Sneaky healy heavy armor with a bow

Pelamina

Hi all,

I'm a bit confused by managing magicka versus stamina in builds that use both. My goal is to be a hard to kill healer in pvp that can also do some ok dps (preferrably with a bow). I like sword & shield and bows. I also like sneaking and I like healing a lot. Can I combine this effectively in ESO? Seems to me that I have to focus on Magicka a lot to be an effective healer, but then how effective will my weapon skills be?

At this moment I'm a lvl 11 templar running with a destruction staff and a restoration staff, as these use magicka based weapon skills. I like the stamina based weapons much more though. What to do?

VaranisArano

The easiest way to be effective in ESO is to go entirely magicka or entirely stamina. That's because your magicka damage scales from max magicka and physical damage scales from max stamina.

As a Templar, it will be much easier to do a magicka templar using staffs or a stamina templar using weapons. You can try for a hybrid build, but they are generally harder to make as effective as a character that went all stamina or all magicka. If you do go hybrid, I think Jim_Pipp did a great job of explaining that, so I'm not going to repeat stuff about hybrids. Go with his advice.

If you want to go healer, I highly recommend going magicka. Most of the templar healing skills use magicka, healing springs with a resto staff is highly effective in group play in PVP, and stamina options for heals are lacking.

If you absolutely want to do a stamina healer on a templar - get Vigor unlocked in the Alliance Assault skill line and wear Powerful Assault gear. That will benefit your group every time you use vigor and you'll be the guy keeping everyone alive when the Negate drops and the magicka healers are useless.

If you want to play a really good stamina healer, I hate to say this, but you really need to play a stamina warden. Unlike Templar, Wardens actually have a lot of class skills that are designed to do stamina healing. You'll find Stamina Wardens to have a much smoother transition from solid healer to solid DPS as you fight.

So if I were going to do a stamina templar healer who is not a hybrid (because Jim_Pipp already gave you great advice on a hybrid build):

• Its a stamina build so you can have the stamina to fuel your bow. Your back bar can vary. You could go 2-handed or DW, but I'd probably go One-hand and shield for both the extra set piece and the extra tankiness as a healer. Your bow would be the main offense.
• Heals: Vigor. Vigor, Vigor, Vigor. That's pretty much all you've got, so let's make it good. Its not the most effective heal when spammed, so use it proactively. Its a heal over time, so keep it ticking! You want Vigor refreshing your health and your group's heal constantly. Its not Breath of Life, so don't try to use it that way. However, when you get in a negate especially on keep doors or a ball group drops their ultimates, Vigor will save your group's life.
• Making those heals count: Obviously you'll want that Vigor to have a good tooltip. Healing gets cut in half by battle spirit so keep that in mind. Gear sets like Powerful Assault (Imperial City) will increase the weapon and spell damage of nearby players when you cast Vigor - like a minor SPC for a stam healer. Hircine's Veneer will increase stam recovery for 12 players in your group - very nice if you've got a bunch of stam players in the group. If you want heavy armor on a healer, I'd recommend Ebon Armory for the group buff to health or Fasalla's Guile/Durok's Bane for a huge debuff to enemies. For monster sets, you'll want Earthgore or if that gets nerfed too much, Troll King is a great set on a healer.

Please note that you will not be as effective a healer as a magicka templar! This build is a hybrid, not in terms of magicka/stamina, but in terms of DPS/healer. It definitely runs the risk of being a jack of all trades and master of none. SOme of my suggestions are also oriented towards group support - if you just want to run solo with a zerg, skip anything that requires group members to buff. But if you want to get out there in PVP and still heal groups of players while shooting people with a bow on a templar, this is the best way I can think to make that happen on a pure stam build. I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement to this build though and suggestions are welcome.

Jim_Pipp

You are absolutely right that it is going to be almost impossible to make a good healer in heavy armor doing reasonable damage with a bow. You seem to understand that healers need magic, heavy armor is for tanks and good bow dps requires stamina. Even if you spread your resources out you won't easily get enough spell/weapon damage, spell/weapon crit, spell/weapon penetration.

So you could either follow a proven meta build, or you can try and make your idea work. If you go for the later then here are a couple of ideas.

