'Best' way to play healing Magicka Templar

EuclioAntonite

Hi all,

Despite being an owner since launch I am finally starting to get into the game, and am just about to hit level 15 and make some choices around hearing etc.

What I was wondering is what people would recommend as the best way to gear as a healer, for example whether to go Heavy armour or light, and also what to use in the other weapon slot?

Sorry if I am being vague, not sure where to start. As it stands I have gone light armour for magicka, and have completed two group dungeons so far. Both went well, but I must admit to feeling seriously squishy!

AcadianPaladin

My healing templar wears 6 light and 1 heavy (unseen helm). She's a Bosmer so suffers a permanent deficit in magicka compared to the industry standard Altmer magplar. That said, she focuses on magicka since it boosts damage, heals, sustain. Her primary defense takes advantage of what she does best: healing. It is hard to hurt her when she can self-heal as fast as most foes can hurt her.

She runs destr/resto staves and her biggest skills challenge is that only 10 of the fantastic plethora of skills available to her fit on her bars. Happily, much of the healing/support she is built with translates to self-support as well when solo and she only runs a couple skills that would be considered 'pure offense'.

At CP150 she runs two crafted sets with dropped jewelry but will switch to a crafted + a dropped set at 160.

JkahrrRadnar

Seconded
I'm not vet with my Magplar char yet but so far in PvE, Dungeons and PvP, the light armor + restro/destr setup has been without issue. Tho obviously there are many other builds for more specific purposes.

Yeah, you'll be a bit squishy (compared to DKs and such), but that's what the self-healing is for. -just take care not to run out of magicka :P

Rev Rielle

I'd suggest starting out with a base light armour set (Robe, Leggings, Boots, Gloves, Bet). Then with the remaining 6 pieces you have options for all sorts of combinations. Try not to get caught up in set and set bonuses in the beginning (or ever really), as long as you have the bases covered you will be fine. It's FAR more important what you do in battle than what equipment you wear going into it. Mechanically healing is the same as dealing magicka damage in so much as maximum magicka, spell damage & critical change are important. Critical damage is also important, but for healers this is less so than Magicka Regeneration. Healing is more about reliability.

In terms of squishines, there are a couple of things you can do:

• Use a defending restoration staff, that will provide up to 5160 more spell and physical resistance on it's own
• Use Channeled Focus (Or the other Morph, skill 5 Restoring Light skill line). That provides us with Major Ward and Major Resolve, giving another ~5000 to both resistances.
• Use Combat Pray (Or the other Morph, skill 3 Restoration Staff skill line). That Provides Minor Ward and Minor Resolve, giving ~1300 to both resistances.
  Note these values are for CP 160.

Now with all that you're still going to get one-shotted by some tougher enemies in dungeons. And for us healers that's really our biggest fear: For we cannot heal anything when lying on the floor. So in response to such I carry around the same set of jewellery, just with 'Heathly' traits rather than 'Arcane'. I'll swap this out for an extra couple of thousand health. I also have a set of Heavy Armour I use for very tough situations (Robe, Leggings, Boots, Gloves, Bet). It's the same set as my light armour, just with Health Glyphs instead of Magicka. As long as you are a bit more diligent with your heavy attacks you will have no problems keeping Magicka Stores replenished In 5 set of heavy armour. This is especially so with the 'Rapid Mending' heavy armour passive if you've invested into it; It's brilliant (basically restores 15% of your magicka/stamina upon completion of a heavy attack).

Finally, there's also block-casting (basically holding block then casting a spells). Now some will tell you to do that all the time in tough fights. Whatever you do, don't. No fight requires you to do this. And zero stamina is a terrible situation to be in. However, blocking and block-casting if need be at certain times is very useful to do, and will save you from some one-shots. Additionally, if you're using Repentance (Morph Skill 3 Restoring Light Line), if there are many enemies around falling in battle you can be more liberal in your stamina use as you can such the essence out of fallen enemies to restore both health and stamina to you and close-by group members. It's a great skill. I'd recommend it.

Okay, I can waffle on for hours on this, but hopefully that helps you in some way. Goodluck.

Dubhliam

I second everything @Rev Rielle said.

Also, I feel it important to mention that if there is one skill I'd like to point out as the biggest reason why Templars are the best healers...
It's NOT Breath of Life!
Yes, this is my standpoint. Although you can get very far into the game with no other heal than BoL, (and it is a very good heal), this will not be enough for being a very good healer in endgame content, namely 12 man trials.
Your main heal should be Grand Healing.

In my opinion, the skill that makes Templars the best healers is Cleansing Ritual.
Because of the passives from the Restoring Light skill line, your heals will heal 25% better as long as you stand inside your Ritual, not to mention it heals your teammates passively and also provides a purge.

Beside those skills, for endgame, people will mostly require that you support your team in other way than just healing. And this is also a reason why Templars excel as healers, because they have two great skills to help their team's resource management:
Repentance (a Restoring Aura Morph) and Spear Shards (any morph). There skills replenish your teammates' stamina. There are also Elemental Drain (a Weakness to Elements morph from the destro line) and Siphon Spirit (a Force Syphon morph from the resto line) which help your teammates manage magicka.
Combat Prayer (a Blessing of Protection morph from the resto line) is also a great skill that does many thing including, healing, buffing your member's resistances, and the most important thing: buffing their damage.

Note that by supporting your group you cannot make a bad group suddenly perform better.
But it will most definitely make good or great groups perform drastically better.

zacvanm

I heal when I get tired of tanking and damage. I run 5 light seducer, 3 willpower, and the monster set from Darkshade 1 with a random resto. Cleansing ritual, mystic orb, healing springs, BoL (emergency heal), and the resto ulti. I do fine. Back bar is dual wield and I have shards, dark flare, sweeps, and radiant at all times for some damage..and tanks and stam dps love the shards lol. I'm not a trial healer for sure, but I can do about any dungeon with this setup

zacvanm

Also, I'm an argonian for the extra healing and I run the Atro mundus for mag recovery. Witchmothers brew for max health and magic and magic recovery. 100 in blessed also.