Sorcerer Healer Build for 12-person Veteran Trials

SplishSplash12

Sorcerer Healer Build for 12-person Veteran Trials

Overview
Welcome to my Sorcerer Healer designed for end-game 12-person veteran trials. Healers are fundamentally vital and a necessity in end-game content, providing heals, buffs, and debuffs throughout fights. We often find ourselves caught in the meta when it comes to playing a healer, you’re either a templar or you can’t heal. Although templars do provide the most utility, other classes are entirely capable of performing the healer role in end-game content. Here’s my guide to creating a Sorcerer Healer and would love any feedback you may have.

The following is aimed at 12-person veteran trials and easily applicable to 4-person dungeons, although I’ll be speaking from a trials perspective.

Pro’s
[*] Terrific magicka sustain and great survivability. Better than a templar from my own experiences, and I primarily heal on my templar.
[*] Faster ultimate readiness and more up-time than any other class thanks to the 15% reduced ultimate cost sorc passive
[*] Access to a powerful burst heal equal to or arguably better than breath of life
[*] An absolute blast to play on because of how unique you are

Con’s
[*] Limited to no stamina support for the group making it difficult to support tanks for long battles
[*] Limited number of group synergies for sets like alkosh and moondancer
[*] Twilight may die during combat and re-summoning at various phases can be a risky 3-second animation
[*] Lack of an easily accessible source of major mending outside of the resto staff passive

I’ve healed veteran aetherian archive, hel ra citadel, and sanctum ophidia hardmode with my Sorc healer very effectively. I’ll add as a caveat that when it comes to trial composition, I would suggest the other healer be a templar. The primary reason is so the templar healer watches the tanks and provides them with shards and can repent on add pulls for the group. It also helps if you bring along at least 1 or 2 magplar dps for novas when damage mitigation is needed, if you don't already have them for some reason. Keep in mind healing springs and combat prayer are your main heals and they are restoration staff skills. You’re not really missing much being a Sorc other than shards for boss fights, which the other healer or even a magplar can provide. The Twilight offers the same utility as Breath of Life, a powerful burst heal for uh-oh moments. The only downside to the pet is you need to keep an eye on it in case it dies, but the next patch should make this a non-concern.

Class: Sorcerer

Race: Breton Optional: High Elf, Argonian

Mundus Stone: The Atronach

Stats



These stats are self-buffed with spell power cure, major sorcery, major resolve, major ward. I do not have mages guild passives, do not have a defending staff equipped, do not have minor ward or minor resolve active. With those, your max magic and regen would be 2% higher and resistances would be even better as well. Vampirism is optional and very beneficial in trials, since there’s little flame damage. I just don’t like the appearance. As a healer, I recommend keeping your health around 18k or higher to survive one-shot mechanics in trials. Keep in mind, summoning your twilight adds around 1k health, so your base health would sit around 17k+. You can reallocate attribute points as needed to fit your style.

Gear

Weapon 1: Master’s Restoration Staff / Defending or Infused / Default Enchant
Weapon 2: Master’s Lightning/Ice Staff or Master’s Restoration Staff / Defending / Default Enchant

Head: Spell Power Cure / Divines or Infused / Max Magic
Shoulder: Spell Power Cure / Divines / Max Magic
Chest: Spell Power Cure / Divines or Infused / Max Magic
Hands: Spell Power Cure / Divines / Max Magic
Waist: Spell Power Cure / Divines / Max Magic
Legs: Infalliable Aether / Divines or Infused / Max Magic
Feet: Infalliable Aether / Divines / Max Magic

Necklace: Infalliable Aether / Arcane / Magic Recovery
Ring: Infalliable Aether / Arcane / Magic Recovery
Ring: Infalliable Aether / Arcane / Spell Damage

If you don’t have master’s weapons, you can equip Infallible Aether staves instead. That would open up a head or shoulder slot to use for a 1-pc monster set. I would recommend a 1-pc max health monster to get the most out of the resources and just re-allocate attribute points into magic from health.

