Can I main heal dungeons as a Justicar hybrid?

My cleric is still pretty low: level 37. He's had good success as a Inq/Just/Warden hybrid in PVP... now I'm wondering if I can do something similar to main heal PVE dungeons. Its is possible (or still possible after all Justicar changes in the past few days)? Have a recommended "-icar" build, or better yet, a guide you can point me to?

PS: I had a fifty cleric on the Defiant side, and played lots of variants of Sent / Pur / Warden. I didn't find spamming slow-casting direct heals very fun. Hoping for something more mobile, but still able to cope with burst damage!

~Jeep

The Justicar build I use is very effective for off-heals. In addition to the "splash" healing that Justicars do with Reparation there are three other heals I have (21 points in Justicar): 1. the self-heal 2. Group heal 3. Doctrine of Righteousness (heals whoever has your Righteous Mandate) Then there's the spillover from Righteous Mandate where any heals you receive when you're at full health go to the Righteous Mandate target. I typically cast Righteous Mandate on the tank since he's typically the one taking damage. In my experience this build is very good for offheals on the tank, and for spamming group heals when something hits everyone (places like xCC or xAP on the last boss come to mind). But what it's not so good at is direct heals on a random person who doesn't have the righteous mandate. Plus there's no "oh ####" button where you can keep someone alive who's just gotten aggro at the wrong time. Plus there's the fact that all the heals are based on having a Conviction. You can only have 4 Convictions and Convictions decay after 30 seconds. So if you're in a situation where you're running around and can't melee you'd be out of luck to heal. Looking further up the Justicar tree, I don't know that Justicars get any general targetable heals, so I'd have to say I doubt you could be the main healer in a dungeon. Of course, combining the Justicar with one of the "mainline" healers and you'd be able to overcome those drawbacks. I could see combining Justicar with some of the heal-over-time abilities of the Warden, or with the Purifier shields. It would be an interesting thing to try. So try it and let us know how it works. :D

» Edited on: 2011-06-29 17:22:56

In general the answer is no, you can't primarily heal t2 dungeons without some help unless you or the tank seriously overgears them. That being said, there are builds like the so-called Senticar that put out some single target healing while also having Justicar abilities. But these builds still typically rely on spammed single target heals from Sentinel to keep a tank up. The reality is that the Justicar's healing abilities on others come from three sources: Righteous Mandate amplifying Salvation, heals that use Convictions, and Reparation. So let's take a look at each. Justicars have an ability called Salvation. Untalented, it gives you a 40% chance to heal yourself for 10% of justicar abilities and 5% of other abilities. Talented this goes to 100% chance to heal for 25% of Justicar abilities and 11% of others. A Cleric with 14 points in Justicar can cast Righteous Mandate on one person. That person receives any excess healing from Salvation. In other words, if you're topped off, you're popping heals on your Mandate target that are basically equal to 25 or 11% of the damage done, depending. This is obviously FAR less than a Chloromancer. The second form of healing is from Conviction-based abilities. For healing others, you're looking at either Loyalty (a 10 person, non-smart heal that heals the 10 closest players for a significant amount instantly), Bliss (heals you, waste of time), or Righteousness (heals your Mandated target for a bit more than Loyalty due to a higher base value). Each of these three Doctrines scale in the same way, meaning the only difference is base heal value. Spamming Righteousness on a tank is a better bet than spamming Loyalty, but only if you're only really trying to heal the tank. The third form of healing is from Reparation. Reparation converts 25% of damage done by Justicar abilities and 10% of all other abilities into aoe healing centered around the Justicar. So now with that out of the way... You can see that if you want to heal how you'd describe, you need to both amplify your damage AND amplify your instants. I run a fun melee 32inquisitor/20shaman/14justicar hybrid that can put out some very good aoe healing, but for single target healing I would probably go a different route. My melee hybrid aoe healer is pretty good at it's job, though. I have several macros for different situations and if you're curious about the build, let me know. There's an alternative called "inquisicar" which is a ranged aoe healing support build. Again, nothing like a primary healer, but it can generate convictions at range and pump out some decent AoE HPS. I've recently been discussing with Lybra an alternative spec that would go deep into Warden for Overflow because a high crit rate + Doctrine of Loyalty should proc a ton of Overflows. The advantage here is you gain 15% to instant heals, and 15% to HoTs. You could maintain a stack of soothing stream on the tank. But ultimately this is way more of an aoe healing spec idea...

