1.6 Nightblade Healer (Bloodmage) OUTDATED

omfgitsbatman

THIS POST IS OUTDATED. NEW POST HERE:
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Want to heal in Tamriel? Want to have fun while doing it? Want to defy convention and heal with the non meta class? Nightblade healer is where it's at.

A Nightblade healer is a super active playstyle that can heal and help quite a bit with dps at the same time.

Build notes:
After 1.6, I have already healed Vet DSA, HRC HM, and SO with this build and much more.
This build involves a decent amount of weapon swapping and is non-stop action.
This build revolves more around quantity of spells cast instead of power of spells cast.
Revolves largely around HoTs

Race: I personally am Argonian. It's not bad, but if I could race change, I'd be a Breton.

Armor: I personally love 5 pc healer's habit, 5 pc seducer, master resto staff (precise if you are a lucky dog). If you have Worm cult, you might want to consider swapping that for seducer and changing out the healer's habbit set to maximize spell power with things like 2pc adroitness, 2p cyrodiil's light and 2 pc torag's pact instead of Master Resto staff. I have not tested the latter though as I am a huge fan of the Master Resto staff.

If you plan on using crafted sets, Make 1 large piece of it heavy and another medium. This will increase your survivability greatly and your resource pool noticeably with the undaunted passive.
Try to have infused on your large pieces (head, legs, chest) and divines on your small pieces.
Enchant your jewellery with all spell cost reduction at first until you get enough champion points into cost reduction or are a Breton. If you are at the point that you find it impossible to run out of magika, experiment with changing one or more of these glyphs to spell damage.
Enchant all large pieces (Head, Pants, Chest) with health, and all else with magika.


Skill Bar 1:
Funnel health- great HoT to keep rolling on small groups at all times. Also helps contribute to dps while healing. Be sure to weave with light attacks if you have time to spam this between refreshing HoTs and big heals.
Refreshing path - another small hot that contributes a small amount of dps. Used mainly for the shadow passives and as a supplemental HoT
Healing Ward- This is single target oh Sh*t button and will save many many lives if used when someone stands in red or tank drops taunt.
Healing springs- This should be the go to heal considering its magika efficiency and it's ability to stack with itself. A couple casts of this will bring anyone inside the radius to full quickly.
Inner Light - additional magika and crit chance. Still an awesome ability. Use on both bars to prevent having to retoggle.

Ultimate: Soul harvest - What? Why? Two reasons: the passive ultimate gain is pretty nice. The assassination passives are also very good and worth having. If you are on a single target fight and running with another NB with an assassination ability slotted, it would benefit you more to put soul siphon in this spot because of siphon tree passives. I rarely actually use soul harvest, it's just there for the passives and I switch weapons to deploy Veil. Soul Harvest can in fact be the better ultimate to use in some situations. If you are trying to add more dps and don't need the mitigation of veil, Soul Harvest increases your damage done by 20%... which means funnel health heals for more too!

Skill Bar 2- This bar can be modified to suit your needs pretty easily

Structured Entropy- Great for the major sorcery buff for single target! Pop this right before veil and watch everything melt.
Mutagen- I try to keep this up on 4 man groups all of the time and use it a lot during 12 man fights where the group is spread out. It's a pretty powerful HoT with a built in Oh sh*t factor.
Sap Essence- great to help get large mobs under control and also gives major sorcery buff which is great.
Combat prayer- decent sized nuke heal, but more useful for the buffs that it gives to armor and damage. Try to keep the buff on your group as much as possible especially in dps race fights.
Inner Light- see above
Ultimate- Veil of blades. Still an awesome source of damage mitigation and damage. Also somewhat useful for the synergy that heals low health allies. I replace this with barrier in fights that I know nobody will be able to stand in the veil for long due to movement. Try popping Entropy right before using veil and watch it melt things.

Suggested situational changes to bar #2:
For Single target fights, putting impale on this bar is a huge help to dps. No need for sap essence in that case. If you are doing huge aoe mobs, swap out structured entropy for something like siphoning attacks to ensure your magika pool stays good.

Rotation/ Goals: keep as many HoTs rolling on as many people as possible (e.g. Mutagen, healing ward, refreshing path) use healing springs to catch up if your HoTs fall behind. Use healing ward as emergency single target heal. Keep yourself buffed with major sorcery as much as possible. Keep allies buffed with combat prayer. Use veil often.

Mundus: there are a few viable options as far as mundus goes, but right now, I am enjoying the Mage. Shadow is also somewhat viable after 90 Champion points. Ritual would be a decent pick here also.

