So, here's just one more example of the problems with DK healers and the adjustments ZOS made since Summerset:

- ZOS attempted to help with DK recovery (because it's so damn low), but they made it necessary for a DK to cause the "burning status". Well, ALL of the healers abilities look like they'd cause the burning status (cauterize, obsidian shard, cinder storm)… but they don't. None of these abilities actually cause flame damage.

-Cauterize literally receives NO BENEFIT at all, whatsoever, from any of the passives of its own skill line. None.

-Most people would rather slot healing springs over cinder storm. Stronger heals and it actually helps your magicka regen better than cinder storm (again- you don't receive any benefit from the Combustion passive change).

-DKs are slooooooow. So, in PVP, their form of major expedition either causes them to be unable to heal (mist form), pulls them toward danger (chains), or requires the Summerset DLC.

Been good since long before Summerset, because Major Mending. Really glad they have given us the full duration back again.

They still need a class synergy. Give Cinder a strong synergy or buff the radius.

They have a sad HoT to a Utility skill I sometimes run.
They buffed the reach of a skill I ran to watch my back and for the buff
They gave me back my Major Mending length that they took away last year

Summerset didnt change anything. I've been running DK Healing since Homestead. I love my DK Healer, but they didnt change anything that actually effected their "goodness"

Fundamentally, nothing has been added to DK healers apart from a range increase to several of their healing skills and the inclusion of Cinder Storm to their repertoire.

Combustion doesn't trigger on any of their healing abilities, meaning they gain nothing unless they slot an additional means of getting the burned status effect, which is hard considering that most healers are expected to run a Lightning/Resto and that most of DK skills in general are melee range, greatly limiting where a DK healer would get this benefit.

Cauterize is still too infrequent a heal for its cost and while the passive Spell Crit is nice, Mage Light does it better by also offering more max magic, essentially negating the extra healing Cauterize grants since your larger magic pool will make the rest of your heals stronger by default.

Shields are also a bit of a PITA since a DK healer's shield will always be weaker than a DK Tank's shield and because you can override the shields, you get a similar problem as Templars with Repentence in who's getting to use shields, which ultimately the Tank is going to win since there's more benefit for the Tank to run it than the healer.

Cinder Storm has the problem of having a very small radius, which can easily be missed with the plethora of AoE effects, both positive and negative, that can obscure it from view and as nice as the snare is, it's just a worthless skill to run. In Craglorn trials, it's fine since everyone can just stack but that's just not possible in new content and it's an absolute impossibility to try and constantly reapply it every time you need to move due to its cost. It's much more effective to just use Healing Springs as it has a large radius, much cheaper to cast and has the benefit of stacking with itself.

It's the same problems that DK healers have always faced since forever; Bad Healer skills that haven't been given the proper adjustments to them to make them viable. Have Cauterize tick more frequently or even provide a buff of some sort to allies that get healed by it, adjust DK shields to not override each other if it would result in a weaker shield, increase the size of Cinder Storm exponentially, and have Combustion be easier to proc on a Healer build.

Tasear wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

They have a sad HoT to a Utility skill I sometimes run.
They buffed the reach of a skill I ran to watch my back and for the buff
They gave me back my Major Mending length that they took away last year

Summerset didnt change anything. I've been running DK Healing since Homestead. I love my DK Healer, but they didnt change anything that actually effected their "goodness"

Does it feel more effective with all change or what concerns do you have?

I mean yes, because they gave me back what they took a way a year ago. I'm talking about my 6 sec of Major Mending. So now I can have 6.3 with Fragmented change and Jovuld's.

Cauterize increased range is helpful in just covering more effectively. I run it because its a Smart Heal with 360 targeting, but its still only a 5k heal every 5 seconds. I probably wouldn't run it at all if it wasn't that its also gives me Major Prophecy.

Cinder Storm is meh.... Its a tiny, weak HoT. If it was the DK version of Ritual of Retribution that would be different. Its only real value is that it's an Olomire proc.


Seriously though ZoS crapped on DK healers and then gave us a cookie a year and you are asking if we feel better?

If they want to actually make DK Healers happy, Cinder needs a synergy or increased area, and Cauterize needs to be near Breath of Life good

Tasear wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Been good since long before Summerset, because Major Mending. Really glad they have given us the full duration back again.