1) I think templars and werewolves are the only ones that can occasionally justify using the pelenials aptitude set. The 5 piece bonus (which you would only want active on one bar) makes your weapon and spell damage equal to the highest number. If you push your weapon damage as high as you can and wear medium armor (to get the +10% weapon damage bonus) so you can have some pretty good magicka heals because you have a high spell damage (just not enough magic to cast a lot of heals). As you are level 11... wait till level 15 when you unlock weapon swapping, then you could probably find a generous crafter to make the following gear which will give you healing and defense on your shield bar and more damage on your bow bar.
Sword and shield, Heavy chest, legs and medium armor head all Pelenials.
Bow, medium feet, belt, hands, shoulders all Hundings rage set.
Jewelery. Ideally the agility set, but any 3 piece with weapon damage is good. Enchant jewels with weapon damage glyphs, use the lover mundus for more penetration.

2) If you prefer to go heavy armor then you may want to look at the innate axiom set, which adds both spell and weapon damage to all of your class abilities, so this would buff your class heals. As above I would suggest just having the 5-piece bonus active on one weapon bar (e.g. sword and shield), so you could have a second set active on your back bar (e.g. bow). If you really want to be a healy, heavy armor sneaky build then you could have the night's silence set active on your back bar, and this would let you sneak faster - so it is a build that does everything you asked, but it really won't be as good as a build that fully invests into doing one thing well (e.g. healing, tanking or stamina damage dealing), and it will be a nightmare to sustain. One advantage of this build is that it uses some of the easiest to make crafted sets.

3) when you get to Cp 160 you may want to try and go full hybrid. One set that you may want to look at is the imperial physique set which is available in heavy armor (and light and medium) and in the imperial city this will give you enough Base stats to do anything well, although it will make you a priority target for all enemy players.

Pelamina

Thanks guys, that's a lot to think about.

There are so many possibilities in this game, it's mind boggling. Coming from WoW, the customization in ESO seems to go way, way deeper. I love it!

Tbh, I only started playing this saturday, so anything is still possible. I'm still a long way from lvl50 and in no rush.

I do think I may need to drop the bow and focus on Magicka. I think I'm biased because how well the sneaky archer works in Skyrim. I do think I'll start using a sword and shield and 4 or 5 pieces of heavy armor to level them up and be able to take hits. Won't be focusing on damage then I guess, but my sword doesn't need to be imba anyway. And somehow I really don't like shooting the destruction staff.

So a healer in heavy armor. I'll just put some rubber on the steel to dim the noise of the armor clashing together so I can sneak around effectively.

wtb rubber

And the Warden also seems very interesting, hmmm

Thanks for the help!

VaranisArano

Pelamina wrote: »

Thanks guys, that's a lot to think about.

There are so many possibilities in this game, it's mind boggling. Coming from WoW, the customization in ESO seems to go way, way deeper. I love it!

Tbh, I only started playing this saturday, so anything is still possible. I'm still a long way from lvl50 and in no rush.

I do think I may need to drop the bow and focus on Magicka. I think I'm biased because how well the sneaky archer works in Skyrim. I do think I'll start using a sword and shield and 4 or 5 pieces of heavy armor to level them up and be able to take hits. Won't be focusing on damage then I guess, but my sword doesn't need to be imba anyway. And somehow I really don't like shooting the destruction staff.

So a healer in heavy armor. I'll just put some rubber on the steel to dim the noise of the armor clashing together so I can sneak around effectively.

wtb rubber

And the Warden also seems very interesting, hmmm

Thanks for the help!

If you are expecting sneak archer to work like it does in Skyrim...I'm sorry, it doesn't. It really doesn't. The closest you can get is with a nightblade but the overland has so many groups of enemies that sneak archery really isn't the overpowered most broken thing to be broken that it is in Skyrim. I wish.

For leveling as magicka: something important to know is that heavy attacks restore stamina or magicka. Staffs restore magicka on a heavy attack and weapons like bows, one-hand and shield, two-handed, and dual wield resotre stamina. So if you are running low on a resource, heavy attack with that type of weapon.

