Breath of Light ~ Templar.

WARNING: The below is long. Just sayin'. There's a tl;dr at the bottom.

First off, yes you can still grind your way all the up to VR14. I know several people doing this, partnering with someone to get max XP.

"The Healer Question" has definitely been asked over and over, i.e. "Which class is the best healer?". I said this in a previous post several months ago, but basically:

If you want to be a good/off healer, choose a Templar.
If you want to be a great healer, choose any class and become a resto staff expert.
If you want to be the best healer in the game, choose a Templar and become a resto staff expert.

It's not so much that Templar heals are all great. Healing Ritual heals for a ton, but it takes 2 seconds to cast (an eternity to wait when you need an emergency burst heal). Rite of Passage is a cool healing ultimate, except it ticks every 1 second, rather than every 0.5 seconds like it used to. That means that you can die while channeling it, which especially sucks because you can't move during the cast. To contrast, the 0.5 second tick it used to have meant you were almost literally immortal for the duration. Radiant Aura used to be an awesome for group regen, but with the buff system it's basically pointless, considering the alternate morph is Repentance, a free health/stamina heal.

That said, I think having more heal spells, more options, is better than less. Healing Springs will always be the default heal. It's range castable, spammable, and cheap. But when a group is spread out, Breath of Life is invaluable in keeping everyone alive. It's got an irritating animation delay, and it costs a bit, but an endgame Templar can out heal almost anything by just spamming BoL. Hell, even on my Templar tank, I've kept the group alive long enough to rez the healer who had died, despite not having the resources necessary to keep casting BoL forever like a healer.

I think there's a natural tendency to think that Sorcerers are healers, simply because it sounds like they should be. They're Sorcerers, right? Thing is, there's not really anything in their class skills that makes them better at healing, specifically. They definitely have passives that increase max magicka, but that's a general boon to any magicka skill, not healing in specific. To contrast, a DK's Igneous Shield increases your healing by 30%. A Templar's Focused Healing passive also provides a 30% boost to Templar heals. I'm not saying that a Sorc can't be a healer, I've run with some great ones. Just something to consider.

Lastly, NBs, while probably not the usual choice for healers, do have some benefits that other classes don't. First, Sap Essence and Funnel Health both heal you and nearby allies for damage done to targets. They aren't really large heals, but it's a constant incoming stream of health, which is great. Plus Soul Tether and Veil of Blades ultimates have synergies that allow allies to heal themselves. To my mind, it's a weird, and almost evil, way of supplementing your heals, but alive is alive.

Hopefully the above info is useful, if perhaps overwhelming, in making your decision.

TL;DR: Templars have an entire class tree dedicated to healing. Make of that what you will.

Rinira wrote: »

It's all useful to me.. I just know everywhere I look there is the debate on templar or (insert class here). ^^ So i'm glad you took the time to write all of that out haha.

It's a slow day at work...

the one thing i like about Sorc healers is that they have quite an arsenal for magicka regen and spell resistance. in fights like for example Bogdan, Absorption Field and having your pet Twilight gives good magicka regen for constant heals. You are also able to take damage better, help control the battlefield even if that is not your main job. in groups of mobs, The Atronach helps so much with group synergy.

Granted my healer char is Nord Sorc with Resto staff for both bars and i have only healed vet dungeons but by far, I've been able to salvage the situation much more often than not. Its a weird combo for sure but it works for me and its really fun.

All i use are Healing Ward, Mutagen and Healing Springs with two toggle abilities of Inner Light and Twilight Matriarch. the other bar i used either Combat Prayer / Quick Siphon, Structured Entropy and Shattering Prison. If i find the group to be competent, i sometimes change the second bar and use Endless Fury instead of CP or QS. if not, i just use the basic keep everyone alive mentality, esp myself.

its nice when the dps are glass cannons and you dish out some CCs to help them out. the Tanks would be able to gather them better as well. so... it really all depends on your playstyle.