This is one of the most controversial discussions in the AFK Arena community for quite some time – do you need a healer and, if yes, which one is the best to use?
In this article here I will give you some of my personal answers to that as well as a ranking on how powerful I see each individual healing hero in AFK Arena.
Is A Healer Necessary?
In short, yes. While you can beat the early stages in AFK Arena quite well without any healing at all you will learn fast that once you entered the Level 160+ world, enemy teams get tougher and battles become more extended because of cc, shielding and other possibilities. And that’s the point where you need some kind of hero that will help your team to stay alive!
The sooner you make a plan which healer you want to go for (and also start saving up epic copies to ascend), the better it will become.
I had this problem on my first account when I did not give any damn about a healer and it took me quite a while to get Nemora up and running to be able to continue in the game.
Best Healers In AFK Arena
Okay, I think you understand that there’s much more this question than a simple yes or no. It comes down to your team and how your heroes work along each other – in general, the further you get in AFK Arena the more important a healer will become because you will face more and more teams that simply use a lot of shielding and other endurance things so your team will have a longer battle in front of them where a healer comes in really handy.
Instead of giving you a “this is the best, this is the second best, …” kinda list of healers I want to name the most useful ones and their individual strengths as well as some points that show which one will fit your team best 🙂
Nemora
I don’t think there’s much room to discuss about the fact that Nemora has the biggest healing effect later in the game – when looking at raw stats. If your team uses a setup that will make it survive long enough so she will be able to use her ultimate, your whole team is up and running again.
And this is the thing with Nemora and why I don’t like that she is everywhere the #1 Healer – she can be squishy and in some battles, she will die off so fast that her ultimate heal is almost impossible to get used so you just brought her as a filler.
That dependency makes her a very good healer if you have a team with good endurance (e.g. shielding from Lucius etc.), but not a no-brainer #1 Healer in AFK Arena for me.
Rowan
In my opinion, Rowan is primarily a support hero – but his ability to give out 3x healing to the hero(es) that fall below 50% is making him also quite strong here.
Normally, you don’t need to heal your whole team back up – you just want to prevent that a hero dies off quick before your carrier hero can use his ultimate. And this is a perfect situation for Rowan because he does make that happen plus supporting your whole team with his role.
I’d say that Rowan is a perfectly balanced thing for most teams when you need a little healing but don’t want to sacrifice a whole slot entirely to healing. Also, his Signature Item is really strong and gives out free energy.
Lucius
Yes, Lucius is officially marked as a recovery hero in AFK Arena… but the reason is that he has a ability to heal the ally with the lowest health.
Neither is his heal great but the fact that his shield ultimate is really strong and he is a solid tank makes him a really strong hero in AFK Arena who will add a lot towards your team’s durability.
But in terms of healing, well, Lucius quite sucks 😀
Talene
Well, she’s quite fresh in AFK Arena and not a primary healer – She primarily deals solid damge and has good survivability, you can compare that to Shemira with her Life Leech. She has the ability to heal allies but that does depend on her own health bar when she heals which makes it pretty hard to predict and rely on.
If you have her well-ascended and want to go rather for damage and the quick damage output, she is suitable for you but in terms of a classic healer I’d not pick her first priority.
Numisu
Numisu is a tough healer to rate and I have the feeling that his best work is in a team that works perfectly around his totems – but in the current meta I don’t see him/her working that effective.
The reason is not that his (let’s just refer to Numisu as male, ok?) totems don’t heal well, the reason is that his totems become target of any AoE damage quite fast and heroes like Shemira are all over the place. I think with more buffing Lilith can make Numisu a decent healer but right now I wouldn’t prefer him at all.
