YAWRSIPT (Yet Another "What Race Should I Play?" Thread) - Templar Healer for a 3-man leveling group

Blackbird71 · March 2016

My least favorite part of any game is having to make a permanent decision at character creation that can impact my game experience either positively or negatively for weeks, months, or even years to come. For ESO, that means I agonize over each choice of race and class. On top of that, I'm still pretty new to the game, so I don't feel that I really have enough information or experience to make an informed decision on this matter. So I'm hoping I can turn to those with significantly more knowledge and experience than myself to help me resolve this question.

Here is the situation: I'm making a character that will be dedicated for play with two other friends through leveling content. We may at some point try PvP, but for now that isn't the focus of the group (one friend really likes PvP, the other doesn't, I'm indifferent, so for now I'm not building around it specifically). One friend has offered to tank, the other prefers to DPS, so I offered to take on the role of a healer. My goal is to build a character that can provide heals when needed, but can also dish out some supporting damage when not healing. I had decided to try a Templar for this, but I'm having trouble choosing a race.

The big question is how much healing am I likely to be needed for? Will I be spending a majority of my time healing, or will I be mostly in DPS mode while only occasionally tossing out a heal or two? My solo experience so far would suggest the latter to be true, but I haven't gotten very far in the game yet, so for all I know that may change dramatically at higher levels. If I will primarily be healing, I would think I should go more towards a race with passives geared towards magicka (Breton or Altmer), but if healing will be less frequent would I be better off choosing my race for stamina passives (Imperial)? Also, if choosing primarily for damage, I found a few Templar builds that appealed to me conceptually, but they use a bow as the primary weapon. If I went with one of these builds, it seems that the Imperial's "Red Diamond" ability would be wasted without a melee attack, so would I be better off choosing something better suited for the particular weapon (Bosmer or Khajiit)?

These are the questions that swirl around in my head, and to which I feel inadequate to resolve on my own. Any input or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Methadone_Man · April 2016

I have a vet 16 Templar healer and have healed veteran dungeons. Been playing since launch on Xbox.

All players are able to DPS, even if they play a healer or tank in group play. You may be spec-ed to be a healer and therefore won't do as much damage as you could potentially. But, none-the-less, a healer can do damage by choosing a different set of skills. Also, when you solo quest, you are really a DPS character who occasionally self-heals. You cannot tank or heal the NPC enemies to death

So what you have is two different skill set ups. One setup for questing which will involve your Buff, DoT, Spam, Execute type of skills, and keep Breath of Life or Healing Ward on one bar to auto-heal as needed. So it would be things like Structured Entropy and Inner light for your Buff. Vampires Bane or Reflective Light, Luminous Shards, and maybe Wall of Elements (destruction staff) for DoT type of damage. Your spam attacks would be Puncturing Sweeps and Dark Flare. Execute is the "Jesus Beam", called Radiant Oppression. And a few others. Those are my basic examples of the go-to type skills for a magica Templar to damage enemies in PvE.

Then, when in group play, you will invert that and focus primarily on healing with one or two damage type skills. In group play, it's best to go balls-to-the-wall healer and let the DPS guys do the same for damage. You can participate in damage only after you've healed any allies who have immediate needs, applied heal-over-time, applied their buffs, applied your own shield. For healing, your bars would have things like Repentance, Breath of Life, Rapid Regeneration, Healing Ward, Purifying Light, Purifying or Extended Ritual, Chanelled Focus. There are different ways to combine these and you'll be able to work out a pattern for yourself. I start every fight by applying Rapid Regeneration twice to give all 4 of us a heal-over-time. I then lay down the Purifying Ritual right in the middle of the most dangerous enemies. This is a heal-over-time and synergizes with Breath of Life. I then apply my Annulment shield. Then I begin tagging all enemies with Purifying Light which does some damage and applies a small heal to allies at the end of the effect. I constantly weave in heavy attacks from my Resto staff which does some damage, heals one ally for a small amount, and restores some magica to me. I watch for health bars and activate healing ward or Breath of Life as needed, in between my heavy attack weaves. Purifying Light only lasts 6 seconds so I will need to reapply often. I reapply the two heal over times as needed. It can be complex and a challenge.

To answer your question about race, here are my 3 suggestions:

1. Breton Templar
2. Altmer Templar
3. Any race Templar

Your class and armor passives are far more important than race passives. I play the "wrong race" as an Imperial Templar healer, and I have healed veteran dungeons at vet 16 level. It is far more important to wear at least 5 pieces of light armor than to pick the "correct" race. Even choosing a good Mundus Stone is more important. Barring that, the Breton has race passives that will specifically enhance a magic-based Templar healer the most. Magica regeneration is quite useful for a healer. Altmer is a close second. Both races would also complement a magica based Templar DPS.

