A few questions about proper Nature healing

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by The Incredible Fly, Sep 13, 2013.

  1. The Incredible Fly New Player

    I've just recently adopted the healing role as a Nature power. Initially, I began this character as a Celestial DPS and although it was very fun (and effective) I've always wanted to give Nature another shot.

    Anyway, I did a bit of research and wrote down a few loadouts that I could tinker with. Thus far, I'm using, in order from left to right on my power bar.

    L2 > Savage Growth, Bloom, Metabolism, Cross Pollination
    R2 > Swarm Shield, Insectoid Form (subject to change, not liking it as much as I thought I would)

    When someone's health bar starts to drop, I lay down a Savage Growth. If it starts to drop faster, I pop Metabolism. If the group is dropping, I get myself between as many people as I can and use Cross Pollination. If only myself and one other person are low on health I'll use Bloom a few times without getting too greedy (don't want to consume too much power). Every time after I use Bloom I put down another Savage Growth because Bloom will remove my pheromones.
    I try not to use Bloom at all honestly. It's kind of only there for if someone's dropping really frigging fast.

    And these are my questions:
    First of all, does it sound like I'm using the power properly? I've done quite a few alerts without a controller and have rarely found myself out of power. I've also only had a few people die on me but besides maybe 2 occasions it wasn't my fault. So I'm guessing I'm doing alright, but I'd like a little confirmation that I'm understanding this.

    Also, totally off topic but... Can I change my name on here anywhere? I might change my characters name soon and I want my name here to be the same as my characters... "The Incredible Fly" isn't doing it for me anymore, lol.
  2. Confused Citizen New Player

    I recently changed from Tank to Nature, been a tank since week 1 and wanted a change. I am running the same loadout and using the powers in the same manner you are, but also wondering "am I doing this right?"
  3. 13igtyme Devoted Player

    I would remove bloom and add blossom.
  4. DarkNovaBlaze Dedicated Player


    I'm pretty sure he is using Blossom, and not Bloom. Probably got the names mixed up.
  5. The Incredible Fly New Player


    Yes I did, I realized that earlier today, my bad. Although I was using Bloom for awhile until I decided I really didn't like the slow cast time, interruptability (not a word) or the short range of it.
  6. alloygt Well-Known Player

    Some quick background for you. I've played a nature pve healer since launch and love it. I took about a year off and just recently came back to the game; my cr is 98, I have 107sp, have 3654 base resto (i.e. no nutri-sodas, no trinket and no hive mind buffs...with them it jumps to over 5k) and easily solo heal the content t4 and under.

    For me its all about the hots and mitigation. My loadout is cross pol savage growth, metabolism, regen, blossom and swarm shield. I play it differently for every situation but the generic version, the go to if you will, that I use in t5 and when soloing specifically is that I cast sg, clip with Cross pol, clip with metabo and let the hots do their work. Swarm shield gets used liberally and blossom is my oh crap someone forgot to block heal since it consumes your hots for a larger burst heal on yourself and one other group mate, and regen is my holy hell everyone forgot to block heal or my group needs a little extra power to burn or the boss is hitting us all hard.
  7. The Incredible Fly New Player


    Thank you! This is what I wanted to hear. Since posting this I've literally done every single alert and duo as well as a few raids to really bootcamp myself. And what you've just said is exactly how I've been healing so it's good to know I'm doing it right. Now all I need to do is get some better gear, mod myself up and practice a little more ( :
  8. Sore Steadfast Player

    Doing Well
    1) You're thinking about power consumption
    1a) You're using SG/Metab to top off
    1b) You're taking advantage of CrossPoll in the right way (note: some content gives very few opportunities to do so)
    1c) Shields prevent needing to heal at greatest efficiency
    2) You're letting Blossom do its job

    Things to consider
    Nature has some great clipping opportunities. Savage Growth is flagged as an attack ability (other heals can clip it, it can't clip other heals). Consider how certain rotations can take advantage of that. Look at Savage Growth more as an opener. Instead of following up Blossom with Savage Growth, consider clipping Blossom with Metabolism instead. If you don't know, a clip sequence can be cast as fast as your fingers will allow. The game will not require you wait out your animations. Not every sequence is available in every loadout. That's okay. Know your available sequences and keep picking the right one for each scenario. You can see some great debates about whether you actually need CrossPoll. It gets more heated about whether Harvest is viable or not.

