WildStar Esper Healing Guide

WildStar Esper Healing Guide by duccky

Table of contents
1.Introduction
2. Abbreviations
3 Basics
3.1 weapon/armor
3.2 Race/path/professions
3.3 Resources
3.3.1 focus
3.3.2 PSI points
4. Abilities
4.1 Support
4.2 Assault/utility
5. Builders/finishers
5.1 builders
5.2 finishers
6. LAS/Builds
6.1 PVE
6.1.1 Amps
6.1.2 Vet Dungeons/adventures
6.1.3 Genetic Archives
6.1.4 Datascape
7. Stats
7.1 Runes
7.2 Rune sets
8. TheoryCrafting

1. Introduction

What is and esper? “a psycho that uses their mind to bend and create illusions to their will, kind of like the green lantern just espers don’t suck. Equipped with a psyblade, illusions, and light armor the esper is sure to be a mind burst” This guide will be a source of information to help healing espers excel to be the best they can. We will take an in-depth look at Healing builds, abilities, and anything else related to esper healing.

2. Abbreviations

MOB – Mind over Body
CD – Cooldown
CB – Concentrated Blades
MB – Mending Banner
MNB – Mental Boon
MOO – Moment of Opportunity
PA – Phantasmal Armor
PP – PSI Point
PS – Projected Spirit
Pyro – Pyrokinetic Flame
SP – Support power
AP – assault power

3. Basics

3.1 Weapons/armor

The weapon of choice for the esper is the psyblade combined with their mental powers. Also, the esper is one of the two light armor wearing classes, the other being the spellslinger. The esper is restricted to using both of these and are only allowed to wield Psyblades and wear light armor

3.2 Race/Path/Professions

In Wildstar, you race has exactly zero effect on your healing and is only for aesthetic reasons The esper has four race choices, two for exiles, Human and Aurin and two for Dominion, Cassian and Chua. The same goes for your path and professions as well, no matter which you choose it will not affect your in combat healing capabilities in anyway

3.3 Resources

The esper has two types of resources to manage: Focus and PSI points. The focus resource is shared across three classes: esper, spellslinger, and medic. Focus can be easily compared to as mana in other games and is generally used by healers. PSI points are the esper specific resource and can be compared to combo points in other games.

3.3.1 Focus

Focus is a static resource pool that as it is spent, will slowly regenrate back over time. As an esper healer, focus is your main resource that is spent on your utility and healing spells. Like healers from other games it is crucial to manage your focus efficiently to ensure that you are never “focus starved”

3.3.2 PSI points

PSI points are generated through specific abilities such as soothe, and MOB these abilities are called “builders” You can have a max of 5 PSI points at any given time. As you store your PSI points you are able to spend these points on what are called “finishers” such as reverie and MB. When you use a finisher, it will spend all of your available PSI points and the ability will increase in power the more PSI points consumed.

4. Abilities

Listed below will be the main healing spells used by esper healers. if you would like to see all abilities available take a look at this website http://www.ws-base.c…nerator/esper#/

All skills will be ranked 1-5 based on utility and healing output

Builders and finishers are ranked separately and should be compared as such

Innate

Spectral Form: Cooldwon: 30 seconds Rank: 3

Root yourself in place, grant 1 interrupt armor, an absorb shield, and 1PP every second for 5 seconds. (you are only rooted in place while the absorb shield is active)

The esper innate can be considered one of the worst abilities available to us, however when used properly can be use as an effective mitigation CD as well as a form of burst healing. The innate is best used when you need burst healing and do not need to move. This may sound like a niche situation and it is. This is a skill that becomes more useful as you become more comfortable with the class, you will find more situations and moments where you can spare 5 seconds of being rooted.

The innate should NOT be used when there is heavy moment required, dodging telegraphs is far safer then risking death by soaking damage with your innate.

4.1 Support

Mind over body: / Builder / Cost:24~37 focus / Range: 35 / Cast time: 1.5s / Cooldown: none / Type: Stationary / Rank: 4
Generates 1 PP point upon successful cast
T4 Restores an additional health when target is over 65% heath
T8 Summons a spectral Lantern at your target: Increase incoming healing by 15%

MOB will most commonly be T8 when used It is a very strong single target heal most often used for tank healing The only downside to this spell is that it cannot be cast while moving.

Bolster / Builder / Cost: 13 focus / Range: 35 / Cast time: instant / Cooldown: 10 second recharge / Type: targeted / Rank 5

Bolster as a healing spell is very weak. However it gets 2 charge and is instant cast both of which generate a PP point. These means that Bolster is one of the strongest PP generators in the esper arsenal The utility this spell brings makes it mandatory in any esper healing build.

