Templar Healer Question

Fuzzywuzzy196 · December 2015

So I started a new Templar Healer and I'm wondering if it'd be better to go all out healer and focus solely on healing abilities, or to go with a majority of healing abilities but still put some points into damaging abilities. This is a PvP based character.

Also, are there any abilities I should be ignoring, or specific ones I should always have?

Thank you @ZOS_Alex for placing this discussion in the proper location.

BreacaT · December 2015

As an all out healer then you might struggle more in solo play and if you play as a healer in a good group then you may well find that you have time to DPS between heals. So I would definitely work on some dps skills as you will find it helps a lot even if you need to switch load out depending on what you are doing.

Fuzzywuzzy196 · December 2015

Then I think I'll put some points into damaging abilities, as that's something I've thought about a few times, but I wasn't sure if it'd be more valuable to a group for me to be doing the most healing I can possibly do at the time or be at almost my best but still be capable of doing a bit of damage.

BreacaT · December 2015

Always have healing skills should included breath of life and repentance at least. Rune of focus provides a good buff and blazing spear provides good aoe with a useful stamina synergy buff for the other players in a group. Repentance also buffs other players but only of use if there are plenty of dead bodies lying around.

Khaos_Bane · December 2015

If you are just starting a character you need to work on leveling all class trees. So keep at least one skill from each tree on your bar. I'm not sure why you would want to "focus" on one thing only. At low levels focusing really isn't doing anything but hurting advancement of your other skill trees.

Totalitarian · December 2015

Well, for PVP, healing is actually not something that needs to be focused on. In PVP, most of the people have a massive amount of self healing. That does not mean that you shouldn't be a healer. Something else to consider is the massive amount of people in PVP, so AOE heals are a must. There aren't many AOE heals, so you should also have damage abilities. But mainly, you need support abilities.

Good heals: Breath of Life, Repentance, Regeneration, Grand Healing

Good damage abilities: Puncturing Sweeps (in close range), Entropy (for spell damage buff), Jesus Beam (or whatever it's called)

Good support abilities: Rune of Focus, Rapid Maneuver, War Horn...etc. Basically, if you can find a use to support your team, go with that ability.

You have 10 ability slots, and 2 ultimate slots, so make use of each one if you can mechanically handle it. You should have about three damage spells, three heals, and three support abilities, and one flex slot that you can fill with whatever you wish. Ultimate slots can be filled with whatever is felt to be appropriate. The rest you can probably pick up through experience.

Borbox · December 2015

If you are doing more PVP than anything else you should have survivability and supporting/healing skills as your main focus. Your damage is always welcome but is not a priority. That being said, I like running a full healing bar and a full buff/support/damage bar that benefits my heals, ally damage and defense, and minor offensive abilities to steal the killing blow :-).

Bar 1: Dual wield
Vampire's Bane: crit rating increase on cast and decent damage in one!)
Blazing Spear: nice damage in a general area and allies can pick up the spear for stamina regen)
Radiant Oppression: murder fools after beating on them)
Energy Orb: provide good heals to many players at once and allows for ultimate generation and magica regen for those who syngergize appropriately
Structured Entropy: 20% spell power boost and more HP is always good for survival
Remembrance ultimate: cast it every time it is up when fighting

Bar 2: - Resto staff
Breath of life: heals duh
Healing ward: save yourself or beat up ally while healing others
Rapid regeneration/Mutagen: may depend on what set you are running I guess (if you have spell power cure use mutagen)
Harness Magicka: surviving and generating magicka is always good
Structured Entropy: see above (hp bonus stays when you toggle bars only if you have the skill on both bars)
Barrier/War horn ultimate: boosting survivability and damage of allies will always help you.

I run this with mostly PVE-specific gear on and have no problems as long as I don't stray away from a group but YMMV if you are focusing only on PVP.

Robbmrp · December 2015

As a Templar Healer also, you will need both Damage and Healing spells to be the best healer you can be. You need to be abler to DPS while keeping your team alive. Those damage skills should be both single and multiple target DPS. You'll need to be able to hold your own against one player and many. A few skills I use are Toppling Charge, Puncturing Sweep, Spear Shards, Binding Javalin, Vampires Bane(single) or Reflective Light(Multiple), Dark Flare and Radiant Glory or Oppression depending on if you need a heal from it or not.

