Question about dungeon/trial healing

Machiavelli · July 2015

Good afternoon,

I'm a Templar healer and I'm wondering if I should be providing DPS in my dungeon runs? I do my restoration heavy attack for magicka regen, but that's about it. Should I be weaving DPS moves into my healing rotations?

On a side note: Does anyone have any suggestions for a decent healing build for a vr1 Templar? I've seen a few build online but they all predate the console release and not sure if they translate too well with out version of the game (since we are an update or two behind).

Nestor · July 2015

I pretty much just use Breath of Life* when I am being a Healer. I don't even use a Resto Staff with my Templar, I use two Destro Staffs. I think in Trials I would need to be a more focused healer, but in all group content I am DPS in between times I heal.

*Repentance is good to use too, and it could be beneficial to have the skill that removes a negative effect, but I have never used it.

UrQuan · July 2015

The correct answer is: it depends.

Assuming you've got a halfway decent group, in most fights you shouldn't need to be constantly healing, so you should be doing some DPS as well. The thing to keep on top of is making sure you don't use too much of your magicka on DPS so that you can't spam heals for phases in the fight when that's needed. As long as you're not depleting your magicka too much, though. do some DPS in between healing.

Of course, there are also some ways you can help out with the DPS without actually directly causing damage. Using Combat Prayer (morph of Blessing of Restoration) as one of your heals is a good example of this, as it will increase the damage of allies it hits by 8%.

There are also some fights where there's a healing check as one of the fight mechanics. In these you want to make sure your magicka is full when the healing check starts, so you're probably not really going to want to be wasting any magicka on doing DPS in those fights. For those ones, stick to resto staff heavy attacks

Machiavelli · July 2015

Thanks for the healer wisdom guys, this information should help me improve my performance. I have another question. I've read from multiple sources that Healing springs is suppose to me my main heal. My question is should I be spamming this skill? It's not exactly cheap magicka wise. Are you all waiting for the three second duration before refreshing it? Also, combat prey sounds like a useful skill, but most of my groups are too spread out to hit the tank and dps each time I cast it. So I think I may take it off my bar for now.

UrQuan · July 2015

Healing Springs doesn't have to be your main heal (I use Breath of Life more personally), but in a lot of circumstances it's a good one. Where it's at its most useful is when everyone in your group will be within the circle and be able to stay in it. This way you get a hefty rebate on the cost of it (you get magicka back based on how many allies are hit by it, up to a maximum of 3 allies), and you can wait the full 3 seconds before re-casting it.

When everyone's spread out and/or the fight requires everyone to be super mobile, it's not nearly as effective.