NB heals is one of the best PvP heals in the game imo, but, I'm a NB so I'm biased

lazarus102 wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Mind you, while you're still leveling you may find it more difficult to get by without that extra resource help, as you likely haven't unlocked all of the skills you need to be self-sufficient. When you've unlocked them and you've got some decent max-level gear, though, it shouldn't be an issue.

ya.. that's kinda my point...
I'm not some vet player with everything figured out and all my points added in all the right places and 160cp .etc. If I was I would not likely have made this thread.

Don't worry about having everything figured out and your points in the right places yet. That will come with time, and it's easy and cheap (well, it's cheap when you're higher level and gold comes easy) to respec.

If you're working on a DK tank, stick with it and figure out which skills work best with your playstyle. Do not neglect the Earthen Heart skill line. Each and every passive in it is pure gold for a tank, and many of the active skills are very useful too (and of course you have to use Earthen Heart active skills to benefit from many of the passives). Once you've got all of the passives unlocked you should have no trouble with managing your resources if you give a little thought to when to use which skills. The other class skill lines also have plenty of active skills and passives that will help you if you give some thought to how to use them, but Earthen Heart in particular is useful for a tank.

As an example, you could use Igneous Weapons (a morph of Molten Weapons) to gain Major Sorcery and Major Brutality for 36 seconds for you and your group. Because of passives that will also give you and your allies Minor Brutality for 20 seconds, give you 3 ultimate, and restore 5% of your stamina.

While those buffs are in effect, you could use Igneous Shield (a morph of Obsidian Shield) to give yourself and your allies damage shields (the size of the damage shield will be greater than it would have been without the Major Sorcery buff that Igneous Weapons gave you) and to give you Major Mending. Of course, the same passives apply to this as well, so you'll refresh the Minor Brutality buff, gain another 3 ultimate (only if it's been at least 6 seconds since the last time that passive gave you ultimate), and restore another 5% of your stamina.

Now you could use one of the morphs of Spiked Armour (from the Draconic Power skill line) to gain the Major Resolve and Major Ward buffs (or it might have been activated at any point in this sequence actually, the key is to have it or another Draconic Power skill active - it happens to be a vital skill for a DK tank though, that's why I'm using it in this example). While it's active, you gain a 12% bonus to your healing received thanks to passives.

So now you activate Green Dragon Blood (a morph of Dragon Blood from the Draconic Power skill line) to heal 33% of your missing health, while also gaining Major Endurance and Major Fortitude to increase your health and stamina recovery. Oh, but wait, because of the order in which you used these skills, your self-heal there will actually be a lot more powerful. You're still under the effects of Major Mending thanks to Igneous Shield, so the amount of healing that you do is increased by 25%. But wait again, thanks to having Spiked Armour active (well, thanks to the Burning Heart passive actually) you're also benefiting from a +12% buff to healing received. So you're buffing the heal from Dragon Blood on both ends.

So with those you've been gaining back quite a bit of stamina and health, but you've been using magicka and you may be running low by now. Well, if you've got an ultimate ready (and your Earthen Heart passives should have helped out somewhat with that - you can also periodically use Heroic Slash from the One Hand & Shield skill line to ensure you're increasing your ultimate gain) you can pop that and suddenly get a whole bunch of all of your resources back thanks to Earthen Heart passives, plus gain the effect of whichever ultimate you used.

So that's just an example (tailored to a DK tank) of how giving a little thought to how you use abilities together will help you to manage your resources. There's plenty of other ways you could do it (and plenty of gear setups that can help out a lot with this type of thing), and as you play more you'll get the hang of them. Again, though, if you're low level you simply won't have access to all of this yet. This example is mostly to give you an idea of the type of thing you can work towards. You may have trouble managing your resources now, but once you're higher level you really shouldn't.

starkerealm wrote: »

lazarus102 wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Mind you, while you're still leveling you may find it more difficult to get by without that extra resource help, as you likely haven't unlocked all of the skills you need to be self-sufficient. When you've unlocked them and you've got some decent max-level gear, though, it shouldn't be an issue.

ya.. that's kinda my point...
I'm not some vet player with everything figured out and all my points added in all the right places and 160cp .etc. If I was I would not likely have made this thread.

With that in mind... go ahead and try it. See what you find from personal experience. I never would have run a sorc tank or Stamsorc DPS if I hadn't tried it out first hand.

Worst case, when you get up to 50 you're working to advance every character on your account, and you can fully respec your characters fairly cheaply. (It costs about 10-12k to fully respec a level 50 character). If you find you don't like the class... hold onto it in case a future patch changes something so you can enjoy it. Or try switching to another role. Again, Nightblades do excel in all roles. Each one is a different playstyle however, and you won't know if you like it until you try.

