WildStar Spellslinger PvE Healing Guide

WildStar Spellslinger PvE Healing Guide by Irullan

Congratulations! You are either insane cool enough to have decided to roll Spellslinger heals, are curious and still looking for the most awesome healing class ever, or are a spy trying to get intel on your toughest competition. Whatever got you here, welcome! This post is will give you a good overview of Spellslinger’s healing basics, and delve a little deeper into builds, mechanics, and stats.

I also just updated my post on gear, runes, and consumables.

More in-depth theorycrafting will come later.

Also I would like to give a big thanks to the WildStar beta community. Spellslinger healers have been few and far between, but some of the most dedicated and diligent testers out there. I would not have gained much of the information I have without them.

What is the Spellslinger good for anyway?

This question has been echoed over and over throughout the class forums regarding Spellslinger. This class, more than most, has had a wild ride when it comes to class mechanics and changes throughout beta. This, combined with the high skill cap, has made the effort to reward ratio pretty gruesome. So what the heck is a Spellslinger good for anyway?

A Spellslinger healer is your jack-of-all-trades. She isn’t the AOE boss that a Medic can be, and she isn’t the single target hammer you see in Esper, but a Spellslinger can handle either pretty damn well. Spellslingers are extremely versatile, mobile, and full of utility. If you are looking for a challenging class that has lots of variety on any given fight, is the quintessential runner and gunner, and comes with a cat-like nine lives, the Spellslinger is for you. UPDATE:Recent nerfs to Medic have put us a good deal ahead of them in terms of HPS on parses. Not sure how long this will last, but for now, I feel the Spellslinger is the best AoE raid healer. Esper can pump out some AoE as well (they basically just spam Soothe + Reverie) but they have so many targeted heals, they really are better suited to tank healing (obviously imho). It still holds true that we can handle either pretty well though.

TERMS DEFINED

Here are some common abbreviations and terms that will be used throughout this post.

• AMP – A system to buff your abilities by spending AMP points in the AMP Grid. You have 45 points to spend on AMPs at level 50.
• AoE – Area of Effect (This may refer to damage or healing)
• AS – Arcane Shock
• AI – Astral Infusion
• Base – This refers to taking an ability at its lowest possible value, without tiering it up.
• CC – Crowd Control
• CD – Cool Down (how long it takes for an ability to be usable after casting)
• Crit – Refers to your Critical Hit rating, or how often you have a chance to land a critical hit.
• Crit Sev – Critical Severity rating – this impacts how large your critical hits can be.
• DF – Dual Fire
• DPS – Damage per second
• GA – Genetic Archives (The first 20m raid)
• GCD – Global Cool Down (The length of time between using spells)
• GF – Gather Focus
• HA – Healing Aura
• HoT –  Healing over time (a heal that ticks over a defined duration)
• HPS – Heals per second
• HS – Healing Salve
• HT – Healing Torrent
• KB – Knock back
• LAS – Limited Action Set (your “build”)
• RB –  Reduced Burden. This refers to a special found on several pieces of gear that grants 10% chance to regen 15 focus. Similar is the “Refresh” special which grants a 15% chance (on any heal) to heal for an additional 880 health and give 110 focus recovery for 4 seconds.) PATCH UPDATE– RB was nerfed (new values reflected above) Refresh was also nerfed but I have no idea what the new values are. You will probably have to stack a couple of these pieces to negate focus issues early on. Notes throughout this post will continue to refer to RB, but take that to mean either of these specials.
• RH – Runic Healing
• RP – Regenerative Pulse
• RoP – Runes of Protection (also often referred to simply as Runes)
• SP – Support Power (the primary healing and tanking attribute)
• Sp – Spellpower (the resource for our innate Spell Surge)
• SS –  Spell Surge
• VB – Vitality Burst
• VP – Void Pact
• VS – Void Slip

ABILITIES

The Spellslinger is unique to other healers in WildStar in that it does not have builders and finishers. Instead we rely primarily on our resource Focus to cast abilities, and use our innate ability Spell Surge to consume spellpower to make our abilities stronger. One of the draws to Spellslinger is their utility. Therefore, this post will cover not only the main support abilities, but many of the utility abilities as well. Abilities will be listed with values according to the attribute stats found at the bottom of this post. All CD times take into account Cooldowns x3 amps, since I always run with these.

