Healer builds unviable for leveling

Custos91

As I wrote: the time I used heavy armor, I had still overcharged magicka and magicka reg, the only difference was the cost reduction of the light armor...

Lvling with Guild:
Works for nearly anyone of us, who has been in a gaming Community in the past, you stick to your friends/Guildmembers and thats not longer a problem, you even get more EXP than the others, because your heals, who are targeting randoms, will tap some monsters for you too...
The problem is here nonexistent, everyone of the experienced healers encountered simmiliar things before...
BUT if you are alone and have no idea what to do, you will be completely lost, since the difficulty in the dungeons is a wide variety, due to different builds and things... additionally, not everyone has a skyshard map/addon, or simply people who help him with the public dungeons in Cyrodill or something...

I noticed the diference, brought a tank with me, we are playing together for four years now, and it was like: Oh, you were totally drunk in that dungeon? I didn't even notice...

Just imagin how hard it must be te respecc to healing/beeing alone while leveling and somebody told you, you have to get all the healing abilitys or you are no healer, probably the tank without a taunt and a two hand weapon in your first dungeon....

bean19

@Weevah - First, you're correct that a pure heal spec is hard to level because the only time that is needed is in dungeons, and dungeon xp is terrible. . . thus resto-staff levels are hard to get.

My work-around is to have a dps weapon and spec and a heal spec. You know how to build a heal spec. It's all heals and Sun Fire for a snare to help you kite when adds get on you, so I'll share my dps build with you.

Aedric Spear -
Explosive Charge - to quickly close to melee range with enemies (also, it's fun if not much damage)
Biting Jabs - Cone damage mana burner, this is your main attack skills.

Dual Wield -
Blood Craze - DoT with vamp (great for boss fights)
Steel Tornado - PbAoE stamina burner. This is great for adds in boss battles. I'm considering going back to Rapid Strikes as it does much more damage, but it is single target and the animation is very long. I like having both options, but don't have space on bar for both (and wouldn't use bar for both if I had the space - something else would get it).

Restoring Light
Breath of Life - Expensive mana emergency heal.

Light Armor
Get all passives

This build does a ton of damage, has great mobility, and is a lot of fun to play. You will level Restoring Light (half your healer spec) easily through quests, and you'll get many levels in Restoration Staff from when you run dungeons or switch to full healer for Skull public groups. I'm level 33 and my resto staff is about 10 levels behind my dual wield. . . which isn't that big of a deal really. I imagine once I get to VR5 and start healing veteran dungeons, I'll have it maxed out in a day.

Having said all that, I absolutely agree that leveling dungeons need to have better rewards. Eventually, we'll be playing alts, and people won't want to run all the PvE quests again. Currently, the fastest xp in the game is mob-grinding, so we can expect alts to do that once people have seen the game's story. . . and that's bad because it isn't fun and will lead to less retention. My guess is that they'll change it once the player-base has more people with max level characters. They'll probably also adjust them to spread out in levels more so that you constantly have a dungeon that is level appropriate to run instead of having wide gaps between sets of 3 dungeons.

Also, I'd really like a need before greed system. I find myself getting gear that i put up on the guild store a lot and I bet those with me get gear I'd actually WANT while they'd actually want the gear I have. . . and they need the dungeon finder to be made less exploitable by griefers. That's a really big deal and something everyone will be screaming about in a month (or less) when griefers get bored and start victimizing other players. So this probably won't remain an issue and there are other big issues with dungeons for them to work on.

Btw, it's fun to play as dps, and you'll eventually want the ability to smoothly move between them - especially for PvP - but even in dungeons I've been the last one up before with the boss nearly dead and was able to switch over to my dps spec instantly so that I could take him out without any troubles.

Mothanos

The big problem with Zenimax is they sold this game with - "play the game how you want to play it"
But the only way to play it is by questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing.

There are no other options then ' questing '
Cyrodiil pvp quest was alot of fun, our guild leveled abit with those quest and we had ops running everyday, but since they made ait a daily no1 is going there anymore as you cannot level up in pvp anymore.

Dungeon exp.....its total ***, being a healer is double ***....

Healing spec and grinding is bleh....

iam sorry if i come across as a whiner / craycray, but they should open up this game for more playstyles if they want to keep me playing in the long run...
No way i am going trough the same quests a second time, and no way in hell i pay a sub for an mmo that forces me to walk the same path again on my alts with no altervatives.

They might be looking at a extremely high dropoff by limiting this playstyle to people who like to play alts.

