Who makes a better healer?

[Karmattack]

Between Wilson and Winona, who makes a better healer? I've heard different people have different answers for this. 

Keep in mind: 

Wilson: Can revive allies rapidly, with more health. 

Winona: Weapon specials refill 10% faster.

 

My personal opinion is Winona, because reviving and healing should be different roles. Stacking those on one person makes you completely screwed if they die in a bad spot. If one or the other is still alive a comeback is still possible. 

[CaptainFun]

Winona would be my guess. I haven't played much, but Wickerbottom can be a good healer too. 

[JohnWatson]

Dying and getting revived by Wilson heals faster than healing from the flowers. However, having Winona as the heal caster allows you to put mobs to sleep more often, which I find more useful.

[Sinister_Fang]

I don't see how Wilson's perk helps with healing output. Winona's perk actually does.

[The Curator]

Having one extra heal out of every ten is not very comparative to double revive time and triple revive starting health at almost all times.

If you get revived by a Wilson, you can instantly get back into the fight. If you get revived by anybody else, you're still technically dead until you get some heals.

 

Winona healer seems to be more of a myth that started because the early-game healer stacks cooldown equipment, and Winona has a tiny cooldown boost, so it must be a message from Klei that she's got to be a healer right.

[JohnWatson]

44 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

I don't see how Wilson's perk helps with healing output. Winona's perk actually does.

Being revived by Wilson puts you at nearly full health, which allows you to start fighting immediately. If you're revived by anyone else, you need to chill and heal for minute because your health is too low to risk getting hit.

[CarlZalph]

Don't forget Wickerbottom's spell boost, which I assume to be +30% output based on damage numbers.

Winona gets 11 healing clouds out while Wicker gets 10, but each Wicker cloud is +30% more, or equiv of 13 in the time of 10.

Wicker also spawns in with a book that can be weapon swapped/juggled to cc minion waves for permanent minion control.

Wicker's book doesn't work really well on bosses but it does cause the boss to lose its special attack if it's in one, handy.

 

For me, Wickerbottom is the better healer.

[RancorSnp]

I've played a few games with Winona healer in party, and they weren't especially effective.

However if Winona is dedicated to healer role and does not juggle staff with melee weapon she makes it a little easier at the end game, where without perfect woodie runner people need the bosses to sleep as often as possible.

Willson's revive boost is way more of a deal than 10% cooldown.

The most optimal healing is Willson juggling the staff with wickerbottom from what I have seen. 

[Zeklo]

So here's the deal. Wilson's perk doesn't effect healing at all. It's a revive perk, but the reason they're so commonly the healer is due to the sleep caused by the heal staff. It allows coordinating revives much easier. 

If you split healer and reviver you create a situation where the reviver relies on the healer, and if the healer isn't on the same page as the reviver then things go bad. Or if the reviver and healer get split up, also bad. 

Since Wilson is essential to a team due to the revive perk you'll be using two character slots when you could be using one, and you get to avoid any miscommunication between two split roles. Thus for me, Wilson is without a doubt healer.

[ShadowDuelist]

Wilson is great at reviving, he doesn't even need the staff for it and thats his best role. And regarding wickerbottom-winona I tend to find more useful to have the healing area up more often, than it being more potent. 

[WilliamGreywind]

I just tried using Winona using the healing staff. It's definitely a unique way to go. In all honesty, the healing staff shouldn't be seen as solely a healing tool. The healing staff's role also doubles as crowd control. A smart team looking to make it through the Forge will want to make use of that protective sleep area that the healing staff provides, and having more chances to put the enemy to sleep and heal up at the same time may just give you the edge needed to beat the Forge.

Unless your teammates get the bright idea that attacking sleeping enemies is a good idea.

[Sinister_Fang]

16 minutes ago, WilliamGreywind said:

In all honesty, the healing staff shouldn't be seen as solely a healing tool. The healing staff's role also doubles as crowd control. A smart team looking to make it through the Forge will want to make use of that protective sleep area that the healing staff provides, and having more chances to put the enemy to sleep and heal up at the same time may just give you the edge needed to beat the Forge.

Unless your teammates get the bright idea that attacking sleeping enemies is a good idea.

That goes without saying. No one is debating on how to use it. It's about who uses it.

[Heinleinfan]

If the entire team wipes except Wilson, with his fast revive and extra health, Wilson can literally prevent a wipe depending on what wave you're on.  I've done it many times late game, once with a gorilla and the final boss both up.   I haven't played Winona as healer, so maybe I'm wrong, but I'm willing to bet there's no way she can prevent a wipe like that.

Wilson's perk is very powerful, but only for what it does, it doesn't cross over to any other role.  It does nothing to increase his damage, which is meh.  Winona (and Wicker since people for some reason think she should heal) can both leverage their perks for more damage or more crowd control or more tankiness.  So Wilson sticking with the heal staff is not a loss of good damage/utility like the others are, but his perk is so useful you still want it on the team.

