Healing Word

Healing Word is the best 1st-level heal because it brings a friend back into the game

At the table. Healing Word restores 2d4 plus your spellcasting modifier as a Bonus Action, at 60 feet, with a Verbal component only. With a +3 modifier that averages 8 Hit Points. Cure Wounds heals more (12 average with the same modifier) but costs your action and needs a touch. The 2024 rules doubled both dice: in SRD 5.1, Healing Word was 1d4 and Cure Wounds 1d8.

The choice that matters is when you cast it. A creature at 0 Hit Points is out of the fight, and any healing brings it back. Two points and twenty points get the same result: they stand, they act on their turn. So the strongest use of Healing Word is the pick-up. Wait until an ally drops, then speak one word from across the room and keep your action for a spell or attack.

The common mistake is topping up. Spending a slot to lift a Fighter from 30 to 38 Hit Points rarely changes anything; the monster's next hit will take it back. Heal the person on the floor, not the person with a scratch.

The human angle. Being unconscious means sitting out. The dice keep rolling and the story goes on without you. Eisenberger, Lieberman and Williams found that being left out of a simple ball-tossing game activated brain regions linked to physical pain. A player on 0 Hit Points, rolling death saves while everyone else fights, is being left out in a small way. Healing Word ends that in a Bonus Action. It is the spell that says "you're still with us". For more on why the table itself helps people, read The Psychology of Play: Why D&D Heals.

Source: Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290–292. doi:10.1126/science.1089134