The Cleric - PVE Templar Healer Build

Written guide updated for updated for The Scribes of Fate DLC: Q1 2023

Older video but still relevant.

If you have played fantasy RPGs or MMORPGs or even tabletop fantasy games in the last 20-30 years, you will know that MOST of the time, generally, HEALER-type characters follow one of TWO particular aesthetics.

They are either medium armor with forest/nature type healing spells (a druid/shaman) OR they tend to be battle-hardened Templar/Cleric/Priest type characters with a LOT of protection and heavy armor, usually with a mace and shield or sometimes a two-handed mace. Either way, when it comes to a war priest-type character, the healer is usually as tough as the tank! Making both supporting roles the hardest to kill since they are the ones responsible for your party’s survival!

In the Elder Scrolls Online people have assumed that a “healer” must be in LIGHT armor. Well, this is both FALSE and against the traditional expectation of a healer in MOST fantasy scenarios. There is not a SINGLE light armor passive in the game that boosts healing as a stat. The only one remotely beneficial would be the critical chance bonus but that is only 1% per piece anyway, and it relies on a dice roll, not a raw flat bonus. This is really not that useful at all when you already have a low crit chance and are not building for crit as a rule (which we are not) Our crit is incredibly low so a tiny bonus won’t actually boost us overall and will fail more times than it is useful.

However! medium armor now DOES have a “healing done” bonus along with a “spell damage” bonus. BOTH of which DO boost healing! While this is great, where does the heavy come into play? Well, the heavy armor improves your survival, compliments a couple of healing abilities in the Templar skill lines by having high health (rune focus for example heals more based on high health), has resistance and recovery bonuses for getting hit, and above all…adds 4% extra return from your heavy attack per piece! That’s right, 5x heavy armor pieces boost your ability to get BACK resources from your heavy attacks by 20% and make you stronger with NO negative effects towards healing done vs the light armor passives.

Light armor has passives to recovery and reduction to cost but you do NOT want to be spamming as a healer anyway. If you understand your restoration staff’s passives and utilize them properly,  you will know that Major Mending (16% increase to the healing done) is what you get from a heavy attack with a Restoration staff. This means heavy first, heal second, will make for MUCH stronger healing.

If we are heavy attacking we don’t need loads of recovery and the heavy armor gives us MORE back for doing so! One heavy attack means BIGGER heals and MORE resources. It’s a win-win. No squish, healing boosted, resources maintained!

Overall the potential gain from heavy attacks from a Restoration Staff, using heavy armor during off balance also, is insane. During off-balance situations you can get back 30% from Restoration passives, 20% from heavy passives, and 50% from off balance all at once! That’s a LOT of REALLY easy resource management. And if you are not using heavies, then you are not utilizing the strength potential of your heals anyway and doing it wrong. If you want to be a strong healer with a restoration staff, make SURE you heavy attack else you are NOT getting that 16% increase to ALL heals.

So keep it simple… lay down your HOTs (heal over time skills), use the big heals when you need to, and KEEP heavy attacking! Major mending all day long and never run out of resources! And unlike squishy healers, your survival is so high that you don’t have to do backflips and block all day long through trivial mechanics that would normally kill you!

We also have a 1 hand and shield back bar weapon meaning we have more defensive-based skills if we need them! Not to mention of course while the Restoration staff does have mending and other passives, we DO have more spell damage on the 1 hand and shield bar to close the gap while not using the Restoration Staff. We have single burst heals and AOE burst heals for any situation and at the same time, we ALSO have constant AOE heals so long as you maintain them.

If things go wrong, you are SO powerful that you can take punches while getting people up off the ground. Just remember while resurrecting people you MUST maintain ground HOTs in order to help keep the group alive while you are busy elsewhere. We can pick up a single body on the ground in less than 3 seconds based on our class and Champion points to which is a big plus in emergencies.

The sets we are using massively promote survival for the group with a set that CONSTANTLY stacks damage shields (yes multiple people in the group can use this at once for more stacks) and just for healing, we can constantly keep the enemy’s weapon/spell damage DOWN meaning your group gets hit for less!