Phantasmal Armor / Builder / cost: 69 focus / Range: 35 / Cast time: instant / Cooldown 45 seconds / Type: Targeted / Rank 3

T4 Reduces the cooldown by 5 seconds

Phantasmal armor is an absorb shield used on one target and grants one interrupt armor. This spell has decent utility however turns into mitigation for the tank. Some niche situations allow it to be used as interrupt armor to stop CC on yourself, or even a party member.

Soothe / Builder / Cost: 8/12/17 focus / range: 30 / Cast time 2.5s / Cooldown: none / type: Freeform / Rank 4

Charge 1 generates 1 PSI point
Charge 2+ generates 2PSI points
T4 Reduce charge time by .5 seconds
T8 Restores additional health every 1 second for 4 seconds

Soothe will likely take the place of MOB in your LAS if you chose to use it. Soothe like MOB will almost always be T8 and the strength of soothe is that it can be cast while moving and hit up to 4 targets. This makes it more of a group raid heal rather then a single target tank heal.

Pyrokinetic Flame / Builder / Cost 20 focus / Range 35 / Cast 1.25s / Cooldown 10s / Type: freeform / Rank 2

T4 Allies healed Allies gain Empower: increases assault/support power by 5% for 4 seconds

This is an must have raid buff Allies who stand within this will constantly gain a buff that increases damage it lasts for 6s and has a 10s CD so it can’t be up 100% off the time but maximizing uptime on it will only help your raid!

Warden / Builder / Cost 51 focus / Range 35 / Cast 2s / Cooldown 15s / Type Target/mobile / Rank 3

T4 Warden grants defense : increase Physical and Magic resistance by 12% for 6s

Warden is more often used at lower ends. It can be used as a safety net for new players allowing a small amount of mitigation if they are having a hard time dodging telegraphs it can also be used on an under geared tank.

Reverie / Finisher / Cost 6/12/18/24/31 focus / Range: 25m / Cast: instant / Cooldown: none / type: self / rank 5
Heals yourself and 9 party members
T4 Restores additional health to allies below 35%
T8 Grants beacon: increases incoming healing by 10% for 5s

Reverie is the bread and butter AOE heal. It is a high throughput AOE heal. Nothing more can really be said about it other then its amazing

Mending Banner / Finisher / Range: 35m / cast: instant / Cooldown: none / Type: targeted / Rank: 4

T4 Grants defense increase armor by  PP1 5% /PP2 5.5% /PP3 8% /PP4 10.5% / PP5 13% for 4s
T8 Heal chains to additional nearby ally within 10m

Mending banner is used as a tank heal, At the minimum it should be T4 to provide the armor buff to the tank.

Mental Boon / Finisher / Cost: None / Range: 15m / Cast: instant / Cooldown: none / Type self / Rank 2

Creates a 15m circle around the cast and healing allies within it.
Nimble: increases dash regen

T4 Increase dash regen bonus
T8 Grants bastion: increaes outgoing healing by 6%

Mental boon is similiar to warden and is used on the lower end. The main strength of this spell is that it has NO focus cost. It is used before you have focus regen rune set bonus (refer to 7.2)

4.2 Assault/utility

Crush/Incapacitate: / range: 30m / cast: instant / Cooldown 35/40s / Type: freeform

These two spells are used to remove interrupt armor in dungeons and raids when your group requires it.

Restraint: / Range: 25m / Cast: instant / Cooldown / 35s / Type: Freeform

Restraint is used in niche situations to immobilize and root enemies for 4s

Catharsis: / range 25m / Cost: 38 focus / Cooldown 6s / Type Freeform

T4 cleanses 3 debuffs
T8 Purge enemies of 2 buffs

This is your traditional dispel ability it is a frontal cone that dispels up to 5 allies and is only used when a specific fight demands it. The major downside to this ability is that it doubles as a purge but requires T8 to get that purge.

Meditate: / Cast: 5s channel / Cooldown: 45s / Type: stationary,self

T4 Generates 2 PSI points when meditate ends.
T8 Grants freedom: Immune to CC effects while channeling

Meditate is used on longer boss fights or at lower gear levels. It becomes less  mandatory after you get Focus regen rune set bonus (refer to 7.2) In addition to its base focus regen it also returns 1 focus per tick  for every tier point spent.

Fade out / Cast: instant / Cooldown 30s / range 15m / Type: self

Jump backwards 8m Breaking all CC’s. Fade out is used in those situations where you are required to break an impairing effect on your character.