    Core Clip Sequences
    SG=>Metabolism (top-off)
    SG=>Blossom=>Metabolism (Staple emergency clip: version 1)
    SG=>Metabolism=>Blossom (Staple emergency clip: version 2)
    SG=>Blossom=>Metabolism->Blossom (Sustained emergency clip)

    Good Positional Clips
    CrossPoll (Positional: version 1)
    SG=>CrossPoll (Positional: version 2)
    CrossPoll=>Metabolism (Positional: version 3)

    Interesting Harvest Clips
    Harvest=>Metabolism (Heavy top-off)
    Harvest=>CrossPoll (Boosted Positional: version 1)
    Harvest=>CrossPoll=>Metabolism (Boosted Positional: version 2)
    Harvest=>Blossom=>Metabolism (Mega Heal)
    Harvest=>Blossom=>CrossPoll (Positional Mega Heal)

    Bad Clip Sequence
    SG=>CrossPoll=>Blossom (Don't need CrossPoll and Blossom together)
    SG=>CrossPoll=>Blossom=>Metabolism (Don't need CrossPoll and Blossom together)
    SG=>CrossPoll=>Metabolism (If the positional works, the rest is overkill)
    SG=>Blossom=>CrossPoll=>Metabolism=>Bloom (Now you're just trying to waste power)
    Harvest=>Blossom=>CrossPoll=>Metabolism (Maybe there's a time for this monster but not likely)
    Harvest=>Blossom=>CrossPoll=>Metabolism=>Bloom (What are you trying to prove)
  9. alloygt Well-Known Player

    Not a problem, glad to help. To add a bit more to it I stack cp, sg, and metabo because sg and metabo just aren't enough alone to keep a group up, save for a full t5 group running lower content. I've found that the triple stack with swarm shield works well and allows me enough keep enough effective HP out to counter act the damage delt from NPC's without having to either spam anything while keeping blossom primed in the event that I need it...all of this allows for a more synergistic grouping. I actually get picked at by my trollers sometimes for having a full power bar, lol. Less power consumption for me means more for my tank to keep aggro off of me and for my dps to use to burn the enemy or even for my trollers to use to rebuff.

    To me synergy is just as important as keeping my group alive and part of that is knowing your power, role and it's strengths and weaknesses. As an example nature is more about mitigation than the other healer sets imo. Sorcery is closest but it doesn't seem to do it as effectively. Its big benefit is that to me it seems more direct in it's heals and it's heals are larger but slower than ours this also makes it more of a damage repairing than mitigation, again, imo. Electric on the other hand is fair mix of healing attributes but it's biggest strength is the life saving buffs it has.

    This means that each power has it's place. Open spaces for sorcery and extremely tight fight are also a sorc's strong points. If a group can all stand within the the range of a sorc's cop then there usually isn't much for us to heal just like if a group is dropping adds really quickly then a soul well or two can do wonders. On the other hand mid ranged spacing is great for us nature healers since the group would be too spread out for a cop to cover the group and the drop rate of adds means nothing to us as it doesn't affect our healing in any way. Electric on the other other hand (lol) is, at the moment' forever doomed into a secondary healer role imo. As an example last night I ran the t4 ops last night with a group whose average cr was 90+. The other healers was comparably geared to myself and was electric. Our group took little damage and made short work of the ops. By the end of both 8 player ops I had 4 times the heals as he did. That's simply because electric shines in life saving not mitigation.