Dont get me wrong i realy love this game !! damn its one of the better mmo's out there atm
But long term ? alt friendly ? no way...

Weevah

Thanks for your post bean19 and for sharing your workaround! I hope others reading this post will also get something out of it.

Your dps build makes a lot of sense. It is similar to a Templar dps build I used for questing. I used Destruction staff, to take advantage of my high Magicka thereby increasing weapon damage.

Did you put any points into stamina?

Did you have low survivability while soloing in light armor?

I used heavy armor + aedric spear skills/passives with traited destruction staff heavy attacks when out of magicka.

Quickly switching to dps to finish a boss or pvp would be a very useful skill to have, agreed.

Shaun98ca2

I do admit I was hoping for a something akin to WOW/Rift for dungeons in this game. The lack of it is kinda sad as PUGing in dungeons is one of my #1 favorite things to do.

At the same time having come from EQlive through LOTS of MMO's to this one I have to say THANK GOD for the quests in this game. They are truly a breath of fresh air.

That being said this game DOES need a BETTER LFG system and the ability to mentor down to do old dungeons as well. Possibly with a small daily reward for doing so ala RIFT.

Khuul99

Well, the problem is that dungeons (the real ones not solo dungeons or public dungeons) gives no exp whatsoever.

The dungeons are one of the only sources of content that is suited for a group. I am questing with some friends and we have a decent group but we only do the dungeons once for the skill point then back to questing (that we could do solo but we just like to play together).

So, what I think the OP is asking for is what many of us asked for during beta events and other things. Give the players more than one viable path to lvl 50 (not only questing). This is what dungeons were initially but they totally destroyed that in live.

Now, dungeons are abmyssal exp and the only real paths to get experience is by chain questing (solo or in groups, there is no challenge whatsoever so everyone run pure dps builds if you do this consitantly with a duo or more) or by grinding mobs in the open world (since they couldn't remove that exp as well... more people would be upset if they got close to zero exp while killing mobs during questing.

So, if you allow open world mobs to give exp, why don't you allow dungeon mobs (that are actually alot harder) to give exp? The logic eludes me.

Nazon_Katts

I was looking forward to play a pure healer and level him exclusively by running dungeons, as that's usuallly a more challenging experience (aside from PvP). I've postponed this until ZOS fixes XP gain in dungeons, hopefully. I cannot see myself doing the quests over and over again on alternate characters, as that most certainly qualifies as a grind to me.

I am pondering, however, how viable it may be to group up and try to tackle content well above one's level. If anyone could shed some light, wether doing areas +10 or more levels is possible, challenging and rewarding or not, I could think of this providing an at least somewhat similar experience, just minus boss mechanics (which, of course, is what I believe all of us enjoy the most).

Ausfin

There seems to be a lack of understanding as to what the original post was about. So I am going to attempt to clarify the position and feelings of a lot of players.

TL;DR Let me play the game my way instead of railroading me.

-At the moment there is little to no point in running a dungeon once.
-Healers and tanks (even dps) gain a lot of experience (and by that I mean learn how to do their job not advance their character) by running dungeons.
-The desire of people to rerun dungeons is not about attaining max level is the shortest possible time, it is about learning the dungeons and having fun in those dungeons because its how we WANT to play the game.
-We are being FORCED to spend points (kinda meh because there are so many) in skills that we do not want to use so that we can do an activity that we do not want to do (quest).
-Dungeons are not currently a 'hey I want to play with a group'. They are a do once and forget thing. Best case you do it a couple of times at most before you get jack of it because each dungeon worth of xp can be earned in 5 minutes of grinding on mobs or questing.
-Learning which abilities work it what situation and the particular build that works for you is a process that is largely being denied to healers and tank AND dps. No one that wants to take part in trials (raid) is going to want a group member walking into their group with no dungeon experience and worst of all a non maxed skill line for there role at max level. To do so is to have an avoidable liability in your party.
-With zero incentive to rerun a dungeon, a valuable part of the community is missing from the game.

Atm my option if I WANT to do dungeons I have two options;
Spec dps, zerg through content that I am not interested in, respec healing with low skills (both numerical and actual) and flail around for a while at max level when things are getting serious wiping my group because I don't know what is going on with my abilities.
OR
Take a really really long time getting to max level, leveling my healing skills as I go, still doing things I don't want to do because the xp gain in dungeons is negligible at best.

It's not about getting there faster ... hell I'll happy to get there a little slower than someone in the world. Just give me some xp so that it doesn't feel like I'm wasting my time when I 'play' and atm it feels like a chore to get to 50 so that I can start playing the game.