Spell Surge

This is our innate that modifies most of our spells. Everyone says the difference between a good Spellslinger and a poor one is proper management of this ability. But what does that look like? I don’t believe in the end that there should be any spells you should *only* surge, or any spells you should *never* surge. It is really intended to be a situational use, toggled ability that lets you make interesting choices. It could be better, but the recent change to higher in combat regen has really allowed this spell to behave as intended. I generally default to: “if I have a charge, I use it”.  Exceptions to this rule are a) I almost never use it for C2 Sustain and b ) I will hold back on using it when I know a heal intensive part of the fight is coming, or I know I need to save it for some reason. Other situational uses to keep in mind:

• Someone at very low health needs to be healed quickly. I will cast a Sustain to buy a few seconds, then cast a SS HT. This ability has massive crits when SS’d.
•  I always SS Voidspring. The base healing on this is still pretty weak, but SS’d it is pretty nice. Will be extremely valuable in 40 man.
• If you need to heal a large group very quickly, SS C2 Sustain, then Voidspring. If you know damage is incoming (X-89 before kb, Defiler before lasers) you can SS HS, then cast C2 Sustain after the damage hits. You will see health go up very quickly.
• If you have a situation where you need to heal someone in a very crowded area and are not sure your HT will land where you need it to, SS RH. This will ensure you get strong heals where you need them.
• If you are running with RoP, you should probably SS it. RoP will scale well with SP gains, but at lower levels it is pretty weak unless surged.

SUPPORT

Runic Healing

2 sec channel Cost: 5 Focus/tick CD: None Range: 35m Targeted. Mobile.
Restores 588 health to an ally every 0.5s. While stationary, restore is increased to 904. Spell Surge: Restore increased to 852 and stationary restore increased to 1309.

Tier Upgrade: Normal: +26 health/tick Surged: +26 health/tick
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Grants a Defense: Decreases magic damage taken by 10% for 2.25s. While stationary, increased to 16%.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Affect 1 ally within 5m of your healing target.
This ability has seen several nerfs, and in its current state still isn’t terribly strong. I keep in in my LAS so I know I have a targeted heal that I can SS and land faster than casting HT. Buys you some breathing room. Also good for sustained small healing or topping one person off who is out of the group- particularly with the RB special, since this can proc off each tick.

Runes of Protection

Instant Cost: 34 Focus CD: 15s Range: 35m Freeform (large half-moon shape)
Grant 4586 absorb to yourself and 4 allies for 10s. Spell Surge: Increased to 7750 absorb.

Tier Upgrade: Normal: +123 absorb Surged: +123 absorb.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: On spell end, reduce CD by 1s.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Grants 1 Interrupt Armor
This ability just got a nice buff- previously I rarely put this on my bar. Now, I will rotate it in pretty frequently for 20m healing. It is a great proactive spell for when you know you will have incoming damage (KB on X-89, interrupt phases on Defiler, if you know who is getting gripped on the Guardian, etc.). I will often surge HS, the toss this out right before big damage hits. Also nice for lower level tank healing, since it can mean the difference between getting crit to death, and surviving. I always spell surge it, and often pop a trinket to increase support power before using it with Healing Salve so I get the most out of both spells. Also love this in PvP when there is just a ton of splash damage going out.

Vitality Burst

2.6 sec charge Cost: 14 Focus/charge CD: 7s Range: 25m Freeform (Conal). Mobile.
Restore health to yourself and 4 allies. C1: 1623 Health, 4s CD. C2: 2501 Health, 6s CD. C3: 6494 Health, 8s CD. Spell Surge: Reach full charge in 1.3s.

Tier Upgrade: C1: +72 health C2: +110 health C3: +287 Health
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Each charge level grants Bastion for 5s.
C1: Bastion: Increases outgoing healing by 4%
C2: Bastion: Increases outgoing healing by 6%
C3: Bastion: Increases outgoing healing by 8%
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: C3: While under the effects of Spell Surge, restores 1087 health every 1.5s for 3s.
This is a fantastic, strong, efficient heal- particularly when charged. I do not put it on my LAS for most raid situations due to the low number of targets (4). The exceptions are fights where you might be assigned to healing a small group taking consistent damage, or tank healing. This is a must for 5m. The T8 hot is also nice for procing RB while giving a good steady HoT- I pretty much always take the T8 when tank healing.

Astral Infusion

Instant Cost: 52 Focus CD: 26s Range: 35m Targeted.
Restore 4458 health plus 801 health every 2s for 4s to an ally. Spell Surge: Restores 6516 health plus 1169 every 2s.

