How many healers?

[Nicknick]

Lets see.

1 healer
+basic healing
-needs extra military units for protection
-losing it means immediate retreat or risk losing all the army
-cannot attack, for it could be killed
-no safe flanking

2 healers
+both heal each other
+both can attack
+do not need extra military units for protection
+can support one flanking maneuver with healing
+losing one does not impose severe penalties
+support limited 2-way army split

3 healers
+support 2 safe flanking maneuvers (left/right/ center offensive )
+support a stretched army line
+support limited 3-way army split

4 healers
Thats basically 2 healers supporting 2-way full army split.

Every additional healer is points 2 and 3 repeated. So i would say 3 healers is best, given limited resources in the game. I had a 3 Shydes/4 Sylphes army and it waltzed thought HttT like hot knife through butter. (next time ill add 2 more sylphes)

[Greep]

Yeah 4 healers is pretty much overkill IMO, two's fine for me. More important, as others have said, is getting tough soldiers in front to form a blocking wall, and fast units for when you absolutely need speed. However, getting your very first healer is a very high priority, as it'll be working overtime all by itself. E.g. even though shamans are pretty "meh" I will make one to start out HttT because it levels to +8 heal so darned fast.

[zhah_du_gar]

It depends on your and your enemies' faction. Healers generally fight very well against undeads(more so in the older versions). They are very effective against units which have low HP and high resistance(like ghosts). But units like knights(hihg MP) take a lot of time to heal. Sometimes you have regenerating units which don't require healing. And if you are playing something like orcs or undeads you won't have one healer.

In the end I usually have just 2 healers.

[Eolith]

I most often play as Elves, so I am concentrating on Scouts early on (to grab villages), then Fighters (or Archers if the front line is far away) complemented by Shamans and Archers (or Fighters if Archers were recruited first.) The exact number of healers I use depends on several key points:

1. How much money do I have available?
2. Who am I fighting?
3. What other units do I have in the field?
4. What kind of units do I need in the field?
5. Can I afford to lose units?

and # 6. (if it is a campaign) Am I likely to need healers in future scenarios?

I tend to recruit mainly Fighters for a while, since they are a relatively cheap unit that combines a decent melee attack, a fair ranged attack, and average health. Add in Archers and Shamans for stuff like Trolls, Orcish Grunts, and level 2s/3s, and you have a strong force, especially in forest. Scouts are also useful for outflanking the enemy and grabbing villages, or simply running to plug a hole in the lines until reinforcements can arrive.

Shamans can also be useful when fighting Loyalists, although a Fighter/Archer combination tends to be better against Cavalry, Horsemen, Mages, Spearmen, and Bowmen. On the other hand, if your enemy is using large numbers of Heavy Infantry, then Shamans are worth their weight in gold since they can slow those enemies who you cannot kill, thus reducing your losses the next turn.

Undead are a different matter, requiring a careful balance of units depending mostly on what the enemy recruits. If they focus on Ghosts and Vampire Bats, I would not suggest using many healers since Archers are more useful in those situations, but when fighting Skeletons and Skeleton Archers, they often come in handy, in my experience.

Drakes are a category to themselves. A moderate number of healers may prove useful, but it is probably best to concentrate on high-damage/HP units that can keep the enemy busy for a while. Thus, I normally use a combination of Fighters and Archers in such cases, although Shamans have often proved useful against slower Drakes (such as Gladiators) who pack a heavy punch melee but have no real ranged attack.

Elves vs. Dwarves, yeah, Shamans are useful. They can slow all those Dwarvish Fighters (or Steelclads in Age of Heroes) thus preventing, or lessening, the heavy losses that so often result from such clashes. Still, Archers and Fighters are essential to the war effort.

Elves vs. Elves, well, it depends. I have not tried that recently. I believe I only tried it once, so I really cannot say anything about it save from conjecture. I do not think Shamans would be much good against other Elves, although Sorceresses would be. Once again, it depends on what your opponent recruits. (If they recruit mainly Woses, use Shamans to slow them and Fighters to kill them- if you can.)

These strategies apply, to some extent, for other races as well (using their equivalent units, of course.) It depends largely on the kind of healer available and what you are fighting, along with how much money you have available to spend on healers.

P.S. I apologize if this seems a little too lengthy- I felt I should address several different potential situations in Multiplayer.

P.P.S. Depending on the game, I have had anywhere from 0 to 15 healers on the map. Most often, it is somewhere between 2 and 6.

[joshudson]

I tend to play with 4-6 healers in recall list, using 2 healers for task force.

In ItfU due to unit count restrictions on the final section I played with 3 (2 + hero healer) and found myself wanting another a couple of times.