Projected Spirit: / Cost: 39 focus / cast: instant / Cooldown 30s / Range: 25m

Dash foward and restore health of those you pass through up to 5 allies

Projected spirit is a niche spell and rarely used, mainly because in comparison to other movement cooldowns it is very slow at moving you forward and sprinting will get you to your target faster.

Concentrated Blades: / builder / 2 charges / cast: instant / Cooldown 10s / range: 30m
CB has a delay time of 4.4 seconds from when its cast and when you generate your PSI points The main reason this spell is so strong is that it has a 0 focus cost and still generates 2 PSI points for you. its best used by weaving it in between healing spells or when there is down time. there is literally no downside using this ability as a builder for PSI points.

5. Builders/Finishers

5.1 Builders MOB vs Soothe

When is MOB better than soothe, or when should i use both?

The main difference between MOB and soothe is that MOB will only heal 1 target it is primarily used for tank healing but it can be used in smaller group situations. Soothe instead takes a hit to its healing but gives you the freedom to move and hit multiple targets this is amazing when there is constant group/raid damage on multiple targets. However in rare situations that positioning prevents you from being able to cast soothe on the tank, but there is still group/raid damage going out this is the best time to use both abilities It allows you to cast the single target heal on the tank and then soothe your group/raid members ensuring that you keep everyone alive.

5.2 Finishers Reverie vs Mending Banner

Reverie is your big aoe heal and allows you to keep the entire group alive by spending PSI points. however when there isn’t constant raid damage this skill becomes wasted if your only using it to heal 1-2 targets at any given time. Wildstar has a fair amount of 1 shot mechanics and when these are the case for a fight mending banner proves better to use. because you can focus the healing on who actually needs it rather then overhealing with reverie and being less effective on the 1 person that needs a big heal.

6.0 LAS and builds

In Wildstar, your charecter is able to choose 8 of their class specific abilities to have on their action bar at a time. This system is known as a Limited Action Set or LAS sometimes refferred to as your loadout or action bar. You are not limited in any way as to which abilities you choose to put on your action bar, but some combinations of abilities are much more effective than others. Once you reach level 50 you will begin to earn Elder Gems that can be spent to acquire an additional 10 amp points and 7 skill tier points. as of now, these will most likely be a top priority of buying them before some of the gear. As of now we will make builds without using Elder gem bought points in our LAS or AMP tree. This ensures you have a clear understanding of whats needed upon reaching level 50.

6.1 PvE

Healing as a whole works traditional to other MMOs a lot of esper abilities are targeted and can feel very familiar to newer players, The healing for espers sprinkles in wildstars freeform targeting system and allows a balance between the two making this one of the easier healers to pick up and learn, as for mastering that is something that will take a long time.

Solo/Questing

i would never recommend soloing as a healer always join a party with some friends some randoms, but never fly solo as a healer. The utility a healer brings to a questing party allows mobs to be killed faster and all together a more enjoyable questing experience because hopefully no one will lose their life when its in your hands.

Healing builds:

Keep in mind these are a base, and although the differences are minor you are capable of using the spells you need or your group requires of you to ensure your success.

Aoe Build: This build is to frontload aoe healing output with reverie
http://www.ws-base.c…942.379.380.381

Regen build This build is recommended if your having focus issues we drop some throughput healing for T4 meditate just to increase your focus recovery http://www.ws-base.c…942.379.380.381

Tank healing build

http://www.ws-base.c…942.379.380.381

Hybrid build This build is best used for when you are under healing a fight in a raid the primary form of tank healing will be mending banner and soothe if positioning allows it.

http://www.ws-base.c…942.379.380.381

6.1.1 Amps

This is an amp setup for you i will also briefly go over some amps that are extremely important
http://www.ws-base.c…942.379.380.381

healing touch has been redesigned and is now a fixed # rather then a % increase this makes the spell exponentially more powerful

Companion Does not heal enough and only effects 1 target.

Mirage clunky spell needs complete redesign before it can ever be viable

Fixation The focus regen from T4 is unbelievably good at this point in time, This in conjunction with the meditate ability will ensure you never have focus issues.

6.1.2 Veteran Adventures/Dungeons

To start we will look at adventures your LAS will always very some for a fight by fight basis if you need a stun or a CC break but overall the best build to use For these would be our Regen build because you will be stepping into adventures in 50 quest greens. as you earn more gear and have rune slots available to you you will move points out of mental boon and put them into reverie. Once you are mostly Adventure blues we can then move into dungeons where you will 100% have to change your LAS on a fight by fight basis.

After obtaining the rune slots needed to get the focus regen rune set (refer to 7.2) you will have the focus regen needed to run either the hybrid build or the AOE build linked before. It is still important to watch your focus, it just becomes far less strenuous after you obtain this regen set, so get it as soon as you can!

