I missed the party and it looks like the naysayers got the Nerf they wanted.
Late to the argument that I already apparently lost: Healing Spirit would average 35 points of healing between combats, and recover NO other of the game's extensive resources (whether they come back on a short or long rest), and it would expend a 2nd level spell slot.
A very good spell? Yes. A "broken" spell? Not in the slightest.
Your acting like 35 points of healing is not a lot for a 3rd level party. Literally that's max hp for anything that isn't a Barbarian with max CON, applying to the entire party for a single spell slot.
Also it scales unbelievably, when upcasted it LITERALLY DESTROYS EVEN 9TH LEVEL SPELLS IN EFFECTIVENESS. If you scroll back 20 or so pages even in it's tier it destroys basically every healing spell out of combat. Including the spell that was literally solely designed for this exact purposePrayer of Healing.
Edit: Changed basically the entire message to be clearer. This was pre-nerf obviously, now it's much better.
Added some bold and "DESTROYS" instead of "CHALLENGES". Assuming a party of three that's 735 (HS at 8th level) vs 700 (Mass Heal). Whenever a spell that's been upcasted to 8th level can do better than a 9th level spell that's bad. That's not even challenge at that point.
Upcasted spells are supposed to scale terribly (like how upcasted fireball is worse than Delayed Blast Fireball) to incentive players picking other higher level spells and not just spamming the same spell over and over again. This clearly is not scaling terribly, this is scales at a rate that even bypasses spells a entire level higher even in less than desirable uses (most parties are more than 3 people).
Your acting like 35 points of healing is not a lot for a 3rd level party. Literally that's max hp for anything that isn't a Barbarian with max CON, applying to the entire party for a single spell slot.
Also it scales unbelievably, when upcasted it LITERALLY CHALLENGES EVEN 9TH LEVEL SPELLS IN EFFECTIVENESS. If you scroll back 20 or so pages even in it's tier it destroys basically every healing spell out of combat. Including the spell that was literally solely designed for this exact purposePrayer of Healing.
Edit: Changed basically the entire message to be clearer. This was pre-nerf obviously, now it's much better.
Added some bold.
I didn't say it's not a lot. It's also limited to between combat, STILL I also said it's a very good spell.
Even if I bought into that notion (that it's competing with 9th level spells when upcast) it's creating the false equivalence that a 2nd level spell is challenging a 9th level spell. If you UPCAST it with a 9th level spell, you're expending a 9th level resource.
But further more:
Healing Spirit Level 9: Can essentially heal all hit points by forming a 1 minute toga line between combat.
Mass Heal: Deals out 700 points of healing instantly - in combat to be distributed as you please - AND it cures any diseases and effects causing blindness or deafness.
I would choose Mass Heal over a Level 9 Healing Spirit. I would do so even if Healing Spirit could heal 1,000,000 hit points of damage.
Powerword Heal: (In combat) Heals all hit points for a single target AND if the player is prone he/she can stand up as a reaction AND end charmed/frightened/paralyzed/stunned conditions. Given the choice, I would still pick this one.
True Resurrection: (In combat) Someone who's been dead for 200 years is now alive and good as new, with any previous effects gone. Come on now.
There are always options for healing between combat. The danger zone for is crap that happens in combat. What un-nerfed Healing Spirit would do is a LOT of healing BETWEEN combats, using a spell slot. I TOTALLY grant that it did a LOT of (hit point only) healing *out of combat* over the course of a minute - if you will grant that that limitation isn't trivial. And again, I'm not arguing that it used to suck. Just that it wasn't game-breaking.
Eh it was basically just that every battle was going to start at max hit points. While true it's not much of a problem for DMs running 1-2 encounters a day, for those actually following the intended like... what was it 3-7 encounters a day or something structure? Yeah for those it was absolutely gamebreaking, since healing in combat wasn't going to be happening anyways (outside of Healing Word) it meant literally the only healing spells you needed were Healing Word and Healing Spirit.
Since WoTC is supposed to balance stuff based off of not 1-2 encounters a day, yes it's gamebreaking that instead of entering the boss room with all your resources expanded and the such, your entering it with basically everything (you can afford to not use any resources in small encounters when you know your hp is going to be max no matter what).
