That’s a fair point, I guess the last of proper spell-casters in the MM made me forget that’s actually a thing. Still, a good roll for a level 3 fireball is CR 6 damage (According to page 274 in the DMG). 6th level players should have ways of avoiding getting trapped in a loop.

Personal opinion ahead but I think that healing, getting knocked down and having back up again isn’t a loop, more of a loss of a single resource, and it’s not that bad if the enemy does it with it’s strongest, resource using attack.
The real issue would be if a monster can do that with average rolls with a regular at-will attack. The only creature I can think of that can use fireball at-will (or at least 3+ times in a fight) is the Pit Fiend, which is something that should be able to do that kind of hurt.

Enemy spellcasters with AoEs spring to mind. Fireball don’t care that you just got a cure wounds for Xd8+5. An NPC spellcaster deciding to cast fireball immediately after you got healed is not the DM being a jerk, it’s just the course of the fight and NPCs working toward their apparent goals. (Let’s take it as read that you’re of a level where an NPC casting a 3rd-level spell is not weird.) Be glad that you got healed and didn’t take a failed death save, I guess.

If that’s the case, you should be trying to break the loop in another way. Find a way to pull that character – either metaphorically or literally – out of the situation.

I can’t personally think of that happening without either using a very deadly monster/mob of monsters or just the DM wanting to annoy you.

In his follow-up replies, he says that “balancing the game” is distinct from how the adventuring day feels. I think it’s one of those cases where a tweet (even a super-sized 280 character tweet) can’t accurately convey the nuances of his design process and nomenclature, and leads to misunderstandings.

Here’s Jeremy Crawford’s unofficial alternative, which I like all right: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/935992604080013312

And here’s some more relevant commentary, which I have a really hard time accepting as written: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/935995896637964290

We’re jumping ahead, but I think the spell “Healing Spirit” went a step too far. It’s fine for in-combat healing, but if used out of combat it becomes ludicrous. For one second-level slot, it effectively provides 10d6 points of healing to every party member. (It can potentially do the exact same thing during combat, healing 1d6 per round over the course of one minute, but it requires the caster’s concentration, and some fancy footwork from the PCs who want to benefit from the healing field.)

That’s my hope, too. Xanathar’s subclasses are certainly flashier, and they give more classes access to certain features without the need for multi-classing or feats. Conversely, they also have subclasses that sacrifice some versatility for greater focus on a core feature (like a Hexblade who takes Path of the Blade).

For every feature that seems overpowered, a player is going to have to give something up, sooner or later. Of course, if what they’re giving up is an unimpressive situational feature that they never would have used anyway, then that could be seen as a sort of power creep.

I really hope this is a sign of WotC learning the ins and outs of the 5E system (which is actually really different to previous systems) and realising how they can pushing things without breaking the game.
Cause if it isn’t, it’s a sign of power creep, and I don’t want that rearing it’s ugly head again.

From what I’ve seen, XGtE isn’t strictly power creep, it’s newer and different options as opposed to objectively better options. I hope that isn’t my rose tinted glasses though.

It’s the Chumbawamba of game play, certainly.

Thinking about building a druid w/ totem spirit replaced w/ the (revised) beastmaster’s animal companion ability but that also means figuring out a replacement for guardian spirit. Another ability i’m thinking of is one to charm beasts.

Faithful Summons to me is similar to a defensive version of the spell less ranger’s call natural allies ability. maybe replace it w/ said feature, removing favored terrain requirement and keep faithful summons trigger

thanks for the reminder that arcane shot req. magic arrows is a mistake