Any Alternative to Running a Lightning Staff Back Bar on Healer?

Athyrium93

My main is a Magicka Templar (Breton) who I absolutely love, I started her as a healer and went LVL-1 to CP-160 with her using a Resto Staff front bar and a Lightning Staff back bar like you're supposed to. BUT I absolutely HATE the animation for the Lightning Staff, If I play for to long on the back bar or drop Blockade of Storms to often it gives me a head ache, the spazzy blue lightning is awful (and yes I tried recalibrating my monitor and blue light filtering glasses) It is so bad that I did a respec to DPS so I could use Inferno Staves.
...but I miss playing healer...
Is there any way I can make it work without a lightning staff? I know losing the off balance from Blockade of Storms is a problem, but I can still keep El Drain up... losing the 8% AOE buff also sucks.
What do you suggest? or should I just stick with DPS?
(I mostly PUG dungeons on normal, but want to start doing Vet dungeons soon, I doubt I'm a good enough player to ever get into any of the harder trial stuff, so I don't need to be absolutely Meta, just good enough to pull my weight in Vet dungeons)

WrathOfInnos

If you have another source of off-balance then it’s best to use an Inferno Staff back bar. This is why many tanks use a Lightning back bar, freeing up that responsibility from healers. Wardens can use Cliff Racer for off-balance, and then nobody needs a Lightning Staff. Other skills can also take care of off-balance, like Dizzying Swing, Surprise Attack, or Werewolf Roar, but none of these work on a Templar healer so you would have to coordinate with another group member.

Athyrium93

But that doesn't help with bosses right? From everything I've read it seems like Lightning Wall of Elements (or morphs) are the only way in the game to off balance bosses, which isn't that the whole point of healers running a lightning staff? Or is it ran to get off balance on the trash mobs?

deleted221106-002999

The other reason for use of lightning staff and arguably more important with nerfs to both 1-hand and off-balance duration, is application of crusher enchantment.

But tanks with lightning staves seems to be a thing now so I think you should go ahead and heal without one if you prefer, particularly if the visual effects of lighning staves are causing so much discomfort to you.

WrathOfInnos

Athyrium93 wrote: »

But that doesn't help with bosses right? From everything I've read it seems like Lightning Wall of Elements (or morphs) are the only way in the game to off balance bosses, which isn't that the whole point of healers running a lightning staff? Or is it ran to get off balance on the trash mobs?

Both trash mobs and bosses. It only takes one Wall of Storms for max off-balance uptime (assuming the group is providing some Concussion status effects, which mostly come from Magicka Sorcerers and Necromancers). All of the other skills I listed should work on bosses too, but they require more effort than just keeping Wall active, and won’t be as effective against multiple targets.

Souterain wrote: »

The other reason for use of lightning staff and arguably more important with nerfs to both 1-hand and off-balance duration, is application of crusher enchantment.

But tanks with lightning staves seems to be a thing now so I think you should go ahead and heal without one if you prefer, particularly if the visual effects of lighning staves are causing so much discomfort to you.

Yes, any enchant really. Wall on the back bar is important on any build for this reason (or Endless Hail for Stamina builds). Enchants proc from Wall of Flames too, so there’s nothing specific to Lightning Staff for this benefit. It is a reason to avoid double Restoration Staves, since there are no Resto skills to procs back bar enchants while you are in front bar.

redspecter23

If your skill as a healer is solid, you can get by without a lightning staff in most content. The rest of the group won't notice that loss if you keep other buffs up and keep them healed. However, if you don't meet their standards (for whatever reason, even a useless reason), they may focus on the lack of a lightning staff for the shortcomings of the group. This is really only a factor with randoms who may not be all that good anyway.

If you're in an organized vet trial group, the raid lead may want you to run a lightning staff for the benefit of the run and at that point you need to make the choice to do what's best for the group, or sit that one out and look for a new group. Basically, do what the raid lead needs of you for the good of the group.

Athyrium93

@WrathOfInnos
Now I'm really confused about off balance, was there recently a change to off balance? According to UESP "Bosses and other CC immune enemies will not get set off balance if their heavy attacks are blocked or their spells interrupted. The only way to apply Off Balance to boss type enemies is to damage them with the lightning version of Wall of Elements while they are Concussed."
Is that info outdated (or just wrong)?

Not trying to argue or anything, I'm just trying to figure out how bad I'd be hurting my group by not running a lightning staff (I'd use the inferno staff back bar instead)

WrathOfInnos

Athyrium93 wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos
Now I'm really confused about off balance, was there recently a change to off balance? According to UESP "Bosses and other CC immune enemies will not get set off balance if their heavy attacks are blocked or their spells interrupted. The only way to apply Off Balance to boss type enemies is to damage them with the lightning version of Wall of Elements while they are Concussed."
Is that info outdated (or just wrong)?

Not trying to argue or anything, I'm just trying to figure out how bad I'd be hurting my group by not running a lightning staff (I'd use the inferno staff back bar instead)

I think the part about bosses not being set off-balance by blocking their heavy attacks is true (although AFAIK the Tactician CP that causes off-balance by dodging a boss attack still works). The line about Wall of Storms being the only way is false. I know for sure that Cliff Racer will proc off-balance and a Warden using that skill means that nobody needs a Lightning Staff. I’m assuming that other skills listing off-balance as an effect also work on bosses, but haven’t explicitly tested them myself.

