Let’s talk strategy for a bit this week. 
In the past, I’ve often mentioned how important speed is in Splinterlands battles. Speed really decides the flow of the game, and I’ve already written about it a bunch of times. But this week, I want to dive into something different: Heal.
Now, for veteran players this might all be common knowledge. But my intention with this post is to help out the newer players, especially those who are just starting out and trying to get a grip on Frontier mode. Heal can be a tricky mechanic to understand at first, and the small details really matter. If you get it right, it can literally turn the tide of a battle.
For those who want the official documentation, here’s the link from Splinterlands support: 👉 Heal Ability Official Page
What Does Heal Do?
We’ll focus here on self-heal, since that’s what we have available in Frontier mode right now.
The heal mechanic restores 1/3 of a monster’s max health each round, rounded down.
That little “rounded down” detail is important. It means your monster doesn’t just automatically get a huge chunk of HP back every time — it scales with how much health they have. For example:
- 7 health = heals 2
- 8 health = heals 2
- 9 health = heals 3
- 10 health = heals 3
So hitting those higher health numbers is crucial. Each jump in healing makes a massive difference in how long your unit can survive.
The Frontier Healer – Dread Tafarian
In Frontier, there’s only one monster with self-heal: Dread Tafarian.
At level 1, Dread Tafarian comes with 6 base health. If you’re using the only available Earth summoner in Frontier, Aurelia, you get +1 health. That means 7 total, and with level 3 it gets 9 health, Tafarian heals then 3 HP per round.
But here’s where it gets interesting. If you boost Tafarian’s health further with cards like Giam Root, or level up Tafarian to level 2, you can push its health to 9.
At 9 health, Tafarian heals 3.
That extra healing is massive. Think about it: if your opponent can only deal 3 damage per round, you’re basically neutralizing all of their effort. Your Tafarian just shrugs it off and stays alive much longer than they expect.
Of course, to run a level 2 Tafarian, you’ll also need a level 2 Aurelia summoner. But once you’re there, the healing difference becomes very noticeable.
Why Speed Still Matters
Now, let’s connect Heal back to speed, since the two are tied together in a way that isn’t obvious at first.
Heal doesn’t just trigger automatically at the start or end of a round. It activates on the monster’s turn. That means the speed of your healer decides when the heal happens — and sometimes that timing isn’t ideal.
If your healer is too fast, it will act before it even takes damage in the first round. That means its very first heal is essentially wasted, since there’s nothing to recover yet. On the other hand, if your healer is too slow, there’s a real risk it gets knocked out before its turn comes up and the heal can trigger at all.
So here it is to preference one battle faster is better and the other might helfull that it using its heal already in the first round. You want your healer to survive long enough to act, but not so fast that it wastes its healing potential early. This is one of those subtle mechanics that really clicks after playing more battles and paying attention to attack order. And about attack order you can write another entire posts because that is not easy to understand 🤣
Battle Example
Here’s an example of how this works in practice:
👉 Watch the Battle click the image
In this fight, my opponent is running a level 1 Aurelia without Giam Root. That means their Dread Tafarian is only healing 2 per round. Meanwhile, my Tafarian is hitting that magic 3-heal threshold thanks to better health.
The outcome? My healer just outlasts theirs. Every round, my Tafarian is patching up more damage than the opponent’s, and eventually, they simply can’t keep up.
This is why those small details — 2 vs 3 healing per round — are so huge. On paper, it looks like a minor difference. In battle, it’s often the deciding factor.
Counter strategy
You could counter this strategy with using abilities that reduces max healt like cripple. https://images.hive.blog/50x0/https://d36mxiodymuqjm.cloudfront.net/website/abilities/ability_cripple.png. No foundation card has this ability but there are ruleset that grant every unit
'Tis But Scratches - All units will gain the cripple ability.
In the foundation set there is this combination:
-1 health and the weak ability does another -1 health
Se be aware of these units when you go for this strategy as this reduces the amount you can heal... so even the linup that is shown below it will reduce the health so you only heal for 2. This is the reason why i think it often better to play death in that situation but that might be personal preference.
Final Thoughts
For new players just stepping into Frontier, the Heal ability is one of the first “aha” moments you’ll have with battle mechanics. It’s not just about having the ability — it’s about maximizing it with the right health thresholds, the right summoner, and the right support monsters.
If your healer is restoring 3 health per round while your opponent only restores 2, you’ll feel that advantage snowballing very quickly. Combine that with careful attention to speed order, and you’ll see why veteran players value this ability so much.
That’s all for this week’s strategy dive. I hope this helped some of you newer players understand why Heal is such a powerful ability and how to take advantage of it in Frontier mode. Give it a try in your next battles and see how much longer your frontline can survive when it’s patched up every round.
See you all on the battlefield
Do you also want to be part of this amazing play to earn game consider using my refferal link.