For my fellow healer mains

How would you rank the healer powers and why?

For me, I would rank as followed:

Water/Electric
Sorcery
Nature/Celestial

I put water and electric 1st because of waters AoE heals + its shield game is amazing, electric because of its burst.

Sorcery 2nd because of arbiter.

Nature/celestial last/3rd because the heals seem to weak not strong enough and that's on a character that has 40k resto and 90k power in DLC area. My whole issue is I blind queue everything for most part except dark multiverse lol so electric or water make healing so much easier blind queuing vs a powerset that's more ideal for league groups, groups of friends, LFG groups, or a mixture if all 3.

Y'all's turn

So... please bare with me, because I don't have the skill names memorized, but here's my 2 cents:

To me, Sorcery and Water APPEAR to be easy at first glance... pop out the pool/sygil, have everyone stand in it, priority heals on tank if needed, wash, rinse, repeat. My problem with these two powersets is that if you're facing a particularly mobile boss/mob that constantly moves away from your AoE heal you're left sweating bullets waiting for it to expire and cool down so you can drop it in a new location.

Electricity... I really like. I like the "safeguard" heal (forgot the name... basically stores a heal on a toon that pops when HP goes below a certain percentage), and I feel like it's the best DPS for heals.

Celestial... I never figured out the healing game here. I think I got too frustrated having my celestial combinations interrupted lol

Nature... I personally love it, but I can see it not being for everyone. Personally, I've always liked "plague eater" mechanics in MMOs. I forgot the names, but I basically keep 3 HoTs (Pheromones) on the team, and I love seeing the constant flow of green numbers in battle So long as you're not on the tail end of the HoTs, you can consume them with Roar if you need that burst heal. Weak shield game, IMO, but it has enough in its toolset to compensate.

Just my opinions, of course

I don’t feel the same, celestial can have a full loadout of group healing, burst and hot’s all in full range, how can this be weak? you can heal easily without much effort. In other hands, sorcery is risky yet rewarding, needs a lot of knowledge and investment to make it great. These are my parameters at the moment I could see playing the new dlc, celestial and sorcery are the top and bottom, respectively. Other powers are in the middle together.

As far as water goes, you solace riptide move a little solace again and cover the entire room while everyone is still getting the 2x HoT, because with solace you can be on the border of the jellyfishs and still get heals. So it's a large area just from 1 solace. Electric is awesome I was at the point where I was a electric tank lol I'd go aggro all the adds all while keeping ppl alive in raids. The burst on elec are just amazing.

Well I'm speaking as a blind queue person. I dont mean the powers I listed in 3rd are bad by any means because I see great healers as these powers. But as someone who queues content solo like the last 3 DLC raids to mention a few pieces of content. I feel the heals cant keep up with the people I get paired with vs burst of elec or mitigation of water.

What I remember most from Electricity was getting Chain Lightning (Arc Lightning? It's the one that hits everything, enemies and allies, one after the other, and has almost no CD) early on, realizing it was both an attack and a heal, and thinking to myself "Wait... do the devs realize what they've done with this thing?" LOL

Speaking of tanks and healers... a couple of years ago, I might have made the argument that you should include Fire in any list of healers

Eh fire only self heals though. Imagine if fire could heal team mates lol

Yup, but IIRC, you're supposed to stack resto on a fire tank, which was really weird for me and left me mentally compartmentalizing it as a healer lol

Kaminuse: what was your Celestial loadout? The main thing I remember from Celestial was a non-combo "OH ****!!!" mega heal that was really good, but VERY vulnerable to interrupts (I forgot the name, but it has a fairly long CD, and the animation is the caster standing in a beam of light).... and that weird "zombie munch" supercharge heal.

Aside from that, I remember Celestial being VERY dependent on DPSs doing their jobs and swiftly killing off cursed mobs to get additional healing pops, as well as almost every move being vulnerable to interrupts, which was my main frustration.

I use admonish combo, blessing, guardian light, renew, virtuous light, consume soul.

Guardian light is the channel power your thinking of, but the hand mod helps with that.

I don't know why more Electric healers don't use Arc Lightning. When one looks at an Electric DPS on the scoreboard and see their healing out, that should tell people something

I think it's all about whatever you're comfortable using honestly. I don't think there is a bad healer set. Everyone rips on sorcery but I'm 200sp, took a longggg break, 292cr/ artifacts up to 160-180, and augments maxed and I can solo end game easily even with pugs doing a lot wrong. Tried elite the other day, it's completely solo healble but we kept wiping due to mechanics. I've tried everything but electric and none were bad at all. I'm not as big of a fan of water as everyone else cuz shields aren't really stopping any more damage than a hot could handle. Plus everything is 1 shots that shields aren't saving anyway. But the biggest gripe I had was placing the hot and no non supercharged 8 man big heal. That's just so clutch so many times.
But anyway, if you're thinking about sorcery:
Primary heal with that orb artifact or whatever for the 300%. Max it.
4 person shield
Soul well. The range is a lottttt bigger than anyone thinks. Buffed back to 3 wells out and faster tick would make it incredible. But place this on you.
The big hot. It's the same size as waters hot for the inner portion. So looses some range but it can be aimed. Focus on tank, place on them and that handles the melee guys too.
The big 8 heal. Forget what it's called but if you time it right you're healing everyone thru some of the worst the game throws at us.
4 person heal. This is my spammer since the single heal is reserved for emergencies now. 2 artifacts that buff it, the new one being revivify. The old starheart also works with it so combo them up.
Can also use transcendence 8man shield/ big hot if you like supercharger. It's pretty pointless unless you've got an awful team.
The bug form, I only use if there's no troll or the team is horrible. Sorc isn't that power hungry.