Spear shards has a CC on it that helps stun enemies while giving a Stamina buff to a team mate. With the 0 Stamina Regen while blocking this is a must have for any group content PVE or PVP.

bikerangelo · December 2015

Never use Remembrance. Once you level your alliance rank up enough, use Barrier instead; it's an instant cast, has a huge damage shield, is a proactive ability, and any player can cast it, not just healers. Remembrance is a last second panic button that tells everyone in a 5 mile radius that you are a healer. What's worse is that you're immobilized while channeling it, so everyone has plenty of time to make their way over to the spiritual christmas tree and beat you to death.
You should have an offense bar and a defense bar.

Offense: Aedric Spear abilities and perhaps a Dawn's Wrath ability for crit, empower and healing debuff (dark flare works great against anyone if you're in a group). Either destro or dual swords works on this bar.

Defense: Breath of Life (learn how to animation cancel it), Repentance and Purifying Ritual are a priority.

Run sword and shield on your defense bar and make sure your magic regen is as close or higher than 2k as possible. If you put Channeled Focus on this bar and keep it up at all times, you'll do just fine.

If you're in a group of 3 or less, sword and shield on your defense bar will work great. If your group is 4 or more, run a resto for the aoe heals. Again, if you want to be strategic in pvp, every damage dealer looks for the healer first, so abilities like Mutagen, Grand Healing, Breath of Life, and Remembrance are all indicators that you're the support group member. Make sure the Jesus Beam (Radiant Oppression) is the last thing people see, use Dark Flares sparingly and don't spam them (you can get interrupted and knocked off balance), and learn how to animation cancel your heals.

Fuzzywuzzy196 · December 2015

Thank you all for the helpful information, I feel much better in making this new character, and I greatly appreciate the tips.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · December 2015

For PvE endgame stuff (not counting trials), the current meta is to be a hybrid healer/DPS. The best healers in 4 man content do almost as much damage as the DPS. All of My CPs are into damage. The beauty of Templars is that the can really heal with only 1 or 2 skills and the damage rotation is very simple. Everything else is just gravy. I view my role as 90% DPS, 5% heals, 5% buffs, but of course, Healing is your first priority. Also, you need to start by learning to heal. Nobody jumps into pulling 20k DPS while healing, but that should be the goal to be competitive.

The correct amount of healing is just enough so nobody dies. Every time you cast BoL with your party at full health is DPS that you left on the table. My Go To bars for all 4 man content is as follows:

DW Bar: Sweep, Radiant Destruction, Inner light, BoL, Structured Entropy, Comet (for mage guild passives)

Resto Bar: Channeled Focus, Shards, Inner light, Repentance, Combat Prayer, War Horn (for Group DPS)

I run Resto for 2 reasons as a templar. Getting magic back on heavy attacks, and Combat prayer. Combat prayer is so under rated. It is a straight DPS buff, and you should keep it up as much as possible. There are a few fights that you can use Healing Springs to simplify things, but it is never a requirement. It's useful any time you need to stack and heal (Skoria, Darkshade+ Fungel bosses, etc.). If running spell power cure set, you probably want to find room for a HoT like Rapid Regen, otherwise, you dont need it as a Templar.

On almost any fight, I drop channeled focus, combat prayer, structured (spell pots work too, in which case replace with a another DoT), and shards as an opener. These are all abilities that should be kept up throughout the fight (i often dont bother reapplying channeled unless its a long fight). Then its a mix of Puncturing sweep, BoL and Repentance.

Your DPS comes from Puncturing sweep, Shards, and Radiant Destruction at 30% health on the enemy. Your healing comes from BoL, Repentance and Combat Prayer. You will be surprised how much healing you do just be keeping up Combat Prayer. I think technically you might be better off in trash with Repentance on your main bar for resources, but this way has less bar swaps. If your group is low on health, repentance is first go to if there are dead bodies on the ground. You should also cast at end of every trash pull. ITS FREE!!! Otherwise, pop a BoL and go back to DPS. On pure single target fights, I run BoL on both bars.

Hope this helps some.

Edit: Realized I said Repentance a few times when I meant Radiant Destruction. Maybe the jesus beam has me thinking about my sins...

Fuzzywuzzy196 · December 2015

I sincerely appreciate all of the helpful advice from all of you, and it's actually put a lot of things in perspective for me. Again, thank you!

@Oreyn_Bearclaw
@bikerangelo
@Robbmrp
@Borbox
@Totalitarian
@Khaos_Bane
@BreacaT

puffy99 · December 2015

how are you going to do any ranged dps if your ultimate is down?