So if you want to go back to the old-school heavy armor yet MORE than capable healer to really re-live those proper fantasy aesthetics, then look no further because finally it can be done! Your heals are NO weaker than using light armor, and in fact, with the two mediums we are using as well…ours are STRONGER!

This is a full PVE build and it can be used in ALL content while farming the loot can actually be done on NORMAL!

Important notes:

  • Massive resource gain with the heavy attack from Restoration Staff and Heavy Armor passives.
  • Heavy attacking produces a self-buff for much stronger heals so KEEP heavy attacking!
  • BIG AOE heal over time skills and HIGH burst heal potential as and when required.
  • Fast resurrection capability (be sure to leave heals on the ground while ressing).
  • VERY high health and resistances making you as capable as any tank when considering survival.
  • Protection ultimate for the group.
  • Personal shield protection ultimate to help with recovery in an emergency.
  • Resource management for the group with bubbles, spears, and minor magic steal on TAP!
  • Re-live those true DnD days where a healer was NOT the weakest person in the room!

Fashion First!

As demonstrated in the video, our fabulous setup and dress choice for this character is as follows:

Head: Heavy Telvanni
Shoulders
: Heavy Aldmeri
Chest: Heavy Arkthzand
Legs: Heavy Arkthzand
Hands: Heavy Aldmeri
Belt: Heavy Aldmeri
Feet: Heavy Aldmeri
Front bar: Ebonshadow Staff
Back Bar: Arkthzand Mace and Wayward Guardian Shield

  The two colors we are using are Legate’s Black and Windhelm Steel.

 

Skills

Champion Points 2.0

The NEW Champion Points 2.0 introduced in the Q1 2021 DLC: Flames Of Ambition is quite possibly the BIGGEST change/addition to The Elder Scrolls Online since One Tamriel! And these were further altered in the Blackwood Chapter, giving us a lower base for capping out some of the essentials and also adding some more slotables!

Before it was a case of “I have limited points as a CP, so HOW should I spend them”? Now that is NOT the case as SUCH! Now, it is a case of, buy ALL the things, but which SLOTABLES should you take?

Everything before was a passive bonus with huge diminished returns, awkward calculations, and was messy to all players for the most part. The new system underlines NO diminished returns, no majorly confusing passives, and the ability to buy EVERY single passive available for tanking, DPS, and healing on the SAME character with enough points to spare for buying slotables. Being able to slot 4x special slotables from each tree when there is an abundance of them means you are only limited by your CHOICES, not by your CP.

Buy all the passives, CHOOSE which slotables to take vs the situation, and the rest of the points are spare. Or are they? Well here is the crunch…Once you go over 1800ish (depending on slotable choices, some are more expensive in the Craft tree) you basically have every single passive available PLUS 4 slotables per tree…

If you JUST wanted to focus on combat alone (all red and blue passives and 4 slotables for each one) you only actually need around 1600cp to be completely maxed in those areas. And if you wanted to go FULL glass cannon, only really focusing on one damage type you can achieve your max potential for that as low as 900 or so! You won’t have any resistances or healing bonuses from the Warfare (blue) tree doing this, but you can at least cap out the hard-hitting stuff, right? And this is considering slotables too so there is no harm in actually deliberately specing for a couple of damage resistance slotables instead even at THIS stage.

For tanking it is even easier! Push for your slotables and stack your resistance passives and it is game over! The rest are just a bonus!

So what’s next? Well, if you have higher champion points you can buy more slotables and switch stuff per situation as and when needed. If you don’t, then if you want to swap it will cost you gold for respecing. So in a nutshell, 1650-1800 (depending on build) is you’re pretty much done! Anything else is convenient due to not needing to spend gold swapping things you already have access to! How cool is that?

SLOTABLES!

No matter what, THESE are the most important parts of the Champion Points 2.0 system. So this is your main FIRST goal when pushing for the build. You need to slot these even if they are not max level. However, there are swap-outs for situations as explained in the video.

BLUE (Warfare) are important for resistance, heals, and damage. Red (Fitness) are important for resources, health, and Crowd Control counters. Green (Craft) are literally quality of life! (aka your choice so not THAT important for combat).

