How do I know when to use Purge? Warden Healer

Valyr · March 2019

Hey guys,

I was thinking about slotting purge on one of my bars. The question is, how do I know when to use it? I don't think it'll be very feasible to be staring at my team's status bars all the time. But I also don't want to kill my magicka spamming the skill whenever I'm not healing I suppose.

Are there any obvious signs I'm missing? I see a lot of players saying to slot it in any healer build.

exeeter702 · March 2019

Valyr wrote: »

Hey guys,

I was thinking about slotting purge on one of my bars. The question is, how do I know when to use it? I don't think it'll be very feasible to be staring at my team's status bars all the time. But I also don't want to kill my magicka spamming the skill whenever I'm not healing I suppose.

Are there any obvious signs I'm missing? I see a lot of players saying to slot it in any healer build.

Unfortunately there are no obvious signs you are missing. Its one of the problems with cleaning in this game in general and one of the reasons no one can hold a candle to templar support when it comes to providing this utility.

In organized coms you can communicate when its needed. But playing solo in scale like bgs, just manage your resources and throw it out when YOU need it and periodically when you dont.

Frankly the entire system of cleansing in eso is a bit of a crap shoot when you consider how smart targeting is at the forefront when it comes to healing. Since there is no UI to interact with for manual ally selection and debuffs dont operate on any kind of CD or diminishing returns for application, we get this wack a mole system where it becomes an arms race of resource management. Templars just throw their huge aoe down and the rest takes care of itself on the recipients end.

The design intention here is that the price for purge is much more expensive because its application is restricted by its price to cast only. Whereas templar ritual is bound to the synergy use CD. But generally speaking if you as the healer are not focused, you cand handle most debuffs with raw healing on an ally while they recover, unless you are healing straight into a potatoe with no intention of self defense. So cleansing on yourself is far more critical, and to that end purge doesnt hold a candle to ritual.

People ask for purge to be reduced in cost, but the second that skill becomes sustainable to cast every 6 seconds, debuffs become a non factor.

Iskiab · March 2019

When you see someone cc’d, maybe 6 seconds after your group’s clash. Just guess. If everyone’s moving slowly because they’re snared it’s a good time too.

Alucardo · March 2019

If you hear an incap - purge. With that debuff on a team member they will go down hard, depending on the nb ofc.
Basically any source of poison, defile, or nasty debuff I'll throw out a purge. Their animations are fairly easy to spot if you know what to look for, or listen to.
If your team just got hit with a sub assault, it's probably a good idea to purge as they will all be taking more damage from the incoming dawnbreakers and spin2wins.
Just keep your eyes and ears open and use common sense. It'll become second nature when to hit that purge.

Rizz_the_Filthy_Dino · March 2019

I also run a Warden healer, have been for awhile now. I can't slot in Purge because it's Magicka requirement is not the most economically viable, even Efficient Purge. I personally run Pariahs and Transmutation; however, if you can slot in "Curse Eater", you could run this over Purge and slot in something like "Enchanted Growth" and it should proc this set for us.

The honest and unfortunate truth is that negative effects are so prominent in PvP, those two little cleanses won't really help too much vs the cost of the skill. You could however run "Cleanse", the secondary morph to Purge, and it's heal will proc Curse Eater, removing 5 total negative effects.

With this said though, I find Transmutation and Pariahs essential for me as a Warden healer. Coordinated teams, and there are a plethora of them out there in BGs, will target you as a healer, so you need that extra bulk. Transmutation provides additional bulk to your team as well, and with all the regens we get, it's up permanently in battle. If I didn't run Transmutation, I'd probably run either Curse Eater or "Gossamer", or even "Twilight Remedy".

Gossamer gives Major Evasion to you and allies and has pretty much perma uptime with all of our regens procing it. Major Evasion mitagates 25% incoming damage from AoEs, which is all there is in BGs and PvP in general. Meta revolves around AoEs, whether it be executes or normal abilities.

Twilight Remedy is another cool set I'd like to try out, but don't want to grind in PvE for long periods of time. As a Warden, we get one amazing synergy we can provide to 3 allies at once: "Frozen Retreat". When an ally takes your synergy, and you can give 3 of them out to your 3 allies in BGs (4 players per team, including yourself), they get 8 seconds of Major Expedition. Twilight Remedy would also give them Minor Force and a 20k heal over 10 seconds (halved in PvP of course). So you give this to an ally, like a Werewolf, and they get Speed, Crit Damage, and a small heal on top of the rest of your regens.

Run a monster set that procs on heals, like Nightflame, and you're healing like a truck. I do run Nightflame and it is permanently up at all times with like 3~4 regens on allies and myself. It will also target the weakest ally and, in my honest and humble opinion, works better than any other healer set for small scale pvp like battlegrounds. It heals only a little less than Earthgore; however, has more uptime, which means it has more impact through healing; it heals more in the long run.