    While that's an extreme scenario I have also ran nexus with a second nature healer, an electric and a sorc...no celestial as of yet. With two natures we were starving our group of power as we were simply overwriting each other for hots and the heals were just not landing efficiently enough...poor synergy. In that case I respec'd my powers to not clash with my other healer and we worked through the rest of the raid just fine. With the sorc there were zero conflicts and while he was geared and modded more than myself with more sp he didn't out heal me by very much due to the nature of the raid, the spacing of individuals and the lack of adds he was more limited in his healing abilities as all of those factors seemed to stack against him. With the electric we had little trouble in the raid as electric isn't limited in the way sorcery is and has its below 35% insta health boost. That alone was extremely helpful and he was able to keep pace with my heals as he only trailed by about 20%.

    some of that may have been a bit of a tangent but I hope it helped to shed a little more light on my thought process and why/how I play my nature healer. I could go on for a while about this and do the same for tanking and trolling. There is never just one right way to play the game aside from playing in a synergistic way and having fun. Just keep in mind that each power has its place and time, its strengths and weaknesses. I have played all powers except celestial, quantum and earth. Out of all of them I prefer nature for both dps and healing and I prefer healing to dps even. I prefer nature healing because it works, imo, in a more synergistic manner than the others and suits my play style of mitigation and power conservation than the others.

    happy gaming!
  10. Blackmysticalhealer New Player

    nature healing loadout.

    Here's what I generally run in alerts and raid. I am in insect form in raids or fighting main bosses.

    Savage Growth, Metabolism, Swarm Shield, Blossom, Hive Mind and Cross Pollination. I switched in bosses from CP to insect form.

    My insect form I have Savage Growth, Cross Pollination, Swarm Shield, Blossom, Hive Mind and supercharge.

    I always start with Hive Mind, Swarm Shield and Savage Growth. This will boost their restoration up and help keep the shields longer. If you have a white mods that heals when you put the shields on that will help a lot.

    I normally don't lose anyone or die since I keep spamming heals, buffs and shields. I also move around a lot so that I can get away from a tight spots. Once you find the loadout you want and practice with it until you get it prefeced than you can be a beast healer. I recommend getting you white weapon mod that restores your power it will help you.
  11. The Incredible Fly New Player

    Wow, thank you for the sudden flow of information, guys. I'm happy to see that after reading all of this I haven't been doing anything wrong. Generally speaking I'm a fast learner so I didn't figure I'd have much trouble understanding how to properly use this power, I just wanted confirmation that I was getting the most out of it.

    Usually all I have to use is Savage Growth and Metabolism every so often throwing a Swarm Shield in. I'm sure once I gear this character more that will change though. Also as I've stated, I still try to avoid using Blossom (sorry for getting it confused with Bloom) at all. It's not that it's a bad heal I just don't like to remove my pheromones unless it's absolutely necessary. And I removed Insectoid form in favor of Regeneration. Maybe I'll find a more practical use for it in the future but right now it doesn't fit my playstyle.

    And just as an example of how I've been using my powers:
    We'll say I'm in Gates at the Avatar Of Magic. We walk in, I open with a Swarm Shield. A few health bars start to budge so I drop a Savage Growth and watch everyone's health bars closely. A few people start to drop at an alarming pace so I drop a Metabolism and get them back to about 80%. Seeing that people are again starting to drop quickly I clip Savage Growth into Metabolism and nestle myself between 4 or 5 of the closest individuals to drop a Cross Pollination at which point I throw in a Swarm Shield. We're doing alright until the tank takes a big slap to the face. I toss out a quick Blossom clipping it into Savage Growth and check to be sure his health bar is steady before laying down another Swarm Shield and bam we're finished!

    Thus far I've been doing every alert and every duo every day since I switched to the healer role as a means of training myself. And from the looks of what everyone is saying it has payed off :D.
  12. The Incredible Fly New Player


    I enjoyed this read. I feel that I play similarly to yourself however before creating my Nature character I was an Electric healer. I learned the power inside and out and you're pretty well on the money that it's doomed to be a secondary healer. The problem with Electric is that people are always fighting to put out larger numbers, and Electric gets a bad rep because people try to be the primary healer with it. Although yes, if used properly it can be a primary healer, it takes a lot of practice and I say that from personal experience. I was a highly skilled healer and was able to conserve my power in such a way that I consumed less than 80% of the other healers I would find myself partnered with.

    Also, I've been in a few raids with a second Nature healer and have found that if I do what I can to keep my eye on them, I can avoid overwriting them. It's difficult, but I put my faith in them and believe that they can handle being the primary healer. If they fall short, I'll offer to take the lead and continue to observe how they lay down their heals.