Noob Electric Healer/DPS conundrum

Hello everyone. First post for me. Please be patient.

I am driven to these forums by a rather basic conundrum.

I've been playing for about two weeks having found myself hooked to a game that is surprisingly complex and satisfying. I've attempted to gather as much as I can from various guides about character builds and roles, but I have mostly played solo since I hate ruining someone else's fun through my own ineptitude at understanding or fulfilling a particular role.

So far I've tried out various characters, all of which I have deleted except for two. One is a fire tank which I think I am starting to understand. The other, which I created yesterday, and leveled up to 18, uses electricity.

I find myself enjoying the electric powers combined with dual pistols, and the intention was to aim at stepping into the role of a healer once I understood how it worked. However, I quickly ran into the problem that I can't seem to solo as a healer, since I'm having trouble healing my enemies to death.

I then checked out a guide to running DPS with electric, with the intention of switching over to healer once I hit lvl 30. Which leads me to my conundrum:

What use will I be as a healer when all my experience is in DPS? Could someone please give me some advice as to how I can practice being a healer while leveling up to 30? Do I just have to go into an alert and ruin lots of innocent peoples' fun while I apologize profusely for not keeping up? How do you healers do it?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts at all.

Leveling up to 30 will only give you some basic understanding into the roles. You can play both the roles as well if you so choose to, one way or another. With the tiered gear (post level 30) leveling, you will for the first time get hold of role specific gear. As you go further, you will witness stronger and better gear all the way up to tier 6.

Frankly, you have lots of time in your hands to decide what you wish to play. Experiment with both roles and see how it actually feels all the way up to t6 and decide what is your true calling.

If you wish to learn about your role, there are plenty of guides around. Playing any role will eventually depend on how you develop your skill and if it spoils a few runs, then so be it otherwise how else will you learn.

Thanks for the response Mad9. I gather you are saying that by soloing as DPS I will gain experience with electric powers and that will help me as a healer later on?

Sweet, what game is that? I could really use another game to play.

Ok, so now that I read through some of this thread, I am beginning to see that the only way I am really going to learn to play any role other than DPS is by searching for a friendly league who might be willing to help me learn. Sigh.

Assume you checked out the guide, Lightning guide in the oracle section?
This will help you understand both roles, dps and healing. I do think you can get to 30 and more soloing as a healer but dps might be quicker. However, get yourself over to the lightning guide, it should help. If you have read that, then pay attention, in the guide, where it talks about powers that interact with each other.
Hope that helps. You may need to bump this thread and continue to revisit it. I am certain you will get some good feedback.

Hey Foulblade. Yeah I did some reading through Fighter's Guide to Electric Healing. Also, Anhur's guide to electric DPS. I'll have to go back again once I understand a bit better what it all means in practice. I'm super grateful that someone takes the time provide these kinds of in-depth guides.

However, reading the words and grasping the implications in a fight situation requires practice and that is what I'm after. I'll give soloing as a healer another shot, but otherwise I guess I'll just have to DPS it until I find some like minded people in-game who won't mind me pressing the wrong button combination at the wrong time. From previous experience with MMOs I shy away from PUGs.

The other thing that occurs to me is that it is all good to try and solo as a healer, but the role in itself implies that you have teammates to heal. Without the dynamics of a group there does not seem to be much point. Perhaps better to DPS, collect power and skill points that will enable a good healer loadout after a respec.

Defib, which server are you on? If you're on USPC, feel free to look me up. I'll be happy to help out.
You can find me in game as Emma Faraday.

Sweet those first few months of DC. i'm truly jealous of the way you feel about this game right now. But in response to your post you're overthinking it 1-30 doesn't really allow you to be a healer as a solo player. When you hit 30 is when you become a real healer. When you have other roles with you in 2-8man content people to actually heal. You'll be fine just buy healer gear read your powers design a loadout and heal as much as you need to. Your power bar is the controllers problem.

Thanks for the offer Aurore. Unfortunately we game in mirror-imaged parallel worlds, as I am on EUPS.

Yes, you're probably right. I'll just have to quit refitting every new piece of gear with appropriate mods and save up some cash for healer gear when I hit lvl 30. Thanks for the feedback.

As for the feeling of discovering a new gaming universe, I am really enjoying it. I didn't expect much, tried the free-to-play version, said "Holy Cr*p!" and went Legendary very quickly. Anyway, PS servers are back up after the maintenance. Off I go.

