In this guide we’ll examine the mechanics and requirements for healing E17 NYR.
Gear:
While it is possible to heal NYR in full e17 level dps gear or lower level healing gear, it is recommended to have at least generic signets for your head, neck and finger talismans, for min maxing purposes you want weapon specific signets, head signet for healing should be cooldown reduction. BiS healing gear is ideal, but not necessary. Most of the “on proc” effects are applied either on defensive target (99% of the time in NYR that is you) or randomly which is useful, but not particularly so. Not having signet bonus (by running wrong signets) will severely restrict your healing output to the point of risking random wipes but the raid should still be clearable.
Weapon Selection:
You can heal raid with either Blood or Fist mainhand, using AR to heal raid, while technically possible is, in essence, griefing and should only be attempted if the entire raid consents to the experience. Offhand weapon is universally shotgun due to the ability to use Clean up and Opening shot buffs, but if you don’t have shotgun and are too cheap to buy green shotgun from the AH or just petulant you can use Blade and cleanse with Soothing Spring instead.
Gadget Choice
There’s a number of gadgets you can take for various purposes, among them are Concentrated Anima Jet (To heal Tank or Pod Target), Fey Line Stone (To teleport for placing filth or escaping the hulk), Phoenician Support Stratagem (To avoid pushback from fist waves), *Unification Susceptibility Module" (To prevent yourself from dying in a pod) and Osmium Configuration (to prevent yourself from dying in a pod and to avoid pushback from fist waves. Be aware that in addition to defence bonus and knockback immunity it also applies a hefty slow)
Blood Build
Import Via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%7361908%-%7359161%-%7359070%-%7359153%-%5848444%-%5847979%-%PS%-%9284014%-%9284017%-%9284001%-%9284012%-%9284008%
Comparatively speaking, Blood has better burst healing than Fist, due to the heals applying instantly instead of over time, however overhealing and wasting energy is possible (although abilities having cast times helps dps to take more damage so that the healing isn’t wasted) so care must be taken not to overcast group heals. You have an advantage of triple cleanse, as Expunge will cleanse as long as it’s alive and it’s a great cooldown to prevent pod deaths and group taking damage from things like personal space debuff and filth pools.
Fist Build
Import Via Boobuilds
BD%-%VER%-%1.0%-%SK%-%7361908%-%9267183%-%7355924%-%7355991%-%5848031%-%5847979%-%PS%-%9286708%-%9286718%-%9286717%-%9286709%-%9286710%
Fist is undeniably a superior healing output weapon as having access to essentially 2nd bar of energy free abilities let’s you carelessly dump all of your energy and take no hit to healing output as you switch to Invigorating Wrath and use your new abilities to heal while also regenerating energy on crit. Serenity passive is intended to prevent you from being stuck in Wrath when cleansing is required so you can quickly cast it and exit wrath to cleanse.
What you have to do in Raid as a healer:
1) Heal people so that they don’t die.
Pretty straightforward, basic ability should be used at all times unless you’re using anything else, group heals are cast either when there’s a group damage event (Personal Space debuff, filth circles after Shadow Out of Time),someone in your group is in a pod and requires a stronger heal or your tank needs a stronger than basic heal)
2) Cleanse people so that they don’t die in AoE
There are several events that require cleansing in NYR, namely Slow before Shadow Out Of Time, Slow after Personal Space (Triggers at the same time as Infecting Thoughts debuff after the AoE lands) and Root before From Beneath you It Devours (pod). Cleansing is done with either Clean Up or your Elite ability. Cleansing with Communion is generally easier than cleansing with Regeneration as it cleanses on both first and last tick instead of just on the last so you don’t have to, for example, wait for dps to take damage from personal before cleansing them. Clean Up is always a better choice to cast if you have it up, because it doesn’t compromise your future healing output and in case of several successive cleanses required within 10 seconds it will cleanse both of them. Keep in mind that both abilities do have range so if you are extremely far back you will need to move closer before cleansing.
3) Place filth drops, avoid fist waves and herd the mobs and Hulk that spawn after Shadow out of Time
(Circles are ideal filth drop placement locations, green line is the range of healing and cleanse abilities and zombie hands denote hulk and add spawns)
At the start of the raid you will chose a side that you will be healing from (either left or right half) Every once in a while a person that is outside of the grate zone will be targeted with a filth drop AoE that they will have to place. Ideally that should be a healer but occasionally it will be one of the dps that is outside for whatever reason. (picking up NPC, running back after personal, etc. If they drop filth where you don’t want you, make sure to give them a stern talking to after the raid. Or just let them die in a pod) When you get a filth circle, the ideal way to place them is as close to the side of the map as possible and overlapping them onto each other so that you get the most usable space. Having weapon of Alacrity and Signet of Quickness greatly helps with that but is not required.
