Follow Up Questions

Breidr

After a rocky start I finally have a character I'm enjoying on his way. I've settled on a Templar of all things, but it's fun and it works.

I'm not that far into the game, but I'm knocking out quests and trying a bunch of different abilities. Right now it's coming down to using critical charge to leap into combat, followed by biting jabs spam, with healing ritual to top me up. It may not be optimal, but it works for me.
Now I have some additional questions and some things I need to figure out as my character develops, so I'm back here.

I'm just stumbling my way through the game right now, picking skills that I "think" would be good. When should I start worrying about my character a little more? I know Templars can fill any role, but I'm not too confident in my ability to tank with the limitations I have. I think I could pull off a supportish character, but I'm still not too keen on the flow of this game. It's not exactly the "tab" combat of other MMOs, so it's still a little new to me.

I've unlocked PvP and still can't quite figure out exactly how campaigns work. I have one named campaign, a non veteran campaign, and some 30 day campaigns. I've looked up some information and it doesn't seem to match up with what I am seeing. Have campaigns changed? Do 30 day campaigns end every month? Which should I look into for PvPing? [in later levels of course]

Peel_Ya_Cap_517

In my opinion, you really don't have to figure out what "role" you want your character to fill until you've reached Vet15 or 16. At that point you'll likely want to "gear up" and due to the price of making that level gear, you'll want to know what type of player you want to be.

As for PvP, the non vet campaign is designed for players below the vet levels, but be warned, they may still have lots of champion points. The 7 day and 30 day campaigns are exactly as they sound, one only lasts a week and the other a month. The main difference here is the rewards are significantly different. The 30 Day campaigns will give out about three times the gold and gear (if you reach Tier 3 reward level).

Hope this helps! Have fun!

Breidr

Thanks peel, this is good to know. I guess I'll just keep on the questing and try not to worry about it too much.

I'm very happy to hear they have time limited campaigns, it prevents me from getting stuck on the "bad" end of the war. Populations between the factions seem somewhat balanced, happy about that too.

Artis

Whenever you start doing group content you should already decide on the role and gear/build accordingly. That's called manners.
Don't be one of those heavy armored healer-archers

Peel_Ya_Cap_517

Artemis wrote: »

Whenever you start doing group content you should already decide on the role and gear/build accordingly. That's called manners.
Don't be one of those heavy armored healer-archers

Hah that is a good point. I was thinking mostly in terms of his questing but, yes, if you are going to do group content you will need to decide between tank/healer/or damage dealer.

Breidr

Artemis wrote: »

Whenever you start doing group content you should already decide on the role and gear/build accordingly. That's called manners.
Don't be one of those heavy armored healer-archers

What do you mean I can't be a ranged tank with heals? This game sucks.

Of course I'll optimize my role, once I figure out whatever that is.

Breidr

I chose the Templar class because, even though every class can fill every role, it has a healing skill line. If I wanted to focus more on support and heals, how would I go about doing this?

For that matter, how does healing and tanking work in this game? My abilities don't seem to be "targeted" in a traditional sense. That throws my idea of healing out the window. I thought it would be an easy role to pick up, but I'm not so sure now.

bareheiny

Breidr wrote: »

I chose the Templar class because, even though every class can fill every role, it has a healing skill line. If I wanted to focus more on support and heals, how would I go about doing this?

For that matter, how does healing and tanking work in this game? My abilities don't seem to be "targeted" in a traditional sense. That throws my idea of healing out the window. I thought it would be an easy role to pick up, but I'm not so sure now.

I'm pretty sure Templar healing boils down to spamming Breath of Life

I generally run as a healer in groups (a very, very bad healer....I'm so, so sorry for anybody who ends up in a group with me. seriously, I really am sorry) - and I picked up a healing loadout from somewhere on the interwebs - from memory the main bar is:

mutagen (resto staff), healing spring (resto staff) or combat prayer (resto staff), breath of life (restoring light) and remembrance (restoring light) for the ultimate. And inner light.

My secondary bar is mostly DPS centric - but Purifying Light puts up a nice healing pool at the end.

Aside from that, as long as you have Breath of Life you're probably golden. Maybe Spear Shards on your backup bar (just in case you come across a stamina user who knows they can get stam. from picking up the spear).


BoL is pretty much a three person heal - so no targeting required. Something like Healing Springs (resto. staff) is targetable in the sense that you decide where the healing circle goes.

