Seems to me the most effective way to heal your party is to take a biomancer psyker, but I don't want to play another psyker. Is there any way tech-priests and acolytes can compete, because if so I'm not seeing it.

No, the most effective healer is the Adept (Surgeon) with all talents and a high Intelligence, if you combine that with a low level Psyker with the Heal minor power they can live through anything...

Santiago said:

A Tech-Priest with a Medicae Mechadendrite comes close (and is extremely proficient at implanting Bionics), though, as does a Sister Hospitaller (whose Acts of Faith can boost the amount she heals beyond the normal practical limits of most mundane healers, even if her Intelligence tends to be a little lower than Adepts or Tech-Priests)

The key to healing is your int bonus. Both tech priests and adepts tend to be great healers. With unnatural intelligence this can easily be 10-12 points.

Dalnor Surloc said:

IB really only counts if the patent is lightly wounded IIRC. With Master Churgion (or how ever it is spelled), an IB above 4 wouldn't see much use in the healing arts at all and the most the Unnatural Inelegance will net is a reduction in the difficulty of the extended care medicae tests.

That's the thing, unless I'm missing something (which i may be, exam week and no time to go through the rule book) then you can only heal through medicae and related if the target is lightly wounded, whereas a biopsyker can heal everything up to and including critical damage.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

Oh no, you got a little bit wrong there. Medicae heals all forms of damage, just not as quickly. On initial treatment, the medicae heals wounds equal to his IB on lightly wounded individuals, and 1 point on heavily and critically wounded. Master Chiurgion (how ever that is spelled) will allow the character to heal 2 wounds instead of 1 on Heavily and Critically wounded individuals.

However, and this is a touch complicated, First Aid may be attempted once per wound (not wound point: if a character got hit three times with a chain sword and suffered 3 pts of damage, 5 pts of damage, and 9 pts of damage, then First Aid could be attempted 3 times, once per wound suffered). So, a character who lost 17 wounds due to three attacks from a chain sword could have 3-6 points of that restored through first aid (one check per wound suffered).

Then, of course, there's extended care...

Thinking mid-combat healing here, for when you're down to three wounds and there's four or five goons left. And another benefit to the biopsyker is that he can heal multiple party members at once without taking away their action.

If your team mates take hardy or autosanguine normal healing does pretty well. Also, consider getting a resusatrix chamber to speed up the process.

It's still easier to just get a biomancer, but it's certainly workable with a tech priest/adept/sororitas healer.

Graspar said:

So now my love of efficiency has to clash with my wanting to play something other than a psyker...Marvelous.

The fact is that you aren't going to find a better healer than a biomancer. They are easily the most efficient healers in the game.

One of the DH campaigns I'm running at the moment has a psyker (not a biomaner) with the minor heal power and at Techpriest Master Chirgeoun (sp?). Between them they keep the group up and running. If the TP was on his own however it would obviously take far longer. If the GM is used to having a psyker in the group to heal people he will have to get used to the players needing a lot more downtime to rest up.

Nigh7Gaun7: Is your group severely prone to getting chewed up? I ask because you really seem adamant about having a healer around.

There's only three of us, one telepathic psyker and two assassins. We're all kind of squishy.

I really wish you could edit or posts on this forum...

If my psyker dies, then obviously we ran into something we needed healing for. And I'd like to play a support character for once, given that I'm usually a front-line fighter.

[EDIT]

Wow, the edit button is not obvious at all. Oh well, the more you know.