Champion points:
Go for things like magika cost reduction, magika regen, increased healing done, increased crit values, light armor boosts, damage taken reduction, etc... the first 30 point passive you really, really want is the apprentice. There are so many ways to go about this that all depend on how many points you actually have. I'm not going to go very in depth here.

Attribute points:
Put enough points into health to maintain 20k health with skills on your bar and food buff without emperor. Then put the rest into magika. For me, that's about 42 points into magika and 20 into health. This puts me right above 30k Magika with blue food.


Side note: Go werewolf... because why not? Instant 15% stamina regen in combat without putting any points into it or leveling it. Absolutely no downside if you don't ever transform. This might help you block that 1 last hit and save your life so you can keep saving lives.

Aerieth

Nice post. Never really enjoyed healing in MMO's before, but with my second Nightblade on the way I'm testing out healing and it's lots of fun.

Vampirism gives you +10% to both Magica and Stamina regen and increased damage mitigation when low on HP at the cost of reduced passive health regen and +40% fire damage taken. If you're fast on your feet and can avoid those pesky fire circles, vampirism has some neat stuff to offer.

P.S. Refreshing Path is pretty amazing in 1.6

omfgitsbatman

I don't like the downsides to vamp. To me, they highly outweigh the bonuses. There is quite a bit of unavoidable fire damage that can have it's way with you. And the magika regen is not that important right now for me. With this build, I am sitting at 30k magika if I eat blue food and barely using any of it because of all of the cost reduction that I have.

Scamandros

Necro'd

Been working on a healer build for 1.6 and arrived at something quite close to yours, wanted to share some things Ive found and grab your opinion on them.
Also been rocking the mage mundus and been loving it. The boost to raw magicka without softcaps gives considerably more hps then ritual Ive found.
Also with how enchant stats have scaled I found divines to give more 'bonus magicka' per piece then infused on large armor pieces, this was with a gold magicka enchant on the chest. Now I didnt test with health, but I recall the difference in divines vs infused was relatively large, thus you might be able to scrape out slightly higher max stat pools going all divines and swapping some attributes from magicka to health to keep you at the same hp as before.

I don't use entropy myself because I try chug a spell power pot whenever its up, giving me major sorcery and major prophecy until just before the potion comes off cooldown again. Inner lights +max magicka passive is good enough to warrant saying on my bar just for that. But the entropy could be swapped off for something else, even just for passives. Siphoning skill for more outgoing healing%, or support skill for +magicka regen% etc.

Lastly healing springs is good now, but as I unlock more champion points for more magicka cost reduction and regen I think illustrious healing morph might become better. You dont get resources back on cast, however the healing circle lasts longer allowing you to stack more healing circles on top of each other for some rediculous raid hps numbers. I use it currently and love it, I just need a little more sustain to really pull it off (wearing 2 heavy 5 light).

omfgitsbatman

Scamandros wrote: »

Also with how enchant stats have scaled I found divines to give more 'bonus magicka' per piece then infused on large armor pieces, this was with a gold magicka enchant on the chest. Now I didnt test with health, but I recall the difference in divines vs infused was relatively large, thus you might be able to scrape out slightly higher max stat pools going all divines and swapping some attributes from magicka to health to keep you at the same hp as before.

I have not experimented very far with this. I will try this later and post results.

Scamandros wrote: »

I don't use entropy myself because I try chug a spell power pot whenever its up, giving me major sorcery and major prophecy until just before the potion comes off cooldown again. Inner lights +max magicka passive is good enough to warrant saying on my bar just for that. But the entropy could be swapped off for something else, even just for passives. Siphoning skill for more outgoing healing%, or support skill for +magicka regen% etc.

This is a matter of choice that could go either way. I keep entropy on my back bar that I use about 5% of the time, only to refresh mutagen, combat prayer, and major sorcery. The passives aren't that important to me on this bar, but even so I like it here for a few reasons other than major sorcery. The extra boost to my next attack is amazing. I usually pair it with veil or refreshing path. The passive health increase and the mage's guild passives make it better than anything else I am going to put there. I suppose you could put a siphoning spell there fir the extra healing, but which one? The only ones unused are cripple, agony, and siphoning attacks. I wouldn't recommend agony or siphoning attacks, but crippling grasp could be worked in if you want the dps or movement speed boost. You could put purge here if you choose to as well. I will probably stick with entropy most of the time though.