Spell Power Cure is always your constant 5-piece set. The other set(s) can change depending on the other healer in your group. If the other healer in your group is wearing SPC and IA, then your primary alternative set to replace IA is Worm Cult if you have a lot of magicka dps. If Worm isn’t needed, I recommend running the following alternative:

Weapon 1: Master’s Restoration Staff / Defending or Infused / Default Enchant
Weapon 2: Master’s Lightning/Ice Staff or Master’s Restoration Staff / Defending / Default Enchant

Head: Bogdan or Rkugamz / Divines or Infused / Max Magic
Shoulder: Bogdan or Rkugamz / Divines / Max Magic
Chest: Spell Power Cure / Divines or Infused / Max Magic
Hands: Spell Power Cure / Divines / Max Magic
Waist: Spell Power Cure / Divines / Max Magic
Legs: Spell Power Cure / Divines or Infused / Max Magic
Feet: Spell Power Cure / Divines / Max Magic

Necklace: Willpower / Arcane / Magic Recovery
Ring: Willpower / Arcane / Magic Recovery
Ring: Willpower / Arcane / Magic Recovery

Change mundus stone to The Thief. Run Sanguine Altar on your back-bar in the Flex Slot. See skills section below.

Now the homestead patches brings some interesting changes that may or may not phase out infallible aether. Other 5-pc healer sets to collect for a Sorc would be Worm, Mending, Sanctuary to replace infal aether.

Skills

Main Bar: Twilight Matriarch / Healing Springs / Combat Prayer / Energy Orb / Inner Light / Ult: Aggressive Horn

Twilight Matriarch: Powerful burst heal, healing 2 allies and the twilight itself for a significant chunk of health. I’ve seen my heal crit for upwards of 30k on tanks. And that’s more than enough for any dps. The homestead patch brings some awesome pet buffs, doubling their health and resistances!

Healing Springs: Spammable and primary healing ability with a large radius. The master’s restoration staff’s grand healing enchant will supply stamina to all allies standing in the springs every time you cast. Also restores magicka to yourself.

Combat Prayer: Your other main healing ability with Healing Springs. Grants minor berserk, minor resolve, and minor ward to 6 allies. Both healers should run this skill, but cast this twice to make sure all 12 people in your group are buffed. Also heals for a lot of health.

Energy or Mystic Orbs: Important skill to help sustain magicka for your dps on synergy. Both morphs restore some magic over 10 seconds. The energy morph provides healing and the mystic morph provides more magic and damage.

Inner Light: Slot for 5% extra magicka, major prophecy, and mages guild passive.

Ultimate: Aggressive Horn:Main healer and tank ultimate for trials. Increases all resources by 10% for 30 seconds and provides major force for 9.5 seconds to all allies within radius.

Back Bar: Twilight Matriarch / Boundless Storm / Elemental Drain or Siphon Spirits / Inner Light / FLEX SLOT (Empowered Ward, Power Surge, Sanguine’s Altar) / Ult: Suppression Field

Twilight Matriarch: Needs to be slotted on both bars. Actually pretty nice to have a burst heal on both bars. See above.
Boundless Storm: Source of major resolve, major ward, and major expedition. Why not use it and look cool
Elemental Drain or Siphon Spirit: One healer runs ele drain, other healer runs siphon. Purpose of running these two skills is to help restore magicka to your dps for resource sustain.
Inner Light: See Above. I double-bar it so my magic doesn’t fluctuate when I bar swap before the fight starts.
Flex Slot: Open slot for any skill. Empowered ward - minor intellect as well as warding yourself and your twilight, power surge for major sorcery, purge for situations that require cleansing negative effects, sanguine altar to help proc bogdon or rkugamz, or another resto staff skill like healing ward if you really want.
Absorption Field: A really nice healing ultimate and enemy negation that is situationally incredibly useful in trials

Champion Points
The Lady: Hardy 89, Elemental Defender 88 / The Lord: Quick Recovery 10
The Tower: Magician 100 / The Lover: Arcanist 87
The Apprentice: Blessed 100, Elfborn 87

The Red tree is dependent on the content you’re doing. This may mean re-distributing and spending the gold as needed. I typically place 10 into quick recovery, and split the majority between hardy and elemental defender. Will use thick skinned when running Sanctum.

Food Buff: Max Health & Magicka

Potions: Essence of Magicka or Essence of Spell Power

Healing is all about your experience and fluency with mechanics. It’s the same logic as tanking or dps. People may look at you with skepticism or ridicule you for being a Sorcerer healer, but they’re also most likely the squishy dps in your groups who like to stand in red, can’t self-sustain, get killed by mechanics, and don’t know anything about healing. But then blame the healers for their deaths. So pay them no attention and let your Twilight fly! Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this build.