Oh and to all the people saying "But I'm a healer with bow skills" etc that's great, you can be a hybrid/off healer I don't want to be.

Bramir

If anything, I am OP as a sorcerer healer as I get close to lvl30 when it comes to questing/soloing. Two pets + heals means I'm a small squad all by myself. I routinely complete quests 5-6 levels higher than me...

The only problem I am running into is inexperienced tanks in dungeons not doing the mechanics right. I can't heal through damage like that, but I'm really not supposed to, and a few more skill points wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. I respecced once to try to account for it (without giving up much dps if any), but it really didn't help.

Nazon_Katts

Well, that's - just as Simon said - the very crux of the matter. With such low incentives of running dungeons, how is anyone going to get more experienced with boss mechanics, skill set up and gear choice, no matter which role you might prefer?

bean19

Weevah wrote: »

Did you put any points into stamina?

Did you have low survivability while soloing in light armor?

Barely anything in stamina, but you get a lot of stamina just from leveling up, so I find having high dps burners to use it up helpful.

As for survivability in light armor, not really and I've played with heavy armor too. Basically, you ignore the mages because your spell resist is insane and use your Biting Jabs to kill melee and archers as fast as possible. If you screw up and don't block a heavy attack (or interrupt it with push-back), then you have to burn an emergency heal. I keep magic potions in my quickslot so that if I've used too much attacking, I have enough from the quickslot to fire a heal and get back into the fight. However, those are scenarios that don't happen very often. Normally, like other dps, I survive by killing them faster than they can kill me.

Custos91

I am impressed, most posts in this forum aren't a little bit productive or even helpfull, this post actually is^^

As for the leveling builds, I can share 2 workarounds, haevy and light armor, to lvl with if anyone is interessted...

But I encountered different problems now at VR1:
1: Some people are used to seeing ae heal spam from not templar healers all the time, if you don't use healing springs, you will get asked/flamed or even kicked as a templar xD
2: With leveling as a hybrid yo put yourself in a dangerous situation! I am nearly half trough Vr1 now and all 3! class skills and many weapon/armor skills are still not lvl 50, restoration staff is at lvl 40...

And we need a option to exclude a armor piece from deconstructing xD I am constantly missing items of my 2 sets because of this xD

Jeremy_gelber_ESO

yes as a templar you need to put at least 1 point into puncturing strikes and then leveling gets a whole lot easier. 2 points for reflective light makes it a cake walk. you can spec cloth/restostaff/restoringlight for ever other skill point you get and still be able to quest effectively. especially once you regeneration/rapid regen. sure it takes longer to kill stuff than if you put a few points in destro staff and grab a flame stick ( the knockback/stun is highly useful)

every game i've ever played if you wanted to go "pure healer" you needed a pocket tank/dps to quest with or be prepared to kill mobs with old age. thats the downside of a pure healer. the upside is you can heal better than everyone else. eso isnt any different. you can quest easier if you spend a few points in offensive abilities. if swapping a spell or 2 is hard then there are a few addons that will let you make hotbar sets.

i've had no problems leveling my cloth templar with a 4/3/0 stat distribution. my "dps" bar is puncturing sweep, reflective light, rapid regen, binding javelin ( a defensive skill worth having on a pure healing build), and breath of life. when i wander into a public dungeon i never have a problem getting folks to group or follow around if im taking a while to kill stuff. throwing heals around tends to make folks happy to help. sure i cant solo world bosses as well as my sorc. but that's expected from a healer.

as for group dungeons. a decent chunk of exp for mobs would be nice. doesnt have to be on par with questing but make it worth repeating. even repeating them theres still not much to learn. until the 40s you can do them entirely casting rapid regen and and breath of life and cakewalk through them unless your nightblades havent figured out what red circles are by then. even well into the 40's i've healed with my sorc using only rapid regen and blessing of restoration.

its not rocket science. dont charge rooms, pull mobs to you, dont stand in the red circles, and block when you have 5 mobs hitting you. that's all the "learning" folks need.

jeholden11rwb17_ESO

So far from my experience you will never use 4 healing skills in dungeons. in Fact at the moment I run with 2 skills that actually HEAL, 2 DPS skills one of these providing a stamina buff. and magelight for the 20% spell crit. + my ultimaate works as defensive and offensive as well. The main focus for me has been an even balance between the 3 class tree's so that they level together which will give me greater options once I hit max level.

I understand what you are trying to say in the fact that you would like to level as someone who heals people but i believe the reason that there is little exp in dungeons is so that players experience the entire world that has been created instead of spending there entire time level rushing in dungeons.