So it forced the sort of 1-2 encounter a day onto everybody who played with a powergamer if it wasn't banned. Which many people indeed considered gamebreaking and so did WoTC.
Edit: Because of the whole upcasting thing, this wasn't just tier 1 either, this was almost every tier. Yeah you could just put boss battles every one of those encounters, but if a single spell forces you to make that drastic of a change, it probably is breaking that game in some way.
Eh it was basically just that every battle was going to start at max hit points. While true it's not much of a problem for DMs running 1-2 encounters a day, for those actually following the intended like... what was it 3-7 encounters a day or something structure? Yeah for those it was absolutely gamebreaking, since healing in combat wasn't going to be happening anyways (outside of Healing Word) it meant literally the only healing spells you needed were Healing Word and Healing Spirit.
Since WoTC is supposed to balance stuff based off of not 1-2 encounters a day, yes it's gamebreaking that instead of entering the boss room with all your resources expanded and the such, your entering it with basically everything (you can afford to not use any resources in small encounters when you know your hp is going to be max no matter what).
So it forced the sort of 1-2 encounter a day onto everybody who played with a powergamer if it wasn't banned. Which many people indeed considered gamebreaking and so did WoTC.
Edit: Because of the whole upcasting thing, this wasn't just tier 1 either, this was almost every tier. Yeah you could just put boss battles every one of those encounters, but if a single spell forces you to make that drastic of a change, it probably is breaking that game in some way.
I don't think the implication in the encounters section of the DMG is that all (or even most) of the encounters would be combat encounters. In fact, with one or two exceptions, most of the sample encounters could be tasks completed with little or no combat.
Eh it was basically just that every battle was going to start at max hit points. While true it's not much of a problem for DMs running 1-2 encounters a day, for those actually following the intended like... what was it 3-7 encounters a day or something structure? Yeah for those it was absolutely gamebreaking, since healing in combat wasn't going to be happening anyways (outside of Healing Word) it meant literally the only healing spells you needed were Healing Word and Healing Spirit.
Since WoTC is supposed to balance stuff based off of not 1-2 encounters a day, yes it's gamebreaking that instead of entering the boss room with all your resources expanded and the such, your entering it with basically everything (you can afford to not use any resources in small encounters when you know your hp is going to be max no matter what).
So it forced the sort of 1-2 encounter a day onto everybody who played with a powergamer if it wasn't banned. Which many people indeed considered gamebreaking and so did WoTC.
Edit: Because of the whole upcasting thing, this wasn't just tier 1 either, this was almost every tier. Yeah you could just put boss battles every one of those encounters, but if a single spell forces you to make that drastic of a change, it probably is breaking that game in some way.
I guess it's just perspective. I can see why it's controversial, but objectively I don't think it's game breaking. It's the only healing spell I'm aware of that's structured to be out of combat, so it should heal for considerably more. At level 3, level two spell slots are super precious, and granted they're less so at higher levels. I have found that normally after a rough combat encounter, you have one or two players who are hurting (dangerously low on hit points). Burn the spell slot? Sure, probably. I just don't see it breaking the game, but again, this is all subjective.
I think the problem is people look at the *max possible* hit points it can heal, and then say "dang it heals a trillion hit points!". In the vast majority of cases it will top off maybe a couple players who are really battered.
I'll just add that it's not like the errata actually fixed it instantly... it's still hands-down the absolute best healing spell in the official resources, for every single category you can rate a healing spell on. What WotC did was bring the upper-limit on the spell's output back within the realm of relative sanity. As someone whom plays a Life Cleric, the new version is at least something I can live with the knowledge of it existing. :P
You definitely get a lot of bang for your slot, but the fact that it's spread out over multiple rounds and it requires concentration does bring it down a peg if you ask me.
Eh it was basically just that every battle was going to start at max hit points. While true it's not much of a problem for DMs running 1-2 encounters a day, for those actually following the intended like... what was it 3-7 encounters a day or something structure? Yeah for those it was absolutely gamebreaking, since healing in combat wasn't going to be happening anyways (outside of Healing Word) it meant literally the only healing spells you needed were Healing Word and Healing Spirit.
