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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/305196

Short version: Yes, non-templars can heal. Yes, non-templar healers can heal well enough for the vast majority of the game's content including all the dungeons. However, no, they will not heal as well or as easily as a templar. Effective? Yes. Optimal? No.

As a tank I can say, that my life is much easier if my heal is Templar Shards really help!

Pretty sure a skilled player can make heal sorc work as well

Thank you all I will try to find someone who has some experience with them .
I'm downloading and installing the game tonight and making my new Sorc so I'll hopefully find a few guilds to join after that!

I appreciate the comments left here though, they do help a lot. Ultimately I'm going to want to PVP only but while I level I think doing dungeons would be fun but I don't like long queue times as a DPS so I wanted to see if I go magicka if I could heal effectively as well.

billywink3b14_ESO wrote: »

are Sorc able to heal regular dungeons at that level?.

That's about the limit of sorc healer effectiveness, dungeons and vet dungeons. If you want to heal vet trials effectively, and want to work to be regarded as "the healer we'll always bring", you're going to have to play a templar. I've ran trials that were non-HM with sorc healers before, and often it was because we just couldn't find a healer at the time, so our DPS would put on a resto staff. Group support was minimal at best, the lack of a constant major mending meant more time spend outputting heals that a templar could output much quicker, and less time reapplying ele, orbs, [no] shards, [no] purify, [no] always up, on demand 50k heal tick (twilight matriarch is not a valid point).

Am I experienced, and can I say this? I'd like to think so. Every HM trial, all done with templar healers, and with almost universal acceptance that a Sorc healer wouldn't work. Sorry, but dungeons is about the limit.

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

You can say whatever you want, it doesn't change the fact that your knowledge about Sorcerer healers is limited to DDs equiping a restoration staff.

That argument cuts both ways. How much experience do you have with sorc healers in vMoL?

In any case, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that there is a ceiling to what a non-templar can do because no class is as well-equipped for healing. It's up to the player to decide for himself whether that ceiling matters to them. For a typical player who is sure that they would never want the kind of commitment required for competitive raiding and who is just interested in exploring their favorite class, that ceiling is most likely going to be completely irrelevant to them, and they will not be deterred by it. But that ceiling exists and people shouldn't hide the fact that it exists.

Yes, sorcs can heal most of the content in the game effectively. No, they're not as efficient as templars and are not optimal. Leave it at that and let the reader of that statement decide for themselves how much they personally value freedom of play versus how much they value being the best at something.

Spreading misinformation does not make the game better, unfortunately.

The sorcerer kit does not synergize very well with healing.
A good healer is expected to support as much as heal, and there are several barriers to why it begins to get tough for a sorcerer healer as you move on to more difficult content.

A sorcerer should be able to heal 4 man content as much as anything else, but when you move on to supporting as well as healing that is when it begins to get a little iffy.
The twilight matriarch wasn't a very bad idea to help sorcerers get their own heal, but she comes with the cost of 2 bar slots and doesn't seem to have the same "smart healing" other skills have and seems to often heal the same targets on repeat regardless of who needs a heal the most. It does seem to follow similar rules that other body capped buffs follow that will attempt to prioritize the same people on repeat and you and the matriarch are first in line for that.

With most 4 man content you should be ok with something like rapids and combat prayer, and maybe throw out several orbs every once in a while.

When you move on to trials, it begins to get much more difficult to keep up if not impossible.
The short duration of major mending on the essence drain passive is just pitiful, and there's no way you're gonna be able to keep up with that and everything else. Pets are well known for dying quickly in trials.
Bar space, self sustain, the inability to deal with the duration on some of your skills while a lot of damage is going out raid-wide really isn't worth all the trouble.

I'd love to see more diversity open up among all the classes as much as anyone else, but if we don't clarify the shortcomings of what's not meta for ZoS to see then we're not going to see any improvements.

You should be able to hold your own as a sorcerer healer in most 4 man content, but you will have to be aware that it is a bit out of the meta and a lot of groups that just want to get the content done quickly won't wanna deal with it. It sucks, but I can't blame anyone for wanting to spend the excess time on the "buffed" 4 man dungeons. It's just all damage sponges

code65536 wrote: »

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

You can say whatever you want, it doesn't change the fact that your knowledge about Sorcerer healers is limited to DDs equiping a restoration staff.

That argument cuts both ways. How much experience do you have with sorc healers in vMoL?

