is not meant to be a combat tank/dps form, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value. Wild shape gives you incredible mobility, so make use of it. Yes it takes an action, but if you get swarmed by a group of monster it can be a life saver (fly, burrow, and climb speeds are AWESOME) and you can still maintain your concentrations spells through the shift.
Cure Wounds heals a lot more than Healing Word does so it's definitely worth memorizing. The only time to use Healing Word is when you're not able to get to your teammate who you're trying to heal for some reason. And Healing Spirit requires a lot of coordination and movement to nerf it which is usually very difficult in combat. Out of combat, one casting of it will heal the entire party up, but not in combat.
Being a heavy duty healer is easy with any of the Druid Circles. Just make your spell selection heavy on the healing and restoration spells. The only real limitation is Druids don't have access to Remove Curse so there are some ailments that they're not able to cure.
Cure Wounds heals a lot more than Healing Word does so it's definitely worth memorizing. The only time to use Healing Word is when you're not able to get to your teammate who you're trying to heal for some reason. And Healing Spirit requires a lot of coordination and movement to nerf it which is usually very difficult in combat. Out of combat, one casting of it will heal the entire party up, but not in combat.
Being a heavy duty healer is easy with any of the Druid Circles. Just make your spell selection heavy on the healing and restoration spells. The only real limitation is Druids don't have access to Remove Curse so there are some ailments that they're not able to cure.
You are correct that cure wounds does more healing than healing word, however I generally think that between healing word and healing spirit you've already got two healing spells memorized. Rather than memorizing a third spell that basically does the same thing I'd prefer to memorize something else that would reduce damage dealt to the party. Something proactive rather than reactive. I'm also of the same mentality for the use of the spell slot. Generally I feel that preventing damage is better than curing it.
I'll concede that may be less of a concern at higher levels though. Maybe Cure Light wounds comes into it's own later in the game.
Cure Wounds is a touch spell that takes an action.
Healing Word takes a bonus action at range.
Druids don't have a ton of ways to use a bonus action, especially early on. Add in that you are squishier than a cleric, and I find it hard to ever recommend Cure Wounds for a druid.
And since you keep your normal action, you can do things like dash to the other side of the area to heal someone that is out a ways, disengage so you don't die to the thing that charged you last round, attack/cantrip something, or in a pinch, the humble dodge action so you don't become the party's pincushion.
In one of my campaigns I am playing a Circle of the Shepard druid with a 1 level dip in Life Cleric. One little trick I have found incredibly useful is the "Wild Companion" feature that lets you use one of your Wildshapes to cast Find Familiar. I use a bat for it's blindsight, and basically use is as a drone in instances when the pesky drow we've been fighting like dropping Darkness and such on on us. My bat sort of hovers around the battlefield, and you can use your Action to switch your senses to that of your familiar. So I can use my action to see through my bat, thus enabling me to target my allies with Healing Word, or move my Healing Spirit onto them (which are both bonus actions). That bat has saved our collective asses on numerous occasions.
I'm playing a wildfire druid as the party's primary healer currently. Level 2 at the moment, but my plan is druid 3 / life cleric 1 / druid X. There are plenty of healing options that can be really effective.
For one, goodberry juggling is the friend of any character that has access to it. At the end of each day, I cast it with any remaining spell slots for 10 hp of out-of-combat healing (40+ with a life cleric dip) per spell slot that I can dole out the next day with zero resource cost.
Wildfire druids have cure wounds as a circle spell, which doesn't compete with the wildfire spirit for a bonus action. But if needed, healing word is there too of course.
Healing spirit is of course on the spell list, and it procs disciple of life every time, but it's not nearly as potent as it used to be before the errata
With Tasha's, druids have access to aura of vitality, which procs disciple of life every time.
At level 6, wildfire druids can add an extra 1d8 to a single roll of their healing spells (essentially upcasting cure wounds), and they can cast spells through their wildfire spirit. Among other things, this allows the druid to ready an action to cast cure wounds on an ally through the spirit when the spirit is close enough, then use a bonus action to command the spirit to move in (triggering your readied spell) and teleport the ally out of harm's way.
And, of course, druids are proficient with herbalism kits. Buy one early for the ability to spend downtime brewing a healing potion for half the cost of buying one.
This only covers actual healing, though. Damage mitigation via control spells and smart planning will be the preferred goal, but healing options are plentiful if they become necessary.
I know this thread is like 3 years old, but for Druid as Primary Healer, I’d probably pick Dreams or Shepherd and dip 1 level in Life Cleric. That’s really all you need. Stars is not a bad choice either because Chalice’s healing is pretty solid.
