Sorcerer Healers

Remathilis · February 5

Sorcerer Healers are not exactly meta, but flappy bird kept them competitive. With all the new changes coming to aid in support, what are people thinking about sorcerer healers? Any upgrades or synergies or more or less nothing game changing added?

Soarora · February 5

Tank's immobilize is being turned into an AoE heal and one of the Daedric mines morphs will now give damage shields. Two wins for sorc healers

. Sorc healers are already meta in some situations too! But hopefully this helps with their toolkit. Maybe I'll bust out the sorc healer again.

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

Sorcerer healers are going to be really strong for 4-man, especially learning groups, for things like clearing Blackrose Prison on veteran or going for Unchained, as Warden is already the go-to arena tank.

@Soarora already pretty much covered the new changes, and one major one is the addition of Major Maim in-kit added to both morphs of Encase, and 10s duration on the healing morph.

moderatelyfatman · February 5

Remathilis wrote: »

Sorcerer Healers are not exactly meta, but flappy bird kept them competitive. With all the new changes coming to aid in support, what are people thinking about sorcerer healers? Any upgrades or synergies or more or less nothing game changing added?

I think Vibrant shroud will be a big bonus for sorc healers in trials if the other healer is running Combat Prayer. It's still not enough to make them competitive with Necros, Templars, Wardens or Arcanists though.

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Remathilis wrote: »

Sorcerer Healers are not exactly meta, but flappy bird kept them competitive. With all the new changes coming to aid in support, what are people thinking about sorcerer healers? Any upgrades or synergies or more or less nothing game changing added?

I think Vibrant shroud will be a big bonus for sorc healers in trials if the other healer is running Combat Prayer. It's still not enough to make them competitive with Necros, Templars, Wardens or Arcanists though.

For trial healing your best options are a SPC/Pillager Blade, and a RoJo Warden, I have no idea where you got Necro, Templar or Arcanist.

Agreed that Sorcerer is behind for trials as a healer, and perhaps even behind every option you mentioned other than Necro, but it doesn’t matter how close Arcanist or Templar are to Nightblade, your Pillager slot is taken by whatever class has the best up-time on Roaring Opportunist, and Warden is and has been #1 for group healer since it’s conception.

They literally stripped Major Mending from Templar and gave it to Warden as a welcoming gift handout.

It’s not even a competition at the moment, it’s just been a slow paradigm shift on Pillager’s as a class with “blade” in its name doesn’t make much sense healing anything, but more groups are catching on.

Soarora · February 5

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Remathilis wrote: »

Sorcerer Healers are not exactly meta, but flappy bird kept them competitive. With all the new changes coming to aid in support, what are people thinking about sorcerer healers? Any upgrades or synergies or more or less nothing game changing added?

I think Vibrant shroud will be a big bonus for sorc healers in trials if the other healer is running Combat Prayer. It's still not enough to make them competitive with Necros, Templars, Wardens or Arcanists though.

For trial healing your best options are a SPC/Pillager Warden, and a RoJo Nightblade, I have no idea where you got Necro, Templar or Arcanist.

Agreed that Sorcerer is behind for trials as a healer, and perhaps even behind every option you mentioned other than Necro, but it doesn’t matter how close Arcanist or Templar are to Nightblade, your RoJo slot is taken by whatever class has the best up-time on Roaring Opportunist, and Warden is and has been #1 for group healer since it’s conception.

They literally stripped Major Mending from Templar and gave it to Warden as a welcoming gift handout.

It’s not even a competition at the moment, it’s just been a slow paradigm shift on RoJo as a class with “blade” in its name doesn’t make much sense healing anything, but more groups are catching on.

I have seen warden ro/jo and arcanist spc/pillager before, I have heard this happen even with a trifecta. Warden + NB isn't the only valid setup. That said, necro and templar healers do seem to be pretty unwanted now. Templar is still fine, sorc I've heard of for AS at least, but necro is pretty bottom of the barrel... apart from DK healers, those are under the barrel.

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

You could also make a roster of 12 Sorcerers and get any trifecta in the game, look back to a few patches ago when Heavy Attacks builds were relevant, they weren’t parsing the highest values, sitting at around under 105k, yet I knew countless players that took advantage of them to get everything except for Swashbuckler Supreme, which might have even been possible given enough time.

Regular perfect rotation Sorc builds are parsing around 135k, if you stripped away the raid buffs from other classes you would be still be above 100k and those tri-fectas would still be possible which is why I don’t really use a class’ participation in tri-fectas as a litmus test.

While Warden/Nightblade isn’t the only option, any option other than Nightblade for Pillagers would be for a roleplay reason, as the best group composition has already been found out for general raiding, so I see no reason you couldn’t just bring along any class if your group is that accepting of your desire to skip over an optimal choice.

Tannus15 · February 5

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

You could also make a roster of 12 Sorcerers and get any trifecta in the game, look back to a few patches ago when Heavy Attacks builds were relevant, they weren’t parsing the highest values, sitting at around under 105k, yet I knew countless players that took advantage of them to get everything except for Swashbuckler Supreme, which might have even been possible given enough time.

