Of Healing Amp and Healing:
Last weekend, I hit the raid circuit hard. HARD. Aerii ran Demon Queen, Shroud, and Hound, while Rachail hit Shroud and Hound. Mirys meanwhile just hit Vision of Destruction(!) and Hound and DQ. I need to flag her for Shroud ASAP.
Aerii - Hound of Xoriat:
In running into HoX, I noted a few things. My aura normally hits for 18-20 points per tic, with Phurry and Peter's Paladins being higher due to human healing amp (I know Phurry has at least a couple tiers, not sure on Peter but I'm fairly safe in assuming he has at least one on both).
Contrast with this raid group; while I was hitting my normal 18/tic on myself, the numbers on my raid group ranged from a low 25 to 30. Yes, 30, on a normal tic. The highest? A Half-Elven Paladin. Possibly Hunter of the Dead, which nets a 10% amp for each tier, as well as 20% from regular racial enhancements, and possibly another 20% off of the Monk dilettante feat (yes, that means a Helf Paladin is the highest healing amp-capable combo in-game). I don't know the gear or anything.
Needless to say, this group was exceptionally easy to heal; through the Subterrea I never even used a burst; just me and a Clonk with our auras up. I actually ended up burning sp destructing high-SR mobs because I was bored. I also got complemented on my ability to actually do so. In raid, we had the smoothest run ever, with neither me or the Clonk having our sp go low enough to matter.
Mirys - Vision of Destruction on Hard:
This is a difficult raid at best; waves of devils and orthons and fiendish bats all doing more damage than a typical aura can heal. It's also level 18 on normal; 19 on Hard. Thus I was shocked to find a LFM with level 16 as the low end. I joined out of morbid curiousity; I expected a wipe.
Instead, we completed, with no deaths. I'll admit I burned through a half-stack of scrolls. However, our tank was excellent, and two arcanes and two melees made short work of the undending waves of devilish forces.
On our tank, my scrolls were landing for 249hp each. Heal scrolls, mind you, are CL 12, so 120hp base healing. I have the first tier of wand and scroll enhancement, which gives an extra 25%. This puts it basically at CL15, 150hp.
I found that player on the DDO forums, and asked what his amp % was. There, I found out it doesn't quite stack as you'd think; his 10%, 20%, 20%, and 5% didn't just add up to 55%. No, it stacks multiplicatively. To break it down, it means 1.1 * 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.05 * 150 = 249.48 (always round down in DDO).
To break down his gear, he had 10% on his DT armor, 20% from enhancements, 20% from a Tower of Despair ring, and 5% from a Paladin past life. Like enhancements don't stack, so a 20% ring and a 20% bracers won't stack. However, 10% and 20% on two different items will. Enhancements stack additively, meaning that the three HotD 10% would add up to 30%, while human healing amp would add up to 20-30% (Helves only get 20%, normally). Stacking amp with different sources stack mulitplicatively. (The Helf max amp Paladin would be 1.3 * 1.2 * 1.2 = 1.872 or 87% healing amp. Or 280hp on a heal scroll with that 1 tier the Mirys and Aerii both carry )
In both cases, I relied on heal scrolls for spot healing. I used mass cures to heal groups, centered on me.
It was three well-earned lessons on being a Divine caster, and on helping the Divine caster as well as the entire group.
Caster: Carry heal scrolls, and scrolls of other things with more situational use. Restoration is just as powerful in scroll form as spell, and far cheaper than an sp pot. As I have shown, a Heal scroll can land for half of Corwin's hp with just 1ap investment. Likewise, scroll things like Raise dead; Ressurection scrolls are expensive and slow, so you don't want to resort to those in-combat. Ress and True ress are combat raises, you want both in case you need to chain them to bring up several people quickly.
To help the Divine: Carry potions. Everyone in the VoD group took care of their own curses, even the tank. Since getting cursed in there is nearly instant death, it's highly important to be able to remove curses, and pots are cheap and easy, and sp free. Neutralize poison comes in potion form that lasts 7 minutes. Other status-removal pots are also cheap and equally effective as the spell. Handle your own buffs as much as possible. Rangers and Paladins as well as Divines and Arcanes can cast an equally effective Resist Energy. Rangers and Bards get Freedom of Movement, and Bards get most of the arcane's best buffs.
If you can UMD, do so: UMD-characters (which should be anyone with a high CHA like Sorcerers as well as Bards and Rogues) can fairly easily use Heal scrolls as well; I was once raised from the dead by a Barbarian who used a scroll. It took considerable burden when healing the tanks in both VoD and HoX to see a rogue (two in VoD) hurling heal scrolls at the others to help spot heal them. Rachail can hit 27 now, and can break 30 once I respec. I can tack on another 9 from DT and GS boosters. A CHA skills item and the exception CHA skills on the first tier DT are on my to-do list before TRing.
On another note: I may be working over tomorrow, as I have to fill a crate, train three people, fix the crimp machine when it gets broken again, and generally be the manager as we're extremely short handed. The crate will likely be the killer. We got over 100 in there, out of around 800. We normally hit around 400-500 in a day, so that's 200-300 short.