Tier Upgrade: +72 health, +13 health/tick.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: CD reduced to 21s.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Grants a Defense: Reduces damage taken by 5% for 6s.
I only put this on my bar when I know I will be focusing almost entirely on tank healing and have Affinity on my bar. Targeted heals are a real drawback in this game, since there is no good quick way to target outside the unit frames, which you are rarely looking at. The CD on this is still a little long, and the T4 is completely useless, and I cannot imagine tiering it to T8. Maybe on a boss with a predictable, massive damage ability, and again only really useful when paired with other spells. Other people might disagree with me, but the targeting mechanic makes me bring other spells over this one.

Healing Salve

1s cast Cost: 23 Focus CD: 9s Range: 20m Freeform (Circular). Mobile.
Apply Healing Salve to yourself and 9 allies for 20s. Healing Salve: Taking damage restores 588 health. Can only occur every 2s. Spell Surge: Restores 1222 health.

Tier Upgrade: +25 health/proc.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Reduced Heal occurrence frequency to every 1s
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Increases maximum health by 2111 (2%).
This spell got a very nice boost this patch. The healing is quite good when it procs- so this is a spell that is most useful when you can expect incoming damage and cast it ahead of time. Still, I will typically make an aura to track this buff and reapply as soon as it falls off the tank, just because it is such an efficient heal. On parses it is always one of my top 3 healing spells, with single digit overhealing. I have played around with the T8 but find the points are better spent elsewhere. I nearly always SS and SP trinket this when running it.

The TERRIBLE part about this spell, is that if you are running with two spellslingers that use it, you will see its value drop immensely. This is because the most recently cast spell, overwrites the existing one, no matter what. So, lets say you pop your trinket, SS and cast this- then immediately after, another Spellslinger dopes along and casts his unsurged, it will overwrite what you just blew all your CDs for, and replace with a weaker version. Even if he has higher support power and his would be stronger, it is still inefficient because you have already wasted your focus casting it. This will be much less an issue in 40 man when there are plenty of people and room to cast it without overlap, but in 20 mans it is brutal and depressing and I really hope they change it. The best work around I have found is either a) don’t bring more than one SS healer! or b ) try to assign one to melee, and one to ranged, and ask them to not be assholes and cheese the numbers by spamming theirs right after yours. I have had limited success with the latter.

Dual Fire

1.6s cast Cost: 18 Focus CD: 4s Range: 25m Freeform (Conal). Mobile.
Restore 2334 health to 5 allies plus deal 2334 magic damage to 5 foes. Spell Surge: Restores 4260 health and deals 4260 magic damage.

Tier Upgrade: +119 health, +119 damage.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: CD reduced to 1.5s
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Grants Empower to allies and applies Weaken to foes. Empower: Strikethrough chance increased by 3.6%. Weaken: Strikethrough chance reduced by 3.6%.
This ability saw a buff this patch, but I still don’t use the spell. It is a very efficient heal, but the throughput is still a little low to deserve a spot in my LAS. I have taken it for the T8 early on, but it quickly became useless as people obtained better gear. Worth revisiting to see if they buff it more, and could be useful in PvP.

Healing Torrent

1.3s cast Cost: 46 Focus CD: 3 Range: 35m Freeform (5m wide line). Mobile.
Restore 5495 health to yourself and 4 allies. HT cost is increased by 9 each time if used within 5s of the previous use. Stacks 2x.  Spell Surge: Restores 9292 health.

Tier Upgrade: +191 health.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Grants 1121 absorb to allies that are under the effects of Voidspring or Healing Salve.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Cost increasing debuff stacks 1x.
This ability used to be our “bread and butter” because you could spam it, the debuff was minimal, it heals for a truckload, and has a lot of class flavor. Surged, it is even better and crits for incredible amounts. Since you can no longer spam it, and Sustain has been buffed, you will find yourself using it a little less than you may have, but it is still constantly woven into my rotation in most every situation.

I almost always keep this at T7 and never take the T8. With the added CD and proper focus management/ RB/ focus regen runes, the debuff should never be an issue. The trouble with this is that there are many times it takes too long to get the heal to its target. If it is a close call, pop a Sustain or RH before throwing one of these out. The added CD also makes this spell a lot higher risk/reward. Previously, you could just spam this until you landed it. Now, you really want to make sure your tank isn’t about to dodge out of the telegraph before you cast it, or you will be left with it on CD and nothing else ready to reach them. The other annoying thing is that this spell can be “absorbed” by, or over heal people at full health. So make sure you have clear LoS to your tank, and don’t try casting it through a crowd and expect it to heal who you want. Still, when used properly, this spell is a beast.