Sorcerys 8man heal is invocation of renewal

Edit

Tou can have 3 soul wells out while in arbiter of destiny form, but only 2 in out in human form

It can, if it uses Eye of Gemini...

That reminds me... do people still rage quit because of that artifact? Or has everyone just agreed not to use it?

I haven't seen it used in PUGs for a while now... never understood the big deal of contributing DPS to someone if it helps the entire team...

Because people are so concerned with being top DPS instead of accomplishing the mission. EoG has some drawbacks, though... you have to be grouped up for it to work. However, if you have yours at 200 and have it equipped, by standing in someone else's orange rings YOU get a might or precision increase for its duration as well as contributing to the extra damage done to the nearby enemies. Beyond that, it's fun watching how DPSes will run from you if you pop it as another DPS... so people were coming up with creative ways to entice them in so they could pop a supercharge and get the damage.

Since when? I've regularly had 3 up in human form.

I rank them all the same ...

for myself - since I'm not good w/combo's celestial is the hardest (just like trolling w/hardlight) to consistently heal - it's just not as easy as other healing powers

as a healer - if you have a burst heal in your loadout - it's helpful to know if the burst is at the beginning or at the end of the heal
- w/burst heals knowing content is very helpful to time your heals

though sorcery and nature have only 4 man shields - you'll learn to use your other heals (like invocation of renewal, soul wells) - here knowledge of your power really makes you a more skilled healer to keep HOTs up...

"blind" queueing aka pug'g to me - also helps healers to test loadouts - since we don't have any real test area....


which brings in customizing your healer:

typical healer - high resto, uses resto augments as well as resto in generator - might based, specs resto in stats
heals well - doesn't hit so well...

battle healing - precision based, uses dom for augments as well as in generator
specs resto in stat, if you have additional pts - 1st usage to prec, 2nd to dom
pvp'g actually helps healers to know when to block - as well as running thru content oodles of times....


my main: water (give me a respec token and guess what I'll do...)
my former: sorcery - 5-6? yrs - you don't need to use watcher to heal - though we went thru major changes in healing powers - it wasn't that much different IMHO keep up the HOTs - and it was nice to be OP for a while....

played off and on w/celestial, electric and nature ( I really wish nature change form stayed the same [a normal power]- as they are now super charges - to me a disadvantage - if you needed to switch to dps and back to heal during an elite raid, you might not be able to do so - but I guess you could via armory...)

both of my healers...actually all of my healers are nature. never been big on nature dpsing but nature healing is one of my favorite things in game. its a little trickier since the revamp but at this point even those bumps have smoothed out. my healing loadout is exactly the same as it was pre revamp. very little issue healing through any content. i never even fell back on bug form with its infinite power during the wm/am days and my "baby healer" has successfully healed through top tier raids with half the skill points and minimal gear as my top healers. you can't spam savage growth as quickly as you could pre revamp but even then i used to do it more for fun than any extra healing benefit.

the thing with nature healing is any loadout can work (or at least used to be pre revamp) but some are more power hungry than others. i take responsibility of my own power consumption by being prepared. unless i'm with a skilled controller i usually guzzle a few soders during a raid.

As much as i hate that WM combos have been left in game two handed to arrow flurry and the two handed weapon suits my loadout very well. I also find dual pistol and hand blasters work very well with nature healing.

Hmm...

I rank healing powers according to how easy they are to learn and master.

Easy: Water and Electric. In my opinion, these are the healing powers that satisfy the leaderboard munchies without much strain on the brain for figuring them out. I think they are the best ones to start with if a player has never played a healer character before, as it doesn't take much work to find a loadout that will work. These healing powers can make your character seem powerful even at lower levels, from my experiences with them.

Medium: Sorcery and Nature. These healing powers require a bit more brain work, as you have to play with those powers to find a decent loadout that suits your playstyle. My main character is Sorcery and I don't use any of the AOE's for that power because they are sensitive to LOS (Line of Sight; a slight turn in the wrong direction, a hidden collision barrier or a visible object in your way can cause your AOE to be placed where you don't want it to be). In my opinion, these powers are for those who want a bit of a challenge for their healer and don't mind not being all-powerful until later in levels.

Difficult/Hard: Celestial. This power has combos to learn and master, so it can be a turn off right from the start if you are not interested in learning them. The combo's themselves do not feel natural with the powers, as they are re-skinned DPS combos; I feel like a DPS trying to heal when I use them. Why should I have to do combos as if I am creating light constructs? Frustrating, to say the least.

In my opinion, healer combos should be simple and align with healing powers in general. For example, a healing combo can be a 2 second hold and a tap. or a 2 second hold or just a tap; they should not be a drawn out hot mess of a combo like they are for staff powers. Healing combos should flow, like breathing; I gather power in, I release power out. Not like, "gather, gather, hold, gather and then release".

Idk but theres videos of it all over YouTube showing it casting 3 in that form, and it was only a few months back so it's not like it was 6 years ago ect.