The Secret World Heal Tank Hybrid Guide

The Secret World Heal Tank Hybrid Guide by Elsy

There’s another post around currently about tanking as a healer. This is not what I’m getting at here. I’m talking about a tank build that does a little bit of damage, a moderate amount of self healing, but still stacks defensive stats.

Background:
I’ve played a Healer mostly. I do a Blood/Fist deck very similar to the Templar Exorcist deck. I’ve started moving into elite dungeons, and I’m mostly QL10 blue (for my heal set at least). Most of the groups I’m in consider me a very good healer. But I simply cannot solo heal certain single-target fights with no assistance. Part of this is because Blood has barrier stacking issues, and I probably have a lot to learn there. But, by ‘assistance’, I mean -30% enemy damage and/or offheals. Offheals can be done by an assault rifle DPS. But, considering how much aggro I seem to draw, why not have a tank offhealing himself?

Assumption #1:
Stacking tank gear in every slot is rather pointless.

Your HP pool is like a tank of water. You lose if the tank is empty. Healers put water in, enemies take water out. It doesn’t matter how big or small the tank of water is at some point…what matters is the net in-flow vs. out-flow. Granted, a bigger HP pool gives more room for burst. I wouldn’t ever recommend dipping below about 7khp. But, if mobs are doing more damage than healers can heal, it’s only a matter of time until you die. So, HP gives flexibility, defense adds survivability *which you need desperately*, and then, after these, you can either take attack or heal rating on your other pieces.

Assumption #2:
Tanks are not going to do a lot of damage.

Looking at a few basic parses (note: I haven’t gotten to play with ACT much yet), tanks do deal damage. But not a lot. Killing things as a tank is a lot like throwing silverware out of a castle. You’re not doing a lot of damage, but you’re not dying either. So, let’s be a little bit generous and say a tank who is not stacking HP in every slot (see Assumption #1) amounts to being half as effective as one other party member, at either DPS or heals. Standard group setup is 3 DPS, 1 Healer. So, if we assume the tank holds aggro, we can either have 3.5 DPS and 1 healer, or 3 DPS and 1.5 healers. That’s a 50% increase in heals, but only about a 16% increase in DPS.

Assumption #3:
This is not ideal for every fight.

The gear changer is an amazing thing. It’s amazing in that it manages to be so vital, yet so buggy. I’m not arguing that this is the best tank concept ever, but for many of the fights where it’s just Mechanics/Tank/Spank, this could ease the burden on the healer a lot, which in turn reduces the aggro they’re generating.

Alternatively, if the healer can more than keep up with the damage output while not pulling aggro, you may as well do more damage. Alternatively, if the fight includes a DPS race (a certain succubus in Inferno comes to mind…), you’re better off helping with damage. In fact, if you can, your healer should probably help DPS as well (if only a little bit).

A few other thoughts:
-This build is entirely theorycrafted. I have not tanked, nor do I plan on doing so any time soon.
-Healing as a source of aggro also provides the benefit of not requiring you to actually hit a mob to generate aggro on it. You can be healing off mob A and building aggro on mob B who may be chasing someone else.
-I’m going to throw some numbers around. These numbers will be me using QL10 blue healing gear in one major talisman and two minor talismans. This means the build would be approximately two-thirds tank and one-third healer.
-I am also going to not focus solely on self healing. One of the aggro passives grants increased aggro on hitting mobs, and I somehow doubt that healing yourself applies that. So, the goal is to heal by hitting mobs. That said, I am likely to use some skills that only heal. Particularly from Blood (it is what I am most familiar with).

Finally, note that this is still a work in progress. If there are glaring holes in it, please point it out to me. Honestly, I’m not intimately familiar with Chaos, so I have no idea which consumer(s) to use.

Actives:
1-Escalation (AoE, Frenzy, Weaken, High Aggro, Builder)
2-Choice Chaos finisher
3-The Scarlet Arts – 230 barrier, 3 heals of 233, and another 230 barrier
4-Mockingbird – heals for 39 per hit, extra hate
5-
6-
7-My Bloody Valentine or Cold Blooded (Elites – Self / Group heals and barriers)

Passives:
Increased Hate:
1-Agitator – 300% hate gane, quite necessary
2-Fuel to the Fire – 200 hate on hit, this is a big part of why it’s not a pure healing tank build
Defensive Stats:
3-Turbulance – Evasion stacks on Frenzy, procs from Escalation
4-Hardcase – Defense stacks on Weaken, procs from Escalation
Healing:
5-Perseverance – Heals for 33 on Frenzy, so 33 hp per builder
6-
7-

There are a couple of holes here, particularly the Elite Passive, and most of the actives. Anyways, this is definitely a work in progress. One definite issue is barrier stacking with blood healers, but considering that barriers will be used in-combat, they rarely last more than a second or two.

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