You could possibly try an alternate approach and see if there is someone who is around the same zone or doing the same quests as yourself and offer to provide heals/support to them while they kill.

Eccentric

Dungeons give little experience, no matter what role you are.

You only want to do dungeons 1 time for the quest which gives you 1 whole skillpoint and some experience. Farming dungeons for leveling isn't worth it. You would rather farm outdoor groups of creatures for a lot more experience.

Custos91

The problem is not having all the heal skills while you lvl, the problem is, if you hit 50, you will need most of them in dungeons^^
I did a couple of them and switched avery bossfight, i am using 12 - 20 different skills all the time, depending on group, pull, tank and boss^^
And all of these skills need their lvl and their morphs....

AlienPrimate

I love being a pure healer in this game and have not had any problem leveling. I am a templar with restoration staff. Currently I am level 25 with level 36 restoring light and staff. The rest of my skills are all under level 5. The reason I have had no problem soloing is because the fact that the basic attack of a solo healer can be the most powerful basic attack. You don't have to do a heavy attack every time. Normal attacks with 18% damage boost deal quite a bit of damage (8% from combat prayer and 10% from passive). I also have 6 overcharged stats when I solo which is rather powerful. They are mana, all regens, armor, and spell resist. Even though I have light armor, all of the buffs you can give yourself can turn you into a tank.

This is a little tip to get free experience as a healer. If you use regeneration on anyone, you gain full loot and full experience of any kills they make while affected by it which is for either 16.5 or 20 seconds.

ElderBishop81

The real issue is that we are being forced to level one way, quest's which are not all that interesting in the long run.

Mothanos wrote: »

The big problem with Zenimax is they sold this game with - "play the game how you want to play it"
But the only way to play it is by questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing questing.

There are no other options then ' questing '
Cyrodiil pvp quest was alot of fun, our guild leveled abit with those quest and we had ops running everyday, but since they made ait a daily no1 is going there anymore as you cannot level up in pvp anymore.

Dungeon exp.....its total ***, being a healer is double ***....

Healing spec and grinding is bleh....

iam sorry if i come across as a whiner / craycray, but they should open up this game for more playstyles if they want to keep me playing in the long run...
No way i am going trough the same quests a second time, and no way in hell i pay a sub for an mmo that forces me to walk the same path again on my alts with no altervatives.

They might be looking at a extremely high dropoff by limiting this playstyle to people who like to play alts.

Dont get me wrong i realy love this game !! damn its one of the better mmo's out there atm
But long term ? alt friendly ? no way...

This is the message

Lee

I leveled from 1 to vet 10 as a healer, dungeon and PvP XP needs to be increased. But it's very viable.

Bandras

I dont know....Im a pure healer and i have never had issues in this game. I am now at vet rank 2 and enjoying every minute of the game when I am online.

Some bosses/mobs might take a bit longer to kill but even at vet 2 I can manage 3-4 mob packs when questing.

The dungeons for me are for fun. More xp would come handy, you are right but I can manage with this much xp as well.

One more thing to mention here, I usually quest solo.

Axer

Exactly why does this even matter?

They purposely set up the game so you can level 2 styles, while only using one you know, its quite simple:

1. Get to level 15. (Doable with a resto staff since theres like 50+ quests early on that only involve you talking to people).
2. Set up 2nd bar for dps with any weapon of your choice.
3. Complete a quest with 2nd bar with lots of murder.
4. Once "quest complete" appears in a dialog. Hits esc, tilde to wep swap, then talk again.
5. Bam. Resto staff levels up.

Not hard. It's how everyone levels their alts skills.

It's built into the game on purpose - notice whenever you see the quest complete screen the quest objective will update? That's because they EXPECT you to back out of it. They set up every quest like that, so you don't have to repeat dialog, or possibly break a quest. You can always back out and wep swap, so that huge chunk of xp (Which is by and far the easiest way to level up skills, if not always the fastest) goes to your chosen skill, and not what you used to dispatch enemies.

Axer

Custos91 wrote: »

And we need a option to exclude a armor piece from deconstructing xD I am constantly missing items of my 2 sets because of this xD

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info300-ItemSaver.html#info

Schmit

I play mainly as a healer, and they are NOT unviable for leveling. the complaint you have is that running dungeons gives little to no exp after you complete the quest. Pretty sure that tanks and DPS get just as little exp as us healers do. (Haven't done too much as DPS due to longer queue times but my tank seemed to get nothing after the 1st run through completing the quest.