Raids

6.1.3 Genetic Archives

In this section i will go through the 20man raid encounters and provide information regarding the optimal builds and suggestions when healing these encounters. Each encounter has LAS changes there shouldn’t be major changes to your AMPs but if there is something for a specific fight i will make a note of it.

Every mini-boss in Genetic archives can be successfully healed using the AOE healing build linked before.

Experiment X-89
X89 is unique as depending on your guild you are able to 2 or 3 heal the encounter changing your build It is important to note that you may be put in either Raid AE healing or a tank healing role this is all dependent on the healer comp of your guild
Build 3 healers –
Build 2 healers –

– A lot of people will think they they need to use projected spirit for every knockback however that is the worst thing you can do. the CD on projected spirit is long enough that it can only be done every other knockback, it is important to save it for the “worst case scenario” what is worst case scenario? When you are picked with a small bomb as a knockback or spew is coming out. You can stand on the edge to break the platform get knocked back and then project back onto the safe zone. This should be the only scenario in which you need projected spirit think of it as a safety net.

– Make sure you position yourself close enough to the boss so that you have minimal run time to avoid spew, being mindful that you have to run to the outer edge of the room with small bombs

Kuralak the defiler

Build 3/4 healers:

– While running around the center in P1 you unless your group is taking heavy damage do not waste focus on soothe. Instead use cheap spells like bolster and pyro flame to generate your PSI points you can either reverie the group if they are taking moderate damage or use all your PSI points to heal the tank with mending banner. If you need to soothe ALWAYS aim it at the tank

– Incap > crush everyone in the raid needs an interrupt you are no exception Crush does an AOE around it when you pick an egg meaning you are more likely to accidentally break 2 eggs if they are positioned poorly. Incap allows you to be more precise with your kicks and ensures that if there is bad positioning you can still safely break only 1 egg

– Meditate during Overload Kuralaks AOE in Phase 2 lines up perfectly with your meditate timer so when you hide behind a pillar take the time and meditate for that extra focus regen, it ensures you won’t run out. I would suggest not to use meditate after the set of 4 eggs go out. too many people will require healing at that point in time during the overloads.

Phagetech Prototypes
This fight can be 3/4 healed

tank healing build: http://www.ws-base.c…942.379.380.381 We have split up this build so that you have T4 Mending banner to give the tank you are assigned to the armor buff, but you also have T4 reverie so that when you are apart of the group you are able to help AE heal. if you run 4 healers you can use base reverie and instead use T8 mending banner for your tank.

Raid healing build:

– interrupts You may or may not be required to interrupt the bosses cast However the mending bots that are spawned can be CC’d so you have a knockdown to help the dps prevent it from reaching the second active boss.

– Projected spirit “can” get you out of singularity i say that in quotations because it takes a huge amount of skill to time and aim it properly. more often than not you will die from trying this. but if you feel lucky it is a very useful thing to do.

– Tank healing can be very complicated the first boss to become active we will call him #1 hits like an absolute truck if you are assigned to the tank that has him i highly recommend T8 mending banner

– There will also be times when your tank is kiting #3 (the 3rd boss to become active) and will not need you at all. in these times you should be able to go help raid healing, It is always important to communicate with your tank before leaving him on his own.

Phage Maw

welcome to the nightmare, This is the first boss that will severely check your competence as a healer.

Raid healing build:
Tank healing build:

– raid healing as previously stated you are solo healing your group of players either the melee or ranged group. you need to put out an insane amount of AOE healing and to do that you need to constantly generate PSI points. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you bolster/CB/Pyro flame off CD to maximize your PSI point generation.

– Tank healing the tank will get absolutely destroyed by the bosses laser, there will be 2 healer assigned to ONLY healing the tank and its a miracle if you keep him alive. This is the first fight where we need to min max healing output on the tank. How we do this is Soothe Charge 3 bolster Mending banner. Soothe charge 3 bolster mending banner, Phantasmal armor should be used almost off CD as another form of tank mitigation.

– you cannot survive a phase change without a CD on you. Raid healers will likely have Defense grid but the tank healers need adsorb shields on them. If your other tank healer is a spellslinger you need make sure phantasmal armor is available for them. 3 seconds prior to phase change Innate, Phantasmal armor your Spellslinger and put a 5PP mending banner into your tank. This is the critical moment where if you mess this up tank, you, or the spellslinger WILL DIE.

Phage tech council

Build:There is a purge required in this fight it is not optimal for espers to do it but you may be forced to based on group comp.

