Can you please provide some sort of proof/tips that would prove to me that Nightblade healers are balanced? I've been trying to come up with a viable build of late and have not found much to compare to Templar Healers...

Unless of course other player's opinions are blown out of proportion/biased?

Your help, either way, would be great!

I'm sorry but Relentless Focus is a integral part of my rotation as a tank and even as a dps, albeit for resource management. It's fine if you want to change the proc to a healing proc but perhaps the change might come with Dark Shades.

Since there are two of them, they can deal damage and convert either a percentage of that damage to heals or convert the entire damage dealt to heal the lowest ally, kind of like another HoT in addition to RP and Sap Essence.

But dont touch Relentless, its so useful for tanks that are not stamina based, and not having much racial stamina bonuses.

I suggest using the link I posted as the best place to start:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/155898/1-6-nightblade-healer-bloodmage/p1

The skill set-up I posted is what works best for me with my playstyle, the type of group I run with, and the types of content I mostly do. It is nowhere near the end-all-be-all of necessary skills that will work in every situation. With that in mind I'll provide you with a little info on why I use the skills I do and some helpful hints about some of the skills you have chosen. When looking at this, the main thing to remember is that the strength of NB healing is in our ability to sustain high dps while still being an effective healer and support caster. If you just want to stand at the back of the pack and spam heals, I suggest you role templar!

Purpose of Skills:

Bar 1:

Funnel Health - Main heal and single target damage spam...since it refreshes each time it is spammed, you get more healing from spamming it due to the normal hot being every 2 seconds if you just let it run

Mutagen (or rapid regen) - main rolling Hot to stack with funnel.

Healing Ward - your "oh ***" heal..use as needed

Impale - might be the first skill you see as useless. Here more for the passives it gives than for the skill itself. 5% crit for group mates plus 3% crit for you and 10% crit damage....this means your heals hit harder...also adding damage during execute phase means stuff dies faster.

Inner Light - 5% (almost 7% with passives) more magicka meaning more heals that hit harder

Veil of Blades or Barrier - Damage Mitigation is far superior to straight healing in this game. A raid size PVP group with perfectly timed barriers is unstoppable, and in raids there are always veil and nova rotations because that is how good damage mitigation is!

Bar 2:

Sap Essence - AOE damage with heals on par with springs when spammed. Also our main source of getting major sorcery buff so that we are not dependent on chugging pots.

Energy Orb (or mystic orb) - gives magicka to your group meaning magicka dps will love you. And if they are not having to use spell symm to regain magicka, you are not having to heal as much. If running with stam dps, swap with refreshing path!

Healing Springs - Primary burst heal when you get people stacked.

Efficiency Purge - getting rid of dots from your friends means less healing you have to do. Shades or Reaper Mark are valid choices here if you are fighting bosses where a cleanse is not needed.

Inner Light -same as above

Soul Harvest - this skill is here for the 10% crit damage, 3% crit, and 5% crit for allies. Its main purpose is for the added ultimate generation on kills. Since this is your bar for AOE fights, this is the bar you will be on when trash mobs are dying meaning tons of ultimate. This allows for more uses of veils or barrier.


Notes about other skills:

Aspect of Terror - while a highly useful skill in PVP, you do not want to fear mobs from your dps or tank. It just makes add control harder for the group. And the mobs you would want to fear (ones that can 1 shot people) are most likely CC immune.

Siphoning Attacks - 15% damage decrease is also 15% healing decrease (this is compounded even more on skills like funnel and sap) meaning you have to spam more heals which is not resource effective. If you have trouble managing magicka, learn to become effective at adding resto heavy attacks to your rotation.

Bolstering Darkness - Use veil of blades instead...the added AOE damage more than makes up for the extra mitigation given to ONLY the caster. Remember, the faster it dies, the less damage it does!

Summon Shades - As with fear, while this is a really good skill for PVP, good tanks all run low slash which gives the same debuff to target as this skill, making it just a wasted skill slot.

Blessing of Restoration - Healing Springs (or Illustrious Healing) is your better stack burst heal. This skill is just not magicka efficient as other means of burst healing. Also combat prayer is the better morph if you must have this skill....8% damage for group members means stuff dies faster!

Soul Siphon - does the same healing as a couple of quick casts of healing springs meaning it is just a waste of an ultimate. Soul Tether is the better morph because its like bat swarm for non vamps, highly useful in soloing content and pvp!

