S&B: How often do you need burst heal?

moo_2021 · February 21

And when you do, does it actually help or just extend your life for a few seconds pointlessly? I noticed many pros never need burst heals as their HP never drops below 80%.

I'm trying to get rid of my bad habit of spamming costly heals, and there are some classes with class HoT that I can practice (one bar; can't use resto staff). Vigor is hard to keep as I run of stam too often.

My problem is that since I use shield charge a lot, and it always counts about half of healing in combat metrics. The skill is essential to my build, being both defensive and offensive. Would I still benefit from HoT? (i.e. instead of healing myself I can stun my opponent and gain a shield) Or maybe just increase passive mitigation instead and keep burst heal to save my teammates? Or should I drop the shield charge? But it's also an opening stun to help my team score kills.

TankHealz2015 · February 21

I use shield charge then flame whip/draw breath while the enemy is stunned. Both do heal/damage.

Also I have secondary set does some sort of heal or protection. Gloom Grace, livewire, crimson, dragonguard, etc.

moo_2021 · February 21

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

I use shield charge then flame whip/draw breath while the enemy is stunned. Both do heal/damage.

Also I have secondary set does some sort of heal or protection. Gloom Grace, livewire, crimson, dragonguard, etc.

thanks! I didn't know what to do with dk lol.

so shield shouldn't be the primary defense in my case and I could use heal from offense abilities.

tincanman · February 21

powered trait on the sword with, maybe, a stam restore glyph and heavy attack after you charge/stun opponent(stunned opponent = x2 resources returned) & use a potion that restores your stam on cool-down to keep your stam regen up(even trash stam potion if nothing else available but better with something with a secondary/tertiary effect like a tri-pot). Then you can have vigor ticking away and spam your shield charge somewhat.

Just some suggestions. Probably get better ones if your class is known.

Necrotech_Master · February 21

if i run a selfish tank set i usually go with leeching plate

ill also sometimes run the master 1h/shield which gives me a heal when i taunt, in addition to some other heal such as vigor or class skill heal

for the DK, burning embers is a pretty good small burst heal + heal over time and not super expensive to cast, and i usually use green dragon blood for healing on my main (as it gives the stam recov + burst heal + minor heal over time)

if you use echoing vigor that lasts 15 sec, you dont need to spam it, and most classes have some option for a burst heal (though many of them are magicka based, which would help with sustain)

using leeching plate i definitely have a lot less issues managing health as that usually equates to about a 900-1200 heal per second (as well as dps), and heals more if its hitting a lot of enemies, which is actually better heal rate about than echoing vigor and costs nothing

moo_2021 · February 21

tincanman wrote: »

Probably get better ones if your class is known.

I have all 7 of them, all changed to S&B recently

except templar with living dark, other classes don't have great survivability. I'm trying with necro first as there are Intensive Mender and Hungry Scythe. DK has been the worst since the change as I still struggle to pick 5 skills.

TankHealz2015 · February 21

I also use the sword/shield sets from Blackrose Prison and Vateshran (arenas). Both sets are pretty cool.

Normal version not so hard to get.
Basically run one of those sets instead of a monster helm set.

Not gonna be a super-meta player, but it looks cool and is fun.

StaticWave · February 22

moo_2021 wrote: »

And when you do, does it actually help or just extend your life for a few seconds pointlessly? I noticed many pros never need burst heals as their HP never drops below 80%.

I'm trying to get rid of my bad habit of spamming costly heals, and there are some classes with class HoT that I can practice (one bar; can't use resto staff). Vigor is hard to keep as I run of stam too often.

My problem is that since I use shield charge a lot, and it always counts about half of healing in combat metrics. The skill is essential to my build, being both defensive and offensive. Would I still benefit from HoT? (i.e. instead of healing myself I can stun my opponent and gain a shield) Or maybe just increase passive mitigation instead and keep burst heal to save my teammates? Or should I drop the shield charge? But it's also an opening stun to help my team score kills.

Of course a burst heal does help. Fights are unpredictable and you can always go from 100% to 20%, especially if you're fighting more than 1 player.

If you want to rely less on a burst heal, you can practice weaving block between abilities. It won't mitigate DoT pressure, but it'll mitigate a lot of direct damage and allow your HoTs to mitigate those DoTs.

taugrim · February 22

moo_2021 wrote: »

And when you do, does it actually help or just extend your life for a few seconds pointlessly? I noticed many pros never need burst heals as their HP never drops below 80%.

Of course you need to be able to spam burst heals when you're getting focused.

Pros whose HP never drops below 80% are fighting unskilled / badly-geared players. It's useless to use as a reference point because anyone can faceroll bad players.

In high MMR BGs, for example, everyone who is skilled has to learn to kite and heal, no matter what your build, because you'll be facing some skilled opponents.

moo_2021 wrote: »

I'm trying to get rid of my bad habit of spamming costly heals, and there are some classes with class HoT that I can practice (one bar; can't use resto staff). Vigor is hard to keep as I run of stam too often.

Generally speaking, I take one of two approaches for healing:
1. pair a burst heal with a HoT, and chose them based on how my sustain looks. Typically I run 1 Magicka burst heal + Vigor
2. pair a burst heal with an on-demand targetless damage shield. I only this with Arcanist

moo_2021 wrote: »

My problem is that since I use shield charge a lot, and it always counts about half of healing in combat metrics. The skill is essential to my build, being both defensive and offensive. Would I still benefit from HoT? (i.e. instead of healing myself I can stun my opponent and gain a shield) Or maybe just increase passive mitigation instead and keep burst heal to save my teammates? Or should I drop the shield charge? But it's also an opening stun to help my team score kills.

Shield Charge has a lot of utility: gap closer, stun, and damage shield. I consider offensive abilities like this that provide a damage shield as reducing the frequency with which I need to heal.

But if you need to heal, and especially run away, Shield Charge is not going to help. It's not an on-demand shield unless you have a target. So IMO you'd still want to run a HoT and a burst heal.

BTW, are you using 1H + shield on your frontbar or backbar? If this is backbar, you could consider running Resto staff instead and slotting a Magicka Regeneration morph, since you're having issues with Stamina sustain.

I don't play Magicka builds much but I found that even in those builds I had to build for some Stamina sustain.

moo_2021 · February 22

taugrim wrote: »

BTW, are you using 1H + shield on your frontbar or backbar? If this is backbar, you could consider running Resto staff instead and slotting a Magicka Regeneration morph, since you're having issues with Stamina sustain.

I'm still running the 1 bar oak ring, as I can't keep buffs up and even forget vigor frequently.

For most characters, HoT is stam and burst heal is mag. Offensive abilities are also divided to mag and stam for sustaining longer. But I haven't found any S&B build beyond bash build, so all jewelries have to be infused bash.