Think this got ever so slightly de-railed along the way but I was talkin bout my friend's GF that was running a NB healer, not myself. I had my arguments against it based on my prior mmorpg knowledge and the fact that we were just starting out and struggling on some dungeons as it is.

KingYogi415 wrote: »

Selfish to not play the best support class as healer.

Being a special snowflake is fine, just don't expect people think your any good.

Just being real!

You're not being real. It's not the job of the healer to fix the mistakes and misses of the DPS or tank.

And it's selfish to say that others must play what you (or others) think is the best for that role.
_______________

I played DK and NB healer in the lower levels and had always success with it. It's not different in end game. Every class can cater to every role.

Without access to the Templar lines. How do you all do burst AOE healing? Or do you have to get resto staff to 50 first?

One encounter that stands out at me is the lich in Wayrest Sewers II where he teleports near the center of the pool and does a channeled AOE that cannot be interrupted and has to be healed through. As a templar healer, that encounter is pretty easy.. with Templar heals. I tried it with primarily resto staff and had issues.

Now I was like level 18 which may have had something to do with it. But never had any issues with ANY other boss in other II dungeons or DLC's at low level.

But I'm curious to know how a 15-30ish Nightblade Healer would tackle an encounter like that.

Riejael wrote: »

Without access to the Templar lines. How do you all do burst AOE healing? Or do you have to get resto staff to 50 first?

One encounter that stands out at me is the lich in Wayrest Sewers II where he teleports near the center of the pool and does a channeled AOE that cannot be interrupted and has to be healed through. As a templar healer, that encounter is pretty easy.. with Templar heals. I tried it with primarily resto staff and had issues.

Now I was like level 18 which may have had something to do with it. But never had any issues with ANY other boss in other II dungeons or DLC's at low level.

But I'm curious to know how a 15-30ish Nightblade Healer would tackle an encounter like that.

Veil of blades, refreshing path, funnel ticks, rapid regen, stacking in healing springs.should work, probably overkill tbh

Also: slotting barrier increases magic regen not max magic (with the passives unlocked)
And major sorcery will not increase the size of igneous shield, as it it scales with max health. Using Warhorn first however will increase it's size, as too will stacking higher health and points in bastion cp.

Yes every class can do every role, some good for some things others better at others. But the typical consenus of dk tanks and templar healers especially, is the ease and effectiveness that they bring to those roles.

Dk's have acces to chains and talons for instance, which makes crowd control simple, they have 2 extremely effective ways of regaining stamina by themselves while blocking through helping hands and battle roar passives. And an essentially god mode emergency ult which makes them pretty much unkillable for a short time in magma shell

Templars have extremely powerful burst heals, a massive inbuilt aoe hot with purify's, easy upkeep on major mending, passives that increase healing to low health targets, 2 separate ways to restore stamina, and in the upcoming patch an aoe magicka steal debuff.

Now for dungeons it doesn't matter too much but in trials for instance it gets trickier, tanking the axes in AA i have done on both nb and dk, and it's night and day difference, due to the rng of siphoning attacks to restore resources while blocking compared to battle roar and helping hands.
In vMol rakkhat fight you can/will get a 75% healing debuff put on you i know i'd personally have 2 templar healers for that fight to help counter/ heal through that.

KingYogi415 wrote: »

@Seraphayel @exeeter702 @NightRyder36
I just find these any class can play a healer perfect threads strange.

No one mentions that templars are the only class with stam return.

Again elites dont need stam return but 90% of players under 400cp do.

No one mentions if they ever want to heal vet trials they have to be a templar.

If a new player wants to main a healer why would vets mislead him?

Most
Effective
Tactic
Available

This words actually means somthing.

Cheers!

But OP's friend said that Nightblade healer is a perfectly viable group healer option, and it is. Especially for the content they want to complete and level through.

@SublimeSparo I stand corrected. It is Magicka Regen.

Every class is good at healing. I have both Templar and NB. The point is that both of this class can heal "good enough" for PvE, PvP, Dungeons, Trails and basically whatever games throws at you.

Templars are just more popular, that is all...

lazarus102 wrote: »

Think this got ever so slightly de-railed along the way but I was talkin bout my friend's GF that was running a NB healer, not myself. I had my arguments against it based on my prior mmorpg knowledge and the fact that we were just starting out and struggling on some dungeons as it is.

Yeah, there's a bit of a learning curve when you're learning a new role on any class. No worries, though. That's mybad. I thought I remembered seeing you saying you were worried about wasting your time leveling an alt.

Riejael wrote: »

Without access to the Templar lines. How do you all do burst AOE healing? Or do you have to get resto staff to 50 first?

