Changing Specs Later In The Game

Celestrael

So I'm almost level 40 and I've had a change of heart on being a tank. I always play healers in MMOs and honestly I miss it. I thought I'd try a Magicka Templar Tank to try and depart some from my usual playstyle but it appears I'm relapsing. The problem being that I stopped leveling up Resto Staff, Light Armor and Dawns Wrath around level 15 and didn't re-add these things to my bars/add light armor until recently when I learned it's best to level everything as you go.

I was wondering if you guys had any pointers on transitioning this late in the game, when the skills you're making your primaries are far underleveled. I imagine I'm going to have a rough go at it.

Also if anyone has a good solo'ing bar line-up for leveling a Templar healer, I'd be super appreciative of that. I was experiencing difficulty soloing which is what prompted me to try out being a tank (the opposite of the squishy thing I was!).

Syntse

You're not late in the game yet on lvl 40. Just put on light armor and healing spells to your bar with puncturing strikes or continue using damaging skills and have healing in another bar and every time you turn in quest you change bar to level up those healing skills.

Celestrael

Well that's good, I feared I'd be on the struggle bus for awhile while my skills caught up to me.

Another question. I recently acquired Vampirism to try mixing Templar tanking skills with Mist. Would it be advisable to keep the vampirism or cure it?

Syntse

If you are going to do PvP mainly then vampirism might benefit you. In PvE there not much to gain from vampirism except disadvantages. The sensitivity to fire is really noticeable and some dungeons and trials you'll die in seconds because of being vampire.

Especially tanking and being vampire would have been bad idea in PvE.

Celestrael

They are reducing the vampirism fire weakness from 40% to 25% in the next big patch, so it shouldn't be too difficult to enchant in that 25% to make up for it. I would never have considered Vamping before I saw those notes about the buff coming down the pipeline.

CaptainObvious

Also, you can level up weaker skills when collecting quest rewards. Set up your 2nd bar to be the weapon/skills you want to level and swap to that prior to collecting a quest reward. Then when comfortable, swap over to that as primary.

Celestrael

Would it be possible to use Destro staff while leveling but have a Resto staff skill on my primary bar and they both get exp?

Sandshark95

Switching will be hard when your skill levels are low as you mentioned, but it's doable. Thankfully I figured out early on that I could level two weapon trees at the same time by slotting a secondary weapon skill on my primary bar and that wearing "Rainbow Armor" (mix of all types) while leveling would save me time later on.

My Templar Healer is currently sitting at lvl 38. Here are a few skills I'd recommend buying/leveling up:

Puncturing Strikes, morph to Puncturing Sweep-- Love this for soloing. I've spent 38 levels with this as the only "damage skill" on my bar; the rest of my slots were dedicated to leveling up other skills I knew I'd need/want later. I've soloed world bosses at and above my level by mostly just spamming this. The Sweep morph heals in addition to being an Aoe/stun.

Spear Shards, morph to Luminous Shards-- Great skill for group play. Your team will appreciate the free stamina and magicka. Drop it on your Tank or your DPSs, and you will be well-liked.

Aedric Spear Passives-- meh. Maybe the last one, Balanced Warrior, for Spell Resist. Mostly a DPS tree though.

Backlash, morph to Purifying Light-- does damage depending on how much damage you deal and it heals (with morph). Nice skill all around.

Dawn's Wrath Passives-- All of them are nice to have.

Rushed Ceremony, morph to Breath of Life-- This. Your spam heal, your "Oh (Bleep)" button. Don't rely solely on it of course, you have other healing skills, but it should always be on your bar as a Templar Healer. Always. BoL.

Restoring Aura, morph to Repentance-- Nice passive while slotted, nice heal once a few bodies are laying around, and no cost. Why not?

Cleansing Ritual, either morph-- I actually haven't played around with this one yet, but I imagine it being a good group heal.

Restoring Wrath Passives-- All of them.

Resto Staff Skills:

Grand Healing, morph to Healing Springs-- the other morph only gives you an extra second of duration. Springs gives you a magicka refund. Nice heal, drop it often on teammates.

Regeneration, morph to Rapid Regeneration-- Rapid is the superior morph IMO. Mutagen's effect would require you to spend more magicka in the long run. Always try to keep this skill ticking.

Blessing of Protection, morph to Combat Prayer-- Combat morph gives your group a DPS buff in addition to a heal and an armor/spell resist buff. It's very nice to keep this up as often as you can.

Passives-- All of them, especially the return magicka/health allies for heavy attack ones. Great for magicka management; in between using your abilities, spam heavy attacks with your staff to get your magicka back.

Hope that helps to at least get you started. Switching might be a grind for a little while, but you'll get there. Dedicate as many slots on your bar to abilities you want to level (at least until you unlock the morphs). I was able to survive and still progress pretty quickly by only keeping/using Breath of Life and Puncturing Sweep on my bars, and rotating skills in and out of the other slots as I leveled them. Obviously you'll now want to don mostly Light armor to level that up more. You don't have to switch to Resto Staff right away though; I actually rarely use my staff (only at Anchors, or when around other players, doing dungeons) and mainly stick to 2h when soloing. Still, my Resto Staff has leveled nearly equally to my 2h because I purchased some Resto passives and always kept a Resto skill on my 2h bar. You can just keep using the weapon you have leveled up most and do the same.

Good luck!


I was actually considering becoming a vampire on my Healer for the extra magicka (probably never on my magicka DK Tank for reasons explained by a previous poster). There's so much fire in PvE though. I'd recommend not curing yourself right away until you're certain you don't like it/can't handle the disadvantages.

Nestor

Celestrael wrote: »

Would it be possible to use Destro staff while leveling but have a Resto staff skill on my primary bar and they both get exp?