AverageJo3Gam3r

I love alternate non meta builds. You also forgot to mention that lack of an easy source of major mending is a con. Otherwise solid write up!

SplishSplash12

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

I love alternate non meta builds. You also forgot to mention that lack of an easy source of major mending is a con. Otherwise solid write up!

Thanks! And that's very true, the templar has a class passive that provides major mending which I forgot about. The restoration staff passive also offers it, but as you point out, templar's just have an easier source of it in addition to resto.

This alternative class build isn't about templar's or sorcs being the better healer. We all know templar's offer the most utility, that's not even in question. It's about demonstrating other classes like Sorcs can heal end-game content just fine with what they have access to!

I primarily play a templar healer, and honestly, I haven't noticed much of a difference in trials with heals from my templar or my sorc if that gives people some re-assurance that major mending doesn't make or break the healer. If my twilight can heal a tank for 30k, what's an extra 25% to dps who have around 17-20k health?

Konstant_Tel_Necris

Nice to see another sorcerer healer that's struggle with templar authority, but I assume that's after templars get new Aura, sorcerer magicka support become less appealing for become trial second healer?

Another misfortune that's Elemental Drain will become deprecated as it shares same Minor Magicka Steal debuf as Aura but apply it only to one target.

While overall reduce of Crit damage make Exploitation even less usefull for group play in compare to templar Illuminate.

SplishSplash12

Konstant_Tel_Necris wrote: »

Nice to see another sorcerer healer that's struggle with templar authority, but I assume that's after templars get new Aura, sorcerer magicka support become less appealing for become trial second healer?

Another misfortune that's Elemental Drain will become deprecated as it shares same Minor Magicka Steal debuf as Aura but apply it only to one target.

While overall reduce of Crit damage make Exploitation even less usefull for group play in compare to templar Illuminate.

Not necessarily. I'm interpreting the Aura change as only one of the healer's needs to run it. So if that's the Templar, then a Sorc can still run elemental drain for enemies/bosses outside the radius of Aura. Siphon Spirit now becomes useless since the magicsteal will be the same as ele drain and won't stack.

I don't see my build changing at all for Sorc healers in vet trials, except for maybe the 5-pc set. Unclear what the lightning staff change will have on Infal Aether.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

SplishSplash12 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Konstant_Tel_Necris wrote: »

Nice to see another sorcerer healer that's struggle with templar authority, but I assume that's after templars get new Aura, sorcerer magicka support become less appealing for become trial second healer?

Another misfortune that's Elemental Drain will become deprecated as it shares same Minor Magicka Steal debuf as Aura but apply it only to one target.

While overall reduce of Crit damage make Exploitation even less usefull for group play in compare to templar Illuminate.

Not necessarily. I'm interpreting the Aura change as only one of the healer's needs to run it. So if that's the Templar, then a Sorc can still run elemental drain for enemies/bosses outside the radius of Aura. Siphon Spirit now becomes useless since the magicsteal will be the same as ele drain and won't stack.

I don't see my build changing at all for Sorc healers in vet trials, except for maybe the 5-pc set. Unclear what the lightning staff change will have on Infal Aether.

Why would a temp healer ever give up a free heal and one of the only 2 skills in the game that directly return stamia back to the team? That is just insane. I honestly don't see anything changing in how trials are set up. One healer with eledrain and one with syphon, syphon still has a place cause of the much bigger heal it is going to have now.

SplishSplash12

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

[Why would a temp healer ever give up a free heal and one of the only 2 skills in the game that directly return stamia back to the team? That is just insane. I honestly don't see anything changing in how trials are set up. One healer with eledrain and one with syphon, syphon still has a place cause of the much bigger heal it is going to have now.

Are you talking about repentance? Only one healer or a stamplar can run repentance, and even so it's not all that necessary in trials. Vet Trials are about supporting each other to the fullest capacity, whether running radiant aura or repentance,. I don't know what effects the changes will have, I'm just speculating. Aura seems interesting now for large/difficult add pulls.

You can run siphon still, whatever your group needs. I only have healers run siphon for the magic return. The heal aspect is irrelevant, since you're already healing with tons of other skills. But like I said, whatever your group needs.