Healing during Planar Inhibitor's Portals

Pink_Violinz

I was in a group for vet WGT when we got to said boss, which I had never done before. Even being a magicka templar with plenty of range, I couldn't keep up with the billion portals popping up and my group was quickly dying. In about three runs, I had portals four times while one of our dps got it once, the tank got it about three times and the other dps maybe two or three. One of the dps chewed me out a bit and now I'm trying to figure out what to do when I get portals again.

I am always in third person, so if I back up too much my camera will leave some blind spots. If I'm in the middle, it's super easy to miss portals. If I go into first person, I'll get smacked by everything in sight. Not to mention we'll be relying in the tank's off-healing when portals go off on me. Again.

I tried watching some videos, but it doesn't help when the group positively melts the boss (deltia) and you don't really get to see how they deal with mechanics, especially a healer.

I tried using Radiant Oppression, which I found too slow and I was forced to run around, killing my stamina fast (which the dps also yelled at me for). Vampire's Bane was a little more successful, I think, but I didn't really get to test it too much since everyone's favorite dps quit.

So how am I supposed to destroy portals fast enough, let alone even see them? They always seem to pop up BEHIND a player, so I miss them until they start pouring out dremora. The (rest) of the group is experienced, but even they can't really afford a boss, billion ads and no designated healer, because they're running around flailing at daedric portals. I've tried planting myself against a wall, but they always pop up on the other side of the room and not being a stamina build I can only run so much. Any ideas?

Katahdin

I tried doing this at V2 with myself as V5, a V13 and V16. We couldn't get past this boss with the portals and adds. The fight is kinda nuts. We gave up after an 2 hours.

Reverb

I want to help you, I really do. But I'm genuinely terrified of what Zeni will do if they find out I have a useful combination of Templar class skills.

But… When I was a healer I preferred to take the pinion rather than get stuck with portals, there are easy enough ways to deal with the dot. When you do get the portals, use Aurora Javelin. It's cheap, fast, and gives a distance bonus.

LadyNalcarya

Its much easier when only tank and healer take the pinion, it drastically reduces the chances of getting portals for them.
But they should be fast and take it immediately, to avoid dot stacking.
I rarely heal, but as a tank I usually just run around in circles if I have portals. I think they have a specific pattern, at least spawn places are always the same. And they dont have much hp, so killing them is easy if you can spot them quick enough.

Cuyler

I'm not a Templar, but I have seen them in action plenty of times.

Firstly, the second person to grab the pinion will most likely avoid the first portal phase each time the boss "resets". What I mean by "resets" is when after the boss finishes it's blue phase and dips to the ground and remains immobile for a short period, she essentially "resets", the DOTs clear and the red fire phase begins again.

If you can negotiate the second position in the pinion rotation after each time the boss "resets" it will limit the amount of portals you have to do. But you need to grab the pinion the second it becomes available for this to work. General rule, if you have the bosses agro, you can't get portals unless everyone else is dead.

If you do get portals, vampires bane or radiant oppression are the go to skills. You should be able to one shot a portal using these. If you can't, it's a gear issue. Either your max magic or spell damage is too low. Note that these skills can channel the boss by accident if it's too close to a portal, so be ready to block cancel a misfire. You can also slot a destro staff (you should be using this already to provide important group buffs like elemental drain) and use force pulse. You should be light or medium attack weaving these skills to ensure your closing the portal in one-shot.

On awareness....The best position to close portals is circling the center of the room just outside the pinion platform. As with any fight, things will happen behind you, it's your responsibility to have enough awareness to not get run over by the boss during blue phase as she moves through the rooms center. AS well, you must keep your head on a swivel and anticipate portals forming behind you.

At some point two people will get portals. BEFORE the fight begins speak with your group about splitting the room in half, either left or right side, or light or dark side works. When this occurs the two portal people should call out which side they will take and close the portals on their respective sides while helping the other person when possible.

Finally, if you're the groups healer you must be able heal while doing portals. This means you close a portal, breath of LIfe (BOL), close portal, BOL, close portal, BOL, close portal, BOL.....until all the portals are done.

Note: When the blue phase is over and the boss "resets" and is immobile on the ground, no one is taking damage. As a healer, this is your time to regen your resources for the next portal phase or when one of you group members needs a lot of heals due to a huge DOT.