Final Thoughts:

While some of my skills may seem pointless, they have there uses in certain situations. What I posted are my generic bars I use. Certain skills are swapped out for better skills depending on the situation. These are specifically orb, purge, and barrier. There are times that yes, there are other skills more useful for a fight, and during these fights I do swap these skills out. That is what it takes to be a good NB healer is knowing the support skills you have and what fights require which skills. There are times I swap these 3 skills out for straight DPS skills (like in Vet dungeons) because more damage is better than a little added utility or over healing! NB healing is one of those builds that's easy get overwhelmed because it takes a ton of practice to get good at it. It has no templar easy mode where you just stand back and spam breath of life and repentance!

I use grim focus to improve my dps and regenerate stamina a bit. There will be a change to make the big hitter proc faster after like 4 attacks which makes it even more useful. I don't need any other change on this.

They say NB is not designed to heal. You can use it as a healer but you shouldn't excel in healing cos NB is a DPS class.

Kerioko wrote: »

I suggest using the link I posted as the best place to start:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/155898/1-6-nightblade-healer-bloodmage/p1

The skill set-up I posted is what works best for me with my playstyle, the type of group I run with, and the types of content I mostly do. It is nowhere near the end-all-be-all of necessary skills that will work in every situation. With that in mind I'll provide you with a little info on why I use the skills I do and some helpful hints about some of the skills you have chosen. When looking at this, the main thing to remember is that the strength of NB healing is in our ability to sustain high dps while still being an effective healer and support caster. If you just want to stand at the back of the pack and spam heals, I suggest you role templar!

Purpose of Skills:

Bar 1:

Funnel Health - Main heal and single target damage spam...since it refreshes each time it is spammed, you get more healing from spamming it due to the normal hot being every 2 seconds if you just let it run

Mutagen (or rapid regen) - main rolling Hot to stack with funnel.

Healing Ward - your "oh ***" heal..use as needed

Impale - might be the first skill you see as useless. Here more for the passives it gives than for the skill itself. 5% crit for group mates plus 3% crit for you and 10% crit damage....this means your heals hit harder...also adding damage during execute phase means stuff dies faster.

Inner Light - 5% (almost 7% with passives) more magicka meaning more heals that hit harder

Veil of Blades or Barrier - Damage Mitigation is far superior to straight healing in this game. A raid size PVP group with perfectly timed barriers is unstoppable, and in raids there are always veil and nova rotations because that is how good damage mitigation is!

Bar 2:

Sap Essence - AOE damage with heals on par with springs when spammed. Also our main source of getting major sorcery buff so that we are not dependent on chugging pots.

Energy Orb (or mystic orb) - gives magicka to your group meaning magicka dps will love you. And if they are not having to use spell symm to regain magicka, you are not having to heal as much. If running with stam dps, swap with refreshing path!

Healing Springs - Primary burst heal when you get people stacked.

Efficiency Purge - getting rid of dots from your friends means less healing you have to do. Shades or Reaper Mark are valid choices here if you are fighting bosses where a cleanse is not needed.

Inner Light -same as above

Soul Harvest - this skill is here for the 10% crit damage, 3% crit, and 5% crit for allies. Its main purpose is for the added ultimate generation on kills. Since this is your bar for AOE fights, this is the bar you will be on when trash mobs are dying meaning tons of ultimate. This allows for more uses of veils or barrier.


Notes about other skills:

Aspect of Terror - while a highly useful skill in PVP, you do not want to fear mobs from your dps or tank. It just makes add control harder for the group. And the mobs you would want to fear (ones that can 1 shot people) are most likely CC immune.

Siphoning Attacks - 15% damage decrease is also 15% healing decrease (this is compounded even more on skills like funnel and sap) meaning you have to spam more heals which is not resource effective. If you have trouble managing magicka, learn to become effective at adding resto heavy attacks to your rotation.

Bolstering Darkness - Use veil of blades instead...the added AOE damage more than makes up for the extra mitigation given to ONLY the caster. Remember, the faster it dies, the less damage it does!

Summon Shades - As with fear, while this is a really good skill for PVP, good tanks all run low slash which gives the same debuff to target as this skill, making it just a wasted skill slot.

Blessing of Restoration - Healing Springs (or Illustrious Healing) is your better stack burst heal. This skill is just not magicka efficient as other means of burst healing. Also combat prayer is the better morph if you must have this skill....8% damage for group members means stuff dies faster!

Soul Siphon - does the same healing as a couple of quick casts of healing springs meaning it is just a waste of an ultimate. Soul Tether is the better morph because its like bat swarm for non vamps, highly useful in soloing content and pvp!

Final Thoughts:

While some of my skills may seem pointless, they have there uses in certain situations. What I posted are my generic bars I use. Certain skills are swapped out for better skills depending on the situation. These are specifically orb, purge, and barrier. There are times that yes, there are other skills more useful for a fight, and during these fights I do swap these skills out. That is what it takes to be a good NB healer is knowing the support skills you have and what fights require which skills. There are times I swap these 3 skills out for straight DPS skills (like in Vet dungeons) because more damage is better than a little added utility or over healing! NB healing is one of those builds that's easy get overwhelmed because it takes a ton of practice to get good at it. It has no templar easy mode where you just stand back and spam breath of life and repentance!

