Healer Changes for Dragonhold

Gear

Ancient Dragonguard (Note: this set is unavailable until the Dragonguard headquarters is sufficiently restored)
2 – 1206 Max Health
3 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 – 833 Weapon and Spell Critical
5 – Gain 300 Weapon and Spell Damage while health is over 50%. Gain 3460 bonus Physical and Spell Resistance while health is 50% or less.

New Moon Acolyte
2 – 833 Weapon and Spell Critical
3 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 – 1487 Physical and Spell Penetration
5 – Adds 481 Weapon and Spell Damage. Increase the cost of your active abilities by 5%.

Blessing of Potentates

NEW

2 – Reduce damage taken from Players by 5%

3 – Reduce the cost of Ultimates by 15%

Willpower

NEW

2 – 1752 Max Magicka

3 – 206 Spell Damage

Grand Rejuvenation: This item set will no longer grant 740 Stamina to allies hit by the initial heal of Grand Healing or its morphs. Instead, the initial heal of Grand Healing will restore 100 Magicka and Stamina to allies every second for 4 seconds.

Sentinel of Rkugamz: Reduced the amount of Stamina restored from this set to 115 per second, down from 500. This set now also returns Magicka per tick

Twilight Remedy: Fixed an issue where the visual effects for Minor Force were disappearing before the effect had ended.

Auras from abilities, such as Ebon Armory, will no longer fall off for allies when bar swapping from an active 5-piece bonus via weapons.

Summary

Overall there's nothing new to farm, but there's 2 sets related to healers coming out and 3 sets which changes that accommodate healers better.  The first set Ancient Dragonguard is powered by having health over 50% for a significant dps increase. Then there's new moon Acolyte, the set makes dps rely on healers for sustain while giving them power, this is a good set that brings the need for another party to help user sustain.

Now the following two sets have some direct relation to healers. Blessing of Potentates could be used to help with ultimate costs in pvp on healers. Next set, Willpower is a standard single piece power boost used by healers, before they acquire arena staves, but with change it might stay with healers who prepare raw power of supportive methods. Lastly, while not new Master resto staff change along with sustain needs across the board will make it necessary for healers to have this set collected for it will be used often. 

Combat

Dragon Knight

Obsidian Shard (morph):

This morph remains as a healer focused ability.

Increased the healing by 3.3%, since it was missing rank up progression.

This morph now deals Fire Damage instead of Magic Damage, and heals 2 friendly targets, up from

Fiery Breath:
This ability and its morphs now last 10 seconds at base, up from 8 seconds.
Increased base cost to 3510, up from 2808.
Reduced the damage per tick of the Damage over Time portion of this ability by approximately 47%.
Engulfing Flames (morph): This morph’s bonus Flame Damage taken now scales off your Spell Damage; 1% for every 333 Spell Damage you have, up to a maximum of the original 10%.

Molten Weapons: This ability and its morphs now grant Major Brutality and Sorcery at base.
Igneous Weapons (morph): This morph now increases the duration further to 42 seconds at Rank I, up from 32. It also increases the radius to 36 meters, up from 28 meters.

Stonefist: Updated the visual effects for this ability and the Stone Giant morph. As noted in last week’s PTS patch, we will continue working on this ability’s visual and gameplay elements for a future update.

Nightblade

Lotus Fan (morph):

This morph now applies Minor Vulnerability to all enemies hit, rather than the original.

Increased the duration to 10 seconds, up from 8.

Decreased the damage per tick by approximately 47%.

Power Extraction (morph): This morph now also reduces enemies’ Spell Damage.

Teleport Strike: Updated the duration of the Minor Vulnerability for this ability to 10 seconds, to match its morph’s duration.

Sorcerer

Summon Winged Twilight: Increased the heal of this ability and the Twilight Matriarch morph to be closer to the heal power of Rushed Ceremony. This will result in approximately 87% increase for the base, and approximately 55% increase for the Matriarch. Note that these abilities will continue to scale exclusively with Max Magicka.