I know this thread is like 3 years old, but for Druid as Primary Healer, I’d probably pick Dreams or Shepherd and dip 1 level in Life Cleric. That’s really all you need. Stars is not a bad choice either because Chalice’s healing is pretty solid.
Agreed, those are probably the best options. Any druid can do it, those just happen to have a bit better features for healing. Wildfire has a little bit of a boost as well, but overall it's just a fraction more than a standard druid in terms of healing.
I'm of the opinion that even for primary healers, healing generally shouldn't be primary. Having extra options or features that broaden your ability to heal or make your healing more efficient are good, but really as long as you have a couple solid options you don't need much else. So those subclasses are definitely nice to have for a primary healer, but also definitely not necessary.
I'm playing a Forest Gnome Druid (Circle of the Moon), Hedge Winklespark. The reason I went with Moon is to use Wildshape as a bonus action. When I've played a druid before I've found it difficult to manage wildshape with concentration spells strategically, but in this case I can cast a spell, then hold the concentration while I wildshape using a bonus action. In this way I can continue supporting others with that spell while also using wildshape form to move, take hits for the team, and occasionally attack/retaliate when necessary. Moon also allows wildshape options with better features earlier, so I can provide more extra HP and more features sooner.
I plan to choose spells that support this strategy, with almost no direct combat spells, and mostly support/control/healing. I'll also use a lot of illusion to confuse enemies using both the Forest Gnome innate illusionary abilities and other spells that can do this stuff while wildshaping.
so im looking to build a druid healer either circle of shepherd or wildfire and i want to multiclass but idk what would be a good option i want to be able to heal and provide support but also be able to hold my own if necessary curious to see peoples opinions and advice im new to dnd and will take all advice i can get.
If you want to be a healer in 5e: Play a var human/custom lineage so you can take your level 1 feat as the Healer feat. Taking this feat will allow you to use your spell slots to actually cast spells. You don't really need to multiclass then.
I would still recommend Shepherd since the temp hp totem and the boost to summoning is perfect for a druid.
Also don't forget the crafting rules for healing potions. Druids get the herbalism kit which means you can cheaply make std. healing potions. The combo of healer feat, healing potions, goodberry, and temp hp from the totem makes for a potent healer.
I'm aware that all of the builds mentioned above are optimized to be perfect healers, but in my opinion you don't really need to put that much focus and effort into healing in 5e, unless maybe you have a large group of very squishy characters. All the druid subclasses have the major healing spells on their spell lists, so in that regard you can choose whatever you like. When nescessary, you can of course be an almost immortal tank at the same time without much effort as a moon druid with the sentinel feat in addition to having healing spells you can cast while wildshaped.
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I find myself not using Healing Spirit as much as others seem to. My concentration is usually tied up in something else that I don't feel like dropping.
How would you play a Druid as the party's healer?
Item's - Sashelas' Spear, Thunder Beads, Diadem of the Owl, Bag of Stasis
Race - Fey-Touched
Subclass - Circle of Vitality
Monsters - Blood Bear
Spell - Arcbolt
Xanathar's has both the Circle of Dreams and Circle of the Shepard if you want to be a dedicated healer.
Shepard is usually better, because one of the class features is a spirit animal that lets you heal in a movable 30' bubble every time you cast a heal spell. Other than that, they summon tankier versions of animals other druids can summon, to help spread out the damage the party takes. The class is more built around a summoner concept, but that class feature is super strong.
Circle of Dreams has a pool of dice it can spend to heal people without a spell slot, and get other features that allow you to have safer rests (short and long), and a strange transportation/exploration/communication ability later on.
You can also dip a level in life cleric, to improve your heals, but this isn't necessary. The druid list has just about all of the strong healing spells already. If you mean play-style, don't be reliant on wild shape, because you will have to drop it to get heals off. You are also squishier than a life cleric, so you should prioritize healing magic that doesn't have range touch, so you can stay back a bit and focus more on control, buffs, and heals. Also, don't feel like you have to be locked into just healing. Druids and clerics can switch spells up every rest if they need something, meaning if your party is missing something, you can pivot spells over to cover for that weakness.
And don’t forget every wargamers favorite heal spell: healing spirit, which has been banned from so many home games that noobs probably think that it is as good as wish
I stole my pfp from this person: https://mobile.twitter.com/xelart1/status/1177312449575432193
Circle of shepherd - Competes with life cleric for how much it can heal depending on the situation (its all about the shortrest)
Your spells will be healing word and curewounds at first
at second you gain unicorn totem - when you use it for one minute if you cast a spell slot that can heal, all chosen within 30' of the unicorn heal 1point per your druid level. Yup that means at second a cure wounds will heal - your entire party 2 hits and familiars mounts and allies in addition to the healing done by the spell itself
You also gain access to the bear totem - cast on starting a day and get in a short rest by turning into a mouse and riding on a party member for an hour to recover your wildshape whilst napping and your totem - this allows you to give 5+ druid level temp hits to everyone you choose in 30' when it appears. With four people in a party at second level that one ability is 28 hits of short rest lasting till the party long rests or they are individually expended
At 4th take the healer feat add bandages to your healing mechanic - and it encourages other players to want to short rest so you can use bandages again and not coincidentally your totem.
