Three Healer Rotation

[Atholk]

The early game just seems to be "get three followers and have one of them heal".

The mid-game works like this...

Main Character = The Tank

Get three healer followers and gear them in defensive armor, defensive trinkets, and 2H weapons.

Engage the enemy. Once any healer starts getting battered, simply equip it with a healing staff, and get the main character to pull aggro on whatever to beating on the healer. For some reason healing is very low threat, and the main character will gain aggro and the healer will start healing.

I find you can actually get away with a single healing staff being swapped between the healers for around 90% of the time as long as you're pulling just 1-2 mobs at a time.

Because the healers will be in combat more frequently, they will level up faster, typically only lagging behind the main character by 1-2 levels. If one healer is higher level than the others, having it be the default healer will speed the leveling of the other 2 healers.

The end-game...

Get a nasty nasty nasty 2H weapon on your main character, stack attack and most importantly stack speed. It's totally unreal. :D

[Damaggott]

Depends on your class. Most classes don't gain their speed bonuses if they're using 2-handed weapons, and the really high-powered endgame weapons do as much damage as 2-handers anyway--the difference is they're usually faster and you still get to use a shield. (In my last game my most powerful weapons were all 1H.) Stack the swift bonuses, a class bonus, a fast or very fast weapon, a steel shield, an amulet of power, and something of quickness, and prayers to the cat god, and you end up with a food processor with legs. This is especially true in large games when you can end up finding shields that are 9/8s by themselves; it's hard to find a 2H weapon that beats a 1H, 15 attack very fast weapon and a 9/8 shield with no speed penalty. Gear out your whole party with that stuff and you won't even need healers in combat; half the time the base will be wiped before a third of your health is gone, and that's assuming you don't manage to pull them one or two at a time. That being said, I do usually keep at least one healer active, but I've gone into combat without them--and usually do if I expect to get swamped. The biggest threats in the game are enemy casters, large numbers, and enemies with high crits; in each case, your best shot is to have a lot of thugs with axes. The enemy glass cannons die quickly and the swarms don't get to focus their attacks. You'll just have to watch your lifebars in case one unlucky sod in your party draws an undue amount of attention to himself or happens to be targeted by all the casters at once.

In the endgame, rejuvenation potions can substitute for healers, or do enough that one decent healer will be plenty. Running three healers is a fun way to dreadnought your way through bases, but they're fragile if they're geared just to heal and their casting time is slow enough that you can be overwhelmed and killed before they've had a chance to cast their first heal.