Scamandros wrote: »

Lastly healing springs is good now, but as I unlock more champion points for more magicka cost reduction and regen I think illustrious healing morph might become better. You dont get resources back on cast, however the healing circle lasts longer allowing you to stack more healing circles on top of each other for some rediculous raid hps numbers. I use it currently and love it, I just need a little more sustain to really pull it off (wearing 2 heavy 5 light).

If you feel like you had enough champion points to do this, and have no magika problems, go for it! This will substantially increase hps in a lot of fights. I do not feel as if I'm anywhere close to being able to do this. There are many situations where I never even dent my magika, but in some of the harder/longer fights like Mantikora, I often still need to manage my resources heavily. You could also find a spot on your bar for spell symmetry if you run with other healers to make this more viable.

Also, I would drop one of your heavy in favour of a medium piece. It will get you more resources if you have the undaunted passives. If you are worried about survivability, invest some champion points into the lady. I personally have 30 points into the lady and don't regret one of them.

Kerioko

@omfgitsbatman, I am running something very similar to what you run with just a few tweaks on gear and skill setup.

Basics: Duel Resto Vamp Argonian NB with 25K magicka, 22K health with 1600 spell dmg and 50% spell crit

Gear: 5 Healer's, 5 Twilight's, Spawn of Mephala shoulder (for added health), jewelry is reduce cost or fire resist!

I sometimes switch to 5 Healer, 4 Twilight, 2 Torug (or 2 Willow's) when I have emp buff and don't need the extra health.

Bar 1: Funnel Health, Mutegen, Healing Ward, Entropy, Inner Light, Soul Harvest

**This bar is for spread out healing and I have found will handle almost all content on its own. I like entropy on this bar for the 5% health since I usually run 2 shadow skills on bar 2 for 6% health!

Bar 2: Sap Essence, Refreshing Path, Healing Springs (or Combat Prayer), Utility Slot, Inner Light, Veil (or Soul Siphon)

**Utility slot is usually Shade, Purge, Impale, or Focused Attacks based on fight needs!

I am curious what your spell dmg and crit are since you are stacked to 30K magicka!

omfgitsbatman

I do run a few different sets of gear occasionally. For short fights where I won't be worried about my magika or I need to help with dps more, I put my dps set on: 2 pc cyrodiils light, 2 pc adroitness, 4pc Martial knowledge, 2 pc torags, master staff. 95 percent of the fights, I wear 5pc healers habit, 5 pc seducer, master staff. My spell crit is 44% with no pvp buffs and my spell damage unbuffed in my seducer/hh set is 1281.

In my honest opinion, having more magika is better for healers. You can stack all the spell damage you want, but if you don't have enough magika to toss another heal, it's over. Stacking magika also makes your heals hit harder. Not as much as attacking spell damage, but more than spell crit. I have honestly not come across a fight yet where I wished I had more spell damage over all the cost reduction and regen that I have.

Also, having done every bit of content so far, 20k health is more than sufficient.

Tal_72

Thanks for posting this. I hope OP and other NB healers in progression content will drop in and share experience. And if any of you can capture a video of a Trials or DSA (or both) that would be really appreciated!

I am a progression raider from that other game trying out ESO. I really wanted to make a NB, but I like healing. You all give me hope. I almost went Breton, but I rolled Imperial under the rationale that the extra health stats will allow me spec flexibility (i.e. I won't need to pump as much into health, so I can go for magicka or more stamina depending on what I'm playing).

Thanks again @omfgitsbatman for taking the time to write up and share what you've learned and been able to achieve.

omfgitsbatman

gchutsonub17_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for posting this. I hope OP and other NB healers in progression content will drop in and share experience. And if any of you can capture a video of a Trials or DSA (or both) that would be really appreciated!

I am a progression raider from that other game trying out ESO. I really wanted to make a NB, but I like healing. You all give me hope. I almost went Breton, but I rolled Imperial under the rationale that the extra health stats will allow me spec flexibility (i.e. I won't need to pump as much into health, so I can go for magicka or more stamina depending on what I'm playing).

Thanks again @omfgitsbatman for taking the time to write up and share what you've learned and been able to achieve.

I will soon post a video of Vet DSA for you and a few others that have asked me recently.
Imperial is still a solid race choice for the exact reasons that you mentioned.
If you really want to roll a Nightblade, then roll one. You won't be disappointed. They are a lot of fun to play and are extremely versatile.