at 3rd you gain a second level spell, In xtge - healing spirit - the potentially full party heal spell if given a minute to hug - not bad to quick recover after a quick fight
at 5th / 6th you gain summoned animals -which your DM may make pointless making your 6th level bonus to them also guff. If your not getting random delights you have no control over and instead are getting giant owls or dire wolves you will have throwaway high hp blockers to take hits so your party doesnt have to - its a good idea to divide them up and let the party control them - that way everyones involved and the combat doesnt seem to bog down under the way of animal assault your turn could become.
Thats it but lets have an example - at 5th level on a boss fight you could totem and cure wounds - thats 5 hp to all and 1d6 / 10 rounds (2d6 if third level slot) over the nex four rounds you could use four first level slots to heal hits per person per round +the heal itself + those d6 - place the totem effect in melee by the tough opponent between the melee fighters - each of their rounds they move in and away wihtout triggering attacks of opportunity. Aoe becomes recoverable from swiftly, much more swiftly than any other healing subtype - and the morning bear totem makes the mages familiars+10 temporary. (also beast masters pet, party mounts allies, cooks and camp staff etc etc.) If your a yuanti druid with the ability to communicate with snakes and acquire serpent allies they will be much more likely to survive and an ally that survives a hit is an ally that can disengage to fight another day after filling your opponents full of poison.
at 10th level you would heal +10 hits for the same first level spell with the totem - you need those short rests but as long as you get them your party can keep pushing for a lot longer - works best in a predominantly melee party / not long rest spell casters.
I don't think cure light wounds is ever really worth memorizing. Between healing word and healing spirit you've got healing pretty well covered. Always remember healing word is a bonus action, so you can toss a cantrip when you need to.
As others have alluded to being a dedicated healer in this version of DnD is less effective than being 'support' that heals. Use your summon spells to help mitigate damage. Use spells like entangle to break up groups. Use faerie fire to make it easier for your allies to deal damage. Control the field so that the bad guys only engage with your party on your terms.
For any subclass of druid other than moon your wild-shape is not meant to be a combat tank/dps form, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value. Wild shape gives you incredible mobility, so make use of it. Yes it takes an action, but if you get swarmed by a group of monster it can be a life saver (fly, burrow, and climb speeds are AWESOME) and you can still maintain your concentrations spells through the shift.
Cure Wounds heals a lot more than Healing Word does so it's definitely worth memorizing. The only time to use Healing Word is when you're not able to get to your teammate who you're trying to heal for some reason. And Healing Spirit requires a lot of coordination and movement to nerf it which is usually very difficult in combat. Out of combat, one casting of it will heal the entire party up, but not in combat.
Being a heavy duty healer is easy with any of the Druid Circles. Just make your spell selection heavy on the healing and restoration spells. The only real limitation is Druids don't have access to Remove Curse so there are some ailments that they're not able to cure.
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You are correct that cure wounds does more healing than healing word, however I generally think that between healing word and healing spirit you've already got two healing spells memorized. Rather than memorizing a third spell that basically does the same thing I'd prefer to memorize something else that would reduce damage dealt to the party. Something proactive rather than reactive. I'm also of the same mentality for the use of the spell slot. Generally I feel that preventing damage is better than curing it.
I'll concede that may be less of a concern at higher levels though. Maybe Cure Light wounds comes into it's own later in the game.
Cure Wounds is a touch spell that takes an action.
Healing Word takes a bonus action at range.
Druids don't have a ton of ways to use a bonus action, especially early on. Add in that you are squishier than a cleric, and I find it hard to ever recommend Cure Wounds for a druid.
And since you keep your normal action, you can do things like dash to the other side of the area to heal someone that is out a ways, disengage so you don't die to the thing that charged you last round, attack/cantrip something, or in a pinch, the humble dodge action so you don't become the party's pincushion.
Great tips here! Warforged Druid healer NPC coming up :)
"A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence."
In one of my campaigns I am playing a Circle of the Shepard druid with a 1 level dip in Life Cleric. One little trick I have found incredibly useful is the "Wild Companion" feature that lets you use one of your Wildshapes to cast Find Familiar. I use a bat for it's blindsight, and basically use is as a drone in instances when the pesky drow we've been fighting like dropping Darkness and such on on us. My bat sort of hovers around the battlefield, and you can use your Action to switch your senses to that of your familiar. So I can use my action to see through my bat, thus enabling me to target my allies with Healing Word, or move my Healing Spirit onto them (which are both bonus actions). That bat has saved our collective asses on numerous occasions.