Fruitmass

Most of the heals you'll be using are going to be hitting multiple targets so the lack of targeted healing isn't all that big of a thing once you get used to it. Probably the biggest challenge when it comes to healing is your awareness. You have to be aware of what your doing, what your party members are doing and what your enemy is doing. More than any other role you'll have to think on your feet and be prepared for anything that can happen. Being able to multitask and having quick reflexes also helps. That being said though I find being the healer to be the most enjoyable and fulfilling roles in the game.

As a healing Templar it goes without saying that you'll be putting a lot of your skill points into the Restoring Light skill tree but it's also a good idea to spend some into Dawn's Wrath.

The skill I prefer are:

Restoring Light:
Breath of Life- This is your panic button! It's a strong burst heal and hits multiple targets. However it's got a pretty steep magica cost so spamming is inadvisable.
Repentance- Uses corpses instead of magica. Heals and restores stamina to allies. The more corpses the better.
Purifying Ritual - AoE HoT. When used in conjunction with the Focused Healing passive your restoring light skills are 30% more effective for allies standing in the AoE.
Maxing out all the passives in this skill tree is highly recommended.

Dawn's Wrath:
Purifying Light - Helps add some extra dps and gives a nice little heal when it expires.
Maxing the passives in this skill tree would also be recommended but not absolutely necessary. You will want Restoring Spirit though as it reduces ability costs by 4%.

For your ultimate it's kind of a toss up between Remembrance (20% less damage taken, AoE HoT) and Solar Prison (30% less damage taken, AoE DoT). Either one is good to use. I personally swap between both.

Now as a Templar you have a nice selection of class skills to choose from when it comes to healing but that doesn't mean you should ignore what restoration staffs have to offer. Using the resto staff is highly recommended for resource management. Heavy attacks with a resto staff refund magica and with the Essence Drain passive heavy attacks also heal nearby allies for 35% of the damage done.

The first three abilities in the Restoration Staff skill tree are going to be of major use to you as a healer. Healing Springs is a ground targeting AoE HoT with a low magica cost so it's great for spamming (you'll want to swap this out for Cleansing Ritual once you've unlocked it but until then it's great to have). Mutagen is another HoT that's good for spamming. Combat prayer does decent healing and covers a fairly large area. It also gives some minor buffs to damage as well as small boost to physical and spell resistance. Force Siphon and it's morphs is also a skill you should consider. It's good for cheap maintenance heals as it heals allies for a small amount each time they land a hit on an affected target (and mana if you take Siphon Spirit). And of course your going to want to max out all the passives here as well.


Taking Inner Light from the Mage's Guild tree is also a nice skill to have as it increases your Spell Critical. It's a toggled skill though so you'd have to have it slotted to both skill bars if your doing weapons swapping (which you will likely have to do a lot of simply because of the many skills you'll want to use as a healer). Taking Inner Light has an added benefit in that having it slotted on your bar means you'll be able to gain the benefits of the Mage's Guild passive Magica Controller which increases max magica and magica regen (1%/2%) for each mage's guild skill slotted. While not a huge bonus by itself, every little bit helps.

Wearing a set of light armor also helps with magica management as the passives Evocation and Recovery reduce spell cost and increase magica regeneration rates. The passive Prodigy will also increase your critical rating when wearing five or more pieces of light armor. Ideally I would suggest wearing the full seven pieces of light to maximize the effect of those passives if you want to be a dedicated healer but five will suffice for off heals.

Just what equipment sets you'd want to use is pretty general. Healing is a magica centric role, if it increases your max magic, magica regeneration, spell power, spell critical, reduces magica cost or refunds magica you can likely get away with using it

Race wise, the two top (though by no means only) choices are either Breton or High Elf. Bretons get an increase to their max magica (4%/7%/10%) and magica cost reduction (1%/2%/3%). Altmer get an increase to max magica (3%/6%/9%) and magica recovery (4%/8%/10%).

cjhhickman39

Fruitmass wrote: »

Most of the heals you'll be using are going to be hitting multiple targets so the lack of targeted healing isn't all that big of a thing once you get used to it. Probably the biggest challenge when it comes to healing is your awareness. You have to be aware of what your doing, what your party members are doing and what your enemy is doing. More than any other role you'll have to think on your feet and be prepared for anything that can happen. Being able to multitask and having quick reflexes also helps. That being said though I find being the healer to be the most enjoyable and fulfilling roles in the game.