I just wanna point out there's actually no intended number of encounters per day. What the DMG says is that 6-8 encounters will generally exhaust a party's resources. That's an upper bound, not a recommendation, and the writers don't design adventures around making sure there's 6-8 fights on any given day.
": It's the only healing spell I'm aware of that's structured to be out of combat, so it should heal for considerably more."
I thought i made it clear the spell was designed for in combat use. I said the spell far surpasses spell structured to be out of combat (Prayer of Healing) not that it was structured to be used in combat. This sentence is literally what I'm arguing for right now lol.
Edit: The point is, it's a combat spell that does pretty good in combat, and was broken out of combat compared to any other method of healing. The reason why it's so overpowered in the first place was because outside of combat you aren't restricted to 5 by 5 squares, and thus everyone can cram into the healing space. The devs didn't realize that and only expected a single person to be healed at one time.
"I think the problem is people look at the *max possible* hit points it can heal, and then say "dang it heals a trillion hit points!". In the vast majority of cases it will top off maybe a couple players who are really battered."
While, yeah this is true. It doesn't change my point in anyway, and as I said players can afford to not spend resources and get more battered up when they know a full restore is right there. I think the main issues people had was just how powerful the healing was compared to mainly Prayer of Healing, and in all tiers spending a spell slot to restore a entire team's hit points is generally considered a good deal.
Also just how devastating the spell was to newer DMs who didn't know the spell existed and was trying to weaken the entire party down with traps and small counters expecting the party to have to spend valuable resources- oh they just literally ran though everything and used a single spell slot.
Edit: Also Life Clerics and any other people who actually wanted to play a healer were devastated when the Druid can do it much better with almost 0 investment and sacrifice.
"I just wanna point out there's actually no intended number of encounters per day. What the DMG says is that 6-8 encounters will generally exhaust a party's resources. That's an upper bound, not a recommendation, and the writers don't design adventures around making sure there's 6-8 fights on any given day."
Ah sorry for the misunderstanding then. My bad.
Edit: I also want to mention, that healing spirit wasn't ever really a issue to the people who run only a boss battle or two between each encounter. Since then as you said SeanJP out of combat healing isn't important when you have long rests and incombat healing is more valuable in a large encounter like a boss battle.
This was overpowered in the "exhausting resources" way, which involves a bunch of small encounters such as traps and minion encounters. Instead of having to expend resources on fighting and disabling traps, you can just run though all of them, trigger all the traps, all the AoOs, and then just heal everything with a single spell slot. Much less than you would of spent otherwise.
I'll just add that it's not like the errata actually fixed it instantly... it's still hands-down the absolute best healing spell in the official resources, for every single category you can rate a healing spell on. What WotC did was bring the upper-limit on the spell's output back within the realm of relative sanity. As someone whom plays a Life Cleric, the new version is at least something I can live with the knowledge of it existing. :P
You definitely get a lot of bang for your slot, but the fact that it's spread out over multiple rounds and it requires concentration does bring it down a peg if you ask me.
Concentration keeps it sane. Being spread over multiple rounds didn't bring it down a peg; that is entirely what made/still makes the spell way too good to begin with. Multiple (~6 with errata) discrete heals, over multiple rounds, at your own direction (BA to move; no action to trigger), and all for the cost of 1 spell slot. 1 spell slot can keep your tank at a safe amount, top off others as needed, and bring your Wizard back from bleeding out.
Putting the maximum uses in place brought it down from "it's awesome, yet the fact that this exists is ******* insulting" to "it's awesome--I'm jealous that I don't have it, but I can live without it--and others having/using it doesn't trivialize danger."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Hmm... somewhat late, but I'd say that the spell wasn't as big a problem as it was made out to be, initially.
Was it overpowered? Yes. Was it broken? Somewhat. Was it a game-killer? No.