One encounter that stands out at me is the lich in Wayrest Sewers II where he teleports near the center of the pool and does a channeled AOE that cannot be interrupted and has to be healed through. As a templar healer, that encounter is pretty easy.. with Templar heals. I tried it with primarily resto staff and had issues.

Now I was like level 18 which may have had something to do with it. But never had any issues with ANY other boss in other II dungeons or DLC's at low level.

But I'm curious to know how a 15-30ish Nightblade Healer would tackle an encounter like that.

Healing Springs is the most effective way for any healer of any class to heal the group through that fight. And this is where Templar healers often suck - they frequently rely too much on the more expensive heals from their class skill line (especially Breath of Life) and don't learn what heals are actually the best ones to use in different situations. A Templar using class skills to heal that fight is going to burn through magicka far faster than any healer who uses Healing Springs to heal through that fight.

lazarus102 wrote: »

I gotta ask cuz my friend's GF on here insists that NB healer is a perfectly viable group healer and I am extremely skeptical of a primary dps class being anything better than a support healer, especially on harder content.

I primarily use a NB healer. It's kind of like playing a resto Druid in WoW. Gotta keep those HOTs rolling at all times. It's also like being a leech healer in TSW because you're mixing DPS with healing.

It's a very active healing style and can bring a lot to the group. It just gets a little tricky when your group members have a fascination with standing in the red.

Personally, Templar healers always seem to do a bit of a better job than the nb or sorc healers that I've seen. But yes, nb healers can certainly still do an adequate, even pretty good job.

UrQuan wrote: »

Riejael wrote: »

Without access to the Templar lines. How do you all do burst AOE healing? Or do you have to get resto staff to 50 first?

One encounter that stands out at me is the lich in Wayrest Sewers II where he teleports near the center of the pool and does a channeled AOE that cannot be interrupted and has to be healed through. As a templar healer, that encounter is pretty easy.. with Templar heals. I tried it with primarily resto staff and had issues.

Now I was like level 18 which may have had something to do with it. But never had any issues with ANY other boss in other II dungeons or DLC's at low level.

But I'm curious to know how a 15-30ish Nightblade Healer would tackle an encounter like that.

Healing Springs is the most effective way for any healer of any class to heal the group through that fight. And this is where Templar healers often suck - they frequently rely too much on the more expensive heals from their class skill line (especially Breath of Life) and don't learn what heals are actually the best ones to use in different situations. A Templar using class skills to heal that fight is going to burn through magicka far faster than any healer who uses Healing Springs to heal through that fight.

The NB's Siphoning Ultimate works pretty well for that fight too if it's morphed for healing. 150 Ultimate and the group is at full.

With the siphoning passives, that ultimate comes back pretty quick too.

Riejael wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Healing Springs is the most effective way for any healer of any class to heal the group through that fight. And this is where Templar healers often suck - they frequently rely too much on the more expensive heals from their class skill line (especially Breath of Life) and don't learn what heals are actually the best ones to use in different situations. A Templar using class skills to heal that fight is going to burn through magicka far faster than any healer who uses Healing Springs to heal through that fight.

I actually use the healing ultimate during that phase. It keeps everyone above 90% and costs no magicka. The next time the boss does it there's enough ultimate to do it again. I like to use that boss as a bit of a benchmark since its literally the ONLY one that got me stuck at one point. I was level 18 though, but as I said before, I was doing DLCs and other II dungeons fine. Just that one encounter gave an issue. And I've seen other healers struggle too.

Before I had the ultimate, I never had magicka issues, just the throughput wasn't enough. To be honest I don't see magicka being an issue there. He only channels for a few seconds and one can only cast so many spells before its over (or everyone's dead).

Reading this and some of the other posts show's some interesting build ideas for a NB healer.

I never use the Templar healing ultimate. Or the resto staff ultimate for that matter. I've never come across a situation where a healing ultimate is needed.

When I'm healing on a Templar I usually take Nova as my ultimate. I find it's far more effective to drop an ultimate on the boss that does a ton of damage to them and reduces the damage they put out, and then just use HoTs to deal with the reduced damage that the group is taking. That way you're reducing the healing that you need to do, while also speeding up the fight by significantly contributing to the group DPS.

Of course, for fights where the boss unpredictably moves around Nova isn't as good a choice, but in this fight the movement of the boss is completely predictable, so you can time your Nova around that.

Also, my point here wasn't that a Templar using Breath of Life to heal through this phase is likely to run out of magicka part way through - it's that it will use significantly more magicka than healing through this with Healing Springs. A Templar healer (pretty much any healer, for that matter) should be using magicka skills nearly constantly through the entire boss fight, whether those skills are heals, support, or damage. So it's really not about whether you might run out of magicka during that phase of the fight, it's about whether using more magicka than you need to during that phase of the fight might cause you to run out of magicka at some point.