Best healing in melee tactics?

[goobyplz]

Been messing around with options to heal while attacking, wanted to see if anyone has any good ideas. I am specifically looking for good PVP options.

That's why I don't like what might be most obvious, prayerful strike. Though it does heal for a good chunk, it has a terrible windup and recovery time, exactly what you DONT want in PVP. I can already see ROB users eating alive anyone that tried to use it.

Blood tax is interesting, but it has some of the same lockup problems. Windup is not SO bad, but the animation is long and does not track so well, i imagine it can get you backstabbed pretty easily.

Great stars and butcher knife are some obvious go tos. They both work wonders with multi-hit AOEs like hoarfrost stomp and waves of darkness, each tic of the skills triggers the 1% heal. Respectable against single mobs, but its almost wrong how much health you can regen against multiple enemies.

That seems to be all I have found so far, if anyone else has come up with any good ideas I would love to hear em.

[Dollmaker]

Either Healing Over time spells (Which gotta pre-cast them) or the Swaddling Cloth talisman that heals after landing some hits, or Blessed Dew.

Could also use the Crimson Dagger talisman that heals on Ripostes, besides that, idk.

[Ulmace]

edgelord set, but only works on very low hp, enough to counter poison

[Xengre]

For pure PvP?

Dollmaker's suggestion of HP Regen over time which is, as properly stated because it is important, pre-casted for the core healing if you're using faith buffs. The Blessed Dew talisman and the shield can be used for a weaker amount but that on its own isn't much and would be best used either stacked with a healing buff or for countering poison/rot purposes by reducing their DoT. One option is the mixed physick tear that has a +7 HP/s heal for a large 3 minutes which is very potent (make sure to stick to your target in case you need to punish at tempts at Law of Regression to counter your tear if they're Int builds).

Another option IF and ONLY IF you are very confident in being able to hold a spot dominantly and preferably if you have range (aka larger reaching attack options) you can command a Warmth or the Frenzy version for extremely potent healing options as Warmth, alone, can heal iirc 25 HP/s and the Frenzy version even more (if you have the affliction). It can also serve as bait to unnerve and force your opponent to be reckless. However, keep in mind it also means they can do some stuff to pull you away or force a chance to back off and get an Estus heal (at which point you can heal/buff too!). You can either use that chance to punish them with ranged dmg (crossbow/magic/weapon art) or pursue them if they try to back off from your area and pull you or seek their own chance to heal/buff. You will have to make that judgement based on your circumstances.

Otherwise you're stuck with the weapon art options you mentioned in your initial post.

If you're on host side and this is not a duel but you're being invaded you can use flat healing prayers which are incredibly flask efficient if yo need a fast strong heal and not the more efficient HP regen.

There is also a tear that turns elemental dmg into HP which is nice vs casters if you pop it at the right time. It lasts for 15 seconds. See wiki for specific details though: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Crimsonwhorl+Bubbletear

[Hamshank cat]

Try prelate fire charge with the butcher knife, godskin swathe cloth talisman and blessed dew talisman. You regen hp way too fast out of it

[cybercybercybercyber4]

how about roll behind/through them, use "rejection", follow up with lords heal.

sounds reasonable to me on first glance but i dont know how rejection exactly works on players.