Any tips at making this pvp viable?

I play a V14 Templar and a V14 NB healer and I have to say both are very viable healers. The only time I realize a difference, is while doing DSA veteran, because Breath of Life, the Templar "instant" oh-***-heal" is very handy there. With a NB healer there your DDs have to care somewhat more for not receiving too much damage, aka watch for red circles, fire and stuff etc.

My first bar as NB healer is the standard restoration healer line, Combat Prayer, Rapid Regeneration, Healing Springs, Inner Light, Structured Entropy. Ultimate is Veil of Blades (you might use Soul Siphon / Soul Tether instead, but Veil is the "small" Nova, the -30% damage effect is pretty priceless).

Second bar contains Dark Shades, Funnel Health, Refreshing Patch, Inner Light, Structured Entropy. Ultimate is Ice Comet.

Dark Shades is interchangable, it's your joker slot. If another guy provides that debuff, you might change it for something else. You might use it just for boss fights, there it makes the most sense.

The normal routine is -> put Structured Entropy at least once on a mob to get the 20% spell damage buff, then trigger Refreshing Path and cover the whole trash group or the boss with Funnel Health. So the buff from Structred Entropy adds to your DoT damage + healing. I see ticks for 850/900 per 0,5 seconds for RP and 4,5k Funnel Health ticks.
You don't need to "aim" for mobs with Refreshing Path, the healing component will be there anyways. You might want to use it as a small DoT in spite of, so look for some mobs in the path.

For Dark Shades two very cool skills come to my mind:

Crippling Grasp, for running another high damage DoT all over the current trashmobs. The 40% movement speed increase stacks with the one from Refreshing Patch. Ever want to run around in sprint speed without losing stamina or any need to dodge roll ?

Sap Essence, for boosting your spell damage and healing even more. So your routine should be: Sap Essence -> Structured Entropy -> Refreshing Path -> Funnel Health. You might use Structured Entropy more than once on different mobs, the DoT isn't bad, but the animation time is annoying (another instant which is not instant..)

My NB healer might be able to roll around 3-6k additional dps on trashmobs (depends on number of trash and my used "joker"), mostly without much need to switch to bar 1 for additional major healing.

The above is for PvE of course.

Kerioko wrote: »

TommyGoodgone wrote: »

They say NB is not designed to heal. You can use it as a healer but you shouldn't excel in healing cos NB is a DPS class.

@TommyGoodgone your logic is the reason why there are still people in game that post things in zone chat like...

I said they say so I'm not the reason of anything.
In the last eso LIVE broadcast there was question at the end why NB don't have any burst heal skill and the answer was something like this they wanted to design the different classes to be able to excel in different things.

Kerioko wrote: »

@Flameheart nice build, might I add a few things though.

There is little point to running both sap essence and entropy as they give the same buff, so its a wasted slot. I highly prefer sap over entropy because it gives you a decent AOE damage skill that heals the group while entropy only heals you. And from what I have seen, the might of the guild passive only provides a 20% boost to the heal or damage immediately following it, not an entire HoT or DoT. Also, may I ask why you do not run a siphon skill on Bar 1. You realize that you are missing out on 8% magicka due to the Magicka Flood Passive.

I would say the best solution for your set-up is:

bar 1: combat prayer, springs, rapid regen, inner light, entropy, soul tether

bar 2: sap essence, refreshing path, funnel health, impale (or shades), inner light and veil of blades.

This set-up will still give you the option of using sword and board on bar 2 and still getting your 7% health on bar 1 and 6% health on bar 2, while adding some much needed AOE damage, 8% magicka boost to bar 1, and an execute to aid in boss burn. This is very similar to what I run when I off-tank and switch impale with inner beast or ransack!

Always up for improvements, thx. I didn't know that Entropy has such a dissapointing mechanic and usually everything called out in % in this game stacks with everything, but ok...

About the Siphon passive bonus...to be honest, I had to arrange my above build within 10 minutes to get a group rolling, I had no time to calculate passives, but wanted to have my 20k health and therefor Entropy :-) I will change some attribute points and try your build.

Baby Myst is one of the best healers in the game and she's a NB. Number 1 AD for Sanctum and she's a main healer. Not to mention Suru being a bomb healer on his NB who healed an amazing score vDSA for us a while back. NB healing is extremely effective and requires absolutely no changes to be viable. It already is viable.