As a healing Templar it goes without saying that you'll be putting a lot of your skill points into the Restoring Light skill tree but it's also a good idea to spend some into Dawn's Wrath.

The skill I prefer are:

Restoring Light:
Breath of Life- This is your panic button! It's a strong burst heal and hits multiple targets. However it's got a pretty steep magica cost so spamming is inadvisable.
Repentance- Uses corpses instead of magica. Heals and restores stamina to allies. The more corpses the better.
Purifying Ritual - AoE HoT. When used in conjunction with the Focused Healing passive your restoring light skills are 30% more effective for allies standing in the AoE.
Maxing out all the passives in this skill tree is highly recommended.

Dawn's Wrath:
Purifying Light - Helps add some extra dps and gives a nice little heal when it expires.
Maxing the passives in this skill tree would also be recommended but not absolutely necessary. You will want Restoring Spirit though as it reduces ability costs by 4%.

For your ultimate it's kind of a toss up between Remembrance (20% less damage taken, AoE HoT) and Solar Prison (30% less damage taken, AoE DoT). Either one is good to use. I personally swap between both.

Now as a Templar you have a nice selection of class skills to choose from when it comes to healing but that doesn't mean you should ignore what restoration staffs have to offer. Using the resto staff is highly recommended for resource management. Heavy attacks with a resto staff refund magica and with the Essence Drain passive heavy attacks also heal nearby allies for 35% of the damage done.

The first three abilities in the Restoration Staff skill tree are going to be of major use to you as a healer. Healing Springs is a ground targeting AoE HoT with a low magica cost so it's great for spamming (you'll want to swap this out for Cleansing Ritual once you've unlocked it but until then it's great to have). Mutagen is another HoT that's good for spamming. Combat prayer does decent healing and covers a fairly large area. It also gives some minor buffs to damage as well as small boost to physical and spell resistance. Force Siphon and it's morphs is also a skill you should consider. It's good for cheap maintenance heals as it heals allies for a small amount each time they land a hit on an affected target (and mana if you take Siphon Spirit). And of course your going to want to max out all the passives here as well.


Taking Inner Light from the Mage's Guild tree is also a nice skill to have as it increases your Spell Critical. It's a toggled skill though so you'd have to have it slotted to both skill bars if your doing weapons swapping (which you will likely have to do a lot of simply because of the many skills you'll want to use as a healer). Taking Inner Light has an added benefit in that having it slotted on your bar means you'll be able to gain the benefits of the Mage's Guild passive Magica Controller which increases max magica and magica regen (1%/2%) for each mage's guild skill slotted. While not a huge bonus by itself, every little bit helps.

Wearing a set of light armor also helps with magica management as the passives Evocation and Recovery reduce spell cost and increase magica regeneration rates. The passive Prodigy will also increase your critical rating when wearing five or more pieces of light armor. Ideally I would suggest wearing the full seven pieces of light to maximize the effect of those passives if you want to be a dedicated healer but five will suffice for off heals.

Just what equipment sets you'd want to use is pretty general. Healing is a magica centric role, if it increases your max magic, magica regeneration, spell power, spell critical, reduces magica cost or refunds magica you can likely get away with using it

Race wise, the two top (though by no means only) choices are either Breton or High Elf. Bretons get an increase to their max magica (4%/7%/10%) and magica cost reduction (1%/2%/3%). Altmer get an increase to max magica (3%/6%/9%) and magica recovery (4%/8%/10%).

Best intro to healing I've read thinking of starting a Templar healer now I will thanks

Breidr

The whole post has given me a lot to digest, and I thank you for it, but there is a portion in there that has mo worried a little bit.

Fruitmass wrote: »

Probably the biggest challenge when it comes to healing is your awareness. You have to be aware of what your doing, what your party members are doing and what your enemy is doing. More than any other role you'll have to think on your feet and be prepared for anything that can happen. Being able to multitask and having quick reflexes also helps. That being said though I find being the healer to be the most enjoyable and fulfilling roles in the game.

As a disabled gamer, awareness is not a strong suit of mine. I thought that taking a support role and getting "away" from the action combat would be better. Now I'm not so sure.

I wanted to go above DPS, but I may not be able to, depending on how hard it is on me.

Krainor1974

Hey Breidr what server and faction you in, r u
PC/NA/DC?

Breidr

Krainor1974 wrote: »

Hey Breidr what server and faction you in, r u
PC/NA/DC?