Voidspring

Instant Cost: 27 Focus CD: 15s Range: 25m Freeform (Circular).
Create a 10m Voidspring, lasting 12s, at the targeted location. The Voidspring restores 311 health/s to allies. Spell Surge: Restores 532 health/tick.

Tier Upgrade: Normal: +9 health/tick.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Voidspring size increased to 12m.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Reduces all damage taken by 3%. This scales with Spell Surge, so currently gives 10% damage reduction when surged. Not sure if this is a tooltip error or bug. Thanks Madds for catching that!
This spell has a lot of potential and I hope we see a buff to values. Not great for small groups but scales very well for raids. This spell heals 10 people despite the tooltip. It gives lackluster HPS base, but surged it can pick up a large group very quickly when paired with a C1 or 2 Sustain. Again, it is nice for procing RB, Augmented Armor, Clarity etc.

Regenerative Pulse

Instant Cost: 34 Focus CD: 13s Range: 35m Freeform (2m wide line- very narrow).
Restores 4388 health divided up amongst up to 3 allies. Spell Surge: Restores 7553 health.

Tier Upgrade: +122 health.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: CD is decreased by 5s if a single ally is impacted.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Protects from death for 2s divided up amongst 3 allies.
This ability is totally weird and useless. The telegraph is tiny, and throughput low unless it only hits one person, which is quite difficult in most content. Hopefully this will be revisited at some point. I HAVE used it at T8 on fights when the tank was low geared and we had trouble keeping him alive. Landing this right before massive damage came out bought enough time to make sure the tank lived. Lesson: every spell has some situation in which it can be useful!

Sustain

1.8s charge Cost: 16 Focus/charge CD: 5s Range: 20m Self. Mobile.
Restore health to yourself and 4 allies. C1: 1901 health, 3s CD. C2: 4938 health, 6s CD. Spell Surged: Reach full charge in .9s.

Tier Upgrade: +199 health.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Heal prioritizes allies with low health.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Maximum range increased to 25m and will now hit 9 allies.
You could probably heal with just this spell and HT. The recent change back to being a higher throughput spell with fewer targets was much needed. I always keep this on my bar. Now that it is mobile, this spell is just fantastic, and you don’t have to waste your SS to get the most out of it. Even when tank healing I keep it out to quickly pick up before landing HT. I always tier this to 4, and to 8 when I know I will be mainly raid healing.

UTILITY

Gate

Instant CD: 26s  Range: 17m Self.
Blink forward 17m and apply a stun to 5 foes. Stun: Prevents any action for 3.25s. Destroys 1Interupt Armor.

Tier Upgrade: +1m, +0.15s stun.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Destroys 2 Interrupt Armor.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: If a foe is interrupted, CD is reduced by 5s.
I always run this on my bar. Part of the Spellslinger’s appeal is mobility- and Gate is an integral part of that. It is also important on several fights to have an interrupt available so I use this. Typically just keep this at base, but some builds leave you with a floating point or two so the extra range doesn’t hurt.

Flash Freeze

Instant CD: 26s Range: 25m Freeform (Conal).
Deals 1320 magic damage to 5 foes and applies Root. Root: Prevents movement for 4s.

Tier Upgrade: +37 damage, +0.1s Root.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: CD reduced to 27s. (tooltip error)
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: When the Root ends foes are snared by 45% for 3s.
Use it all the time in PvP. Could have uses in PvE but I haven’t seen them yet.

Void Slip

Instant CD: 51s Self.
Transition into the Void for 3.5s. Removes all disables and drops the caster from any creatures threat lists. Using the ability a second time will cause the caster to exit the Void early.

Tier Upgrade: +0.3s duration
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Removes all dispellable debuffs.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Restores 555 health every 1s for 4s.
Always on my bar for killing trash in a raid. Useful for slipping out of CC mechanics like tether, and a good “oh noes!” button if you find yourself face to face with a deadly laser. Don’t always keep it out, but pretty often. Use at base.

Arcane Shock

Instant CD: 17s Range: 35m Freeform.
Deals 1823 magic damage, destroy 1 Interrupt Armor, and apply Arcane Shock to 5 foes for 5s. Arcane Shock: Prevents using a cast time ability by applying an Interrupt.