I'm playing a wildfire druid as the party's primary healer currently. Level 2 at the moment, but my plan is druid 3 / life cleric 1 / druid X. There are plenty of healing options that can be really effective.
For one, goodberry juggling is the friend of any character that has access to it. At the end of each day, I cast it with any remaining spell slots for 10 hp of out-of-combat healing (40+ with a life cleric dip) per spell slot that I can dole out the next day with zero resource cost.
Wildfire druids have cure wounds as a circle spell, which doesn't compete with the wildfire spirit for a bonus action. But if needed, healing word is there too of course.
Healing spirit is of course on the spell list, and it procs disciple of life every time, but it's not nearly as potent as it used to be before the errata
With Tasha's, druids have access to aura of vitality, which procs disciple of life every time.
At level 6, wildfire druids can add an extra 1d8 to a single roll of their healing spells (essentially upcasting cure wounds), and they can cast spells through their wildfire spirit. Among other things, this allows the druid to ready an action to cast cure wounds on an ally through the spirit when the spirit is close enough, then use a bonus action to command the spirit to move in (triggering your readied spell) and teleport the ally out of harm's way.
At higher levels, mass cure wounds and heal are of course welcome.
And, of course, druids are proficient with herbalism kits. Buy one early for the ability to spend downtime brewing a healing potion for half the cost of buying one.
This only covers actual healing, though. Damage mitigation via control spells and smart planning will be the preferred goal, but healing options are plentiful if they become necessary.
I know this thread is like 3 years old, but for Druid as Primary Healer, I’d probably pick Dreams or Shepherd and dip 1 level in Life Cleric. That’s really all you need. Stars is not a bad choice either because Chalice’s healing is pretty solid.
Agreed, those are probably the best options. Any druid can do it, those just happen to have a bit better features for healing. Wildfire has a little bit of a boost as well, but overall it's just a fraction more than a standard druid in terms of healing.
I'm of the opinion that even for primary healers, healing generally shouldn't be primary. Having extra options or features that broaden your ability to heal or make your healing more efficient are good, but really as long as you have a couple solid options you don't need much else. So those subclasses are definitely nice to have for a primary healer, but also definitely not necessary.
Good comments above.
I'm playing a Forest Gnome Druid (Circle of the Moon), Hedge Winklespark. The reason I went with Moon is to use Wildshape as a bonus action. When I've played a druid before I've found it difficult to manage wildshape with concentration spells strategically, but in this case I can cast a spell, then hold the concentration while I wildshape using a bonus action. In this way I can continue supporting others with that spell while also using wildshape form to move, take hits for the team, and occasionally attack/retaliate when necessary. Moon also allows wildshape options with better features earlier, so I can provide more extra HP and more features sooner.
I plan to choose spells that support this strategy, with almost no direct combat spells, and mostly support/control/healing. I'll also use a lot of illusion to confuse enemies using both the Forest Gnome innate illusionary abilities and other spells that can do this stuff while wildshaping.
Star Druid with Chalice can make for really potent healing.
so im looking to build a druid healer either circle of shepherd or wildfire and i want to multiclass but idk what would be a good option i want to be able to heal and provide support but also be able to hold my own if necessary curious to see peoples opinions and advice im new to dnd and will take all advice i can get.
If you want to be a healer in 5e: Play a var human/custom lineage so you can take your level 1 feat as the Healer feat. Taking this feat will allow you to use your spell slots to actually cast spells. You don't really need to multiclass then.
I would still recommend Shepherd since the temp hp totem and the boost to summoning is perfect for a druid.
Also don't forget the crafting rules for healing potions. Druids get the herbalism kit which means you can cheaply make std. healing potions. The combo of healer feat, healing potions, goodberry, and temp hp from the totem makes for a potent healer.
im going to be playing as a half-dragon/half elf homebrew race that's available in the session I'm playing
I'm aware that all of the builds mentioned above are optimized to be perfect healers, but in my opinion you don't really need to put that much focus and effort into healing in 5e, unless maybe you have a large group of very squishy characters. All the druid subclasses have the major healing spells on their spell lists, so in that regard you can choose whatever you like. When nescessary, you can of course be an almost immortal tank at the same time without much effort as a moon druid with the sentinel feat in addition to having healing spells you can cast while wildshaped.
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They can remove curses with Greater Restoration though. Not as good as Remove Curse, but gets the job done!
I find myself not using Healing Spirit as much as others seem to. My concentration is usually tied up in something else that I don't feel like dropping.