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Dark Souls 3 has many Miracles that you can use to heal yourself in a pinch. Two of the best are Great Heal and Soothing Sunlight – but how do they stack up?
Great Heal provides a large amount of healing for you and your allies
Soothing Sunlight provides massive healing, at the cost of more FP
Both Great Heal and Soothing Sunlight are great. But which one suits your build best?
Great Heal Details
Great Heal’s item description
Effect: Heals you and nearby allies for 5.5 x your talisman’s Spell Buff stat Focus Cost: 65 Faith Requirement: 25
Great Heal is an excellent healing spell for any player that can meet its casting requirements.
Its reasonable requirement of 25 points in Faith isn’t too hard to meet, and is all but guaranteed to be suitable for any build that uses Miracles.
Great Heal’s Focus Cost also contributes to its ease of use, as 65 points leaves you with plenty of FP to cast another small Miracle, including weapon or player buffs such as Deep Protection.
Casting Carthus Flame Arc to buff a weapon after using Great Heal
This makes it ideal for PvP combat, as you can heal and buff yourself without having to waste an Estus Flask and precious time refilling your FP bar.
The amount that Great Heal will heal you for is directly tied to the talisman or chime that you cast it with.
To find out exactly how much HP Great Heal will heal you for, find the ‘Spell Buff’ stat on your equipped talisman or chime’s stats page, then multiply it by 5.5.
A talisman stat screen – you can find your Spell Buff number in the ‘Attack power’ column
This number is increased greatly by upgrading your talisman or chime, so be sure to upgrade them with Titanite as you progress through the game.
There are few downsides to using Great Heal – although the only true drawback of the spell is that other stronger healing spells exist.
Despite that, Great Heal is perfect for those that don’t want to invest the extreme amount of Faith needed to cast those superior spells.
How To Get Great Heal
Warp to the Distant Manor Bonfire
Walk out onto the Irithyll lake
You’ll find Great Heal on a corpse in a side-path to the left of the bridge in the lake
Soothing Sunlight Details
Soothing Sunlight’s item description
Effect: Heals you and nearby allies for 7 x your talisman’s Spell Buff stat Focus Cost: 80 Faith Requirement: 45
Soothing Sunlight is the best high-end healing Miracle in the game. Despite its colossal Faith requirement of 45, it’s still worth using for any build that was going to put 35-40 points in Faith anyway.
You’re unlikely to spot many dedicated Faith builds that don’t run Soothing Sunlight as their healing Miracle of choice. This is mostly due to its huge healing effect.
Using Soothing Sunlight
Like Great Heal, the amount of HP that Soothing Sunlight will heal is dependent on your talisman or chime’s Spell Buff stat.
Unlike Great Heal, though, Soothing Sunlight will heal you for a huge 7 times your current Spell Buff total.
With a fully upgraded high-quality talisman, this will often result in a full HP bar worth of healing.
The Canvas Talisman is available early and is a perfect talisman for late-game Miracle casting
Unfortunately, this massive healing does come at a cost.
Soothing Sunlight’s FP cost of 80 means that you’ll have to invest in Attunement if you want to cast more Miracles without using an Ashen Estus Flask.
While investing a few extra points into Attunement might not seem like a big deal, it may prove to be once you’ve already put a mountain of points into Faith to cast Soothing Sunlight.
Failing to cast another spell after using Soothing Sunlight
How To Get Soothing Sunlight
Kill the Curse-Rotted Greatwood in Undead Settlement to get the Transposing Kiln
Kill the Dancer of The Boreal Valley to get the Soul of the Dancer
Take both items to Ludleth, the NPC sat on a throne in Firelink Shrine
You can now trade the Soul with Ludleth and receive Soothing Sunlight in return
Which Healing Spell is Best?
Due to each spell only taking one attunement slot, you may want to equip both Miracles
Soothing Sunlight is clearly much stronger than Great Heal. However, its sky-high Faith requirement means it’s only really suitable for builds that are already investing heavily into Faith.
If you’re using Faith as a secondary part of your build, you’re likely to be locked out of using it entirely.
If that’s the case then Great Heal is an excellent spell to pick up for some healing support.
If you have enough Faith and attunement slots, you might even choose to equip both spells, and choose which to use depending on how much FP you have to spare.
Jack is a writer from the UK that spends too much time Nuzlocking the Pokémon series. After a crushing defeat, he relaxes by rewatching Attack On Titan in the hope that it'll make the final season come out sooner - It never does.