Tier Upgrade: +126 damage, +0.5s Arcane Shock
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: CD reduced to 15s.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Purges 2 buffs.
An alternative interrupt. No reason to ever tier up that I have seen. Almost never use this PvE.

Purify

Instant Cost: 15 Focus CD: 5s Range: 25m Self.
Restore 242 health and cleanse 2 debuffs from yourself and 4 allies.

Tier Upgrade: +206 health.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Breaks Root and Snare CC types.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Cleanse 3 debuffs.
Our cleanse. I only keep it out when I know I need it.

Gather Focus

2s cast CD: 38s Self. Stationary.
Restore 60 Focus to yourself, grants a Concentration and applies a Diminish. Concentration: Generate 3 SP every 1s for 6s. Diminish: Reduces outgoing healing by 35% for 6s.

Tier Upgrade: +4 Focus
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: When Focus is below 200, increases Focus restore by 15%.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: No longer applies Diminish.
I know many ‘slinger healers without RB gear that swear by this ability combined with the Focus Stone amp. I have not had any need for it in current gear, but found it useful at lower levels. I would prefer to have the free LAS slot and just slot focus regen runes.

Void Pact

Instant CD: 38s Range: 8m Self. Mobile.
Create an 8m field around you, lasting 3.5s. Allies entering the field receive Empower and Swiftness.  Empower: Increases Assault Power by 9% for current maximum for 10s. Swiftness: Increases Movement Speed by 25% for 10s.

Tier Upgrade: +0.25s aura, +0.2% Empower, +1% Swiftness
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Creates a 12m field.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: If under Spell Surge, increases Assault Power bonus to 16.1%.
Picking up this ability requires a somewhat wonky build but is worth it on the occasions you need it. I will always run with this ability on the Defiler fight in GA, and any other DPS race type fights. If I run it, I always use it at base. Might consider T4 for 40 man. Coordinating with other ‘slingers that might run it will get the most use out of this spell- with proper rotation and placement, our group can give our DPS nearly 100% uptime.

Spatial Shift

Instant  CD: 30s Range: 20m Targeted.
Position Swap a foe and apply a Disorient. Destroys 1 Interrupt Armor. Disorient: Confuses movement for 6s.

Tier Upgrade: +0.3s Disorient.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: Maximum range increased to 25m.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: On a successful Spatial Shift, grant yourself CC Immunity for 2.25s.
No reason that I have seen to take this PvE.

Phase Shift

Instant CD: 17s Self.
Grant yourself one interrupt armor and a Defense for 3.4s. Defense: Increases deflect chance by 70%.

Tier Upgrade: +.2s duration
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: On your next Deflect, reduce the CD of Phase Shift by 5s. Can only trigger 1x.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: On your next Deflect, restores 2479 health to you.
Could be worth taking as an “oh noes!” button to cheese a fight with an ultimate boss ability, or if you happen to be really bad at dodging telegraphs. Haven’t really found any reason I would take it yet.

Affinity

Instant CD: 13s Range: 35m Targeted.
Grant a Beacon to yourself or an ally for 10s. Beacon: Increases incoming healing by 10%.

Tier Upgrade: +1s duration.
Tier 4 Major Upgrade: CD reduced to 9s.
Tier 8 Major Upgrade: Grants 1434 absorb.
I often throw this on my bar. I always run it when I know I will be tank healing, or when we are pulling trash. I always use it at base. The T8 absorb isn’t great, and other spells that benefit from SP gains are much more worth the point investment.

AMPS

Several builds will be linked in the next section, which will be discussed in more depth. This is a list of the AMPS you would most likely take at some point. For location and tier information, see the Builds section.

SUPPORT

Support Power I, II, & III: Increases SP by 2.5% of your current maximum.
Focus Cost I, II, & III: Reduces Focus cost on spells by 2%.
Focus Recovery I, II, & III: Increases Focus recovery rate by 0.1/s.
Savior: Landing a heal on an ally that is below 30% grants a 10% chance to heal for an additional 3201% health every 2s for 4s.
Clarity: Using an ability grants a 10% chance to gain Efficiency. Efficiency: reduces Focus costs by 20% for 4s.
Augmented Armor: Landing a heal on an ally affected by Affinity, Runes of Protection, or Healing Salve applies Defense. Defense: Increases Armor Rating by 8% for 10s.
Burst Power: Landing a critical heal generates 6 Sp.
Holy Roller: Using a unique support ability within the last 10s grants 1 Empower. Empower: Increases SP by 1% for 10s. Stacks 7x.
Healing Torrent: Unlocks the Healing Torrent ability.
Healing Aura: Using a Spell Surged ability causes you and 4 allies within 35m to restore 654 health every 1s for 5s.
Desperation: While your Focus is below 100 and after 10s generate 60 Focus ever 2s for 8s. Can only occur every 120s.

