What should healers focus on?

bosmern_ESO · March 2015

I'm a templar healer and I was bored of my style of healing (used seducer/healer) so I want to focus hard into one attribute, but I'm fairly new to it and don't know what would be best.

I'm currently trying out a high amount of spell damage, but don't know if healing done/spell crit/magicka regen are better for heals.

What have other healers tried and what did you notice what was better/worse with the builds?

Lava_Croft · March 2015

My advice would be to invest into your ability to stay alive. No matter how strong your heals are, if you are dead they won't do anyone any good.

Francescolg · March 2015

Atm, and I am very sorry because of this and in general for the future of the game, there is nothing you can do!
The devs decided to lower HP significantly while removing the caps at the same time. Players tested it on PTS but no one complained hard enough and the new-CP-system seems to make people blind: they are just attracted by it and don't see what is happening behind them.

Hybrid/Healer-Builds that rely 200% on HP-based shields and which don't have the damage a sorc has, the versatility an NB has, the number of intersting skills a DK has, were severely nurfed in this patch.
The Templar was very nice, as long they removed Radiant Aura, which was one of our best skills, giving 80% stamina regen... good old times. What we got for the removal of Radiant Aura and some other skills (see Dawn's Wrath, etc.) was a just a nurf (no one really needs jesus beam). The nurf of light armor hurts us even more, while our class skills (or immovable) offer just +5000 magic resistances, which isn't enough in pvp, now that everything has been changed.

The devs nether though like this: "If we change too much in a certain period of time, players may be left disoriented." Try another class, have fun!

Draehl · March 2015

I'll agree that hybrid builds (be it stamina/magicka or healer/damage) feel significantly less viable with 1.6 - it feels like you have to be 100% burst damage, 100% healer, or 100% pure tank and viably nothing in between*.

*Unless you're using certain Sorc/DK builds then you can effectively be damage/tank at the same time.

Teargrants · March 2015

Focus on a fire balista build. Or you could spec into firepot treb if you want the highest burst dps, sustained not as good though.

bosmern_ESO · March 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

Focus on a fire balista build. Or you could spec into firepot treb if you want the highest burst dps, sustained not as good though.

What about Ice ball trebs

Fizzlewizzle · March 2015

Francescolg wrote: »

Atm, and I am very sorry because of this and in general for the future of the game, there is nothing you can do!
The devs decided to lower HP significantly while removing the caps at the same time. Players tested it on PTS but no one complained hard enough and the new-CP-system seems to make people blind: they are just attracted by it and don't see what is happening behind them.

Hybrid/Healer-Builds that rely 200% on HP-based shields and which don't have the damage a sorc has, the versatility an NB has, the number of intersting skills a DK has, were severely nurfed in this patch.
The Templar was very nice, as long they removed Radiant Aura, which was one of our best skills, giving 80% stamina regen... good old times. What we got for the removal of Radiant Aura and some other skills (see Dawn's Wrath, etc.) was a just a nurf (no one really needs jesus beam). The nurf of light armor hurts us even more, while our class skills (or immovable) offer just +5000 magic resistances, which isn't enough in pvp, now that everything has been changed.

The devs nether though like this: "If we change too much in a certain period of time, players may be left disoriented." Try another class, have fun!

Pretty much this.
Templars were nerfed into the ground without getting anything useful in return. They were below the other classes before the nerfs... so you can guess what there standpoint is now.

75% of the skills are broken, bugged or plain useless. 20% got a nerf or a cost increase. 3 skills got a buff of which 1 is actually useful (Channeled Focus). The other two are Healing Ritual, a heal with casting time (healing increased by 70%, but once you get to endgame everyone can die in the time it takes to cast that skill) and Puncturing Strikes (initial damage increase was supposed to be 70% against the nearest target, but that got a ninja nerf just before it went live, lowering it by 30%. It does a half a second stun and grants CC immunity for 5 seconds, meaning that using this MAIN DPS skill prevents you (and everyone else) from ever applying CC on the target).