While it went far beyond expectations out of combat, the Healing Spirit merry-go-round (which really should've been an in-universe theme park ride, but I digress) would typically come at the cost of a max-level slot to keep pace with HP, at least initially. It's extremely strong if the party is allowed to just stand around and dance for a minute, even moreso once we get to players moving each other in and out to abuse the wording (and so stupid it loops around to hilarious if the party's crazy enough to set up an actual merry-go-round so that every PC can enter the spirit's space every turn of every round, and the DM's crazy enough to allow it, which would technically have been (assuming 6 PCs and a rotating mechanism for maximum cheese) 6d6 per turn, 6 turns a round, for 10 rounds, totally balanced 360d6 for a single Lv.2 slot ;3), and makes other out-of-combat healing spells irrelevant in terms of raw power. However, most parties are unlikely to actually get this much use out of it, since HP tends to cap below maximum cheese, leaving it wasted healing in most circumstances. It also goes to a class that isn't likely to have enough Con investment to reliably make concentration checks if pressured, and does in theory provide an easy out in that it should logically leave the party more distracted than alternatives (and thus requires them to either delay until reaching a safe area, and opens up the possibility of crafty monsters/opponents setting up an ambush outside said safe area); it's not strictly supported by the rules, but it would be reasonable to say creatures can more easily sneak up on & surprise a frolicking horde than on five people bodyguarding a cleric and/or paladin.
Personally, I would say the biggest issues with the spell were that Rangers could abuse it even with no other focus on healing, and that it scales so efficiently for what it does. Perhaps removing the ability to heighten it would have made it better-received, and/or specifying that it can heal up to a total of Wis mod characters per round. (Or, if it had been part of the game's initial spell library, in the PHB, I might even go so far as to say that taking Healing Word and Heal off the Druid list would've been an interesting option, leaving them as gradual healers to contrast the Cleric's immediate superheals. That does run into the issue of gradual but weak combat heals being really strong in 5e, though...) I know it's not the most apt comparison, since the spell did in fact have the potential to cause issues if handled strictly by pure game mechanics, but all the worrying about it really felt like "Guidance makes the party automatically succeed at everything! >.<" fears. Worst-case scenario, if the party's overspecialised in healing and it's making the Cleric or the Paladin feel bad, the solution could've been for the DM to allow the Cleric to learn it during downtime, possibly using something similar to the create-a-spell rules from 3.5e?
Also, my dancer bard is sad that her game didn't last long enough for her to snipe it with Magical Secrets.
I missed the party and it looks like the naysayers got the Nerf they wanted.
Late to the argument that I already apparently lost: Healing Spirit would average 35 points of healing between combats, and recover NO other of the game's extensive resources (whether they come back on a short or long rest), and it would expend a 2nd level spell slot.
A very good spell? Yes. A "broken" spell? Not in the slightest.
Your acting like 35 points of healing is not a lot for a 3rd level party. Literally that's max hp for anything that isn't a Barbarian with max CON, applying to the entire party for a single spell slot.
Also it scales unbelievably, when upcasted it LITERALLY DESTROYS EVEN 9TH LEVEL SPELLS IN EFFECTIVENESS. If you scroll back 20 or so pages even in it's tier it destroys basically every healing spell out of combat. Including the spell that was literally solely designed for this exact purpose Prayer of Healing.
Edit: Changed basically the entire message to be clearer. This was pre-nerf obviously, now it's much better.
Added some bold and "DESTROYS" instead of "CHALLENGES". Assuming a party of three that's 735 (HS at 8th level) vs 700 (Mass Heal). Whenever a spell that's been upcasted to 8th level can do better than a 9th level spell that's bad. That's not even challenge at that point.
Upcasted spells are supposed to scale terribly (like how upcasted fireball is worse than Delayed Blast Fireball) to incentive players picking other higher level spells and not just spamming the same spell over and over again. This clearly is not scaling terribly, this is scales at a rate that even bypasses spells a entire level higher even in less than desirable uses (most parties are more than 3 people).
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I didn't say it's not a lot. It's also limited to between combat, STILL I also said it's a very good spell.
Even if I bought into that notion (that it's competing with 9th level spells when upcast) it's creating the false equivalence that a 2nd level spell is challenging a 9th level spell. If you UPCAST it with a 9th level spell, you're expending a 9th level resource.
But further more:
Healing Spirit Level 9: Can essentially heal all hit points by forming a 1 minute toga line between combat.
