Is a one hand & shield healer viable

Logandus

I really like the one hand and shield look, but the group I run with already has an ice mage tank. I'd like to still be able to use a shield, and using a resto staff on my back bar is perfectly fine. Would it be worth it to use a shield so that I have more survivability as a healer. I've tinkered on the uesp build editor site and it can pull decent heals, but I'm not sure if that site is accurate. Any advice is welcome. I'd love to hear from the other healers in this game.

Vevvev

You'd be lacking damage options which is fine, but I found the sword and shield healer is better in PvP than in PvE.

Reason being is if the tank dies you have to have enough resistances and health to survive a one shot from the boss which would cut into your overall healing power. Great in groups that are self sustaining though but you'll basically be an off tank with more buffs and heals than usual. It really depends on the group whether you actually need the extra resistances and passives or not.

In PvP it's amazing because you already have the Restoration staff but now you're combining it with another survivability weapon. If you get focused you can block and use the ultimate to your advantage to stay alive while keeping your group in tip top shape.

phaneub17_ESO

As a Templar it works great as it gives you another divine stack, Channeled Focus for magicka regen, and perfect for Puncturing Sweep spam while blocking.

Fennwitty

If you're running with friends, feel free to experiment.

Otherwise, as Vevvev says the 1-h shield on a healer is usually for PvP only.

The healer is often a secondary target for adds, but in a solid group you shouldn't have more than a couple of them throwing random attacks at you occasionally which you should be able to heal through until the tank gets them pulled in.

If you haven't, I recommend to all players changing the enemy ability colors from the default reddish to a more solid bright pink or turquoise color. This is a tremendous help allowing you to see the attack of enemies better.


If you're drawing aggro of an entire room first, make sure you're not attacking or otherwise engaging the enemies before the tank has a chance to use a skill on them.

In the absence of a 'hard' taunt, enemies will go after the first person that attacks them -- often you see DPS players lead a charge by shooting hail of arrows into a room and that can seriously hinder the tank's ability to group up enemies.

Many bosses will randomly attack other group members even while taunted, but in that case you shouldn't be much worse off than the other two DPS characters.

Logandus

I appreciate the advice. It's definitely helping me consider my options. As another side note, is it a good idea to use a 2h or dw for the increased spell damage to help boost healing. I see a lot of people running mag builds with those weapons

Daffen

Logandus wrote: »

I appreciate the advice. It's definitely helping me consider my options. As another side note, is it a good idea to use a 2h or dw for the increased spell damage to help boost healing. I see a lot of people running mag builds with those weapons

For pvp, as a healer ive only run dual wield in an organized group because the lead wanted to try without gossamer in group and every member get major evasion from another source. Otherwise i would run ice staff with blockade for aoe shield against ranged attacks while kiting and block.

It definitely increases your heals, but a dead healer is a useless healer. Which is why in smallscale resto + snb works best. For organized groups you have offheals and other healers for your survivability allowing you to go for full group buffs/heals.

Other mag builds use dual wield maces instead of destruction staff for more damage (in pvp, dont know about pve, but dual wield swords might give more dmg idk) , not healing output.

Just try stuff out, you never know how things will work untill you test it.

MindOfTheSwarm

Warden are currently the only real viable Stam healer that can pull it off well. It takes prep though and you need to level up Psijic line.

Amottica

The term viable is fairly vague since a build's viability really depends on the context of what the group is attempting.

Can a healer in PvE use an S&B/Resto build? Sure and it would be just fine in most situations. However, the question becomes what purpose is the S&B if there is already a tank in the group, assuming this is not a trial. If it is because you want to, then great.

Soris

My templar healer uses it and I use sun shield as well with 30k+ health. I think it's great for pugs and it's perfectly fine for veteran dlc dungeons and even for PvP. Being a tanky healer like that saved me and the group lots of times. Being able to survive from heavy hits while blocking is just too good. Sometimes i slot a taunt too just in case when the tank is overwhelmed and adds targeting dds.

Just keep in mind that you are still providing buffs to the group thru your gear sets. Scorion's Feast and Magma Incarnate are my favourite ones recently. I pair them with Mhytic Ring of Majesty and Olorime/Winter's Embrace. You can swap Winters/Olorime for a heavy armor support set like Automated Defense or Arkasis’s Genius which are very useful for your group. (if ofc the tank doesnt already wear them) Heavy armor is just fine because recovery is usually more than enough anyways.

Everything else is same as normal healers do, just keep providing spears, orbs and HoTs to the group on your restro bar.