Actually, I single heal T2's all the time as a Senticar with ease. And I even put out a little bit of DPS doing it. However, the Senticar build is not very viable until you have around 46+ points to spend. That's what you need to put like 35 points into Sent and then enough to get Mandate and stuff in Justicar. Also it's not a mana efficient build, so you'll probably run out of mana quickly at lower levels. And of course, you need Focus to use it in expert dungeons and raids so it's not very friendly to the beginner healer at 50 either. But once your gear is good enough, it's a great spec to use. You have a maximum of 5 instant AoE heals with 4 Convictions for DoL and 1 Divine Call. Also a talented Healing Breath serves as a quasi AOE spell too. Not only that, but using AOE spells generally means you will crit on someone and that procs Serendipity which then speeds up your next Healing Invocation. Healer's Breath, Touch the Light, and Serendipity sped HI's are more than enough burst healing to keep a tank up with ease. Not to mention Healer's Communion too of course. You just have to restore your mana through Purpose all the time. Which can take some getting used to. And renewing your Convictions constantly through all your instant cast life spells in both souls. Properly played you can single heal a whole raid for a time. Last week, Lumina and I were the only 2 true healers in our GP raid and we'd have to trade off single healing the entire raid against Uruluuk when the other was crystalled. And I didn't have any trouble keeping the tank up and keeping the raid up from his AoE's. Of course neither did Lumi as a Purifier too. So it's not like a Senticar is a better healer than a traditional Ward/Sent Puri/Sent etc cleric, but they are definitely viable. And then there's all the utility you bring to the raid on top of that. But that's another post lol.

Very helpful answers, thanks. I already have some Inquisicar experience from my PVP build, plus I've been using a baby "Duracell" build for solo. So I have a nice little macro for building Convictions, and Purpose is already second nature. For Sentinel tank heals (as Senticar), which do you spam? I have macro for Touch the Light + Healing Invocation, but I'm not sure what to use when TtL is on cooldown. Do you ever use Reprieve? @Zavrin's "I've recently been discussing with Lybra an alternative spec that would go deep into Warden for Overflow": I've been heading that way for my warfronts spec: Inq 11/Just 14/Warden rest... I don't have Overflow yet, but the AE healing is already very nice!

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 08:34:38

I rarely use HC or Reprieve actually but they are good emergency buttons. Healer's Haste is another useful skill that I rarely use but can come in handy in a pinch. As for tank heals, I really only use Healing Breath and Healing Invocation. If I need burst heals, I'll throw in a DoL heal to proc Serendipity and Protect the Flock and then hit HI again. HB, TtL + HI, DoL, HI again will be about 8k+ heals (noncrit) in a 6 second span including GCD's. And of course if your Convictions are up you still have 3 more DoL's and a Divine Call at your disposal. Like I said earlier, I use the AOE heals to proc Serendipity to speed up my HI's. Tip on multiple mobs: Using Even Justice (which is talented with 31 pts in Just) is pretty decent heals on your tank with Reparation plus Righteous Mandate overheals. Plus it's fun to hit things lol. The Senticar is tremendous in PvP because of your added survivability skills (-15% less dmg reduction is nice) and your ability to pump out enormous burst AOE healing in a short amount of time. Add in an AOE cleanse, a silence, and an AOE interrupt plus 2 battle rezzes and you can really irritate the other side...which is when they CC you to death lol. Sure you can't kill anything but that's why you bring along those dudes with the nice shiny legendary weapons with you. ;0 The beauty of the Senticar is almost all your spells are instant cast so you rarely have to stand still. However, you will be drinking ALOT lol. And like I said, once they realize you're the dude who's pumping out the crazy AOE heals, they really focus fire alot on you. (I used to equip a shield and then equip a totem in PvP because previously there was a graphical bug where the shield would still remain. But they fixed that so I can't pretend I'm a tank anymore lol) I've seen discussions where the 51ward/11 inq build has been talked about for AOE healing. With AR in Inq and Cascade in Ward, you have a means to refresh your mana pool every 2 minutes or so which allows you to AoE heal basically with limitless mana. I tested it but the reduced range of some of the Warden AOE heals made it seem less effective for me. That and it wasn't bursty enough for me. For sustained AoE heals tho, it works pretty well.