Solariken

There is a fair amount of luck involved for a solo healer in that fight, but honestly the best approach is to have group members who aren't scrubs and can keep themselves alive for a few seconds while you deal with portals, or have someone be designated as off-healer.

As for the portals, usually one javelin and partial-heavy resto staff attack is enough to take them out. If you stay positioned near the center of the room you don't have to spend a lot of extra time running from portal to portal.

Good luck and have fun. The Molag Kena fight hard too but is SUPER fun, I think you will love that.

PainfulFAFA

For that particular boss i use harness magicka on my healer for the protection and regen.
Since my spell dmg is high (3k buffed) i can easily 1-shot those portals with Vamps Bane or Force Pulse.
Also, you need to run around constantly having full view of the room to hit all those nasty portals.
Pop a mutagen or rapids every once in a while so.

Cuyler

It may also be of use to request your squishy/inexperienced dps to slot harness magicka, hardened ward, aka some spammable shield to mitigate the DOTs damage and make your job as a healer much easier. Experienced players, with a solid healer do not need to do this however.

NBrookus

My sorc can one shot the portals from range with destro staff, but I agree that seeing them is the hard part. Like @Cuyler, I found circling the inner platform while scanning the outer wall was the best way to see them.

Shunravi

After running many new people throught this fight, the best points of advice i can give are;

*unless its blue phase, stay near to the center pinion, but not to close that the flame geisers spawn under the pinion if you need to go in to grab it.

*the boss does not hurt to much until blue phase. So you do not need to move it around to much. Stand your ground untill you see the pinion open and the blue fire ignition for blue phase. (After two regular phase 'dives') This makes it signifigantly easier for any melee or ground aoe to hit.

*Stay near the center to also be able to see and react to more of the field should you get portals. (If you are melee, use a charge move or equip a bow or any spamable ranged attack.) i tell people that i keep my camera on swivel and always scan for portals. Look for the healthbar, as the blue orb can sometimes seem to be disguised against the blue in the scenery. Especially with the grey shading you get with portals. You can actually solo the double portals that happen below 40% if you get good enough with it and have decent damage with a skill and light/med attack weave... I think the portals have something like 10k hp.

*the boss is a mechanics fight and not a dps race. If you have low dps, your kill priority is portals>adds>boss. Just be sure to trade off the pinion. Do not be thrown off if adds come through. Kill them. But be sure to take care of the portals first so you do not get more. (Especially the ogrim) if you are unsure you can kill the boss quick, do not get kill happy. Focus on the mechanics. There is no race.

*a full tank is unnecessary for the fight, unfortunately, and actually can hurt more than it helps. I recomend that the tank switch to a dps spec. Even if you get adds. Just avoid the uppercuts.

EDIT; adendum to my second point. The boss does no signifigant damage untill blue phase. If you have the boss and portals in normal phase, you just need to worry about the portals, just pop some heals between killing portals. Substitute the advice of moving around the middle with moving around the boss so that it doesnt get in the way

EDIT; *go to grab the pinion as soon as it starts spinning to open.

WolfingHour

Perhaps you taking too long to close them? I had that problem. This worked for me:
1) increase spell damage and magicka polls and decrease mag reg. Had to adjust some gear and skills;
2) radiant destruction. You have to block cancel the skill and move on to the next. With enough spell damage one crushing shock is enough.
3) lots of practice.

Why do you run around to cast radiant destruction? You just need to hang around the platform and can easily hit any portal.

beerninja

spin the camera around and use dark flare for portals. For the boss use cold damage abilities as she has 0 cold resistance. ice comet, destructive reach with ice staff, etc. Keep either mutagen or rapid regen on people at all times.

Reverb

beerninja wrote: »

spin the camera around and use dark flare for portals. For the boss use cold damage abilities as she has 0 cold resistance. ice comet, destructive reach with ice staff, etc. Keep either mutagen or rapid regen on people at all times.

The cast time on Dark Flare makes me disagree with this. By the time you locate and target the portal, then wait for flare to cast and connect, it spawned at least one add, and possibly an additional portal.

Howl

It's best to have no designated anything on that fight. Have everyone play dps that can look after themselves (whatever they would use for vMA for instance) and just click the clicky if it's open and you don't have the portal buff. Magicka classes can use harness and/or healing ward to save others in a crisis and the stamina classes can use rally/vigor.

