Welcome to Dottzgaming.com, I hope you enjoy your time here on the site! If you notice any issues, typos or errors anywhere, or if you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to use the contact form and reach out!

Image Alt

ESO Stamina Healing Guide

by
ESO Guides General

ESO Stamina Healing Guide

Author: Wigglytooth

Introduction

When one mentions Stamina healing, many emotions come to mind.  These can range from curiosity and surprise to fury and contempt.  Zenimax Online Studio with its upcoming patch, Scalebreaker, has increased the ways the stamina healer can be a viable alternative to its Magicka counterparts.  This work aims to break down the races, classes, and skills that may or may not excel using Stamina healing in endgame content.

My personal experience in Stamina healing has overall been a good one.  By far, my favorite playstyle in ESO with regards to healing.  The ability to run fast, solo world content, and still heal quite well makes Stamina healing loads of fun for me.  It takes practice and persistence to do harder content, but in the end I feel it makes you a better healer overall.

Class selection

Recently, I have given a lot of thought to which classes could be viable Stamina healers.  The one major idea that stood out was the concept of burst healing.  Each class has a resource heavy burst heal in their package.  However, only one class has a Stamina burst heal, and that is the Warden.  This is not to say that Stamina healing on other classes cannot be possible.  However, with a non-scaling burst heal, higher end encounters (i.e. veteran trials) may prove very difficult.

Burst healing by Class:

  • Dragon Knight:  Obsidian Shard (Magicka scaled)
  • Necromancer:  Blood Sacrifice (Magicka scaled)
  • Nightblade: Healthy Offering (Health cost, but Magicka Scaled)
  • Sorcerer: Twilight Matriarch Pet (Magicka scaled)
  • Templar: Breath of Life (Magicka scaled)
  • Warden: Fungal Growth (Magicka and Stamina scale based on Morph)

Wardens

Going into the Scalebreaker Patch, Warden will lead the way in terms of Stamina healing.  They have quite a few tools to make Stamina healing viable.

  1. Soothing Spores (Morph of Fungal Growth) – Provides a powerful Stamina scaled burst heal.
  2. Green Lotus (Morph of Lotus Flower) – Provides passive omnidirectional healing through light attacking.
  3. Bursting Vines (Morph of Nature’s Grasp) – While not a Stamina skill, scales with your highest stat to provide mobility and an alternative burst option.  It’s seeing a 13% buff in Scalebreaker.
  4. Secluded Grove Ultimates – Both morphs provide nice options to this playstyle.  The low cost makes this skill really shine as an emergency heal.
  5. Bull Netch (Morph of Betty Netch) – FREE resource return and Weapon Damage to buff healing.

The Warden kit also provides passive Major Mending from healing allies under 40% health, resource return from the Nature’s Gift passive, increased healing via the Emerald Moss passive, and finally the ability to provide the unique Minor Toughness buff to allies when you heal them.

Grade:  A

Nightblades

  1. Healthy Offering (Morph of Malevolent Offering) – This Health based burst heal with a built in Minor Mending buff is very attractive for Stamina healers.  One must note however this skill scales with Magicka and may not be suitable burst in more difficult content.
  2. Leeching Strikes (Morph of Siphoning Strikes) – Provides excellent resource return on light attack.
  3. Power Extraction (Morph of Drain Power) – Provides Major Brutality and passives grants 3% healing through the Soul Siphoner passive.

The Nightblade would prove a great option for a Stamina healer.  The lack of a scaled burst heal is a concern however could be compensated for with proper gearing.  An Argonian with its racial healing buffs, alongside some +healing% gear may make this class shine as a Stamina healer.

Grade:  B+

 Templars

The meta healers of ESO also have nice tools with regards to Stamina healing.

  1. Repentance (Morph of Restoring Aura) – a no cost heal with stamina return for the user.  A VERY powerful tool.  Only drawback is you need corpses to repent.  Not useful on some boss fights.
  2. Extended Ritual (Morph of Cleansing Ritual) – High Magicka cost skill that scales with highest stat.  Provides a cleanse and its healing was recently buffed for the Scalebreaker patch.  Standing in this spell’s area of effect gives the Minor Mending buff.
  3. Honor the Dead (Morph of Rushed Ceremony) – A Magicka burst heal which is Magicka scaled.  However, 60% of its Magicka returned when used on allies under 75% health.  Would take some getting used to and definitely couldn’t be spammed in an emergency.
  4. Practiced Incantation (Morph of Rite of Passage) – Powerful AOE healing ultimate.
  5. Master Ritualist Passive – faster resurrection times in cases of emergency,
  6. Luminous Shards (Morph of Spear Shards) – Gives an alternative to Energy Orbs for group sustain.