Koopa

I'm really liking the sound of a nightblade healer, I do have one question about ultimate choice. Would Soul Siphon not be a good choice? The heal, increased healing received and the ability for someone to activate it and get health back all sounds good. Is there something I am missing about the skill? Is Veil just the go to ultimate to use in fights and just keep Harvest for the ultimate gen? I'm wondering because an ultimate that heals sounds nice for a healer, unless I'm missing something.

omfgitsbatman

cumbee27_ESO wrote: »

I'm really liking the sound of a nightblade healer, I do have one question about ultimate choice. Would Soul Siphon not be a good choice? The heal, increased healing received and the ability for someone to activate it and get health back all sounds good. Is there something I am missing about the skill? Is Veil just the go to ultimate to use in fights and just keep Harvest for the ultimate gen? I'm wondering because an ultimate that heals sounds nice for a healer, unless I'm missing something.

Soul Siphon is a good choice to slot. In small groups where I am the only nightblade, I slot Soul Harvest so that my group gets the passive crit from hemorrhage. If I am with another nightblade that has an assassination ability slotted, I do put Soul Siphon on that bar for the extra 3% healing. In my opinion though giving my whole group extra crit is more beneficial than just an extra 3% healing from me. Most times, I still like the dps and utility of veil better than actually using soul siphon.

omfgitsbatman

I do have a video of myself Healing VDSA on my twitch.

http://www.twitch.tv/omfgitsbatman/c/6386321

Tal_72

I have a question as well--I know most Templar healers seems to take Rapid Regeneration over Mutagen. I'm guessing you prefer Mutagen for the emergency heal (since no Breath of Life for us)?

omfgitsbatman

gchutsonub17_ESO wrote: »

I have a question as well--I know most Templar healers seems to take Rapid Regeneration over Mutagen. I'm guessing you prefer Mutagen for the emergency heal (since no Breath of Life for us)?

You could honestly go either way with this morph. My reasons for preferring mutagen over RR are: With funnel health, I already have another HoT rolling at all times on my group to supplement it, so the extra healing RR does, I feel is negligible. Mutagen is not an oh $#&! Button in itself, but I do feel as if it gives me breathing room to be able to hit my healing ward button.

If you would prefer a stronger HoT rolling on someone constantly, that is a very reasonable choice that comes down to play style. This morph will not make or break the build.

AssaultLemming

Someone pointed out to me the other day that Magnus has an chance to make your ultimate a free cast, allowing you to for instance cast double veil or meteor etc. Given that Magnus also has spell damage I am thinking this becomes a superior set to seducer post 1.6. Does seducer provide an 8% reduction in ultimate costs?

omfgitsbatman

Seducer doers not lower ultimate cost. If not for the randomness of the Magnus set, it would be superior to seducer. Seducer's effect is active 100% of the time, therefore allows for consistency. The effect of Magnus is not active for 92% of the time, therefore cannot be relied upon in any manner. Healing most of the time is about always having the magika to cast another heal when it's needed.
If you want to replace seducer, Worm Cult is superior to both seducer and Magnus. It does have spell damage as well as giving the user more magika cost reduction than the Tooltip actually says. Worm cult gives more cost reduction than seducer to the user as well as giving people around you 5% spell cost reduction.

omfgitsbatman

I would also like to quell a misconception: spell damage is not king for healers. It is true that if you want your spells to hit harder, you should stack spell damage>magika> spell crit.
HOWEVER
Healers should not prioritize spell damage first.
Healing in general especially in this game is an ongoing, unpredictable process. For this, you need to always have a reserve of magika ready to cast the big heals when they are needed. If you do not have this reserve, people die. If you are in 4 man content, chances are there is nobody else that's going to heal you, so you can't spell sym in many occasions. If you are in trials, you can get away with it, but at the cost of an animation(global cooldown).
DPS can prioritize this way right now because it's not a big deal if they run out of magika. They spell sym and they lose a bit of dps. If healers run out of magika, people die and groups wipe. Now even with stacking no spell damage at all, a healing ward will save someone's life and a few rounds of healing springs will bring your group to full. For these reasons, healers should prioritize magika over spell damage. Magika does make your spells hit harder as well. Not as much as spell damage, but it serves the dual purpose of making your spells hit harder and making it so you can cast more of them.

Not everyone may agree with it, but my priority list is Magika>cost reduction>magika regen/spell damage> spell crit.

That being said, once I have a considerable amount of cost reduction/regen to where I find it hard to get rid of magika, I change a jewellery enchant or 2 to spell damage. When I find that I have enough champion points that it feels like I could use 3 spell damage enchants, I will change the gear little by little to increase spell damage. I would probably start by putting the cost reduction glyphs back into my jewellery and breaking the seducer set in favor of spell damage sets such as cyrodiils light and torags pact and adroitness.

