Healers: Extremely Limited Options

MasterSpatula

This thread confirmed for me what I was already suspecting. "Play like you want" aside, there is simply nothing in the Heavy Armor or Medium Armor lines that aids in healing. In order to have sufficient crits, magica cost reduction, and magica pool, a viable healer needs use Light Armor. This, in turn, forces you into Ranged for your DPS and Magica for your resource pool, which locks you into Destrostaff for your DPS bar.

I respecced last night and am now frantically trying to gain XP in Light Armor and Destro staff as fast as possible. Goodbye, warrior/healer I actually wanted to play.

Would have been nice if Heavy Armor had given a large bonus to all heals received and given and Medium Armor had given a bonus to critical heals, making both a little more viable for healers. That would have been well-designed and would have fit in with the stated philosophy of the game. Perhaps we could push for these changes...?

Innocente

I like Templar Resto Staff / Bow spec. Splits the DPS between Stamina and Magicka. But, is really the same problem. Templar is really the only truly viable healing spec for full on healing. And that with Lt. Armor and a race such as Breton which benefits healers and Lt. Armor.

tanthil

Play like you want, you can wear light armor and have better magika you can wear heavy armor and have better defense. so make your choice.

Its really stupid to assume you can just take the highest defense armor and get all the benefits of the the others.

Hell, if you could you would be right back here crying.. Play how you want? but we are forced to wear heavy armor

tanthil

Also why cant my sword and board spec shoot arrows? you force me to use a bow to shoot arrows, i thought you said i could play like i want

reggielee

yah, going more and more into light armor since the magicka costs are so huge. but to be honest, my healing bar is seeing so little action as I am forced to use my dps line more and more in order to solo content since its *** up for grouping

i had spent time leveling sword and board but its just too clunky and melee is sure to get you killed in light armor, heck.. even in heavy armor. ranged and fast seems to be the way to go in the game, destro staff has been really good mix with templar restor staff. I messed around with bows and had some success as well but I figure Ill just stick with the whole mage line in light armor with maybe two pcs of heavy for armor.

im saving up my respec.... gonna be changing alot of wasted points then

MasterSpatula

tanthil wrote: »

Play like you want, you can wear light armor and have better magika you can wear heavy armor and have better defense. so make your choice.

Its really stupid to assume you can just take the highest defense armor and get all the benefits of the the others.

Did I say the other styles should be as viable as Light? I did not. I simply stated they should be viable at all, so as not to lock us in to exactly one way of playing. People are out there successfully tanking in Light Armor because the benefits of Light for their style of tanking works better.

Hell, if you could you would be right back here crying.. Play how you want? but we are forced to wear heavy armor

I'm sorry, did anyone cry? WTF is wrong with you, man, seriously.? The minute anyone offers a critique--complete with suggestions of improvements--someone has to break out the word "cry" or "whine." It pegs you as a complete prick. Be better.

Shyrith

More options to choose from would be nice. I understand that you're not asking/suggesting for them all to be the same as each other.

It's like, "Hmm. Do I want better magicka regen with light armor, crit heals with medium armor, or more healing received with heavy? or a mix of 2."

Personally, I think it's a good idea. Light armor benefits any class that uses magicka and people can still tank in it to an extent, as you said.

AlienPrimate

If you are complaining about armor as a healer in light armor, there are 3 great abilities to fix that. Blessing of protection or its morphs currently more than double my armor rating. If I throw on circle of protection from the fighters guild, then my armor is capped. There is also rune focus if you are a templar which soft caps my armor rating by itself.

I still think it is a good idea to add more options, but there are ways to take good amounts of damage while wearing light armor.

ExiledKhallisi

Destroyed staff? Lol....why would you gimp yourur healing on purpose?

I play templar restored staff with points only in dawns wrath and restoring light trees and i easily solo most content

Akhratos

Yes, heavy sucks.
Yes, a light wearer using a single defensive skill (well, spamming it thanks to the magicka pool/cost reduction) caps armor as easy as a heavy wearer does.
Yes, they do twice the damage.
Yes, the only weapon skill trees viable in pvp are destro/heal staff (oh! both magicka based!).
Yes, the tooltips are not wrong, they are giving you 0,5% weapon power per heavy piece, and then another 0,5% to incoming heals. Might need a nerf.

Oh wait, I almost forget this one. ZOS has added some weird cd between melee skills/swings, but instacasting/spamming aoes seems fine. Might need a buff to reduce magicka cost, or increase their speed while they cast.

Shaun98ca2

I wear all Heavy Armor as a main healer in groups. My survivability is much higher than most the DPS in the same groups. My healing is pretty good, though I am a Templar. I rely heavily on Restro Staff's Heavy Attack for damage and occasionally use a DPS ability if things are going fine.

So far I haven't felt "gimped" at all wearing Heavy Armor. Sure the passives don't benefit my healing but there's other ways to achieve better healing IE Mundus Stone The Ritual(healing one) plus armor traits that increase the benefit of the Mundus Stone.

MasterSpatula

Well, maybe I'm just always healing players with terrible defenses, but in dungeon boss battles, my ability to heal comes down to potion cooldown when wearing Medium Armor. Heavy Armor would be the same. In Light, I can heal more often for more damage.

My idea gives healers more options for overall playstyle. What's more, it gives more options for your healing style.

1. Heavy Armor: Stronger individual heals, more limited resource pool.
2. Medium Armor: More and better critical heals, more limited resource pool.
3. Light Armor: Weaker individual heals (I would also suggest divorcing healing criticals from general spell criticals), deeper resource pool.

What's more, this incentivises a mix-and-match armor set for healers.