As for the portals, just keep moving, avoid red circles, avoid the boss and constantly scan around for new portals if you have the buff. Chuck in some dps and/or healing wards in between portals.

Sunah

Many factors here:

If you are decently geared and have about 3200 spell damage buffed like me, you can one shot the portals with a heavy attack on resto staff.

Best way to do this is to zoom out all the way, keep camera spinning one way while turning your character the other. You will see every portal that spawns and kill em quick.

If you lower geared I recommend popping structured enthropy before portal phase and using dark flare. Dark flare has a cast time but it hits hard. All you need to do is cast flare and move camera away and start looking for the next portal. You do not need to sit here and wait for the flare to hit, just know if you used structured, dark flare SHOULD one shot them. I hope this helps.

Sunah

Reverb wrote: »

beerninja wrote: »

spin the camera around and use dark flare for portals. For the boss use cold damage abilities as she has 0 cold resistance. ice comet, destructive reach with ice staff, etc. Keep either mutagen or rapid regen on people at all times.

The cast time on Dark Flare makes me disagree with this. By the time you locate and target the portal, then wait for flare to cast and connect, it spawned at least one add, and possibly an additional portal.

Not true at all. As long as you are not derping it and waiting forever to cast it will kill the portals LONGGG before an add spawns. Like I said before, when you cast it you can look away for the next portal because the flare should 1 shot the portals.

I use to use flare until I got enough gear to get some good spell damage. As long as I kept my minor and major sorc buffs up (which should always be up anyway) then I could just heavy attack with my resto staff. Ive run vwgt 900+ times trying to get the stupid spell power cure set so I know it works haha

Sharmony

Here you go, hope this helps

Video

EDIT: We've also done this fight more recently using two sorcerers with overload in just over a minute with this tactic and with these abilities.Vampires Bane is by far the best ability to use on portals.

Dagoth_Rac

FYI, you can Repentance the portals after you close them (if they are close enough to you). A nice way to get everybody free health and stamina in a fight that, if done right, will have no adds.

yake82

Snipe or Force Pulse

And stay in the middle of the room.

timmayyyboy

I use 2 vampires bane on my dual wield bar as a templar healer and walk away from the portals. 2 vampire banes->BoL->2 vampire banes is enough to close them for me. You just gotta keep scanning the room

Ariisen

Get a decent tank that can survive more than 5 seconds without heals and have him STAND still with the boss until she becomes blue.
When she goes blue the tank starts running away until one of the group members gets the portals, whoever doesn't have portals take the pinion, then the tank takes it back and she drops, rinse and repeat.

You stay in the middle, run clockwise or counterclockwise around the pinion and use any skill that does more than 7.5k dmg to close portals when they pop out.

With decent DPS you only have one turn when one person has to close ten, if the healer gets that turn some adds will pop out most of the time. When you have portals togheter with another DPS have him close them by himself while you focus on healing and only close the ones that spawn really close to you, if he can't solo close the portals get a decent DPS.

oibam

reflective light - portal killer
bol - heal

easy, but group has to activate pinion and avoid red.

if you know how it works, it is easy

FatKidHatchets

Fully charged heavy attacks take out the portals.

I tank this boss with ease. Everyone needs a little self sustain and the pinion should be grabbed as soon as it pops by anyone available. When she falls to the ground if yheir are adds clear them. This battle is a marathon not a race. Just keep calm and its smooth.

remilafo

You need a instant cast ST ability... Force pulse, Tangling webs there are many.

It's a bit of L2P issue, maybe need more spell power to one shot those portals.

Also it doesn't all have to be on your shoulders, imo all magicka classes should be able to dps and heals swap roles easily.

If you get portals get one of your dps people to go heals for a moment.

Joy_Division

What I do as a healer:

First thing to know is that this first is hard to do with a random group of 4 people. If one of those 4 never did it before, yeah, there are going to be wipes.

The hardest part about the portals is finding them. It sounds dumb, but the color scheme doesn't make it easy to see. Third person all the way. Once you know what to look for it does get easier.

I just use Radiant destruction on the portals. It's 28 meters and all you need. If adds are still getting through, that's because you aren't identifying them and attacking them quick enough.

When you say a billion portals, I am guessing you are referring to the last part of the fight where 2 people get them. Yeah, there are a lot at the point! Just us RD on them.