Mass Heal: Deals out 700 points of healing instantly - in combat to be distributed as you please - AND it cures any diseases and effects causing blindness or deafness.
I would choose Mass Heal over a Level 9 Healing Spirit. I would do so even if Healing Spirit could heal 1,000,000 hit points of damage.
Powerword Heal: (In combat) Heals all hit points for a single target AND if the player is prone he/she can stand up as a reaction AND end charmed/frightened/paralyzed/stunned conditions. Given the choice, I would still pick this one.
True Resurrection: (In combat) Someone who's been dead for 200 years is now alive and good as new, with any previous effects gone. Come on now.
There are always options for healing between combat. The danger zone for is crap that happens in combat. What un-nerfed Healing Spirit would do is a LOT of healing BETWEEN combats, using a spell slot. I TOTALLY grant that it did a LOT of (hit point only) healing *out of combat* over the course of a minute - if you will grant that that limitation isn't trivial. And again, I'm not arguing that it used to suck. Just that it wasn't game-breaking.
Eh it was basically just that every battle was going to start at max hit points. While true it's not much of a problem for DMs running 1-2 encounters a day, for those actually following the intended like... what was it 3-7 encounters a day or something structure? Yeah for those it was absolutely gamebreaking, since healing in combat wasn't going to be happening anyways (outside of Healing Word) it meant literally the only healing spells you needed were Healing Word and Healing Spirit.
Since WoTC is supposed to balance stuff based off of not 1-2 encounters a day, yes it's gamebreaking that instead of entering the boss room with all your resources expanded and the such, your entering it with basically everything (you can afford to not use any resources in small encounters when you know your hp is going to be max no matter what).
So it forced the sort of 1-2 encounter a day onto everybody who played with a powergamer if it wasn't banned. Which many people indeed considered gamebreaking and so did WoTC.
Edit: Because of the whole upcasting thing, this wasn't just tier 1 either, this was almost every tier. Yeah you could just put boss battles every one of those encounters, but if a single spell forces you to make that drastic of a change, it probably is breaking that game in some way.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I don't think the implication in the encounters section of the DMG is that all (or even most) of the encounters would be combat encounters. In fact, with one or two exceptions, most of the sample encounters could be tasks completed with little or no combat.
I guess it's just perspective. I can see why it's controversial, but objectively I don't think it's game breaking. It's the only healing spell I'm aware of that's structured to be out of combat, so it should heal for considerably more. At level 3, level two spell slots are super precious, and granted they're less so at higher levels. I have found that normally after a rough combat encounter, you have one or two players who are hurting (dangerously low on hit points). Burn the spell slot? Sure, probably. I just don't see it breaking the game, but again, this is all subjective.
I think the problem is people look at the *max possible* hit points it can heal, and then say "dang it heals a trillion hit points!". In the vast majority of cases it will top off maybe a couple players who are really battered.
You definitely get a lot of bang for your slot, but the fact that it's spread out over multiple rounds and it requires concentration does bring it down a peg if you ask me.
I just wanna point out there's actually no intended number of encounters per day. What the DMG says is that 6-8 encounters will generally exhaust a party's resources. That's an upper bound, not a recommendation, and the writers don't design adventures around making sure there's 6-8 fights on any given day.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I thought i made it clear the spell was designed for in combat use. I said the spell far surpasses spell structured to be out of combat (Prayer of Healing) not that it was structured to be used in combat. This sentence is literally what I'm arguing for right now lol.
Edit: The point is, it's a combat spell that does pretty good in combat, and was broken out of combat compared to any other method of healing. The reason why it's so overpowered in the first place was because outside of combat you aren't restricted to 5 by 5 squares, and thus everyone can cram into the healing space. The devs didn't realize that and only expected a single person to be healed at one time.
While, yeah this is true. It doesn't change my point in anyway, and as I said players can afford to not spend resources and get more battered up when they know a full restore is right there. I think the main issues people had was just how powerful the healing was compared to mainly Prayer of Healing, and in all tiers spending a spell slot to restore a entire team's hit points is generally considered a good deal.
