Talk:Holy Fighter (5e Optimized Character Build)

"I always thought the Divine Smite feature was a little to over powered. I mean the spell I usauly compare it to, cure wounds, only heals 1d8 while Divine Smite deals 2d8." Cure Wounds heals 1d8 + Ability Mod, which is typically in the +4 range (perhaps lower for Paladins if they don't prioritize Cha, but still typically +2-+3). That's pretty comparable even if PCs and enemies of appropriate CR had similar hit points. But they typically don't; most monsters with a given CR seem to have 50-100% more HP than a Paladin PC of that level, so the damage is being absorbed by a much larger pool of HP than what the healing restores. And of course, healing is rarely wasted (you don't heal up to full and risk wasting healing unless adventuring is done for the day), while the extra damage from Divine Smite is wasted any time it would take the opponent past zero HP. Sure, Divine Smite is free in the action economy, whole Cure Wounds isn't, but when Cure Wounds is used to bring back an unconscious party member, they get an action they otherwise wouldn't have had, so they're dealing the damage you couldn't because you used your action to heal them.

Point is, Divine Smite definitely isn't overpowered relative to Cure Wounds. They're pretty comparable; Divine Smite is weaker relative to a Cure Wounds on an unconscious character, and probably stronger than Cure Wounds on an injured but functional character, but it's all pretty situational.