More good info, thanks Bentmer! Drinking a lot, no problemo. Drinks are cheap and fast. Based on your tips, I'm guessing your sent/just build is something like this: Senticar 35/31

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 13:42:32

Hmm, i think you scan skip all of the block talents in justicar, since you probably won't be using a shield ever (and if you did your block rating would be very low anyway). Light makes right is a must have for me and devout deflection is handy for pvp and the rare cases you pull agro. Sentinel tree is about preferences, but I'm personally not a fan of the hot on hc, and i think enraptured hb is very nice so my tree is a little different. Anywho this is what I prefer: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00jrx.EoEhbszco.yhMooeszoo

I feel kinda like senticar is really hardly a Justicar hybrid unless you are purely talking about putting points in justicar, and not trying to use it as a DPS hybrid-healer. It may have 31 points in Justicar, but it's about as pure a healing build as you can because it is absolutely abysmal DPS outside of spamming Even Justice. I know these days people don't need single target heals on the tanks we run with because of gear, but when I played Senticar gearing up (granted this was olden days of T1s and T2s) I had to spam HI to keep tanks up. perhaps with the nerfs etc you don't need to use your single target heals out of the tree outside of Serendipity procs, I don't know, but don't play a Senticar thinking it is a DPS hybrid, even though you can spam even justice on trash for some damage. As to 51 warden, that is not what I was talking about, but 51 warden is the king of aoe healing when played properly since it has smart aoe heals, whereas justicars are left with a non-smart heal that just happens to heal half the raid, which is very nice. The two work nicely together because Warden pushes duration-HPS and "icar" hybrids are good at burst aoe healing for a short period. I was talking about going 26 into Warden to buff the instant heals and pick up Overflow so that every single crit DoL would add an extra few hundred on top of what it already does. The nice thing was that it buffed instant spells by 10% (which is nice for Jolt and Justicar's instants), aoe heals by 15% and hots by 10%. It'd still be capable of picking up RM out of Justicar and Jolt out of shaman for some decent melee damage, but not that great a ranged build (aside from waterjet which is stupid good). edit: actually how they designed the tree, you kinda hurt your "hybrid" nature by going too deep into Justicar because you have to pick up a ton of random stuff that isn't directly related to healing or DPS and often kind of a waste... but Senticar is a good healing build because it has a ton of utility and still strong AOE and ST heals. I misunderstood your question and thought you were after a DPS hybrid build (a cleric chloromancer) and not just a very mobile traditional healer :)

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 15:44:56

The only differences from your spec and mine are: I took Light Makes Right instead of Doctrine of Bliss. I never heal myself and DoB is a pretty weak heals anyways. I maxxed out Embolden and I specced into Shards of Light. And I didn't put points into Light Efficiency. It's preference really but I'm more worried about the effective radius of my heals than the actual strength of them. Shards of Light is actually pretty good dps (relatively speaking lol) and it procs Light Makes Right quite a bit for me too. I use it mainly when I have nothing to do lol. Reparation heals via damage are not very strong compared to an Inquisitor/Justicar build but they do help a little bit so having an extra dps spell is nice. Zav, she never asked for a dps spec. She asked for a spec with Justicar that she could main heal with and where she didn't have to deal with long cast times. I think a Senticar matches both criteria. As for healing over geared ppl, that has no bearing on the effectiveness of a Senticar. The key to tank healing as a Sentinel has always been spamming HI in conjunction with Serendipity procs and using timely CD's like HC, HH, TtL, HB, and DC. The Justicar part just adds more AoE heals to the equation. By saying you can't main heal a tank as a Senticar would be the same as saying that you can't main heal as a Sentinel period which is completely untrue. I spent the majority of my T1 and T2 time healing as a Sentinel. And that was back when it took us 3 hours to clear DSM on a good night.