Templars have a great number of tools to support this playstyle.  Repentance is amazing for keeping your stamina topped off late in rough encounters.  Lack of a consistent scaling burst heal seems to be of concern.

Grade:  B

Dragon Knights

While Dragon Knight have been buffed gradually throughout the patches, their ability to do Stamina healing would be quite dubious.  Let’s look at their kit.

  1. Obsidian Shard (Morph of Stonefist) – Magicka Scaled burst heal.  On casting however, several passives come into effect.  The Mountain’s Blessing passive gives 10% weapon damage to assist with Stamina type healing as well as Ultimate Regeneration.  Additionally the Helping Hands passive will help with Stamina sustain.
  2. Cauterize (Morph of Inferno) – While it is a low cost passive heal that will now scale with stamina, it gives Major Prophecy, which is useless for any Stamina based healing.  It will provide some boost of Obsidian Shard.
  3. Obsidian Shields cost a decent amount of Magicka, and give Major Mending, however, last a limited time and in my opinion not be viable for Stamina healing.
  4. Igneous Weapons will provide Major Brutality, however, costs Magicka and would eat into your already small Magicka pool.

Overall, Dragon Knights would require a lot of thought and patience to bring Stamina healing into their kits.  There is too much dependency on Magicka to make it work.  With the lack of a healing ultimate, a restoration staff would have to be used, which will lower all of your output with Stamina abilities.

Grade :   D

Sorcerer

While Magicka Sorcerers are strong healers, as Stamina there are a lot of drawbacks.

  1. Twilight Matriarch (Morph of Winged Twilight) – Magicka based burst with some advantages to Stamina healing through passives.  Daedric Protection provides 20% Stamina recovery as well as 8% max health.
  2. Bound Armaments (Morph of Bound Armor) – provides a passive 8% max Stamina boost.
  3. Dark Deal (Morph of Dark Exchange) – Exchanges Magicka for Health and Stamina and additional Stamina over time.  Handy.
  4. Noteworthy passives here are Power Stone (reduced ult cost) and Unholy Knowledge (reduced Stamina costs)
  5. Suppression Field – (Morph of Negate Magic) – While it does heal, it’s expensive and not the best healing alt.  Does provide crowd control however.

I feel the Sorcerer kit would have to rely on the healing of other abilities outside it’s kit to make it work.  There’s a lot of good utility in the Sorcerer skill, but as a Stamina healer I feel there are better options.

Grade:   C

Necromancer

Necromancers are good Magicka healers, let’s look at what skills would assist the Stamina playstyle.

  1. Blood Sacrifice (morph of Render Flesh) – Provides Magicka scaled burst that comes with self applied Minor Defile.  This however boosts your healing by 8% via the Curative Curse passive.  The debuff only lasts 4 seconds however. Not something you could spam and be effective.
  2. Mortal Coil (morph of Restoring Tether) – Provides 3% healing buff passively and Stamina recovery at a cost of Magicka.  This ability also generates Ultimate every 16 seconds through Corpse Consumption.  Also provides a heal over time.  Good for cast every now and then.
  3. Intensive Mender (Morph of Spirit Mender) – Great omnidirectional heal.  However, with its 8 second uptime, would consume a large portion of your Magicka pool, which could cause you to be lacking in times of burst situations.
  4. Renewing Animation (Morph of Reanimate) – This gem of an ultimate is situational, but amazing in times of need. (or when doing progression runs).  Allows you to recover from any healing mistakes you may have.

The necro kit is an interesting choice for a Stamina based healer, however, I feel there are better choices.

Grade:   C-

Non class kit Stamina healing options

These are the skills can be used by any class to obtain some form of healing that is not class nor Magicka based.

Assault line:  Echoing Vigor (Morph of Vigor) – The bread and butter Stamina healer skill.  Will only have to be used every 10 seconds, but will need supplemental healing to be effective.  Will affect 6 people.

Fighter’s Guild:  Ring of Preservation (Morph of Circle of Protection) – In Scalebreaker this will be changed to a healing skill.  Very effective to keep people up as long as people stay within its 5 meter radius.  Slotting this will give you 3% weapon damage through the Slayer passive in the Fighter’s guild.

Psijic Order: Mend Wounds (choice of Morph) – Makes your light and heavy attacks heal.  Can be tricky to target, but the healing is free.  Can recover Magicka with heavy attacks to help burst sustain on classes with high Magicka burst skills.

Undaunted: Energy Orb (Morph of Necrotic Orb):  Orb was changed in Scalebreaker to be single cast, but able to be activated by multiple people.  Won’t heal for much, but it’s the only option to provide resources to your group if you do not have Shards or the Symphony of Blades monster helmet.