Splitting the 2 roles (healer and rezzer) is a waste of a space on the team.  Again, the lowest DPS output is the one that should be leaving fights to go rez someone, not a tank or a CC'er or a high DPSer.

It just makes sense to have Wilson doing the healing and rezzing, so he's the best one for the job.

[Pink_Infatuation]

Wilson is the obvious answer. Winona is outclassed by him the second he picks up the 10% CDR armor. Wilson being on healing enables him to play safely behind the front line, stay out of harms way, be able to coordinate where he puts healing circles with whoever needs reviving, and it leaves every other character to doing damage rather than having a  half-healing winona and then a wilson who also has to play like a healer and try not to die so that people have a reviver up. Winona has no good function aside from the whole "jack of all trades master of none" where wilson is the master of healing.

 

Also, keep in mind wickerbottom's perk lets her heal more every so often. Food for thought. (I used to do wickerbottom support- it works quite well, but not as well as fire-staff wickerbottom and  healer wilson imo)

Also, if you're worried about revive times taking too long, just pick wes as your runner. He revives instantly for wilson and about as fast as wilson rez's anyone else for people who AREN'T wilson. 

 

Now you might say, "But grandma, once she gets the CDR armor SHE has 20%!" and you'd be correct. Except that Winona's CDR perk works much better with weapons that she can stun enemies with while wilson heals her. She also has quite a bit more HP, which you also might argue makes her a better healer. But if Winona's healing and you still have a wilson on your team (since he's practically required) that means that you have one less tanky person taking damage and being good at it. Winona really should be tanking- if she isn't her health pool is going to a waste anyways. (When a healer-backline wilson dies, 9 times out of 10 he was going to die whether he had 150 hp or 400 hp- because he's the last one alive and he's getting aggrod by two boarillas.)

[meromaro]

it goes with out saying that the best healer is a player who knows what they're doing.

I'm a wilson healer, and i've played with wicker and winona healers. We all did fine, won the game, etc etc.. But the best healer (player) I've encountered used a maxwell. So really, as long as the player knows what they're doing, and depending on the agreed-upon team strategy, any character that can use a staff can heal well.

But I do agree with what Zeklo says:

On 10/26/2017 at 2:58 PM, Zeklo said:

So here's the deal. Wilson's perk doesn't effect healing at all. It's a revive perk, but the reason they're so commonly the healer is due to the sleep caused by the heal staff. It allows coordinating revives much easier. 

If you split healer and reviver you create a situation where the reviver relies on the healer, and if the healer isn't on the same page as the reviver then things go bad. Or if the reviver and healer get split up, also bad. 

Since Wilson is essential to a team due to the revive perk you'll be using two character slots when you could be using one, and you get to avoid any miscommunication between two split roles. Thus for me, Wilson is without a doubt healer.

 

[TheFacelessMane]

The question itself is wrong. There is no "better" healer. Klei has done a brilliant job with all the characters that the only "best" character for a role is wilson-reviving. The character you pick for any other role is circumstantial or based on team needs or team experience. Different characters make up a healer that is the most convenient, fastest, or most powerful. Or in the case of my latest intrigue, finding a healer that increases the team dps and allows for faster wins.

[Thalkas]

Yesterday I played with totally random people. (One of them had a level of 45) He/She would write "play as Winon or Wickerbottom as healer" and it actually makes sense. Wickerbottom has a DPS bonus that also scales with heal from what I noticed. Winon can heal a lot and often.

So Wilson can be a good runner/kitter or DPS and res. No one said that if Wilson had been from revival, he would have to be a healer. 

[Tumalu]

IMO Wicker should always get to run the heal staff until fire staff drops. She can juggle freezes fine but she can't contribute much until the fire staff drops unless she gets the heals- wilson or winona or whoever can still dps until then.

[TheBlob]

On 10/26/2017 at 2:58 AM, Zeklo said:

So here's the deal. Wilson's perk doesn't effect healing at all. It's a revive perk, but the reason they're so commonly the healer is due to the sleep caused by the heal staff. It allows coordinating revives much easier. 

If you split healer and reviver you create a situation where the reviver relies on the healer, and if the healer isn't on the same page as the reviver then things go bad. Or if the reviver and healer get split up, also bad. 

Since Wilson is essential to a team due to the revive perk you'll be using two character slots when you could be using one, and you get to avoid any miscommunication between two split roles. Thus for me, Wilson is without a doubt healer.

This is the logic I've been proceeding under. Also would like to point out that I've tried several games with several different teams/team comps and have been in three winning games so far. Every winning game had a Wilson as the healer. So it works to have him as healer.

I'm definitely not trying to say or imply that other characters as healer can't work equally well, I think they can. I'm just saying- putting Wilson in the healer role is a strategy that seems to reliably work. (And things don't go well if he gets killed by Boarrior as the same time as like three other people in the last phase, so handing him the healing staff gives him more productive work to do than awkwardly hang back out of the danger zone and wait for friends to die :p )

[Sinister_Fang]

On 10/27/2017 at 11:19 AM, TheBlob said:

This is the logic I've been proceeding under. Also would like to point out that I've tried several games with several different teams/team comps and have been in three winning games so far. Every winning game had a Wilson as the healer. So it works to have him as healer.