Although there are some "viable" Templar builds out there, all of them are build around Weapon skills and Armor sets. Nothing Templar related.

Soris · March 2015

So much this

Francescolg wrote: »

The devs decided to lower HP significantly while removing the caps at the same time. Players tested it on PTS but no one complained hard enough and the new-CP-system seems to make people blind: they are just attracted by it and don't see what is happening behind them.

and this

Draehl wrote: »

I'll agree that hybrid builds (be it stamina/magicka or healer/damage) feel significantly less viable with 1.6 - it feels like you have to be 100% burst damage, 100% healer, or 100% pure tank and viably nothing in between.

*Unless you're using certain Sorc/DK builds then you can effectively be damage/tank at the same time.

and this ofc

Teargrants wrote: »

Focus on a fire balista build. Or you could spec into firepot treb if you want the highest burst dps, sustained not as good though.

I think the last one is best advice I've seen in a long time. So just stay on walls and leech the AP while wrecking thousand souls with it. Then sell it to players. Make profit. And look for other games that has fun in it. Which I do the same lately...

eliisra · March 2015

Draehl wrote: »

I'll agree that hybrid builds (be it stamina/magicka or healer/damage) feel significantly less viable with 1.6 - it feels like you have to be 100% burst damage, 100% healer, or 100% pure tank and viably nothing in between*.

*Unless you're using certain Sorc/DK builds then you can effectively be damage/tank at the same time.

In endgame PvE for sure. Mostly due to CP distribution.

In PvP, it's different. Or I use the be able to run a bursty heal build with a bit of dps on the side. Now I have to spec 50/50 healer&tank just to stay alive long enough to actually heal people.

I have to spec into block reduction, cc-and dodge roll reduction, wear heavy pieces, S&B, spam armor buff, sacrifice magicka for health and stamina, spam shields, spam Defensive Posture...as a healer. There's just no way a templar can run a pure magicka burst build in PvP right now, be it dps or healing, you don't have the survivability or utility. WTB Bolt Escape and a shield that scales of magicka please.

Fizzlewizzle · March 2015

eliisra wrote: »

Draehl wrote: »

I'll agree that hybrid builds (be it stamina/magicka or healer/damage) feel significantly less viable with 1.6 - it feels like you have to be 100% burst damage, 100% healer, or 100% pure tank and viably nothing in between*.

*Unless you're using certain Sorc/DK builds then you can effectively be damage/tank at the same time.

In endgame PvE for sure. Mostly due to CP distribution.

In PvP, it's different. Or I use the be able to run a bursty heal build with a bit of dps on the side. Now I have to spec 50/50 healer&tank just to stay alive long enough to actually heal people.

I have to spec into block reduction, cc-and dodge roll reduction, wear heavy pieces, S&B, spam armor buff, sacrifice magicka for health and stamina, spam shields, spam Defensive Posture...as a healer. There's just no way a templar can run a pure magicka burst build in PvP right now, be it dps or healing, you don't have the survivability or utility. WTB Bolt Escape and a shield that scales of magicka please.

What i use for as a PvP healer (what keeps me alive unless i get ganked by multiple people) is 7/7 heavy armor and SnB.
- Any skill to your liking (i mostly use Consuming Trap to gain AP for kills other people make and Resource regen).
- Total Dark (Aimed anti mage tool + free health when you lock a magick spammer)
- Honor The Dead (Burst heal + Magicka regen. Very good healing tool)
- Defensive Posture (second Anti mage tool which stuns. Best kept active while roaming).
- Radiant Magelight (50% less damage from stealth attack + No stun because of Stealth attacks. Ani Snipe or Sneak tool)

When you get attacked you just keep block active and heal incoming damage using Honor the Dead. If your enemy is a caster then use Defensive Posture and Total dark (for extra healing and harming them).
You won't kill people with it, but i have had a 10 minute duke-out with a VR14 Sorcerer once, who eventually gave up because he couldn't kill me. Never got killed in a 1v1 fight using this set-up.