Edit: It appears that skills that say “stuns the enemy and sets it off balance” don’t work on CC immune bosses. Maybe this is the source of some confusion. I checked Crushing Shock, but this category should include Deep Breath, Flying Blade, Venom Arrow, and the Templar charge. Now I’m not sure if WW Roar would work on bosses, since it says “fears and sets off balance”, I don’t have a WW to check that one.

Athyrium93

@redspecter23 I'd say I'm about a million years away from having the skill level to run any trials let alone vet trials. I'm not even doing vet dungeons yet, but I'd like to start soon.
I enjoyed healing, but if not running a lightning staff actually hurts the group I don't mind doing dps (and at this point have better gear for it but not as much practice yet) I would rather not be the PUG healer that gets their own rant thread on here lol

On a side note I've noticed that when I was healing a small mistake would get me yelled at, but as a DPS with awful sub 10k dps in the first couple dungeons I did after swapping no one said anything even when I screwed up mechanics

FakeFox

To be honest, if you are not playing with optimized groups in harder content it doesn't really matter if you play with lightning staff or not. The damage impact is not that much to begin with and becomes even less when groups are not optimized for it.

Athyrium93

Thank you everyone! That was really informative and gives me a lot to think about and try!

BXR_Lonestar

TBH, I run a lightning staff when I'm running around questing/soloing so that I have offensive options, sometimes in dungeons to throw down wall of elements, but if I don't need to do that, then I just run another resto staff. In those situations, my contribution to DPS is usually not needed, so my focus is on applying other buffs/debuffs and just keeping people upright or helping run mechanics.

FrancisCrawford

Souterain wrote: »

The other reason for use of lightning staff and arguably more important with nerfs to both 1-hand and off-balance duration, is application of crusher enchantment.

That works with an inferno staff just as well.

That said -- as a healer I assume that the tank will be applying full-strength Crusher, so I've started running Weakening on my Infused Destruction (Lightning) staff. I think I'm still unusual in that however.

FrancisCrawford

FakeFox wrote: »

To be honest, if you are not playing with optimized groups in harder content it doesn't really matter if you play with lightning staff or not. The damage impact is not that much to begin with and becomes even less when groups are not optimized for it.

Further, it's potentially less important than it used to be since DoTs got nerfed, because people who don't put 75 points into Thaumaturge don't get the Exploiter CP star.

MindOfTheSwarm

Run a Frost Staff and Winter's Respite for a Frosty Healer.

Grianasteri

Any Alternative to Running a Lightning Staff Back Bar on Healer?

Yeah, run whatever you want, what staff type you have is not usually an issue. Your skills and sets support the group.

In 12 person content it is unlikely that the healer would be the only shock staff user so here you can run what you want unless its an organised raid group allocating specific tasks to specific members. In 4 person content, it is possible no one else will have a shock staff (off balance etc), but really unless you are pushing hard mode vets, who cares.

Its possible to get too caught up in the meta. Have fun

WildRaptorX

I run 2 resto. Plenty of other players running off balance

ZeroXFF

There are 2 important reasons to run a destro staff on back bar:
1. Ele drain.
2. Enchant proc via blockade.
And one reason to run specifically lightning staff:
3. Off-balance.

For point 1 specifically a templar has options, assuming the tank is not a DK or sorc. Ele drain gives major breach and magicka steal. Templars have a class skill that provides the latter, and there is also a resto staff skill that does that. As for breach, a tank *might* already be giving it depending on the build since one of the morphs of the 1hs taunt give it. However the other morph of the skill gives minor protection, and DKs and sorcs do not have a source of minor protection from class skills, so they are likely to take that morph. Other classes do, but some are harder to use than others, so you would have to sort it out with your group.

2 is pretty much without options, but Crusher is usually run by tanks, and other enchants are of marginal use if any at all, so you can blame tank if the group lacks Crusher, and nobody will even notice if something else is missing.

In regards to 3, it again depends on group composition, since there are multiple sources of off-balance, many of which have been mentioned before.

Basically, it is possible to run something else without your group losing anything, but you might run into problems in PUGs whose best effort cannot be expected to go beyond the standard compositions.

Reverb

As someone who has multiple healers and has done all group content, let me say:

If your focus is on dungeon pugs, wear whatever you want. Use an inferno staff on your back bar, or sword+board, or a big 2h axe if that’s what you want. 4-man pugs are non optimized, rum whatever’s fun for you and be prepared to make changes if your group is struggling.

If you move into progression groups for harder content you will need to coordinate with your group, which most of the time will mean ele drain and blockade on your back bar, but outside of that you’ve got flexibility.

Athyrium93

Me and the tank I always play with worked it out, he's running lightning staff back bar with crusher enchants and wall to provide off balance, and my healer has inferno staff back bar with wall and el drain. Between the two of us I don't think we are missing any important buffs and I can do enough damage with the inferno staff to carry low dps groups through most normal dungeons.

Thanks every body for your help, I was feeling kinda bad about not having a lighting staff after a dps in pug was kinda nasty about it, but pugs will be pugs.

Goren

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't like the visuals of lightning blockade and I have the same problem with my healer. Very insightful thread, thanks op!