WARDEN HEALING: Can I unslot Healing Springs in favor of Budding Seed?

Bellamy · April 2018

I have a question for anyone that has been playing a warden healer.

I was talking to someone in my PvE guild that runs a warden healer and generally I know is a fantastic endgame level player, and she was telling me that as a warden healer I should still be using Healing Springs as my main spammable ability, rather than Budding Seeds.

However... Budding Seeds used as an instant heal (via double-tapping) costs 2/3 of the magicka of Healing Springs, and heals for about 5 times MORE. It's clunky to spam, but doesn't the sheer amount of healing overcome the delay from having to click an extra time?

I can't tell if I'm missing something, and I'm asking here because I feel awkward contesting someone else who was trying to help me. Plus, I've been told pretty much all warden healers slot both healing springs and budding seeds, so it seems like I wouldn't be the only one to suddenly generate this idea, and I'm curious about what it is that I'm missing that makes Healing Springs so important over Budding Seed.

Tasear · April 2018

As long as you can sustain it, then I would have to agree with you. Though you should probably use heal over time somewhere.

Illurian · April 2018

Healing Springs is preferred as it's a heal over time, and can stack with itself. Also with the Master's Restoration Staff, each cast of Healing Springs restores 258 stamina to each target affected.

Budding Seed is an AoE burst heal. This means that while Healing Springs can be used Proactively over long periods of time (where some bosses apply a channeled dot to the group, such as in vAA), Budding Seed cannot.

The reason why Warden healers run both is because they have very different functions. Budding Seed is a reactive heal, for when someone in the group takes significant damage, much like Breath of Life for Templars. As said before, Healing Springs on the other hand is a proactive heal.

Lynx7386 · April 2018

Typically its the master/asylum/maelstrom resto staffs that favor using resto heals over class heals. The master resto staff reduces enemy damage when using healing springs for example.

Post your tooltip up amounts for both skills.

Illurian · April 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Typically its the master/asylum/maelstrom resto staffs that favor using resto heals over class heals. The master resto staff reduces enemy damage when using healing springs for example.

Post your tooltip up amounts for both skills.

Incorrect. Master Restoration Staff restores stamina to the group with healing springs. You're thinking of the Healing Mage set.

Dasovaruilos · April 2018

I wouldn't, as they serve completely different purposes.

I've healed without Budding Seeds, but not without Healing Springs.

Springs is more like a defensive healing. You use it before the damage when you know it is coming.

Budding Seeds is more like a delayed oh s**t healing. Honestly lately I've been using it basically as means to give tanks one more synergy for Alkosh. It takes almost 2 seconds to activate the on demand heal and the synergy HOT will be all but impossible to control in most scenarios. Plus, it is not always easy to aim on top of that (vDSA, vICP HM, vFH and other fights with high mobility).

In the end, Budding Seeds is just not reliable as your main heal.

I even prefer Enchanted Growth.

From my experience healing vDSA and vet dungeons with the Warden healer, if you don't need Healing Springs you probably have a good enough group to go without a healer at all.

Bellamy · April 2018

Thank you everyone, this has been super informative.

I thought Healing Springs didn't stack at all, and wasn't really thinking about the ticks because I was thinking 'okay, if it disappears as soon as I cast the next one, it won't be ticking anyways.' So this makes a LOT more sense now, thank you so much.

It's also good to know the different situations in which to use the two, since my previous healing experience has been entirely on a Templar, where my 'oh, hell' heal is Breath of Life.

ETA: I'll also be using an Asylum staff at the very minimum once my warden hits level 50, so that's another reason to go for Healing Springs. If you don't mind, I'm not gonna bother posting my healing amounts because I think I've pretty thoroughly understood the difference. If you still want to see them, though, @Lynx7386, I can put it up for you.

Dyride · April 2018

The answer is you can stack multiple instances of Healing Springs over the same area to create very strong healing.

I don't have the skill costs in front of me but are you counting the resource return from Healing Springs based on how many targets are inside?

Dasovaruilos · April 2018

Bellamy wrote: »

Thank you everyone, this has been super informative.

I thought Healing Springs didn't stack at all, and wasn't really thinking about the ticks because I was thinking 'okay, if it disappears as soon as I cast the next one, it won't be ticking anyways.' So this makes a LOT more sense now, thank you so much.

It's also good to know the different situations in which to use the two, since my previous healing experience has been entirely on a Templar, where my 'oh, hell' heal is Breath of Life.

ETA: I'll also be using an Asylum staff at the very minimum once my warden hits level 50, so that's another reason to go for Healing Springs. If you don't mind, I'm not gonna bother posting my healing amounts because I think I've pretty thoroughly understood the difference. If you still want to see them, though, @Lynx7386, I can put it up for you.

Don't forget that Illustrious Healing morph even lasts 4 seconds!

Not that good for triais in most cases, but there are a few 4-man content where it is actually quite good too. And it stacks 1 more time than Healing Springs.

Lynx7386 · April 2018

Illurian wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Typically its the master/asylum/maelstrom resto staffs that favor using resto heals over class heals. The master resto staff reduces enemy damage when using healing springs for example.

Post your tooltip up amounts for both skills.

Incorrect. Master Restoration Staff restores stamina to the group with healing springs. You're thinking of the Healing Mage set.

You're right, my mistake, getting my sets all mixed up =p

WrathOfInnos · April 2018

I believe healing springs offers more overall healing. If you are spamming seeds then it only goes off every 2s, so you are getting HPS equal to half the tooltip value. IIRC healing springs ticks 4 times and stacks with itself, so if spamming it the HPS is 4X the tooltip value.

Also keep in mind the frequency of the ticks, 4 heal ticks in 3s is better than 1 heal every 2s. It will keep better uptime on spell power cure, and helps out heal high ticking DoTs. 2s without a heal can get iffy during some mechanics, and if you have to mix in any other buffs or purge then it quickly becomes 3-4s between heals with seeds. Even if the heal brings someone to full health, they could die during that 4s (thinking about things like poison injections on HoF first boss).

Healing springs also returns a lot of Magicka so it can be cheaper than seeds in some scenarios.

Edit: Should mention that seeds is useful for some things. It activates green balance passives, provides a synergy for Moondancer, Alkosh, or Lunar Bastion, and heals more per cast than springs if you let it run its full 6s.

SydneyGrey · April 2018

My warden healer uses both, too.

phileunderx2 · April 2018

I use springs as I like that I can put it where I want it and then move on to the next skill. Also there are dungeons where I need to do some spamming and springs is great for that.