This fight is far more straight forward then others and change your LAS according where you are positioned because of limited testing on current boss build i will have to revisit this and provide more information as i obtain it.

6.1.4 Datascape

More information will come, but datascape is not available for testing at this time.

7.0 Stats

For esper healers we have to look at everything as stat weights the easiest way to explain this is

3.5FPS (focus per second) > support power > Insight (1680) > Finesse >= crit (25%) > crit severity

3.5FPS is all that is required for all adventures/dungeons  and the first 5 bosses in the 20man raid. I can only speculate but 5FPS will likely be required in 40mans as they are intended to be longer fights. More info will come about 40mans as i obtain said information

support power bonuses from insight cap out at 1680 this does NOT mean that insight stops giving support power it only means that rune for support power after this break point is better then just rune insight.

Crit to 25% unbuffed after 25% crit severity becomes a stronger stat.

Pay attention to your milestones! don’t give up 50 finesse for 1 point of insight!

7.1 Runes

Fire: Crit / Insight
Fusion: Support power (Always take support power even if your not insight capped)
Life: Insight / crit severity / focus revory
Logic: Crit / crit severity
Water: Insight / Focus recovery
Air:  Focus recovery
Earth: Crit severity

7.2 Rune sets

I’ve referred to this many times throughout the guide 12/12 Focus regen rune set is an absolute must have as you as you possibly can! what focus regen is going to do is increase your max focus by 126 aswell as give you a small amount of focus return when you critically heal. This is essential in your focus management

You can not have 2 of the same rune in your gear this does not mean you can’t have the same stat. For example lets say we get a piece of gear with 3 fire slots

The first fire slot is easy: Base insight
The second one we have to look around: Life giver insight
The 3rd one we have to be even more creative we found: Spellweaver insight

(this is just a hypothetical situation but you understand the point i’m trying to make)

Even though we have no intentions of completely those 2 rune sets we found, it is still most beneficial to get the stat you desire most.

How to get focus regen 12/12 and rune crafting beyond that point

The best runes to get 12/12 focus regen will be Air and water. The plan is to fill Air slots with “focus regen Air – focus recovery” The same for water runes “Focus regen Water – Focus recovery” this should get you to the 3.5FPS that your aiming for. If Air and water slots are not enough take “Focus regen Life – Insight” After you get 12/12 focus regen follow the rune slots above. keeping in mind our ideal stats are

Support power > Insight > crit > crit sev

8.0 TheoryCrafting

There are 2 builds that are comparable the standard insight heavy build and then a more unknown build that focuses on crit/crit sev

First i should take a minute to explain what a crit severity build is. The main focus of this build is to get really high crit chance and really high crit severity. Our stat weights for this build would be

Support power > Crit severity > Crit > FPS > Insight

Here is an LAS and AMP setup for crit severity build http://www.ws-base.c…345.346.347.340  You will notice 1 LAS ability is missing This is a free slot for interupts CC break or Movement CDs

The build needs a lot of explanation we don’t have a support finisher, The reason for this is T8 Mindburst gives 15% crit chance upon cast. aswell as an 18% crit severity buff from casting 5 point assault finishers. This means soothe will become the bulk of our healing. i’ve refered to my logs many times  http://www.wildstarl…aling&source=18 i casted reverie 36 times during this encounter if we apply that logic to this build that means we have a 4.5min up time on 15% crit chance and 3min up time on 18% crit severity.

Fire – crit
Fusion – Support power
Life – crit severity
Air – FPS
Earth – crit severity
Water – FPS
Logic – Crit severity

In a best case scenario you can get 12/12 focus regen with just air/water slots however you may need to take FPS life runes to finish the set. After 12/12 focus regen you should follow these Runes exactly as they are.

We can compare the 2 builds by using our un runed gear as a base.  (we are stacking rune slots with a crafted support system and a warden’s energy shield)

BASE 2516
Crit 25.5%
sev 184%
Insight 1279

Crit Sev build
crit 26.63%
sev 188.13%
Insight 1279
Regen 3.78
SP 2665

Insight build
Crit 25.52%
sev 186.66%
Regen 3.47
insight 1486
SP 2832

Differences
crit 1.11%  Crit > insight
sev 1.47% Crit > insight
Insight (207) 14% Crit < insight
Regen (.31) 9%  Crit > insight
SP (167) 6% Crit < insight

Soothe:                 Reckful buff

5276.225                10398 / 10875

5517.904                10299

4.4% difference         1% difference / 5.3%

What we can see is a 4.4% difference on our low end of non crits, but the top end with our reckful buff is 5.3% more effective. This shows that the builds are comparable in effectiveness.

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