For siege i use also SnB:
- Siege Shield (Just lowering the Siege damage, you can keep standing where you are with this)
- Cleansing Ritual (to back up siege barrier if you get attacked with DoT siege weapons)
- Honor the Dead.
- Defensive Posture.
- Radiant Magelight.

Find a nice spot. Drop Siege Shield and just stand there until the wall falls. When under enemy (Siege) fire use Cleansing Ritual AFTER the siege weapon hits, to cleanse potential DoT effects and Honor The dead to get back to full health.
Because of the Siege Barrier any allies within the area will live long enough to use the Cleansing Ritual Synergy to clear there own DoTs. You can always use Honor the Dead for them to.

My armor is 7/7 heavy with SnB in both options.
All Attribute points in Magicka (got 13K health in PvE, 19K health in Cyrodiil), Armor and Shield crafted yourself with the Divines Trait (Atronach Mundus Stone).
5/5 Willows Path 4/5 Seducer, combined with Magicka regen Jewels (all 3 of them) and Provisioning DRINKS (for magicka regen) gives me a bit over 2K Magicka regen (VR12). Champion Points are (currently) in both healing bonuses (Mage: Blessed and Warrior: Quick Recovery) and Magicka regen (Serpent, Arcanist).

For PvE i use basically the set-up. Its not a High DPS build, but it has pretty good survival.
(Again SnB)
- Puncturing Sweep
- Optional (Magelight for the crit, or Purifying Light for extra damage + a small heal)
- Honor The dead.
- Restoring Aura (Extra regen)
- Channeled Focus (Extra magicka regen + defense).

Sotha_Sil · March 2015

Before 1.6

What I used to do as PVP healer in raid :

- Barrier
- Healing spings spamming to get barrier up and so on

After 1.6

Heal ! Oh god that felt great. But good things don't last long.

After siege patch

- Purge, purge, res a fallen comrade...purge, purge..res a fallen comrade

So my advice : focus on purge

and put it in every slot of your bars. The rest is up to you although I would not specialize in spell damage in PVP. Regen is a must imo.

Roselle · March 2015

I've been using the combo of 5 piece warlock, 5 piece arena, 1 piece Undaunted (shoulders) for +health and I've found it to be the overall best sustain for me as an active healing/support role in 8-24 man PVP raids.

You can pretty much heal with just Breath of Life if you keep Purifying Ritual and Entropy running. Repentance/Restoring Aura is also nice for more regen, of course. I also recommend Cleanse with 1.6's better resource management too...

The rest (stat allotment/armor type/etc) has never been more flexible as far as personal preference goes.

There are nice suggestions out there. I'd take a combination of what sounds good and just go with it and see if it works for you.

Francescolg · March 2015

So for sustainability, light armor, magicka builds, actually, you still can go for:

- 5 pieces Seducer Set (2x magicka regen) with NIRM (25% magical resitances = 125% = about 15-20k magic resistances).
- 5 pieces Warlock or Spell Dmg or Spectre's Eye set or Arena Set or the Set which gives dodge chance (also healer set, etc..)

For general defense (PvP):
- 25-30k+ HP
- blazing shield/medium armor shield
- Healing ward (even both bars)

Healing ward, imo, for small-scale combat, is more important than every other heal/purge, debuff, etc! Only with healing ward you can safe s.o. who dropped to 20% HP from the next 15k incoming damage (executioners, ultimates, etc etc). Since damage is too high in PvP and many players till ain't got 25k+ HP, etc etc And you, as a healer, never know if they got a healing-debuff on them. Healing Ward is a guaranteed 20k+ absorb shield, to which a substantial heal will follow.

YOU NEED 20k armor / spell resis for "decent" defense (most players have -30 / -50% armor penetration, so the pew-pew archers and mages, thus you need even more resistances. I'm not joking, some DK already gor 30k-40k resistances).

Docmandu · March 2015

Bottom line: you need to adapt !