Regular perfect rotation Sorc builds are parsing around 135k, if you stripped away the raid buffs from other classes you would be still be above 100k and those tri-fectas would still be possible which is why I don’t really use a class’ participation in tri-fectas as a litmus test.

While Warden/Nightblade isn’t the only option, any option other than Nightblade for RoJo would be for a roleplay reason, as the best group composition has already been found out for general raiding, so I see no reason you couldn’t just bring along any class if your group is that accepting of your desire to skip over an optimal choice.

oakensorc was great because of the cleave. they removed the cleave before they added the arcanist, now no one is running oakensorc trial groups anymore.

cleave is king in trials, because the classes that have it don't sacrifice single target dps to get it. that's why everyone is running arcanist right now.
it basically has 75%+ of it's total dps as cleave.

Soarora · February 5

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

You could also make a roster of 12 Sorcerers and get any trifecta in the game, look back to a few patches ago when Heavy Attacks builds were relevant, they weren’t parsing the highest values, sitting at around under 105k, yet I knew countless players that took advantage of them to get everything except for Swashbuckler Supreme, which might have even been possible given enough time.

Regular perfect rotation Sorc builds are parsing around 135k, if you stripped away the raid buffs from other classes you would be still be above 100k and those tri-fectas would still be possible which is why I don’t really use a class’ participation in tri-fectas as a litmus test.

While Warden/Nightblade isn’t the only option, any option other than Nightblade for RoJo would be for a roleplay reason, as the best group composition has already been found out for general raiding, so I see no reason you couldn’t just bring along any class if your group is that accepting of your desire to skip over an optimal choice.

I dunno, the people in question who used arc in their tri prog are very sweaty. Of course, meta is meta and all that, but I don't think warden/nb is the way to go 100% of the time. After all, meta is a science, not a law.

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

Soarora wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

You could also make a roster of 12 Sorcerers and get any trifecta in the game, look back to a few patches ago when Heavy Attacks builds were relevant, they weren’t parsing the highest values, sitting at around under 105k, yet I knew countless players that took advantage of them to get everything except for Swashbuckler Supreme, which might have even been possible given enough time.

Regular perfect rotation Sorc builds are parsing around 135k, if you stripped away the raid buffs from other classes you would be still be above 100k and those tri-fectas would still be possible which is why I don’t really use a class’ participation in tri-fectas as a litmus test.

While Warden/Nightblade isn’t the only option, any option other than Nightblade for RoJo would be for a roleplay reason, as the best group composition has already been found out for general raiding, so I see no reason you couldn’t just bring along any class if your group is that accepting of your desire to skip over an optimal choice.

I dunno, the people in question who used arc in their tri prog are very sweaty. Of course, meta is meta and all that, but I don't think warden/nb is the way to go 100% of the time. After all, meta is a science, not a law.

Of course, like in Asylum you have to compensate for everyone being ranged.

There are options that work best most of the time, which was why I said for a “general raiding” composition, I’m sure there are interesting ways to get more out of classes that are less picked for niché scenarios, and that’s great.

Zodiarkslayer · February 5

Back to topic...

I think Sorc healing will be very good for Veteran Dungeons and their hard modes. Now that they have a more balanced and pet independent toolkit, they can finally catch up with Wardens and Nightblades.
Healing, while doing damage.

The gap to Trial Healing is still larger and unless the new Trial has some serious mechanics, that suit the Sorc best, I do not see sorcs in Trials.

The new healer set from U41 dungeon, where you get a unique, unnamed damage bonus, might be a really good option for Sorcerer Healers, as they can keep up the bonus rather easily.

Remathilis · February 5

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

You could also make a roster of 12 Sorcerers and get any trifecta in the game, look back to a few patches ago when Heavy Attacks builds were relevant, they weren’t parsing the highest values, sitting at around under 105k, yet I knew countless players that took advantage of them to get everything except for Swashbuckler Supreme, which might have even been possible given enough time.

Regular perfect rotation Sorc builds are parsing around 135k, if you stripped away the raid buffs from other classes you would be still be above 100k and those tri-fectas would still be possible which is why I don’t really use a class’ participation in tri-fectas as a litmus test.

While Warden/Nightblade isn’t the only option, any option other than Nightblade for RoJo would be for a roleplay reason, as the best group composition has already been found out for general raiding, so I see no reason you couldn’t just bring along any class if your group is that accepting of your desire to skip over an optimal choice.

Our prog group is doing warden rojo and arc pillagers for Sunspire because arc is great for ice cages.

Remathilis · February 5

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Back to topic...

I think Sorc healing will be very good for Veteran Dungeons and their hard modes. Now that they have a more balanced and pet independent toolkit, they can finally catch up with Wardens and Nightblades.
Healing, while doing damage.

