How things have changed for Healers in Elsweyr

How people currently feel

On pts, I see a lot of people enjoying spaming necro healer skills, so it looks like it will be popular pick. I think some people notice, but reject potential nightblade healer have coming out with minor mangle, minor vulnerability and more healing with funnel. Sorc healers will finally slot negate more often in pve for damage migration and healing it provides. Also it play essential role in some gameplay situations. It will make them game controls game fields. Lastly Dragon Knight Healers fall very far behind with them be the black sheep of the healer family.

More Patches have gone, and as we hit live today, I except to see some necro healers, but they have fallen slightly in favor from general community.  I except higher learning curve to master necro Healer playstyle which may deter some people, but the standard healing setup along with it's burst heal, and offensive support buff. I predict over time we shall see some dye heart necro healers.


Changes we are still hoping to see... one day

Really hoping they take a another look at ash cloud. I just don't seeing it fixing it's main problems especially for healers. It really needs a synergy or something like nightblade healer path treatment. Minor vitality is still open for grabs.

Magma amour - could really use major vitality to make it comparable option to barrier for healers.

Funnel health - if you consider cleansing ritual heals 3 targets every, purges, and gives a burst heal not to mention synergy for alkoash, then this skill is still very lacking

Dark Magick Skill line - Could use some actual gameplay options from PvE and along those lines supportive utility would be nice.

Empoward Ward - gives same buff but less then Warden that heals and gives also stamina regain buff. Hoping they synerigze it and make empoward ward do something depending which of the 6 pets are slotted or in active in gameplay.

Anyone you the reader is hoping to see improved?

What changed...

• Mend Wounds: Revamped this ability and its morphs, the Light and Heavy Attacks no longer trigger the Global Cooldown and can be weaved with other abilities
• No longer cost resources to Light or Heavy Attack with this ability toggled. 
• Light Attack now heals instantly for the same amount that a Light Attack would damage an enemy.
• Heavy Attack still channels and heals every second, but has been reduced to be the same scaling of other weapon's heavy attacks. It now restores Magicka every time it successfully heals an ally.
• Mend Spirit (morph): This morph now applies its Major Ward and Resolve to the target healed for 5 seconds, regardless of whether it was a Light or Heavy Attack.

Bugged and doesn't work with overload or sets that improve light/heavy attacks at this time.

• Light's Champion (morph): This ability no longer grants Major Protection. In adjustment to this morph, the duration of the Major Force granted will now increase by 1 second for each rank of the morph, going from a duration of 5 seconds to 8 seconds at Rank IV

This change makes Dk and Sorc class lacking migration buff like classes. It also highlights dps greater healers in eso as minor force is less than major protection for healers.

• Earthgore: This item set now instantly dispels all negative effects, rather than one. The heal granted from this set now only heals the target with the lowest health in the area, rather than the 6 lowest targets in the area.

This change only mostly effects this set as viable trial set, as there's not enough negative effects... let along ground negative effects that aren't immune to this set for it to be useful anymore. In return though we will see a lot of Variety in healer sets.

Earthgore - Still Great in four man dungeons and saving people from stupid

Troll King - gives more heals to headless chickens out of formation, and gives direct hps during burn phases or intense healing phases with a large radius and ablity to proc on 12 now just 6 like nightflame and sentient

Sentient - will give stamina and healing for up to 5 people (not sure if they fixed issue with pet stealing it's own buff)

Blades - will give resource to one ally who directly needs it. Like Earthgore this set is one that has potential to overlap when both healers are using it. 

Chokethorn - This set now seems to act as a smart heal that procs most often of all the healing sets. Good for beginners and for just saving someone from lots of ambient damage. 

• Chokethorn: Fixed an issue where this set couldn’t proc from the healing of Meditate or its morphs.

For Templars

• Breath of Life: Fixed an issue where the secondary heal granted from this ability was able to ignore the caster’s line of sight and target players behind them.

• Cleansing Ritual: This ability and its morphs will now grant healing and/or damage based on the users' highest offensive stats, rather than just Max Magicka and Spell Damage.

• Ritual of Retribution (morph): Fixed an issue where the damage from this morph could not critically strike.

• Toppling Charge (morph): Fixed an issue where this ability and the Explosive Charge morph could not be CC broken until the stagger completed if you were interrupted by the ability. This ability and its morphs will now always apply Off Balance to the target, rather than requiring them to be interrupted, since targets were automatically set Off Balance if interrupted anyway.

Some good things for nontraditional Templar healers, but traditional healers will not be pleased with year 2 year long bug that got fixed with breath of life. It will make add some difficulty to the easiest healing play style. Stamina healers along with dps hybrid healers will enjoy slight boosts in damage. Lastly unconventional, but Templar's will now have best form of off balance.

For Dragon Knights 

• Cinder Storm (morph): Increased healing of this ability by approximately 4%. 

This won't help them because what they have been looking for is a synergy or radius increase of the skill as it's hard to get allies in the skill.

For Sorcerers 

• Negate Magic: Fixed an issue where this ability would fail to continue suppressing Area of Effect abilities inside of the area. Conflicting reports, but this could be finally something to make them truly needed as healers.

