Sorcerer Healer – Vet Dungeon Destroyer

Armor Types

Gear and Item Set Info

The beauty of a sorcerer healer build is that you have your "oh crap" emergency heal (twilight matriarch active ability) on both bars by default, allowing you to spend more time than usual on your back bar for dps and support.

Beginner / Entry Level:

• 5x Julianos [crafted, 6 traits] (heavy chest, medium legs, 3x light armor pieces)
• 5x Stendarr's Embrace [drops from Eastmarch overland, intentionally chose a cheap and easy to acquire set] (2x light armor pieces, 3x jewelry)
• 1x Resto Staff [any]
• 1x Lightning Staff [any]

Not confident in your healing abilities?

• 5x Julianos [crafted, 6 traits] (heavy chest, medium legs, 3x light armor pieces)
• 2x Earthgore [monster set; vet Bloodroot Forge & Urgalarg Chief-Bane's reward chest] (both light)
• 3x Willpower [Imperial City chests, random dungeon rewards] (3x jewelry)
• 1x Resto Staff [any]
• 1x Lightning Staff [any]

Ideal setup:

• 5x Julianos [crafted, 6 traits] (heavy chest, medium legs, 3x light armor pieces)
• 5x Worm Cult [Vaults of Madness] (2x light armor pieces, 3x jewelry)
• 1x Master Resto Staff [veteran Dragonstar Arena]
• 1x Maelstrom Lightning Staff [veteran Maelstrom Arena]

Other sets that work instead of Julianos:

• Mother's Sorrow [Deshaan overland]
• Bloodthorn's Touch [Glenumbra overland]
• Spinner's Garments [Malabal Tor overland] (5 piece bonus only buffs damage, try to avoid)
• Necropotence [Rivenspire overland]
• War Maiden [Vvardenfell overland] (5 piece bonus only buffs damage, try to avoid)
• Scathing Mage [Imperial City Prison]
• Combat Physician [Wayrest Sewers I & II]

Sets to avoid:

• Martial Knowledge [Craglorn overland] (too much DPS-oriented, you'll get little benefit)
• Burning Spellweave [City of Ash I & II] (using a flame staff instead of a lightning staff on your back bar sacrifices too much in terms of group support)
• Gossamer [Cradle of Shadows] (should be common sense but, don't let your ability to support depend on RNG)
• Prayer Shawl [Spindleclutch I & II] (shields are so weak you don't even notice them)
• Sanctuary [Banished Cells I & II] (apart from a few encounters, like Valkyn Skoria in City of Ash II, you can't expect your teammates to be within 10 metres of you - just assume they'll be running around all over the place)
• Lich [Crypt of Hearts I & II] (you will very rarely drop below 33% magicka with all the heavy attacks you'll be filling your time with)
• Warlock [Selene's Web] (same reason as Lich)

If you want to run the "not confident" build but you don't have Earthgore yet, run the Beginner / Entry Level build until you can get your hands on it. The Earthgore set is amazing for no-death runs as well, because it'll potentially save somebody's life every 35 seconds unless they get oneshot.

Traits:

• Divines > Infused on all armor pieces (run Infused on a big piece with a Health enchant if you'd like a bit of an extra safety net).
• Decisive > Infused > Powered on your resto staff.
• Charged > Infused > Decisive > Powered on your lightning staff.
• Arcane on all jewelry.

Enchants:

• All magicka on armor pieces (unless you want 1 health)
• Weakening on resto staff (reduce target's weapon and spell damage on hit, weave light attacks in between rapid regen & healing springs)
• Shock damage on lightning staff (concussed status effect to be converted into Off Balance by your blockade of lightning for a 10% damage boost to those with the CP)
• 1x magicka recovery and 2x spell cost reduction on jewelry

Mundus:

• Apprentice (spell damage) if you're using Witchmother's Potent Brew as food
• Atronach (magicka recovery) if you're using standard magicka-health food

General Info

The only things you need to pull off this build are:

• All of the relevant passive abilities in class skill lines
• All of the passives in resto/destro skill lines
• A food buff (bi-stat magicka and health or Witchmother's Potent Brew, I prefer WPB but this sacrifices almost 2k health so you'll need to be quick with Hardened Wards)
• Standard magicka potions

Optional extras:

• Undaunted passives, mages guild passives
• Spell Power potions (just use them on tough bosses)
• Vampire skill line (with the magicka recovery, Undeath and health regeneration passives; try to stay at stage 2 all of the time)

How to use your abilities:

• As a healer in a vet dungeon you don't have a "rotation", you have a priority list, which looks like this: keeping people alive > keeping your pet active > giving orbs to the tank > supporting other group members > doing DPS.
• Keep up rapid regeneration as close to 100% on all party members as possible
• OCCASIONALLY CHECK YOUR TWILIGHT MATRIARCH ABILITY to make sure it is the purple colour. If it has gone the blue/white colour then your pet has died and you need to re-summon it. If you don't notice this until people are dying and you start the cast animation, you can cancel the cast with block and start healing using your other abilities
• If group members are low on health / taking a lot of damage and they're not grouped up, use your twilight matriarch active ability. Healing Ward has a place on the front bar and this purely serves as an "oh crap" button for when your pet is dead. If you feel confident enough that you don't need this, replace Healing Ward with Inner Light
• If your pet dies, your #1 priority is to stay on your resto staff bar and re-summon it as soon as you can do so safely
• Try to send an orb to the tank at least once every five seconds, but this won't always be possible, prioritise keeping people alive
• Keep up blockade of lightning / boundless storm / elemental drain 100% of the time when the incoming damage & boss mechanics allow you to do so
• If one of your teammates is running elemental drain, replace with Inner Light
• Use your DPS ultimate in burn phases and to stop yourselves getting overwhelmed with adds if your teammates aren't pulling their weight, otherwise help them out with a Horn

Other abilities to have unlocked:

• Destro staff ultimate (more useful than Shooting Star / Meteor on some fights and can be used instead)
• Light's Champion [resto staff ultimate] (replace Aggressive Horn on fights where your teammates take heavy damage and they're not grouped up for healing springs. The last boss of veteran Falkreath Hold is a perfect example of where this will come in useful)
• Mage's Wrath (useful in some execute burn phases e.g. Stoneheart in Bloodroot Forge)

Champion Point Tips

Green:

When working with random dungeon finder groups, always assume that your teammates will be hit by every single boss mechanic and that if you die, they will die shortly after. Because of this, I find it really useful to sacrifice some magicka regen from The Lover tree and grab Break Free cost reduction, Dodge Roll cost reduction and Block cost reduction. Aim for at least 8% in each.

Blue:

Aside from that, get a decent amount into Blessed and Elfborn in The Apprentice tree. Once you've got around 60 points into each, start picking up DPS-buffing CPs like Spell Erosion and Elemental Expert.

Red:

Try to put an equal amount into Ironclad, Elemental Defender and Hardy. Get some into Thick Skinned but don't go over the top. Put extra points into Elemental Defender and Thick Skinned if you're a vampire. If you're max-CP, put some into Bastion as well to increase the power of your wards.

Build Rating