Warden Stam Healer - Non CP

Cambruin

Greetings everyone,

I've been playing for nearly 18 months, but never managed to stick with a char beyond lvl 30.
My warden however... dear Lord I love that guy He's 48.9, he'll be my second ever char to reach 'cap'.

However, I have been lvling him as a Stam Healer. I lvled pretty much solely via Dungeon Finder and never experienced any issues in any of the regular tier I & II dungeons, no one ever dying on my watch. Untill now Darkshade II Endboss
I need to be in melee range to be able to heal through Lotus and regain stam to keep up the healing. Pretty hard if you need to stick to centre all the time.
Could anyone please offer some non-CP advise? I'm using a combination of Tormentor/Prayer sets and have my main bar set up as follows: Vigor/Spores/Seeds/Winds//Forest
Buff Bar is Lotus/Cloak/Shield/Netch/Bone Shield//Forest

Using +healing dual weapons.

Would I be best to drop stam alltogether (please no) untill a certain CP lvl or drop it tout court? Would Bow be a better choice?

Looking forward to the replies of those far more experienced than I (That's the whole lot of you )

Best regards,
Cam

Custos91

Many people do not believe stam healing does exist, few think it is viable, I can tell you it is, I do have 5 pages of guide written so far, can't bring myself to finish it though...

I have done all veteran dungeons, the HMs of all non dragonbone dungeons (didn't have the time yet), some vet Trials, even vAA HM, so it is definetly possible.

Dropp seeds, vigor is good enough with spores in general, dropp winds in pve (in pvp as well),
use a animal companion abbility on both bars for the regen passive!
don't use forest on both bars, warhorn will help your group more (I run barrier for no death runs), I don't even use forest at all for dungeons and rather slot flawless dawnbreaker instead of it, it increases the healing by more!

I can't write a whole guide here now, but don't let anybody tell you it isn't viable!

For gear:
Make use of the regen bonus from wings, go and get heavy regen!
Willows path or eternal hunt have decent regen on them and are both crafted sets!
Get a monster set later on, sentinel, bloodspawn, troll king and later earthgore are great sets!
For a dropped set aim for hircines or Powerful Assault, the second can be bought from guildstores (weapons are very expensive though!)

Nephimana

I agree with what Custo said.
Many people don't think stam healer is viable because of the lack of available stam healing skills and sets, and in hardcore content and trials it isn't, but everything else it very much is, stam healing is very different to mag.
My stam tank is a very effective healer and can solo heal Vet dungeons and vDSA. Stam healers don't have the luxury of so many convenient healing abilities, but you don't need them, instead, focus a bit more on mitigating damage. Vigor and spores is definitely good enough. Make sure you give your group ice fortress, on my tank I use stalwart guard, mainly for the crit buff, but its also good at keeping people alive (you can use mystic guard for more healing) and if you're struggling, reviving barrier is really strong, it's a huge shield and has a persistent heal. Every now and then I use ring of protection in boss fights where we don't move a lot and stay together (which is very few, I don't use it too often, only if both my dps are melee or in trials)
I agree with Custo, all you really need is vigor and spores, the rest are suggestions.
I would get rid of both those sets. Tormentor is for tanks, its not even reliable or good and prayer shawl doesn't proc enough or give a good enough shield for such a low chance.
Willows path is very good for regen and easily crafted, imperium is also very strong and beginner friendly, it gives quite a big shield, procs very often.
Swap prayer shawl for sanctuary, its a very easy set to get and increases all healing they recieve whether it be from you or anyone else, very strong.
Once you get more confident you can swap those out for powerful assault which is very strong or sets like sunderflame/nightmothers gaze/war machine to increase group dps.

VaranisArano

On the Darkshade II endboss, since you want to be in Melee range, try using the tactic where everyone relies on the healer. Its not the easiest, since it is a pure heal check, but it lets you ignore the center levers and get out the center of the room.

When the boss goes into the Poison Phase, you and your group need to stay on the boss and near you. You just heal the group constantly while they continue to DPS the boss. Ignore the center levers completely. As long as your group stays close and you can sustain healing through the whole phase, you should be able to outheal the poison DOT without ever having to go for the levers and letting your group burn down the boss quicker.

When I did this on a MagWarden, I saved my big heals for the poison phase and healed the other phases with Lotus Flower so I could regen magicka for the next poison phase. People will wipe if they stray off of you, but as long as you can sustain healing through the poison, everyone near you in range of the heals will survive.

This method where you ignore the levers and depend on the healer to heal through the poison phase can put a lot of pressure on the healer, but if you have a melee-oriented group or grabbing the levers just isn't happening, it can be a really effective way to kill the boss.