This is a start of this class. For a long time, this ultimate hasn't been good in toolkit of the Healer in PvE. As most of the time it was too situation and you couldn't leverage it's effectiveness over another tool.

• Removed the 200ms post global cooldown from cast time abilities. This was done to improve the feeling of using these abilities in rapid succession with other abilities, to allow for a more fluid transition, and less down time between usage. We also made some adjustments to the cast times and power levels of specific abilities, which will be called out on a per case basis in further notes.

• Note that channeled beam attacks, such as Soul Assault or Radiant Destruction, retain the post global cooldown, but have had them reduced to 100ms rather than 200ms. This was done to prevent animation errors.

This change removes that ridiculous cooldown that made dark exchange and it's morphs 1.4 secs long skill. This makes the skill usable once more in combat if desired and have room on bars.

For Wardens

• Corrupting Pollen: This ability no longer applies Major Defile to all enemies for 4 seconds inside (which allowed it to bypass the 6 player target cap). Instead, up to 6 enemies inside will be properly afflicted with Major Defile, which will cease once the ability ends or they leave the radius.

• Harvest: Fixed an issue where this synergy would not actively update to targets in the area. It will now operate like other synergies, prioritizing the closest players to the center of the area of effect placed. Also increased the radius of the synergy prompt to 5 meters from 3 meters to allow for more accessibility.

• Lotus Flower: Increased the radius of the heal from this ability and its morphs to 28 meters from 12 meters to aid in better distributing the healing potential to group members.

• Nature's Grasp: This ability and its morphs now scale with your highest offensive stats, rather than just your Max Magicka and Spell Damage.

Not much has changed for Wardens, but some minor things might prove to be quick useful for them. There competitive synergy is easier to use making them unlike favored Templar class to have 2 but up to 3 active synergies for class, if more then 1 warden in group. Lotus Flower change will give warden more playstle defination, by allowing this to act as a burst heal and heal over time in one skill. Lastly an attempt to give stamina dps something. that will actually help rare stamina healer wardens out there.

For Nightblades

• Mark Target: Removed the cost from this ability and its morphs. This was done to make it more comparable to abilities, such as Weakness to Elements, that only apply a debuff to their target.

• Incapacitating Strike: The Silence from this ability can now be CC broken, and cannot be activated on targets who are already affected by a CC effect.

• Note that this change is exclusive to Incapacitating Strike, and will not apply to other Silences, such as Negate Magic, since those are area effect-based pulsing durations, versus instantaneous duration-based effects.

• Surprise Attack: This ability no longer applies Major Fracture. Instead, if you use the ability on the flank of an enemy (behind or at their sides), you reduce their Physical Resistance by 5%. This effect cannot stack, but will always prioritize the highest value

• Teleport Strike: This ability and its morphs will no longer stun NPC enemies. Instead, targets affected by the initial damage will be afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 8 seconds. Note that the Minor Vulnerability will apply to both players and NPCs.

• Drain Power: Increased the damage of this ability and the Sap Essence morph by 25% to adhere it to our PBAoE damage standards. Ability and Sap Essence now grant Major Sorcery, rather than Brutality, to better represent.

• Undocumented Change -Funnel health heals 2 allies now

• Siphoning - Cripple: This ability and its morphs no longer grant the caster Major Expedition, and can now be placed on an infinite amount of targets.

• Debilitate (morph): This morph no longer refunds the Magicka cost if the target dies while it was active. Instead, it applies Minor Magickasteal to the enemy while the DoT persists.

• Double Take (morph): Renamed and reworked this morph.
• Renamed this morph to Phantasmal Escape.
• This morph no longer grants Major Expedition for 4 seconds. Instead, it grants immunity to snare and immobilizes for 2.5 to 4 seconds, based on the rank.
• This morph no longer becomes cheaper as ability ranks up.

• Aspect of Terror: This ability and its morphs no longer snare the target after the fear ends. Aspect of Terror now fears up to 3 enemies, up from 2.
• `Mass Hysteria (morph): This morph no longer applies Minor Maim to the targets affected. Also increased the number of feared targets to 6 enemies from 2

There's major changes for nightblades healers in many aspects. The potency of heals over time have been made back up to par. They have been granted enough utility for each role that healer has options as hybrid, magicka, stamina, pure healer or dps/healer as nightblade is designed to accommodate. I dare say they maybe be overpowered in the utility they can offer now.

Future 

Gearwise - we will see less demand to use IA on a healer with 4 other ways to get this proc now. Earthgore changes will have a many healers branch off. Some might assume nightflame as popular choice, but I predict most healers will go with troll king or Sentinel. Troll King will be for less coordinated groups to replace what it did with earthgore for them. Also giving a slight edge for healer if allies fall below 50 percent in burn phases. While Sentinel does better in stacks but still can be use sorta outside of them. 

In regards to team-ups, I imagine warden and necro teams will be best for progression with all defensive buffs, possible to save from wipe and migration. Necro, Sorc, templar and Warden will fight for places at the top of pack, while I think nightblade has chance now with new utility and more range of heals. Lastly Dragon Knights need some love.