Probably not. You need the Weapon Equipped to be able to use the skill, so I don't think it will accrue experience if it is slotted on a Destro Staff Bar. However you can easily test this.

However, you will probably have a Resto Bar and a Destro (or your main weapon bar). Use the Weapon bar for the mobs as usually, switching to healing when you want to do that. Then, just before you turn in the quest, switch to the Resto bar so those skills get points. Nice thing about the game, you can always exit out of the conversation before you accept the quest reward, make sure of your bar, then talk to the NPC again and accept the reward. You don't accrue exp until you accept the reward.

Robbmrp

Get training on the weapons/armor you need to increase the skill in. It helps a ton!

rb2001

Ask Stendarr to guide you through this gender change.

Lynx7386

My nightblade's career history:

-Started as a dual wielder
-gave up dual wield for a bow at level 10
-swapped back to dual wield at level 12 because I wasnt feeling the bow fit the character
-Tried out 2 handed at level 20, back before it got buffed, but it was crap so I went back to dual wield
-tried out sword and shield around level 32-36, tanked a bit, didnt really like it
-Around 40, decided I wanted to try the 'warlock' playstyle, so I dropped all my medium armor and melee weapons and went with full light and a staff
-Finished the main story quest and got to level 50 as a caster
-Decided that, despite it being effective, my character just wasnt designed with spellcasting in mind, so I swap back to a 2hander (now that buffs have been made and the 2hander line was changed heavily)
-Loved the 2hander, stuck with it ever since
-Used 2h + Bow combo until veteran rank 4/5
-After maxxing the bow, dropped it for a 2h + 1h/shield combo to try levelling up the shield line and tanking a bit more
-Gave up on the 1h/shield at vet6 and picked up dual weild as my offhand weapon again (2h + dual wield)
-Still have points in bow to use in pvp

Needless to say, I've got nearly every skill line for weapons maxxed out. It just costs gold and some time, you can change your playstyle completely whenever you like.

alertmonkey

If you place a skill (eg. 1hand & shield) on another weapons bar then it will level that other skill as well as the other weapon type.

I am currently doing this on my alt Dk fire mage. I am using a destro and have the first 1hand & shield skill on it and it is levelling both weapon types without having to actually use the 1hand & shield.

Sandshark95

@Celestrael Yes, you can level both Destro and Resto skill trees simultaneously by doing what you described; that is, by using the Destro staff but having a Resto Staff ability slotted on your bar. This Resto skill will indeed be "useless" to you while you're using your Destro staff, but XP will go towards BOTH weapons. I shall reiterate my point: you can level up a second weapon without ever actually having to use that weapon if you slot at least one of its abilities on your bar while using a different weapon. Not only will the skill line for the weapon you're not actually using level at nearly the same pace as your primary weapon, but the "useless" skill you slotted on your bar will level up as well. You do NOT have to switch bars to get XP to apply to your second weapon; you can level them both at the same time on the same bar. You don't even need bar-switching unlocked to do this, so long as you're using one weapon but have an ability from a different weapon slotted on your bar.

I can resolutely confirm this from personal experience. On my Templar Healer, I assigned a Resto Staff as my primary weapon and a 2h as my secondary. On my Resto Bar, I slotted a 2h ability. On my 2h Bar, I slotted a Resto ability. As I leveled, I also purchased passives and new abilities from both trees. I primarily use 2h for soloing and questing, rarely switching to Resto. Still, my Resto Staff skill tree and abilities have leveled fairly evenly with my 2h. When I unlocked a morph for my "useless" resto ability on my 2h bar, I'd simply switch it out for another one. I'm also doing this on a new character I recently made to level DW and 2h simultaneously as I progress through the game.

Celestrael

What's the benefit of doing 2h as a Templar Healer? I've seen it a lot but I don't understand why you'd want to do that. Destro seemed like the natural choice for DPSing as a caster.

Sandshark95

@Celestrael 2h and DW somehow provide superior spell damage over staves, meaning that your spells do more damage with these types of weapons equipped. The weapon skills themselves scale with stamina, so no benefit there, but your bar would likely contain mostly magicka based class skills anyway. Of course, you can't sustain your magicka pool as efffectively by giving up the staves, but this can be accounted for.

Personally, there are a few reasons I like to use 2h for soloing over a staff. For one, 2h just hits harder and kills stuff quicker than my Resto staff. As mentioned above, my spells do seem to hit a little harder as well with 2h. And then there's Rally (Momentum morph). Rally is a great self-heal and damage buff. Combined with Puncturing Sweep, it becomes very difficult for a Templar Healer to die, even while taking on a mob. For me, the main reason I choose a melee weapon over a destro staff--and this is important IMO--is magicka management. I felt that if I took two staves--two magicka-based weapons--that I'd have too many abilities competing for one precious, limited resource: my magicka pool. I choose to be a Healer, and while putting out damage is nice and very tempting, it's not my primary focus. I didn't want to constantly juggle the decision of directing my magicka towards healing/support or damage-dealing. So I went two-hand instead of two-sticks. Possible problem, solved.

It's up to you what you want to use as a secondary. If you want to go Resto/Destro, then no one's stopping you. I'll just keep swinging my 2hander away.

Celestrael

The only DPS I really do when dungeon grouping is AoE sharding (which is DPS with a support function) and hitting with my Resto staff to regen magicka. All the skills I use while grouping either heal, buff, or support in some way. If I'm doing my job properly, my group will be putting out mad damage and they wont need me casting a bunch of nukes. My Destro staff and Wrath line are for solo questing for the most part.

*EDIT*

Granted I've only been running my new spec today. I did 5 dungeons and they all went swimmingly and my group complimented my heals. I'm new to ESO healing but I've played healer on every other MMO I've played the past 10 years. :P