Also just how devastating the spell was to newer DMs who didn't know the spell existed and was trying to weaken the entire party down with traps and small counters expecting the party to have to spend valuable resources- oh they just literally ran though everything and used a single spell slot.
Edit: Also Life Clerics and any other people who actually wanted to play a healer were devastated when the Druid can do it much better with almost 0 investment and sacrifice.
Ah sorry for the misunderstanding then. My bad.
Edit: I also want to mention, that healing spirit wasn't ever really a issue to the people who run only a boss battle or two between each encounter. Since then as you said SeanJP out of combat healing isn't important when you have long rests and incombat healing is more valuable in a large encounter like a boss battle.
This was overpowered in the "exhausting resources" way, which involves a bunch of small encounters such as traps and minion encounters. Instead of having to expend resources on fighting and disabling traps, you can just run though all of them, trigger all the traps, all the AoOs, and then just heal everything with a single spell slot. Much less than you would of spent otherwise.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
Concentration keeps it sane. Being spread over multiple rounds didn't bring it down a peg; that is entirely what made/still makes the spell way too good to begin with. Multiple (~6 with errata) discrete heals, over multiple rounds, at your own direction (BA to move; no action to trigger), and all for the cost of 1 spell slot. 1 spell slot can keep your tank at a safe amount, top off others as needed, and bring your Wizard back from bleeding out.
Putting the maximum uses in place brought it down from "it's awesome, yet the fact that this exists is ******* insulting" to "it's awesome--I'm jealous that I don't have it, but I can live without it--and others having/using it doesn't trivialize danger."
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Hmm... somewhat late, but I'd say that the spell wasn't as big a problem as it was made out to be, initially.
Was it overpowered? Yes. Was it broken? Somewhat. Was it a game-killer? No.
While it went far beyond expectations out of combat, the Healing Spirit merry-go-round (which really should've been an in-universe theme park ride, but I digress) would typically come at the cost of a max-level slot to keep pace with HP, at least initially. It's extremely strong if the party is allowed to just stand around and dance for a minute, even moreso once we get to players moving each other in and out to abuse the wording
(and so stupid it loops around to hilarious if the party's crazy enough to set up an actual merry-go-round so that every PC can enter the spirit's space every turn of every round, and the DM's crazy enough to allow it, which would technically have been (assuming 6 PCs and a rotating mechanism for maximum cheese) 6d6 per turn, 6 turns a round, for 10 rounds, totally balanced 360d6 for a single Lv.2 slot ;3), and makes other out-of-combat healing spells irrelevant in terms of raw power. However, most parties are unlikely to actually get this much use out of it, since HP tends to cap below maximum cheese, leaving it wasted healing in most circumstances. It also goes to a class that isn't likely to have enough Con investment to reliably make concentration checks if pressured, and does in theory provide an easy out in that it should logically leave the party more distracted than alternatives (and thus requires them to either delay until reaching a safe area, and opens up the possibility of crafty monsters/opponents setting up an ambush outside said safe area); it's not strictly supported by the rules, but it would be reasonable to say creatures can more easily sneak up on & surprise a frolicking horde than on five people bodyguarding a cleric and/or paladin.Personally, I would say the biggest issues with the spell were that Rangers could abuse it even with no other focus on healing, and that it scales so efficiently for what it does. Perhaps removing the ability to heighten it would have made it better-received, and/or specifying that it can heal up to a total of Wis mod characters per round. (Or, if it had been part of the game's initial spell library, in the PHB, I might even go so far as to say that taking Healing Word and Heal off the Druid list would've been an interesting option, leaving them as gradual healers to contrast the Cleric's immediate superheals.
That does run into the issue of gradual but weak combat heals being really strong in 5e, though...) I know it's not the most apt comparison, since the spell did in fact have the potential to cause issues if handled strictly by pure game mechanics, but all the worrying about it really felt like "Guidance makes the party automatically succeed at everything! >.<" fears. Worst-case scenario, if the party's overspecialised in healing and it's making the Cleric or the Paladin feel bad, the solution could've been for the DM to allow the Cleric to learn it during downtime, possibly using something similar to the create-a-spell rules from 3.5e?Also, my dancer bard is sad that her game didn't last long enough for her to snipe it with Magical Secrets.