Just curious as to which healer class people are thinking of going. I have been going back and forth between the Templar and Sorcerer. Both I would use Resto Staff + Bow but cannot decide whether I want the extra CC from the Sorc or extra healing from the Templar. I am also curious if anyone tried a Dragonknight healer or Nightblade healer. I love the idea of any class being an effective healer in their own way.

I'm tempted to play a Sorc for healing and just use the staff as long as they can cast offensive spells while using a melee weapon. If not, I'll be going Templar.

I tried a lot of different kinds of classes during the beta, and enjoyed Nightblade healer the most.

Nightblade healer

Nightblade healer.

Immensely high burst dps and cc and with staff great healing.

I have two builds, one for NB and one for Templar.....Cant decide between the two. It seems that the NB will rock PVP, because a lot of the healing skills abilities leech from there targets. But templars just have some really great skills, and will be the standout high level healers.

Thinking of going with 1H/Sheild Imperial Templar with resto staff. Anyone know if thats viable with some of the changes? I feel like i paid for the darn imperial, mine as well play one!

I'm going Templar with a Bow, focused on high DPS, but with heal options - without switching weapons.

Then on the weapon switch will be 'full healer' spec with the staff.

Hmmmm im intrigued with the NB healer. I like the idea of being able to have high burt dps and still be able to heal. The only thing is that I will be playing with some friends who are all rolling DPS characters so thats why I was thinking Sorc for more CC to set up kills for my friends or the templar to keep them alive when taking loads of damage. Im going to take a look at the NB healing skills and hopefully be able to decide by Sunday.

Nightblade healer! I love the idea of being a "blood priestess", sapping the life energies of my enemies to heal my allies.

What is CC? And can someone go into more detail on why Nightblade is such a good healer? Looking at skills and nothing is really popping out.

Any class can be a decent healer if you focus on the restoration staff, and develop passive skills to boost magicka, wear light armor with magicka enchantments, etc.

The nightblade and the templar have a couple of additional healing spells beyond what you can learn from using a restoration staff. A nightblade healer is not how you might imagine a sneaky assassin type, simply a kind of mage who uses blood magic and restoration spells.

CC stands for Crowd Control - anything that roots, stuns, ectectect is considered CC. Very useful in PvP or when dealing with multiple enemies in PvE.

Here are some of my favorite skills for my nightblade healer:

Funnel Health - a DoT (damage over time) spell that causes a HoT (heal over time) effect on me AND another ally. A heal that also damages? Yes please.

Crippling Grasp - I hurt you, I imobilize you, AND I steal all your speed. Super useful for a squishy healer in robes! By the time you realize what's happening I've already gotten away!

Sap Essence - An AoE (area of effect) spell that boosts my weapon damage (on resto staff, this means it boosts my heals) AND heals my allies for every enemy I hit with it.

Dark Cloak - I go freaking INVISIBLE and can drop FOUR DoTs that are on me. Again, squishy healer - so useful! A healer that can disappear in PvP is going to be amazing.

Shadow Image - Excuse me while I summon this shadow from the underworld that lowers boss damage by 15%. That is 15% damage that I don't have to heal!

Reaper's Mark - In a dungeon and we're fighting a big group of trash mobs and I'm low on health? Let me just mark you so I can ignore 75% of your armor and when you die I get SIXTY percent of my health back, thanks.

Focused Attacks - Hitting with the heavy attack of the Resto staff heals my group and returns magicka to me, and this little buff gives me an extra 30% weapon attack speed so I can do it faster. Oh and hey let me just get my stamina back so I can dodge everything and never get hit, that'd be nice.

Those are just a FEW of the NB abilities, and I haven't even mentioned passives - the one that give you 20% boost to potions (TWENTY PERCENT BOOST TO MANA POTIONS YES PLEASE I'LL JUST BE OVER HERE CASTING *ALL* THE SPELLS), the one that gives you magicka when you kill someone with an assassination spell (Did I mention I can cast -all- the spells with my stupid amounts of mana?), the one that gives my extra ultimate when I hurt someone with a siphoning skill (Guess what my ultimate does : lots of damage, lots of heals - notice a pattern?).

I honestly don't know if nightblade is going to be the "best" healer. But goshdarn they are definitely the most fun, at least to me

Thanks for all those answers!

And thanks for the indepth explanation Aneres, very informative!

nb healer looks good for pvp, is he good compared to a mage or templar for the adventure zones? Dungeons, etc?

Yes, I think so - you can see a video here of two of us doing a 4-person dungeon: http://www.twitch.tv/elloawendy/c/3853848

You're welcome Knottypine! Glad to help. It was fun to type it all out

Orionas, a nightblade healer is certainly viable for PvE healing, but I have no idea how I'll hold up at endgame. My strong suits will be resource management - with my abilities I should be able to have tons and tons of magicka, especially wearing full light armor and gearing for + magicka regen. I'll also be able to dish out some buffs/debuffs/damage that will make fights easier overall. My weakness will be lack of burst healing. I don't have the big, single target, super strong heals that a templar does, so I'll need to be on top of layering my HoTs and make sure that I'm really paying attention to those health bars BEFORE they get to low. A templar can be more reactive in their healing, I will need to be more preventative.

At the moment Templar healers have bad mana regeneration, but it's fairly likely that it will be fixed before you reach endgame.

While people claim they can heal just fine as other clases, I'm going to "choose" to disbelieve them myself. The only class sufficient for healing is going to be, and always will be a Templar. This of course is due to burst healing rather than healing over time. Sure, in ESO, other classes are expected to avoid conflict, and such as enemies bash them down, but as I've played quite a few Mmorpgs's in my day, I know how PuG's work. Some are good, but most are bad, and rely solely on a dedicated healer (Templar), and if someone who is not such a class fails to do something, the entire party wipes. I'm strictly playing with friends, and being the healer (Templar), so, naturally, I don't expect any "Wipes" to happen. I get the idea other classes "Can" become some type of sub-healer, but, that's not the way I like to foresee this.

I prefer if there are classes in game, that classes will stick to what they do best, Sorc= Dps, Tank= Tank, and Healer=Healer. The "Holy Trinity". ESO has gone as far as making dedicated classes, and this sort of comes to a surprise, and sort of doesn't, but there's obviously reasoning behind it. They don't want people doing pure DPS, and want others to have "Dedicated roles". This of course is my opinion, but when you find monsters/enemies taking down chunks of HP at a time, I wouldn't solely want to rely on someone who is going to use a Restoration staff, doing healing over time. I'd much preferably take the guy who can burst heal AKA Templar.

Again it's my own opinion, and the class I'm going to choose, I personally cannot get around the idea of Healing Over Time, it just doesn't sit well with me. PvP, or PvE.