I'm definitely not trying to say or imply that other characters as healer can't work equally well, I think they can. I'm just saying- putting Wilson in the healer role is a strategy that seems to reliably work. (And things don't go well if he gets killed by Boarrior as the same time as like three other people in the last phase, so handing him the healing staff gives him more productive work to do than awkwardly hang back out of the danger zone and wait for friends to die :p )

Correlation does not equal causation. Especially when you've only had 3 instances of this happening. Because in my experience (2 games won) I could say Wilson isn't a good healer because in those wins none of them used Wilson to heal (instead I just think he's not a good healer cause his perk doesn't directly do anything to effect healing output like Wicker or Winona).

[Allester]

For quickplay, Wilson is indeed a good healer because when the fight start to be messy, it's always good for him to be able to sleep ennemies and revive teamate in the healing area so they come back full life
But in a "team" composition, Wicker is definitely the best healer because of the boosting passive healing, she is able to restore all the life for a tank while the tank is in combat.
Wilson can still be in the comp as dps if you are not confident about the players skill and make the game easier.
(My point of view after +20win / Lvl 41)

[TheKingofSquirrels]

On 26/10/2017 at 5:44 AM, Karmattack said:

Between Wilson and Winona, who makes a better healer? I've heard different people have different answers for this. 

Keep in mind: 

Wilson: Can revive allies rapidly, with more health. 

Winona: Weapon specials refill 10% faster.

 

My personal opinion is Winona, because reviving and healing should be different roles. Stacking those on one person makes you completely screwed if they die in a bad spot. If one or the other is still alive a comeback is still possible. 

Winona hands down.

Wilson should be focused on reviving people, not healing (like you said).

 

[zzKratoszz]

On 10/27/2017 at 3:01 PM, Allester said:

But in a "team" composition, Wicker is definitely the best healer because of the boosting passive healing, she is able to restore all the life for a tank while the tank is in combat.

When I hear best (or better) I wouldn't try and compare it with new players who just installed the game I would look for a more skilled environment to really see what it can do. There is a lot of merit to saying Wilson is a good healer with randoms that can't communicate. But I'm not going to say Wilson is the best healer because he is the best at covering for mistakes caused by a lack of communication. That is too random and you need a sense of skill to actually draw any conclusions. Or in other words an actual team.

If I went by heals per minute Wicker would probably win because her perk is just better at healing. But the healing role also has utility. Mostly in putting mobs to sleep. Which Winona can do 11 times out of 10 for Wicker (not counting variables). Which is useful and why Winona is a good healer. But this is where a hint of skill comes in. A good Wicker can out heal Winona with her perk and she can also out stun her by multi tasking with her book. The only time this isn't very useful is with boss mobs and with the final boss. But its normally the mobs that are the tipping point as a single boss can just be tanked.

I think Wicker and Winona are both good healers. Under the current iteration of the game I would say Wicker is harder to use yet the better healer over all under the current waves thrown at us. Wilson can be great at healing but he isn't better at the role than anyone else. He is just better at reviving with the staff equipped which I don't consider to be a healer role.

And of course being 10% better at healing than other characters doesn't really mean too much in a game with a casual audience in mind where you can win with just about any set up and enough cheese.

[Tumalu]

The main draw in having a healer wilson I'd say is just that it makes it more likely to fit a second wilson into the party. That really helps with keeping up with nasty situations with the Boarrior, especially it's post-summons phase where it attacks very, very aggressively. Once your tanks are reviving with 2/3rds hp instead of having full hp from heals they're liable to die every heal cycle before you can get them back to max, it's a vicious cycle that's tough to keep up with on lower-stun-capable parties. (good stuns like lots of hammers, a woodie who knows when to toss, or a maxwell good enough to not die are REALLY helpful on keeping the tanks alive between heal fields in the last phase)

Winona has slightly less down time between sleep which is valuable for healing everyone before their max hp runs out, but Wicker is better at getting them back to max and can freeze some pigs when the mid-boarrior summons occur, and wilson's faster at reviving whoever falls. But again, I only like wilson healer if it's for the sake of having two wilsons instead of one. I'd prefer Wicker healers (more useful midgame too with the freezing) but winona's OK.

[Toroic]

I think the issue people are running into is they’re confusing 4 issues into two pairings.

Winona is objectively better using the healing staff than Wilson.  Wilson’s revives can replace or suppliment healing (but is also independent of him having the healing staff).

There’s also a separate discussion to be had about pub strats (easier to have one good player healing and reviving) vs coordinated teams.

The real question in many of my games is if you want Wilson and Winona or double Wilson.  Winona with full CDR gear gets the most sleeps, which is the strongest CC in forge.  Healing can be accomplished with double Wilson and no healing at all.