Iskiab · March 2019

Rizz_the_Filthy_Dino wrote: »

I also run a Warden healer, have been for awhile now. I can't slot in Purge because it's Magicka requirement is not the most economically viable, even Efficient Purge. I personally run Pariahs and Transmutation; however, if you can slot in "Curse Eater", you could run this over Purge and slot in something like "Enchanted Growth" and it should proc this set for us.

The honest and unfortunate truth is that negative effects are so prominent in PvP, those two little cleanses won't really help too much vs the cost of the skill. You could however run "Cleanse", the secondary morph to Purge, and it's heal will proc Curse Eater, removing 5 total negative effects.

With this said though, I find Transmutation and Pariahs essential for me as a Warden healer. Coordinated teams, and there are a plethora of them out there in BGs, will target you as a healer, so you need that extra bulk. Transmutation provides additional bulk to your team as well, and with all the regens we get, it's up permanently in battle. If I didn't run Transmutation, I'd probably run either Curse Eater or "Gossamer", or even "Twilight Remedy".

Gossamer gives Major Evasion to you and allies and has pretty much perma uptime with all of our regens procing it. Major Evasion mitagates 25% incoming damage from AoEs, which is all there is in BGs and PvP in general. Meta revolves around AoEs, whether it be executes or normal abilities.

Twilight Remedy is another cool set I'd like to try out, but don't want to grind in PvE for long periods of time. As a Warden, we get one amazing synergy we can provide to 3 allies at once: "Frozen Retreat". When an ally takes your synergy, and you can give 3 of them out to your 3 allies in BGs (4 players per team, including yourself), they get 8 seconds of Major Expedition. Twilight Remedy would also give them Minor Force and a 20k heal over 10 seconds (halved in PvP of course). So you give this to an ally, like a Werewolf, and they get Speed, Crit Damage, and a small heal on top of the rest of your regens.

Run a monster set that procs on heals, like Nightflame, and you're healing like a truck. I do run Nightflame and it is permanently up at all times with like 3~4 regens on allies and myself. It will also target the weakest ally and, in my honest and humble opinion, works better than any other healer set for small scale pvp like battlegrounds. It heals only a little less than Earthgore; however, has more uptime, which means it has more impact through healing; it heals more in the long run.

Agreed, cleanse/purge is more a NB healer thing because of the high magicka cost and NB sustain. I also don’t think efficient purge is worth a slot, you need to use the cleanse morph with how bursty pvp is.

I’m also not very experienced as a Warden healer so prefer earthgore to nightflame to help with the lack of burst healing, but that’s probably because of my lack of experience.

Gravord · March 2019

If you heavy attack a lot try every 6s, this way you can upkeep perma 50% shorter effect duration on your team and yourself. Helps a lot.

Rizz_the_Filthy_Dino · March 2019

For @Iskiab, I'll break down the healing of both overall:

Nightlame

When you heal a friendly target, you have a 5% chance to summon a totem for 6 seconds that heals you and your allies within 5 meters for 3483 Health every 1 second. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

Earthgore

When you heal a friendly target that is under 50% Health you conjure a pool of quenching blood underneath them, which soaks up enemy placed effects instantly and heals all friendly targets in the area for 30000 Health over 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 35 seconds.

Right out of the gate, let's halve both values because we're healing in PvP. Earthgore is healing 2,500 per second,15k over 6 seconds while Nightflame is healing for 1,742 every second. Earthgore heals slightly more; however, has a 35 second cooldown while Nightflame is permanently up. Too lazy to do the percentages; however, with like 4~5 regens running on all 4 of you in a BG, it's perimaintely up. This ultimately means it's having more of an impact with healing overall; however though, it has a smaller radius than Earthgore. In contrast, I do feel this is totally okay with Nightflame always being up and healing.

For reference, I run the following regens:

Rapid Regen
Healing Springs
Nature's Grasp
Mend Wounds

I do run a 4th heal as well; however, it's more for utility usually. Since I'm a straight up pure healer with almost no damaging abilities, I normally run Corrupting Pollon to help my team clean up on kills after I sleet storm.

Iskiab · March 2019

Agreed, nightflame’s good. Only thing I don’t like about it is the small radius and with lots of movement in pvp people usually move out of it.

Either way they’re both solid choices. It’s too bad CMX included overhealing, I’d love to be able to get an accurate metric for how each performs in pvp.

Rizz_the_Filthy_Dino · March 2019

Once you play with people who know what it does, they move on top of it. It has that "green light means go" feeling, like you just know to navigate over to it. It's great for small scale pvp; however, I'd probably take Earthgore for anything larger.