HYBRID

Critical Hit Severity I, II, & III: Increases Critical Hit Severity by 4%.
Critical Hit I, II, & III: Increases Critical Hit chance by 2%.
Power Surge: While under the effects of Spell Surge, increases Assault and Support Power by 8.6% of current maximum.
Focus Stone: Using Gather Focus grants 1 Focus Stone for the next 180s. On use: Restores 100 Focus, 2836 (90%) Health, and 10 Spellpower.

UTILITY

Cooldowns I, II, & III: Increases CD reduction by 5%.
Dash Regen I, II, & III: Increases Dash regeneration by 7%.
CC Resilience I, II, & III: Increases CC Resilience by 10%.
Reorient: Dashing removes Daze, and restores 40% endurance.
Evasive Maneuvers: Dashing grants a Defense for 0.5s. Defense: Decreases damage received by 32%.
Void Pact: Unlocks the ability Void Pact.

I strongly suggest taking Healing Torrent with any build. To do this I prefer to take Support Power amps, with Clarity, and Burst Power. If you are having Focus issues, you could take Focus Cost amps, but I suggest that only be a stop gap and you work to get your Focus up through gear and runes. You will have a much higher return on investment taking crit and support power amps. Clarity procs off ANY ability (the joke often is you can sneeze and proc Clarity) so this amp is pretty invaluable. Healing Aura is another very strong amp that I always take. In 40man I can see this being very strong. It is something that is only useful if you are regularly using your SS though, so make sure you are managing it properly! On some parses it has accounted for as much as 15-20% of my overall healing. Savior may some situational specific uses (particularly when tank healing in a high damage situation when they are low geared) but generally you won’t get much use of out if. Cooldowns are a must- 15% CD reduction makes a significant difference even on small CD spells like Sustain when you are in a fast paced healing environment. Power Surge is a must in most any build. This will scale very well as you gain more SP. Focus Stone is something I know many healers swear by. If you have RB or Focus Regen runes, it shouldn’t be necessary. If you do take it, you will have to run Gather Focus in your build. The way this amp works is it creates an item you can place on your bar, and use like a potion. It does stack but each stone only lasts 2m, and can only be used ever ??? minutes. Void Pact was discussed earlier and will be discussed more in the builds section. It requires you taking a somewhat wonky build, but picking up Evasive Maneuvers to get there is actually pretty nice. When you have a poor dodge out of a telegraph, or are dashing in as a boss does an AoE damage ability, 32% damage reduction (any kind) is pretty solid. Again, this is a situational amp choice but one that makes sense on some fights.  Reorient is really strong too- restores 40% of your sprint meter if dazed.

Amps I almost never take: Holy Roller– you will see in many of the builds that we really don’t use a wide variety of support abilities. Getting this stacked up is something you have to go out of your way to do, and even when up, it is lackluster. Desperation is only useful in a situation you should never be in. Maybe if there were a fight mechanic where debuff gives focus cost increases or a heal the boss type fight. Even so, you would have to be very careless to find this a worthwhile amp most the time. I am generally against amps like Final Salvo or Homeward Bound. Why invest so many points into something that is only useful if you die? HB could be useful on fights where you can cheese a mechanic (like running through a laser) or if you are terrible at dodging (I know a SS who always runs it on the Phagetech Guardian for the upstairs phase- but imho you should never find yourself there) but I generally don’t like wasting the points on it. It can also bug out bosses. Still, if you are a Scientist (yay!) and your guild is pushing progression, you could try staying alive to the end, hopefully resetting the boss while you are in the void, then sneaking away to summon the group back to get more uptime on the boss. Again- this often bugs out but is sometimes useful.

ATTRIBUTES

The Spellslinger’s primary attributes are Support Power, Insight, Moxie, and Grit. Insight gives us more Support Power, Moxie gives us Crit, and Grit gives health. You should prioritize Support Power gains above most everything. Your largest SP gains will come from your weapon, then stacking insight as much as possible.