What's the deal with vMoL ? Once you complete you're magicaly granted knowledge over everything in the game ? Come on...
Now if you wanna know how much knowledge I got on sorc heals, I happen to spend 99% of my time both IG & IRL with someone who has experienced healing on all four classes. But you're right, I'm sure it's worth nothing compared to someone who has seen with his very own eyes that a DD with a resto staff can be a bad healer. Cause yea, all the issues he mentioned have nothing to do with being a sorc or not. They're nothing but commonly seen mistakes done by most players new to healing.

Bisenberger96 wrote: »

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

clv wrote: »

Once again, i've cleared every HM trial, done all the PvE content.

Keep believing what you want because at the end of the day, you're the one missing 75% of the content of this game because you think it can't be done another way, not me.

Um, Clive has already stated he has cleared every single piece of end game content in this game, and was also part of the first NA PC hm vmol clear. AND he's done Cadwell's gold.. I think Dunno where you're getting this statistic.

Good. Congratulations, now do it with non-templar healers and you'll start seeing what's left to see in TESO.

Yes they can be great healers with a resto staff but they are unique because they can CC with encase and use negate magic which is awesome in PvP. I enjoy healing with these types of healers.

I know a lot of folks like shards... but what about the orb deals?

I'm a sorcerer healer and I routinely do vet dungeons on hard mode. In my experience (played since launch), whether or not a sorcerer healer is viable has more to do with the group than the class itself. If each member is fulfilling their role properly, healing on a sorcerer is an absolute breeze.

Trash mobs, I can solo if need be. Hardened ward, mutagen, throw up a healing spring and switch to destro backbar to AOE nuke packs in a few seconds. Repeat if necessary, throw up a suppression field if I've over extended myself. A sorcerer healer's viability is more about boss fights, and if each member of the group's playing their role correctly and getting mechanics right then the argument between an 'optimal' templar healer and a sorcerer is moot. If you've got a tank who can't sustain stamina, of course templar will be better for shards - but I'd classify that as someone not playing their role properly (in the context of PUGs - of course people are free to build however they want when playing with a regular group).

On the flip side, I've run dungeons with 4 sorcerers as the only healer. I've never done any dungeon quicker than when in a group of 4 sorcerers and, in that case, I can be throwing out mystic orbs to help sustain and hitting bosses with siphon spirit for a small heal and additional sustain. I've also done dungeons with 4 sorcerer healers How about that, eh?!

The biggest problem for a sorcerer healer aside from a tank with low stamina sustain (and there are loads of ways a tank can handle that themself without requiring a teammate to take up a skill slot just for them - food, jewellery enchants, weaving) is a squishy DPS - it can be hard in some boss fights to spread heals about the arena, so if a DPS is liable to get near one-shotted fairly often, then they're going to die on occasion. On the upside, a DPS that dies too often can simply be left for dead - they're not providing DPS when they're lying down and distract everyone else from their role while waiting for a res. With only a tank and one DPS to take care off, you can heal on sorcerer with one hand behind your back (I might be exaggerating slightly).

Also, combat prayer. I can instantly heal my allies and increase their physical resistance, spell resistance and damage for a short period. It's brilliant and much overlooked. I keep mutagen up as all times as a guard, throw out a ward when someone falls low enough for it to trigger followed by a couple healing springs, but actually spend most of my time spraying combat prayer about between adding DPS support.

Even better, those are all resto skills that any class can pick up, so I'm sure that there are great nightblade and dragonknight healers out there too. In particular, nightblades have some healing specific class skills. I've another healer who is a siphon/resto healer and they're great fun to play. Sorcerers strengths are an amazing self-ward (I've used it to survive boss cycles before when the rest of the group needs a res), an AOE damage shield/stun ultimate and bound aegis that increases your magicka by 8%. That last one that adds approx 5% to my resto staff heals, which isn't to be sniffed at. There's also an ultimate generation passive which means my resto staff's ultimate is always up when I need it.

Templars have strengths too, namely stamina regen and removal of debuffs/effects from players. I had a templar healer once, but I respecced them long ago. I might be out of date in my experience with them, but I felt they were simply easier to play, not better. You can reach a threshold with heals with any class that is more than sufficient, but a resto staff can require a fair bit of finger/mouse acrobatics. Beyond that threshold, you're probably looking at building particular groups for trials. It's there that templars support can shine, but that's not to say you can't build a group around some healers of a different class.

I realise this is an old thread, but I love playing my socrerer healer. So I thought I'd throw up my experience because, after all, isn't that what it's all about?

tldr; very viable, fun to play!

I say that you should just make sure to bring a DPS Templar so that you don't lose the Shards support in your squad. =P