Every time Lurker’s fist comes down, it will eject a small wave of filth (looking like a dark blob on the ground) that will travel in a random curving direction, if it collides with anyone it will send them flying in a direction opposite of the one the wave hit them from as well as applying a 5 second knockdown. Landing in filth pool is practically lethal. As is landing next to a hulk or a herd of mobs. It is possible to precleanse the knockdown if you see that you’re not able to move out of it’s path but that only works if you’re not landing in something that will immediately kill you.
Proper positioning and awareness is best way to prevent that, followed by using Phoenician Support gadget. Filth waves will collapse if they hit an obstacle such as a car or a rubble pile so you can hide behind those from a wave, explosion resulting from a collapse will also send you flying so make sure to be on the other side of the obstacle or just far away from it. The filth wave will pass under a trunk or a front bumper of a car but will hit a wheel and it has a tendency of delaying an effect from explosion so that you might get pushed back long after the wave seemingly dissipated.
If you get targeted by a pod while out best course of action is to move in between the grate and middle lamp post so that you’re out of reach of a stray fist, but within reach of most of the DPS. To prevent yourself from dying you can use Expunge, Gadget or at least cast a group heal over time if you’re using Fist. After each Shadow out of Time wave a number of adds and a Hulk will spawn and gain aggro on either one of the healers or a shotgun tank. If the hulk targets you you must treat it the same as a pod - your job is to move as close to the grate as possible without getting in danger so that the hulk is moving towards the tank for ease of being grabbed. It will not be possible to outrun the hulk if you don’t have either weapon of Alacrity or Signet of Quickness, so pre-empt the hulk drop-kicking your ass for 70000 damage by not being there when it spawns.
Notes:
While healing is mostly done by casting your basic attack on yourself and letting the second portion of it go on the tank (healing the lowest health member of the group), it’s worth noting that the basic heal in this case will go on the lowest member of the raid, not group, so if you’re trying to heal your tank while they’re not taking any damage and their health just wont budge, it’s likely that you’re healing another Tank that is currently taking more damage and has lower health. Your options in that situations are to either use group heal so that your Tank gets topped up or target them manually so that now you will basically heal both tanks at once (can be hard to do since that requires you to move in range of targeting that is quite limited), or you can just let them pull without being at full hp if you hate them.
Positioning:
There are 2 ways to position as healer as noted here. Optimal green and sub optimal red one.
Red positioning has a benefit of allowing you to very easily place filth with minimal movement and effort but has many trade-offs in return. If you are healing from the right sidewalk you will be at risk of not reaching the tank with your basic healing bounce, reduce the tank’s protections by stripping them of one stack on their USM gadget increasing the damage they take, both on left and right side walks being far away from the grate will make you more susceptible to being podded out of position as well as making it easier for the hulk to reach you and make it much harder to use Anima Jet gadget on the tank (especially from the right side walk)
Green positioning, while making it slightly harder to place filth (you will actually have to move a little bit) eliminates all of the above mentioned issues - you will never get podded out of position since it only takes you 1.5 seconds to get to the podding place in front of the lamp post, you only need to jump on the rubble pile / police car to be able to use anima jet on the tank and all of your cleanses / heals will always reach everyone wherever they are (including other healer if they are in a pod for example)
Common mistakes
PSA: The only valid excuse you have as a healer for dying to a hulk is that you were in a pod. A very common sight is a beginner healer sitting in the red spot on the positioning chart after shadow out of time passes waiting for the hulk to come and kick them without making even a slight effort to move anywhere else. You know where the hulk spawns, you know when the hulk spawns and you know where the hulk is going to go (after one of the healers). There’s never a circumstance when you have to be anywhere in the same zip code area as the hulk. Staying in the corner distracts the tank for longer, it takes them more time to kill the hulk, extending the fight needlessly. Don’t be that healer!
E10 Differences:
In e10 only pod casts require cleansing, and all the filth placing duty is laid upon you as a sole healer, since filth casts are less frequent it’s not a huge increase and you have twice as much space to place filth because there’s no second healer on the other side of the raid zone. You will also have to heal both tanks at once, but the damage amount in e10 raid is significantly lower than in e17 so that should not present a problem.
Tank Species
Shotgun tank: Your best friend. You should be able to heal them while being blindfolded and fully asleep
Chaos tank: Eh, they’re fine, taking slightly more damage than shotgun tanks but still not much. Unless they are running elementalism offhand. cough
Hammer Tank: Hammer tanks are Chads. They know they’re running the worst weapon and they embrace it. The most fun type to heal, their hp will bounce between 100-20-100 in a span of one basic heal and once you’re podded and they are not getting any healing they will die in 3 seconds because their mitigation doesn’t exist. 10/10.