Tal_72

@omfgitsbatman I'm pushing 30 now, and so far I'm enjoying my Imperial NB healer (so much so I'm over leveling my questing zones due to my numerous dungeon runs). Quick question for you -- Why do you have both Structured Entropy and Sap Essence. Sap essence already gives the sorcery buff (and for 20 seconds instead of 12 or 14.4 with mage guild passive).

My second question goes to anyone including OP. How much crafting points should I spend on a main? I haven't spent any yet, but I've read in passing enchanting is cheap. I'm wondering if I should put any points in alchemy, provisioning, or clothing--or if I should make an alt--and put all or half of my crafting on a second character. Thanks!

omfgitsbatman

Honestly, my back bar is used as utility and I don't spend a ton of time on it. I keep both structured entropy and Sap Essence on the bar for different fights. For single target fights, I use structured entropy. For large groups, I use sap to give major sorcery and to help aoe down adds.

Second question: I have clothing, enchanting, alchemy, and woodworking all with close to max points on my Nightblade and I still have points to have a dps spec as well.

Hjellix

Is this buid still viable in 2.0.10?

Kerioko

Yes it is very viable...I am still running a variation of it with 5 Healer's/4 Martial Knowledge/ 2 Torug's Pact.

Bars are:

Spread Healing - Funnel, Mutegen, Healing Ward, Impale, Inner Light, Veil of Blades

Stack Healing - Sap Essence, Refreshing Path, Healing Springs, Absorb Magicka, Inner Light, Soul Harvest

Even as a vampire, this set-up has worked for me to heal all end-game content!

omfgitsbatman

This build is still viable... That is if your group needs an actual healer.... Recently, I've been putting on my dps gear in almost everything and just passively healing as magika dps. Sanctum is the only place where if I heal, I'm in my healing gear. This is only because I run out of magika a lot quicker in my dps gear. Most everything now can be healed by a dps magika nightblade as long as the group avoids standing in stupid. Adding a 3rd dps to a 4 man is pretty helpful a lot of the time and lets you kill things much faster.

IntraShadow

I picked a wood elf NB but it seem that my guild may need a healer in the future. Would this build sufficient for me even though I'm a wood elf or am i kinda screw at becoming a NB healer?

Junkogen

IntraShadow wrote: »

I picked a wood elf NB but it seem that my guild may need a healer in the future. Would this build sufficient for me even though I'm a wood elf or am i kinda screw at becoming a NB healer?

You can totally be a healer. OP is an Argonian and they have the worst passives in the game. Basically, if an Argonian can do it, any race can.

Plus, if you get sick of healing, you have a nice stamina build waiting for you.

RavenSworn

Well with a bosmer (woodelf) you then have better resource management since you can focus all your points in magicka. Stam regen can help with your survival and you dont really need to worry about the amt of stamina.

You can also use stamina as an additional resource for utility.

Imhotep71

Im building my blood mage as I level. Any advice for a newbie Breton Argonian NB?

AlnilamE

Oh, I like this thread.

My NB is off-specced as a healer and this will help me solidify some of the stuff I've been thinking about.

Healing as an NB is a lot of fun.

omfgitsbatman

Imhotep71 wrote: »

Im building my blood mage as I level. Any advice for a newbie Breton NB?

Don't forget that your are in fact a nightblade and can go invisible. Learn how to weave with funnel health and resto/destro staves.

septvestige

I started to share my views and discribing my build here but I realized I like it that I play my style and I don't want people to copy it. I don't want to copy others as well.

My advise: Do your thing! Learn from mistakes! Try new ways!

Once I ran a vet dungeon as a NB healer and one of the guy started like this: "Seriously a NB healer?" "You are not a healer!"
"I don't do dungeons with NB healer"

then I repplied with a well known idiom from Rawl'kha: "If I want your oppinion I'd give it to you"

I suggest you do the same if you run into this.

Imhotep71

Old mmo player but very new to ESO so I figured I'd head to the forums and glean any knowledge on the build I could.

Ive switched back to Argonian just because Im not trying to Min/Max and I like Argonians better.


Im reading mixed opinions on Vampire for the Blood Mage build but Im leaning toward running Vamp.

Victus

Yeah I have an Argonian NB Healer right now, and the write-up I saw soon after release had the class being Vampire as well. So far I just haven't brought myself around because I just don't like the look for this guy. So far I'm doing pretty well with him anyway, as there are still Utility to bring to the table (Mark, Circle of Protection, etc).