2 Things:


1. Playing up until level 30 gives you the luxury to explore and understand your powers.

2. Once you get to the watch tower, there's a section where you can reset your skill points and power points (as many times as you want). It costs $500. Thus I would suggest you pick the powers you like, and then reset the skill points when you hit 30 to try new ones. The first Tier raids, T1 and T2 will give you the experience for healing.

Electric healing is very very fun, since it's burst healing. Other healing powers generally give heals over time.

I've used electricity before, but I just recently made a brand new electric toon and leveled him up to 30 and now am just about to hit T3 with him. Solo content can be done in healer role, but it will be a bit slower. If you're trying to get a feel for your powers it's not necessarily a bad thing. There are some powers that can give you small health boosts even in DPS stance. I liked using Bioelectric Surge or Biocapacitor (for the safety net heal). The heals are very small when you have such low Restoration, but you can still see them working. However, you'll really see the full effects playing in content with other players.

The Lightning Guide is great, as is Fighter's Guide to Electric Healing. You'll find them both in the Oracle's Database section.

Lastly, I know what you mean about your concern dragging other players down. But, the fact that you actually want to learn how to play your role and be a good teammate means you have nothing to feel bad about. You'll run into occasional unpleasant people, but just ignore it and keep on learning. Most of all, have fun!

Hey Opamp. I've been to the respec station a few times now as I reworked a few different builds mainly out of curiosity. The first time I had a hell of a time finding it in the pits of the Hall of Doom. They're a lot more accessible in the Watchtower.

As for raids, well... I have no idea what they are, but I gather I'll find out soon enough.

Hi Pspace. I'm liking electricity myself, especially since I understood that stacking different powers on top of one another in quick succession majorly increases damage/healing output depending on the role. I'm starting to see that different situations call for different combinations of powers.

I use Bioelectric Surge too as a back up if I have underestimated my opponents or get surprised in some way.

As to the guides, they are very useful and I have drawn from them to experiment. I found two healer builds that I want to try out eventually, but for now I'll stick to DPS and venture into some alerts before lvl 30. I think I have a decent grasp of the controls, and powers so as not to embarrass myself too badly.

Once I understand how to work with groups, I'll don the healer's garb and bite the bullet. Thanks!

Press "Y"

Opens the raid menu. Queue up and enjoy!

I created an alt with electricity, and loved it so much I created my current main toon with electricity too. It's defnitely my favorite power. (Fire is cool too). The new effects are pretty awesome. Casting Ionic Drain as a healer surrounded by enemies is my favorite

As others have said, don't worry too much about playing as a healer before level 30. Because you are above level 18 now, you can do some of the alerts. Don't be too afraid about letting everyone down. My first alert was the level 30 Area 51, and I felt like a chicken with my head cut off. It was so chaotic and enemies were everywhere. But I survived and I always queue as a healer. The guides in Oracle's DB are a great start, then you will find with experience your own loadout. For example in the recent game update Flux is now a group shield when you are a healer. This has become a must in my loadout (low cost power, great for picking up KO'd team members).

Since you are legendary one idea for practicing healing is use a robot sidekick or henchmen in boss fights. You can heal them with area heals like galvanize as they fight for you. I also enter all PVP 1v1 arenas as a healer. There used to be a damage penalty for healers, but now it is gone. It really makes being a healer all the time more fun. But you will always find switching to DPS for solo and duo missions will make them faster when you get better gear. For me I usually start the solo missions as a healer because I know I will be able to survive, and switch to DPS after getting some better gear at that tier. Good luck!

Hi there LeagueOfV.

Haven't tried Ionic Drain yet. From what I understand it deals damage to opponents and heals teammates at the same time? I believe it is included in one of the healer loadouts I am yet to try.

Hit my second alert yesterday. I have a hard time seeing how I could have functioned as a healer. The group was running willy-nilly in all directions with zero communication going on. Reminds me of my days in Guild Wars when I would go crazy trying to heal rushing maniacs who obviously didn't care about dying. All in all it was fun in it's own way but I definitiely prefer a coordinated group. Then again on low level alerts I guess that can't be expected.

I will definitely be checking out Flux! I saw it used in a youtube video yesterday. Looks awesome!

Thanks a bunch for the sidekick suggestion! I will definitely go set that up today and give it a shot. I believe that is in the base generator.