The gap to Trial Healing is still larger and unless the new Trial has some serious mechanics, that suit the Sorc best, I do not see sorcs in Trials.

The new healer set from U41 dungeon, where you get a unique, unnamed damage bonus, might be a really good option for Sorcerer Healers, as they can keep up the bonus rather easily.

It might be interesting to see how Sorc works in dungeons. I think they were fine (average) before, but this might move them up to good.

Trials have a long way to go though it looks.

MashmalloMan · February 5

Sorc healer looks much more interesting to play now, very happy to see. Now.. I wish they would adjust Surge morphs to keep up better with ESO context in 2024.

My suggestions:

Surge:

Reduce heal from 2550 to 2000.
Reduce duration from 33s to 30s.
- Critical Surge:
  - Now doubles the heal from 2000 to 4000. This is a 21% buff from live.
  - Now doubles the duration from 30s to 60s.
- Power Surge:
  - The heal cooldown now doubles instead of triples. With the new 2000 tooltip, this is a potential 17% buff from live.

A few years ago, ZOS stated an interest in reducing buff management, they increased skills like Channeled Acceleration and Molten Armaments to 1 minute from their previous 30ish seconds, this should apply to Crit Surge seeing as its in the same category as those skills. It would get a decent buff to heal/s to keep up with power creep from the CP 2.0 rework and the higher stats/damage everyone can achieve, while the lower crit chance and tick frequency Sorcs can obtain to proc it.

Power Surge would become much easier to proc because the 2s cooldown would line up better with aoe hots which are typically balanced around 2s or 1s cooldowns. 3s is unheard of in the game, it makes it unreliable. In practice Power Surge can proc between every 3s-6s given the fact that you also need to crit heal. It's a bit TOO RNG heavy.

This all to say IF the skill remains as is where they don't scale based on stats. There are benefits to it being flat.. like.. you can be a tank/healer and still use these to full effect or a damage dealer with a lot of crit/penetration, but low damage/max resources. I think it plays well into Sorcs kit, but both morphs feel a bit behind in 2024 ESO context.

Ishtarknows · February 5

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

For trial healing your best options are a SPC/Pillager Warden, and a RoJo Nightblade, I have no idea where you got Necro, Templar or Arcanist.

I'm interested in why you'd put Pillagers on a class that has no way to gain extra ult and put rojo on the nightblade (who has a number of ways to increase ult gain)

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

Ishtarknows wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

For trial healing your best options are a SPC/Pillager Warden, and a RoJo Nightblade, I have no idea where you got Necro, Templar or Arcanist.

I'm interested in why you'd put Pillagers on a class that has no way to gain extra ult and put rojo on the nightblade (who has a number of ways to increase ult gain)

They are backwards, thanks for the correction. I haven’t ran a healer in years, as I’m generally forced onto my tank, but I do know every team I’m on has a Nightblade and Warden healer.

Guess that makes the most sense with why Nightblade healers have cropped up over the last year.

I’ve since gone back and fixed everything.

Araneae6537 · March 20

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Sorcerer healers are going to be really strong for 4-man, especially learning groups, for things like clearing Blackrose Prison on veteran or going for Unchained, as Warden is already the go-to arena tank.

@Soarora already pretty much covered the new changes, and one major one is the addition of Major Maim in-kit added to both morphs of Encase, and 10s duration on the healing morph.

How are sorc healers meta for vBRP? I have at times considered making a sorc healer but didn’t think they brought any advantage to the role.

Also, out of curiosity, why are wardens meta arena tanks? Minor toughness (although that could be provided by a warden healer) and Frozen Gate? I would have expected DK to be the meta tanks here too for survivability and ease of chaining in enemies.

Theist_VII · March 21

I’ll answer for Tyrant because he’s no longer able to…

As far as Warden, you hit it on the head with Frozen Gate.

When it comes to trifectas for BRP or speed run deathless DSA, you want all of the enemies on top of you the very second the round starts.

Why Warden excels is the same reason they don’t in Dungeons and Trials. Frozen Gate takes time to place, and time to activate. When enemies spawn out of portals, and you can prematurely line up your gates, it’s a game changer.

Of course there are other reasons why Wardens make great tanks for Arenas, or Unchained specifically, it’s that they provide the most defensive utility out of every other class in the game, and they do it without going out of their way.

Polar Wind is your best heal, scales with your health and is the best off-heal in the game. Frost Cloak gives your Major Resolve buff while also giving it your whole group. Any time you heal another player you give them another 10% health, and anyone who’s survived something crazy by 100 to 2,000 health can tell you how valuable that is.

All in all, Warden may not be the best tank for speed running, but any scenario where you need your group to stay alive, providing forgiveness is everything, and that’s where Warden shines.

Araneae6537 · March 21

Thank you, @Telos_Tim for the thorough explanation!

Are there classes that are ideal for the other roles, or does it not make as much difference? I have been trying to find out what roles sorc healers are good for (vBRP came up as one) and why, to determine whether I want to prepare such a build.