A breakdown of stress heal abilities

[Panfilo]

There had been some questions about who had the 'best' stress heal abilities, and I thought I would break down the various stress heal abilities.

Inspring Tune- Probably the gold standard of stres heals. At level 5 it not only heals 15 stress, it also buffs the target to take -20% less stress for 3 turns. Not only is this a strong stress heal, spamming it increases the stress resistance buff, making that hero even more resistant in sucessive turns. For a hero with a self-mark (Crusader, Leper, MaA) or Guard (MaA,Houndmaster, Antiquarian's target) they are probably going to get all the concentrated stress. Even outside of this, stress dealers tend to pick on the most stressed out hero anyway, so the single target stress heal is very useful. Bright Tambourine and Tyrant's Tasting Cup can both improve the effectiveness of this heal, and since it is already above 10 you will see a definite effect each and every time you use it. Combined with a target that already is receiving extra stress heal received Jester+Abomination combos can be very interesting.

Inspiring Cry- Gives a bit of stress, a bit of healing, and a bit of torchlight. While not as strong as Inspiring Tune, the benefit to this skill is you can pull a hero off Death's Door in the process. This means that Inspiring Cry is the best anti-Heart Attack skill in the game. When a hero has a Heart attack, they go to Death's Door and their stress is at 170. However, at this point they are extremely vulnerable; even one more attack could get their stress to 200 (Lethal if on Death's door) or kill them outright. Inspiring Cry can be a hedge against this, and in the most dire situations turn things around. This works well with the Crusader's Camp skills, one of which can remove mortality debuffs I believe.

Cry havoc- Has a random chance of stress healing each hero. While not guaranteed, there is a chance you could heal 4 heroes with it. Because Madmen,Ghouls,Swine Drummers (and also Courtseans now) have AoE stress attacks, this can help offset those attacks. While not as effective at helping one single very stressed hero, it can help prevent chain-afflictions; once one hero is afflicted he starts AoE stressing his allies, increasing the chances they get afflicted and everybody becomes a gibbering, fibrillating idiot.

Withstand- The Leper's self stress heal. This works well in Antiquarian runs where Antiquarian is using Protect Me. The Leper can use Withstand (particularly if he can't reach any targets) to boost his PROT even further and heal some stress. This is handy to use if you have a window of opportunity like an enemy that will die from DoT the following turn or something. The Leper also has some solid stress management camp skills as well and will hopefully one of the last heroes to get afflicted.

Absolution- It can be used in any position in human form for the Abomination, and also heals him. Its a useful skill for exploiting stalling mechanics, and since the Abomination stresses himself out so much in transforming, can help offset the cost of using his Beast form. One benefit to this combination is that if the heal 'crit heals' then you get that much more stress healed back, and Ancestor's Scroll, and Steady quirk enhance the ability even further.

[SolarDile]

This is excellent, thank you for listing these

[Skinny Pete]

There are a few other sneaky ways of relieving stress. Any time you disarm a trap, you get stress relief. This is why you might want to gamble sometimes on a less than 100% trap disarm character even when you have a guaranteed disarm with another.

Also crits, including on receiving healing, give you a bit of stress relief.

This is why it's sometimes useful to shower even pointless stuns on the last two enemies if you're doing a stress relief/healing cycle at the end of a fight.

Also do not forget stress relieving curios that relieve more stress if you apply something like Holy Water.

Then there's also Laudanum but I nearly never actually bring this along. Does anyone find this stuff all that useful?

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

Cry havoc- Has a random chance of stress healing each hero. While not guaranteed, there is a chance you could heal 4 heroes with it. Because Madmen,Ghouls,Swine Drummers (and also Courtseans now) have AoE stress attacks, this can help offset those attacks. While not as effective at helping one single very stressed hero, it can help prevent chain-afflictions; once one hero is afflicted he starts AoE stressing his allies, increasing the chances they get afflicted and everybody becomes a gibbering, fibrillating idiot.

This is actually my single favorite of the lot. It is not at the incredibly good level of the Jester's stress heal, but it hits everyone, at least possibly, and it's also attached to the Houndmaster, who is a better combatant in general than the Jester.

[RopeDrink]

Jester - strong single-target SHEAL. Nothing fancy about it. If you want to heal as much stress as possible on a single target, this is your bread and butter.

Crusader - low single-target SHEAL, low single-target HEAL. Why does it heal for a fraction of the Jesters version? Because it can remove deaths door (health) and is castable from absolutely anywhere, whereas a Jester has to be in Rank 4 or 3 to use his version. Crusader's also ups torchlight, though that is just a footnote.