To heal you must be magica based in your build. All of the Bow skills use Stamina. Your primary weapons are a destruction staff and restoration staff.

Base Damage of Magica Skills = Max Magica/10 + Spell Damage
Healing output of a healing skill = Max Magica/10 + Spell Damage

Blackbird71 · April 2016

Methadone_Man wrote: »

I have a vet 16 Templar healer and have healed veteran dungeons. Been playing since launch on Xbox.

All players are able to DPS, even if they play a healer or tank in group play. You may be spec-ed to be a healer and therefore won't do as much damage as you could potentially. But, none-the-less, a healer can do damage by choosing a different set of skills. Also, when you solo quest, you are really a DPS character who occasionally self-heals. You cannot tank or heal the NPC enemies to death

So what you have is two different skill set ups. One setup for questing which will involve your Buff, DoT, Spam, Execute type of skills, and keep Breath of Life or Healing Ward on one bar to auto-heal as needed. So it would be things like Structured Entropy and Inner light for your Buff. Vampires Bane or Reflective Light, Luminous Shards, and maybe Wall of Elements (destruction staff) for DoT type of damage. Your spam attacks would be Puncturing Sweeps and Dark Flare. Execute is the "Jesus Beam", called Radiant Oppression. And a few others. Those are my basic examples of the go-to type skills for a magica Templar to damage enemies in PvE.

Then, when in group play, you will invert that and focus primarily on healing with one or two damage type skills. In group play, it's best to go balls-to-the-wall healer and let the DPS guys do the same for damage. You can participate in damage only after you've healed any allies who have immediate needs, applied heal-over-time, applied their buffs, applied your own shield. For healing, your bars would have things like Repentance, Breath of Life, Rapid Regeneration, Healing Ward, Purifying Light, Purifying or Extended Ritual, Chanelled Focus. There are different ways to combine these and you'll be able to work out a pattern for yourself. I start every fight by applying Rapid Regeneration twice to give all 4 of us a heal-over-time. I then lay down the Purifying Ritual right in the middle of the most dangerous enemies. This is a heal-over-time and synergizes with Breath of Life. I then apply my Annulment shield. Then I begin tagging all enemies with Purifying Light which does some damage and applies a small heal to allies at the end of the effect. I constantly weave in heavy attacks from my Resto staff which does some damage, heals one ally for a small amount, and restores some magica to me. I watch for health bars and activate healing ward or Breath of Life as needed, in between my heavy attack weaves. Purifying Light only lasts 6 seconds so I will need to reapply often. I reapply the two heal over times as needed. It can be complex and a challenge.

To answer your question about race, here are my 3 suggestions:

1. Breton Templar
2. Altmer Templar
3. Any race Templar

Your class and armor passives are far more important than race passives. I play the "wrong race" as an Imperial Templar healer, and I have healed veteran dungeons at vet 16 level. It is far more important to wear at least 5 pieces of light armor than to pick the "correct" race. Even choosing a good Mundus Stone is more important. Barring that, the Breton has race passives that will specifically enhance a magic-based Templar healer the most. Magica regeneration is quite useful for a healer. Altmer is a close second. Both races would also complement a magica based Templar DPS.

To heal you must be magica based in your build. All of the Bow skills use Stamina. Your primary weapons are a destruction staff and restoration staff.

Base Damage of Magica Skills = Max Magica/10 + Spell Damage
Healing output of a healing skill = Max Magica/10 + Spell Damage

I appreciate the advice, and there are a lot of points in there I can use.

I do want to restate a few things for clarity's sake:

1. This character will be used 100% of the time in group content, as it will be reserved for play when my other two friends are online, so I really don't need to worry about solo builds (at least for this character; I may use that at some other point).
2. My key question is in a group primarily just playing through leveling content, how much healing will I likely be needed to do? If I were to split my time between healing/damage, would it be roughly 50/50? 80/20? 10/90?

Regarding the second point, how applicable are your suggestions on group play specifically for leveling content? You mentioned veteran-level dungeons, and so I'm assuming that your advice is more geared toward that sort of content. Does the same apply for just getting through the levels? Or would that content be less healing-intensive, and swing more towards supplemental dps?

Thanks again!

Methadone_Man · April 2016

Well, in your case you might have one bar for healing and and one bar for damage. Then switch as the situation calls for it.