They still need a class synergy. Give Cinder a strong synergy or buff the radius.

Do you think unique buffs they provide make up for that?

Not the target, but no. The unique buff, mainly chains or engulfing is a tank job, and chains is now available to everyone. DK healers have no extra buffs like the wardens/templar provide for resources or temps purge.

Simply putting the old 15% evasion on the heal morph so it gives an actual useful and unique team buff would increase the viability of DK healers, fitting the tanky theme of being able to reduce damage. But not be too strong since most damage is AoE.

Cauterize too, I like it for its heal solo but it goes down hill being nothing but a heal. So its really weak in larger group situations, being a worse BoL or HTD with a nifty pseudo hot function which loses its value fast.
Honestly it should be competely changed. Keep the total value of the heal the same. 20K over 15s would still be 20k over 15s. But make it a PBAoE and heal everyone 8m around you, like hurricane but for healing. Tick once every 3s and purge 1 effect. Then up the cost to something larger like 4/5k base.

Completely new style. Gives it a useful utility function, allows it to heal allies. But limited to those close and has a higher cost. It'd be weaker than ritual in that it takes 15s to get the full 5 purges that ritual could do instant, but be an actual good heal and support ability.

I have a healer of every class except for Sorc (I absolutely hate sorcs to begin with and I find healing on one dreadful) and I like the recent changes to DKs regarding healing abilities, but they don't offer anything new that a DK tank already has. Also Igneous Shield cast from a healer (therefor weaker) overrides the tank's shield, at least if I remember correctly.

With Cinder Storm's change, they have a pretty good AoE heal that lasts much longer than Grand Healing, but is weaker, though not by much. Obsidian Shard is a strong heal, but it's not really reliable because of the travel time of the shard.

For PvE, most stuns are useless outside of solo play and can interfere with chaining in adds in dungeons and trials.

For PvP though, the stun is good. If it hits someone without enough stamina to break free, it can be a death sentence; if it hits someone who can break free, it's a drain on their stamina, like every other stun.

All in all, I would say that yes the knock down/stun makes up for the travel time in both PvE and PvP, even if it does/doesn't stun anything; I don't think it would be good to remove the stun for Obsidian Shard.

I can't feel about them since they are like a rare mutation of an endangered specimen.

In other words, they're very rare due to good reasons.


For PvE, one good change would be to remove the ally shield on fragmented shield, and reduce its cost instead. So that it doesn't overlap with the tank using igneous shield, which hurts the group more than helping.

As for PvP goes, they took both of the DK CCs and made them into weird heal things, both of which do not work very well. The heal on those abilities seem ok, but none of them profit or synergize with the DK kit or passives at all, which is an issue.

I played a DK healer and while they can be good situationally, i went back to playing a templar for a couple reasons-

1.) The radius of cinder storm isn't great; extended ritual is a decent heal much larger range more utility cheaper cost. I realize they aren't meant to be equivalent skills, but ritual is simply more useful. I always have to tell people to stand on it, not avoid it. And then they are like "Wait, you're a DK healer?" and then you can probably guess where that convo goes half the time.

2.) Obsidian shard requires a target; It already has a delay, adding time to find a target just exacerbates this delay to the point where you just want BoL

3.) Because of this delay and acquisition issue, you're forced to slot healing ward and give up something else on your bar because you need something to cast in an emergency.

Basically to compensate for what you lack as a templar healer (or even a warden) you have to give up bar slots. IMHO a DK healer should be adding more damage and/or utility to the mix. It just isn't there yet.

That being said I'm not saying DK healers are bad. I just feel a little more secure and reliable as a templar.

DK healer would be in a great spot with these changes:

1.) Allow obsidian shard "blind cast" to the heal morph that allows it to seek the nearest enemy rather than needing to be targetted.

2.) Increase the radius of cinder storm to in the very least be large enough to usually hit the melee DPS. 5m to 8-10m perhaps

3.) give a passive something that adds to cauterize as mentioined above; the "warmth" passive currently snares enemies; maybe add "Grants friendly players healed by your Arden Flame abilities minor expedition for 4 seconds" to it, adding some utility in that the person hit by this emergency heal the ability to briefly escape enemy effects.


Just my opinion but these changes would put DK healers in the "very good but not quite wardens/templars" spot that i was hoping they would be in after seeing the Summerset changes.