Because of this, there's absolutely no reason to take Crusaders battle-heal, especially early-game. If you're healing with a Crusader, it's often because someone is in an emergency state, to which any healing is beneficial, especially on deaths-door. This gets them off DD and also remedies some of the stress inflicted by DD. It is the middle-ground of stress-healing abilities with absolutely NO RESTRICTIONS, hence it is weaker - but not 'weak' as an ability unless you want pure stress-per-buck abilities.

HMaster - moderate chance-based AoE SHEAL. This will (on average) heal more than the Jester over time considering it can potentially SHEAL the entire team, but the payback is that you have no direct control over it. In short, this is to Stress Healing what Wyrd Reconstruction (OCC) is to Healing. It's (mostly) awesome, but there are times when it'll be a completely wasted turn because RNG says so.

Flagellant - not enough people realize that the Flagellant is a semi-stress healer (endure). Rather than flat out 'cure' stress, he essentially SHEALS someone else and adds a little stress to himself -- both of which are modified by stress-resistances/buffs etc. Considering the Flagellant comes with a 1-cost -50 stress camping skill, he can often handle that job on medium/long missions by himself.

In addition, seeing as both he and a Jester are top-bleeders, combining the two means that, during downtime, the Flag can absorb stress from others onto himself and ease the Jesters burden as he then only has to SHEAL the Flagellant. I wouldn't build comps around this concept, but it's something to consider when you are a meta-player who stalls/recovers before each battle ends.

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Withstand - self-centric, no need to discuss. As much as I love Lepers, I wouldn't even put this on my bar. If RHook actually made it so he could stress heal others with it, he might finally stop being the undisputed 'worst class in the game' right now.

Absolution - self-centric, no need to discuss. It is basically Withstand + Lick Wounds rolled into one and the Abom's personal method of allowing further use of beastform (for himself). Being able to self-heal AND self-destress in one ability for such a solid amount is stupid good, but again, I don't see much reason to discuss self-cast stress-heals. Targetable stress-heals are infinitely more important.

[R.O.D.]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Jester - strong single-target SHEAL. Nothing fancy about it. If you want to heal as much stress as possible on a single target, this is your bread and butter.

Crusader - low single-target SHEAL, low single-target HEAL. Why does it heal for a fraction of the Jesters version? Because it can remove deaths door (health) and is castable from absolutely anywhere, whereas a Jester has to be in Rank 4 or 3 to use his version. Crusader's also ups torchlight, though that is just a footnote.

Because of this, there's absolutely no reason to take Crusaders battle-heal, especially early-game. If you're healing with a Crusader, it's often because someone is in an emergency state, to which any healing is beneficial, especially on deaths-door. This gets them off DD and also remedies some of the stress inflicted by DD. It is the middle-ground of stress-healing abilities with absolutely NO RESTRICTIONS, hence it is weaker - but not 'weak' as an ability unless you want pure stress-per-buck abilities.

HMaster - moderate chance-based AoE SHEAL. This will (on average) heal more than the Jester over time considering it can potentially SHEAL the entire team, but the payback is that you have no direct control over it. In short, this is to Stress Healing what Wyrd Reconstruction (OCC) is to Healing. It's (mostly) awesome, but there are times when it'll be a completely wasted turn because RNG says so.

Flagellant - not enough people realize that the Flagellant is a semi-stress healer (endure). Rather than flat out 'cure' stress, he essentially SHEALS someone else and adds a little stress to himself -- both of which are modified by stress-resistances/buffs etc. Considering the Flagellant comes with a 1-cost -50 stress camping skill, he can often handle that job on medium/long missions by himself.

In addition, seeing as both he and a Jester are top-bleeders, combining the two means that, during downtime, the Flag can absorb stress from others onto himself and ease the Jesters burden as he then only has to SHEAL the Flagellant. I wouldn't build comps around this concept, but it's something to consider when you are a meta-player who stalls/recovers before each battle ends.

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Withstand - self-centric, no need to discuss. As much as I love Lepers, I wouldn't even put this on my bar. If RHook actually made it so he could stress heal others with it, he might finally stop being the undisputed 'worst class in the game' right now.

Absolution - self-centric, no need to discuss. It is basically Withstand + Lick Wounds rolled into one and the Abom's personal method of allowing further use of beastform (for himself). Being able to self-heal AND self-destress in one ability for such a solid amount is stupid good, but again, I don't see much reason to discuss self-cast stress-heals. Targetable stress-heals are infinitely more important.

I don't have anything else to add, this is all info thats relevant.