Weapon Choices

Since Stamina heals scale from Weapon Damage, let’s look at our options in terms of weapons regarding how it affects Stam healing.

Bow:  Gives a passive Weapon Critical bonus, dodging gives you Major Expedition

Dual Wield:  The Duel Wield Expert passives gives 6% to offhand Weapon Damage, dual wielding daggers will give you a large Weapon Critical bonus (Twice that of the Bow Line)

Two Handed: Momentum gives Major Brutality, but that’s about it.

One hand & Shield: The Sword and Board passive gives a flat 5% weapon damage

While you ‘could’ use Restoration staves for the passives, they will add nothing to your weapon damage and should be avoided if you wish to use Stamina skills to heal.

Racial Choices

While there are some optimal races for Stamina healing, others are lackluster.  Let’s take a look what each brings to the table.

  • Argonian:  6% healing done.  Health Buff, Magicka buff, potion recovery.
    • Grade: A-
  • Breton: Increased Mag, Lower Mag cost, Mag recovery.  Not for Stam.
    • Grade: F
  • Dunmer: Plus Stam and Mag, Increased Spell and Weapon Dmg.  Not bad.
    • Grade: B
  • Altmer: Spell Recharge is dubious here.  Rest is Mag.
    • Grade: D
  • Imperial:  Health, Stam and cost reduction. Decent.
    • Grade: B-
  • Khajiit: Resource recoveries, Max resources and crit healing.  Nice!
    • Grade: A+
  • Nord:  Health, Stam and ultimate regen. Better choices.
    • Grade: C
  • Orc: Health, Stam, Speed and WD Not bad.
    • Grade: B+
  • Redguard: Stam and Stam recovery.
    • Grade: C+
  • Bosmer:  Stamina, Stam recovery, and Speed.
    • Grade: A

Champion Points

Rather than give a specific chart of points to place is certain Champion Point allocations, I will present you with the choices I deem important for a Stamina healer.  Point placement will be determined by Class and Race choices.  In general, a Stam healer should be focusing on these areas.

Blue tree:

  • Blessed – Increases Healing done.
  • Precise Strikes – Increases Stamina Healing.

Green Tree:

  • Mooncalf – Stamina Recovery is an imperative.
  • Tenacity – Stamina Recovery through heavy attacks.

Red Tree:

  • Quick Recovery – A dead healer heals no one.

There are many damage, defensive, and utility choices you can choose, but I will not mention them here.  Add points to wherever you feel your build is lacking.

Stamina Healer Gear

There are a few gear choices for stam healing, some giving, some selfish.  Here’s the gear I recommend.

Group sets:

  1. Powerful Assault. – This set is purchased with TelVar from Imperial City vendors.  Gives a good buff to your group directly with Spell or Weapon damage when using Vigor or Caltrops.
  2. Spell Power Cure – It’s a Magicka set, but the buff is just too good to pass up. Makes up in Weapon Damage what it lacks in Stamina.
  3. Hircine’s Veneer – Helps your Stamina costs as well as Stamina allies in group.
  4. Sanctuary – I’m not a huge fan of this set for Stamina healers, but it has its uses.  I feel the same thing can be done with the Ritual Mundus but with no limited range restrictions.
  5. War Machine – Interesting option for buffing.

Selfish/Secondary sets:

  1. Battlefield Acrobat – Stamina recovery and lower cost for ALL abilities.
  2. Briarheart – While I have never tested this personally, skills like Caltrops will trigger this effect and grant more weapon damage and bigger Stamina healing ticks.
  3. Draugr Hulk – Massive amounts of Stamina.
  4. Coward’s Gear – Health and Stam recovery with Speed.
  5. Fiord’s Legacy – Never used, could be good.
  6. Hide of the Werewolf – If you have a high cost Ultimate to contend with.
  7. Leviathan – For nice critical heals.
  8. Quick Serpent – Stamina, crit and lowered Stamina cost.  Nice.
  9. Trappings of Invigoration – Warlock’s set for Stamina.

Conclusion

This treatise was created to provide options to those looking for something out of the norm, who want to challenge themselves as a healer in ESO.  My experience with Stamina healing has made me a better healer overall, as I am able to see where the classes shine and when you start to become a burden to the group.  All in all, the Stamina healing playstyle is one of the most enjoyable I have encountered.  It can be arduous for those who are newer to the game and may not have the resources to obtain the gear needed.

There are times, (especially if you are lower CP) where people will look at you with scorn when doing any sort of dungeons, thinking you are a DPS trying to get a faster queue.

Rest assured, when done correctly, Stamina healers are a viable alternative for those looking for something fun and out of the box.

Enjoy!

 

Related Posts
by
by
by