You can absolutely do a sword and shield, heavy armor Magicka Templar, but you'll be playing more like a magicka tank. You should have good survivability, but you may find that questing is slow going and that it takes you a long time to kill enemies. I'd suggest using Puncturing Sweeps as your main damage skill, Sun Fire as your early game damage-over-time skill (DOT), and when you get it, Spear Shards as your main DOT. Puncturing Sweeps is a little weak on its own, so Sun Fire gives some damage that can keep ticking while you use sweeps. Low Slash will give you ultimate regen, which you want because you'll probably be using the Aedric Spear ultimate for some quick damage.
If you run out of magicka, equip more light armor or back-bar a resto/destro staff so you can heavy attack to gain back magicka plus you can use food/drink to increase your resources. I like Witchmother's Potent Brew, which is available for all levels and give extra health, magicka, and mag regen. Repentance or radiant aura will help once you have them.
Benefits of this playstyle: You shouldn't die and if you slot Pierce Armor, you can tank normal dungeons as you level
Downsides: DPS will be lower, so you might find overland questing slow going, and its hard to regen magicka without staff heavy attacks

If you find that the tanky playstyle is too slow for your tastes, you can alter the build pretty easily to do more damage as a magicka templar. You will need a Destro Staff. (Technically, you can use Dual Wield as well, but that's getting back into hybrid territory.)
This plays very much like the tanky magicka templar, except you use the destro staff skill Wall of Elements to start the fight. Wall of Elements is a ground-based DOT that deals damage to multiple enemies. You want that damage ticking on top of the damage you are putting out with Puncturing Sweeps. The (simplified) secret to good DPS in this game is to combine DOTs that tick away with single target skills, then heavy attack for resources. Wall of Elements is a staple in PVE magicka builds for this reason, just like you'll see Endless Hail as a PVE stamina staple.
If you run out of magicka, its the same advice as above, except you will want more light armor with this build. As long as you have one piece of heavy or medium armor on, it will level those skill lines. So I'd suggest going 5 light/2heavy once you feel comfortable, or 5light/1heavy/1med if you feel really comfortable, or 4light/2heavy/1med if you don't feel comfortable but want medium armor to level anyway.Light armor will unlock passives that help you sustain better and kill things quicker, so light armor is more beneficial for a DPS build. Repentance or radiant aura will help once you have them.
Benefits: You'll kill things quicker which makes questing easier. You'll also be using common skills for a magicka templar and using armor that benefits all your magicka skills. The destro staff gives you a great DOT for dealing with multiple enemies and you can heavy attack to regain magicka.
Downsides: You'll be squishier in light armor. If you don't kill things quickly, its much easier for them to kill you.

Q&A
Hey, can I run both the sword and shield tanky build and the destro staff wall of elements?
Yeah, once you hit level 15 and unlock bar swapping, you totally can. That's actually what my MagDK tank does and it works really well. I'll taunt with sword and shield stuff, swap to destro and drop the Wall of Elements DOT, then swap back to my sword and shield to block and fight. Its a great way to get extra damage to kill stuff faster and it lets me have a option to regain magicka.

Hey, if I run a resto staff as a PVP healer, which is the better option to pair with it? Sword and shield, destro staff, or something else?
In my experience: Because you have a lot of ranged offensive skills from templar that are great in PVP, like Javelin, Backlash, and Radiant Destruction (aka Jesus Beam), you can afford to go with a more defensive option with no ranged like one-hand and shield. This will also let you have an extra set piece bonus, so you can run two full sets + a monster helm on your sword and shield bar. A destro staff would give you a little more ranged, but you've already got ranged options from Templar.

VaranisArano

Pelamina wrote: »

And the Warden also seems very interesting, hmmm

I put this in a different reply because my other one was long enough.

Stam Warden is fantastic. I haven't tried it out in PVE group content, but I've got a PVP DPS build that I'me learning to use right now. My ranged DPS hits like a truck and I can swap to healing with no real loss of healing effectiveness with the Warden Class skills. Plus, not going to lie, hitting players trying to run away with a cliff racer or three is an awesome feeling.

Its also spectacular for overland questing content because I'm built for pure damage, so I kill enemies really quickly. That's going to be true of any build that has high damage though, not just stam wardens.

Edited to add: I've also really enjoyed Magicka Wardens. I actually leveled my current stam warden as a mag warden healer. Mag Wardens play like a tanky sorc or templar, but I did really well as a healer in group dungeons.

Pelamina

Thanks for taking your time to write these

I'll reread it tonight when I have some time to play. Nice reference stuff

DeadlyRecluse

One thing to note: you could absolutely make a heavy armor, kinda-tanky, healing bow character as a stamina warden.

Fight on the periphery with bow skills, gap close or use the nature's grasp to move into the melee, use the stamina burst heal and other stam heals (vigor, lotus flower) and drop healing thicket, then retreat back out to your bow position.

Most people would not consider this setup particularly good, but if it's what you want to do, it could be super fun. Probably run sword and board on your heal bar, and use the bow bar to do ranged damage and build ult before you swoop in and drop healing thicket.