You shouldn't have to change your build too much. The only thing I do is slot harness magicka because all that damage is magic.

You should know that unless the boss has a blue flame, she does not do that much damage. Indeed I tend to stay put even if I have aggro and DPS her. I only move when she spins around and a red circle spawn underneath you.

Don't get too discouraged with the fight. We all struggled with it at first and then once you get used to it, it isn't too bad.

Kahen40k

As healer, the best skill for portal in my opinion is Trapping Webs; its a very underrated skill, but you can one shot them, even with fully healing build and you don't need a destro; in alternative, light attack and force pulse/crushing shock.

Pink_Violinz

Few more tries and a much more patient (and skilled) group allowed me to learn the mechanics.

Vampires Bane turned out to work the best, as if it didn't initially destroy it the dot would. Speaking of the dot, another portal wouldn't spawn until that portal was gone in early phases, allowing me to assess the team. The javelin just wasn't doing enough damage and I didn't enjoy being locked out while using Radiant Oppression.

The garbage advice that the lovely dps told me about standing aside a wall in third person did more harm than good. Standing in the middle, or at least near the middle, allowed me to spin the camera and see any portals that popped up. While I'm not as good as a dps at closing them, very few ads make it through. Occasionally I do miss a portal of course, as a white blob in a fiery black-and-white haze can be hard to see. But these are rare and I've improved quite a bit.

First run I finished, I got an infused light armor Kena helmet.

PainfulFAFA

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

I was in a group for vet WGT when we got to said boss, which I had never done before. Even being a magicka templar with plenty of range, I couldn't keep up with the billion portals popping up and my group was quickly dying. In about three runs, I had portals four times while one of our dps got it once, the tank got it about three times and the other dps maybe two or three. One of the dps chewed me out a bit and now I'm trying to figure out what to do when I get portals again.

I am always in third person, so if I back up too much my camera will leave some blind spots. If I'm in the middle, it's super easy to miss portals. If I go into first person, I'll get smacked by everything in sight. Not to mention we'll be relying in the tank's off-healing when portals go off on me. Again.

I tried watching some videos, but it doesn't help when the group positively melts the boss (deltia) and you don't really get to see how they deal with mechanics, especially a healer.

I tried using Radiant Oppression, which I found too slow and I was forced to run around, killing my stamina fast (which the dps also yelled at me for). Vampire's Bane was a little more successful, I think, but I didn't really get to test it too much since everyone's favorite dps quit.

So how am I supposed to destroy portals fast enough, let alone even see them? They always seem to pop up BEHIND a player, so I miss them until they start pouring out dremora. The (rest) of the group is experienced, but even they can't really afford a boss, billion ads and no designated healer, because they're running around flailing at daedric portals. I've tried planting myself against a wall, but they always pop up on the other side of the room and not being a stamina build I can only run so much. Any ideas?

I used to have the same issues as you, where i would run out of magicka trying to heal and dps portals. BUt that was back when i had crap stats tbh.

Now its very easy. As a temp healer, i raised my spell damage, lowered by regen, and maxed out my magicka. I use harness magicka specifically for this boss. The protection and magicka return is really good. If i get portals, i use either crushing shock, or vamp bane. Both are really good since you can 1 shot them. As im doing portals, i make sure to pop mutagen/rapid regen.

Overall my stats are:
Spell Dmg: 2900-3500 (depending on destro or dw)
Regen: 1000-1300 (depending on food/drink/enchantments)
Magicka: 28k-35k (depending on food/drink)

Shunravi

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Few more tries and a much more patient (and skilled) group allowed me to learn the mechanics.

Vampires Bane turned out to work the best, as if it didn't initially destroy it the dot would. Speaking of the dot, another portal wouldn't spawn until that portal was gone in early phases, allowing me to assess the team. The javelin just wasn't doing enough damage and I didn't enjoy being locked out while using Radiant Oppression.

The garbage advice that the lovely dps told me about standing aside a wall in third person did more harm than good. Standing in the middle, or at least near the middle, allowed me to spin the camera and see any portals that popped up. While I'm not as good as a dps at closing them, very few ads make it through. Occasionally I do miss a portal of course, as a white blob in a fiery black-and-white haze can be hard to see. But these are rare and I've improved quite a bit.

First run I finished, I got an infused light armor Kena helmet.

Way to go! awesome loot!