Ball of Lightning (morph): This morph now ranks up in duration of the summoned ball of lightning, which now lasts 3 seconds at Rank IV, up from 2. This morph also adds 2 seconds of snare and immobilization immunity after teleporting.

Streak (morph): This ability now creates a cone behind you after casting that damage and stuns enemies inside of it. The length is now 17 meters with a 40 degree arc, rather than being a 4 x 15 meter rectangle. This means the ability will require more precise aiming when attempting to land on top of an enemy, but will require less precise aiming when attempting to cast near an enemy.

Warden

Betty Netch:
This ability and its morphs now grant Major Brutality and Sorcery at base, but the base ability no longer restores Magicka every second while active.
These abilities now remove 1 negative effect from you every 5 seconds.
Reduced the duration to 19 seconds from 22 seconds on the base ability.

Blue Betty Netch (morph):
This morph reinstates the Magicka restore functionality.
Reduced the final duration to 25 seconds, down from 27 seconds.

Dive: This ability has received new functionality to help it stand alone as a spammable, but has received some reductions to the base functionality that were in place to make up for the fact that it lacked any gameplay altering effects.
Reduced the damage of these abilities by 10%, and increased their base cost to 2700 from 2430.
If you are at least 12 meters from the target upon dealing damage with these abilities, you now set them Off Balance.

Swarm:
Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs to 2970 to encapsulate their new functionalities.
These abilities now apply Minor Vulnerability to the target for the duration of the DoT.


Northern Storm (morph):
The Max Magicka granted from this morph is no longer enabled passively by slotting. Instead, it is granted for 30 seconds after activating the Ultimate.
Increased the amount of Magicka granted to 9% from 8%.
This morph now ranks up in 2% Max Magicka granted per rank, up to 15% at Rank I, rather than 1.1% damage done per rank.

Dive: This ability and its morphs now set the target off-balance if you are 7 meters or further, rather than 12 meters.

Templar

Backlash:

This ability and its morphs will now only store damage dealt from the caster of the ability, rather than anyone who hits the afflicted target. This was done to offset some of the staggering power (of the Light) the ability could bring in group situations, where low damage builds could apply the ability and generate free real estate from their allies’ contribution. Now, you have to put in the fervor to get the full power of these abilities. 

Fixed an issue where these abilities would conflict with one another if more than one player cast the same morph of the ability on a target.

Cleansing Ritual
Ritual of Retribution (morph): This morph’s damage now once again deals damage equal to the healing coefficient.

Necromancer 

Frozen Colossus: The Major Vulnerability from this ability and its morphs now last 8 seconds after dealing any damage, rather than 3 seconds after the final smash. Enemies hit by Major Vulnerability cannot be affected again for 20 seconds after it applies, to prevent situations where this debuff could be kept up indefinitely by rotating an army of Necromancers. 

Reusable Parts: Increased the cost reduction granted from this passive to 25/50%, up from 12/25%.

Summary

Dragon Knights have an indirect sustain boost to their gameplay that they been asking for years. This is result of the change of the skill from magic to flame damage. This indirectly gives a high chance at burning status effect, to proc combustion passive, that gives which is even better on a charged staff. While not as optimal as it could be on a magdk dragon knight healers are now better then tanks with fiery breath. This indirectly takes zen's group buff set, and puts it on dps (magdk) and away from healers as rightful should.  Dragon Knight Healers, will now be best class to process. 

The changes for nightblades feels like some intuitive fixes. I mean you would think it would apply aoe version of minor vulnerability no? Spell damage and Weapon damage to power extraction, just makes this skill seem right. I think nightblades healer will be in a better place next patch. 

Personally I find the Sorc changes weird, but they will overall help it in pvp situation I think. The pet will have a bigger burst heal. Steak will either provide more defensive mobility or offensive mobility. It will make it easier for healer to escape or help allies escape. 