It's really like Paladin style and actually it performs very good in harder contents.

etchedpixels

Logandus wrote: »

I really like the one hand and shield look, but the group I run with already has an ice mage tank. I'd like to still be able to use a shield, and using a resto staff on my back bar is perfectly fine. Would it be worth it to use a shield so that I have more survivability as a healer. I've tinkered on the uesp build editor site and it can pull decent heals, but I'm not sure if that site is accurate. Any advice is welcome. I'd love to hear from the other healers in this game.

It does work - especially for PvP but it will reduce your dps outside of healing, which in a properly built group should matter a lot more than being able to take big hits. Likewise if the tank goes down you need to be healing the dps getting the tank up and the other dps needs to be kiting the boss, not you.

It sort of works for pug dungeons. If you S/B and restro you can queue for normal randoms knowing that there won't be a fake tank because you queued as tank, and if the healer is a fake it doesn't matter as you've got templar heal skills on the back bar. Having S&B/Restro is a bit problematic for resources compared to S&B/ice and templar skills though.

Templar also helps a lot in the healer case because you can run S/B but do all your damage via jabs etc.

Fennwitty

Logandus wrote: »

I appreciate the advice. It's definitely helping me consider my options. As another side note, is it a good idea to use a 2h or dw for the increased spell damage to help boost healing. I see a lot of people running mag builds with those weapons

Dual Wield on magicka for PvE tends to be dagger/dagger, and the main goal is to maximize crit chance on that bar.

Nightblade healers and Sorcerer healers in part require a lot of their own critical hits/heals to give group buffs. Light attack damage now scales off of whichever stat is higher, so you won't necessarily lose a lot of personal damage.

There are benefits but also significant trade offs for the extra crit rate.

I use dual wield for a Nightblade (dungeon) healer, outside particular bosses.

Your ability to heavy attack for Magicka won't work on the dual wield bar -- heavy attacks will restore Stamina instead.

Your skill choice on that bar becomes very important, as you're limited mainly to class and guild skills for healing/support. Can't use Restoration Staff skills or Destruction skills if you're not using the appropriate staff.

The dual wield also encourages a much more melee position to keep up your light attacks, which can be difficult to maintain especially if you're not used to having melee characters. In fights where enemies are very mobile, or there's otherwise tons of mechanics, you might find it hard to keep yourself in melee range and also to keep your group in line of effect for abilities.

Ranged attacks are much simpler to point and click where you want without getting right up in an enemy's backside, and allow you to stand behind the entire group to feed heals in a straightish line. Being ranged also helps visibility for secondary tasks like interrupting or snaring troublesome adds.

You mentioned the tank uses an ice staff, that doesn't mean you can't also use an ice staff. Keeping Brittle uptimes is always useful, and ice staves are still semi-defensive in nature. Dual-wield is not especially defensive at all outside slotting and using the Stamina Deadly Cloak line for Evasion.

Dual wield does at least allow you to have a ranged interrupt with Hidden Blade line, so you can slot that sometimes.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

In PVP, absolutely. Number one rule in PVP is kill the healer, so you need to be able to survive being targeted.

In 4 man PVE, sure, but there are simply better options. There is no pve content that I am aware of where you need a shield to survive as a healer, not even close. The S+B line just doent really make you a better healer in any meaningful way, especially considering you really shouldn't be in melee range as a proper healer.

Your rough priorities as a healer are 1. Dont Die. 2. Give enough heals so your group doesnt die. 3. Provide Buffs and Debuffs for sustain/extra damage. 4. Do damage yourself. You shouldn't need a shield for number 1, and it does nothing for 2-4.

If you are in a pre-made group, knock yourself out. If you queue as a S+B healer in group finder or start joining open trial runs, expect pushback.

ke.sardenb14_ESO

Assuming your party has someone dropping an ice wall of elements with crusher, you will probably provide the most to your group using a lightning staff for off balance, and dropping lightning wall for the most with another enchant that debut enemies.Is the S&B okay? sure but it really doesn't nothing if you're tank is holding agro, if you are in light armor you would probably be safer with harness magics shield.

Djennku

OP, there's a build that's been released that is a Templar S/B heavy armor healer that you might enjoy. Look up "The Cleric" by Xynode. Definitely a fun one to play if you are interested.

BXR_Lonestar

Its not ideal, but I have a Templar offtank that is basically a heavy armored healer and he is very versatile. However, not as tanky as my DK tank in terms of raw damage reduction (though higher resistances), and I don't have as many group-support skills on my bars that my pure healer would have.

Its a good build, especially for running content 3 DPS/ 1 tank, but you also need to keep in mind that some content is just going to be nearly impossible for you to perform BOTH roles well. For some encounters, there is just too much going on for you to be able to drop block and reset your hots or burst-heal the group.

Nanfoodle

In PvP I play resto front bar and sword shield on back. Great for keeping alive. I'm a warden so I don't even slow down on keeping people alive as I benefit from some nice D.