I usually run dark flare and purifying light all the time on dw bar.

Takes-No-Prisoner · December 2015

No one here really touched on CP allocation so I will in this post.

Warrior -> The Lord -> Quick Recovery

Quick Recovery
"Increases the effectiveness of healing received by [x]%" Its 15% at face value, 24% with Argonian passive maxed

Some passive buffs inside the Lord you would find useful as a support/healer:

At 10 CP into The Lord unlocks : Field Physician ; Reduces damage received while resurrecting another player by 15%
At 30 CP into The Lord unlocks : Infusion ; Increases another player's Magicka Regeneration by (159) for 8 seconds after you resurrect them
At 75 CP into The Lord unlocks : Revival : Absorbs (9920) damage for 5 seconds after your are resurrected

Thief -> The Lover -> Arcanist

Arcanist
"Increases your Magicka Regeneration by [x]%." Its 25% on my Templar at 100 CP, if your a High Elf its 34%

As for the passive buffs that get unlocked, they aren't techincally savvy towards getting shields for helping other players. Most of the buffs are for farming resources. But the 2 buffs that might interest you are:

At 30 CP into The Lover unlocks : Synergizer ; Grants 2 Ultimate any time you active a Synergy.
At 120 CP into The Lover unlocks : Wind Running ; Increases your Movement Speed by 2%. This applies to all types of movement. Also increases Health and Magicka Regeneration by 10% while sprinting.

I have Wind Running unlocked, its great for PVP. Though you would probably not notice the movement speed, but you will see a increase on mana recovery while your sprinting.

Mage -> The Apprentice -> Blessed

Blessed
"Increases the effectiveness by any healing you initiate by [x]%." its 25% at 100 CP

As for the passive buffs;

At 30 CP into The Apprentice: Spell Precision ; Increases your Spell Critical rating by 12%.
At 120 CP into The Apprentice : Arcane Well ; Gives you a 20% chance when you kill an enemy of opening an Arcane Well, which restores (795) Magicka to you and any allies within 2.5 meters of the enemy.

Arcane well is pretty nice for group play. Not sure if this effect works in PvP. But I have seen it in PvE. Maybe someone can chime in on this one?

These buffs are a good place to start. After finishing these, you'd want to focus on whatever suits your fancy. The key is to do some thinking on what passive stars you want unlocked, and...well whether or not there is a buff star you want to spend points on.

Fuzzywuzzy196 · December 2015

So would it be any good to try using a destruction staff along with the Templars healing abilities? Or is it best to stick with the Resto? I was going to stick with Resto but if Destruction could prove useful I'm open to ideas.

CatchMeTrolling · December 2015

As one of the best healers on Xbox if not the best healer when I decide to be one. You want to go pure healer, I'll assume you run in groups as do most people. My new build is purely support, I have about 25 increased healing and about 50 near keeps I believe.

My front bar is siege shield, purge, BOL, repentance, and puncturing sweeps with barrier being my ult. I have almost 5k recovery, some might tell you you need spell damage but with that recovery you don't. I recently posted a vid of how effective a support Templar can be.

Ultimately it comes down to what you're comfortable with.

http://youtu.be/Fcjo8OszlnQ

Here's the video

Oreyn_Bearclaw · December 2015

Fuzzywuzzy196 wrote: »

So would it be any good to try using a destruction staff along with the Templars healing abilities? Or is it best to stick with the Resto? I was going to stick with Resto but if Destruction could prove useful I'm open to ideas.

I carry a Destro staff, but I rarely run it. There are a handful of fights where range is not ideal, but I am hard pressed to think of any where it is impossible. If I need to be range, I swap swords for Destro and run Crushing Shock instead of Sweep. Its not ideal. You could also go for a DoT like Vampires Bane. On my Templar, I have 100 into thaumaturge, so destro skills arent getting a buff. Embrace the swords and get up close and personal. Puncturing Sweep gives you a bunch of health back, so as long as you arent camping in red, you will be fine in melee range.

Another solid reason to carry a Destro Staff is to run elemental drain to help your DPS with resources. You will definitely be doing this if you heal trials. On some of the tougher and longer fights in ICP, WGT, and COA, you can definitely hang back a bit and focus more on support than DPS.

Lore_lai · December 2015

Definitely don't forget Purge (I prefer Efficient Purge morph) or Purifying Ritual!

Your team will love you and give you cookies!