Warden changes will truly knock Inflable Aether aka IA out of the top healer sets. The reason is swarm will provide the buff on a dps or healer (cough with nasty zens set). Not as functional as it would be on a dps, but healer can potentially provide off balance in a different way from traditional elemental blockade. Also for wardens they have passive purge every 5 secs. This will mostly help in pvp, but in pve situations like halls of fabrication it will be a life saver for the healer themselves.  A later patch took away passive magicka stat boss for slotting northern storm which means a slight reduction in heals.

Templar had some power of light adjustments related to giving stamina templar more usage of power of light, but it reminds to be seen if this will work. Will likely still be a popular choice on templar healers. 

Necromancers... poor necormancers they had their chance but they don't see atro nerf doing them any favors. Still

Overall, class wise I see nightblades truly have their chance now. Dragon Knights will feel less chucky. Sorcs will feel more mobile at least in pvp. Wardens will feel like top dogs. Templars will forever be most abundant healer class, among the population. 

Other

Psijic Order

Mend Wounds: Fixed many issues with the animation of the Heavy Attack of this ability and its morphs. You can no longer attempt and fail to heal the wildlife (critters) of Tamriel with the Heavy Attack from these abilities, for their frail bodies cannot handle the power you wield. This also fixes an issue where your character would erratically convulse when attempting to channel these abilities on a target you couldn’t actually target.

Trapping Webs:

This ability and its morphs now last 10 seconds, rather than 5.

Support

Cleanse: Reduced the healing per negative effect of this morph to 5% at Rank IV from 10%

Assault

Warhorn: This ability will now only apply to group members rather than allies.

Synergizer: This passive now displays a visual effect when triggered.

Potions that increase your Physical or Spell Resistance no longer grant Major Resolve or Ward, but instead grant a unique value of Resistances.

Summary

I have yet to test the changes to mend wounds, but bug fixes are nice...maybe one day it will be used by healers more then once a blue moon.  Trapping webs change makes it worthwhile synergy for healers to supply to either stamina or magicka damage allies. 

The alliance war changes are things I hope they reconsider as they feel like bad changes for healer gameplay. The cleanse change feels to far with it doing about the same amount of healing as healing springs, but without high cost. I advise healers to swap to other morph for this coming patch and leave this one as trash morph once again. In regards to war horn change it will be nice organized situations, but will now require healers to be in a group to provide this buff. So don't use this zerg surfing or dolmen farming. 

Some oddity changes where the champion passive. Allies will now see when they get that 2 ultimate with visual cue from using a synergy. Also, design wise it will make new players notice the effect of synergies. Lastly, potion change makes for another way to tank heal without using different sets. 

Conclusion

Scalebreaker brought us some healer changes in gameplay, and dragonhold attempts to support our gameplay by adding extra costs to skills for dps which reinforces need for healer to help with sustain. Also, reinforces synergies in gameplay with visual cues or rewards. Also it, indirectly helps healers with some dps sets that need healers to use it properly. As healer will keep allies above 50 percent health or help migrate cost increase of new set power. Lastly patch helps balance out the sustain healers  can give to allies with master resto giving magicka and stamina resources to allies. 

The current concerns are will lower dps make 3 dps more important to have to skip mechics then a healer? Will cleanse still be a worthwhile morph to take? Solo play with war horn is broken as you can't apply it to allies outside of a group. Warden it's leading the pack greatly under the new competitive conditions.  

Update 9/20: Mentioned base changes to netch skill for warden.

Updated 9/26: Fiery Breath, and Molten Armaments Change for Dragon Knight Healers. Also mentioned Zen set.

Updated 10/1 : Templar Power of Light changes added, Warden Northern Storm Changes

Updated 10/15 : Minor adjustments for damage healing things, and Necromancer Atro nerf, Nightblade buff