Almost!

I'm on the PC-NA Server, but I'm a Nord on Ebonheart Pact

Fruitmass

Breidr wrote: »

The whole post has given me a lot to digest, and I thank you for it, but there is a portion in there that has mo worried a little bit.

Fruitmass wrote: »

Probably the biggest challenge when it comes to healing is your awareness. You have to be aware of what your doing, what your party members are doing and what your enemy is doing. More than any other role you'll have to think on your feet and be prepared for anything that can happen. Being able to multitask and having quick reflexes also helps. That being said though I find being the healer to be the most enjoyable and fulfilling roles in the game.

As a disabled gamer, awareness is not a strong suit of mine. I thought that taking a support role and getting "away" from the action combat would be better. Now I'm not so sure.

I wanted to go above DPS, but I may not be able to, depending on how hard it is on me.

Oh dear, I may have made it sound more daunting than it really is. Most of the time the healer's job is pretty simple. When your party members know their role, know the encounters and are appropriately geared it's a sweat gig. You just stand around and look pretty, occasionally throwing a few heals out there just to keep up the image that you're actually working

So I wouldn't sweat it too much chief. You just have to keep an eye on what's going on so you know where your most needed.

If your tank is a bit squishy be ready to throw Breath of Life out there after the boss does a power attack. If the boss calls down a storm of fiery death keep an eye on where it's landing. If the DPS ran off, got himself killed and dragged two more groups of mobs on top of you, be ready with a few soul gems and some choice words.

Honestly worst part is just making sense of what the heck is going on around you. Once you get that down healing will become as natural as breathing.

Breidr

Would you say it's the easier of the non-DPS roles? If that's the case, then I'm set.

DPS seem the most numerous in MMOs, so I like to fill one of the other two. Healers have traditionally been easier for me. I have a hard time squeezing DPS out of games, so I started to gravitate towards healers in MMOs. I was a healbot in wow and it was cake.

Are there even any buffs I have to set an egg timer to remind myself of? If not it may be even easier.

Fruitmass

I personally would take healing over tanking any day but your asking someone who's never like tanking very much to begin with so you should probably take my opinion on that matter with a grain of salt .

Still, if you enjoyed healing in WoW I think you'd enjoy it in ESO as well. Heals has been my role of choice in most every MMO I've played also and I find ESO's approach to be the least nail biting and most user friendly of any I've played so far. Most buffs and effects last for a pretty good amount of time, so precision timing isn't much of an issue and there's usually a visual indicator or sound to let you know when you need to reapply them.

There are also a good number of add-ons that can help you keep track of Buffs/Debuffs/HPS and DPS and such if your interested. esoui.com/addons.php

They're not absolutely essential for being a good healer though, more like icing on the cake.

Breidr

I have been gathering add-ons. I have the Wikkyd Suite, as well as Foundry Tactical Combat. I like it a lot more than the default UI and it does appear to have buff tracking. Once I learn how everything works, I should be good.

The mini-map is a life saver, I hated having to open my map every 30 seconds! Skyshards and Lorebooks are just gravy.

NBrookus

Breidr wrote: »

The whole post has given me a lot to digest, and I thank you for it, but there is a portion in there that has mo worried a little bit.

Fruitmass wrote: »

Probably the biggest challenge when it comes to healing is your awareness. You have to be aware of what your doing, what your party members are doing and what your enemy is doing. More than any other role you'll have to think on your feet and be prepared for anything that can happen. Being able to multitask and having quick reflexes also helps. That being said though I find being the healer to be the most enjoyable and fulfilling roles in the game.

As a disabled gamer, awareness is not a strong suit of mine. I thought that taking a support role and getting "away" from the action combat would be better. Now I'm not so sure.

I wanted to go above DPS, but I may not be able to, depending on how hard it is on me.

When it comes to group content, you may be able to fill some gaps by researching the dungeons well before you go in. About 75% of the success with bosses is understanding their mechanics and adapting to them, and there are lots and lots of web pages and videos that cover that. With a PUG, any player who understands and can explain the mechanics to players who don't is going to valuable.

Krainor1974

Ah if you were in DC , I could of helped you out

Pheefs

Also, there's a skill on your Dawn's Wrath line called Backlash, & I prefer to call it "The Doom"

with a morph you can add a nice area heal to it, for you and allies, as an after effect

I find that skill to be really useful & fun in a group setting, whatever support role I am playing.