It doesn’t matter what level you are at anymore, you can play ALL content regardless of your champion points level because during Flames of Ambition all players/characters had their base stats improved to make everyone somewhat more balanced at lower levels.

However, as mentioned above, the slotables are your main goal. Unlock the prerequisite passives to unlock access to your slotables if there are any…fill them up, and then just grab the remaining passives as you go.

300, 600, 900 champion points are not really important as checkpoints anymore for optimization. Just fill as you go, because ALL characters can have ALL passives with NO negative effects unlike before!

What should I aim for with this build?

  • From The Brink
  • Enlivening Overflow
  • Swift Renewal
  • Soothing Tide

Maximizing the main focus of the build making it REALLY tough early on!

  • Rationer
  • Liquid Efficiency
  • Treasure Hunter
  • Steed’s Blessing

These really are up to you but these are most useful IN content for loot and movement if not in combat

What you do with this tree is NOT make or break for mechanics or combat in general just quality of life.

  • Boundless Vitality
  • Fortified
  • Peace of Mind
  • Rejuvenation

Pushing for armor and health bonuses alongside high recovery. You can, of course, switch to survival instincts instead if you don’t want the Peace of Mind bonus but that is up to you.

The video below explains how the changes work in more detail. Of course, over time, additions will be and have already been made to the system but the main BASE of it is the same.

Poisons, Potions, & Food

For the maximum potential of healing done you will need to be sure you have major sorcery. So for this, you will need spell pots. However, if you have a  Dragonknight in your group already supplying it to everyone, you can use Tri-pots all day long and benefit from 3x resources of recovery rather than just one and still have all the buffs you need!

Food is very simple, the highest level food you can consume with 2 stats only, MAX health and MAX magicka. There are 3 variations of recipes but all are the same in the stats they give so your choice of which one you use.

Tri-pots:   
Columbine + Mountain Flower + Bugloss + Lorkans Tears

Spell pots:   
Lady smock + Water Hyacinth + Cornflower + Lorkhan’s Tears

Food:
Minstral Banana-Bunny  Hash – Small game(1) + Bananas(2) + Seasoning(3)
Melon-Baked Parmesan Pork – White Meat(1) + Melon(2) + Cheese(3)
Solitude Salmon-Millet Soup – Fish(1) + Tomato(2) + Millet(3)

If you would like to make your own potions, I now have a fully functioning potion maker on the website. Here you can TEST any combination of potion or poison you like and check the outcome without having to know the combinations in-game! Check here for the App, working on Android and IOS – Potion Maker

Gear Setup

We are using the Ritual Mundus and we have 64 Attribute points into Max Magicka.

We are an Argonian but other races are also usable. Orc, Imperial, High Elf, Dark Elf, or Breton are good substitutes.

Optimal Setup

Flip horizontal on mobile device

SlotGear SetWeightTraitEnchantment
HeadNightflameMediumDivinesMagicka
ShouldersNightflameMediumDivinesMagicka
ChestLunar BastionHeavyDivinesMagicka
WaistLunar BastionHeavyDivinesMagicka
HandsLunar BastionHeavyDivinesMagicka
LegsLunar BastionHeavyDivinesMagicka
FeetLunar BastionHeavyDivinesMagicka
Ring 1Healing MageJewelryArcaneMagicka Recovery
Ring 2Healing MageJewelryArcaneMagicka Recovery
NecklaceHealing MageJewelryArcaneMagicka Recovery
Weapon 1Healing MageRestoration StaffPoweredWeapon / Spell Dmg
Weapon 2Healing Mage1 HandedDefending / PoweredStamina / Health
Weapon 3Healing MageShieldReinforcedMagicka

If you are VERY experienced and/or can maintain your resources indefinitely you can change the Magicka recovery glyphs for spell damage and get even STRONGER healers, but you WILL have to heavy attack a LOT to maintain it.

Remember, your healing over time skills have a duration. DON’T spam them and your resources are a LOT easier to manage.

Heavy attacks are one of the most BASIC skills/mechanics in the game. Understand them, use them, don’t skip the basics just because the cool kids think it is “boring bro”, have fun!

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