Secondary attributes of importance include Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Severity, Focus Recovery, Focus Cost Reduction, and to some extent CD Reduction and Shield Recovery rating. If you are having focus issues (probably because you do not have gear with “specials”) then you should aim to increase your Focus Recovery rate. Otherwise, focus on Crit ratings.

These values are base, without rune specials factored in. Once you are 50, getting to 1650 SP and at least 20% Critical Hit Chance should be your first goal, while still being able to manage your focus.

My current stats (which were used to reflect the ability values) are:
Support Power: 2120
Brutality: 200
Finesse: 350
Moxie: 735
Insight: 1296
Grit: 527

Critical Hit Chance: 25.53%
Critical Hit Severity: 178.21%
CD Reduction: 15%
Shield Regen Rate: 5%
Shield Reboot Time: 8s
Resistances: 18.63%
Focus Recovery Rate: 2.65/s
Focus Cost Reduction: 6.0%

Each milestone gives:
Int: 20 SP
Moxie: 25 Crit Sec
Brutality: 25 Strikethrough
Finesse: 24.4 AP
Grit: 150 base Health
Tech: 25 Deflect

BUILDS

My favorite aspect of Spellslinger healing is the versatility. There really is no “cookie cutter” build. You should probably always keep HT and Sustain on your bar. Other than that, you should build the LAS that is best for each situation. Here are a few that I have encountered.

Generic raid healing: This is a well rounded build for large group healing. It has RH so you may land targeted heals if needed, but you mainly will rely on HS & Sustain, paired with HT. I keep out Voidspring even in 20m, though it will be really powerful in 40. I have an old epic support power boost trinket from a gold Skullcano run and use it almost on CD with my HS, then RoP and VS if the buff is still up, to really make casting those spells count. Doing that, with my current gear my healing breakdown over the entire night of GA looks something like: Sustain: 28%, Healing Salve: 22% Healing Aura: 20% Voidspring: 17% Healing Torrent: 7% Runes of Protection: 3% Runic Healing: .5% (those numbers are all rounded down). Healing Salve and Sustain may swap places, and Healing Aura may drop below Void Spring, but generally, that is about how your healing breakdown should look for 20m.

This set up gives VERY low over healing. I mention this because it is really easy for a Spellslinger to cheese logs by spamming Sustain and Healing Torrent on CD but gives a ton of overhealing and it isn’t really going to help anyone so don’t do that! You have the potential to be the most efficient, proactive healer in the game. Swap in whatever utility as needed.

Tank healing build: This is what I run when I know it is all on me to keep the tank up. There are some variations you could bring with this. Tiering up HS, running Savior amp, or RP (if situation allows) are a few.

Void Pact build: This is what I spec when I want to run Void Pact. Really valuable on Defiler, and even X-89 if your group is having trouble with DPS staying alive. Evasive Maneuvers is just an added bonus you usually cannot afford to take. Reorient could be really powerful too. Have to put the random CC resil talent to get to T3. Not the worst thing ever. Alternatively could pick up both Reorient and Evasive Maneuvers. Could swap out VS for Affinity, and could tier up HS over Sustain, just depends on your raid comp and what you need.

Syan’s Void Pact Build A 5m friendly alternative Void Pact Build.

AOE Madness build: For when your raid decides to say eff it to the mechanics and just eat telegraphs with everyone stacked. Big heals, lots of surging, much fun. Really only use HS, VS, and Sustain- HT & AI for the lowest health stragglers. VB for maintaining bastion. Utility is whatever. I usually keep Affinity on there so I can quickly top off something that took an extra hard hit.

5m Build: This is what I typically run for 5m veteran content. Again, swapping out utility as needed. I was asked how I manage keeping up a tank with this build. The first, most important thing is have a tank that understands how healing works in this game. It is a team effort, and they need to have your telegraphs turned on so they can see when a heal is coming. I will typically pop a Sustain or C1 VB to stabilize a tank dropping health, then land a surged HT, and top off with RH. Keeping Voidspring down will help as well. (also see Syan’s build above).

You will see Affinity and Gate with a base support spell in a lot of these builds. I swap most of those out contingent upon the fight. Affinity isn’t great- targeted skills are annoying but I like it for single target or tank healing. I prefer really tiering up the spells I know are good, as opposed to spreading out points across a lot of spells without any at high tiers.