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 15:51:29

@Lakshmi, yeah, that build is nice because with soul drain you'll have some fun AoE damage. Warden does pump both your Justicar heals and your inquisitor instant damage sources. Inquisitor's mobility helps a lot, and the healing out of Justicar/Warden is nice. I was going to run this build for PvP but I never really got to try it: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00dre.Exkbgtkqz.guMo.Vx0z so I don't know how well it works. It's much more of a traditional PvP dps build. I think it'd be fun to try a hybrid warden-justicar healer. Waterjet is astonishingly good damage when you've got things like Inquisitor dots running, but the lack of building convictions kinda hurts it at times. I found that a modified duracell build was really good for offhealing/DPSing instances, and I could keep most tanks up with it through trash. But again, this is in better gear than what you just get upon reaching 50. The one thing to note about Clerics is you need 22 points in Justicar if you ever want to queue as "support," so I carried senticar for much longer than I actually used it to be able to queue as support. :D @ Bentmer, I never said you can't main heal a tank as senticar, quite the opposite. It is how I opened my first post on the matter up above, and I just realized saying "so called" may have made you or others think I was insulting the build when I just meant that to read "called". If I said that in my second post, it was certainly a mistake. I did say that I needed to use my *sentinel* abilities to keep a tank up, which at times made me feel like I was wasting a ton of points in Justicar for virtually no reason, though, because I almost never needed 2 battle rezzes. The point of my last post was that Senticar is not a hybrid spec at all as I think of it. I misunderstood Lakshmi's request, thinking "hybrid" meant capable of actually doing some damage, instead of having some justicar in it. I don't consider the builds I was talking about to be pure DPS builds because they take healing abilities to augment and help heal, making them hybrids to me, hence my confusion. Since she was talking about an inquisitor/justicar/warden, I had thought she wanted a hybrid DPS build, so I just misunderstood her request, that's all! Senticar certainly fulfills the need of a mobile healer that doesn't need to stand and spam like a purifier.

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 16:31:51

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 16:33:49

Bentmer is right... I'm just looking for a main heal spec without long cast times. I think you guys have shown me a way to get there -- thanks! PS: When I want to DPS I use a "duracell" build... justicar with a little Inq and lots of Shaman. It's wonderful. :)

Lybra really likes pure Warden a lot for healing too but few people go Warden/Justicar (something I think I may try at some point), and if you've tried pure healing as warden on Defiant, hopefully Senticar can be what you want :) Misunderstood your request is all!

» Edited on: 2011-06-30 16:50:58

If there was a way to make water jet do life damage, warden justicars would rule the world.

@Zavrin - yeah Warden + Sent was my spec on Defiant side. I main healed some T1/T2s with that, pre-nerf, but I found I wished for more big, single target healing. I guess I should try it again though... with the nerfs maybe it's adequate now. Although... my main in Warhammer was a warrior priest. I loved that melee healing style, so... ;)

Fun with a warrior priest is what inspires most of my crazy melee DPS offhealing builds. It's also why I am thinking of trying a different warden build, because you can put out some decent HPS that way and still potentially do some decent melee damage, especially with a focus macro! I'll have to try it a bit. Were you running 44 warden/22 sentinel, or one of the 3x/3x specs before? Clerics in general have an easier time with t1/t2s now post nerf, heh.

» Edited on: 2011-07-02 05:06:28

(sorry about the blank post above, somehow formatting got corrupted in it.) Were you running 44 warden/22 sentinel, or one of the 3x/3x specs before? 32 warden, rest split between sentinel and purifer about equally, IIRC.

» Edited on: 2011-07-02 05:07:41